Watch or listen to any amount of true crime, and it quickly becomes evident that some of the most disturbing cases involve wrongdoers who know their victims. At times, that might be simply an acquaintance, a co-worker, a classmate or a neighbor.
But most often it’s someone much closer, like a partner, former partner, friend, parent or child. Truly random crimes, in which the perpetrators have no relationship to the victims, are relatively rare, which is comforting — until it isn’t. Hearing about such crimes, where any sense of perceived control is stripped away, can prey on our greatest fears.
Here are four offerings across television, podcast and film that examine these dark, disconcerting fringes.
This three-part 2024 Netflix docuseries about the abduction of Denise Huskins could easily top a streaming list about shockingly botched investigations. It’s stunning how quickly she and her husband, Aaron Quinn (her boyfriend at the time), were dismissed and labeled liars by law enforcement, then mocked by the news media after they had endured a horrific attack. But just as astonishing is how bizarre the crime was.
The documentary, from the filmmakers behind “The Tinder Swindler,” Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins, incorporates interrogation footage and new interviews to illustrate the widespread reluctance to believe the victims. We witness Quinn being pressed as though he were a suspect and Huskins being branded the “real-life Gone Girl,” referring to Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel about a woman who stages her own kidnapping and frames her husband for her disappearance.
The details of what the couple experienced in 2015 in their home in Vallejo, Calif., and during the subsequent 48 hours — a violent assault that included duct-tape-covered goggles, toy guns, a blowup doll and intruders in wet suits — surely sounds far-fetched, but sometimes, as we learn, facts are stranger than fiction.
Podcast
I often have to resist including an episode from this long-running Wondery podcast. Its no-frills format — in which regular people tell the stories of staggering events that altered their lives — allows the gravity of the experiences to be conveyed by those who lived them. And this 2023 episode, told by Brittany Todd, can’t be missed.
One morning in 2018, Todd was going about her daily business, caring for her home and her five children while her husband was away on a tour of duty. Suddenly, a man entered her home and a nightmare began, including the kidnapping of 4-year-old daughter.
As always with this podcast, highly specific warnings are included in the episode notes to ensure that listeners are aware of the sensitive topics that will be discussed.
Documentary Series
When it comes to exploring crimes perpetrated by strangers, almost any documentary about a serial killer will do. But this six-episode HBO docuseries from 2020 (a seventh episode was added in 2021) offers more than just a rehash of unspeakable horrors. It instead tells two enmeshed stories: that of the Golden State Killer, a serial rapist and murderer who eluded police for over 40 years, and that of Michelle McNamara, a true crime writer who became obsessed with unmasking him.
The ambitious, nail-biting series is by the documentarian Liz Garbus. It uses archival crime footage and recordings of McNamara, as well as interviews with survivors, with detectives who worked the case and with McNamara’s husband, the comedian and actor Patton Oswalt. By pulling together numerous threads, it offers a well-rounded account of passion, pain, trauma and perseverance.
Sadly, McNamara died in her sleep in 2016, before her book of the same title was finished; it was later published, thanks to the efforts of her husband, her publisher and her true crime community. And just two months after it was released, in 2018, the killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, was arrested.
Before there was “This Is Actually Happening,” there was “I Survived …,” a docuseries that ran from 2008 to 2015. In each episode, individuals who faced death and lived to tell the story recount their ordeals in great detail. They are seated against a simple black background, and very little, if any, additional footage is added.
This episode, available to stream in its entirety on A&E’s YouTube channel, tells the harrowing experience of two students, Derek O’Dell and Colin Goddard, and a professor, Ishwar Puri, who survived the Virginia Tech mass shooting on April 16, 2007, in which 32 people were indiscriminately slaughtered. Each man explains how the attack unfolded, and what he saw, heard, smelled, and did and didn’t do.
“I Survived…” does a lot of things right, making it an exemplar of the genre, and it is particularly effective when highlighting national or global stories, pulling them out of the headlines and combative online discourse. It brings them down to a human level, helping to cut through our collective desensitization.
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