Top 10 Most Controversial True Crime Show Episodes Ever
#10: “The Bones”
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“The Disappearance of Natalee Holloway” (2017) The 2005 disappearance of American high school senior Natalee Holloway while on a graduation trip to Aruba quickly gained national coverage. She was declared dead in 2012 after years of investigating yielded few answers. In 2017, Oxygen aired a six-episode series following Natalee’s father Dave Holloway as he and a private investigator followed a new lead in Aruba. Skeletal remains were supposedly found in real-time and her mother Beth was asked to submit a DNA sample for testing, unaware that it was for a TV series. But in the last episode, it was revealed that the bones were not Natalee’s and most weren’t even human. A year later, Beth sued the producers for allegedly knowing beforehand that these weren’t her daughter’s remains, claiming the production was pre-planned.
#9: “The Devil Lives in Cleveland” & “The Conspiracy”
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“The Devil Next Door” (2019) Netflix’s 2019 docuseries “The Devil Next Door” looks at the trial of Cleveland man John Demjanjuk in the 1980s, accused of being a Nazi prison camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible.” In the first and third episodes, maps show concentration camps within what is now modern-day Poland. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, complaining that the maps implied that Poland ran the camps. In response, Netflix announced that they would add on-screen text noting that the country was occupied by Nazi Germany at the time. The subject is so controversial within Poland that in 2018, the government criminalized public speech that attributes responsibility for the Holocaust to the nation.
#8: “Check Out Time”
“Inventing Anna” (2022) Netflix’s “Inventing Anna” lets the audience know before each episode that not everything is true. According to former Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams, the series falsely portrayed her as a snobby freeloader, leading to online harassment. Episode 5 of the series, which centered on the infamous Morocco trip, showed Williams as the one suggesting a pricey vacation at La Mamounia luxury hotel in Marrakech. In reality, it was Anna’s idea. Williams did end up with the bill, but rather than leaving Vanity Fair with the debt, she transferred it to her personal card. Williams filed a lawsuit against Netflix and the Shondaland team for defamation, alleging that they had blurred fiction and reality in dangerous ways.
#7: “A Murdered Mother”
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“Crime Stories: India Detectives” (2021) Netflix’s “Crime Stories: India Detectives” follows the Bangalore City Police as they deal with the city’s various crimes, from kidnapping to murder. The first episode of the series investigates the death of Nirmala Chandrashekar and those accused of her murder - her daughter Amrutha and an alleged accomplice Sridhar Rao. In early October 2021, the Karnataka High Court ordered Netflix to remove the episode based on a petition filed by Rao. Since the series focuses on the police, the investigation, which includes Rao’s interrogation, is framed in their perspective. Televising the opinions of the investigating officers would likely harm Rao’s defense. The streamer temporarily made the episode unavailable, but was later allowed to stream it again when the petition was dismissed.
#6: “Haunting”
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“The Watcher” (2022-) Ryan Murphy released two true crime series on Netflix in 2022 and both managed to draw criticism, though for very different reasons. In “The Watcher”, Murphy significantly deviated from the true story of the Broaddus family and opted for a highly dramatized version of events. With these creative liberties, Murphy could’ve made the anonymous letter sender to be any one of the several suspicious characters introduced throughout the seven episodes. However, the final episode didn’t reveal the identity of the Watcher, leaving viewers disappointed and, in many cases, enraged. They took to Twitter to voice their anger, with some even advising others not to watch it. The series was renewed for a second season, so maybe Murphy will redeem himself.
#5: “The Beating Heart”
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“The Staircase” (2022) When French filmmaker Jean-Xavier de Lestrade sold the rights to his 2004 documentary “The Staircase”, he trusted Antonio Campos to accurately depict the true events in a planned drama series. However, upon its premiere in 2022, De Lestrade and the documentary team alleged it was filled with inaccuracies, particularly Episode 5, which portrayed unethical decisions on their part. Scenes heavily implied that they edited footage to show accused murderer Michael Peterson in a better light. While Peterson and editor Sophie Brunet did fall in love, they didn’t begin a relationship until after Brunet completed her work on the original episodes. De Lestrade, who generously allowed Campos access to his original footage and research, said that he felt betrayed.
#4: “Surrender”
“Under the Banner of Heaven” (2022) Based on Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book, Hulu’s 2022 series “Under the Banner of Heaven” dramatizes the horrific murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty in 1984, and the history of the Mormon Church. Brenda’s sister Sharon Wright Weeks condemned the series for its depiction of Brenda’s endowment ceremony in Episode 3. Because of its sacred nature, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn’t make the temple ritual public knowledge. According to Weeks, her sister treasured the experience and wasn’t creeped out like the fictional Brenda. Members of the church also expressed frustration that the series depicts elements that were part of the ceremony during that time period, without informing viewers that they were later changed in 1990.
#3: “The Happiness of All Mankind”
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“Chernobyl” (2019) HBO’s hit series “Chernobyl” tells the true story of the worst nuclear disaster in history, examining the accident itself and the harrowing aftermath. Though the award-winning series received critical acclaim for acting and storytelling, multiple experts, some of whom treated patients at Chernobyl, openly criticized the depiction of radiation effects. In episode 4, fictional nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk describes Lyudmilla Ignatenko’s newborn baby, who died just hours after birth. The cause of death was allegedly radiation poisoning absorbed from her father, Pripyat firefighter Vasily Ignatenko. However, experts in the field with firsthand experience, including Dr. Robert Gale and Dr. Alla Shapiro, have said this is scientifically unproven. The doctors also stress that patients were not radiative as the show suggests.
#2: “Chapter 6: What the Hell Did I Do?”
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“The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” (2015) For decades, real estate heir Robert Durst, the subject of HBO’s 2015 docuseries “The Jinx”, was suspected of multiple murders. At the time of its premiere, Durst was still a free man. But the day before the finale aired, he was arrested for the death of longtime friend Susan Berman and charged with first-degree murder. Millions tuned in for the sixth episode, which ended with Durst’s possible admission of guilt captured by his microphone. Documentarians Andrew Jarecki, Marc Smerling, and Zac Stuart-Pontier were questioned about the timeline of the production, since it appeared that they sat on his confession in favor of an epic conclusion to their series. Durst’s remarks were also edited out of order, throwing the filmmakers’ integrity into question.
#1: “Silenced”
“Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (2022-) 2022’s most talked about true crime series was Ryan Murphy’s controversial “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” He received heavy criticism for allegedly not contacting the victims’ families, despite claiming to center the series on the victims. Episode six focuses on Tony Hughes, played by Rodney Burford, portraying him as having been in a romantic relationship with Dahmer for some time. While friends confirmed the two knew each other for over a year, Hughes’ mother Shirley said, “It didn’t happen like that.” In Dahmer’s real-life confession, he denied knowing Hughes before the night he met and killed him. “Silenced” has been praised for its representation of the deaf community. But some viewers felt that this particular episode romanticized the serial killer.
