Detectives trace the last day of a murder victim’s life
About Dateline: The Last Day
Dateline: The Last Day is a Dateline spin-off that presents murder cases through the perspective of the victim’s last day (much like The Last 24). The tone surrounding the true crime show is more serious than Dateline, but it features regular Dateline correspondents Keith Morrison, Josh Mankiewicz, and Andrea Canning, along with additional contributor Stephanie Gosk.
Each episode follows the events of the victim’s last day and the key people they interacted with during those events, described by the investigators involved, victims’ friends and families, and through police interviews.
In the first season, the show has less emphasis on intimate partner homicide than Dateline and includes murders by strangers, friends, and others. And unlike Dateline, it omits lengthy trial clips or description of the trials. Instead, the focus is squarely on the timeline of the victim.
If you can’t get enough Dateline in your life, this show is for you.
How the Secret Service used a counterfeiting investigation to the find the victims of James DeBardeleben
Suzanne Hamlin
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The Mall Passer doesn’t sound like the name of a serial killer. And technically, it isn’t. It’s the name of a counterfeiter hunted by the Secret Service for four years, whose arrest led to the discovery of a trove of evidence and constellation of crimes not at all related to counterfeiting, and much more disturbing.
This is the story of James Mitchell “Mike” DeBardeleben and the reverse investigation that occurred as the Secret Service searched for his victims following his arrest in 1983 in Tennessee for passing and manufacturing fake $20 bills, which he used to buy small items at malls across the country, pocketing the change and thereby making a profit.
James Mitchell “Mike” DeBardeleben
The Evidence
The Secret Service was first established in 1865 to combat counterfeiting (one of the many fascinating facts that can be gleaned from the DeBardeleben case). The agency was in the midst of investigating DeBardeleben when they stumbled across, in his car and storage units in Virginia, police paraphernalia, handcuffs, photos of nude and bound women, guns, women’s underwear, newspaper clippings of other people’s crimes, notes and diaries, and audio tapes, all found while searching for the printing press he used to make the counterfeit bills.
Most disturbing were the photos, notes, and audio tapes. The tapes recorded the torture and sexual assault of several women, who investigators surmised were abducted when DeBardeleben posed as a police officer to lure them into his car.
The notes detailed his plans, goals, and tasks, including the type of women and torture he desired, details on how to abduct women, and ideas on how to be more attractive to women and control them. This evidence more than sparked the curiosity of the investigators, Secret Service Agents Greg Mertz, Dennis Foos, Mike Stephens, and Jane Vezeris, who were determined to find the unknown victims and put names to their faces and the crimes committed against them. Were these women murdered? Kidnapped? Sexually assaulted? DeBardeleben refused to talk, and the FBI declined to get involved without any names of victims.
The Investigation
The Secret Service pushed on and sent the photos of the unknown women to law enforcement agencies across the US. Some police departments contacted the Secret Service with matches to open cases regarding abduction, sexual assault, and other crimes. And there was an FBI case in Maryland, the kidnapping and rape of Laurie Jensen, which finally spurred the FBI’s involvement.
Lucy Alexander and Elizabeth Mason
The FBI was able to identify DeBardeleben in photos he appeared in with the victims, some showing parts of his body (but not his face), by matching freckles and moles on his body to the body in the photos. This was key to the prosecution, along with handwriting analysis and eyewitness testimony from women who could identify themselves in the photos and tapes.
The Prosecution
He was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, sodomy, armed robbery, and aggravated criminal sexual assault in Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Missouri, Virginia, and New Jersey. In the end, DeBardeleben was sentenced to 375 years for counterfeiting, kidnapping, attempted robbery, and sodomy. The victims of these crimes include Jensen, Lucy Alexander, Elizabeth Mason, Dianne Overton, Maria Santini, and David Starr.
It seems nothing was off-limits for this jack-of-all-crimes. He was also indicted for the murders of Jean McPhaul in Louisiana and Edna Terry McDonald in Rhode Island, but was never tried for these murders, as prosecutors felt that the 375-year sentence for his other crimes would keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Rightly so, as he died of pneumonia in prison in 2011. Investigators speculate that he may have committed many more crimes involving up to 200 victims, including the murder of Joe Rapini, and may have been a serial killer.
Where to Watch the Case
Hear No Evil, The New Detectives, and Cruel Deception (an FBI Files special) capture the many twists of the DeBardeleben case. Hear No Evilincludes excerpts from the audio tapes (omitting the most graphic parts), while Cruel Deception includes photos of the evidence found during the investigation, as well as some of DeBardeleben’s notes.
The New Detectiveslooks at the story from the perspective of the FBI profiler who examined the case, and incorporates some photos of evidence, but none of the audio. The case is also detailed in Stephen G. Michaud’s book Beyond Cruel: The Chilling True Story of America’s Most Sadistic Killer, previously published as Lethal Shadow: The Chilling True-Crime Story of a Sadistic Sex Slayer.
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Learn more about the case in Hear No Evil(“The Sound of Terror,” Season 1, Episode 5), The New Detectives(“Mind Hunters,” Season 2, Episode 1), and Cruel Deception.
Audio evidence is the key to solving murder cases in this chilling true crime show
About Hear No Evil
A snippet of audio is played. Graphic. Unsettling. You won’t know who the voice is—the victim or the killer—until almost the end of the episode. That’s how Hear No Evil compels you to watch and takes you on a twisty and suspenseful ride towards a big reveal.
It’s the type of true crime show that makes you think, this case could be a movie. Take “The Sound of Terror” (Season 1, Episode 5), for instance, which starts with Secret Service agents talking about a counterfeiting case and ends up in a place surprising to even the investigators.
A companion to See No Evil, Hear No Evil places audio recordings at the center of episodes, recordings of murders themselves, or events leading up to them, recordings that end up being the key to solving the case and often changing detectives’ initial impressions of the suspect. No need for narration here; the recordings and police interviews speak for themselves.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 1 (2017)
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Discovery+
More shows like Hear No Evil: See No Evil, The Murder Tapes, Confessions of a Serial Killer, Lies, Crimes & Video
Offices may be shuttered, banks may be closed, but murder doesn’t take time off for the holidays. Ring in the New Year with these true crime episodes featuring murders around New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Tales of mass murder, friends killing friends, intimate partner homicide, cold cases, and even serial killers who got their start on New Year’s Eve. There’s something for everyone in this smorgasbord of true crime!
Homicide for the Holidays: “New Year’s Evil” (Season 2, Episode 4)
Murder Comes to Town: “Lord of the Rockies” (Season 2, Episode 9)
Killer Kids: “Simon Says/For No Good Reason” (Season 3, Episode 7)
It’s New Year’s Eve 2000 in Guffey, a small town in Colorado, and Tony Dutcher spends the night at the house of his grandparents, Carl and JoAnna Dutcher. When no one hears from them a few days later, sheriffs do a welfare check and find Carl and JoAnna shot and Tony missing. They discover Tony in a fort nearby, with his throat slashed. They turn to his friends to solve the case.
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Stream Killer Kids on Amazon Prime Video and The Roku Channel
Homicide for the Holidays: “Bloody New Year’s” (Season 2, Episode 8)
Two days before New Year’s Eve 2014, in Edmonton, Alberta, Cindy Luu is shot while her husband and three children are home, by a man unknown to them. Police then receive a 911 call from a woman concerned about her father, who seems suicidal. They go to his house and discover three bodies lined up in the living room and four others throughout the house. They eventually realize the link between the murders and find the killer.
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Dateline NBC: “After the Party” (Season 24, Episode 47)
It’s 2011 in West Evans, Colorado, and a New Year’s Eve party at the Fallis house just ended. Ashley and Tom Fallis are arguing. Soon after, Tom calls 911 and tells the operator that Ashley shot herself. He reveals to the police that she was upset about a recent miscarriage and had threatened to commit suicide in the past. The coroner rules the death a suicide, but the case is later reopened after new witnesses come forward, and Tom is charged with murder. Keith Morrison narrates the episode.
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New Year’s Eve 2018 in St. Joseph, Michigan. Kemia Hassel calls 911 to report that her husband, Tyrone Hassel III, had been shot outside the house. Family and friends reveal to police that Kemia was having an affair with an army colleague of Tyrone, and that she would receive hefty life insurance and death benefits if Tyrone died.
Stream The Murder Tapes on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel, and Discovery+
Stream Deadly Women on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Discovery+
Stream Killer Cases on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and The Roku Channel
Wicked Attraction: “Evil in the Blood” (Season 3, Episode 3)
New Year’s Day 2006 in Richmond, Virginia, and firefighters respond to a fire at the house of the Harvey family and find all four members stabbed and bludgeoned to death. A few days later, police do a welfare check on Ashley Baskerville and discover her and her parents, Mary and Percyell Tucker, suffocated and stabbed to death. Police connect the cases through a ring found on one of the victims, and link both to an older murder.
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2013. It’s New Year’s Eve in Robesonia, Pennsylvania, and Ashley Kline is a no-show at a party. Police discover her personal items at a factory two days later, then two hikers stumble across her burned body in a wildlife preserve on January 12. She had been stabbed and beaten.
Stream Unusual Suspects on Amazon Prime Video and Discovery+
Cold Case Files: “Weepy-Voiced Killer; The Mr. Big Sting” (Season 3, Episode 14)
Mark of a Serial Killer: “Killer Caller” (Season 2, Episode 1)
New Year’s Day 1981 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Police get a phone call from a man reporting that a woman is hurt outside an industrial building, a man with a “weepy” voice. Karen Potack, who celebrated New Year’s Eve in the Twin Cities at a bar, had been beaten, but is still alive. After another phone call and a murder in June, police release the calls to the media, hoping someone can identify the Weepy-Voiced Killer. An additional body and call 14 months later, and witnesses at a bar come forward to identify the person seen with the victim. Yet another victim is found, and police receive a call in which the killer claims that he’s hurt. They find and arrest him, and he eventually confesses.
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Kurt Johnson lives a seemingly peaceful life in Cooperstown, North Dakota, and disappears after going to a bar on New Year’s Eve in 2010. Police question the person he left with and find Johnson’s decapitated head in his basement.
Stream Heartland Homicide on the True Crime Network
Cold Case Files: “The Clock Strikes Murder” (Season 7, Episode 16)
Pensacola, Florida. New Year’s Day 1985. Tonya McKinley is found strangled and sexually assaulted. The case goes cold, and it takes 35 years for police to solve it, using genetic genealogy matching the DNA from a discarded cigarette butt to the killer.
Stream Cold Case Files on Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock, and Discovery+
Detectives solve cold cases through forensics and other techniques
Cold Case Files
About Cold Case Files
Cold Case Files comes in two flavors: the classic series narrated by Bill Kurtis (sometimes called Cold Case Files Classic) and the re-boot narrated by Danny Glover and later Kurtis. Kurtis’ mellifluous voice will make you sleepy, but the cases are too absorbing and the writing too deftly crafted to nap through.
From serial killers to serial rapists, episodes feature one to two stories each and focus on investigative techniques used to crack cold cases, particularly DNA and other forensics, including forensic anthropology, entomology, and even botany. Forensic specialists appear on the show and sometimes demonstrate the steps of the methods they used to help unravel a cold case, such as DNA testing, fingerprint identification, or sculptural reconstruction of the face, providing a fascinating look inside the field.
This true crime show doesn’t dwell on the victim’s background or suspect’s trial and instead leads viewers through the strategies used to solve long-unsolved cases. The newer version of Cold Case Files has more re-creations and less narration, allowing those involved to tell their stories in their own words. Convicted offenders sometimes offer their accounts of the crimes, and sometimes even fess up to them.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 9 (1999-2012, 2017-)
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock, and Discovery+
Small towns learn that they aren’t immune to murder
About Murder In The Heartland
A sleepy small town is awakened by a shocking murder. So is the premise of Murder in the Heartland.
Similar to Heartland Homicide and Murder Comes to Town, this true crime show focuses on homicides occurring in quiet, languid small towns across the US, rural areas not just in the “heartland” of the country. From Idaho to Indiana, the show travels to small towns to interview families and detectives in their surroundings, showing them going about their daily lives, feeding pets or making dinner, as they tell the stories of the murders (with motives ranging from robbery to jealousy) that changed them forever. It’s a slice of life that illustrates the ordinariness of their lives in juxtaposition with shocking murders that jarred them from a normal existence supposedly safe from murder.
Murder in the Heartland combines interviews with detectives and victims’ families and friends, photos of ordinary family life, re-creations, and police interviews, and omits any narration, letting those involved tell the stories themselves. Detectives sometimes walk the audience through the crime scene, adding another realistic element to the story.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 6 (2017-)
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Hulu, and Discovery+
A certain dance occurs when two people plot a murder together, and Killer Siblings delves into these types of homicide cases. It focuses on those involving siblings (and sometimes additional perpetrators) who murder strangers, acquaintances, and even members of their own families.
Some of the stories are about minors, making the cases even more disturbing, and the show provides insight into what can happen when two people feed off of each other, with tragic consequences.
Detectives and others involved in the cases share their investigation stories, victims’ loved ones detail their experiences, and police interviews and trial clips complete the stories, along with information on the family and criminal background of the siblings.
Even though it follows the formula of most true crime series, the show’s focus on killer siblings is the most unsettling aspect, that two or more people from the same family could have a predisposition for murder. It leaves viewers wondering, maybe nature is at work here.
If you want to fear the prospect of getting scammed by a no-good white-collar criminal, then American Greed is the true crime show for you.
Actor Stacy Keach lends his voice to tell high-profile and lesser-known stories of Ponzi schemes, embezzlement, fraud, identity theft, scams, art forgery, corporate crimes, murder for financial gain, and other white-collar crimes.
The show includes interviews with victims and sometimes the criminals themselves, who protest their innocence to the end, along with excerpts from court documents, wire taps, and secret recordings, information from the journalists covering the story, and some re-creations, which are sometimes presented as cartoons.
Each episode relates the story of one to two cases; notable ones include Lou Pearlman, Ray Nagin, Art Schlichter, Martin Shkreli, Paul Manafort, the Fyre Festival, Anna Delvey, NXIVM, Elizabeth Holmes, Dr. Death, Michael Avenatti, and the college admissions scandal. Highly recommended.
Gather ‘round the Christmas tree and snuggle up for some holiday tales of murder and mayhem.
Happy holidays? Nuh-uh, says Homicide for the Holidays, which dominates the round-up of Christmas true crime show episodes. But there are plenty of gems hiding in other shows, including several shows about the JonBenét Ramsey case. And scroll down for a bonus story from Dateline’s Keith Morrison.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Carnage in Carnation” (Season 1, Episode 2)
It’s the day after Christmas 2007 in Carnation, Washington, and a co-worker worries that her friend, Judy Anderson, hasn’t shown up for work. She drives to Judy’s house and stumbles across four of Judy’s family members dead in the home, including two children, and Judy and her husband Wayne dead outside near a shed. Eerie, silent 911 calls had been made from someone at the house on Christmas Eve, but police could not legally go past the locked gate to the property. Other family members are also missing, and when found, the truth comes out.
Homicide for the Holidays: “A Christmas Massacre” (Season 1, Episode 3)
Christmas Eve 2008 in Covina, California, turns from a fun family celebration into a horrific mass shooting. During a poker game after dinner, a man dressed as Santa Claus enters the home of Joseph and Alice Ortega, shoots and kills nine people, and sets the house on fire using a homemade flamethrower. In nearby Sylmar, a man discovers his brother dead in his apartment, and police find a booby-trapped car, both connected to the Christmas massacre.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Morning Murder” (Season 1, Episode 4)
Steve and Carla Barron are shot and killed early Christmas morning while sleeping in their home in Tyler, Texas, in 1999. Police come across the murder weapon in their daughter’s room. She appears on the episode.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Mourning” (Season 2, Episode 3)
Christmas Eve 2003, in Nampa, Idaho, and Bob and Idella Young are found stabbed and bound with Christmas lights, each having one strategically placed stab wound to the back. The case goes cold by the next Christmas, and it is finally solved a few years later.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Rampage” (Season 2, Episode 5)
December 28, 1987, in Russellville, Arkansas, four shootings across different locations in the town leave two people dead. The police apprehend the shooter and take him into custody, discovering five more bodies at his house, seven in a mass grave outside the house, and two dead infants in a car trunk, all family members killed around Christmas.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Rager” (Season 2, Episode 6)
A few days before Christmas 2007 in St. Paul Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, Kristine Larson fails to show up to make Christmas cookies with her mother. A stranger finds Kristine’s dead body in a burning car in an alley, strangled. Detectives investigate both her ex and her current boyfriend.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Silent Night, Lethal Night” (Season 2, Episode 7)
Nightmare Next Door: “Murders Under the Mistletoe” (Season 7, Episode 10)
It’s Christmas Eve 2002 in Middletown, Pennsylvania, and Jean Wholaver, her two daughters, and her granddaughter fail to show up for dinner at Jean’s parents’ house. Police find Jean and her two daughters shot dead in her home and the baby abandoned. The daughters had made allegations of sexual abuse against their estranged father, and the case was scheduled for trial that January. From jail, he attempts to hire someone to stage a suicide and pin the murders on someone else.
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Stream Nightmare Next Door on Discovery+ and Amazon Prime Video
Homicide for the Holidays: “Last Christmas” (Season 3, Episode 2)
Two days after Christmas 2005 in Fort Myers, Florida, 911 operators receive a call with a young child’s voice in the background. Police discover the child covered in blood at the home, and his parents, Steven and Michelle Andrews, dead. Steve had been shot, and Michelle had been beaten, strangled, and posed nude.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Heartbreak” (Season 3, Episode 3)
Jack and Elaine Denney are found shot on Christmas Day 2007 in their home in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. The case goes cold and is finally solved seven years later.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Death in Santa Claus” (Season 3, Episode 4)
In the aptly named Santa Claus, Georgia, it’s three weeks before Christmas 1997, when a passing motorist finds three girls from the Daniels family wandering on the side of a road, after a family friend had woken the girls up and told them they needed to leave with him. Police officers go to the Daniels house and discover four bodies, including two children, all members of the family. One of the daughters shares her experiences in the episode.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Six Slays of Christmas” (Season 4, Episode 2)
Sins of the City: “Dayton, Ohio” (Season 3, Episode 3)
In 1992, several seemingly unconnected shootings around Christmas in Dayton, Ohio, are traced to a group of four young people, who murdered six people between Christmas Eve and December 26 in a spree shooting.
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Homicide for the Holidays: “Killing of the Christmas Tree Farmers” (Season 4, Episode 3)
A Time to Kill: “The Mystery Passenger” (Season 5, Episode 9)
Cold Case Files: “Killings on Christmas Eve” (Season 1, Episode 2)
Christmas tree farmers Ed and Minnie Maurin disappear from their home December 19, 1985, in Ethel, Washington. Police officers find their car dumped in a parking lot, but no Maurins, only their blood. A random motorist discovers their bodies on Christmas Eve, and it takes 27 years to solve the crime.
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Stream A Time to Kill on True Crime Network, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Discovery+
Stream Cold Case Files on Netflix, The Roku Channel, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, and Discovery+
Homicide for the Holidays: “Murder Under the Mistletoe” (Season 4, Episode 4)
Pregnant mother Melissa Sowders disappears the day after Christmas 2013 in Houston, Texas. Police find her abandoned car the next day, and eventually discover her body on the banks of a river. A love triangle holds the key to solving the case.
Deadly Women: “Red Hot Temper” (Season 9, Episode 10)
In the third story in this episode, a drunk Karen Walsh breaks into the house of her neighbor, Maire Rankin, on Christmas Eve in Newry, Northern Ireland, in 2008. After Maire lectures Walsh about her drinking, Walsh attacks her, and beats her to death with a crucifix. She then passes out on her bed and finds her way home the next morning. Maire’s family discover her body on Christmas Day.
Stream on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Discovery+
Christmas night 1986 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Donald Ott’s roommate finds him dead in their apartment and assumes it’s a suicide. He has a gunshot wound to the head, but a gun is nowhere to be found. Police learn that Ott’s brother is involved in the drug trade and their investigation leads to the killer.
Stream on Hulu, Discovery+, and Amazon Prime Video
JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery (3-part series)
The day after Christmas 1996 in Boulder, Colorado, and Patsy Ramsey finds a ransom note claiming that her daughter, JonBenét, had been kidnapped. Police allow Patsy’s husband John and his friend to search the house, and they find JonBenét in the basement dead, strangled and bound. The crime scene had not been secured, leading to a botched investigation, despite DNA evidence, and an unsolved case to this day.
Law enforcement officers who participated in the case appear on People Magazine Investigates, JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery, and How It Really Happenedwith Hill Harper. The Barbara Walters Presents episode includes an interview with John and Patsy Ramsey from 2000, as well as an interview with John Ramsey from 2015. True Crime with Aphrodite Jones takes a different approach, bringing in outside experts and a private investigator for the Ramsey family to review the case, while How It Really Happenedwith Hill Harper includes a plethora of news clips, especially from CNN.
There are additional series specifically focusing on the case; see this list for more details.
Stream People Magazine Investigates on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream How It Really Happenedwith Hill Harper on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream True Crime with Aphrodite Jones on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream Barbara Walters Presents on Discovery+ and Amazon Prime Video
A Crime to Remember: “Coffin for Christmas” (Season 5, Episode 4)
College student Barbara Mackle is kidnapped on December 17, 1968 in Atlanta, Georgia, by a man dressed as a police officer and someone wearing a ski mask. A ransom note is found at the family home in Miami, asking for $500,000 and claiming that Mackle is buried in a ventilated container. The ransom drop is interrupted by the Miami police, who were unaware of the kidnapping. A new drop is scheduled, and on December 21, the FBI gets an anonymous tip to where Barbara is buried.
Stream A Crime to Remember on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
December 15, 2013, when people are preparing for Christmas in Spokane, Washington, Doug and Elberta Carlile return to their home to find a masked man in black who shoots and kills Doug. Police discover another murder related to Doug’s business dealings, then a murder-for-hire plot against the estranged wife of the main suspect. Keith Morrison narrates the episode.
A peaceful, snowy Christmas. Thanksgiving dinner. New Year’s celebrations. None are safe from murder, as Homicide for the Holidays illustrates through cases during what is supposed to be a happy holiday season.
Narrated by the very journalistic-sounding Chris Hansen (To Catch a Predator), the series showcases murders that happened on or around the holidays, and the tangled motivations behind them, including family murders, mass murders, spree killings, intimate partner homicides, and even a case in Santa Claus, Georgia.
Episodes first set the scene with descriptions of the festive atmosphere of the cities and towns, along with home videos and photos of the victims and their families during past holiday celebrations. Then, through heartbreaking testimonials by survivors and family members, stories from detectives, and re-creations, the show details the often shocking murders that occurred, the ensuing investigations, and the impact of the murders on the victims’ families, changing their holidays forever.