Author: Suzanne Hamlin

Documentary: Death Row Confidential: Secrets of a Serial Killer

A death row inmate helps solve cold cases

In 2022, cold case detective and former FBI investigator Ken Mains received a letter from Bill Noguera, an inmate on death row at San Quentin prison. Noguera claimed to have information about a serial killer also housed there, Joseph Naso. Naso had been arrested in 2010 following a routine probation check, when police found photos and other evidence of several murders in his home. Among these was a list of ten unnamed women at specific locations.

Naso was tried and convicted for the murders of four women in 2013, and was sentenced to death. Others on the list remained unsolved. During his time on death row at San Quentin, he began to talk to Noguera about his crimes and confessed to over 20 murders.

Oxygen’s new multi-part series Death Row Confidential: Secrets of a Serial Killer follows Mains as he works with Noguera (who took copious notes about Naso’s confessions), along with detectives from the locations where Noguera claims Naso killed his victims, to solve these cold cases.

Death Row Confidential

Cameras follow Mains as he attempts to connect the names on the list to information in Noguera’s notes. The documentary also provides a perspective not often seen in true crime: that of an inmate helping to solve several murders. It includes Noguera’s calls from death row and interviews with victims’ family members, who share their difficult experiences not knowing what happened to their loved ones.

Why did Noguera want to help solve these cases? Did the confessions lead to any convictions? Watch Death Row Confidential to find out. The series premieres on Oxygen on September 13 at 9 pm and will be available for streaming on Peacock at a later date.

Show: Blood Relatives

Family members murder their relatives

Blood Relatives
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

About Blood Relatives

There are many reasons family members clash: money, jealousy, anger, resentment. But these reasons don’t usually provoke murder. In Blood Relatives, they do. This show focuses on murder cases in which family members kill other their relatives, due to affairs, money, child custody issues, and other motives.

Each episode begins with the tranquil and loving life of the family, then describes key problems that arose within it, the murder, the motives of various family members, and how the killer was finally caught.

Narrated by actress Brenda Strong, the show also features lots of re-creations and descriptions of events by family members, neighbors, friends, and detectives. There is some overlap of cases with shows like Dateline, 48 Hours, and Snapped.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 6 (2012-2018)

Where to stream: Discovery+, Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video

More shows like Blood Relatives: Fatal Family Feuds, Bad Blood, Evil Kin

See also this list of true crime shows

✘ Police interviews
✘ Trial clips
✓ Narration
✓ Re-creations
✘ Experts
✓ Victims’ families and friends

Latest Posts

Show: Dateline: The Smoking Gun

Dateline episodes that feature a “smoking gun”

Dateline: The Smoking Gun
Photo by Tsvetoslav Hristov on Pexels.com

About Dateline: The Smoking Gun

Dateline: The Smoking Gun takes old Dateline episodes and repackages them into a new show, hosted by Andrea Canning. This “new” series is based on the idea of a smoking gun, or one piece of evidence that leads detectives to the killer, such as an audio recording, video evidence, or a movie script.

If you like Dateline and haven’t seen all of the episodes, check it out. But you won’t get any new content in this series, disappointing for avid Dateline fans.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 1 (2024-)

Where to stream: Peacock

More shows like Dateline: The Smoking Gun: Dateline, Dateline: The Last Day

See also this list of true crime shows

✓ Police interviews
✓ Trial clips
✓ Narration
✘ Re-creations
✘ Experts
✓ Victims’ families and friends

Latest Posts

Show: Kiss of Death

Relationships end in murder

Kiss of Death
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

About Kiss of Death

Kiss of Death is one of many true crime shows about intimate partner homicide, but this series focuses on first-person accounts about murders that occurred when relationships went off the rails and ended in murder.

Victims’ loved ones, and sometimes victims who survived violent attacks, tell the stories of these relationships, the murders, and the investigations that followed. By focusing on first-person accounts, the show is more distinct in the true crime genre, and the lack of narration centers the stories on the victims’ experiences. However, at only one season, there are better shows about the same topic.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 1 (2017-2018)

Where to stream: Max, Hulu, Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video

More shows like Kiss of Death: Fatal Affairs, Fatal Attraction, Killer Relationship, Dateline, Meet, Marry, Murder, Deadly Affairs, Fatal Vows

See also this list of true crime shows

✘ Police interviews
✘ Trial clips
✘ Narration
✓ Re-creations
✘ Experts
✓ Victims’ families and friends

Latest Posts

Documentary: The Most Hated Man on the Internet

The fight against Hunter Moore and his revenge porn site

To be called the Most Hated Man on the Internet requires a certain degree of despicableness. Hunter Moore does not disappoint.

The Netflix documentary (named after a Rolling Stone article) traces the many contemptible acts Moore committed, first by creating a revenge porn site, then by hacking into email accounts and phones to populate that site with nude photos.

The story begins with one victim, who realized that a topless photo she had taken had been posted on Moore’s site without her consent. The cases multiply from there, with more and more victims describing their horror at finding out nude photos of them had been posted on the site without their permission, along with their full name and social media pics. Even after many requests to remove these photos, Moore was undeterred. He blamed the victims for taking the photos in the first place, so they remained. His brazen attitude and personality attracted many followers, who left bullying and hateful comments on the women’s—and men’s, in some cases—pages.

But one victim’s mother had had enough, and she went after Moore. After a reporter exposed him, white hat hackers and the FBI also took up the cause. Will Moore get his deserved comeuppance? If you can make it through this shocking story to the last episode, you’ll find out.

Show: Fear Thy Neighbor

Feuds between neighbors turn violent

Photo by Paul Groom Photography Bristol on Pexels.com

About Fear Thy Neighbor

Murder, arson, assault. These are all crimes that have been perpetrated by one neighbor against another in the episodes of Fear Thy Neighbor. It’s a show that asks, How do good neighbors become bad ones? How do neighborly relations dissolve into hatred, and then crime?

Fear Thy Neighbor focuses on feuds that occurred between neighbors over seemingly unimportant issues, how their neighborly relations devolved, and the senseless violence that resulted. Investigations aren’t the focus of episodes; instead, they highlight the feuds and the mystery of which neighbor will resort to violence.

Fear Thy Neighbor has heavy emphasis on dramatizations, so episodes include a lot of arguing and yelling to portray the disputes. Some episodes feature interviews with one or both neighbors, who often stick to their biased sides of the story, making it unclear what really happened.

The show will make you think twice about bringing up a problem with a neighbor. Or even talking to them in the first place.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 11 (2014-)

Where to stream: Tubi, Roku Channel, Max, Hulu, Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video

More shows like Fear Thy Neighbor: Residential Rage, Vengeance: Killer Neighbors

See also this list of true crime shows

✘ Police interviews
✘ Trial clips
✓ Narration
✓ Re-creations
✘ Experts
✓ Victims’ families and friends

Latest Posts

Documentary: Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed

The decline of a megachurch, and an empire

A church behaving badly is not all that unique, and the Hillsong megachurch is one of the more recent examples. Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed sheds light on the illegal and un-Christian activities that stood in the way of the church’s goal to take over the world.

Hillsong’s lofty aims were to reach past the worlds of religion and music into realms of higher education and film, and across continents. Impeding these goals were the misdeeds of its pastors and staff, who were involved in sexual misconduct, financial fraud, sexual abuse, and even rape, misdeeds that filtered up into its highest levels to Brian Houston, its former senior pastor, and his father, Frank Houston, Hillsong’s founder.

The four-episode docuseries (featured on Discovery+) starts by laying out the promise of Hillsong, its celebrity congregants, and its expansion, then uncovers the sexual misconduct and affairs of New York City pastor Carl Lentz. Episodes first recount Hillsong’s origins in Australia, its supposed culture of openness, its preaching of the prosperity gospel, and its loyal volunteers. Later episodes show how this dream disintegrated into lies, scandal, fraud, and criminal charges.

Show: Sins of the South

Homicide cases with a bit of Southern flair

Sins of the South
Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Pexels.com

About Sins of the South

From executive producer Dick Wolf comes the Southern-tinged true crime show Sins of the South. The show features a narrator with a Southern accent, adds a few Southern phrases, and tells stories of homicide cases that took place across the American South.

Much like Southern Fried Homicide, Sins of the South features all varieties of cases, from spouse murders to serial killers, but many of them are covered in other shows.

Episodes bring on detectives, victims’ friends and family, and others to tell the stories, and they include police interviews and re-creations. If you liked Southern Fried Homicide, and enjoy a little Southern flair with true crime stories, check out Sins of the South.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 1 (2024-)

Where to stream: Peacock, Hulu

More shows like Sins of the South: Southern Fried Homicide, Homicide City: Charlotte, Homicide Squad: Atlanta, Murder Nation: Blood on the Bayou, The Real Murders of Atlanta, Serial Killer Capital: Baton Rouge, Southern Gothic

See also this list of true crime shows

✓ Police interviews
✘ Trial clips
✓ Narration
✓ Re-creations
✘ Experts
✓ Victims’ families and friends

Latest Posts

Documentary: Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult

The strange story of how TikTok dancers were sucked into a cult

Cults come in a variety of flavors, but they all serve the same purpose: control. And Robert Shinn follows that formula with his cult. In 1994, he founded Shekinah Church, a church for Korean Americans, then slowly began to control its members by convincing them to work in his many businesses and give him most of the money they earned. But this was not enough for him. In 2021, he decided to combine religion with entertainment when he searched for dancers on TikTok for his talent management company, 7M Films, and then pushed them into joining Shekinah. He did these things not because he was a truly religious man or truly interested in helping young people with their careers, but for the typical reasons of a cult leader: money and power.

The three-episode Netflix docuseries Dancing for the Devil describes how Shinn turned these dancers into Shekinah followers and cult members who he isolated from their families and took advantage of financially. It follows the Wilking family as they try to get their daughter Miranda to leave the cult. It also follows former members filing civil and criminal charges against its Shinn and others, and brings on other members who left the cult.

Documentary: Escaping Twin Flames

A cult manipulates people looking for true love

If you could find true love, how far would you go to get it? Would you join a cult? That’s the question asked by Escaping Twin Flames. Twin Flames Universe preyed on people’s desires to find love, by espousing the doctrine that everyone has a “twin flame,” a person who is the other half of their shared soul. It promised people that its methods—and its expensive courses and coaching sessions—would help them find that person, and as a result, find happiness.

But Twin Flames Universe was—and still is—a cult, and this documentary outlines just how crazy its beliefs are. From advocating stalking and harassment, to pushing members to work for the cult, to claiming that one of the leaders, Jeff Ayan, was Christ-like, the cult used typical manipulation tactics to control its members, take their money, and convince them to do whatever its leaders wanted.

Twin Flames Universe made many promises to its members, promises that it could not keep when the soulmates the leaders guaranteed people did not manifest themselves. But because it had brainwashed its members into believing its unbelievable concepts, Twin Flames convinced members to follow new promises, new doctrine, and new guidance about how to find true love, to the point of some changing their gender identity. As the cult morphed, some members saw the true darkness underneath this twisted facade and left. Others, however, are still beholden to its nonsense.

Netflix’s three-part docuseries charts the rise of the cult and the realizations of members who left, as well as documenting the heartbreaking stories of family members of those still in the cult struggling to get them back.