Chilling Stories
From acclaimed director, Amir Bar-Lev (The Tillman Story, My Kid Could Paint That), A&E IndieFilms, Asylum Entertainment and producer John Battsek comes the story of the paedophile scandal that rocked America. The town of State College, home of Penn State University, lies at the heart of an area long known as Happy Valley. Its iconic figure for more than 40 years was Joe Paterno, head coach of the school’s famous football team, known affectionately as “Saint Joe.”
Why would someone fall in love with a convicted killer whose only hope of leaving prison is in a coffin? Notorious murderers like ‘Night Stalker’ Richard Ramirez still receive bags of fan mail. He ended up marrying one of the women who wrote to him. Susan Atkins, convicted of the murder of actress Sharon Tate, also married twice while still in prison. We meet the men and women who have fallen in love with murderers. Some of them have conceived children in prison with their spouses.
In the 1970s and 80s, hundreds, possibly thousands, of men, women and children were abducted by North Korea’s Secret Service on the orders of Kim Jung II. The majority of these victims came from Japan and South Korea but it’s believed that nationals from at least 11 other countries, including Thailand, Romania, Holland and France were also taken. Some were abducted to teach North Korean spies their language and culture so that their spies could integrate more easily in foreign countries.
It was a brutal killing. On the 29th July, 2014, Australian state environment officer, Glen Turner, and his colleague stopped to take photos of some logged trees in a field. The land was owned by farmer, Ian Turnbull, who had already been prosecuted for illegal land clearing. Without warning, Turnbull appeared and started firing at them, shooting Turner twice.
On 25 February 1852, the HMS Birkenhead left Simon’s Town in South Africa. She had 643 people on board including a few women and children. Stashed in her hull were 17 crates of gold and silver. She made good time, but several hours of her journey were unaccounted for. Strange lights on shore caught the attention of those on duty. At two-o-clock in the morning, she struck an uncharted rock, just over three kilometres offshore. Chaos erupted as people scrambled for her eight lifeboats...
Police receive a strange call claiming that in a few hours, a woman will be kidnapped. The informer describes a couple, sitting at a café and claims the woman is in grave danger. Police rush to the café but find no one matching the couple’s description.Then, hours later, a young woman, Elodie Morel, is reported missing. She had responded to an internet advert for models and was supposed to be meeting the casting director at a café. Could she be the woman?
