Tag: intimate partner homicide

Show: Kiss of Death

Relationships end in murder

Kiss of Death
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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

Show: Snapped: She Made Me Do It

Women manipulate men into murder

Snapped: She Made Me Do It
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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
Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

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: Fatal Affairs

Love triangles turn deadly

Fatal Affairs
Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

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: TikTok Star Murders

A heartbreaking story of murder, told through social media

They’re everywhere on social media. Those videos of the perfect vacation, perfect family, perfect marriage. But reality hides behind the perfection, sometimes a dark reality covered up by posed photos and curated videos. Peacock’s new documentary TikTok Star Murders illustrates the imperfections hidden by viral social media videos and how a life can turn to darkness.

The documentary tells the story of the murder of Ana Abulaban by her husband Ali, as well as Ali’s murder of Ana’s friend Rayburn Barron. It documents Ali’s rise to fame on TikTok, the breakdown of his and Ana’s marriage—one filled with physical and emotional abuse and coercive control—culminating in the murders of Ana and Ray.

The film presents an intimate look at the shocking case and Ali and Ana’s troubled relationship, shown through many TikTok videos and photos from both Ali and Ana. To tell the story, Ana and Ali’s friends and family members are joined by reporters, investigators, attorneys, and a psychologist describing what happens in an abusive relationship and why it is so difficult for many victims to leave, and leave safely. Along with TikTok videos, the documentary includes video and audio recordings Ali made as the relationship broke down, the abuse Ana suffered, and even Ali’s audio of the murder itself, as well as interview excerpts with him in jail and clips from his trial.

It’s a horrifying depiction of domestic abuse, the fantasy of social media, the masks people wear, and how the pursuit of fame can drive a person’s life.

Show: Killer Relationship

Relationships gone wrong, ending in murder

Killer Relationship
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

About Killer Relationship

Hosted and narrated by Faith Jenkins, a former prosecutor who was also a judge on Divorce Court, Killer Relationship shares stories of relationships gone so wrong that they result in murder. Most of the cases are intimate partner homicides, but some involve other close relationships.

Jenkins provides a bit of commentary on some of the cases, drawing on her experience with domestic violence cases and on Divorce Court, and the show includes some police interviews and insight from victims’ family and friends. No trial clips, though, just foreboding stories of how some relationships, even seemingly stable ones, can end in murder.

If you’re a fan of Dateline and its spouse-did-it episodes, check out Killer Relationship.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 3 (2022-)

Where to stream: Hulu, Peacock

More shows like Killer Relationship: Dateline, Fatal Affairs, Meet, Marry, Murder, My Lover, My Killer, Fatal Vows, Happily Never After, Snapped

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Betrayed

A true crime show similar to a crime drama

Betrayed
Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com

About Betrayed

If you’re looking for a true crime show that is more drama than documentary, check out Betrayed. Betrayed relies heavily on dramatizations of murder cases, with each episode telling these stories through fictionalized re-creations that follow the events before the crime, to the murder and investigation. Interspersed between these dramatizations are interviews with detectives and victims’ family and friends, but the focus of the show is on the re-creations, which parallel crime dramas by following the story in a linear fashion, complete with narrative techniques like tension, conflict, and foreshadowing.

The show focuses on murders perpetrated by someone the victim knew, who ultimately betrayed them by killing them. Episodes begin with a roundup of all the possible suspects, then detail events before the crime that may have contributed to the killer’s motive, then follow the murder and its investigation.

Adding to that crime drama feel are voice-over narrations by the actors playing the victims, who describe each event leading up to and after the murder from their point of view.

The Show Elements

Seasons: 4 (2016-2020)

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

More shows like Betrayed: Blood Relatives, A Crime to Remember, Love, Honor, Betray

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Black Widow Murders

Women who kill multiple spouses and finally get caught

About Black Widow Murders

Female killers seem to be so much more…fascinating. Maybe it’s their general rarity in comparison to men (women commit about 12 percent of the murders in the US), maybe it’s their methods of murder, or maybe it’s the stereotype that women are the gentler sex, a stereotype that has been proven so very wrong by shows like Black Widow Murders. 

This true crime show delves into homicide cases involving women who have murdered multiple romantic partners, gaining them the “black widow” label.

These women kill using various means, from poison, to murder-for-hire, to guns, and the show includes commentary by psychologists, reporters, and crime writers who covered the cases, as well as testimonials by investigators and victims’ loved ones.

As one of the psychologists from the show notes, these women are serial killers who murder people they know, unlike male serial killers who usually kill strangers. Just as sociopathic, but these women are doing things their own way.

True crime shows

The Show Elements

Seasons: 1 (2022-)

Where to stream: Peacock, Hulu

More shows like Black Widow Murders: Snapped, Deadly Women, Deadly Wives, Wives with Knives

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Sex, Lies & Murder

Stories of homicide cases related to sex

Sex Lies & Murder
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

About Sex, Lies & Murder

The tagline for this true crime series could be “the more salacious the better.” Sex, Lies & Murder concentrates on homicides with a sexual component to the story, sometimes merely sex-adjacent. It plays up the sexual aspect of murder cases even when it has nothing to do with the murder itself, and the stock group of experts dive right in. The show includes many cases covered in other series, but emphasizes the sex-related elements more to give the title its worth.

Cases involve love triangles, strippers, porn stars, child custody, jealousy, affairs, and more, described by the investigators who worked on the cases, along with experts, most notably crime writer and investigative journalist M. William Phelps, who appears in almost all of the episodes. He is joined by local reporters and other crime writers and specialists.

Very few episodes bring in victims’ loved ones, but they often include defense attorneys (unlike many other shows), who provide an alternative perspective.

True crime shows

The Show Elements

Seasons: 1, with 40 episodes (2018-2019)

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

More shows like Sex, Lies & Murder: Sex & Murder

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts

Show: Someone You Thought You Knew

What if someone you love turns out to be a murderer?

About Someone You Thought You Knew

We all wonder if we truly know the people close to us—our partner, family members, friends. But what if we don’t really know someone at all, and they are, instead, a murderer? That’s the scary premise of Someone You Thought You Knew.

This true crime show consists of the usual elements—narration, re-creations, excerpts from police interviews, and testimonials from victims’ families and friends, who share their stories and reveal their surprise at finding out who their loved ones really are.

About half of the cases appear on other shows, such as Dateline, and the presentation is pretty typical of most true crime shows, so if you’re looking for something new and different, skip this one.

True crime shows

The Show Elements

Seasons: 2 (2018-2019)

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

More shows like Someone You Thought You Knew: Dateline, Meet Marry Murder, Snapped, 20/20

See also this list of true crime shows

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

Latest Posts