Killers Who Were On TV Before Being Caught

As consumers of entertainment, many of us tend to have a morbid fascination with those who are capable of committing murder. From movies, binge-watching television series, and listening to podcasts about their exploits, there's usually (hopefully) one thought in mind: How can they do it? How can any person bypass their conscience, their innate humanity, to take the life of another? Or, in the case of serial killers both real and fictional that have come to permeate popular culture, many others?

It's a question that any criminologist will tell you defies any easy answers, but that doesn't stop us from asking. As such, it's pretty common to see heartless killers all over our TV screens ... being portrayed by actors. But what about when the real thing gets their moment of infamy — and not for getting caught and convicted. Whether they were stopped by chance for interviews with news crews, featured on reality TV programs, or picked to be contestants on game shows, these are actual murderers that appeared on television before being apprehended for their crimes. 

When a woman's body was found dumped in a creek in quiet, rural Bradford County, Pennsylvania, it wasn't exactly the kind of thing residents of the area were accustomed to. Local man Matthew Haverly, who was interviewed by news station WNEP, said as much before segueing into a bizarre theory of what might have occurred. "I think it was kind of a hit, and something happened," he said. "Something went bad, and this is like a rural area, so they just wanted to plant the body somewhere else besides wherever the hell they were from." He didn't go so far as to speculate as to who "they" might be — perhaps because he knew that the as-yet unidentified victim was his mother, and that he himself was her killer.

Under questioning by the police, Matthew admitted that he and his 60-year-old mother, Patricia Haverly, had gotten into a fight the day before but he had blacked out after. Police allege he hit her in the head before wrapping her body in a tarp and dumping it in the creek. While it seemed an open-and-shut case, it was later reported that a forensic pathologist had been unable to definitively point to the head injury as Patricia Haverly's cause of death. Ultimately, Matthew Haverly pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges related to the crime and received a prison sentence of three to 14 years.

In June 2011, a horrible fate befell 27-year-old Lauren Giddings, who had recently graduated from Mercer Law School in Macon, Georgia. Just days after the young woman went missing, police found her torso, and only her torso, in a dumpster outside a residence hall at the school. At the moment the grisly discovery was being divulged to the news media, a local television station was interviewing another recent Mercer grad, Giddings' neighbor, Stephen McDaniel. McDaniel was offering up info as to when she was last seen and what type of neighbor she was when the interviewer told him that police had found a body — a revelation that prompted the man to excuse himself to sit on the ground, staring into space, which was captured by the TV cameras.

Police quickly became interested in McDaniel, but a long, grueling night of interrogation failed to elicit a confession. As it turned out, though, further evidence uncovered by the cops while he sat in jail — which included a hacksaw used in Giddings' dismemberment — pointed them to McDaniels as their sole suspect. In 2014, he pleaded guilty to Giddings' murder, and he's currently serving a life sentence with possible parole.

In a 1972 episode of the classic game show "To Tell the Truth," contestants were tasked with identifying the real Edward Wayne Edwards — an admitted con man and armed robber who, he said, had turned his back on his life of crime while imprisoned in a federal penitentiary. He had even written a book, titled "Metamorphosis of a Criminal," which detailed his story. As it turned out, though, Edwards had not reformed himself — indeed, he would eventually be convicted of crimes, which made those for which he had been jailed look positively pedestrian.

In a 2018 interview with People, Edwards' daughter April Balascio revealed that when she was a child, her father had been obsessed with crime and killers and had often moved them in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. As an adult in 2009, she began investigating cold murder cases in the areas where they had lived and found many that chillingly corresponded with her family's time there. She alerted authorities as to her suspicions over one case in particular, a double homicide in Wisconsin in 1980 — and just three weeks later, those same authorities called to let her know they had obtained DNA from Edwards, and it was a match to DNA lifted from the crime scene. Edwards later confessed to killing five people, including his own foster son, whom he murdered for an insurance payout. While awaiting execution for that crime, Edwards died in prison in 2011.

On August 14, 2018, Colorado oil field worker Chris Watts gave an interview to a local television station to give an update on the police investigation into the disappearance of his pregnant wife, Shanann Watts, and two young daughters, whom he had reported missing the day before. His demeanor was calm, his statements matter-of-fact, as he expressed his hope for his family's safety — but by the next day, he would be in police custody, where he confessed to killing all three of them.

Their investigation had uncovered an extended recent separation and text messages indicating that the marriage was ending, and not happily; Shanann had, in fact, suggested that Chris might never see his kids again. Physical evidence, including Shanann's cell phone hidden between some couch cushions and her untouched purse, clued police in to the fact that Shanann had not gone anywhere voluntarily. Presented with their suspicions, it didn't take Chris long to crack. He had strangled his wife, smothered his children one after the other, and dumped them in the oil field where he worked. In November 2018, Watts was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison, with no possibility for parole.

Gerard Baden-Clay of Queensland, Australia, choked back tears as he told local TV crews of his anxiety over the disappearance of his wife, Allison Baden-Clay, in 2012; at the time, she had been missing for a few days. "I'm trying to look after my children ... we've got three young girls, and we really trust that the police are doing everything they can to find my wife," he said. Indeed, they were: In 2014, investigators had been immediately, deeply suspicious of Gerard, due to inconsistencies in his story and uncharacteristically affectionate text messages that he'd sent his wife (he'd recently ended an affair, and the marriage was troubled). Also, he had ragged scratches down his right cheek, which he claimed he'd given himself shaving.

More scratches, all over his body, were uncovered during a doctor's examination, and 10 days after her disappearance Allison's body was found in a creek miles away from the family home. Largely on the strength of Baden-Clay's injuries, he was convicted of her murder in 2014. In 2015, the charge was downgraded to manslaughter, as a judge ruled that the jury had not been allowed to consider the possibility that Baden-Clay had accidentally killed his wife; the following year, the High Court found this scenario to be purely hypothetical and reinstated the murder conviction.

During the time he served as a compliance officer in Park City, Kansas, Dennis Rader had occasion to be interviewed by local television station KSN about a series of incidents involving out-of-control dogs in the area. In the 2001 interview, he appeared authoritative and professional, and he was known to be a strict and by-the-book compliance officer. It has been speculated that his position satiated his deep need for control — because in the decade that he had been employed by Park City, Rader had not killed, and before then, he had killed many.

Rader was the infamous "BTK Killer," which stood for "Bind, Torture, Kill," which should tell you all you need to know about his methods. A few years after his TV appearance, he would begin taunting the press and the police with clues as to his identity, apparently for his own amusement — and it was these clues that diligent detectives used to single out Rader as a possible suspect. DNA evidence collected from Rader's daughter confirmed their suspicions, and in 2005, Rader was arrested and charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. He pleaded guilty and was handed 10 consecutive life sentences.