True Crime Domestic

In the early morning hours of August 13, 2018, Shanann Watts was dropped off at her Frederick, Colorado, home by a colleague after returning from a business trip. It was the last time anyone would see her alive. By the next day, Shanann and her two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, had been reported missing, and her husband, Chris Watts, was appearing on the local news, pleading for his family's safe return. But Chris Watts already knew that he would never see his family again. Less than 24 hours after his desperate plea, Watts made a shocking confession to police.

When high school sweethearts Karen and Richard Sharpe married, they shared an interest in medicine, a desire for family, and a dream for the future. For Karen, that dream became a nightmare. After years of abuse at the hands of her physician husband, she put an end to their 26-year marriage. Fearing a crushing divorce settlement, Richard ended the marriage first by unloading a .22-caliber rifle into Karen's chest. The murder revealed more about the millionaire doctor - and his double life - than polite Boston society was prepared for.

A shocking true story that reveals how one woman was tormented to the very depths of despair by her husband through coercive control and continual physical and sexual abuse. Broken in mind, body and spirit and completely isolated from the rest of the world, Hannah thinks she’ll never find the strength to escape, until one day an opportunity arrives....

Ten years ago, Katy, a promising young journalist, left her desk and was never seen again. Someone knows what happened to her. The controlling boyfriend? The inappropriate professor? The clingy colleague? When Katy went missing, it wasn’t just her devastated mother, Grace, whose life was ruined. Now, a new documentary delving into the missing person case threatens to open old wounds. As Grace gets closer to the truth, she discovers just how far people are willing to go to keep the past hidden.

Abused from the age of eight by her older brother and then her step-father, Maureen Wood quickly became numb to the constant suffering. But Maureen’s world crumbled when her own mother started to abuse her too. A Family Secret is the harrowing true story of how one little girl survived sickening abuse by the people who should have loved her most and how an innocent baby finally saved her.

A heart-stopping story of lies, brutality, and fear. British girl Megan Stephens tells the true story of how an idyllic Mediterranean holiday turned into an unimaginable nightmare when she was tricked into becoming a victim of human trafficking and held captive for six years through deception, threats, and violence.

Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation. Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide—a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Van follows her gut. Harry trusts in facts. They’re both desperate to catch a killer before he kills again.

Elodie Fray wants to be more like her perfect sister, Ada, the one her parents are actually proud of. When she decided to quit her job and pursue her dream of becoming an author, she thought it would be her time to shine, but a year on nothing has happened. And she's getting desperate. When Elodie makes one small mistake on a drunken night with a friend, things quickly spiral and suddenly everyone believes she has a book deal. Unable to find a way back from her little lie, her perfect dream becomes a perfect nightmare - and desperate times call for desperate measures.

A devastating story of coercive control and domestic homicide. Why would an 'ordinary' father murder his family? On 19 July 2016, Claire and Charlotte Hart were murdered in broad daylight, by the family's father, using a sawed-off shotgun. He then committed suicide. Luke and Ryan Hart, the two surviving sons, open up about their experiences growing up and the circumstances surrounding the murders. They hope to highlight the patterns of behaviour in coercive control and its deadly consequences, improving public awareness and leading to informed discussion on domestic abuse.

Verity is telling lies. And that's why she's about to be arrested for attempted murder. Serena has been lying for years. And that may have driven her daughter, Verity, to do something unthinkable. Poppy's lies have come back to haunt her. So will her quest for the truth hurt everyone she loves? Everyone lies. But whose lies are going to end in tragedy?

This gripping title from the author of My Life with Murderers and A Plot to Kill explores the tragic prevalence of domestic murder and how, for so many victims, their own home is the place they are most in danger. David Wilson is the UK's leading criminologist and his knowledge of murder is unparalleled. By walking through each part of the house, he explains how each room's purpose has changed over time, the weapons they contain, and ultimately, how these things combine in murder.

If you want to keep a secret, put it on Facebook! What would you do if you found out that the man you married had a secret life that culminated in the ultimate betrayal? Yve Gibney tells the real-life story from their love-at-first-sight chance encounter while working as expats in Nigeria to the gradual realization that her husband of 19 years, Maurice Gibney, was actually full of deceit, manipulation, and coercive control and that their marriage had been a lie from the moment they had met.

They were a picture-perfect family - until a bitter divorce drove Darren Mack over the edge. A Reno millionaire, Mack was ordered by the court to pay his wife $10,000 a month in alimony. Instead, he stabbed her in the garage while their daughter watched TV upstairs. The only person Mack hated more than his wife was the family court judge who presided over their divorce. So, after killing his wife, he loaded his gun and went after the judge...and headed for Mexico with a stash of concealed weapons.

June Briand shot four bullets into her husband's head and was sentenced to 15 years to life. This is the shocking, true story of survival - and the intense bond June shared with her pathologically violent husband, a monster who physically and sexually tortured, degraded, and dominated her so relentlessly she refused to believe he was dead even after she killed him.

The plea of insanity in criminal cases can be traced back at least to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, which dates from 1755-1759 BC. It is a complicated defence, and its origins in modern law lie with the 'M'Naghten Rules' of 1843. Clearly a plea of insanity in murder cases is of critical importance when the death penalty is still applied, and even today it may still be the difference between a life sentence in a high-security prison, or an indeterminate one in a secure psychiatric hospital.

She was a beautiful, gifted descendant of Lady Astor. But Elizabeth Haysom was also a spoiled, willful daughter of privilege. He was the brilliant young son of a German diplomat. But his love for Elizabeth would draw Jens Soering into a web of madness and murder. When Elizabeth's parents were found savagely butchered in their elegant Virginia country home, she and Jens fled to Europe - igniting an international manhunt that spanned three continents.

Foster carer Maggie Hartley is finally enjoying a well-earned holiday from fostering, savouring time with her brand-new baby granddaughter. One night, though, the peace and quiet is interrupted by an urgent call from Social Services. A man has been stabbed, and Social Services need to find an emergency placement for his little girl. Maggie is used to children arriving on her doorstep at all times of the day and night, but nothing can prepare her for the sight of 11-year-old Nancy.

Monique, the daughter of San Diego Chargers football great Earl Faison, married her high school sweetheart soon after she discovered she was pregnant with his child. Her relationship with Chris was shaky from the start, but turned tumultuous as he became verbally and physically abusive. When she could no longer put up with the abuse, she left him with their children. That was when the stalking and genuine threats began. Nothing stopped him - not protection injunctions, police warnings, or even arrests. One fateful Monday morning, Chris kidnapped Monique....

Sandy Johnson was in shock. Her husband, Duane, and young daughter, Sherrie, were violently ill when word arrived that her infant nephew just died of mysterious causes. Days earlier, the entire family was happy, healthy, and living the American dream. Now they were at the center of a terrifying medical crisis. Duane soon died in a condition unlike anything the doctors had ever seen. As they raced to discover what disease or toxin could have done so much damage so quickly, Lt. Foster Burchard of the Omaha police began to suspect foul play.

Award-winning filmmaker Tanya Selvaratnam bravely recounts the intimate abuse she suffered from former New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, using her story as a prism to examine the domestic violence crisis plaguing America. Sensitive and nuanced, Assume Nothing details how Tanya’s relationship devolved into abuse, how she found the strength to leave - risking her career, reputation, and life - and how she reclaimed her freedom and her voice.