From reality shows to sitcoms, occasionally a TV show has helped deliver real-world justice. It took some detective work, but we uncovered the most shocking episodes of TV that landed the stars or subjects behind bars.
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00:00From reality shows to sitcoms, occasionally a TV show has helped deliver real-world justice.
00:06It took some detective work, but we uncovered the most shocking episodes of TV that landed
00:11the stars — or subjects — behind bars.
00:13In 1978, while searching for attractive and charismatic men to participate in the long-running
00:20reality dating competition series The Dating Game, producers found 35-year-old Rodney Alcala,
00:27an unassuming Texas transplant.
00:29Today, one might consider that hiring anyone for such an intimate television appearance
00:34without first running a background check would be a significant risk to the studio, not to
00:38mention the safety of everyone involved with the making of the show.
00:42"...bachelor number one is a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him
00:47in the dark room at the age of 13, fully developed."
00:50And yet, when Alcala showed up for his episode of The Dating Game, he played the role of
00:54desirable bachelor so well that he was chosen by the female contestant to be her date.
01:00"...I'm called the banana, and I look really good."
01:04Behind the scenes, however, Alcala was described by a fellow bachelor as creepy, obnoxious,
01:10and trying to intimidate.
01:12"...This creep comes up and he puts his face practically in my face and he says, I always
01:17get the girl."
01:19The date between Alcala and the contestant never happened, a rejection that criminal
01:23profiler Pat Brown believes could have driven him to kill.
01:26Again, that is.
01:28Had producers run a background check on Alcala, they would have found his name attached to
01:32some heinous crimes, including rape and the murders of two women.
01:36He was even on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list before being cast in The Dating Game.
01:42Alcala killed at least three more people after his episode aired, and was finally arrested
01:47in July 1979.
01:48He died in 2021, having spent the rest of his life on and off death row.
01:53A film based on the Dating Game episode, titled Woman of the Hour, directed by and starring
01:58Anna Kendrick, is coming to Netflix in 2024.
02:03It's August 23rd, 2000.
02:05On a small Malaysian island, California whitewater rafting guide Kelly Wigglesworth and Richard
02:10Hatch, a small business owner from Rhode Island, are just seven votes away from winning the
02:14first season of the game show that would change the reality competition genre for good.
02:20After much anticipation, host Jeff Probst pulls out a tie-breaking vote, revealing Hatch
02:25as the first-ever winner of Survivor.
02:27The winner of the first Survivor competition is…
02:32Rich.
02:34Hatch's victory was witnessed by nearly 52 million people, including some folks from
02:39the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
02:42The $1 million cash prize was undoubtedly exciting for Hatch, so exciting that he failed
02:47to pay taxes on it.
02:48He was convicted of tax evasion in 2006, after which he served 51 months in prison.
02:54However, according to recent reports, Hatch allegedly has yet to resolve his now $3.3
03:00million tax bill.
03:01Representing himself in a lawsuit levied by the federal government for the unpaid taxes,
03:06he claims that his portrayal on Survivor as, quote, an often naked and apologetically gay
03:11atheist has created bias against him.
03:14We drowned witches and witches don't even exist.
03:16Let me take it back to this, you know, it's a witch hunt.
03:19In June 2024, Hatch filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
03:24Rather than sending its subject to jail, one episode of Larry David's HBO comedy Curb Your
03:29Enthusiasm actually saves someone falsely accused of murder.
03:33It's a strange universe out there, maybe Larry's just tied into it more than we know he is.
03:37For the Season 4 episode, The Carpool Lane, in which Larry's character invites a sex worker
03:42to an L.A. Dodgers game in order to use the carpool lane, the production filmed the Dodger
03:47Stadium sequences during a real game.
03:50In attendance that day was Juan Catalan, who was later arrested for allegedly killing 16-year-old
03:55Martha Puebla in what appeared to be a gang-related execution.
03:59Homicide detectives Martin Pina and Jose Rodriguez were so certain Juan was the killer, they
04:06didn't bother doing their job.
04:08Catalan protested his innocence, but couldn't prove his alibi.
04:11That's if he'd been attending a Dodgers game with his 6-year-old daughter when the murder
04:14took place.
04:15Miraculously, however, he remembered that Curb actor Bob Einstein was sitting near him
04:20that day.
04:21Please God, I kept praying, you know, please be on that tape.
04:23When his lawyer contacted HBO, they had Catalan on tape.
04:27The case was immediately dismissed, preventing the real killers from escaping justice.
04:32For the death-defying captains of Discovery's deadliest catch, the off-season has never
04:36been much of a vacation.
04:38For other characters on the show, however, the downtime can give them space to relax,
04:42reconnect with family, or in at least one case, lead a double life as a bank robber.
04:46"...idle hands at the workshop of the devil, and we've had way too much time off."
04:52Between the years of 2007 and 2009, Joshua Tell Warner, with the help of his accomplice,
04:58Garrett Wade Rice, held up three Oregon banks, evading capture and making out with thousands
05:03of dollars from each robbery.
05:05Warner and Rice might have quietly enjoyed their ill-gotten gains as long as they didn't
05:09draw too much attention to themselves, like, for example, by joining the cast of one of
05:13the most popular TV shows in America.
05:16But that's exactly what Warner did in 2010, when he joins the deadliest catch crew in
05:20the show's fifth season.
05:22After Warner's TV appearances helped law enforcement identify him as one of the bank robbers, Deputy
05:27District Attorney Chris Perosa told The Oregonian,
05:30"...I don't think it was a particularly brilliant move on his part."
05:33At the age of 23, he was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.
05:38On June 29, 2011, 27-year-old Macon, Georgia native Lauren Giddings was reported missing.
05:44Having just graduated from Mercy University School of Law, Giddings was assumed to be
05:49studying for her upcoming bar exam.
05:51But that didn't explain why she suddenly stopped responding to texts or returning phone calls.
05:56Her remains were discovered in a dumpster the following day.
05:58There were no apparent witnesses to the murder that could point police toward a suspect,
06:02but it didn't take long for a suspect to instead unwittingly point toward himself.
06:07On June 30, Local Fox and ABC News affiliate WGXA filmed an interview with Giddings' neighbor
06:13and former classmate Stephen McDaniel.
06:15"...Lauren was my neighbor.
06:17We're just trying to find out where she is at this point.
06:21No one has seen her since Saturday."
06:23At first, McDaniel seems calm and concerned, expressing confusion due to Giddings' lack
06:28of enemies and the fact that her apartment showed no signs of forced entry.
06:32His tone shifts, however, when the interviewer unknowingly reveals that the body had been
06:36found.
06:37"...I think that's where they have recovered the body or whatever they recovered from there."
06:41"...Body?"
06:43McDaniel's body quite literally staggers McDaniel's, causing him to awkwardly walk away and sit
06:47down.
06:48After this damning TV appearance, it didn't take long for investigators to hone in on
06:53McDaniel.
06:54In 2014, he confessed to entering Giddings' home with a master key and killing her.
06:59Dr. Phil McGraw is a controversial figure, to say the least.
07:03However, there's one story of his work leading to real-world justice.
07:06In 2012, 25-year-old Timothy Dean Cruz appeared on an episode of Dr. Phil called Broken Bones,
07:12Broken Hearts, and Broken Engagements alongside his girlfriend, Brittany Roberts.
07:17"...I would definitely call Tim a ticking time bomb."
07:19"...More like a landmine."
07:20The episode features a candid discussion of Cruz's abusive treatment of Roberts, during
07:25which he admits to choking, hunching, and kicking her.
07:28In May the following year, Roberts brought the episode to authorities in Edmond, Oklahoma,
07:33who helped her organize a recorded phone call with Cruz wherein he confirmed that everything
07:37he said on the show was the truth.
07:39"...I'm not trying to throw you under the bus, I'm trying to keep you out of the penitentiary."
07:43Cruz was arrested and charged with domestic abuse.
07:47As it immediately cemented its status as one of the best true crime documentaries ever
07:51released, you're likely aware of the infamous ending to HBO's The Jinx, The Life and Deaths
07:56of Robert Durst, in which the disgraced real estate magnate retreats to a restroom and,
08:01on a hot mic, seemingly admits to two of the most disturbing unsolved crimes of the 20th
08:06century.
08:07"...Killed them all, of course."
08:13But it wasn't Durst's baffling confession that mattered most in the series' season
08:171 finale.
08:18It was the interview that took place just before.
08:20Over the course of filming, director Andrew Jarecki and his crew discovered a handwritten
08:25note by Durst.
08:26The note contained nearly identical text to a separate note police believed to have been
08:30written by the person who killed Susan Berman, Durst's longtime friend and confidante.
08:35When confronted with the two notes side-by-side, Durst found them to be so similar that not
08:40even he could tell which was written by him and which was assumed to have been written
08:44by the murderer.
08:45"...The writing looks similar and the spelling is the same, so I can see the conclusion the
08:50cops withdrew on."
08:52Ahead of the season finale, Jarecki gave the footage and evidence to police.
08:56Durst was arrested and convicted of Berman's murder in 2021.
09:00Just months into his life sentence, Durst died of cardiac arrest.
09:05During production of the Home Improvement series, the Vanilla Ice Project for the DIY
09:09Network, Robert Van Winkle, aka Vanilla Ice, reportedly told crew members working on a
09:14renovation project for one house to go to an adjacent property and transport several
09:18items back to his own home in Lake Worth, Florida.
09:21This included furniture, bicycles, and a pool heater, all of which Van Winkle said he considered
09:26to be trash up for the taking.
09:28He also claimed he had intentions to purchase the property on which he found the items,
09:32implying that gave him some sort of right to take them.
09:35In fact, there was no official agreement for Van Winkle to buy the house.
09:39Van Winkle was arrested and jailed, eventually accepting a plea deal in the case.
09:44Shortly after Valentine's Day 2016, former Florida Gators team captain Earl Tony Joyner
09:50called the police to say he'd just found his 26-year-old girlfriend, Hazel Obando, dead
09:55in their Fort Myers, Florida apartment.
09:57According to reports compiled by People, authorities found his initial 911 call to be bizarrely
10:03apologetic and took unsettling statements from Joyner and Obando's young children during
10:08interviews.
10:09Despite this, Joyner wasn't charged until 2019, the same year the Oxygen True Crime
10:14series Cold Justice investigated the murder.
10:17"...people are still around, alive, they have their memories, and they're motivated to help.
10:21You don't find that in all cold cases."
10:24According to detectives, the serious involvement gave them time they otherwise wouldn't have
10:27had to work a cold case, during which they made breakthroughs which ultimately led to
10:32Joyner's arrest and conviction.
10:34Sadly, not even the best episodes of Unsolved Mysteries lead directly to justice.
10:39But there are rare cases when renewed attention creates an opportunity to right past wrongs.
10:44That happened with the case of Kayla Umbachan, a 9-year-old girl who was kidnapped by her
10:48mother, Heather, in 2017.
10:50Ryan Iskerger, Umbachan's father, was later granted full custody of Kayla after a judge
10:55found Heather to be an unsuitable custodial guardian.
10:58A store employee in Asheville, North Carolina, was able to identify Kayla in 2023, thanks
11:04to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries they watched on Netflix.
11:07"...I don't know that we can quantify the value of that initial caller."
11:11The images of Kayla and Heather Umbachan were included at the end of Season 16, Episode
11:16titled,
11:17"...abducted by a parent," including an aged-up picture of Kayla as she might look now.
11:22The store employee notified a co-worker, who contacted authorities.
11:26Heather turned herself in shortly afterward.
11:28As seedy as some true crime shows might be, the case of Kayla Umbachan goes to show that
11:32getting victim stories out is crucial to helping solve crimes and bring justice.