Were it not for a minor illness, Kristin Chenoweth's life could've looked a lot different.
The Tony Award winning actress reveals she was supposed to go on a camping trip to Camp Scott with her fellow Girl Scouts in June 1977. On the expedition, three young girls, Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Doris Denise Milner, 10, and Michele Heather Guse, 9, were sexually assaulted and murdered as the other campers slept nearby.
Now, 45 years later, Chenoweth is returning to her home state of Oklahoma in the ABC documentary Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders, in which she and investigators look deeper into the unsolved case.
"I should have been on that trip, but I had gotten sick," Chenoweth explains in a trailer released May 16. "It has stuck with me my whole life. I could have been one of them."
The actress adds, "It haunts me every day, but this story needs to be told."
Authorities arrested and charged local Gene Leroy Hart, who escaped prison in 1973, with the girls' murders. However, a jury acquitted him of all crimes in 1979, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
Having previously escaped prison, he was returned to the state's custody to finish out sentences for other crimes and died two years later.
In May 2022, Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed said that investigators conducted new DNA exams, which indicated that Hart was likely responsible for the girls' murders. "I pray that there's something that we've done that gives the family a second of something that even resembles closure or acceptance or something," said Reed, according to CBS local station KOTV-DT. "But as far as peace, there is absolutely nothing about this case that has given me one second of peace. Period."
Likewise, Chenoweth says she's forever been shaken by her near-death encounter. "There's no closure," she said. "There's no pretty red bow at the end. "
The four-part docuseries premieres May 24 on Hulu.
In the ABC News docuseries, actress Kristin Chenoweth returns to Oklahoma and "opens up about how a twist of fate prevented her from attending the camp," where three girls were murdered. According to Hulu, the series "explores the murders' impact on those close to the tragedy, details the search for and trial of the alleged killer, and examines the mysteries still surrounding the case."
The four-part series premieres May 24 on Hulu.
"Eric C. Conn was a lawyer living a little too large in eastern Kentucky… until two whistleblowers realized he was at the center of government fraud worth over half a billion dollars, one of the largest in US history," the description teases. "And that was just the beginning."
Consider skipping this Netflix docuseries if you live with a roommate. Per the streamer's description: "Roommates with malevolent and sometimes violent intentions turn the lives of their unsuspecting victims into real-life nightmares."
The four-part Peacock docuseries details the rise and fall of polygamist cult leader Warren Jeffs, who was convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault in 2011. "The series features interviews with Jeffs' former wife Vicki Thompson and their children Wendell and Sarah, members of law enforcement who were instrumental in the raid on the Zion Ranch and the lawyers involved in Jeffs' sentencing," according to the streaming platform. The series is told from the perspective of his so-called "favorite" wife Naomi Jessop.
This three-part docuseries from HBO details what the network calls a "stranger than fiction" tale. It involves a "charismatic, daredevil husband and father who unexpectedly jumped off a bridge in 1977, despite a seemingly happy home life and a lucrative career as a pilot." Add a pinch of hypnosis, a touch of double lives and you find out, of course, nothing is what it seems.
"1972: 7-year-old Steven Stayner vanishes from Merced, California." That's the gist of this Hulu doc, but that's only the beginning. "For years, his family searches for him, only to find they've been looking for the wrong boy. 50 years on, Steven's children unearth clues to their father's mysterious past."
The Netflix documentary details Sarma Melngailis' journey from celebrity restaurateur to convicted felon "after marrying a mysterious man who claimed he could make her dog immortal," according to the streamer.
The streamer released this two-parter as part of its True Crime Tuesdays. It follows a group of gamers turned websleuths who "are alerted to what appears to be a real-life murder. For the next 18 hours they are on the hunt to find out the real identity and location of one of their closest friends, who claims to have killed his family, and to put an end to his killing spree."
This two-part HBO documentary that explores the murder of acclaimed journalist Kim Wall, who was last spotted boarding entrepreneur Peter Madsen's self-made submarine in 2017. Per HBO's description, it includes "trial testimony, expert opinion, never-heard-before audio from Madsen himself and key new interviews with those who knew Wall and Madsen."
This Netflix documentary gained popularity after premiering in February. It follows Simon Leviev who was accused of posing as a millionaire to con women he met on the popular dating app out of millions of dollars.
John Wayne Gacy's serial murders are investigated in the second installment of Netflix's Conversations With a Killer. According to the streamer, the series offers new information to viewers "thanks to 60 hours of unearthed audio between Gacy and his defense team." All three episodes debut April 20 on Netflix.
Conrad Roy's suicide is explored in this gripping two-part documentary that dives deeper into his relationship with Michelle Carter, who was convicted of manslaughter in connection to his death. Though this documentary was released in 2019, it's worth revisiting if you're watching Hulu's The Girl From Plainville, starring Elle Fanning and Colton Ryan.