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.
The Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, sometimes called the Atlanta child murders, was a series of murders committed in Atlanta, Georgia, between July 1979 and May 1981. Over the two-year period, at least 28 children, adolescents, and adults were killed. Wayne Williams, an Atlanta native who was 23 years old at the time of the last murder, was arrested, tried, and convicted of two of the adult murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Dennis Lynn Rader, also known as BTK, is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Although Rader occasionally killed or attempted to kill men and children, he typically targeted women. His victims were often bound, sometimes with objects from their homes, and either suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled with a ligature.
Cruising is a novel written by New York Times reporter Gerald Walker and published in 1970. The novel is about an undercover policeman looking for a homosexual serial killer in the gay New York City of 1970. The murder victims were closeted or relatively open men who came across the killer while cruising for sex. While undercover, the policeman develops feelings for his gay neighbor.
The history of violence against LGBT people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals (LGBT), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative rules and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBT may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common.
Brian J. Frederick is a cultural and queer criminologist. They currently serve as an assistant professor of criminal justice at SUNY Empire State College in Brooklyn.
HBO Documentary Films is an American production and distribution company, a division of the cable television network HBO that produces non-fiction feature films and miniseries.
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.
Between 2010 and 2017, a total of eight men disappeared from the neighbourhood of Church and Wellesley, the LGBTQ village of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The investigation into the disappearances, taken up by two successive police task forces, eventually led to Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old self-employed Toronto landscaper, whom they then arrested on January 18, 2018. On January 29, 2019, McArthur pleaded guilty to eight counts of first-degree murder in Ontario Superior Court and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for twenty-five years. He is the most prolific known serial killer to have been active in Toronto, and the oldest known serial killer in Canada.
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.
Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer is a 2020 American true crime docuseries that premiered on Amazon Prime Video on January 30, 2020. The 5-part miniseries was created and directed by Trish Wood. Many viewers who rated the film praised its emphasis on victims, while some objected to its focus on the feminist movement. The incorporation of feminist critique and social contextualization is akin to that seen in later episodes of the Netflix crime docuseries, The Ripper.
Pride is an American documentary television miniseries revolving around LGBT rights in the United States decade-by-decade. It consists of 6 episodes and premiered on May 14, 2021, on FX.
The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness is a 2021 docuseries that premiered on Netflix on May 5, 2021. The show profiles Maury Terry, a journalist who spent 40 years trying to prove that the notorious serial killer David Berkowitz did not act alone. The series is directed by Joshua Zeman and features Paul Giamatti as the voice of Maury Terry.
Story Syndicate is an American film production and television production company founded in 2019 by Liz Garbus and Dan Cogan. The company primarily features documentary films and television series.
Richard Westall Rogers Jr., known as The Last Call Killer, is an American serial killer who murdered and dismembered at least two gay and bisexual men between 1992 and 1993. His modus operandi consisted of luring men from piano bars in Manhattan, murdering and dismembering them at an unknown location, and dumping their bodies in garbage bags along highways in New Jersey. He is suspected of murdering several other men in Maine, Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Missing From the Village: The Story of Serial Killer Bruce McArthur, the Search for Justice, and the System That Failed Toronto's Queer Community is a 2020 non fiction book by Canadian journalist Justin Ling.
The Townhouse Bar of New York, or simply The Townhouse, is an upscale gay piano bar which opened in 1989. It is located in the Midtown East, Manhattan neighborhood of New York City.
Howard Gertler is an American film producer. He has produced narrative and documentary films including Shortbus (2006), World's Greatest Dad (2009), How to Survive a Plague (2012), How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2017), Crip Camp (2020), and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022). He has been nominated for two Academy Awards and a BAFTA.
Anthony Caronna is an American film director. They have directed the documentary film Susanne Bartsch: On Top (2017), and directed an episode of Pride (2021), and Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York (2023).
