Netflix Crime Docs to Binge Right Now

In the past few days, I have found myself watching documentaries non-stop. I have binge-watched about 10 of them and found these to be the top three so far. These are mainly crime related, so they give insight into the minds of criminals, which I found to be very intriguing. (Spoilers ahead!!)

1)   Three Identical Strangers– This is probably one of the most insane stories I have ever heard . This documentary was made by CNN, and I have to say that in my opinion they make the best documentaries because they give a lot of information and keep things interesting. Anyway, this documentary follows how these triplets were separated at birth and when they found each other at 19 years old, they became overnight celebrities in New York. It was honestly a happy story until things took a turn. While the three boys rose to stardom in the 1980s, their adoptive parents started to ask the adoption agency (Louise Wise Services) questions about how these boys were separated. The agency had covered up the real reason for separating the triplets, by telling the parents it was because it was easier to have one child adopted than it was three. As it turned out, the adoption agency had teamed up with Peter B. Neubauer, a child psychiatrist, and allowed him to research and use twins and triplets at the agency as lab rats. He separated multiple sets of siblings at birth in an attempt to answer the  question: Is human disposition predestined by genetics or shaped by environment?” As the documentary goes on, there are more secrets that come to light, and there is one last piece of information given which has led everyone to a dead end. Neubauer had all the files from his study locked up at Yale University before he died, and nobody is allowed to access them until 2066. No one will ever know the results, or if the study was even finished until then. In my opinion this documentary was crazy, and I question Neubauer’s mind and what he was thinking when he did this. I definitely recommend you watch this if you like crazy twists, and once again CNN did an amazing job with this one.

2)   Abducted in Plain Sight-This story was so messed up, I don’t even know where to begin. This documentary is about a girl named Jan Broberg who was sexually molested at 12-years-old by her neighbor and family friend, Robert Berchtold. One day, Berchtold told Broberg’s family that he was going to take Jan horseback riding, but he gave her “allergy pills,” which were actually drugs. She woke up in a random trailer and Berchtold recorded a series of tapes and set up this whole scene to convince her that they were abducted by aliens, and the only way to save her family and sister was to have sex with him. I’m not going to reveal too much about this story because this is one that you need to actually sit down and watch for yourself. I have to say that I was appalled by Berchtold’s actions and the therapist that he was seeing basically encouraged him to do all of this. You will be sitting staring at the screen for a good twenty minutes after watching this just trying to process what you’ve just seen.

3)   Conversations with A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes- I just finished this series on Netflix and I think it was very interesting. It wasn’t as crazy as the other two because it was definitely a more well-known story, but after watching it, it makes you think that a serial killer can be out there at any time. I found the story of Ted Bundy very fascinating as I learned about his background from childhood friends versus what he was telling the journalist on the tapes. Bundy claimed he was popular and athletic and just talked himself up when he was younger, but in reality, he wished he was all those things and tried really hard to be that guy. This affected his personality as an adult. He was very charismatic and attractive to the many young women he killed, but if something went wrong, whether it be in trying to kill these women, in court, or just in his everyday life, he would react very differently. He would have these outbursts that were very unlike the man he portrayed. As the episodes went on, it showed how he traveled from Washington to Colorado to Utah and then to Florida (after escaping from jail) killing around 30 women, which is what he confessed to. This documentary led me into the mind of a serial killer and it also left me wanting to know much more about Bundy’s thought process, and if he was diagnosed with any mental disorders. The series explained the story of Bundy very well, but I was left unclear about his life after he was finally put in jail. There is also a new movie that is about Ted Bundy called Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile starring Zac Efron as Bundy, that may be good to watch if you find yourself interested in the story.

 

Feature photo by RiseFeed.com

Other photos belong to HeavenofHorror.com and LATimes.com