Everything To Know About Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer

Netflix’s Crime Scene docuseries first captivated viewers in February 2021 with The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, a four-part look into the mysterious 2013 death of Chinese-Canadian tourist Elisa Lam at the titular Los Angeles hotel. Less than a year after The Vanishing, Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning director and executive producer Joe Berlinger is back with another installment of Crime Scene. The series will focus on another infamous and gruesome real-life murder, this time set across the country in the heart of New York City. Here’s everything to know about Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer, including its plot, cast, trailer, and release date.

Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer Plot

Set in December 1979, Season 2 of Netflix’s Crime Scene explores several murders committed by the notorious Torso Killer, aka Richard Cunningham, known for preying upon Manhattan’s sex workers. The follow-up docuseries begins with a team of firefighters discovering an alarming scene in a smoky Times Square motel room, sparking an intense search for Cunningham. Given the seemingly-lawless state of sex work at the time, the investigation uncovers many social and systemic factors at play in Cunningham’s ability to commit unnoticed crimes for quite some time.

“As a lifelong New Yorker, I’ve watched Times Square become the tourist mecca it is today — but many people have forgotten about the darker era of the late 1970s and early ’80s when it was a near-lawless sexual playground that enabled predators to exploit sex workers, or worse,” Berlinger said in a statement issued to Netflix. “Through the location-focused lens of this series and this particular season, we unpack how this particular time and place, and a confluence of social forces, created an environment that allowed terrible things to happen and a killer to go unnoticed for too long.”

Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer Cast

According to Netflix, several New York City figures will be featured in Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer. Such individuals include “Times Square denizens;” “beat cops,” like former NYPD Lieutenant-Commander Vernon Geberth and homicide detective Malcolm Reiman; author and sex work activist Dr. Melinda Chateauvert; lawyer Anthony Bianco; and a woman named Romola Hodas, aka “the daughter of New York’s self-proclaimed ‘porno king.’”

One of the victims’ daughters, Jennifer Weiss, is also set to appear in the docuseries. “My mother was taken in such a horrific manner,” she says in the trailer.

Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer Trailer And Release Date

The official trailer for Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer premiered on Dec. 15, giving viewers a glimpse into the disturbing murders that will be explored in the three-part season.

Along with the clip’s release, Netflix revealed all three parts of The Times Square Killer will premiere on Dec. 29, on the streaming service, making Crime Scene one of the platform’s few series to receive multiple seasons in under a year.