Horrifying true crime docu-series you should be watching on Netflix

True crime is an acquired taste, and sometimes non-followers just don’t understand how the rest of us can watch it or read about it. Yes, it’s often morbid, but here’s my take: I follow enough true crime that I feel fairly confident I could make it out alive if someone tried to grab me. I feel like you have to face the fact that kidnapping, murder, assault exists, and make a plan.

Netflix has an extremely solid roster of true crime docs and series, and I am here to recommend a small handful of them for you, our readers. This list consists of docuseries that have been released within the past five years or so, but I will also list some older ones at the end of the article.

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel – The story of the mysterious death of Elisa Lam has fascinated true crime followers since she disappeared in February of 2013. Because of the weird events surrounding the story, it has also fascinated people who believe in the supernatural.

Elisa made a solo visit to LA, and six days later, her family reported her missing. Although the notorious Cecil Hotel was searched thoroughly, there was no sign of Elisa. There was, however, CCTV footage of her acting very oddly on the hotel elevator, and that footage went viral. Then, on February 19, guests reported that the water in their rooms smelled bad and was brown. That’s when the water tank on the roof was checked, and Elisa’s body was found in it. This series takes the viewer down all the possibilities of what may have led to Elisa’s gruesome end, and ties everything up satisfactorily.

Missing: Dead or Alive? – With two seasons and only eight episodes total, this series is easy to binge. And if you like digging into the human side of working in law enforcement, it is definitely satisfying. At first, it almost feels like a scripted series. But soon enough, we realize that we are watching real people in real time.

Investigator Vicki Rain works in Missing Persons in South Carolina, alongside J. P. and Heidi. In the first season, the four episodes each involve a new case (with some overlap), but in season two, the case of a young man named Morgan dominates, while another case pops up in the final episode.

All of the cases are engrossing, and the outcomes are quite often surprising. I always expect that most missing person cases involve murder, but that is not so. The production value of this series is excellent, and the real people involved are sympathetic.

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer – In the mid-1980s, a serial killer was lurking around the streets of LA and San Francisco Bay. The Night Stalker, as he came to be known, killed at least 15 people in an 16 month period, and he did not have a victim “type.” He did not always kill his victims, he did not always sexually assault them, and his victims ranged from nine years old to 83 years old. This made him difficult to pin down, but people in the areas were terrified.

The eventual capture of Richard Ramirez is both thrilling and terrifying, since he was basically apprehended by citizens, who beat him and restrained him until the police arrived. This series interviews victims, bystanders and law enforcement, giving us an inside look at how sometimes the bad guy gets what he deserves.

I Am a Stalker – I Am a Stalker is absolutely chilling. It’s exactly what the title implies: Multiple people who have been charged in stalking cases tell their stories, along with commentary from victims, witnesses, and law enforcement. The series even includes interviews with women who have been accused of stalking, and some of these cases ended in death.

What struck me was how the stalkers (most of them currently in prison) claim to not have understood that what they were doing constituted stalking. Many say they would never have done what they did if they knew it was illegal. Crazy, right? That’s just the tip of the iceberg with the craziness you will see on display in I Am a Stalker.