Grab your favorite Halloween candy, and turn the lights off for these spooky murder cases. Many of the murders occurred on Halloween, at parties, at bars, or when trick-or-treaters ate poisoned candy, and some involve dark nights filled with vampires, paganism, and other elements scary enough to keep you away from Halloween celebrations and trick-or-treaters. From Homicide for the Holidays to Bizarre Murders, these episodes offer something spooky for every true crime junkie.
Homicide for the Holidays: “Halloween Horror” (Season 4, Episode 5)
On Halloween morning 2010, in Oak Harbor, Ohio, Laurie Morse is having trouble getting in contact with Derek Griffin, her nephew, and her sister Sue Liske. When Laurie calls her other nephew, Devon, who is at home, he checks his parents’ bedroom and finds blood. Sue and her husband Bill Liske are dead in the bed. They had been shot multiple times. Upon further investigation of the house, police find Derek dead in his bedroom from blunt force trauma. There is no evidence of forced entry or burglary. Neighbors had heard a banging noise that morning. Police consider whether the murders were part of a cult activity because they occurred on Halloween. When police question Devon, they discover that his stepbrother BJ Liske was at home that morning but was gone by the time Devon returned from church. Further investigation reveals troubling family dynamics and that the killer is close to home.
Homicide for the Holidays: “All Hallow’s Evil” (Season 4, Episode 5)
It’s Halloween 2012 in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and Rebekah Gay doesn’t show up for work. Her manager checks her home, but she’s missing and her purse is there. He then finds her car at a bar near her home, but no one had seen her there, and the driver’s seat had been pushed back. Police talk to John White, Rebekah’s mother’s boyfriend, who went to her home to babysit Rebekah’s son on Halloween morning. He says that he talked to Rebekah from another room until she left for work but never actually saw her. Police find blood in the back of his truck, as well as a necklace. They also discover that he had been convicted of attempted murder and involuntary manslaughter in the past.
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.
Dateline NBC: “The Night Before Halloween” (Season 19, Episode 53)
It’s Halloween morning 1984, and Robin Hoynes is found dead at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Torrance, California, where she worked as assistant manager. Police find evidence of tampering on the restaurant safe and surmise that Robin had been stabbed in an attempted robbery, yet there were no signs of forced entry. They also discover a few drops of blood on the safe and some foam rubber on the floor. They question William Marshall, a former assistant manager who had been recently fired, but his girlfriend provides him an alibi. Police find a boning knife in his backpack and arrest him, but the district attorney says there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute him, and he is released. With no other evidence, the case goes cold until 2003, when detectives re-interview a key witness and link the foam rubber to the killer.
In 1974, 8-year-old Timothy O’Bryan and his sister Elizabeth went trick-or-treating on Halloween with their father Ron in Pasadena, Texas. At home, they examine their spoils. Tim chooses one piece of candy to eat that night: a giant Pixy Stix. Later that night, Tim becomes very sick and is taken to the hospital, where he loses consciousness and dies. Doctors run tests and find cyanide in his blood. Police canvass the neighborhood and take all the candy from the children and parents, finding a total of four Pixy Stix with cyanide. But none of the neighbors had given them out. So who poisoned Timothy? Further investigation reveals a dark plot.
Dead of Night: “Nothing to Hide” (Season 2, Episode 1)
In Bend, Oregon, it’s Halloween night in 2004, and 21-year-old Nicole Hutchings goes to a Halloween party but doesn’t come home. Her parents call the police, who search for Nicole and talk to other people who attended the party, with no answers. After several months, they notice activity on her credit card but find out that it was her mother using the card. Two and a half years later, Nicole’s friend Suzanne comes forward and tells them more about the Halloween party and who killed Nicole.
Killer Kids: “Vampire and the Essay” (Season 4, Episode 8) Handsome Devils: “Blood Lust” (Season 1, Episode 4)
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.
City Confidential: “Monsters on Main Street” (Season 7, Episode 1) Cold Case Files: “Little Girl Lost” (Season 1, 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.
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.
It’s Halloween night 2006 in Seattle, Washington, and a detective discovers a dead body behind a dumpster at a church, along with a cryptic message on a poster. Police find more messages around the church alluding to other victims. They identify the body as that of a local drug dealer, who had died of a drug overdose. But police learn that the victim had recently converted to Christianity after becoming sober. So why was he dead from a drug overdose? And what about the messages found with the body? Was it murder or accidental? A bag of drugs at the scene reveals the answer.
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.
Killer Cases: “Murder Under a Blue Moon” (Season 1, Episode 2) Family Massacre: “The Smith Family” (Season 1, Episode 8) American Justice: “Bad Blood” (Season 15, Episode 13)
This case involves the triple homicide by a man who kills 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.
Valentine’s Day turns deadly in these murder cases I don’t know about you, but my favorite kind of true crime show is the Dateline-esque “the spouse did it” type. And there are plenty of those cases happening on Valentine’s Day, when love turns to murder and romance turns to tragedy. But other murder cases occurred … Continue reading “Forget the Rom-Com: Watch These 30 Valentine’s Day True Crime Show Episodes”
Valentine’s Day turns deadly in these murder cases
I don’t know about you, but my favorite kind of true crime show is the Dateline-esque “the spouse did it” type. And there are plenty of those cases happening on Valentine’s Day, when love turns to murder and romance turns to tragedy. But other murder cases occurred on the day for lovers, including cases of missing persons.
Forget the rom-coms, check out this list of Valentine’s murders instead, murders related to relationships gone bad, missing children, a case involving Oscar Pistorius, and others on Valentine’s Day, even a case of a killer prostitute from 1930s Texas.
Baptist missionaries Nathan and Denise Leuthold live a seemingly happy and devoutly religious life in Peoria, Illinois. On Valentine’s Day 2013, after Nathan reports a possible home invasion, police find her dead from a gunshot wound to the head, in what looks like a botched robbery. They learn that Nathan was having an affair with a Lithuanian exchange student, Aina Dobilaite, which they both deny, but Denise’s notes in her day planner, and text messages between Nathan and Aina, suggest otherwise. Subsequent investigation continues to point to Nathan as the prime suspect.
Keith Morrison tells the story of Richard and Stacey Schoeck, who make a date to rendezvous at a secluded park on Valentine’s Day 2010 in Lula, Georgia. But when she arrives, she finds him dead from five gunshots. Police learn that Stacey is having an affair and question her boyfriend, who has an alibi. They use cell phone and financial records, along with tire marks, to uncover a murder-for-hire plot planned to look like a robbery, involving co-worker Lynitra Ross and personal trainer Reginald Coleman. One particularly chilling piece of evidence: Ross had sent Stacey a text wishing her a “Happy Valentine’s Day,” as if to let her know the deed was done. Although Stacey claims at one point that Richard molested one of their children—with no evidence—life insurance seems the likelier motive.
On the Case with Paula Zahn: “Dance to Doom” (Season 24, Episode 8)
Dateline NBC: “After the Dance” (Season 30, Episode 14)
Ft. Worth, Texas. February 16, 1974. 17-year-old Carla Walker hasn’t returned home from a Valentine’s Day dance with her boyfriend Rodney, who finally arrives at her parents’ house covered in blood, saying that a man pistol-whipped him and abducted Carla when they were parked at a bowling alley after the dance. At the scene, police discover her purse and a gun magazine. They locate her body four days later in a culvert, strangled and raped. They search for the owner of the gun without success, but another abduction occurs, one in which the girl escaped, and Rodney identifies the suspect as Carla’s killer. But he has an alibi and is not charged with Carla’s murder. The case goes cold until 2018, when a new detective collects DNA from Carla’s dress and bra and uses the burgeoning field of genetic genealogy to match it to Glen McCurley, who confesses to police. However, he pleads not guilty, but in a courtroom twist, changes his plea to guilty after his confession is played during the trial.
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Primal Instinct: “Murder on Camera” (Season 1, Episode 5)
Deadline Crime with Tamron Hall: “If I Can’t Have You” (Season 4, Episode 4)
In Plainville, Connecticut, a case of jealousy leads to a chilling 911 call and a Valentine’s Day murder. Tiana Notice has been leading a seemingly uneventful life until her boyfriend of only a few months, James Carter, confesses that he was sentenced to five months for domestic abuse charges against an ex-girlfriend. She decides to date other men while he’s in jail, and upon his release, she ends their relationship. Unable to let go, he begins to stalk her, and she receives threatening emails from his new girlfriend, Jessica. Tiana goes to court to get a restraining order against both of them and discovers that Jessica doesn’t actually exist. Frightened, Tiana’s father sets up a surveillance system in and outside her apartment. On Valentine’s Day 2009, James sends an apology email to Tiana, who finds him waiting at her apartment. He pulls out a knife, stabbing her, and despite her injuries, she is able to call 911 saying that she’s bleeding to death, but the ambulance is too late. The surveillance system captures the murder on audio.
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Dateline NBC: “The Rise and Fall of Oscar Pistorius” (Season 28, Episode 45)
Model and paralegal Reeva Steenkamp is dating South African Paralympic and Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, when he murders her on Valentine’s Day in 2013. He shoots her four times through the bathroom door at his house in Pretoria, insisting that he thought she was an intruder and feared for his life. But his neighbors report hearing yelling that night, and further investigation reveals that Pistorious had been abusive and controlling towards Reeva. What was his real motive?
Secrets of the Morgue: “My Bloody Valentine” (Season 1, Episode 9)
Snapped: “Kimberly Hricko” (Season 1, Episode 5)
Forensic Files: “Whodunit” (Season 6, Episode 12)
Sins & Secrets: “Happy Valentine’s Day” (Season 4, Episode 2)
Deadly Women: “Behind the Mask” (Season 3, Episode 4)
Valentine’s weekend 1998, and Stephen and Kim Hricko plan a romantic getaway at a beach resort in Maryland. They attend a murder mystery play, and upon returning to their room, argue, so Kim leaves. When she comes back from taking a walk, she finds their room on fire, and firefighters discover Stephen dead. Kim insists that Stephen must have been drinking and passed out, accidentally setting the bed on fire with a cigar. As police investigate, they determine that Kim is less than the innocent wife she appears to be, and life insurance proves to be a strong motive.
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In Linton, Indiana, Valentine’s Day turns deadly when Connie Tomich finds her husband Ron murdered in their home. He had been shot, but evidence of a robbery is lacking. As detectives question those in his inner circle, they learn from Connie that he had received threatening calls from people he had laid off at work, but his supervisor counters that claim, saying there were no issues with his co-workers. Police discover that Connie was having an affair with Ron’s friend while he was working out of town. But Connie has an alibi: she was shopping with her daughter, Alyssa, and daughter’s friend, Melissa. Alyssa says she heard gunshots when they got home, after Connie and Melissa went into the house. A twisted plot unravels, leading to the killer, or killers.
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People Magazine Investigates: “The Delphi Killer” (Season 5, Episode 4)
Down the Hill: The Delphi Murders
In Delphi, Indiana, Liberty German and Abigail Williams decide to visit Delphi Historic Trails on February 13, 2017. When Liberty’s dad arrives to pick them up, they’re nowhere to be found. Police, family, and friends scour the trails for them and come across their bodies on Valentine’s Day. Audio from one of their cell phones reveals a chilling recording of a man saying “down the hill,” and police release the recording to the public to see if anyone recognizes it, or the sketches of the suspect. The case is unsolved to this day.
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True Crime with Aphrodite Jones: “Loved to Death” (Season 3, Episode 6)
Dateline NBC: “Valentine’s Day Mystery” (Season 18, Episode 24)
American Monster: “The Last Valentine” (Season 3, Episode 7)
Susan Hamilton and her husband John, an OB-GYN, live in a ritzy suburb of Oklahoma City. On Valentine’s Day 2001, he stops by the house between surgeries to find Susan dead in the bathroom, naked, bludgeoned, and strangled. John seems over-emotional during the police interview, and detectives figure out that the neckties used to strangle Susan came from his closet. They also discover her blood in his car and on the inside cuff of his shirt, as well as her jewelry hidden in a drawer, as if to stage a burglary. During the search of his car, they come across a Valentine’s Day card from Susan implying that there was a problem in their marriage, and after further questioning of her friends, determine that she had decided to divorce John because she thought he was having an affair with a stripper. Furthermore, his alibi doesn’t check out.
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On the Case with Paula Zahn: “Ring of Truth” (Season 8, Episode 14)
On February 16, 2009, a body is found on the side of the road in the San Bernardino Mountains. It is identified as Cori Desmond, whose Jeep is located 80 miles away in Redondo Beach, where she lived. She had left work in the evening on Valentine’s Day and was seen at a bar arguing with a man. A woman comes forward, informing police that her boyfriend, Tony Perez, never came home on Valentine’s Day and had been acting suspicious. Was he the killer? Or someone else she ran into that night?
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February 13, 2001. Pat Viola isn’t at home in Bogota, New Jersey, when her husband Jim returns from work with Valentine’s Day gifts. An alarm had gone off that morning while she was at work, but nothing is disturbed when she comes home at noon. Jim comes across her purse, phone, and epilepsy medications still in the house. Detectives learn that she had told a friend that she was upset about something, something a mystery to everyone, and needed to talk. Was it suicide? A seizure? The case goes cold, but her body is eventually found.
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The Real Story with Maria Elena Salinas: “Killer Valentine” (Season 2, Episode 9)
Valentine’s Day weekend 2009 in Washington, DC, and Pam Butler is missing. When her family checks her home, they encounter an eerie scene in the bedroom with the sheets removed from the bed and a window unlocked. Her purse is also there. Police watch the video from her surveillance system and see her enter the house with her boyfriend Jose Rodriguez-Cruz on February 12, who leaves the next morning. He returns that evening with flowers, and the video catches him outside several more times. During questioning, he admits that they argued about his ex-girlfriend and then broke up. Cameras capture him carrying things out of the house over the next three days. A previous relationship in his life also involved a missing woman, deepening the detectives’ suspicions.
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See No Evil: “The Man in the Red Jacket” (Season 5, Episode 16)
Valentine’s Day 2015 in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. James Enright and his friend Victoria plan an anti-Valentine’s Day night. Things get slippery at the train station later that night when concerned citizen Victoria records a fight involving two men (one in a red jacket) and some others. When the man in the red jacket sees her recording him, he attacks her, punching her through the open car window. James, aiming to defend her, exits the car and is stabbed once in the chest, off-camera, but Victoria’s phone records the audio from the entire attack. The man in the red jacket, Taitusi Vikilani, turns himself in to the police, says he was drunk and can only remember punching Victoria, but not stabbing James. His friend, Jesse Sellam, who was at the station that night, had left town and someone else points the finger at Jesse for the stabbing. Who was the real killer?
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Crime Stories: “The Missing Mom” (Season 7, Episode 3)
Betrayed: “Beware the Au Pair” (Season 3, Episode 8)
Valentine’s Day 2007 in Washington Township, Michigan, should have been a romantic day for married couple Tara Lynn and Stephen Grant. Instead, he reports that Tara Lynn had been missing for five days after she left with someone in a black car. Detectives question her boss and nanny, but Stephen refuses to speak to the police and makes friends with the press instead, claiming that maybe Tara was having an affair. When a random stranger comes across a plastic bag with latex gloves and blood in it near their home, the police comb through their garage and discover a suspicious plastic bin containing a dismembered torso. They hunt for evidence in a nearby park and find other body parts, all belonging to Tara. The autopsy reveals the cause of death as strangulation, and Stephen confesses that he choked her in a rage after they argued on February 9, possibly over her work schedule or his affair with the nanny.
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Deadly Women: “Bad to the Bone” (Season 10, Episode 3)
1933. Toni Jo Henry, a prostitute and heroin addict in Shreveport, Louisiana, moves to Austin, Texas, and becomes a waitress. She meets former boxer Claude “Cowboy” Henry in 1939, who helps her quit her heroin habit. They marry, but her former life confronts her when a previous customer sees her at a bar and asks if she’s still turning tricks. Claude beats him to death and goes to prison, and she conspires with his friend, Arkie Burks, to rob a bank in order to get money for a new lawyer to help Claude. On Valentine’s Day 1940, they rob and murder Joseph Calloway, whose car they planned to use as a getaway car. Both are sentenced to death.
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No One Can Hear You Scream: “Big Sky Mystery” (Season 1, Episode 3)
In Poplar, Montana, in 2013, a state trooper comes across a strange scene on the side of the highway: an abandoned car, with the keys and two guinea pigs locked inside. The car belongs to Nicole Waller, who had gone to visit her boyfriend Cory Johnston in Fairview. Texts to friends say that she was returning home on Valentine’s Day because they couldn’t work out their problems. Cory contends that he hadn’t gone home the night of February 13 because they argued about him dating her friend Amy, and that Nicole was gone when he returned the next day. Surveillance video on Valentine’s Day shows a truck following Nicole’s car, a truck that the police learn belonged to Cody’s friend Bill, who had given Cody a ride that morning after he left a car on the side of the road. Unbeknownst to Bill, the car turned out to be Nicole’s. He also tells detectives that Cody had asked him for a barrel, the reason also unknown. They arrest Cody, even though Nicole’s body has never been found.
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Scorned: Love Kills: “A Fatal Affair” (Season 1, Episode 11)
Gwinnett County, Georgia, in 2010. A happy Valentine’s Day turns tragic. Shelley Dunn spends the day with her new boyfriend Travis, after leaving her jealous and abusive husband Chad. Chad gets a pocket dial from Shelley and hears a man’s voice in the background, enraging him. She goes to pick up the kids from him, and they argue about Travis. Chad stabs her three times in the back and stabs himself in the chest, all in front of their kids. She dies, but he lives, and is found guilty of murder.
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On the Case with Paula Zahn: “A Heartbreaking Discovery” (Season 20, Episode 15)
Boulder, Colorado. Valentine’s Day 2017. A missing persons case turns into a monstrous murder of a young mother. Ashley Mead is reported missing by a co-worker, and even more alarming, so is her 13-month-old baby. At her apartment, detectives find a partially cooked dinner, the door open, and her purse, glasses, ID, and cell phone left behind, but her car gone. Her ex-boyfriend Adam Densmore, who she was stilling living with, has also disappeared. They learn that Ashley’s last cell phone activity was two days earlier, coinciding with a loud noise coming from her apartment. Adam’s parents in Louisiana tell detectives that he had just been there with the baby and was on his way to Arkansas. Police question Ashley’s new boyfriend, search his home, and determine that he has a solid alibi. When they finally get in touch with Adam, he admits that he and Ashley had a fight, so he left with the baby. Detectives see scratches and a bite mark on his body, and a person at a gas station comes forward after stumbling across a suitcase with a human torso inside. The torso is identified as Ashley’s, and cameras show Adam putting the suitcase in the dumpster. They also find a saw in a shed at his parents’ house with blood and tissue on the blade.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Women commit about 12 percent of the murders in the US, and people want to know about them. From Snapped to Killer Couples, Deadly Wives to Deadly Women to Wives with Knives, and Dateline NBC to Meet, Marry, Murder, female killers get equal time in true crime shows. And in Murder She Solved, the spotlight is on the female investigators who solve murders.
Snapped
Thought women don’t kill? Snapped proves otherwise. Snapped is a long-running show featuring 31 seasons of murders perpetrated by women through various means, from poisoning, to stabbing, to gunshots, to murder-for-hire. It balances narration, re-creations, and the victim’s and suspect’s background and relationship with interviews with detectives, prosecutors, and victims’ families and friends, sprinkling police interviews and trial clips into the story.
The draw of the show is its ability to show how a relationship can devolve and how detectives discover that it isn’t what it first appears to be. Episodes in Seasons 1-23 detail the suspect’s background first; recent seasons tell the victim’s life story first.
Suggested episode: A special 90-minute episode, Season 26, Episode 15 features the case of Sheila Davalloo, a pharmaceutical researcher who not only murdered her romantic competition but also attempted to kill her husband. Davalloo tells her side of the story in a prison interview.
Produced by the same folks who make Snapped, this show (also called Killer Couples) focuses on couples who kill together, mostly heterosexual, with plenty of women taking the lead. Episodes delve into cases involving love triangles, spree killings, serial killers, murder for financial gain, and others.
Suggested episode: Season 3, Episode 9 covers the famous Canadian killer couple of Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, who tortured, sexually assaulted, and killed at least three victims.
While Dateline doesn’t only focus on female killers, its dedication to murders of romantic partners qualifies it for this category. Plenty of women hire others to kill or do their own dirty work.
Dateline includes episodes with other investigative pieces than murder (such as the recent Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation case), but it mostly concentrates on true crime.
Although it can sometimes be predictable, the writing leaves the audience wondering until the end as to the identity of the murderer. Dateline’s storytelling and the correspondents’ empathy for victims’ families and friends, makes it a standout in the genre. Correspondents like Keith Morrison often interview suspects before or after conviction, and their hard-nosed questioning is a highlight.
Suggested episode: Dateline has covered many well-known cases, from the Kathleen Peterson case to the Gianni Versace murder, but the lesser-known ones can be just as compelling. Try “The Real Thing About Pam” (Season 30, Episode 22), which is the same case from the Dateline podcast and NBC fictional series, or “The Ascension of Mother God” (Season 30, Episode 4).
Meet, Marry, Murder features disturbing homicide cases committed by one spouse against the other, often preceded by domestic abuse or coercive control, and women are just as likely to be the abuser.
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.
Suggested episode: Season 1, Episodes 9 and 42 provide dual coverage of the Kathy Augustine murder by her husband Chaz Higgs and the murder-suicide involving her daughter, Dallas Augustine, and Dallas’ wife.
Where to stream: Tubi, True Crime Network, Peacock, The Roku Channel
Deadly Women answers the question: Do women kill? Yes, they most certainly do. It tells stories of female murderers using all sorts of methods, from poisoning, to stabbing, to guns, just as well as men, if not as prolifically.
Deadly Women groups episodes by theme, such as greed, jealousy, forbidden love, obsession, revenge, and the like, even historical murders, which are not usually covered in other series, and those from countries outside the US. Some of the cases are detailed elsewhere (see Snapped, for example), but Deadly Women presents them using dramatized re-creations, with dialogue, that emphasize the murders themselves, rather than the subsequent investigations.
Suggested episode: Season 3, Episode 8, “Fatal Obsession,” includes the murder of pregnant woman Bobbie Joe Stinnett by a killer who wanted to steal her unborn child.
Where to stream: Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Discovery+
At first, Deadly Wives might come across as just another murder show about women who kill, but its draw is the sarcastic narration of 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 show has episodes with 1-2 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, providing a lighter take on intimate partner homicide and trading suspense and cliffhangers for barbs that might shock some viewers and delight others.
Suggested episode: Season 1, Episode 10 (“Opposites Attract”) includes the murder of Bruce Cleland by his wife and her cousins, along with the murder of Becky Klein by her wife.
Stabbing is the method of choice in this true crime series about female murderers and attempted murderers. Each episode gives viewers an inside look at one case and the motives of a wife or girlfriend who stabbed her romantic partner. The show centers on the stories of the wives themselves, who give their version and provide interviews with criminologist and criminal behavior analyst Casey Jordan, who also adds psychoanalytic commentary.
Wives with Knives also brings on the wives’ families and friends, who detail the context of their lives and background. The show intersperses the competing sides of the story with dramatized re-creations (with dialogue) that tell the story event by event, focusing on what led up to the murder, in some cases abuse, and the murder itself, without a lot of information on the investigation that followed. The show’s unique presentation of both sides of the story makes it a fascinating watch.
Suggested episode: In “Demons, Drugs and Darkness” (Season 2, Episode 4), a woman who battles schizophrenia and meth addiction stabs her ex-boyfriend.
Murder She Solved emphasizes a different side of the coin: investigations involving female detectives, pathologists, and others (like private investigators, forensic scientists, and criminal profilers), who share their experiences solving homicides in the United States and Canada. It eschews fancy prose or 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.
Suggested episode: In “Never A Doubt” (Season 3, episode 4), the wife of a man wrongfully convicted for killing his mother-in-law investigates the case herself and finds the real killer.
Where to stream: Amazon Prime Video, True Crime Network
Killer women are the focus of this long-running true crime series
About Snapped
Thought women don’t kill? Snapped proves otherwise. Snapped is a long-running true crime show featuring 31 seasons of murders perpetrated by women through various means, from poisoning, to stabbing, to gunshots, to murder-for-hire. It balances narration, re-creations, and the victim’s and suspect’s background and relationship with interviews with detectives, prosecutors, and victims’ families and friends, sprinkling police interviews and trial clips into the story.
The draw of the show is its ability to show how a relationship can devolve and how detectives discover that it isn’t what it first appears to be. Episodes in Seasons 1-23 detail the suspect’s background first; recent seasons tell the victim’s life story first.
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
True Crime Docket 