Crime & Investigation

Sunday 8 March at 8.30pm on CRIME & INVESTIGATION

Serial Killer Sunday!

A politician, a clown, an entrepreneur, a family man – these were the roles played by John Wayne Gacy to hide the fact that he was a serial killer who murdered 33 boys and young men.

CRIME & INVESTIGATION – Thursday 1 January, 8.30pm

This two-hour special takes you inside one of the largest jail systems in the world. The LA County Jail is made up of eight different facilities spread across 50 miles of southern California. It’s overcrowded and violent. Our cameras show you how corrections officials deal with a diverse inmate population requiring everything from psychiatric treatment to solitary confinement.

CRIME & INVESTIGATION – Tuesday 30 December, 9.30pm

They’re slick, they’re fast, and they’re armed with complex gadgets and intricate schemes. Some are loners, some have a trusted partner, and some are members of a 100-man crew. For decades they’ve been shot by sheriffs, ‘backroomed’ by casino henchmen and blacklisted by today’s hard -boiled investigators who hunt them down without mercy. Their mission is ‘Breaking Vegas’, and across history they’ve worked day and night-until busted or dead with this singular obsession. This series will feature high-end dramatic re-enactments, archival materials, interviews with law-benders, law breakers, casino management and security, and CGI graphics.

CRIME & INVESTIGATION – Sunday 28 December, 9.30pm

The extraordinary stories of the NYPD Hostage Negotiating Team who save lives and capture criminals with their words, not their guns. Talk to Me is the real life NYPD Blue meets Dog Day Afternoon. Every year the police in New York encounter many situations that require the unique talents and training of the Hostage Negotiating Team (HNT). Ninety elite detectives are on call day and night to talk down the desperate, suicidal, crazed criminals threatening to take the lives of others and themselves.  With exclusive access to the HNT during their negotiations, training and day-to-day operations, this compelling documentary shows the drama of the toughest challenges the police face and what it takes to be a negotiator. The film records a range of hostage call outs, from a husband who is holding a machete to his wife’s throat, to a tense 11-hour stand off with a man holding a gun to the head of a 12 year-old.

CRIME & INVESTIGATION – Friday 26 December, 7.30pm

It’s the 26th of December. An ocean is waking up and a disaster is waiting to happen. Tsunami: Wave of Disaster shows what happened when the biggest earthquake of our generation created the most destructive waves in history. Combining never-before-seen documentary footage with astonishing life and death testimonies, it follows the path of the tsunami before, during and after it ripped apart thousands of miles of coastline.  From Thailand to Sri Lanka, paradise was transformed into apocalyptic destruction in a matter of seconds. But the impact was felt worldwide.  At times the dramatic story leaves you gasping for breath, reeling under the impact of the wave. But at others, it astonishes and humbles by the courage of the survivors who are picking up the pieces of their devastated lives and starting again.

CRIME & INVESTIGATION – Thursday 25 December, 7.30pm

On December 26, 1996 the body of six year old “beauty queen” Jon Benet Ramsey was found in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colorado. The child had been struck in the head and strangled. It looked like the work of a sexual predator. Eight hours before the body was found behind a locked door, Patsy Ramsey, Jon Benet’s mother, produced a three page ransom note that she said was found on a back staircase inside the home. But kidnappers, not murderers leave ransom notes. And the note demanded $118,000, the exact amount it was later learned, John Ramsey had received as a corporate bonus.

CRIME & INVESTIGATION – Sunday 21 December, 9.30pm

Rage in the Air examines the discontent and complaints among air passengers and crews who say that flying just isn’t fun anymore. Delayed flights, crowded planes, little or no information as to why flights are cancelled or late cause so much indignation and anger among consumers that passengers are rallying for a Passenger Bill of Rights.

Monday 24 November
7.30pm on CRIME & INVESTIGATION

This is the story of the most notorious prison break in US history. The Hunt for the Texas 7 is a chilling and dramatic film following the escape and subsequent capture of America’s most wanted. “You haven’t heard the last of us…” were the chilling words on a note left behind by seven armed and dangerous inmates who escaped from a maximum-security prison in Texas on December 2000. Their escape gripped the American public for six weeks, and led to the biggest manhunt in Texan history. The dramatic exploits of the seven desperados attracted the world’s media attention and threw a spotlight on the penal system of Governor Bush’s Texas. The criminals became an infamous gang, led by an ex-armed robber, George Rivas. In the weeks following their escape, they defied convention by banding together to commit armed robberies, and to stockpile an arsenal of lethal weapons. On Christmas Eve 2000, the gang signed their own death warrants during a raid on a Dallas sporting goods store. Confronted by a police officer – the men let lose a hail of bullets – murdering the officer. The escapees were public enemy number one – no resources were spared, and once caught the Texan authorities vowed the men would go to the death chamber. For six frantic weeks, a massive manhunt turned up dead ends, until a tip came in from a trailer park in Colorado. A witness had realised that seven ‘religious men’, who had just arrived at the park, and who attended local bible meetings, were actually the notorious Texas 7.

Thursday 27 November
7.30pm on CRIME & INVESTIGATION

The bloodied, semi-naked body of 30-year-old Donna Wheeler is discovered by her estranged husband Keith Bond and 12-year-old son. Donna had been brutally beaten and stabbed and when police investigate they discover that Donna’s estranged husband is a suspect but evidence also points to Keith’s brother Colin. Which brother really killed Donna Wheeler?

Friday 7 November, 7.30pm

The events of the night of 9th August, 1969 changed the face of the ’60s. The brutal murders of beautiful starlet Sharon Tate and her friends shocked the world, and when the Manson Family murderers were found, flower-power culture came under the spotlight. The family had long hair, took illicit drugs and lived in a commune. To middle class, right-wing America, they encapsulated everything threatening about ‘hippie-dom’. Witness reveals how establishment figures manipulated the Manson murders to discredit the flower-power generation. Fascinating archive footage shows the escalating violence of the period and, in a rare interview from jail, Manson himself recalls the turbulent events that ended the era