Michelle Christine Trachtenberg is an American actress. Trachtenberg began her career at age three, appearing in a number of commercials, films, and television series as a child. Her starring role on the Nickelodeon television series The Adventures of Pete & Pete (1994–1996) as Nona Mecklenberg was her first credited role. She starred in the Nickelodeon Movies comedy film Harriet the Spy (1996) as the film's eponymous character and in the CBS sitcom Meego (1997) as Maggie, for both of which she won Young Artist Awards.
Pamela Ann Smart is an American woman who was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering in the death of her husband, Greggory Smart, in 1990. Smart, then aged 22, had conspired with her underaged boyfriend, then 15-year-old William "Billy" Flynn, and three of his friends to have Greggory (24) murdered in Derry, New Hampshire. She is currently serving a life sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum security prison in Westchester County, New York.
Polly Hannah Klaas was an American murder victim whose case garnered national media attention. On October 1, 1993, at age twelve, she was kidnapped at knifepoint during a slumber party at her mother's home in Petaluma, California, and strangled to death. Richard Allen Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and sentenced to death.
Patton Peter Oswalt is an American stand-up comedian and actor. His acting roles include Spence Olchin in the sitcom The King of Queens (1998–2007) and narrating the sitcom The Goldbergs (2013–2023) as adult Adam F. Goldberg. After making his acting debut in the Seinfeld episode "The Couch", he has appeared in a variety of television series, such as Parks and Recreation, Community, Two and a Half Men, Drunk History, Reno 911!, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Archer, Veep, Justified, Kim Possible, Modern Family, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He portrayed Principal Ralph Durbin in A.P. Bio (2018–2021) and Matthew the Raven in the TV series The Sandman (2022–present).
Brooke Carol Wilberger was an American student from the state of Oregon who was abducted and later murdered. Her disappearance was covered by the national media; her murder investigation was one of the most publicized in Oregon's history. Joel Patrick Courtney ultimately pleaded guilty to the aggravated murder of Wilberger; he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Tamron Hall is an American broadcast journalist, television talk show host and author. In September 2019, Hall debuted her self-titled syndicated daytime talk show, which has earned her two Daytime Emmy Awards. Hall was formerly a national news correspondent for NBC News, daytime anchor for MSNBC, host of the program MSNBC Live with Tamron Hall, and a co-host of Today's Take, the third hour of Today. She hosts Deadline: Crime on Investigation Discovery channel. In summer 2016, Investigation Discovery premiered the TV special Guns on Campus: Tamron Hall Investigates, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the tower shooting at the University of Texas at Austin.
Asunción "Sunny" Cummings Hostin is an American lawyer, journalist, author, and television host. Hostin is co-host on ABC's morning talk show The View, for which she received nominations for Daytime Emmy Awards, as well as the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News. She was also the host and executive producer of Investigation Discovery's true crime series Truth About Murder with Sunny Hostin.
Barbara Stager is an American woman who was convicted in 1989 of murdering her husband, Allison Russell Stager III, the previous year. Russell was shot while in bed; Barbara reported the shooting as accidental. Her first husband, Larry Ford, had also been killed under similar circumstances a decade earlier.
Ian Clark is an English film director and screenwriter.
Franklin Bradshaw was a Utah industrialist who was murdered on July 23, 1978 by his grandson, Marc Schreuder, at the instigation of his daughter, Frances Berenice Schreuder.
Hadden Irving Clark is an American veteran, murderer and suspected serial killer currently serving two 30-year sentences at Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, Maryland for the murders of 6-year-old Michele Lee Dorr in 1986, and 23-year-old Laura Houghteling in 1992. He was also given a 10-year sentence for robbery after stealing from a former landlord.
Cold Justice is an investigative true crime series originally broadcast on TNT and currently on Oxygen. The series, produced by Dick Wolf, follows former Harris County, Texas prosecutor Kelly Siegler and a team of investigators as they reopen unsolved murder cases with the consent and assistance of local law enforcement. Crime scene investigator Yolanda McClary, a veteran of the Las Vegas Metro police, also appeared on the series; McClary had earlier been the inspiration for Catherine Willows, the character portrayed by Marg Helgenberger on the series CSI.
Nightmare Next Door is a true crime documentary series which aired on Investigation Discovery from 2011 to 2016.
Tilmer Eugene "Cotton" Thompson was an attorney from Saint Paul, Minnesota who hired a hit man to kill his wife. In December 1963 he was sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 1983 and died on his 88th birthday, August 7, 2015. Some Minnesotans suspected that the murder inspired the film Fargo, made by Minnesotans Joel and Ethan Coen in 1996, but Joel Coen denied this in an interview at the time of Thompson's death, saying the film's story was completely made up.
Michelle Eileen McNamara was an American true crime author. She was the author of the true crime book I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, and helped coin the moniker "Golden State Killer" of the serial killer who was identified after her death as Joseph James DeAngelo. The book was released posthumously in February 2018 and later adapted into the 2020 HBO documentary series I'll Be Gone in the Dark.
My Favorite Murder is a weekly true crime comedy podcast hosted by American comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. The first episode was released in January 2016. The podcast debuted at #25 on the iTunes podcast charts and peaked at #3 on April 27, 2018. Weekly episodes regularly land within the iTunes' Top 10 Comedy Podcast chart. As of 2020, the podcast gets 35 million downloads per month.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer is a true crime book by the American writer Michelle McNamara about the investigation of the Golden State Killer. The book was released on February 27, 2018, nearly two years after McNamara's death and two months before an arrest would be made in the case.
The Act is an American biographical crime drama television limited series that premiered in eight parts on March 20, 2019, on Hulu. The plot is based on the life of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the murder of her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, who was accused of abusing her daughter by fabricating illness and disabilities as a direct consequence of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Joey King portrayed Gypsy, while Patricia Arquette played her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard. AnnaSophia Robb, Chloë Sevigny, and Calum Worthy star in supporting roles.
Paul Holes is an American former cold-case investigator for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office. Holes is known for his contributions to solving the Golden State Killer case using advanced methods of identifying the killer with DNA and genealogy technology. Since retiring in March 2018, Holes has contributed to books, television, and podcasts about the Golden State Killer and true crime.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark is an American true crime documentary television series directed by Liz Garbus, Elizabeth Wolff, Myles Kane and Josh Koury, revolving around Michelle McNamara as she writes a book about and investigates the Golden State Killer. The original six-part series premiered on June 28, 2020, on HBO, and concluded on August 2, 2020. A special episode premiered on June 21, 2021.
