TVREAL
Sky Documentaries has unveiled several upcoming true-crime titles debuting in the coming months, including the fourth installment of the BAFTA-winning Narcos series.
Amsterdam Narcos delves into the 1970s to early 2000s when the Dutch city transformed from a liberal countercultural haven into the drugs capital of Europe. What began as a government tolerating the hash trade opened the floodgates to organized crime and the smuggling of drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine.
As the Dutch underworld exploded and the drugs trade spiraled out of control, law enforcement had to use desperate measures to try and catch the gangsters behind the operations. The story is told through the personal testimony of drug users, manufacturers, traffickers and the detectives who tried to outsmart them.
Bibaa & Nicole: Murder in the Park, set to premiere in May, unravels the story behind the killings of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. As the Covid lockdown began to ease in June 2020, a group of friends met in a London park to celebrate Henry’s 46th birthday. As the sun set and their friends gradually began to leave, the sisters stayed, dancing in the park. When they failed to return home, they were reported missing, but their disappearance was not acted upon by the police, and the search was left to friends and family.
Thirty-six hours later, Henry and Smallman’s bodies were found by Smallman’s partner. The police finally took notice, but shockingly, the women’s bodies were photographed and shared on social media by the officers tasked with protecting the crime scene. Interviews with the sisters’ mother, a small group of family and friends at the center of the search to find them and the murder detectives investigating the case help piece together the sisters’ final hours, the hunt for a serial killer in the making and the police misconduct. The title also features never-before-seen evidence and police recordings.
Also coming to Sky Documentaries is Who Killed Goldfinger?, exploring the death of one of Britain’s most notorious criminals, John “Goldfinger” Palmer, who was found dead in his Essex garden on June 24, 2015. While police originally believed he died of natural causes, they eventually confirmed the case was being treated as a professional hit.
Twenty-eight years prior to his death, Palmer had been acquitted for his part in the Brink’s-Mat robbery, in which he melted down millions worth of gold from the £26 million raid to sell on. He amassed a fortune so big that he was ranked alongside the Queen in the Sunday Times Rich List but was eventually jailed for time-share fraud in 2001. The documentary reexamines Palmer’s life and death and features exclusive testimony from some of his closest associates, who are speaking for the first time. Private investigators from TMEye will lead viewers on a hunt spanning multiple countries before unmasking their prime suspect.
The Girl Who Caught a Killer, meanwhile, follows 42-year-old Rachael Watts, who was kidnapped at 7 years old by a stranger, strangled and left for dead. Four years before her kidnapping, the murders of schoolgirls Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway had shocked the nation. Despite the evidence, their killer, Russell Bishop, walked free. Watts not only survived her own attack but was able to pick him out of a lineup, leading to Bishop being found guilty of her attempted murder.
Watts shares her story on camera for the first time, revealing the long-term impact of her trauma and discussing her role in helping convict a murderer. Family members of Fellows discuss their 30-year struggle for justice as well. The series also features the personal accounts of family, witnesses and police detectives, as well as previously unreleased police footage and photos.
“These new commissions highlight the breadth and depth of Sky Documentaries’ true-crime offering, reinforcing our commitment to stories that place the victims and their families at the heart of the narrative and which are driven by real questions that resonate in Britain today,” said Hayley Reynolds, acting director of documentaries and factual at Sky. “We’re proud to be working with the talented teams entrusted with these powerful and thought-provoking stories.”
