Hi, readers. We are taking a new approach to this streaming list. Instead of four recommendations, I will look at a recent, buzzy true-crime documentary, docuseries, scripted series or podcast and discuss what sets it apart. Some spoilers below.
When someone is accused of a horrific crime, a predictable string of questions unfurls from an often shocked public, usually starting with curiosity about the wrongdoer’s motive and background. When we learn that a killer is a loner, it may seem somehow more logical. But when a killer is married or has children, the collective fascination and dismay grows.
It can be hard to believe that, for example, the wives of the serial killers John Wayne Gacy or Dennis Rader didn’t realize the depravity of their partners, whose killings essentially happened under their noses. But by all accounts, these women and their families were completely in the dark.
The topic has long been fodder for true crime documentaries and podcasts, but more recently, these relationships have become a central storytelling tool.
Rex Heuermann’s now ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, opened up her family’s life to cameras for the 2025 Peacock docuseries “The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets.” Heuermann, who was arrested in 2023, was charged in seven killings. On Wednesday, in an unexpected turn in the case, he pleaded guilty to these murders (and one other), with Ellerup and their daughter present in the courtroom.
For the 2025 Netflix documentary “My Father, the BTK Killer,” Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, spoke extensively and candidly about her father and his crimes. Rader is serving 10 consecutive life terms for multiple murders.
The term “double life” is often applied.
The new three-part Danish docuseries, “A Friend, a Murderer,” released on Netflix in March, widens the inner circle further, focusing on those who knew the killer, Philip Patrick Westh, in a different way: as a trusted best friend.
Three close friends of Westh — Amanda, Kiri and Nichlas (their last names are withheld) — recount their relationship with him in a small, close-knit region of Denmark. These are friendships that overlapped with his crimes, including the 2016 abduction, rape and murder of 17-year-old Emilie Meng. Though Meng’s body was found that year, Westh was not charged with her murder until 2023, after he’d been discovered to have abducted and assaulted a local 13-year-old girl, who was found alive at his home. Westh, then 32, was quickly tied to the kidnapping and attempted murder of a 15-year-old girl.
Nichlas was Westh’s best friend of 15 years, since they were teenagers. And Nichlas and Kiri, a couple who are still together, were roommates with Westh.
Amanda was about the same age as Meng when Meng disappeared, and we hear much from her, and others in the town, about how the crime paralyzed the community, profoundly altering the rhythm of those who lived there.
“When I think back to all those memories and experiences that I have from that time, it’s absolutely surreal to think that the man I’d been fearing the most out there was right next to me,” we hear Amanda say (translated from Danish), adding that she and Westh were “two peas in a pod.”
Throughout the episodes, viewers see numerous photos and videos of the friends together doing what friends do: partying, playing cards, dancing, hanging out at a park here or a home there. Westh is smiling, silly, social.
The three friends speak at length about how they never suspected him, and how, once the truth came to light, they rethought every memory they had together. We see text messages that were exchanged while Westh was committing these atrocities.
Kiri recalls her and Nichlas surprising Westh with the news of her pregnancy — news to which he was cold and unresponsive. Later, they realized this occasion had happened shortly after Westh’s plans with the 15-year-old had gone south. “You think you know everything about a person, and it turns out he’s someone else,” Kiri says. “I was completely fooled.”
While the documentary spins out in a few directions that don’t always feel necessary — including a story arc about how the townspeople turned on one other as the search for the killer dragged on — it really comes to a head in its final 10 or so minutes, when Nichlas delves into his personal struggles to reconcile reality with what he’d believed, and how his world unraveled after the revelation. He verges on a panic attack during the interview itself.
“I’ve started taking medications I’ve never taken before,” Nichlas says, adding, “I guess I just question a lot of really basic stuff and even questioning my own existence and my lack of judgment with a lot of things. Because I keep wondering, could I have noticed? Why didn’t I notice?”
These accounts, like when family members of notorious criminals offer their points of view, challenge a more comforting narrative: that those capable of heinous acts are clearly deviant and that we would never be fooled. But the truth, as documentaries such as “A Friend, a Murderer” prove, is not so simple.
Maya Salam is an editor and reporter, focusing primarily on pop culture across genres.
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