Three intriguing true crime docs to watch on Hulu (including Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer)

If you like true crime, and haven’t checked in with Hulu in a while, you are missing out on some really good stuff. From documentaries, to series, to “based on a true story” movies, Hulu really does have a lot of great true crime content.

Each of the titles on this short list are broken up into a handful of episodes, so they are all very binge-able. They are often hair-raising, always compelling and thought-provoking, and have enough twists and turns to keep you fully engrossed. So, on with the show (so to speak), let’s break down our recommendations for true crime on Hulu.

Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story – Steven Stayner’s story is fascinating enough on its own, but with an added shocking twist involving his brother Cary, this true crime story almost seems like an unbelievable film script.

Steven was abducted by Kenneth Parnell in 1972 at the tender age of seven. Parnell passed him off as his son, allowed Steven to go to school, and told him that his parents no longer wanted him. For seven years, Steven was known as “Dennis”, and was regularly molested by his captor. He finally summoned the courage to escape when he was 14 years old and Parnell brought home another intended victim, five-year-old Timmy White. Not wanting the child to go through the trauma he himself had suffered, Steven left the house while Parnell was working and  took himself and Timmy to the local police station.

During his subsequent interview with law enforcement, he told them what had happened, adding, “I know my first name is Steven.” That was the title later used in the made-for-tv miniseries based on his true story.

Captive audience takes us through the events of the kidnapping, its aftermath, the fallout from the miniseries, Steven’s later life as a husband and father, and his tragic death in 1989, only four months after I Know My First Name is Steven first aired. The three-episode series includes interviews with his mother, his sister and his two grown children.

All of that would be plenty of material to build a docu-series out of, but there is more to the story. Steven’s older brother Cary would later turn out to be a serial killer, which is a pretty big twist. The last episode goes into Cary’s crimes and how they affected a family that had already been traumatized by Steven’s kidnapping. It’s a thorough, fascinating and heart-breaking family saga.

Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer – Ann Burgess’s story is fascinating to those of us who are not only interested in true crime, but in the people who investigate those crimes. Burgess was a key player in the early days of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, which was all the more astounding since she is a woman. Women simply weren’t taken seriously in careers such as this in the 1970s.

Her interest in crime began when a favorite uncle was murdered, but she began her career as a psychiatric nurse clinical specialist. She specialized in helping analyze and treat the trauma suffered by victims of rape, and together with Lynda Lytle Holmstrom, she conducted extensive research by interviewing victims.

FBI agents Robert Ressler and John E. Douglas used her as a consultant when they began their work developing methods for profiling serial killers. Her empathy for the victims, combined with Ressler’s and Douglas’s interactions with the killers resulted in a well-rounded program that not only dug into the psychology and methodology of serial murderers, but also assisted in obtaining justice for their victims.

Mastermind educates us not only on Burgess’s important work, but also on her life. While she was up to her eyeballs in horrific murder cases, she was also raising her four young children (who are interviewed as part of the docuseries). Most importantly, Ann Burgess herself speaks, because she is still alive, and still intelligent and well-spoken at nearly 88 years of age. Her work was incredibly important, and it’s great to hear about it in her own words.

Perfect Wife: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sherri Papini – Young mother Sherri Papini disappeared in November of 2016. She had been out jogging, and her husband Keith reported her missing after he went out to look for her and found her cell phone and ear buds.

Sherri’s story captivated the attention of the public; pretty, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she looked like an all-American girl. Though multiple searches were mounted and Keith was eventually eliminated as a suspect, no further trace of her was found.

Three weeks later, on Thanksgiving morning, a 911 call was made by a passerby who spotted Sherri stumbling at the side of the road, injured and wearing chains. Her story was odd, she claimed to have been abducted by two Hispanic women who kept her locked up in a house, beating her and even branding her on her back. She claimed that no one else was involved, only the two women, but DNA from a male and a female was found on her person.

Remember Gillian Flynn’s novel/film Gone Girl? It later turned out that the real story was a lot closer to that one. Eventually, police were able to determine that Sherri’s “abduction” was orchestrated by her, and that she had employed an ex-boyfriend to help her carry it out.

Perfect Wife includes interviews with Sherri’s husband Keith, with her family members, and with law enforcement who worked on the case. Sherri herself did not provide an interview, but ID has a documentary in the works that promises to tell her side of the story. That should be interesting.