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.
True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines a crime and details the actions of people associated with and affected by criminal events.
Patton 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).
Dylan Baker is an American actor. He gained recognition for his roles in films such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Happiness (1998), Thirteen Days (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Trick 'r Treat (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008), Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), and Selma (2014). On television he has had prominent roles in series such as Murder One (1995–1996), The Good Wife (2010–2015), Damages (2011), The Americans (2016), and Homeland (2018). For The Good Wife he earned three Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Sterling Kelby Brown is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award in addition to a nomination for an Academy Award. He was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.
Ian Clark is an English film director and screenwriter.
Snapped: Killer Couples is an American true crime television series currently airing on the Oxygen Network. The program details couples who commit crimes together. The program is a spin-off of the Oxygen series Snapped and has a similar format to the Investigation Discovery program Wicked Attraction. As of summer 2022 the show has aired sixteen seasons, each with ten episodes. The current narrator is Anna Vocino.
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.
Fear Thy Neighbor is an American-Canadian true crime documentary television series which premiered on April 14, 2014 on the Investigation Discovery channel. The narrator for the series is voice actress Tish Iceton.
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.
Law & Order True Crime is an American true crime anthology series that premiered on September 26, 2017 on NBC. The series was ordered by NBC on July 15, 2016, and is part of the Law & Order franchise. Created by René Balcer, the eight-episode first season, titled Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, is a dramatization of the trial of Lyle and Erik Menéndez, who were convicted in 1996 for the murder of their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez. As of 2023, the series is on hiatus.
BuzzFeed Unsolved is a documentary entertainment web series created by Ryan Bergara for BuzzFeed that ran from February 4, 2016, to November 19, 2021. It first appeared on the YouTube channel BuzzFeed Blue and was later given its own flagship channel BuzzFeed Unsolved Network.
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 fourth and final season of Veronica Mars, an American drama television series created by Rob Thomas, consists of eight episodes that were all released on Hulu on July 19, 2019. It serves as a continuation of the 2004–07 television series as well as the 2014 film. Kristen Bell reprises her role as the title character, and it features the return of several characters from the original series as well as the introduction of new ones.
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.
Mapleworth Murders is an American comedy-mystery series created and written by Paula Pell and John Lutz, who also star alongside J. B. Smoove and Hayley Magnus. It was directed by Claire Scanlon. Lorne Michaels and Seth Meyers serve as executive producers. It premiered on August 10, 2020, on Quibi. In 2023, the 12 episodes began streaming on The Roku Channel.
