With access to family, neighbours and professionals who knew Michael Donovan, this is the story of the man who abducted 9-year-old Shannon Matthews in 2008 and kept her in his flat for 24 days before she was found in a dramatic rescue by the police.
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The people behind it
Karen Matthews
Self (Archive)
Lucy Thornton
Self (Daily Mirror Reporter)
Nick Townsend
Self (Detective W.Yorkshire Police)
While doing a friend a favor and searching for a runaway teenager, a police detective stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery.
Virginia McCullough murdered her parents and lived with their bodies for four years.
Over the course of a decade, editors of the San Francisco Chronicle entice themselves in the murders of the Zodiac Killer. However, as time runs its course, interest in the case dwindles in the eyes of the professionals. The Killer stops interacting with the public. However, believing he has the answers, an amateur cartoonist from the initial sightings races against time to prevent what he believes is another murder.
Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth travels to the West Yorkshire moors, known as "Bronte Country". It is an area that shaped the Bronte sisters, and they have, in turn, helped shape it. He explores some of the influences on their writing.
Shortly before dawn on August 21, 1992, six heavily armed U.S. marshals made their way up to the isolated mountaintop home of Randy and Vicki Weaver and their children on Ruby Ridge in Northern Idaho. Charged with selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent, Weaver had failed to appear in court and law enforcement was tasked with bringing him in. For months, the Weavers had been holed up on their property with a cache of firearms, including automatic weapons. When the federal agents surveilling the property crossed paths with members of the family, a firefight broke out. The standoff that mesmerized the nation would leave Weaver injured, his wife and son dead, and some convinced that the federal government was out of control. Drawing upon eyewitness accounts, including interviews with Weaver’s daughter, Sara, and federal agents involved in the confrontation, Ruby Ridge is a riveting account of the event that helped give rise to the modern American militia movement.
Revisit the events of 1984, when six female vigilantes kidnapped an Auckland University lecturer and assaulted him in a violent political action, triggering debates about gender politics that divided New Zealand and led to social change.
The line between justice and revenge blurs when a devastated family uses social media to track down the people who killed 24-year-old Crystal Theobald.
Journalist Renée Nyberg meets showjumper Ulrika Bidegård, who in 1993 was kidnapped and kept locked up for five days while the police launched an extensive search operation. Now she and her family are talking about the terrible days and life afterwards.
Based on a true story, and recreated from the personal account of one of the robbers, the film follows an immigrant from mainland China in 1975 as he works with a team to plan to rob an armored car carrying seven million dollars from the Hang Seng Bank in Hong Kong.
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
Autumn 1977: the Bernese officer trainee Flükiger is found dead. Who is to blame for his death? The RAF or the Béliers, was it an accident or intentional? The director goes in search of clues and tries to shed light on the mysterious events surrounding the vote to form the Canton Jura.
Amanda Knox served four years in an Italian prison for the murder of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007, always insisting on her innocence. In 2011, she was acquitted on the basis of DNA evidence but prosecutors successfully appealed and her acquittal was struck down. In 2014 she was again found guilty in absentia after a retrial and sentenced to 28 years and six months in jail. The saga came to and end when Italy's highest court overturned the convictions of Ms Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito in March 2015. Known burglar Rudy Guede was arrested a short time later following the discovery of his bloodstained fingerprints on Kercher's possessions. He was later found guilty of murder in a fast-track trial and is currently (as of 2019) serving a 16-year prison sentence.
A young British racing driver faces an international challenge after overcoming struggles early in his life. Will he regain control of his future?
Youtuber, Kendall Rae, investigates the unsolved murder of Jessica Easterly with her family.
Drama telling the true story of the murder of 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster in 2007, who was kicked to death in a park by a gang. Her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, was also severely beaten and put into a coma. The two of them were attacked because they were dressed as goths.
After showing us some of Elland’s places of special interest, including the home of one of The Bachelors, we are taken on a tour of local sweet manufacturers Joseph Dobson & Sons. From boiling up the syrup, to stretching the resultant goo and cutting out the individual shapes, each stage of the process of making boiled sweets is demonstrated and explained. The end product is rows of jars of Rainbow Crystals, Yorkshire Mixtures and Voice Tablets selling at 16 pence a Qtr.
Documentary about Operation Yewtree in the UK
An obsessive true crime fan is given the opportunity to write his own episode, but takes on more than he can handle.
When the detectives won’t believe she was abducted, a woman must do her own investigation to identify the person who kidnapped her.
In 1994, a 13-year-old boy disappeared without a trace from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three-and-a-half years later, he is found alive in a village in southern Spain with a horrifying story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems.
A family falls prey to the manipulative charms of a neighbor, who abducts their adolescent daughter. Twice.
Elizabeth Smart's harrowing abduction at 14 from her family's Utah home unfolds through her own words and never-before-seen material in this documentary.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
A young mother’s mysterious death and her son’s subsequent kidnapping blow open a decades-long mystery about the woman’s true identity, and the murderous federal fugitive at the center of it all.
Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.
Using raw, firsthand footage, this documentary examines the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her children, and the terrible events that followed.
Antwerp, 2003. A gang of thieves rob the impenetrable Diamond Center. Who was behind one of the world's biggest heists - and how did they pull it off?
A teen slams her car into a building, killing her boyfriend and his friend. What seems like a tragic accident becomes a murder case.
Aileen Wuornos remains a rarity: a female serial killer. From childhood abuse to death-row revelations, this documentary revisits her life and crimes.
In the mid-aughts, Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator drew millions of weekly viewers to watch sting operations: men planning to meet minors for sex would instead be confronted by polished host Chris Hansen, then by the police — all on hidden camera.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
When Jennifer Pan calls 911 to report that her parents have been shot, she becomes the primary focus of a captivating criminal case.
In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.
Investigative journalist Rae de Leon travels nationwide to uncover and examine a shocking pattern: Young women tell the police they’ve been sexually assaulted, but instead of finding justice, they’re charged with the crime of making a false report, arrested, and even imprisoned by the system they believed would protect them.
An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.
Raised by a man leading a monstrous double life, the daughter of the BTK serial killer shares her chilling story.
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
A woman’s Holocaust memoir takes the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher-turned-detective reveals her story as an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth.