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Reality is more disturbing than fiction. Join us as we explore the most chilling and harrowing moments captured in television documentaries. From Michael Peterson's bloody staircase to the unsettling confessions in "The Jinx," these real-life horrors have left viewers shocked and haunted. What disturbing documentary moment has stayed with you the longest? Let us know in the comments!
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at 20 of the darkest and most upsetting scenes
00:12in documentaries made for TV and streaming.
00:15Every time I keep watching it, for some reason my mind doesn't want to believe it's true.
00:20The Bloody Staircase.
00:23The Staircase.
00:24Durham Police this morning are investigating the death of a prominent city resident.
00:29The officers were called early this morning to the home of Nortel executive Kathleen Peterson,
00:33who was found dead in her Forest Hills mansion after apparently falling down the stairs.
00:38A French documentary about the trial of Michael Peterson,
00:41the staircase in question refers to the bloody one in the Peterson home.
00:45The blood belongs to Kathleen Peterson, the late wife of Michael.
00:49Some claim she fell down the stairs, others think she was attacked by an owl.
00:53Many think that Michael murdered her.
00:55Regardless, we see many different shots of the bloody staircase.
00:59The camera lingering on the splattered walls and soaked steps.
01:02It's a highly disturbing visual, and by repeatedly going back to it,
01:06the documentary forces viewers to confront the brutal reality of Peterson's death.
01:10Once I approached the victim, there was just a very abundant amount of blood on her, on the floor, on the floor, on the walls.
01:27The confession, the jinx.
01:40Probably the most famous ending in true crime history belongs to The Jinx, the Emmy-winning documentary from HBO.
01:46After being confronted with damning evidence, Durst retreats to a bathroom, unaware that his microphone is still on.
01:53He then makes what many perceive as a confession, telling himself that he killed them all.
01:57The moment feels chilling, not only because it suggests a spontaneous admission of multiple murders,
02:02but also because of its eerie intimacy, a private thought accidentally made public.
02:07Other people believe that the comment was misconstrued, but regardless, it was enough.
02:12The ending attracted huge attention, especially as Durst was arrested for Susan Berman's murder just one day before it aired.
02:19He was convicted in 2021 for her murder.
02:34Interviewing the Stabbers, Beware the Slender Man.
02:38Another HBO documentary, another disturbing act of violence.
02:59Beware the Slender Man chronicles the stabbing of Peyton Lutner, who was attacked by Anissa Weyer and Morgan Geiser,
03:06in order to appease the Slender Man.
03:08The stabbing itself is not seen, but the documentary focuses on the police interrogations of both Weyer and Geiser,
03:14both of whom coldly and calmly describe the act of violence.
03:18The scenes are chilling, with the girls displaying a chilling combination of emotional detachment and childlike confusion.
03:24It exposes how fantasy can blur into delusion, and serves as a haunting psychological portrait, equal parts horrifying and tragic.
03:32I didn't want to do this.
03:34Why did you do it then?
03:36Because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't.
03:42The Therapy Sessions, Child of Rage, A Story of Abuse.
03:46Are people afraid of you, Beth?
03:50Who's afraid of you, Beth?
03:53John.
03:56Your brother.
03:57And what is your brother, why is your brother afraid of you?
04:01Because I've heard him so much.
04:03Speaking of disturbing child interviews, it doesn't get much worse than HBO's Child of Rage, A Story of Abuse.
04:08The documentary consists of therapist-led interview segments, with a girl named Beth Thomas, who is
04:13suffering from severe behavioral problems.
04:16The therapist asks Beth direct questions about the horrific abuse that she has endured, and the
04:20cruelty that she inflicted on others, like sticking pins in her brother.
04:24Her flat, almost expressionless recounting of violent acts creates a disconcerting contrast with her
04:30childlike appearance, and her recounting of sordid details from her past are horrifically tragic.
04:35The interviews expose the raw, unfiltered trauma of a young child, who is simultaneously victim
04:41and perpetrator, and it forces the viewer to confront how severely abuse can warp development.
04:46Are they afraid that you might hurt them?
04:50Yep.
04:51Would you, Beth?
04:52Mm-hmm.
04:53When would you do it?
04:54Right, Tom.
04:56We can't pick just one. They're all extremely painful. Surviving R. Kelly famously examines the
05:16allegations of abuse by the famous musician, featuring first-hand accounts from women who
05:21suffered under his control. Naturally, each and every one of these stories serves as an emotional
05:26gut punch, going into lurid detail about what Kelly did and how he was able to do it for so long.
05:32Despite repeated warnings and public accusations, the series explores how power, fame, and influence
05:39can be used to exploit others, and it also raises major questions about the responsibility of fans,
05:44the music industry, and society to hold powerful figures accountable for harmful actions.
05:49Luckily, we did hold Kelly accountable, and he has since been sentenced to 31 years in prison.
05:55He came up once and grabbed me by my arm in the room and dragged me down the hallway
06:00because I talked back to him. That was kicking and screaming and crying.
06:06The riot. Trainwreck. Woodstock 99.
06:10We are going to get out of here. I think we're going to go.
06:13It's time to go. It's getting pretty intense.
06:14They were like, we're done, we're out. And they loaded us onto the bus.
06:19The first in Netflix's Trainwreck series, Woodstock 99 chronicles, well, Woodstock 99,
06:25a.k.a. one of the worst concerts ever. The documentary explores the exceedingly poor planning
06:30of the event, its unsanitary conditions, and the growing anger among attendees. But as aggressive
06:35acts like Limp Bizkit fuel the crowd's rage, chaos erupts, property is destroyed, fires are set,
06:42and vendors are looted. There are even reports of sexual assaults, adding to the surreal horror.
06:47Trainwreck tells the story of this ghastly riot with first-hand accounts and frightening footage,
06:52both professional and amateur. No matter what lens it's viewed through, the footage displays a
06:57nightmarish symbol of corporate greed, toxic masculinity, and the violent undercurrent of 90s
07:02youth culture, spiraling out of control.
07:05Boom! I'm like, whoa! Boom! It was like a bomb going off in the middle of the festival grounds,
07:15and another bomb goes off.
07:16Beata's death. Take care of Maya.
07:23Um, is there any way that even just momentarily she could just see her mom just to, like,
07:27hug her mother? I'm afraid not. Not today.
07:31A harrowing Netflix documentary, Take Care of Maya follows the story of Maya Kowalski,
07:36a nine-year-old kid diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome. After she's taken to Johns Hopkins
07:41all-children's hospital, the staff come to the conclusion that Maya is a victim of Munchausen
07:46syndrome by proxy, and that her mother, Beata, is abusing her. She is then taken into state custody.
07:52The Kowalskis vehemently fight this, uncovering a potential conspiracy regarding Johns Hopkins
07:57and privatized child welfare services. Unfortunately, there is no happy and tidy ending here. Beata loses
08:04several court hearings, and at one point is rejected a single hug from her daughter. Despondent,
08:09and believing that her daughter will never be free if she's alive, Beata takes her own life.
08:14So Peter was walking around the house. He walked in the garage.
08:24There was a scream that I'll never forget. Michelle's death. I'll be gone in the dark.
08:32I'll never forget. I was driving home, and I remember Patton calling me.
08:39I think it was right when it happened.
08:44Released in the summer of 2020, HBO's I'll Be Gone in the Dark follows true crime writer Michelle
08:51McNamara as she writes her non-fiction book of the same name. It chronicles the then unsolved crimes
08:56of the Golden State Killer, a moniker that McNamara herself helped create. The introductory episodes
09:02follow McNamara's obsessive search for the elusive killer, but the show soon throws us a devastating
09:07curveball. McNamara suddenly dies in her sleep, aged just 46. Of course, we knew about this going in,
09:13as the book was published posthumously. Still, hearing her distraught friends and family discuss
09:19her death is absolutely heartbreaking, especially when it comes to her grieving husband, Patton Oswalt.
09:24I just, it was terrifying. I just, I remember I, I did that thing where I, like, close my eyes,
09:36and I tried to will this as a nightmare, like, and then, and then it just wasn't.
09:41Johnny's final moments. The boy whose skin fell off.
09:45It's going to be a busy summer. Johnny's determined to learn to fly, pay a call on number 10,
09:51and have a huge housewarming party in his new dream home. But first, there's the funeral to sort out.
09:58In 2004, Channel 4 aired a widely acclaimed documentary called The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off,
10:04whose title alone promises some difficult viewing. The boy in question is Johnny Kennedy,
10:09a British man with a rare condition called dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. We watch in
10:14morbid curiosity as Kennedy grows sicker and sicker, including the traumatic final moments when he's
10:20on the verge of death. And just when you think it can't get any worse, Kennedy dies, the camera
10:26lingering on his pale and motionless corpse. The visuals of the sick Kennedy are sad enough,
10:31but for someone who has never seen a dead body, the images of Kennedy's body may be way too hard to
10:36handle. Recounting the murder, the trials of Gabriel Fernandez.
10:50Oh, he's got a bullet in his lung. Oh, he's got a bullet in his groin. It's like
10:55cigarette marks that he'd like when people have been putting cigarettes out on him and different stages.
11:00I mean, he'd have a bruise that looks like it's almost healed. The bruises that look brand new,
11:03like burns, cuts, abrasions, everything you could think of all over this kid.
11:08Anyone sensitive to crimes against children, be advised. Stay well clear of Netflix's The Trials
11:14of Gabriel Fernandez. The opening 10 minutes or so are especially gruesome, as it recounts in horrifying
11:20detail the murder of Gabriel Fernandez. In September 2012, Fernandez was given to his biological mother,
11:26Pearl Fernandez, and Pearl's boyfriend, Isaru Aguirre, after years of living with his grandparents.
11:32He lived there for just eight months, and during that time, he endured unimaginably cruel treatment.
11:38He eventually died on May 24th, 2013, a combination of blunt force trauma and malnutrition.
11:44The story is bad enough, but when combined with the documentary's visuals, it proves downright nauseating.
11:49I thought this kid has never known love. This kid has never known what it feels like to be hugged.
11:57You know what I mean? And that just breaks your heart.
12:02This was the case for me, you know, in 14 years in the ER. This was the case that
12:07just has followed me from that night.
12:09Coming Clean, American Murder, The Family Next Door.
12:15A huge hit for Netflix, American Murder tells the story of the Watts family murders from 2018.
12:34Shannon Watts and her two children disappear, prompting pleas for help from her husband, Chris.
12:39Of course, suspicion quickly falls on Chris himself, only mainly to his public behavior,
12:44specifically his complete lack of emotion. In the documentary's darkest scene, Chris fails a polygraph
12:50test and is accosted by investigators, where he eventually admits that he murdered both Shannon
12:55and the children and dumped their bodies at his remote job site. The Family Next Door is a great
13:00subtitle for the documentary, because as the spine-chilling sequence displays, real horror
13:04is often found in the unlikeliest and most unassuming of places.
13:08Are you sure? What's going to happen? We're going to help them get out of there. Chris,
13:15I know they're gone, but they're still your babies. And you're still their dad.
13:18And you don't want them out there. I don't want them out there.
13:24And you don't want someone else to find them out there. You don't, I promise you.
13:28The bomb goes off. Evil Genius. Another popular Netflix documentary,
13:33Evil Genius is all about Marjorie Deal Armstrong and her twisted, complex scheme to rob a bank,
13:39hire a hitman, kill her father, and claim her inheritance. And to rob a bank, she has a pizza
13:44delivery man Brian Wells kidnapped and strapped with a bomb collar, ordering him to rob the bank
13:49on her behalf. Like we said, complex scheme. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end well for
13:55poor Brian. In the opening episode, we see the poor delivery man sitting on the ground when the
13:59bomb collar goes off, immediately ending his life. Even by the loose standards of Netflix,
14:05the uncensored footage is extremely disturbing.
14:07I kept hearing it. You know, it was going beep, beep.
14:11Magnata's videos. Don't f**k with cats. Hunting an internet killer.
14:16I've never seen the video, uh, full on. I've never seen the whole thing. I've watched
14:20Bitch in Pieces, but I've never seen the whole video. So, here we go.
14:25Even though we don't see the full uncut versions, the videos of Luca Magnata still
14:29prove incredibly perturbing. The Netflix documentary covers the crimes of Canadian murderer Luca Magnata,
14:35who posted a series of animal cruelty videos to the internet before graduating to human murder.
14:41The series includes clips from the videos that Magnata posted to the internet, including many
14:45upsetting shots of animals in distress. As for the murder of Jun Lin, the video is either cropped
14:51or blurred so that we don't see the gore. But the images that we do see are still very dismaying,
14:57as are the graphic depictions of the video spoken by those who are unfortunate enough to see it.
15:02This one isn't for the faint of heart.
15:03Uh, so the suspect comes up. He's got something in his hand, uh, some sort of stabby tool,
15:10ice pick kind of looking thing.
15:11Recounting cannibalism. The cannibal that walked free.
15:15I don't want to kill, but, uh, I, I couldn't find any way to eat the girl's meat fresh.
15:26So I thought I have to kill.
15:30Want to watch something really messed up? Watch the five documentary The Cannibal That Walked Free.
15:34The title alone is enough to infuriate. The short documentary covers the story of Issei Sagawa,
15:40a Japanese murderer who killed Renee Hardavelle back in 1981 and consumed her flesh. Against all odds,
15:46Sagawa walked free owing to a legal loophole between his native country of Japan and France,
15:52where the murder was committed. Not only was he free, but he was able to partake in documentaries
15:56like this one, where he explicitly conveys his acts of cannibalism. Needless to say,
16:01his calm demeanor and graphic storytelling are blood-chilling. Blood-chilling and infuriating in
16:07equal measure. The crime scene. Paradise Lost. The child murders at Robin Hood Hills.
16:20The police in West Memphis, Arkansas confirmed today that three young boys were brutally murdered.
16:25The bodies of Weaver Elementary School second graders Stephen Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael
16:30Horn were pulled from a shallow creek earlier today. A hugely popular documentary, Paradise Lost
16:36chronicles the frustrating story of the West Memphis Three, a group of Arkansas teenagers who were
16:41accused of murdering three young boys as part of a satanic ritual. The crime scene sequences are
16:46enormously unsettling, and intentionally so. The footage comes from police recordings and news
16:51reports documenting where the boys were found, with close-up of evidence like bindings. But what's
16:56most disturbing are the boys' bodies, pale, bound with shoelaces, and bearing severe injuries.
17:03Unlike some true crime shows, Paradise Lost shows actual footage from the crime scene,
17:07not traumatizations. And the knowledge that you're seeing real children's remains
17:12gives it a visceral impact that most viewers simply aren't prepared for.
17:16According to the published report, Miss Kelly told police he watched 18-year-old Damien Echols and
17:2216-year-old Jason Baldwin brutalize the children. Neglected Children. The Dying Rooms.
17:28From now on, she will be identified only by her luggage label. This gives her name,
17:33her approximate birth date, and the day she was brought in.
17:37Consider one of the most disturbing documentaries ever made. The Dying Rooms was secretly filmed
17:41inside Chinese state-run orphanages during the early 1990s, when China's one-child policy was in force.
17:48As such, girls and disabled children were put into these orphanages, abandoned due to cultural
17:53pressures favoring male heirs. The footage is unimaginably horrible. Rows of cribs filled with
17:58malnourished, motionless babies, babies not reacting to sound or touch, and Mei Ming,
18:04an extremely skeletal toddler that had been tied to a bed and left alone for days, too weak even to cry.
18:11The continued imagery of silent, expressionless babies, and the quiet acceptance of their deaths
18:16by neglectful adults is profoundly unsettling. The crash scene. There's something wrong with
18:24Aunt Diane. We finally got the door open. That guy that I was with, he opened the door,
18:29and her body fell on top of our legs. On July 26th, 2009, Diane Shuler traveled nearly two miles
18:35down New York's Taconic State Parkway in the wrong direction before colliding head-on with an SUV,
18:40killing eight people. This HBO documentary attempts to make sense of Shuler's motivations,
18:46and as we know, HBO does not shy away from stark reality. The film includes tons of traumatic material,
18:52like distressing 911 calls relaying the incident in real time. But what really packs a punch are the
18:57post-crash photos, which depict obliterated vehicles and brief but mortifying shots of Shuler's corpse.
19:04Many viewers argued that the shots were gratuitous and unnecessary. Others argued they were important
19:09to the film's honesty, preventing the film from sanitizing death, and thereby softening
19:14the audience's understanding of the tragedy. And then we were just concentrating on getting
19:18the kids out of the burning car, where they were piled on top of each other. One of the fellas handed
19:25me the girl. I laid her down on the grass, put my head on her chest to hear her. I talked to her.
19:30I prayed to Jesus to help her wake up. Jonestown footage. Jonestown, the life and death of people's
19:37temple. There are a few things more disturbing than seeing over 900 corpses littering the ground.
19:50Airing on PBS, Jonestown, the life and death of people's temple, is a 90 minute examination of
19:56Jim Jones and how he orchestrated one of the most infamous massacres of the 20th century.
20:00This story has been the subject of countless documentaries, but this one doesn't shy away
20:05from the brutal aftermath. It focuses heavily on the grisly sight of Jonestown after the act,
20:10nearly 1000 corpses laying in piles around the central pavilion. The bodies belong to all walks
20:15of life, showing just how calamitous the Jonestown massacre actually was. It emphasizes that the 909
20:22dead at Jonestown aren't just statistics, they were people. As I walked up to the back of the
20:28pavilion, I saw a woman named Rosie on the ground crying. The Holocaust. The World at War.
20:35What we went through will be difficult to understand even for our contemporaries,
20:41and much more difficult for the generations that have already no personal experience from those days.
20:46ITV's The World at War is considered the gold standard of World War II documentaries,
20:51and one episode in particular chronicles the Holocaust. The imagery remains, to this day,
20:56some of the most disturbing ever broadcast on television, with piles of emaciated corpses stacked
21:01like firewood, shambling, barely alive survivors, and people being shot, burned, or any other manner
21:08of murdered. The film doesn't shy away from the brutality, but it never sensationalizes it either.
21:13The editing is slow and deliberate, forcing the viewer to linger on each individual image.
21:19For many, these were the first bits of footage from the Holocaust they had ever seen, and even if you
21:23saw it back in 1974, the images are still indelibly burned in your memory.
21:28But there were electric fences, and beyond this fence there were SS guards. Escape was impossible.
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21:50Zachary's death. Dear Zachary. A letter to a son about his father.
21:56He was found face upwards with his eyes wide open, and the policeman who found him said that
22:04he had wrapped him in a blanket. Picked up by MSNBC and aired several times on the channel,
22:09Dear Zachary is considered by many to be the most disturbing documentary ever made. It begins as a
22:14tribute to the late Andrew Bagby, with his friends and family testifying about his good character,
22:20child, Zachary. The documentary was meant as a video letter for the child, but in a shocking twist.
22:26It chronicles the baby's death at the hands of his mother. The film doesn't dramatize this,
22:30but the information still leaves viewers in stunned disbelief, not to mention tears.
22:35Kirk Kenny, who had spent years assembling this tribute for Zachary, now found himself making a
22:40memorial for both father and son. The emotional whiplash is profoundly demoralizing.
22:45Oh, I don't know how many people were here, probably 300 or 400 people, maybe more,
22:49I don't recall. I've never seen a coffin so small before.
22:57They shouldn't have them that size. What do you make of these moments?
23:00Let us know in the comments below.
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