Best New True Crime Documentaries of 2025

During a Halloween party, teenagers Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend Owen McKenny received text messages harassing them. It was brief but disturbing, made even worse when they picked back up a year later.

For over a year, the teens were harassed and tormented by an unknown number. And when police finally discover who is behind the texts, it shocks the community to the core.

When Susan Lorincz complained that the neighborhood children were playing too loudly, no one took her too seriously. But the minor disagreement eventually turned deadly.

Told through police body cam footage and instigative interviews, The Perfect Neighbor examines the consequences of Florida’s stand your ground laws.

In 2005, authorities identified Dennis Rader as the serial killer known as the BTK killer.

The entire time he was murdering innocent people, Rader was married and had two kids. His daughter always thought her father was an unassuming family man.

Now, she shares her experience growing up and how his horrific crimes have affected her.

Between 1989 and 1990, Aileen Wuornos murdered seven men while working as a sex worker. She claimed it was self-defense.

Starting with her childhood abuse to her death-row sentence, this documentary looks at what shaped Wuornos into becoming one of the rare female serial killers.

In 2021, the world watched as authorities searched for a missing young woman. She was on a cross-country van trip with her boyfriend when things went wrong. Her life was well documented on social media.

So what went wrong? Her loved ones share the never-before-revealed true story of her tragic murder.

Piper Rockelle was a kidfluencer who generated millions of followers using short-form content and a rotating “squad” of other kids. The videos were playful and innocent.

For the first time, the ex-squad members who were kicked off for various reason share the disturbing reality that went into creating this carefree illusion.

Ruby Franke was a popular YouTube vlogger with millions of adoring followers. On camera, her family was happy, wholesome, and perfect.

No one knew what was happening behind the scenes until she was arrested for child abuse in 2023.

For the first time, the family reveals what actually happened to them when the camera wasn’t rolling.

In the early 1980s, Lamb Funeral Home was a family-owned and operated business in LA.

But when David Sconce was charged, convicted, and sentenced to five years in prison for mutilating corpses, mass cremations, and even hiring a hitman to murder rival morticians, the funeral home became infamous.

Samantha Stites met Christopher Thomas in 2011. For eleven years, Thomas stalked Stites, escalating his obsession until one morning in 2022, he kidnapped Stites and imprisoned her in a soundproof bunker near her Michigan home.

Trapped, alone, and terrified, she eventually escaped only to face a brutal choice in the name of justice.

Dr. Nandipha Magudumana was a celebrity doctor. Thabo Bester was a convicted murderer and rapist who died in a sudden prison fire.

But as authorities investigate, they stumble on the shocking discovery that Bester faked his own death and Dr. Magudumana played an unexpected role.

Jason Corbett was a widower who got a second chance at love. Or so he thought.

But a few years after he remarried, Jason Corbett was dead. The disturbing 911 call and a harrowing crime scene put his new wife and her father as the main suspects.

Was it murder? Or self-defense? Hear both sides of the story before you decide.

Fred West met fifteen-year-old Rose Letts when he was twenty-seven.

Fourteen years later, police started digging in their backyard searching for his daughter. What they found was far more disturbing.

On November 13, 2022, four college students were brutally murdered in their off-campus house. The town they lived in was quiet and shocked the community.

Despite catching and convicting the killer, no one ever got satisfying answers on why the murders occurred. This series explores the aftermath, including how social media sleuths impacted the families.

Featured still via Netflix.