Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 83 i Crime Monthly

A Michigan father long suspected in the disappearance of his three young sons has been charged with murder – just days before he was scheduled to be released from prison. John Skelton, 53, was due to walk free at the end of November after serving 14 years for unlawful imprisonment. He failed to return his sons – Andrew, nine, Alexander, seven, and Tanner, five – to their mother following a Thanksgiving visit in 2010. They have not been seen since, and were legally declared dead earlier this year. However, in a shock move, prosecutors suddenly filed three counts of open murder and three counts of evidence tampering, alleging Skelton is responsible for the boys’ deaths, despite the absence of their bodies. Detectives said that the case was revived after a…

Widely referred to as the ‘Bad Boyfriend Murder Trial’, on 4 November 2025, a jury in Waukesha County Court, Wisconsin, returned a guilty verdict after less than an hour of deliberation, convicting 57-year-old Matthew Pahl of first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse. He faced the charges after the body of his girlfriend, 44-year-old Stephanie Pavlons, was discovered in woods more than two weeks after she was last seen leaving their shared home in August 2022. Stephanie had been in an on/off relationship with Pahl for more than two decades, and the pair shared a child together. In court, prosecutors described Pahl as a financially, emotionally and physically controlling partner, who grew increasingly jealous and volatile as Stephanie tried to leave for good. Key to the prosecution's case were Stephanie's…

Housekeeper Bae Ji-hye was clutching the baby she was caring for when she realised there was an intruder in the family home. Brandishing a knife and a hammer, the handle of which he had moulded to perfectly fit his grip, this intruder had already claimed six lives before breaking into the property in an affluent area of Seoul in late 2003. He found 87-year-old Kim Jongseok upstairs in bed and bludgeoned the homeowner to death before turning his attention to Bae. The 53-year-old refused to abandon the baby in her arms, but the killer wrenched the infant from her and placed the child on a sofa underneath a blanket. Like her employer, Bae was then attacked and died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head. At some…

In the summer of 1971, Julio Santana's uncle Cicero told the then-teenager, ‘Aim for his heart and imagine you are shooting an animal, like when you're hunting. If you don't kill him, I'll be the one who dies.’ The dark conversation took place deep in the rainforest of central Brazil and although 17-year-old Santana didn't know at the time, it was the beginning of a blood-soaked 35-year career as a hitman – during which he would allegedly murder more than 500 people. His first target was a local fisherman accused of raping a young girl from a neighbouring village. He'd allegedly lured her out onto the Tocantins River in his canoe on the pretext of watching dolphins, before sexually assaulting her. Her father approached Santana's uncle, a military policeman with…

Teenage student Nicole van den Hurk disappeared while she was cycling to work in the Netherlands in October 1995. Her family's worst fears came true when her body was found in nearby woods weeks later. But despite a number of suspects, a lack of evidence meant that no one was arrested for her murder – until 16 years on, when someone made a shocking confession. TRAGEDY Nicole, 15, vanished as she made her way to her part-time job at a supermarket at Woensel shopping centre in the early hours of 6 October. When she didn't pick up her sister from school that afternoon, her family started to worry, with their concern growing when police found her bicycle in the river Dommel at 6pm. More than two weeks later, on 19…

CERT 15, 150 MINUTES, IN CINEMAS 26 DECEMBER STARRING: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'zion DIRECTOR: Josh Safdie New York City, the 1950s. Cocky ping-pong whizz Marty Mauser (Chalamet) is on the hustle for cash to compete at a table tennis championship in London. There, he becomes entangled in the lives of former Hollywood star Kay Stone (Paltrow) and her wealthy businessman husband (Kevin O'Leary). Next, Marty wants to compete in Tokyo, but a big debt incurred in London means he'll need every morsel of his brazen ingenuity to get there. This is director Josh Safdie's first solo outing in charge of a feature, following on from his collaborative efforts with his brother Benny, which produced jagged US indie movies Good Time and Uncut Gems, and Marty Supreme is suffused…

HEAT AMAZON PRIME Who'd have thought this was the first time Al Pacino and Robert De Niro had appeared on screen together? They had both appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II, but did not share a scene. And that's not even the most impressive thing about Michael Mann's gripping thriller about a cop (Pacino) and a robber (De Niro) involved in an epic game of cat and mouse across LA. CARRY ON NETFLIX This could have so easily been a pastiche of Die Hard 2. Instead, this fun thriller elevates itself with sharp action sequences and plenty of tension. Taron Egerton plays a young TSA officer who is blackmailed into allowing a deadly nerve agent onboard a Christmas flight by terrorist for hire Jason Bateman, and must…

ITV1, 1 JANUARY The first series of this high-octane thriller was set on a night flight from London to Beijing, and saw Richard Armitage's Dr Matthew Nolan accused of murder. On his trail was DS Hana Li (Jing Lusi), who slowly realised she was caught up in a conspiracy. Now, Hana returns for this new six-parter, joined by Line Of Duty's Martin Compston. He plays Clay Brody, head of security at the US Embassy, and a former colleague who did the dirty on Hana. But when celebrations for a newly-appointed US Ambassador are interrupted by a caller threatening to blow a plane out of the sky, they must work together to save lives in the air and on the ground.…

PRIME VIDEO Sophie Turner (Joan) stars in Amazon's upcoming Brit heist thriller Steal. She plays Zara, a pensions and investments executive whose working day is turned on its head when a gang of violent thieves coerce her and her best buddy Luke (Archie Madekwe, Lurkers) to co-operate with them in their plan to steal billions of pounds. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (The Queen's Gambit) plays DCI Rhys, hot on the trail of the gang, but as a reformed gambling addict, he has his own issues. The series will air on 21 January.…

NETFLIX Whoever had the idea of pitching the formidable Gillian Anderson against the equally remarkable Lena Headey in an epic Western battle of wills deserves a bonus. Because they are incendiary. Anderson plays Constance, the widowed matriarch of the powerful Van Ness family, whose money was made from mining and exploiting their workers. Headey plays Fiona Nolan, another matriarch and widow, who in lieu of blood relatives, has gathered a bunch of outcasts – the Abandons of the title. Her land just happens to have silver deposits beneath it. Cue the mother of all face-offs in this gripping and watchable drama.…

PRIME VIDEO Video footage of the original police interview (complete with confession) kicks off this documentary telling the story of Aileen Wuornos, America's first female serial killer. Filmmaker Nick Broomfield spent years with Wuornos for this documentary, which may sound familiar, as Charlize Theron played her in the 2003 film Monster, transforming herself into the infamous killer and earning herself an Oscar in the process. Wuornos was convicted of killing seven men while she was a sex worker in Florida. She shot them at point-blank range and her argument had always been that she acted in self-defence because her victims had either raped her or attempted to. In 2002, she was executed by lethal injection in Florida. This film – a follow-up to the 1992 documentary Aileen Wuornos: The Selling…

Devyn Michaels will have to wait until January 2026 to hear her fate, after she was found guilty of the first-degree murder of her former husband Johnathan Willette. In a case characterised by extreme familial dysfunction, Michaels, 47, showed no visible emotion as the verdict was read out in court. Johnathan, 46, the father of Michaels’ two young daughters, was bludgeoned to death and decapitated on 7 August 2023. The case attracted even more attention due to the fact Michaels is now married to Deviere Willette, 29 – Johnathan's eldest son from a previous relationship – and the former adult film actress sensationally claimed he killed his own father. CONFLICT Michaels was undoubtedly harbouring a bitter resentment against Johnathan. The couple divorced in 2018, and a family court awarded him…

A 25-year-old former recruiter for the US Marine Corps has been sentenced to 18-40 years in prison after entering a home intending ‘to kill everyone inside’. Ricardo Perez Castillo broke into the property in Michigan on 15 June 2024. After stripping to his underwear and a T-shirt, he took a knife from the kitchen and went upstairs. Opening the parents’ bedroom door and finding them asleep, he went in pursuit of ‘an easier target’, and entered a bedroom where an 11-year-old girl and her friend were on a sleepover. He stabbed the girl, who suffered wounds to her arm and shoulder, before her father entered and subdued Castillo. He pleaded no contest to multiple charges, including assault with intent to murder, first-degree home invasion and criminal sexual conduct. Judge Christina…

Morgan Geyser, convicted for the 2014 ‘Slender Man’ stabbing, faces a return to psychiatric care after a failed escape attempt. Geyser, now 23, had been living in a group home after being discharged from a mental-health facility earlier this year, where she had been held since 2017. But late last month, she removed her monitoring device and fled. She was located the following night outside a truck stop alongside a 43-year-old man, identified as Chad Mecca. Authorities say the pair travelled together by bus from Wisconsin to Illinois. Mecca, who has described Geyser as a ‘friend’, claimed she ran because she ‘feared being separated from him’. He faces misdemeanour charges connected to the incident. Police say that when questioned, Geyser initially refused to identify herself and told officers to ‘just…

‘THERE WAS NO SINGLE NARRATIVE TELLING THIS STORY’ On 22 May 2017, suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated a bomb in the foyer of Manchester Arena at the end of an Ariana Grande concert. Hundreds were injured and 22 killed, and among them was eight-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, the youngest victim of the attack. As her parents Lisa – who was badly injured in the blast - and Andrew struggled to come to terms with the devastating loss, they were also angry and wanted answers. Journalist David Collins got to know the family well, and has now written book Saffie. Part family memoir, part investigation, it traces the horror of the attack and the failures that followed, while never losing sight of the little girl at its heart. What first drew you…

On 4 April 2019, armed police officers responded to reports of gunshots at an apartment complex in Collierville, Tennessee. Inside, they found a respected pastor dead from multiple wounds and his wife severely injured. The woman holding the weapon was known to the couple – a former church member and social worker who had driven from Arkansas just hours earlier. What followed was a drawn-out case that traced a secret affair and allegations of coercive control, and would end in a Memphis courtroom this month. THE VICTIM Brodes Perry, 36, was a well-regarded pastor and community leader, who had moved from Arkansas to Tennessee to take a senior role at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. He and his wife Tabatha were seen as a close, devoted couple. Friends described Brodes as…

The most prolific, proven contract killer in UK history, John Childs is serving a whole life tariff after being found guilty of six paid-for murders in east London in the 1970s. A former member of the British Army who graduated to armed robbery, Childs’ first kill occurred in late 1974, when he beat and strangled a toy maker to death in his workshop. He murdered his second victim the following year to cover up the first murder, hacking Robert Brown with a knife and axe before shooting him in the head three times. Childs disposed of the corpse at his flat in Poplar by dismembering the body and then burning it. ‘I stuck him in my bath and I cut the clothes off him,’ he wrote years later from behind…

NETFLIX, STREAMING NOW STARRING: Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott DIRECTOR: Rian Johnson The original Knives Out dropped with very little fanfare back in 2019, and what a giddily enjoyable treat it turned out to be. Former James Bond Daniel Craig couldn't be less like the taciturn 007, chomping through scenery as master detective Benoit Blanc. Now, here's the third instalment of the star-filled whodunnit. When idealistic but troubled priest Jud (O'Connor) is posted to a church in upstate New York, he is immediately alienated by his firebrand superior, Monsignor Wicks (Brolin). After Wicks ends up dead, Jud falls under suspicion, especially from the older priest's dwindling band of loyal acolytes, including pious church employee Martha (Close), lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), waspy…

CERT 15, 131 MINUTES, IN CINEMAS 26 DECEMBER STARRING: Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar. DIRECTOR: Paul Feig New thriller based on Freida McFadden's 2022 bestselling psychological thriller of the same name and adapted for the screen by Bridesmaids director Paul Feig. Trying to escape her troubled past, Millie (Sweeney) jumps at the chance to be a live-in housemaid for wealthy couple Nina (Seyfried) and Andrew (Sklenar), who live in a swanky Long Island mansion with their young daughter. But what begins as a dream job quickly unravels as dark secrets emerge. Having started off doing comedy with the aforementioned Bridesmaids, before the closer-in-tone twisty thriller A Simple Favor, The Housemaid looks set to take Feig into even darker terrain. We love the premise, the cast and Feig, so triple…

NETFLIX, 1 JANUARY Settling down with a twisty Harlan Coben mystery has become the New Year's Day hangover cure of choice, and this year's offering is as thrillingly star-studded as we've come to expect. As well as the great Ruth Jones, Minnie Driver, Jon Pointing and Alfred Enoch, James Nesbitt takes centre stage as normal man Simon, who once had a loving wife and kids, a great job, and a beautiful home. Then his eldest daughter ran away and it all fell apart. When he discovers her high on drugs in a park, he finally has the chance to bring her home. But she's not alone, and after an argument escalates into an act of violence, Simon loses her all over again. Now, his quest to be reunited will take…

PRIME VIDEO Comedian Jack Whitehall is the charismatic presence at the centre of this eye-catching six-part series from writer James Wood (Rev). Jack plays Adam, a charming tutor to rich kids who wheedles his way into the life of wealthy couple, Jamie and Nat Tanner, played by David Duchovny (The X Files) and Carice Van Houten (The Affair). He's a cocky venture capitalist, while she is a fashionista who used to work at Elle in Paris. They're holidaying with their kids – teens Kit and April, and 10-year-old Dexter – and Nat's friend Jules (Christine Adams) and her partner Damien (Raza Jaffrey). In comes Adam, who immediately charms Nat and the kids. There are hints this is a revenge mission for Adam, and there are echoes of classic psychological thrillers…

In December 2015, Netflix quietly premiered what was to become a true crime phenomenon. The story of Steven Avery and his conviction for the murder of Teresa Halbach was set to be the watercooler conversation for years to come. It was the dogged determination of two women, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, that shone a light on the astonishing tale that has captivated millions of viewers across the globe. Steven had been found guilty of local photographer Teresa's murder, but what was incredible was that only two years earlier, he had been released from prison after serving 18 years of a wrongful conviction for rape and attempted murder in a shocking miscarriage of justice. He was exonerated of this first crime by DNA evidence that identified the true perpetrator, and…

A year after United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in Manhattan, accused killer Luigi Mangione, 27, returned to court, where new details of his arrest emerged. The hearing was to determine what evidence will be admissible in his 2026 trial, and focused primarily on the alleged murder weapon and Mangione's journal – which allegedly detailed his anger at the health insurance industry. Crucial evidence for the prosecution, Mangione's lawyers argued the items should be excluded as police didn't get a warrant to search his backpack. For the first time, the media were able to hear the 911 call that led to Mangione's arrest on 4 December 2024. A McDonald's branch manager can be heard saying, ‘I have a customer here that some other customers are suspicious of, that…

Born Ramón Gustavo Castillo Gaete in 1977, the man who would become known as Antares De La Luz enjoyed a conventional upbringing in Chile. The only son of María de la Luz Gaete Drago and Ramón Arquimedes Castillo Ibarbe, Ramon Jnr displayed a talent for music, an ability that continued to flourish throughout his formative years. He became an accomplished Andean musician, gaining a degree in music. In his teens and twenties, Ramon founded and performed in a variety of groups, playing the many instruments he had mastered. But he was blighted by a consistent and excruciating pain in his back – something that had plagued him since childhood. At times, the pain was so severe, it prevented him from sleeping, and he was unable to get relief using conventional…

When the tape arrived at the offices of 60 Minutes in September 1998, the producers immediately knew it was dynamite. On it, Detroit pathologist Jack Kevorkian –a man already dubbed ‘Dr Death’ by the press – stood beside the bed of a sick man, calmly preparing a lethal injection. Moments later, 52-year-old Thomas Youk slipped into unconsciousness and died. It was a scene designed to provoke outrage, and Kevorkian wanted the world to see what he was doing. He wanted to force a ‘legal reckoning’ around the issue of assisted suicide – and he got it. Within months, he was arrested, tried for murder, and facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison. But for some, Kevorkian – who had been helping terminally ill patients end…

APPLE TV+ STARRING: Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright. DIRECTOR: Spike Lee This thriller offers a vivid contemporary reimagining of Akira Kurosawa's classic moral tale, shifting its dilemmas into a US city defined by social divides. Denzel Washington leads the cast as a powerful executive confronted with a crisis that exposes the fragile boundaries between wealth, duty, and sacrifice. Lee's direction layers sharp visual contrasts with escalating tension, allowing Washington's intense performance to drive the story. As shifting loyalties surface, the film examines how status and conscience collide under pressure. Rather than lean on nostalgia, the remake treats Kurosawa's blueprint as a starting point, building a portrait of power under strain that invites close attention.…

APPLE TV+, 14 JANUARY The original Hijack was one of the more enjoyably OTT watches of 2023. The always-great Idris Elba played Sam Nelson, a corporate business negotiator who had to flex his skills with a bunch of Middle Eastern terrorists after they hijacked his flight from Dubai to London. Told in real time, each of the seven hour-long episodes were structured to mirror the seven-hour flight time, creating a pressure-cooker atmosphere that allowed writers to really ramp up the tension. This second series sees the action transposed to a snowy Berlin, where Idris is once again caught up in a hostage drama, this time on a subway train carrying a bomb.…

BBC iPLAYER Six-part drama focusing on two mother-and-daughter duos: writer Juliet (Eve Best) and girl boss Lorna (Carmen Ejogo), and their teens Allegra (Amelia May) and Grace (Imogen Faires). They live in the fictional community of Richford Lake, where elitism and snobbery run riot. When Allegra and Grace are suddenly at the centre of a shocking scandal at their exclusive private school, it's the catalyst for all kinds of secrets to come out. This is one of those stories in which every major character has something to hide – and it makes for a juicy mystery that goes to places you don't expect.…

NETFLIX For author Michael Peterson, the unspeakable death of his second wife Kathleen on 9 December 2001 was not only life-altering, it was shocking on another level. The circumstances appeared to a carbon copy of the death of close family friend Susan Ratliff, 16 years prior. Like Kathleen, Susan was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell with Michael Peterson the last person to see her alive. Could this really be just a tragic and coincidence? Police didn't think so, and he became a suspect. This remarkable story was too enticing for filmmaker Jean Javier Le Strade to ignore and he embarked on what was to be a docuseries spanning 17 years and told in three parts. With unprecedented insight, grisly details and raw emotion, the question of Peterson's…

NOW TV This six-part documentary investigates the eccentric real estate heir Robert Durst and his involvement in several crimes: the unsolved disappearance of Dursts's wife Kathie in 1982; the murder of writer Susan Berman in 2000; and the death and dismemberment of his neighbour Morris Black. Durst admitted to killing Morris, but claimed self-defence and was acquitted. The docuseries was instigated by Durst himself after he reached out to director Andrew Jarecki – whose thriller All Good Things was loosely based on Durst's story – for an interview. Despite the intensely secretive Durst previously refusing to speak to any journalists, his admiration for Jarecki allowed over 20 more hours of interviews conducted over several years. The final episode is so shocking, you won't be able to stop thinking about it.…

GIVE THE FRAME AWAY Read through the text and use the main grid to record any positive facts with a tick and any definite negative facts with a cross. We've already marked the first piece of information (that the drawing was stolen from a residence) to show you what we mean. Record the rest in this way and you should be able to work out further facts as you reread the text. As you deduce more answers, use the second grid to record what you know, until you've fully worked out the month in which each piece of artwork was stolen, where it was taken from and the country in which it was later recovered. Aspate of audacious thefts rocked the art world in 1965, when five valuable works were stolen…