Faye Minton
True crime is exciting in a way that none of us can explain. It’s morbid, but we love it. There’s something about sitting down with your dinner in front of a serial killer documentary.
Experts have suggested our interest in true crime is natural human instinct – that it’s as simple as us wanting to see inside the brain of a criminal because it’s so far from how we think ourselves. It fascinates us that these things can ever happen in real life, and we feel like we’re just extras living in a horror movie.
No matter the reason, true crime is a favourite for filmmakers – there is plenty of content out there to get stuck into. I’ve been obsessed with true crime since I was around 14, so I’ve found a fair amount of weird and wonderful things.
Here is a list of the wildest true crime documentaries and shows I’ve ever seen. If you’re a crime fan already, take it as a chance to reminisce, but for those new to the genre, you should absolutely start working your way through this list.
1. Abducted In Plain Sight
This series literally made my jaw drop further every ten seconds. Every piece of information given to us made it feel more and more like a fever dream.
The documentary was made in 2017 and was directed by Skye Borgman. It retells the story of Jan Broberg, who was abducted on two occasions by family friend Robert Berchtold. I don’t want to say too much here because the way everything unfolds is the furthest from what I ever could have predicted.
2. Don’t F**ck With Cats
Don’t F**ck With Cats shook social media to its core when it dropped in 2019. It follows the story of one of Canada’s most infamous murderers, Luka Magnotta.
From the beginning, the story is told by the people responsible for his arrest. They used social media and the power of the Internet to uncover the criminal, starting with nothing but a video featuring a hand and a cat.
3. Evil Genius
Evil Genius is a 2018 four-part series centred around the 2003 “pizza bomber” bank heist. Pizza delivery guy, Brian Wells, was killed when an explosive device exploded around his neck in an attempted bank robbery. It sounds like the plot of a really low budget movie but it’s real and it’s a good watch (oops).
4. The Puppet Master
Robert Freegard, aka The Puppet Master, controlled the lives of so many people that they can’t even be tracked and counted. He conned people into believing he was a literal spy. Like for the government. Spoiler alert: he wasn’t.
5. Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel
The Cecil Hotel in LA is famous for its dark side. Murders, drugs, and dodgy deals have long been a part of its history. But this documentary focuses on just one case – the disappearance of Elisa Lam. It went viral at the time, when Internet sleuths tried to solve it themselves.
6. The Tinder Swindler
If you haven’t seen any memes about this one yet, you must have been living under a rock. The moral of this story is, if you meet a guy on Tinder and he seems way too good to be true, he definitely is. Also, be careful who you give your credit card to.
7. The Ripper
This series follows the Yorkshire Ripper, also known as Peter Sutcliffe, who terrorised Northern England in the late 1970s. He killed women, predominantly thought to be prostitutes.
Throughout, it’s gripping, even for those of us in the UK who have grown up hearing about the case. It’s a little bit longer than some of the others in this list, but once you start it, you’ll find it hard to stop binging.
8. Why Did You Kill Me?
This 2021 documentary follows the case of 24-year-old Crystal Theobald. She was killed in 2006, and the power of social media aided her loved ones in tracking down those responsible.
If you’ve completed Netflix’s true crime section and are desperate for more, check out Eleanor Neale, BuzzFeed Unsolved, and Kendall Rae on YouTube.
Featured image courtesy of Campbell Jensen on Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes have been made to this image.
Faye Minton
Faye is a former Empoword Editor in Chief and an MA International Journalism student at Swansea University.