10 best true crime docuseries on Hulu
The worst about true crime is the true part. It actually happened. In the real world, True Detective-levels of screwed-up things are happening every day. Like car crashes! And like car crashes, you just can’t look away from the best true crime docuseries on Hulu.
How I Caught My Killer
As much as I wish How I Caught My Killer was the story of restless ghosts solving their murders from beyond the grave, the reality of the show is still pretty cool. This docuseries is about the clues that victims of murder leave behind before their deaths, and how those clues can help law enforcement find killers and bring them to justice. Sadly, justice isn’t always served, as many of the victims in this series come from communities that are all but invisible in the eye of the state, leading murders to be unsolved for years, or forever.
1990s: The Deadliest Decade
Anyone who was alive in the 90’s is remembering it wrong. It wasn’t an idyllic age of nostalgia, the last gasp of a 20th-century world slowly turning digital. That last gasp came because the decade was being strangled! At least that’s what 1990s: The Deadliest Decade would have you believe. This docuseries goes into all the gory details of the decade, revealing how it was one of the most blood-drenched, crime-riddled epochs in recent history.
God Forbid
God Forbid is the story of Jerry Falwell Jr., a longtime Trump supporter whose family is a pillar of the Evangelical Christian community. To the far-right-wing eye, he’s got the perfect family … almost. As it turns out, his wife just so happened to be sleeping with a pool boy for seven-odd years… and he had a penchant for watching. Watch as the God-fearing mask is forcibly ripped off from a supposedly perfect family, revealing that under the surface they’re just as horny and screwed up as everyone else.
Killing County
There are plenty of places in America with corrupt governments. Baltimore, New Orleans, Washington D.C., but how is it that the little county of Bakersfield, California has one of the most screwed up local governments in the entire nation? Killing County is gonna tell you. Named after an epithet for Bakersfield, Killing County dives into the nitty gritty of how the place got its nickname. Police shootings and coverups abound in this series, painting the portrait of a county that has been marred by the justice system time and time again.
The Lesson Is Murder
Have you ever wanted to step inside a murderer’s head? How are you gonna do that without either a) going to grad school for criminal psych or b) cracking one open to look for yourself? Both of those highly impractical choices are rendered obsolete by The Lesson Is Murder, a docuseries that follows psychological criminologist and ex-FBI agent Bryanna Fox and the lessons she teaches to grad students about the minds of killers. Why pay college tuition when a Hulu subscription could get you the same education?
The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Killer is one of the most infamous murderers in American history. He murdered at least five people in the San Fransisco area (and is suspected to be linked to dozens more), all the while getting newspapers to publish a complex cipher that supposedly informed police of his intended victims. While he was never caught, The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer shows the process by which some of criminology’s finest minds were able to put a face to a murderer who had been faceless for decades. It’s been a long time coming.
The Secrets of Hillsong
The Hillsong church was gonna make Christianity cool again. It had all sorts of celebrities filling its proverbial pews. But The Secrets of Hillsong proves that this church had some skeletons in the closet, and I don’t mean the relic bones of saints, I mean some real down-and-dirty secrets. The Hillsong church is—you guessed it—a total cult. This documentary series is gonna show you why.
Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini
Sherri Papini had it all. She had a loving husband. She had a quaint little house. She had friends and family that loved her. It was the perfect little life… and then she went missing. After weeks of a law enforcement search that yielded no results, Sherri finally turned up miles away from home claiming that she had been kidnapped. Detectives began to hunt for the culprit, but something about Sherri’s story didn’t seem to add up. The details had a way of playing musical chairs in her mind, shifting around and getting left out. Eventually, detectives began thinking that maybe she was kidnapped by none other than … herself.
I Love You, Now Die
I Love You, Now Die is the story of Michelle Carter, a young woman who, through a series of text messages, managed to convince her boyfriend to kill himself. It’s a ghastly two-parter, with the first episode detailing how the teens (who only met five times in real life) fell in love and began exchanging text messages that became more and more sinister. After Michelle’s boyfriend was found dead in his car due to carbon monoxide poisoning, she was arrested and tried for murder. The second half of the documentary details her and her attorneys’ unsuccessful fight to prove that she was not culpable in the boy’s death. What makes this series so gripping? It shows that murder weapons aren’t always sharp or loaded, sometimes they’re mundane, everyday objects … like a cell phone.
1. Mommy Dead and Dearest
Mommy Dead and Dearest is the docuseries detailing the now infamous case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a young woman who was convicted of conspiring with her boyfriend to murder her mother after suffering decades of abuse. Dee Dee Blanchard convinced her daughter that she was sick with a host of fictitious illnesses, keeping the girl medicated, gaslit, and trapped under her “care.” It’s a profoundly disturbing tale of torture and the lengths to which a victim will go to escape.
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