People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer

2 seasons available

Disturbing yet empowering accounts of how people have escaped the clutches of a serial killer.
Surviving the Butcher Baker
S2 E1

In Anchorage, 1983, a client tortures a young sex worker, then tries to fly her to a remote location; she escapes, and her harrowing story helps police discover that this man has been hunting young women like big game across Alaska for years.

Surviving the Sunday Slasher
S2 E2

Two women survive violent attacks by a killer, but it's not until a third woman survives that the victims finally attain justice.

Surviving the Washington Woodsman
S2 E3

An alleged serial killer lures teenage girls into his van, then murders them in the Washington wilderness; one girl survives.

Surviving the Devil in Chicago
S2 E4

Disturbing yet empowering accounts of how people have escaped the clutches of a serial killer.

Surviving The Beauty Queen Killer
S2 E5

In 1984, a serial killer targets young women across America until he abducts a teenager for a nine-day road trip of torture.

Surviving the Dating Game Killer
S1 E1

In 1965, Rodney Alcala attacked a teenage girl - only to brutalize and rape her again three years later; she felt guilty when she discovered he had assaulted another girl soon after - but they were merely two of this man's countless victims.

Surviving the Railroad Killer
S1 E2

A new romance between two college students derails when a sadist attacks them during a nighttime walk by the railroad tracks; only one of them lives, and she turns out to be the sole survivor of a serial murderer known as the Railroad Killer.

Surviving the Casanova Killer
S1 E3

A single mother comes home to find a serial killer holding her disabled sister hostage; he tries to kidnap her young son, but she begs him to take her instead; she is at his mercy for days, and to survive, she must get him to fall in love with her.

Surviving the Bishops Basement
S1 E4

A man who calls himself The Bishop abducts a woman and holds her captive; he imprisons six women in his basement, raping and torturing them; as captives begin to die, one woman knows her only chance of survival is to escape.

Surviving the Handsome Devil
S1 E5

In the suburbs of Chicago, a handsome man with searing blue eyes turns out to be a bloodthirsty monster hiding in plain sight and attacking young women at will; it takes decades for the survivors to discover he is a serial killer.

Surviving the Cook Brothers
S1 E6

In 1981, two men rape and shoot a young mother and force her fiancé to watch; after nearly dying, the woman learns her attackers are a pair of serial killers, who are also brothers; it will take two decades before justice prevails over the men.