Marriages turn deadly in this show about killer wives
About Deadly Wives
At first, Deadly Wives might come across as just another murder show about women who kill, but its draw is the sarcastic narration 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 true crime show has episodes with one to two 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.
The show provides a lighter take on intimate partner homicide and trades suspense and cliffhangers for barbs that might shock some viewers and delight others.
Watch out Angela Lansbury, these real-life women are on the case
About Murder She Solved
Some true crime shows focus on the victim, murderer, or their relationship and the psychology behind it. Murder She Solved: True Crime is a meat-and-potatoes show squarely emphasizing investigations involving female detectives, pathologists, and others like private investigators, forensic scientists, criminal profilers, and even the wife of a wrongfully convicted man. They share their experiences solving homicides in the United States and Canada.
Murder She Solved rejects fancy prose and 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.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 3 (2010-2013)
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, True Crime Network, Roku Channel
More shows like Murder She Solved: Homicide Hunter, The Killer Closer
Dateline NBC: “Under a Halloween Moon” (Season 22, Episode 6)
In this episode, Josh Mankiewicz details the murder of Joel Lovelien, which occurred outside a bar he went to with his fiancée for a Halloween party in 2007 in North Dakota. Lovelien was beaten to death in the parking lot, and police search for the killer among the large group of people in costume. This one has a surprise ending.
Dateline NBC: “The Halloween Party” (Season 26, Episode 5)
Keith Morrison lends his spooky narration to the story of Chelsea Bruck, who attends a Halloween party as Poison Ivy at a rural property in Michigan in 2014. She disappears that night, and police find her body several months later. She had been sexually assaulted and died from blunt force trauma.
Stream on Peacock and Hulu
Killer Kids: “Vampire and the Essay” (Season 4, Episode 8)
The 16-year-old leader of a vampire cult murders Naomi Ruth Queen and Richard Wendorf in 1996 in Florida, the parents of a 15-year-old girl who ran away from home with his group. Although the ringleader was convicted of murder, she was never charged.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video and the Roku Channel
City Confidential: “Monsters on Main Street” (Season 7, Episode 1)
An 11-year-old girl, Shauna Howe, disappears on the way home from a Halloween party in a small town in Pennsylvania in 1992. Police discover her body three days later, but the murder goes unsolved until 2003. The town banned nighttime trick-or-treating for 15 years after the murder. The case is also covered in Cold Case Files.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Discovery+, and the Roku Channel
In 1984, pregnant mother Doreen Erbert is murdered on Halloween in California by a man in a wolf mask wielding a machete. The episode is rare coverage of a male killer on the female-focused series.
In a ritualistic killing, a teen interested in the occult kills an elderly woman, removes her heart, and drinks her blood. The episode is based on the story of the murder of Maybel Leyshon in the UK in 2001.
Stream on Tubi, True Crime Network, and the Roku Channel
Killer Cases: “Murder Under a Blue Moon” (Season 1, Episode 5)
The triple homicide by a man who killed his mother, Voncile Smith, and two half-brothers, Richard Thomas Smith and John William Smith, in Florida in 2015. The murder occurs close to the blue moon, and the positioning of the bodies and the killer’s pagan practices make detectives mistakenly think it is a result of witchcraft. Also featured on Family Massacre.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and True Crime Network
A true crime classic for junkies and newbies alike
About Dateline
Dateline is the type of show that, back in the days of channel-surfing, would suck you in because you just had to know who the murderer was.
This long-running NBC show focuses mostly on murders (and murders of romantic partners), with other investigative pieces thrown in here and there. Dateline previously included other series like To Catch a Predator, but now concentrates on true crime.
Although it can sometimes be predictable, the show pulls the audience into the investigation through correspondents’ interviews with witnesses and suspects, leading the viewers through the case to the end of the trial in a more intimate way than most shows. Not to mention Keith Morrison‘s chilling, yet compelling, narrations.
Dateline’s storytelling, and the correspondents’ empathy for victims’ families and friends, makes it a standout. Morrison, Andrea Canning, Dennis Murphy, and Josh Mankiewicz often interview suspects before or after their conviction—a rarity in the genre—and their hard-nosed questioning is a highlight. When there is a trial, the show gives it ample attention, often with trial clips. Recommended.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 33 (1992-)
Where to stream: Peacock, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video
The name says it all: two people meet and marry each other, then one of them murders the other
About Meet, Marry, Murder
Meet, Marry, Murder features disturbing homicide cases committed by one spouse against the other, often in relationships involving domestic abuse or coercive control. 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.
Some of the cases also appear on Dateline and other true crime shows, with different details (such as the Hall, Novak, McDowell, and Cochran cases). A standout is the dual coverage of the Kathy Augustine murder by her husband Chaz Higgs in one episode and the murder-suicide involving Dallas Augustine (her daughter) and her wife in another.
Will Hanrahan narrates the original series, and an abridged version appears on Tubi as an “original,” but it is really a repackaged version of the first series. It consists of some of the American cases from the first series and is hosted by Michelle Trachtenberg, with new titles and narration. Trachtenberg’s narration attempts at salaciousness, but comes across as slow and forced, and she fails to match Hanrahan’s ease of narration and fluid style.
Helen Hunt hosts a new series on Lifetime with the same name, with actual new cases this time, also produced by Hanrahan.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 2 (2020-)
Where to stream: Tubi, True Crime Network, Roku Channel, Peacock
True Crime Docket 