Top true-crime series that captivated America in 2024
Docu-mania has taken over online streaming services, pushing filmmakers to give insight into nation-gripping criminal cases and uncover new details in infamous cases in what may be the golden age of the true-crime genre.
These four documentaries, all released in 2024, may not be for the faint of heart, but they will have you at the edge of your seat.
1. ‘Fall of the House of Murdaugh: From Egg to Z’
Two jurors at the center of jury-tampering allegations in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial, including one who was famously dismissed, spoke out publicly for the first time about the case in a Fox Nation documentary.
Both jurors, known publicly as “Egg Juror” and “Juror Z,” sat down with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum for an exclusive interview.
The “Egg Juror,” also known as Juror No. 785, claims the clerk of the court, Becky Hill, targeted her for removal from the jury because she was not firm on Murdaugh’s guilt.
“Juror Z,” also known as Juror No. 630, says she voted guilty but wasn’t — and still isn’t — sure about Murdaugh’s guilt, telling MacCallum she was swayed by Hill and other jurors.
Both women disclosed their names for the first time. The “Egg Juror” is Myra Crosby, while “Juror Z” is Mandy Pearce.
Murdaugh, 56, is serving a life sentence for fatally shooting his wife, Maggie, and his youngest son, Paul, in June 2021 on their family’s hunting estate in Colleton County, South Carolina. Prosecutors argued their murders were an attempt to distract from Murdaugh’s mounting financial crimes, which were beginning to come to light around that time.
Attorneys for lawyer-turned-convict Alex Murdaugh filed to appeal his sentence in December, saying improper testimony and Hill’s alleged jury tampering “infected the trial with unfairness.”
2. ‘Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains’
This docuseries rehashes Lyle and Erik Menendez’s infamous 1989 murder of their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion and gives voice to both the brothers’ pleas for clemency and the horrific brutality of the killings.
The Fox Nation documentary was released after “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” a dramatization of the case that was rejected by the brothers’ family, and “The Menendez Brothers,” a more forgiving series that gave the brothers the opportunity to justify the brutal killings.
But it’s up to viewers to decide whether to sympathize with the convicts, who allege they were sexually abused by their father.
The brothers’ highly anticipated resentencing hearing, requested on the grounds that new evidence proves the pair’s claims, was moved from early December to Jan. 30.
Outgoing Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón asked the court to reduce their sentences less than two weeks before Election Day. Then, he lost to independent candidate Nathan Hochman, who takes office Dec. 2.
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WATCH ‘MENENDEZ BROTHERS: VICTIMS OR VILLAINS’ ON FOX NATION
3. ‘The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson’
The family and friends of Nicole Brown Simpson, whose husband O.J. Simpson was infamously accused of killing her, spoke out for the first time in this four-part Lifetime series.
Nicole’s sisters Denise, Tanya Brown and Dominique Brown are joined by starlets such as Kris Jenner and Faye Resnick and a number of the slain woman’s friends and law enforcement officers who interacted with Nicole in an effort to portray the woman beyond her death and relationship with the embattled football player.
“I want to exorcise from my mind a girl laying on the sidewalk in a little black dress in a pool of blood — that’s not who she was,” Nicole’s friend, Ron Hardy, told filmmakers. “I just cathartically want to talk about her, talk about who she was, what she was to me, what she was to other people and how I will never, never regret meeting her.”
4. ‘American Murder: Laci Peterson’
Scott Peterson, who has always maintained his innocence despite a conviction at trial and two decades of failed appeals, is still hoping he can convince a court he didn’t kill his wife, 27-year-old Laci Peterson. She was eight months pregnant with their son Conner when she went missing on Christmas Day 2002.
In April 2003, her remains and Conner’s washed up separately in a body of water in Berkeley, where Peterson kept his boat. Laci Peterson’s hair was found in a pair of needle-nose pliers on the boat, and Peterson had bleached blonde hair, thousands in cash and his brother’s passport when he was arrested at the Mexican border.
Peterson maintains his innocence and has floated a theory that men responsible for a burglary across the street from the Modesto home he shared with Laci were responsible for her death.
Netflix unveiled the “American Murder: Laci Peterson” true-crime docuseries in August, giving new perspective to the case with interviews from Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, and Peterson’s former mistress, Amber Frey.
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5. ‘Making Manson’
Serial killer and cult leader Charles Manson confessed to more murders from beyond the grave in a newly released Peacock docuseries.
“Making Manson” delves into more than two decades of previously unreleased conversations with the infamous cult figurehead, offering a more in-depth look at his childhood and life of crime before forming the “Manson Family” and during his time as a cult leader.
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Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.