True Crime & Paranormal documentaries

I must warn people reading this blog post that some of the documentaries I am going to recommend may be deeply upsetting, graphic and not for the faint hearted. If you think you may be upset by some of the documentaries that I recommend, please do not watch them or click the links I provide.

Since I was young, I have been interested in anything strange or paranormal. This has blossomed into spending hours and hours in my teenage years watching documentaries and television programmes about true crime, paranormal events and things that are unexplained by even the best professionals in scientific fields. Here are some documentaries that I recommend you watch if you are interested in these types of things…

Netflix

• The Stanford Prison Experiment – This experiment took place in 1971 as a social psychological experiment on students attending Stanford University. They assigned half the participants as ‘prison officers’ and the other half as ‘inmates’ by random selection. It was intended to look at the psychological effects of power, however it went wrong. The ‘prison officers’ started to humiliate the ‘inmates’, making them do things they didn’t want to. They punished them with physical violence and deprivations, despite this not being in the rules of the experiment. The experiment was abandoned after 6 days. The film on Netflix shows the exact replica of the experiment and what happened. It may be upsetting or distressing.
• The Confession Tapes – This series is true crime, and each episode is different. It follows the lives of people who were convicted of crimes that they didn’t do. It shows the police tapes and recordings and the ways in which the police coerced the victims into confessing to the crimes they had been accused of.
• Mindhunter – This series is a Netflix Original, however it portrays real serial killers such as Edmund Kemper, a serial killer who decapitated his own mother, and killed his grandparents. When asked what his motive was to kill his grandmother, he responded, “I just wanted to see what it was like to kill grandma”. The series follows an FBI agent who wants to learn more about serial killers, and this is where the term ‘serial killer’ came from. He interviews many real life serial killers in the series and it is very interesting. It is based on a book, written by a real FBI agent who worked to delve into the minds of the most insane killers. Some conversations may be distressing for some viewers.
• Amanda Knox – This series follows the true crime of a murder. Amanda Knox was the victims room mate and the victim was found dead by Amanda and her boyfriend. Ultimately, Amanda was deemed a suspect and convicted for the murder of her room mate. However, after appeal she did get released. It shows what happened and the evidence to support the conviction and the release.
• Who Took Johnny? – In 1982, a paper boy called Johnny Gosch was on his paper round when he disappeared. He has never been found, but his mother has searched tirelessly and will never stop working to have him come home. He was the first child to be advertised on the side of a milk carton as missing. From evidence that came to light, he was seen talking to a man driving a car and was taken. Theories have surfaced that he may be involved in a child sex trafficking and pedophilia ring. This is one of my favourite documentaries as there’s so much to it and so many theories as to what happened.
• The Staircase – In 2001, Kathleen Peterson was found at the bottom of the stairs, dead and in a pool of blood by her husband, Micheal Peterson. Questions were asked as to how a fall down the stairs ended up under such grizzly circumstances. Micheal Peterson was convicted of her murder in 2003. However, he still says to this day that he is not guilty of her murder and it was a simple fall down the stairs. One thing that threw me off, were the lacerations to the back of Kathleen’s head. Decide for yourself. Guilty, or not guilty? This documentary/true crime series has graphic images, images of a dead body and scenes you may find upsetting.
• Making a Murderer – Steven Avery was wrongfully convicted of a sexual assault and murder in 1985. After serving 18 years of a 32 year sentence, he was released and owed compensation, at least $36 million, by the police. With his lawsuit still pending, he was then convicted for the murder and sexual assault of another woman and given life without parole. This documentary is extremely interesting, and I whole heartedly believe that Steven Avery is innocent. It shows the evidence and entire case including pictures, tests and interviews.
• Captive for 18 years: the Jaycee Lee story – In 1991, 11 year old Jaycee Lee Dugard was walking to the bus stop for school and was abducted in a car. She would then be imprisoned by her abductor for 18 years, enduring rape and abuse during her time there. She gave birth to two of her abductors children and was thriving for survival for herself and her daughters. She was finally free in 2009. Her story is heartbreaking as I couldn’t imagine going through what she went through in her imprisonment. This may be triggering as it mentions rape and abuse.
• How clean is your crime scene? – This series follows a company that cleans crime scenes for a living. Not only crime scenes though; it can be anything from a deceased individual whose house was a hoarding ground, to a suicide, to just an accidental death that needs cleaning. This is graphic and shows blood, body parts and other gross stuff.

YouTube

• Ghost Adventures – You can find the series on YouTube, but it may also be available on other platforms online. It follows a bunch of paranormal investigators capturing groundbreaking evidence of the paranormal. It can be from ghosts to aliens, but it is mostly spirits and unwanted entities. It shows investigations, aswell as real life accounts from those who are experiencing the activity wherever they may be investigating. I 100% recommend watching this if you’re into the paranormal as much as I am.
• Jonestown: Paradise Lost – This used to be on Netflix, but it has since been removed. Jim Jones was an American cult leader in the early 1970s, and the leader of The Peoples Temple church before creating his own community called Jonestown. In 1978, he convinced almost his entire cult to commit suicide. The majority of deaths were by drinking Kool-Aid with poison in it. This included men, women, pregnant women, children and infants/babies. The recording of the entire speech and suicide is online somewhere, and is around 2 hours long. However, it is quite upsetting as you can hear children crying and silence towards the end. Pictures can also be found online of the scenes after the massacre. It is quite upsetting to watch. This documentary shows recreations of what happened, as well as interviews from survivors who managed to escape or hid from the awful doings that day.
• Bridgend – This is quite an upsetting documentary and it has mentions of suicide. Starting from around 2007, there had been a drastic rise in suicides in the area of Bridgend, South Wales, UK. Many suicides were of teenagers aged between 13 and 17, and the majority were hanging. One of the boys interviewed for the documentary told his mother he would never do such a thing and he couldn’t understand why people were doing it, and it was ‘silly’. However 3 weeks after the interview, despite asking for help from mental health services at the local hospital, he also hung himself. The figures have dropped in recent years, but it was heartbreaking for the community as there were so many suicides in one small period of time. This documentary follows the families and the people affected by the suicides.
• A Certain Kind of Death – This documentary looks at the processes that happen after somebody dies. This is from paperwork to decomposition. Please be aware that this documentary shows actual dead bodies and is not for the faint hearted.
• Kendall Rae – This YouTube channel is ran by a girl called Kendall Rae, and she explores a lot of missing persons cases, hoping to raise awareness for missing people and children. She sells merchandise and all money raised goes towards missing persons charities. She explains each case, and also has series of solved cases aswell as ‘no body’ cases, in which the case has either been unsolved or solved, yet there is no body to determine what really happened. She also does other videos including conspiracy theories.
• Buzzfeed Unsolved – Buzzfeed Unsolved is a series ran by Buzzfeed, talking about the ‘unsolved’. This includes paranormal or true crime. The videos are quite short so they’re easy to watch. There is Buzzfeed: Supernatural and Buzzfeed: True Crime. However, they have recently started their own Unsolved Network as well.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think! Is there anything you have watched that you found interesting or strange?

Disclaimer: some of these documentaries can be quite upsetting and graphic. This post is not meant to offend anybody at all. I have warned at the top of the post of such things, and also in the descriptions if there is anything you should be aware of. I hope you enjoy watching them.