Murder Comes to Town is a show that is as quiet as the small towns where the murder cases occurred, murders that fractured their tranquil facades and made residents think twice about leaving their doors unlocked.
Through re-creations (with dialogue), stories told by investigators and victims’ families and friends, a little background on the towns themselves, and sometimes police interviews, episodes detail murders that come to small towns across the US. They range the gamut from drug-related crimes, to crimes between romantic partners, to robberies.
The show is narrated by voice actor Joe Alaskey (a highlight for fans of creepy narration), who sounds like the voice-child of Paul Winfield and Vincent Price. Alaskey reads words like “murder” and “bloody corpse” with a chill that seems to ripple across the screen. Following Alaskey’s death in 2016, actor Anthony Call took over narration duties in the fourth and fifth seasons.
The true crime show is a reserved storyteller that gets the point across without a lot of drama or flash.
Detectives follow the timeline of a victim’s last 24 hours
About the Last 24
The Last 24 (also called A Time to Kill) is a fairly typical true crime show that uses the framework of the last 24 hours of a victim’s life to recount the investigation into their murder.
The show focuses on whether or not the alibis of various suspects in the victim’s circle fit into the their timeline and time of death. Detectives investigating the case first narrow down the time of death, then go through each of the suspects’ alibis and days, looking for points where they intersect with the victim’s last 24 hours.
The Last 24 provides a window into the investigative process and illustrates how detectives rule out suspects, often having to go back to someone they had initially discounted. Despite the timeline framing device, it has all of the usual nuts and bolts of a true crime series: re-creations, narration, outside experts (criminology, psychology, forensic pathology, law, and others), and some police interviews, but very little attention paid to the trial. Many of the cases are covered in other shows, such as Dateline.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 5 (2018-)
Where to stream: True Crime Network, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Discovery+
Thanksgiving is a time for food, family, and apparently, murder. Crimes between family members spike on Thanksgiving. Just check out the stats from Los Angeles. Given those numbers, and the cases in these true crime episodes, you might think twice about attending that Thanksgiving dinner.
Hear No Evil: “Whispers from the Dead” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Dateline NBC: “12 Minutes on Elm Street” (Season 22, Episode 38)
Both Dateline and Hear No Evil cover the story of a double murder in Little Falls, a small town in Minnesota, on Thanksgiving in 2012, when two unarmed teens, Nick Brady and Haile Kifer, break into Byron Smith’s home. Smith shoots them multiple times in what he claimed was self-defense, yet keeps their bodies in his basement for a full day. Police find audio that recorded events before, during, and after the murders and exposed the whole story behind what happened. Both Dateline and Hear No Evil include excerpts from the recording, along with excerpts from Smith’s police interview, but Hear No Evil incorporates more of the graphic parts from it.
Stream Dateline on Peacock and Hulu
Stream Hear No Evil on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
People Magazine Investigates: “Flight Risk” (Season 5, Episode 3)
Pilot Kelsey Berreth moves from Washington to Woodland Park, Colorado, after becoming engaged to a man she met online. She disappears around Thanksgiving in 2018, after her fiancé went to her apartment to pick up their baby. Police find blood and two unknown DNA profiles in her apartment, and soon learn that she had been beaten to death on Thanksgiving Day.
Stream on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Model Killers: “Finger-Licking Good/Slaying of a Tennessee Beauty Queen” (Season 1, Episode 1)
Deadly Women: “Love You to Pieces” (Season 6, Episode 7)
Snapped, Deadly Women, and Model Killers all cover the murder case of Bill Nelson in Costa Mesa, California, in 1991. A few days after Thanksgiving, model Omaima Nelson shows up at a friend’s house, claiming that her husband Bill had attacked her and that she had to kill him. The friend calls the police, who find body parts in her car and an even more gruesome scene at the couple’s apartment.
Stream Snapped on Peacock and Hulu
Stream Model Killers on Amazon Prime Video and the Roku Channel
Stream Deadly Women on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Discovery+
Homicide for the Holidays: “A Deadly Thanksgiving” (Season 1, Episode 1)
It’s Thanksgiving in Jupiter, Florida, in 2009, at a seemingly festive family celebration. After dinner, Paul Merhige shoots and kills four of his family members, including a child.
Stream on Peacock and Hulu
Homicide for the Holidays: “Thanks-killing” (Season 2, Episode 1)
Earl and Terry Robertson are murdered in South Carolina two days before Thanksgiving, when family members are set to arrive at their home, in what first looked like a robbery. But the brutality of the murders exposes the personal nature of the killing, and police soon learn that the murderer is close to home.
American Justice: “The Wife Who Knew Too Much” (Season 9, Episode 17)
Homicide for the Holidays: “Thanksgiving Terror” (Season 3, Episode 1)
Homicide for the Holidays and American Justice detail a Thanksgiving murder in 1992. Sara and Fred Tokars travel from Georgia to Florida separately for a Thanksgiving celebration with family. After she and her two sons return home, she is shot in her car while her sons witness the murder. Details emerge that the shooter was hired by her husband, a defense attorney who had been involved in illegal activities. One of the sons, who was six years old at the time, recounts his experiences in Homicide for the Holidays.
Stream on American Justice on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and the Roku Channel
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Homicide for the Holidays: “The Last Thanksgiving” (Season 4, Episode 1)
Joel and Lisa Guy are found murdered in their home a few days after celebrating Thanksgiving with their family in 2016. Police find chemicals, plastic tubs, and knives in their home, along with severed body parts, and similar materials at the suspect’s home, in an apparent pre-murder experiment meant to test how to dispose of the bodies.
Fatal Vows: “Death in the Family” (Season 1, Episode 5)
After Karen Kahler spends Thanksgiving 2009 with her family in Kansas, she picks up her son the next day from her ex-husband, Craig, and they head to her grandmother’s house, along with her two daughters. The following day, Craig shoots and kills Karen, her grandmother, and the couple’s daughters, claiming insanity due to the breakup of their marriage.
Stream on Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video, the Roku Channel, and Hulu
Someone You Thought You Knew: “Thanksgiving Ambush” (Season 1, Episode 4)
Snapped: “Brenda Andrew” (Season 2, Episode 7)
Snapped: Killer Couples: “Brenda Andrew and James Pavatt” (Season 3, Episode 2)
Someone You Thought You Knew, Snapped, and Snapped: Killer Couples detail a murder that occurred two days before Thanksgiving in 2001 in a suburb of Oklahoma City. Rob and Brenda Andrew are shot in their home in what appears to be a home invasion robbery. He dies at the scene, but she survives. When neighbors find a shotgun shell in their home, they call the police, who discover bullets in their attic near a window facing the Andrew home. Further investigation of the Andrew’s church leads investigators to the killer.
Stream Someone You Thought You Knew on Discovery+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and the Roku Channel
Murder Comes to Town: “Who Killed Thanksgiving?” (Season 2, Episode 3)
In the small town of Northport, Washington, Narleen Campton is found dead in her home during Thanksgiving weekend of 2011. She had been beaten, stabbed, and strangled. Empty prescription bottles at the scene help detectives find the killer.
Stream on Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video, the Roku Channel, and Hulu
The Last 24: “Stranger in the Dark” (Season 2, Episode 8)
Dead of Night: “Blood Brothers” (Season 1, Episode 2)
A Time to Kill: “The Night Creeper” (Season 2, Episode 5)
College student Corey Parker is found stabbed in her apartment in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, after she didn’t show up for a Thanksgiving party in 1998 or work the next day. A Time to Kill, The Last 24, and Dead of Night detail the detectives’ investigation of friends, neighbors, co-workers, and her boyfriend, to see if their alibis match her time of death. (Note: A Time to Kill and The Last 24 are the same show with a different title.)
Stream A Time to Kill on Discovery+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and the Roku Channel
Nightmare Next Door: “Thanksgiving Tragedy” (Season 8, Episode 11)
Early Thanksgiving morning in Waldorf, Maryland, in 2004, police find Chris Mader dead in his car after driving home from work as a bartender, in what turned out to be a botched robbery.
Stream on Discovery+ and Amazon Prime Video
Killer Instinct with Chris Hansen: “Deadline: Thanksgiving” (Season 2, Episode 10)
Just before Thanksgiving 2007 in Taunton, Massachusetts, Jim Madonna goes to play poker with friends and never returns. His son and best friend find Jim dead, shot five times, in a parking lot. Financial problems play a part in the murder.
Stream on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Blood Relatives: “Thanksgiving Day Charade” (Season 6, Episode 7)
On Thanksgiving 2010 in East Hartford, Connecticut, Bednarz family matriarch Beverly Therrien was found beaten to death, along with her two roommates, Michael Ramsey and Pamela Johns. Strained family relationships reveal the killer.
Stream on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Murder doesn’t happenhere. But no one is safe from violent crime, and Heartland Homicide tells the stories of those small-town murders no one thought could happen.
It spotlights murders in the “heartland” of the US and Canada and shatters the small-town belief that residents cling to, that murder will never happen in their tranquil communities.
It’s a true crime show that details a bit on each town’s history and culture before relating some background on the victim’s and suspect’s lives, work, family, and relationship prior to the crime. Episodes use third-person narrative as they dive into the murder and its investigation through the end of the trial, sentencing, and any appeals.
Heartland Homicide only sometimes includes detectives and others who have worked on the case (and not much archival news footage), but instead relies heavily on narration and re-creations, along with a stock group of experts, who describe legal concepts, law enforcement techniques, and aspects of forensic pathology relevant to the case. The experts often explain basic concepts like what a dating app, blunt force trauma, or Luminol is, so newbies to true crime shows can jump right in.
Note: Very few episodes include police interviews or trial footage. One notable exception is the Kunz case, detailed in Season 1, Episode 2.
(Note: This site contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)
Women commit about 12 percent of the murders in the US, and people want to know about them. From Snapped to Killer Couples, Deadly Wives to Deadly Women to Wives with Knives, and Dateline NBC to Meet, Marry, Murder, female killers get equal time in true crime shows. And in Murder She Solved, the spotlight is on the female investigators who solve murders.
Snapped
Thought women don’t kill? Snapped proves otherwise. Snapped is a long-running show featuring 31 seasons of murders perpetrated by women through various means, from poisoning, to stabbing, to gunshots, to murder-for-hire. It balances narration, re-creations, and the victim’s and suspect’s background and relationship with interviews with detectives, prosecutors, and victims’ families and friends, sprinkling police interviews and trial clips into the story.
The draw of the show is its ability to show how a relationship can devolve and how detectives discover that it isn’t what it first appears to be. Episodes in Seasons 1-23 detail the suspect’s background first; recent seasons tell the victim’s life story first.
Suggested episode: A special 90-minute episode, Season 26, Episode 15 features the case of Sheila Davalloo, a pharmaceutical researcher who not only murdered her romantic competition but also attempted to kill her husband. Davalloo tells her side of the story in a prison interview.
Produced by the same folks who make Snapped, this show (also called Killer Couples) focuses on couples who kill together, mostly heterosexual, with plenty of women taking the lead. Episodes delve into cases involving love triangles, spree killings, serial killers, murder for financial gain, and others.
Suggested episode: Season 3, Episode 9 covers the famous Canadian killer couple of Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, who tortured, sexually assaulted, and killed at least three victims.
While Dateline doesn’t only focus on female killers, its dedication to murders of romantic partners qualifies it for this category. Plenty of women hire others to kill or do their own dirty work.
Dateline includes episodes with other investigative pieces than murder (such as the recent Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation case), but it mostly concentrates on true crime.
Although it can sometimes be predictable, the writing leaves the audience wondering until the end as to the identity of the murderer. Dateline’s storytelling and the correspondents’ empathy for victims’ families and friends, makes it a standout in the genre. Correspondents like Keith Morrison often interview suspects before or after conviction, and their hard-nosed questioning is a highlight.
Suggested episode: Dateline has covered many well-known cases, from the Kathleen Peterson case to the Gianni Versace murder, but the lesser-known ones can be just as compelling. Try “The Real Thing About Pam” (Season 30, Episode 22), which is the same case from the Dateline podcast and NBC fictional series, or “The Ascension of Mother God” (Season 30, Episode 4).
Meet, Marry, Murder features disturbing homicide cases committed by one spouse against the other, often preceded by domestic abuse or coercive control, and women are just as likely to be the abuser.
Episodes concentrate on couples from the US and UK and rely on detectives recounting their investigations, along with outside experts like psychologists, former detectives, journalists, criminologists, attorneys, and domestic abuse specialists, who succeed at emphasizing the seriousness of the situation and the dangers of domestic abuse. They not only detail the story, but also the psychology behind the murder, suspect, victim, and their relationship.
Suggested episode: Season 1, Episodes 9 and 42 provide dual coverage of the Kathy Augustine murder by her husband Chaz Higgs and the murder-suicide involving her daughter, Dallas Augustine, and Dallas’ wife.
Where to stream: Tubi, True Crime Network, Peacock, The Roku Channel
Deadly Women answers the question: Do women kill? Yes, they most certainly do. It tells stories of female murderers using all sorts of methods, from poisoning, to stabbing, to guns, just as well as men, if not as prolifically.
Deadly Women groups episodes by theme, such as greed, jealousy, forbidden love, obsession, revenge, and the like, even historical murders, which are not usually covered in other series, and those from countries outside the US. Some of the cases are detailed elsewhere (see Snapped, for example), but Deadly Women presents them using dramatized re-creations, with dialogue, that emphasize the murders themselves, rather than the subsequent investigations.
Suggested episode: Season 3, Episode 8, “Fatal Obsession,” includes the murder of pregnant woman Bobbie Joe Stinnett by a killer who wanted to steal her unborn child.
Where to stream: Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Discovery+
At first, Deadly Wives might come across as just another murder show about women who kill, but its draw is the sarcastic narration of actress Christine Estabrook, who delivers the writing with disbelief and an almost audible rolling of her eyes. She comments on trial testimony with asides like “Wait, you’re gonna love this one.” This short-lived show has episodes with 1-2 stories each that scrutinize the lies, alibis, and excuses of wives involved in killing their husbands. The police interview these deadly wives, and prosecutors cross-examine the ones brazen enough to take the witness stand, providing a lighter take on intimate partner homicide and trading suspense and cliffhangers for barbs that might shock some viewers and delight others.
Suggested episode: Season 1, Episode 10 (“Opposites Attract”) includes the murder of Bruce Cleland by his wife and her cousins, along with the murder of Becky Klein by her wife.
Stabbing is the method of choice in this true crime series about female murderers and attempted murderers. Each episode gives viewers an inside look at one case and the motives of a wife or girlfriend who stabbed her romantic partner. The show centers on the stories of the wives themselves, who give their version and provide interviews with criminologist and criminal behavior analyst Casey Jordan, who also adds psychoanalytic commentary.
Wives with Knives also brings on the wives’ families and friends, who detail the context of their lives and background. The show intersperses the competing sides of the story with dramatized re-creations (with dialogue) that tell the story event by event, focusing on what led up to the murder, in some cases abuse, and the murder itself, without a lot of information on the investigation that followed. The show’s unique presentation of both sides of the story makes it a fascinating watch.
Suggested episode: In “Demons, Drugs and Darkness” (Season 2, Episode 4), a woman who battles schizophrenia and meth addiction stabs her ex-boyfriend.
Murder She Solved emphasizes a different side of the coin: investigations involving female detectives, pathologists, and others (like private investigators, forensic scientists, and criminal profilers), who share their experiences solving homicides in the United States and Canada. It eschews fancy prose or cliffhangers and gets right down to business with the details of investigative techniques for each case, from forensics to undercover operations. Hit men, friends, spouses, and strangers kill, and female detectives solve the case.
Suggested episode: In “Never A Doubt” (Season 3, episode 4), the wife of a man wrongfully convicted for killing his mother-in-law investigates the case herself and finds the real killer.
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, True Crime Network
Produced by the same folks who make Snapped, this true crime show (also called Killer Couples) has a similar format to Snapped but focuses on couples who kill together, mostly heterosexual, with plenty of women taking the lead in the murders.
Episodes delve into homicide cases involving love triangles, spree killings, serial killers, murder for financial gain, and others. It blends narration, re-creations, interviews with detectives and victims’ loved ones, and police interviews and trial clips to show how two people can inflame each other’s motivations and desires, or one person can pressure another, to the point that they kill together.
Knives are the weapon of choice for these murderous women
About Wives With Knives
Stabbing is the method of choice in this true crime series about female murderers and attempted murderers. Each episode gives viewers an inside look at one case and the motives of a wife or girlfriend who stabbed her romantic partner.
Wives with Knives centers on the stories of the wives themselves, who give their version and provide interviews with criminologist and criminal behavior analyst Casey Jordan, who also adds psychoanalytic commentary.
Wives with Knives also brings on the wives’ families and friends, who share details about the context of the women’s lives and are featured more than the victims or their family and friends. The show intersperses the competing sides of the story with dramatized re-creations (with dialogue) that tell the story event by event, focusing on what led up to the murder, in some cases abuse, and the murder itself. It omits long descriptions of the investigation that followed, excluding the detectives and prosecutors involved for the most part. The show’s unique presentation of both sides of the story makes it a fascinating watch.
Killer women are the focus of this long-running true crime series
About Snapped
Thought women don’t kill? Snapped proves otherwise. Snapped is a long-running true crime show featuring 31 seasons of murders perpetrated by women through various means, from poisoning, to stabbing, to gunshots, to murder-for-hire. It balances narration, re-creations, and the victim’s and suspect’s background and relationship with interviews with detectives, prosecutors, and victims’ families and friends, sprinkling police interviews and trial clips into the story.
The draw of the show is its ability to show how a relationship can devolve and how detectives discover that it isn’t what it first appears to be. Episodes in Seasons 1-23 detail the suspect’s background first; recent seasons tell the victim’s life story first.
Women murderers take center stage in these homicide cases
(Note: This site contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)
About Deadly Women
DeadlyWomen answers the question: Do women kill? Yes, they most certainly do. It tells stories (usually three per episode) of female murderers using all sorts of methods, from poisoning, to stabbing, to guns, just as well as men, if not as prolifically.
Deadly Women groups episodes by theme, such as greed, jealousy, forbidden love, obsession, revenge, and the like, even historical murders, which are not usually covered in other true crime series, and those from countries outside the US. Some of the cases are detailed elsewhere (see Snapped, for example), but Deadly Women presents them using dramatized re-creations with dialogue that emphasize the murders themselves, rather than the subsequent investigations.
Along with detectives from some of the cases, a stock group of experts provides insights, primarily former FBI profiler Candice DeLong and forensic pathologist Janis Amatuzio. DeLong analyzes the murderer’s behavior and the pathology behind it, while Amatuzio discusses the effects of certain homicide methods on the body. They are joined by a variety of historians, who detail the stories of the older cases, sometimes centuries-old.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 14 (2008-2021)
Where to stream: Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Discovery+
A look inside murders and other crimes in cities and towns across the US
About City Confidential
City Confidential looks at murders from a different angle: the cities or towns in which they occurred and the high-profile people involved.
Narrated by actors Paul Winfield and Keith David (top-notch among true crime show narrators), City Confidential recounts stories about murder, sex scandals, extortion, and other crimes, detailing cases filled with people in the public eye, such as police officers, mayors and other politicians, doctors, pastors, millionaires, and judges.
The episodes feature cities from Seattle, Washington, to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and towns from Virginia City, Nevada, to Ruthton, Minnesota. Each episode begins with a 10-15 minute segment that gives an educational tour of the history and culture of the city first, then gets into the details of the crimes and their investigations through interviews with detectives, colorful locals, and sometimes the convicted killers themselves.
Episodes pepper the story with lines like “The New Orleans police force was as rotten as an old Mississippi River pier,” or “Today, Youngstown’s mafia machine is as wicked and ruined as the abandoned steel mills.” The episodes show how the cases reflect or dismantle the city’s reputation and atmosphere, and change the community and its people for the long term.
A&E revived CityConfidential in 2021, with narration by actor Mike Colter, but the new episodes provide very little background on the history and culture of the city or town and do not focus on high-profile people. Much of the character of the original series is lost.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 12 (1998-2005, 2021-)
Where to stream: Discovery+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Roku Channel
True Crime Docket 