@DocsFansSaturday, April 23, 2016 Tags :Crime,
Drugs
Pablo Escobar became the most powerful drug lord in history amassing an over 20 billion fortune. Along the way he terrorized an entire country and made many powerful enemies the Untouchable Colombian had to be stopped. In this documentary we learn about Escobar's meteoric rise and ultimate demise.
Watch the full documentary now on Documentary Fans Release Date: Duration: .
In late March to early April 2009 police in London began finding body parts of a man they would later come to know as being Jeffrey Howe. With the nature of the crime body parts having to be pieced together to identify the victim the crime became known as the Jigsaw Murder and a manhunt began for the Jigsaw Killer.
Watch the full documentary now on Documentary Fans Release Date: Duration: .
In 2009 Sandra Cantu an 8 year old went missing in California. In the documentary we follow the FBI case to first find Sandra with only local CCTV footage to go on and later find the perpetrator before other children are endangered.
Watch the full documentary now on Documentary Fans Release Date: Duration: .
In the late 1960's Charles Manson had set up a commune of people that referred to themselves as The Family. In 1969 Manson and the family went from petty criminals to cold blooded murderers. In two nights August 9th and 10th 1969 they carried out the brutal murders of seven people. The crimes being in Los Angeles and including the murder of actress Sharon Tate wife of film director Roman Polanski caused panic in the area among those in the film industry believing actors may be targeted if the murder spree continued. In the documentary we hear directly from Manson serving life imprisonment and fellow convicted family members Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten.
Watch the full documentary now on Documentary Fans Release Date: Duration: .
San Quintin is one of the most infamous prisons in the world. With up to 5,000 inmates at any time and up to 600 of them on the largest death row in the USA. In the documentary the crew have been given 30 days to film within the prison, they hear from both sides the prisoners and the prison guards. In often brutally honest interviews we get to see inside the minds of cold blooded killers.
Watch the full documentary now on Documentary Fans Release Date: Duration: .
In 1994 former American footballer and Actor O. J. Simpson was charged with the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and a waiter Ronald Lyle Goldman. The trial that began in January 1995 was broadcast on television across the world, attracting huge media coverage making it the most publicized trial in history. Indeed despite the seriousness of the crime the trial played out like a television drama dividing opinion with characters that seemed almost fictional. The documentary 20 years later looks back at the key moments in the trial, the people involved on both the prosecution and defence and what led to the verdict that shook the world.
Watch the full documentary now on Documentary Fans Release Date: Duration: .
@DocsFansSaturday, April 04, 2015 Tags :Crime,
Featured
On a Monday morning in January 1979 Brenda Spencer fired shots from her house in Cleveland at a school across the road. She killed the school Principal and a custodian and injuring eight children and a police officer, she was 16 years old. A reporter managed to ask Spencer why she did it to which she replied "I don't like Mondays" a quote that inspired one of the most popular songs of the year also called "I don't like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats, this served to highlight the shooting even more.
26 years later Spencer was up before the parole board with a chance to be freed and this documentary gained exclusive access to the parole hearing. In the film we also see how her Mother had for the first time broken her silence and directly blamed her father for Brenda's actions, her mother and father were separated at the time and Spencer lived with her father. Indeed Spencer's father still lives in the house across the street from which she shot at the school. In the documentary we hear from Brenda's mother and after some persuading her father as well as family's and law enforcement involved.
Watch the full documentary now on Documentary Fans Release Date: Duration: .
Aileen Wuornos in 1989/1990 killed seven men, she was a prostitute and at the time claimed she acted in self defence. In 1993 Nick Broomfield made the documentary Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer in which he set out to cover the case but ended up documenting how people were looking to profit from the story. Now ten years later Broomfield is called to testify in a hearing connected to the case; with footage from the original documentary being used as evidence. Broomfield takes the opportunity to cover the story again in a fresh documentary. This time he has improved access to Aileen Wuornos who is still on death row awaiting execution however her decision making and mental health are in question. With her version of events changing so much over the years is she at a point were she just want's it all over ?
@DocsFansSunday, March 01, 2015 Tags :Crime,
Featured
The case of Josef Fritzl shocked the world, in 2008 it emerged the 73 year old Austrian had held his own daughter captive in the cellar of his house for 24 years subjecting her to continuous physical and sexual assault. Perhaps most shocking he got his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl pregnant on eight occasions, four children lived below ground with their mother, three lived with Josef and his wife Rosemarie and one was a miscarriage.
In this 2013 documentary reporter Fred Dinenage tracks the history of the events from 1984 when Fritzl imprisons Elisabeth in a purpose built dungeon through to her release in 2008. How could such a sick act occur and how could Fritzl live an ordinary life outside of the dungeon to the extent his wife Rosemarie did not know what was happening below her own house. Dinenage meets with reporters, police and neighbours of Fritzl to try and answer those questions.
New York City, once one of the most dangerous Cities in the world awash with Gangs, Crime and Drugs with 10% of all murders in America occurring in the Big Apple. Now the city that never sleeps is the safest big city in America, but how did New York achieve something others can't or are the stats glossed over to look more Favorable ? In the documentary film maker Al Profit sets out to answer that question meeting with the people who were key crime figures from the 1970's to the men who claim to have cleaned up the city.
Aileen Wuornos was a prostitute who in the space of one year between November 1989 to November 1990 killed seven men, she claimed at first in self defence. This 1993 documentary by Nick Broomfield does touch on the actual crimes but it's the connection of two characters to Wuornos and the case that are the main focus. Arlene Pralle befriended and subsequently adopted Wuornos after she had been jailed, the adoption was apparently so as Pralle would have greater visitation and contact rights as a guardian. Steve Glazer was hired by Pralle to be Wuornos lawyer after the trial for the first murder.
Broomfield in the documentary is trying to get an interview with Aileen Wuornos and both Pralle and Glazer are acting as intermediaries, all the while looking for huge fees. It's this selling of the story that's highlighted and we find Pralle and Glazer are not the only ones with something to sell. Police involved in the crime are allegedly working with a studio to sell their side of the story to be made into a feature film on Americas first female serial killer.
Ten years after this documentary Nick Broomfield made a follow up documentary and actress Charlize Theron won the academy award for best actress playing Aileen Wuornos in the film Monster.
The Man who shot John Lennon is a Frontline documentary for PBS released in 1988. The film tells the story of Mark David Chapman who on December 8 1980 shot the Beatles front man John Lennon in New York City. The documentary covers Chapman's history leading up to that winter night when he calmly asked musician Lennon for an autograph as he left The Dakota apartment building then waited for him to return before shooting him. Why did Chapman shoot Lennon and what was the connection of the book The Catcher in the Rye ?
Aileen Wuornos in 1989/1990 killed seven men, she was a prostitute and at the time claimed she acted in self defence. In 1993 
