Spooky season is upon us. With the weather getting cooler, the sun going down sooner and Halloween slowly creeping up on us, it is time to once again break out the weighted blanket and a true crime documentary. While streaming giants such as Netflix, Hulu and Max offer a plethora of options, it’s not always … Read more
Getting a phone call from a serial killer is the kind of thing most people would find unsettling. For Jana Monroe, it was just another day at work. It was the early 1990s and Monroe, who had been an FBI agent for just over five years — and was the only woman in the FBI’s … Read more
It was supposed to be just another silly episode of “The Dating Game.” At a taping of the popular TV show in 1978, host Jim Lange introduced three male suitors who were there to be cutely questioned by a single woman, Cheryl Bradshaw, sitting on the other side of a partition. She was looking for … Read more
On Aug. 8, 2018, author Jillian Lauren entered B Block at the maximum security California State Prison in Los Angeles to meet Samuel Little, a serial killer thought to have murdered as many 93 women across 14 states between 1970 and 2005. Wheelchair-bound and suffering from diabetes and a heart condition, the 77-year-old inmate took Lauren by … Read more
Thanks to the recent arrest of accused serial killer Rex Heuermann, Lifetime will re-release its true crime movie “The Gilgo Beach Killer” updated with new information. Airing Sunday, August 6 at 8 p.m., the movie is part of the network’s “Ripped from the Headlines” August programming. Previously titled “The Long Island Serial Killer: A Mother’s … Read more
Mexico loves it abuelas. So, in 1998, when a rash of killings seemed to be targeting Mexico City’s elderly women, many of whom were grannies, residents were up in arms. The mysterious murderer was a shadowy figure who came to be known as the Old Lady Killer. In the end, the executioner — a wrestling fanatic with … Read more
Actress Aldís Amah Hamilton can thank a police officer — and a pair of handcuffs — for the inspiration behind “Black Sands,” the Icelandic crime noir series premiering July 20 on Viaplay. “There is an Icelandic detective [Ragnar Jónsson] that has been on the force for 30-something years and he had this idea [for ‘Black … Read more
As if one Zodiac Killer wasn’t scary enough — there may have been killers, plural. The horrifying new theory, explored in the Tuesday-premiering Peacock docuseries, “Myth of the Zodiac Killer,” suggests a surplus of sickos may have been responsible for the various confirmed atrocities attributed to one mythical murderer. The petrifying prospect comes roughly half … Read more
They’re going to show a new kind of “monster.” On Monday, Netflix said that Season 2 of Ryan Murphy’s “Monster” anthology series will be called “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” Season 1 was called “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” starring Evan Peters, 36, in the title role (he also won a Golden … Read more
In his controversial novel “American Psycho,” Pisces Brett Easton Ellis writes, “It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.” Given the popularity of true crime as entertainment and our cultural fascination with serial killers, it would seem we as people crave constant confirmation of that cruelty. … Read more
Robert Anzilotti retired as Chief of Detectives for the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office in 2021. But, as exclusively revealed in the upcoming A&E documentary “The Torso Killer Confessions,” Anzilotti has now closed his seventh cold-case linked to serial killer Richard Cottingham: the murder of Mary Ann Della Sala, who was 17 when she vanished in … Read more
Watching true crime shows may help prepare you if you find yourself in a similar situation, according to an expert on morbid curiosity. Coltan Scrivner, a research scientist at Recreational Fear Lab and an expert in morbid curiosity, feels there’s an almost primal reason people are endlessly fascinated by true crime content. According to Scrivner, morbid curiosity … Read more
There’s a lot to unpack in “The 12th Victim.” Showtime’s riveting four-part documentary recounts 19-year-old Charles Starkweather’s random killing spree in and around Lincoln, Neb. in late 1957 and early 1958 that claimed 11 lives — the first horror show to play out in real time on television as the entire state went into lockdown … Read more
Sometimes, it’s good to be bad. The 1896 short film, “House of the Devil” is widely regarded as the first horror movie ever made. In a handful of minutes, the devil or a devil adjacent demon conjures a woman from a cauldron and tortures two noblemen with bats, a coven of witches and disappearing furniture … Read more
Jeffery Dahmer’s dad is said to be undies attack. In the wake of Netflix’s explosively viral series, “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story,” overzealous fans of the 10-part anthology have allegedly swarmed the Ohio home of the late serial killer’s father, Lionel Dahmer, 86, with vicious, and sometimes lusty, messages for the senior citizen. “We had … Read more
The first body appeared in September 1934, when a beachcomber on Lake Erie saw a half-buried “rotting slab of human flesh.” It was the lower half of a woman’s torso, its legs chopped off at the knees. Just two weeks earlier, another man found what appeared to be a human vertebrae and ribs on another … Read more
The daughter of the notorious “Happy Face Killer” has gained an unlikely following on TikTok, candidly discussing her relationship with her murderous father. Melissa Moore, 43, is one of three children by Keith Hunter Jesperson — a Canadian-born trucker who killed at least 8 women across the US between 1990 and 1995. He became widely known … Read more
Jeffrey Dahmer’s final would-be victim, who escaped and led police to the twisted serial killer’s lair, has been thrust back into the spotlight following Netflix’s widely-watched mini-series “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” — but despite ending the sicko’s spree, the man hailed a hero lived a tragic life. Tracy Edwards became a national name in 1991 … Read more