How the Secret Service used a counterfeiting investigation to the find the victims of James DeBardeleben
Suzanne Hamlin
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The Mall Passer doesn’t sound like the name of a serial killer. And technically, it isn’t. It’s the name of a counterfeiter hunted by the Secret Service for four years, whose arrest led to the discovery of a trove of evidence and constellation of crimes not at all related to counterfeiting, and much more disturbing.
This is the story of James Mitchell “Mike” DeBardeleben and the reverse investigation that occurred as the Secret Service searched for his victims following his arrest in 1983 in Tennessee for passing and manufacturing fake $20 bills, which he used to buy small items at malls across the country, pocketing the change and thereby making a profit.
James Mitchell “Mike” DeBardeleben
The Evidence
The Secret Service was first established in 1865 to combat counterfeiting (one of the many fascinating facts that can be gleaned from the DeBardeleben case). The agency was in the midst of investigating DeBardeleben when they stumbled across, in his car and storage units in Virginia, police paraphernalia, handcuffs, photos of nude and bound women, guns, women’s underwear, newspaper clippings of other people’s crimes, notes and diaries, and audio tapes, all found while searching for the printing press he used to make the counterfeit bills.
Most disturbing were the photos, notes, and audio tapes. The tapes recorded the torture and sexual assault of several women, who investigators surmised were abducted when DeBardeleben posed as a police officer to lure them into his car.
The notes detailed his plans, goals, and tasks, including the type of women and torture he desired, details on how to abduct women, and ideas on how to be more attractive to women and control them. This evidence more than sparked the curiosity of the investigators, Secret Service Agents Greg Mertz, Dennis Foos, Mike Stephens, and Jane Vezeris, who were determined to find the unknown victims and put names to their faces and the crimes committed against them. Were these women murdered? Kidnapped? Sexually assaulted? DeBardeleben refused to talk, and the FBI declined to get involved without any names of victims.
The Investigation
The Secret Service pushed on and sent the photos of the unknown women to law enforcement agencies across the US. Some police departments contacted the Secret Service with matches to open cases regarding abduction, sexual assault, and other crimes. And there was an FBI case in Maryland, the kidnapping and rape of Laurie Jensen, which finally spurred the FBI’s involvement.
Lucy Alexander and Elizabeth Mason
The FBI was able to identify DeBardeleben in photos he appeared in with the victims, some showing parts of his body (but not his face), by matching freckles and moles on his body to the body in the photos. This was key to the prosecution, along with handwriting analysis and eyewitness testimony from women who could identify themselves in the photos and tapes.
The Prosecution
He was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, sodomy, armed robbery, and aggravated criminal sexual assault in Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Missouri, Virginia, and New Jersey. In the end, DeBardeleben was sentenced to 375 years for counterfeiting, kidnapping, attempted robbery, and sodomy. The victims of these crimes include Jensen, Lucy Alexander, Elizabeth Mason, Dianne Overton, Maria Santini, and David Starr.
It seems nothing was off-limits for this jack-of-all-crimes. He was also indicted for the murders of Jean McPhaul in Louisiana and Edna Terry McDonald in Rhode Island, but was never tried for these murders, as prosecutors felt that the 375-year sentence for his other crimes would keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Rightly so, as he died of pneumonia in prison in 2011. Investigators speculate that he may have committed many more crimes involving up to 200 victims, including the murder of Joe Rapini, and may have been a serial killer.
Where to Watch the Case
Hear No Evil, The New Detectives, and Cruel Deception (an FBI Files special) capture the many twists of the DeBardeleben case. Hear No Evilincludes excerpts from the audio tapes (omitting the most graphic parts), while Cruel Deception includes photos of the evidence found during the investigation, as well as some of DeBardeleben’s notes.
The New Detectiveslooks at the story from the perspective of the FBI profiler who examined the case, and incorporates some photos of evidence, but none of the audio. The case is also detailed in Stephen G. Michaud’s book Beyond Cruel: The Chilling True Story of America’s Most Sadistic Killer, previously published as Lethal Shadow: The Chilling True-Crime Story of a Sadistic Sex Slayer.
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Learn more about the case in Hear No Evil(“The Sound of Terror,” Season 1, Episode 5), The New Detectives(“Mind Hunters,” Season 2, Episode 1), and Cruel Deception.
Audio evidence is the key to solving murder cases in this chilling true crime show
About Hear No Evil
A snippet of audio is played. Graphic. Unsettling. You won’t know who the voice is—the victim or the killer—until almost the end of the episode. That’s how Hear No Evil compels you to watch and takes you on a twisty and suspenseful ride towards a big reveal.
It’s the type of true crime show that makes you think, this case could be a movie. Take “The Sound of Terror” (Season 1, Episode 5), for instance, which starts with Secret Service agents talking about a counterfeiting case and ends up in a place surprising to even the investigators.
A companion to See No Evil, Hear No Evil places audio recordings at the center of episodes, recordings of murders themselves, or events leading up to them, recordings that end up being the key to solving the case and often changing detectives’ initial impressions of the suspect. No need for narration here; the recordings and police interviews speak for themselves.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 1 (2017)
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Discovery+
More shows like Hear No Evil: See No Evil, The Murder Tapes, Confessions of a Serial Killer, Lies, Crimes & Video
Detectives solve cold cases through forensics and other techniques
Cold Case Files
About Cold Case Files
Cold Case Files comes in two flavors: the classic series narrated by Bill Kurtis (sometimes called Cold Case Files Classic) and the re-boot narrated by Danny Glover and later Kurtis. Kurtis’ mellifluous voice will make you sleepy, but the cases are too absorbing and the writing too deftly crafted to nap through.
From serial killers to serial rapists, episodes feature one to two stories each and focus on investigative techniques used to crack cold cases, particularly DNA and other forensics, including forensic anthropology, entomology, and even botany. Forensic specialists appear on the show and sometimes demonstrate the steps of the methods they used to help unravel a cold case, such as DNA testing, fingerprint identification, or sculptural reconstruction of the face, providing a fascinating look inside the field.
This true crime show doesn’t dwell on the victim’s background or suspect’s trial and instead leads viewers through the strategies used to solve long-unsolved cases. The newer version of Cold Case Files has more re-creations and less narration, allowing those involved to tell their stories in their own words. Convicted offenders sometimes offer their accounts of the crimes, and sometimes even fess up to them.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 9 (1999-2012, 2017-)
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock, and Discovery+
Small towns learn that they aren’t immune to murder
About Murder In The Heartland
A sleepy small town is awakened by a shocking murder. So is the premise of Murder in the Heartland.
Similar to Heartland Homicide and Murder Comes to Town, this true crime show focuses on homicides occurring in quiet, languid small towns across the US, rural areas not just in the “heartland” of the country. From Idaho to Indiana, the show travels to small towns to interview families and detectives in their surroundings, showing them going about their daily lives, feeding pets or making dinner, as they tell the stories of the murders (with motives ranging from robbery to jealousy) that changed them forever. It’s a slice of life that illustrates the ordinariness of their lives in juxtaposition with shocking murders that jarred them from a normal existence supposedly safe from murder.
Murder in the Heartland combines interviews with detectives and victims’ families and friends, photos of ordinary family life, re-creations, and police interviews, and omits any narration, letting those involved tell the stories themselves. Detectives sometimes walk the audience through the crime scene, adding another realistic element to the story.
The Show Elements
Seasons: 6 (2017-)
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Hulu, and Discovery+
A certain dance occurs when two people plot a murder together, and Killer Siblings delves into these types of homicide cases. It focuses on those involving siblings (and sometimes additional perpetrators) who murder strangers, acquaintances, and even members of their own families.
Some of the stories are about minors, making the cases even more disturbing, and the show provides insight into what can happen when two people feed off of each other, with tragic consequences.
Detectives and others involved in the cases share their investigation stories, victims’ loved ones detail their experiences, and police interviews and trial clips complete the stories, along with information on the family and criminal background of the siblings.
Even though it follows the formula of most true crime series, the show’s focus on killer siblings is the most unsettling aspect, that two or more people from the same family could have a predisposition for murder. It leaves viewers wondering, maybe nature is at work here.
Gather ‘round the Christmas tree and snuggle up for some holiday tales of murder and mayhem.
Happy holidays? Nuh-uh, says Homicide for the Holidays, which dominates the round-up of Christmas true crime show episodes. But there are plenty of gems hiding in other shows, including several shows about the JonBenét Ramsey case. And scroll down for a bonus story from Dateline’s Keith Morrison.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Carnage in Carnation” (Season 1, Episode 2)
It’s the day after Christmas 2007 in Carnation, Washington, and a co-worker worries that her friend, Judy Anderson, hasn’t shown up for work. She drives to Judy’s house and stumbles across four of Judy’s family members dead in the home, including two children, and Judy and her husband Wayne dead outside near a shed. Eerie, silent 911 calls had been made from someone at the house on Christmas Eve, but police could not legally go past the locked gate to the property. Other family members are also missing, and when found, the truth comes out.
Homicide for the Holidays: “A Christmas Massacre” (Season 1, Episode 3)
Christmas Eve 2008 in Covina, California, turns from a fun family celebration into a horrific mass shooting. During a poker game after dinner, a man dressed as Santa Claus enters the home of Joseph and Alice Ortega, shoots and kills nine people, and sets the house on fire using a homemade flamethrower. In nearby Sylmar, a man discovers his brother dead in his apartment, and police find a booby-trapped car, both connected to the Christmas massacre.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Morning Murder” (Season 1, Episode 4)
Steve and Carla Barron are shot and killed early Christmas morning while sleeping in their home in Tyler, Texas, in 1999. Police come across the murder weapon in their daughter’s room. She appears on the episode.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Mourning” (Season 2, Episode 3)
Christmas Eve 2003, in Nampa, Idaho, and Bob and Idella Young are found stabbed and bound with Christmas lights, each having one strategically placed stab wound to the back. The case goes cold by the next Christmas, and it is finally solved a few years later.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Rampage” (Season 2, Episode 5)
December 28, 1987, in Russellville, Arkansas, four shootings across different locations in the town leave two people dead. The police apprehend the shooter and take him into custody, discovering five more bodies at his house, seven in a mass grave outside the house, and two dead infants in a car trunk, all family members killed around Christmas.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Rager” (Season 2, Episode 6)
A few days before Christmas 2007 in St. Paul Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, Kristine Larson fails to show up to make Christmas cookies with her mother. A stranger finds Kristine’s dead body in a burning car in an alley, strangled. Detectives investigate both her ex and her current boyfriend.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Silent Night, Lethal Night” (Season 2, Episode 7)
Nightmare Next Door: “Murders Under the Mistletoe” (Season 7, Episode 10)
It’s Christmas Eve 2002 in Middletown, Pennsylvania, and Jean Wholaver, her two daughters, and her granddaughter fail to show up for dinner at Jean’s parents’ house. Police find Jean and her two daughters shot dead in her home and the baby abandoned. The daughters had made allegations of sexual abuse against their estranged father, and the case was scheduled for trial that January. From jail, he attempts to hire someone to stage a suicide and pin the murders on someone else.
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Stream Nightmare Next Door on Discovery+ and Amazon Prime Video
Homicide for the Holidays: “Last Christmas” (Season 3, Episode 2)
Two days after Christmas 2005 in Fort Myers, Florida, 911 operators receive a call with a young child’s voice in the background. Police discover the child covered in blood at the home, and his parents, Steven and Michelle Andrews, dead. Steve had been shot, and Michelle had been beaten, strangled, and posed nude.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Christmas Heartbreak” (Season 3, Episode 3)
Jack and Elaine Denney are found shot on Christmas Day 2007 in their home in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. The case goes cold and is finally solved seven years later.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Death in Santa Claus” (Season 3, Episode 4)
In the aptly named Santa Claus, Georgia, it’s three weeks before Christmas 1997, when a passing motorist finds three girls from the Daniels family wandering on the side of a road, after a family friend had woken the girls up and told them they needed to leave with him. Police officers go to the Daniels house and discover four bodies, including two children, all members of the family. One of the daughters shares her experiences in the episode.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Six Slays of Christmas” (Season 4, Episode 2)
Sins of the City: “Dayton, Ohio” (Season 3, Episode 3)
In 1992, several seemingly unconnected shootings around Christmas in Dayton, Ohio, are traced to a group of four young people, who murdered six people between Christmas Eve and December 26 in a spree shooting.
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Homicide for the Holidays: “Killing of the Christmas Tree Farmers” (Season 4, Episode 3)
A Time to Kill: “The Mystery Passenger” (Season 5, Episode 9)
Cold Case Files: “Killings on Christmas Eve” (Season 1, Episode 2)
Christmas tree farmers Ed and Minnie Maurin disappear from their home December 19, 1985, in Ethel, Washington. Police officers find their car dumped in a parking lot, but no Maurins, only their blood. A random motorist discovers their bodies on Christmas Eve, and it takes 27 years to solve the crime.
Stream Homicide for the Holidays on Peacock and Hulu
Stream A Time to Kill on True Crime Network, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Discovery+
Stream Cold Case Files on Netflix, The Roku Channel, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, and Discovery+
Homicide for the Holidays: “Murder Under the Mistletoe” (Season 4, Episode 4)
Pregnant mother Melissa Sowders disappears the day after Christmas 2013 in Houston, Texas. Police find her abandoned car the next day, and eventually discover her body on the banks of a river. A love triangle holds the key to solving the case.
Deadly Women: “Red Hot Temper” (Season 9, Episode 10)
In the third story in this episode, a drunk Karen Walsh breaks into the house of her neighbor, Maire Rankin, on Christmas Eve in Newry, Northern Ireland, in 2008. After Maire lectures Walsh about her drinking, Walsh attacks her, and beats her to death with a crucifix. She then passes out on her bed and finds her way home the next morning. Maire’s family discover her body on Christmas Day.
Stream on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Discovery+
Christmas night 1986 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Donald Ott’s roommate finds him dead in their apartment and assumes it’s a suicide. He has a gunshot wound to the head, but a gun is nowhere to be found. Police learn that Ott’s brother is involved in the drug trade and their investigation leads to the killer.
Stream on Hulu, Discovery+, and Amazon Prime Video
JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery (3-part series)
The day after Christmas 1996 in Boulder, Colorado, and Patsy Ramsey finds a ransom note claiming that her daughter, JonBenét, had been kidnapped. Police allow Patsy’s husband John and his friend to search the house, and they find JonBenét in the basement dead, strangled and bound. The crime scene had not been secured, leading to a botched investigation, despite DNA evidence, and an unsolved case to this day.
Law enforcement officers who participated in the case appear on People Magazine Investigates, JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery, and How It Really Happenedwith Hill Harper. The Barbara Walters Presents episode includes an interview with John and Patsy Ramsey from 2000, as well as an interview with John Ramsey from 2015. True Crime with Aphrodite Jones takes a different approach, bringing in outside experts and a private investigator for the Ramsey family to review the case, while How It Really Happenedwith Hill Harper includes a plethora of news clips, especially from CNN.
There are additional series specifically focusing on the case; see this list for more details.
Stream People Magazine Investigates on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream JonBenét: An American Murder Mystery on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream How It Really Happenedwith Hill Harper on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream True Crime with Aphrodite Jones on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
Stream Barbara Walters Presents on Discovery+ and Amazon Prime Video
A Crime to Remember: “Coffin for Christmas” (Season 5, Episode 4)
College student Barbara Mackle is kidnapped on December 17, 1968 in Atlanta, Georgia, by a man dressed as a police officer and someone wearing a ski mask. A ransom note is found at the family home in Miami, asking for $500,000 and claiming that Mackle is buried in a ventilated container. The ransom drop is interrupted by the Miami police, who were unaware of the kidnapping. A new drop is scheduled, and on December 21, the FBI gets an anonymous tip to where Barbara is buried.
Stream A Crime to Remember on Discovery+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video
December 15, 2013, when people are preparing for Christmas in Spokane, Washington, Doug and Elberta Carlile return to their home to find a masked man in black who shoots and kills Doug. Police discover another murder related to Doug’s business dealings, then a murder-for-hire plot against the estranged wife of the main suspect. Keith Morrison narrates the episode.
A peaceful, snowy Christmas. Thanksgiving dinner. New Year’s celebrations. None are safe from murder, as Homicide for the Holidays illustrates through cases during what is supposed to be a happy holiday season.
Narrated by the very journalistic-sounding Chris Hansen (To Catch a Predator), the series showcases murders that happened on or around the holidays, and the tangled motivations behind them, including family murders, mass murders, spree killings, intimate partner homicides, and even a case in Santa Claus, Georgia.
Episodes first set the scene with descriptions of the festive atmosphere of the cities and towns, along with home videos and photos of the victims and their families during past holiday celebrations. Then, through heartbreaking testimonials by survivors and family members, stories from detectives, and re-creations, the show details the often shocking murders that occurred, the ensuing investigations, and the impact of the murders on the victims’ families, changing their holidays forever.
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
True Crime Docket 