FEEDING THE OBSESSION
Why are so many people drawn to true crime stories? Experts say the answer may be rooted in basic human psychology.
The true crime genre has existed for decades, but in recent years it has exploded into a cultural phenomenon. So why does it feel as though audiences have become almost criminally obsessed?
For a long time, true crime carried a stereotype as the preferred pastime of bored housewives, with reruns of “Dateline” and high-profile 1990s trials (like O.J. Simpson and the Menendez brothers) playing in the background at home, simply out of curiosity or even convenience. Today, however, the genre has expanded far beyond traditional network broadcasts. True crime dominates world headlines, and with easy access across television, podcasts, streaming platforms, and social media, coverage is consumed by millions. Long-running programs like “Dateline,” “20/20,” and “48 Hours” remain staples, but audiences also flock to streaming documentaries, deep-dive investigative podcasts, and even live courtroom coverage from YouTubers (sometimes called “law-tubers”) and other boots-on-the-ground creators who document trials and real-life mysteries as they unfold. It’s fascinating to hear legal experts providing commentary on a trial while you watch live or follow a YouTuber from your couch as they take you through the last place Nancy Guthrie was seen.
Experts say the genre’s appeal may be rooted in basic human psychology. Brandon Golob, associate professor of law, criminology, and society at UC Irvine, says true crime taps into evolutionary instincts that make people take notice of danger.
“Our brains are primed to pay attention to threats,” Golob says. “Beyond that, these stories feed our need for narrative and, ideally, closure. The standard true crime arc—question, investigation, resolution—is satisfying for audiences.”
Golob adds that the modern media ecosystem has dramatically accelerated the genre’s reach.
“Content is free, on-demand, and algorithmically tailored to individual interests,” he notes. “The media system both reflects audience fascination and amplifies it.”
Certain types of cases tend to capture the public’s attention more than others. Crimes involving betrayal, such as those committed by trusted partners, neighbors, or community figures, often resonate most strongly with audiences.
“This breach of safety and ‘double life’ creates a cognitive dissonance that’s captivating,” Golob says. The tragic murder of California’s Melody Buzzard comes to mind. The 9-year-old girl’s mother, Ashlee, allegedly shot and left her for dead.
Cases involving systemic failures, such as wrongful convictions or investigations shaped by race or gender, are another big draw.
“True crime media is especially powerful when it harnesses that sense of agency,” he says, adding that the genre can both educate audiences but also intensify public scrutiny of law enforcement agencies.
Still, Golob cautions that true crime walks a delicate line.
“At its best, it demands accountability,” he says. “At its worst, it risks turning real human suffering into entertainment.”
TWO CASES WE CAN’T FORGET
Some stories just stick with you. Here are two that made national headlines, in print and on air.
MURDER AT SEA: THOMAS AND JACKIE HAWKS
Thomas and Jackie Hawks had spent a lifetime working toward a peaceful retirement, looking forward to enjoying their grandchildren and the Newport Beach coast they loved. Instead, the couple met a horrifying fate. Their haunting 2004 disappearance initially appeared to be a missing-persons case tied to the sale of their yacht.
The Hawkses had spent years living at sea aboard their 55-foot yacht, the Well Deserved. But when grandchildren were about to enter the picture, they decided to sell their boat so they could fully focus on family time and retirement. However, the people who approached them about purchasing the vessel had no intention of completing a legitimate deal.
Skylar Deleon, a troubled former child actor turned scam artist who once appeared as an extra on the television series “Power Rangers,” posed as a buyer with his pregnant wife, Jennifer Henderson Deleon. He persuaded the Hawkses to take him and two acquaintances, John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Long Beach and Alonso Machain of Pico Rivera, who testified at trial, out for an in-water test run before finalizing the sale. The meeting, however, turned into a deadly ambush.
According to trial testimony, the couple was bound with rope, tied to the yacht’s anchor, and thrown overboard alive.
“Once out at sea, they overpowered the victims, forced them to sign the transfer of title documents, handcuffed and tied them to the anchor, and drowned them in the ocean,” according to an O.C. District Attorney’s Office press release on the case. “Skylar and Jennifer Deleon were in constant cell phone communication while the murder plot was being executed. During the guilt phase Machain testified that while tied to the anchor of their yacht, Jackie Hawks was begging for her life as Thomas stroked her hand to comfort her. When forced to sign yacht ownership papers over to the Deleons, Jackie Hawks intentionally misspelled her own name by leaving off an S in hopes that someone would notice that something was wrong with the documents.”
Deleon and his wife then attempted to also seize control of the couple’s financial accounts.
Investigators pieced together the conspiracy through financial records and witness testimony, including statements from Deleon’s accomplices on the yacht that day. In 2008, Deleon was convicted of murder and was sentenced to death in 2009. Kennedy received the death penalty as well, while Jennifer got a life sentence.
While incarcerated, Deleon, who now identifies as a woman, made headlines again after seeking gender-affirming medical treatment.
THE MILLIONAIRE MURDER PLOT
A twisted love triangle unfolded like a television drama, complete with a deadly ending.
In December of 1994, Newport Beach millionaire William McLaughlin, founder of a medical research firm, was shot and killed in his Corona del Mar home. Initially, investigators believed the killing may have been a botched robbery. But as detectives dug deeper, suspicion turned toward McLaughlin’s girlfriend, Nanette Packard.
While she was in a relationship with the wealthy businessman, investigators discovered she was secretly involved with Eric Naposki, a former NFL linebacker who had briefly played for the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. Police said the two diabolically conspired to murder McLaughlin in order to gain access to his money and wealth. Authorities believed Naposki carried out the shooting, while Packard orchestrated the plan behind the scenes. Yet, despite early suspicions, the case stalled and remained unresolved for years.
It wasn’t until 2010, nearly 16 years after the killing, that prosecutors finally were able to file charges after new witnesses and evidence emerged. By that time, Packard had been living quietly in Ladera Ranch, raising children as a suburban soccer mom. Naposki had also moved on, marrying and starting a family. Their arrests stunned friends and neighbors.
Both Packard and Naposki were convicted of murder. Naposki received life in prison without the possibility of parole, while Packard was sentenced to life without parole for orchestrating the killing.
Former Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy, who helped secure convictions in both the Hawks and McLaughlin cases, tells Orange Coast magazine that the investigations behind the prosecutions were among the most impressive he had seen during his career.
“I was very lucky on both the Hawks and the McLaughlin cases because the investigators were so outstanding,” Murphy says. “Dedicated, steely eyed professionals.”
While the courtroom victories did bring accountability, Murphy says the process of building the cases often meant confronting the darkest aspects of human behavior.
“What really stays with you is the cruelty you uncover as you put the evidence together,” he says. “You begin to realize the true depravity of the defendants and their greed.”
As prosecutors worked to reconstruct the crimes, Murphy says the human cost was impossible to ignore.
“Your heart breaks for the victims, but also their surviving loved ones,” he notes.
Both cases required complex prosecutions involving multiple defendants and separate trials. Murphy says the legal process ultimately depended on the strength of the evidence presented to juries.
“We even tried five co-conspirators separately between those two cases and had excellent judges and five no-nonsense Orange County juries,” Murphy says. “Thankfully, I believe we achieved justice in each one.”
For Murphy, the cases are a reminder that even in the face of unimaginable cruelty, the justice system can still deliver accountability and justice for victims and their families.
THREE CASES TO WATCH
Orange County’s courtroom observers see their fair share of jaw-dropping criminal cases, but a few that are currently working their way through the system have gripped the public with allegations that are difficult to comprehend.
THE ANAHEIM KILLING THAT TRIGGERED AN INTERNATIONAL HUNT
A welfare check revealed a grisly crime scene last August, when Anaheim police discovered the decapitated body of 55-year-old Enrique Gonzalez-Carbajal inside his apartment on East La Palma Avenue. Family and friends called the department after growing increasingly worried when they hadn’t heard from him. Detectives quickly zeroed in on his 23-year-old live-in girlfriend, Alyssa Marie Lira, whom he had reportedly been dating for a couple of months. But Lira was gone.
The FBI assisted in the hunt for Lira, who was captured after five months on the run. Mexican authorities took her into custody in January, and she was then extradited back to California. She was arraigned in February in Orange County Superior Court.
Although the details are still murky, prosecutors allege Gonzalez-Carbajal was killed with a knife during a domestic argument, but investigators say many questions remain about the events leading up to the killing.
“This investigation and prosecution are a testament to the tenacity and the dedication of the Anaheim Police Department, of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, and of our federal and international partners to identify a cold-blooded killer, track her down in a foreign country, and bring her back to the United States to face the full weight of the law,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said during a press conference held shortly after Lira’s arrest.
She’s being held without bail and faces one count of murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. If convicted, she could face a maximum sentence of 26 years to life in prison.
MOTHER ACCUSED: THE DISNEYLAND KILLING
Crimes involving children are always heartbreaking. But it’s even more tragic, and unthinkable, when the person accused is the child’s own parent.
In what should have been a joyous trip to Disneyland in March of last year, prosecutors say a divorced 48-year-old mother killed her own 11-year-old son, Yatin Ramaraju, inside their room at the La Quinta Inn & Suites in Santa Ana. Investigators say the young boy’s body was discovered on a bed with his throat slit. He was surrounded by souvenirs from his visit to Disneyland. The boy was supposed to be returned to his father’s care later that same day.
Police say the mother, Saritha Ramaraju, called authorities hours after the alleged killing and confessed. She reportedly attempted to take her own life by ingesting pills before officers arrived. Inside the room, police discovered a bloody kitchen knife.
Orange County prosecutors have charged Ramaraju with murder, along with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. If convicted, she faces 26 years to life in prison.
“The safest place for a child should be in their parents’ arms,” noted Spitzer. “Instead of wrapping her arms around their son in love, she slit his throat and in the cruelest twist of fate removed him from the very world she brought him into.”
A VALENTINE’S DAY OF BLOODSHED AND BETRAYAL
This past Valentine’s Day didn’t involve chocolates and flowers for one Orange County couple. Instead, the holiday ended in a brutally violent killing inside a modest San Juan Capistrano home.
Stephen Anthony Demora, 62, and his estranged wife, Debora Demora, 59, had been living under the same roof despite years of marital turmoil. In the early morning hours, deputies from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department were dispatched to the residence after Anthony Demora made a disturbing and panicked phone call to his sister-in-law, telling her he had just killed his wife.
When deputies arrived, they encountered a gruesome scene. Demora reportedly emerged from the house, covered in his wife’s blood. Inside the garage, investigators found Debora with what appeared to be multiple stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities allege that Demora believed his wife had planned to spend time with another man during the Valentine’s weekend and became enraged. He was charged with one felony count of murder, along with a sentencing enhancement for the use of a knife. He is currently being held on $1 million bail. If convicted, he faces 26 years to life in state prison.
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