Episode
People Magazine Investigates: The Serial Killer's Playbook
Overview
For years, a serial killer stalks the most vulnerable and least suspecting victims: retirees. However, when a 91-year-old woman survives, she helps break the case wide open, leading to the capture of one of the most prolific serial killers of modern times.
Details
- Series
- People Magazine Investigates
- Season
- Season 8
- Episode
- Episode 6
- Air date
- 2024-11-25
- Runtime
- 42 min
Episode context
The Serial Killer's Playbook is Episode 6 in Season 8 of People Magazine Investigates. It aired on 2024-11-25. The runtime is 42 min.
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Episode 5: Where is Kristin Smart?
In 1996, a college co-ed vanishes after attending a party over a holiday weekend and is presumed dead. There is immediately a prime suspect but a lack of evidence to prove it. Decades later, a discovery found six feet under turns the case upside down.
Episode 7: The Aloha Murder
In 1972, police find a young woman fatally stabbed in her room. Police hunt for her killer, but he seemingly vanishes, and the case goes cold. Decades later, a new investigative technique emerges, and the killer's name turns up in the most unlikely place.
More episodes from this season
Episode 4: The Soccer Mom Murder
In 2001, a mother of five is found shot in the head in her own minivan. Investigators have little physical evidence and struggle to make an arrest. As the children grow up, the family becomes divided over who killed the beloved soccer mom.
Episode 8: Teenage Assassins
In 2020, Baron Li is shot nine times in front of his house. Detectives scramble to figure out who could want this loving husband and father dead. When they hone in on two teenage suspects, police struggle to identify their motives and connection to Li.
Episode 3: Sex. Clowns. Murder.
In 1990, a clown delivering flowers and balloons guns down a woman at home; with scant evidence and no clear motive, detectives set out to track down the killer clown, but the culprit eludes justice for thirty years before being fully unmasked.
Episode 9: Knives Out
In 2021, police find a retired couple stabbed repeatedly in their home on the New Jersey shore. They witness a mysterious figure coming and going on security footage, which leads them to a suspect who is very close to home with a desire for revenge.
Episode 2: A Story to Die For
Virginia firefighters respond to a house fire in Upperville, Virginia where they discover the body of a local journalist. The fire destroys any hope for evidence, but the victim's social media history leads police down a rabbit hole.
Episode 10: My Father Was a Mass Murderer
Retired drama teacher Kathy Gillcrist embarks on a journey to find her biological parents. Her worst fears come to fruition when she discovers police want her father for one of the most infamous mass murders in Maryland state history.
Episode 1: The Boogeyman
The Lunsford family's lives turn upside down when someone snatches nine-year-old Jessie from her bed in the middle of the night.
Episode 11: Inferno of Lies
A deadly fire in a small Illinois town raises questions as to whether it was a tragic accident or murder; the ensuing investigation uncovers a web of lies and deceit that results in one woman and her unborn child's life coming to a violent end.
Episode 12: The Indiana Slasher
In 1975, someone abducts three young girls, stabbing them and leaving them for dead in a field; the Indiana Slasher evades capture, leaving his victims haunted for decades until new technology uncovers his true identity.