Author: Suzanne Hamlin

Show: Snapped: She Made Me Do It

Women manipulate men into murder

Snapped: She Made Me Do It
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About Snapped: She Made Me Do It

Joining the Snapped and Snapped: Killer Couples family is Snapped: She Made Me Do It. In this series, women are the masterminds who solicit men to help them commit murder, convincing these men to help them kill not only the women’s spouses, but sometimes their parents or other victims.

Some cases bring up the question of who really orchestrated the murder: Did these women “make” others do their dirty deeds, manipulating them to do so, or were the men the ones truly responsible? Of course, these co-perpetrators try to place the blame on the women and absolve themselves of any guilt.

Not as compelling as Snapped and Killer Couples, the focus on women—and their wily ways when it comes to murder—still makes Snapped: She Made Me Do It an interesting watch.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 2 (2015-2017)

Where to stream: Peacock

More shows like Snapped: She Made Me Do It: Snapped, Snapped: Killer Couples, Deadly Women, Seduced to Slay

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Fatal Attraction

Relationships turn deadly

Fatal Attraction
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About Fatal Attraction

No one imagines that their relationship could go so wrong that it ends in murder. In Fatal Attraction, that’s exactly what happens. This true crime show focuses on murders related to relationship ills like cheating, jealousy, unrequited love, and love triangles, situations where one of the people involved turns to murder.

The show emphasizes cases involving members of the African American community, and victims’ loved ones are joined by detectives, reporters, and legal analysts to tell the story of each case. This long-running show fills a gap in the true crime genre by covering many murders not documented on other shows.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 16 (2013-)

Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi

More shows like Fatal Attraction: Dateline, Killer Relationship, Fatal Affairs, Deadly Affairs, Deadly Affairs: Betrayed by Love, Meet, Marry, Murder, Vengeance: Killer Lovers, Sex, Lies & Murder

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Deadly Influence: The Social Media Murders

The dark side of social media

Deadly Influence: The Social Media Murders
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About Deadly Influence: The Social Media Murders

Social media has its dark side, and Deadly Influence: The Social Media Murders reveals its darkest parts, as influencers and others prominent on social media sites like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube become the victims, or the perpetrators, of murder.

Involving killers ranging from obsessed incels to jealous husbands, the cases in this show illustrate how lives lived online can bring out the worst in people. The show sucks you in with plenty of photos and videos from social media pages, offering a glimpse into the victim’s or killer’s life and creating a personal connection to them, just as they strove to connect with their followers before the murder.

It’s no surprise in an era of increasing social media presence that murders related to influencers would become its own sub-genre. If you liked Web of Lies or The TikTok Star Murders, check out Deadly Influence.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 1 (2024-)

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

More shows like Deadly Influence: Web of Lies, The TikTok Star Murders, #killerpost, Murder on the Internet

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Documentary: Don’t Pick Up the Phone

The story of a calculated hoax and manipulation related to strip searches across the US

Something strange was happening at fast food places. A strange sort of crime, one that its perpetrator deviously constructed. In small towns across the US between 1994 and 2004, at McDonald’s and Taco Bell and other fast food restaurants, a crime occurred and was barely investigated. Managers received phone calls from a man claiming to be a local police officer. They were told that someone reported a purse or wallet stolen by a young woman who worked there, and that the manager needed to strip search this employee to find out. The employee was not named—only described—so the manager found an employee who fit that description and proceeded to followed the caller’s every command.

Seem unbelievable? It happened at least 70 times, until it was finally investigated fully in 2004. Netflix’s Don’t Pick Up the Phone documents the story through three episodes. The detectives who took up the cause in 2004 recount how they found the hoaxer, victims tell their stories, and trials for the managers and hoaxer are described.

You will find yourself asking how this could happen and how it went on so long. You will find yourself wondering how people could be manipulated so easily. And you will find yourself hoping for repercussions against the hoaxer. It’s a chilling story, with chilling revelations about the psychology of humans.

Show: Fatal Affairs

Love triangles turn deadly

Fatal Affairs
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About Fatal Affairs

Someone in a couple is having an affair. Not unusual, but in these forbidden stories, three’s a crowd turns to murder.

Fatal Affairs focuses on the three people in a love triangle as the main players in homicides. The mystery in its episodes is not just who the killer is, but who the victim is. Often, jealousy is involved, as so often happens with affairs. Or maybe someone needs to get rid of an annoying problem the affair has created in their life, such as a surprise pregnancy or threats of their lover revealing the affair to their spouse. Inexplicably, these cheaters decide murder is the answer.

Fatal Affairs takes the-spouse-did-it stories to the next level, offering a more complex equation: Is the killer the spouse, the girlfriend or boyfriend, or the person being cheated on? The answer depends on the tangled story of each case, and episodes unravel each murder, incorporating commentary by psychologists on the motivations behind the affairs and murders. If you like stories of love gone wrong, check out the show.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 1 (2024-)

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

More shows like Fatal Affairs: Dateline, Killer Relationship, Deadly Affairs, Deadly Affairs: Betrayed by Love, Meet, Marry, Murder, Vengeance: Killer Lovers, Sex, Lies & Murder

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Documentary: Anatomy of Lies

The story of Grey’s Anatomy writer Elisabeth Finch

It started with a cancer diagnosis. A purported tragedy that was really a lie. Then came more lies, which multiplied and seemed to take on a life of their own, branching out like a gnarled and diseased tree that fed on whatever was around it. You may have heard of pathological liars, or may even know one, but this story reveals the why and how behind one such person’s machinations.

Anatomy of Lies is the story of TV writer Elisabeth Finch, a story that is as shocking as any murder case, and with deeds as pathological as a serial killer. The documentary will lead you through the web of lies told by Finch, who wrote for Grey’s Anatomy and pilfered the lives of those around her for episodes, constructed fake, tragic stories about her own life to garner attention and sympathy, and seemed unable to stop, until one fateful day when her teetering world of lies came crashing down.

Told through three episodes, the Peacock documentary features many clips from Finch’s podcast interviews and magazine articles about her so-called tragedies, interviews with fellow writers from Grey’s Anatomy, and interviews with her former wife and children. (Finch herself does not appear in the documentary.)

Made more interesting because of her status as a writer and co-executive producer on the TV drama, Anatomy of Lies will keep you engaged to the very end.

Show: Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death

First-person stories from murder victims’ loved ones and others

Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death
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About Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death

Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death highlights the impact of a murder on the lives of three or four people involved in a case, including victims’ loved ones, detectives, and sometimes a family member or friend of the killer.

Part of the Evil Lives Here franchise, the show differs from the original Evil Lives Here and its cousin Evil Lives Here: The Killer Speaks by spotlighting the stories of victims’ friends and family members and only sometimes including the voice of someone who lived with a killer, as in the other two shows.

The series is more like a conventional true crime show due to its heavier emphasis on the investigation and story of the murder itself, rather than the hints of evil in the killer or the events that led up to the homicide, like Evil Lives Here. The storytelling style is similar to Evil Lives Here but not in its focus on the perpetrator of the crime.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 5 (2020-)

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

More shows like Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death: Evil Lives Here, Evil Lives Here: The Killer Speaks

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Shadow of Doubt

Doubt clouds these murder cases

Shadow of Doubt
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About Shadow of Doubt

Shadow of Doubt looks at homicide cases where there is some kind of doubt or question about a suspect, conviction, or other part of a murder investigation, such as cases involving false confessions, questions about the true shooter in a murder involving multiple perpetrators, and whether a person’s death was actually a suicide.

Episodes include detectives and victims’ friends and families, who discuss the case and its investigation, as well as re-creations, like in many other true crime shows. The difference with Shadow of Doubt is the inclusion of one of the suspects in most episodes, who casts doubt on their role in the murder, sometimes with little believability. Episodes don’t reveal the suspect’s role in the murder until the end.

It’s an intriguing premise, but doesn’t really make the show unique from others.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 2 (2016-2018)

Where to stream: Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video

More shows like Shadow of Doubt: Did He Do It?

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Murder Among Friends

Friends become frenemies, with deadly consequences

Murder Among Friends
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About Murder Among Friends

Sometimes friends aren’t friends at all and the last person to discover this sad fact is the victim of a murder. So is the premise of Murder Among Friends, which introduces viewers to a group of friends involved in the homicide of one of their own.

The motives for these murders range from jealousy, to revenge, to evil desires, and the show emphasizes salacious and creepy stories, such as those involving sex, cults, or vampirism. Episodes mostly focus on friend groups in their teens and twenties, those more likely to fall prey to groupthink.

Complete with narration, police interviews, the testimony of victims’ loved ones, and re-creations, the show is pretty standard fare for the true crime genre, with the only unique aspect being its focus on murders that happened in friend groups. If frenemies are what you’re looking for, check out Murder Among Friends.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 2 (2016-2018)

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

More shows like Murder Among Friends: Mean Girl Murders, Frenemies: Loyalty Turned Lethal, I Killed My BFF

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Forensic Files

Forensic investigations take center stage in murder and other cases

Forensic Files
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About Forensic Files

A classic in the true crime genre, Forensic Files focuses on forensic investigations in crimes like homicide, sexual assault, bombings, and non-criminal deaths and medical mysteries. The show premiered in 1996, during a time when various forensic techniques emerged, particularly the explosion of DNA testing. The show is so classic that it was brought back as Forensic Files II in 2020.

Featuring shorter episodes (about 22 minutes each), Forensic Files describes specific cases using techniques like fingerprinting, DNA testing, bite mark analysis, soil testing, forensic botany, forensic acoustics, handwriting analysis, facial reconstruction, and many more. One of the show’s strengths is how it brings on forensic specialists who explain these techniques and the processes involved. They are joined by detectives investigating the crimes, and victim’s loved ones.

One notable episode (Season 11, Episode 22) features the murder of Kathleen Peterson (before the documentary The Staircase) and includes an interview with since-disgraced blood stain analyst Duane Deaver.

Warning: Crime scene photos in the show are sometimes graphic and unblurred.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 14 (1996-2011)

Where to stream: Tubi, The Roku Channel, Peacock, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video

More shows like Forensic Files: Forensic Files II, The New Detectives, Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science, Forensic Investigators, Forensic Justice, Forensics, Forensics NZ, Solved: Extreme Forensics

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts