The WORST episodes of Crime Beat
Every episode of Crime Beat ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Crime Beat!
A true crime series that takes viewers deep into some of Canada’s most infamous criminal cases. Using extensive archives and intimate family interviews, each week new details are revealed that go beyond the news headlines giving a voice to victims and their families, unraveling how each case was solved, and exploring lasting impacts on the community and justice system.
#1 - Shootout at the Duke
Season 4 - Episode 16 - Aired 3/10/2023
A dispute outside a Toronto tavern between a jealous boyfriend and several gang members ends in a hail of gunfire, in which a young woman new to the city is killed, and the missing gun turns up in an unrelated crime.
#2 - Alison Parrott: Leader of the Pack
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/28/2020
Coaxed from her home for a photoshoot, a promising young athlete never returns: Caryn Lieberman brings us through the DNA breakthrough that cracks the case to a mother's national safety campaign.
#3 - The Legacy of Jordan Manners
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 4/18/2020
Catherine McDonald looks back at the impact of the murder of Jordan Manners, who was gunned down at a C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute hallway.
#4 - The Death of Christine Demeter - By Persons Unknown Part 2
Season 5 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/17/2024
Millionaire Builder Peter Demeter is charged with non-capital murder in connection with his wife's death. His trial in London Ontario's brand-new courthouse is explosive, with investigators uncovering new evidence daily.
#5 - Closure
Season 5 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/3/2024
In 1983, Susan Tice, a 45-year-old mother of four was found raped and stabbed to death in her Toronto home. Four months later, across town, 22-year-old Erin Gilmour returns home from work and is attacked the same way. The women didn’t know each other, and both cases remained unsolved for decades.
#6 - Incendiary Circumstances
Season 5 - Episode 18 - Aired 4/19/2024
On November 17, 2004, a young Calgary family settled in for the evening. At about 9 pm, the husband left for work as a security guard, while his wife stayed home with their two children. In the middle of the night, she woke to the sound of shattered glass. Within minutes the entire home was engulfed in flames. After desperate attempts to reach her children failed, the mother managed to escape. The children didn’t survive. Senior crime reporter Nancy Hixt shares the unexpected twists the investigation took into who was responsible for the devastating double-fatal fire.
#7 - Hunt for the Wolfpack
Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 4/12/2024
Three brazen murders in Kelowna, Vancouver and Toronto spark an extensive police investigation into the Wolfpack Alliance, a crew of gangsters running operations connected to Mexican cartels. The kingpins are quick to take out anyone in their way, leaving authorities scrambling to build a case against the killers.
Watch Now:Amazon#8 - A Trail of Blood
Season 5 - Episode 16 - Aired 4/5/2024
In 1995, a 92-year-old woman had been brutally beaten during a home invasion, managed to escape, but died months later. At the time, no one knew who’d so viciously attacked Henrietta Knight. But 20 years later as police are investigating the disappearance of a known criminal, they find a connection. As the investigation unfolds, they find links to a bank robbery, a car bombing and multiple murders. A trail of blood that leads them to the one man responsible for it all.
Watch Now:Amazon#9 - Nothing is What it Seems: Part 2
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/17/2023
When a man walking his dog comes upon a neighbour’s garage engulfed in flames, little does he know the treachery behind it. When the smoke clears, a woman is found dead with drug paraphernalia nearby. But nothing is what it seems, and police are left combing through a web of lies to find the killer. As they home in on the suspect they discover he’s planning to leave the country and try to intercept him, at the same time, putting an elaborate Mr. Big operation in motion.
Watch Now:Amazon#11 - In an Instant: The Neville-Lake Tragedy
Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/27/2023
Neville-Lakes' three children were killed by a drunk driver, Marco Muzzo, in a crash in Vaughan back in 2015; the driver, the son of a wealthy family, was sentenced to ten years in jail but is now out on parole while the mother is left grieving.
Watch Now:Amazon
#13 - The Secrets of Salmon River, Part 2
Season 3 - Episode 23 - Aired 5/20/2022
Five women have mysteriously vanished from near B.C.'s Shuswap region over a year and a half, leaving their families desperate for some sort of closure. When police suddenly discover a body more than five years later, it leads to an arrest in one of the women's murders. But will it help officers crack the other cases? In the conclusion of the Secrets of Salmon River, reporter Jules Knox investigates why police are struggling to make more arrests.
Watch Now:Amazon
#14 - The Brentwood Five Massacre: Part 1
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/30/2020
An accomplished dancer, an aspiring urban planner, two talented musicians, and a young man who was well on his way to becoming a humanitarian became victims of the biggest mass killing in Calgary's history.
Watch Now:Amazon
#16 - The Final Homecoming of Lukas Strasser-Hird
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/21/2020
After a year studying abroad, Lukas Strasser-Hird had dreams to be a doctor; he went out with friends to celebrate when he arrived home, but no one could have predicted how dangerous the situation was to become.
Watch Now:Amazon#17 - The Death of Christine Demeter - By Persons Unknown Part 1
Season 5 - Episode 20 - Aired 5/10/2024
On a warm summer night in 1973, building developer Peter Demeter pulls a Mercedes full of tourists into his driveway after a shopping trip. As the garage door opens, headlights illuminate a horrific scene, the bludgeoned body of his wife and model, 33-year-old Christine Demeter.
Watch Now:Amazon#18 - The Tiny Town Mystery
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/12/2024
When a 20-year-old English tourist suddenly stops contacting his family while backpacking across Canada, his mother tries to raise the alarm; police are slow to respond until an anonymous note prompts them to search a nearby lake.
Watch Now:Amazon#19 - The Hired Hit
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/14/2022
When former beauty queen Alexandra Pesic is gunned down in a brazen daylight shooting on a midsummer evening in 1992, a quiet community in a suburb of Vancouver, B.C. is stunned; evidence of a contract killing is found motivated by greed and hate.
Watch Now:Amazon
#20 - Who Killed Kelly Cook, The Back-Up Babysitter
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/3/2020
In 1981, 15-year-old Kelly Cook had taken a new babysitting job in her hometown of Standard, Alberta. She was supposed to check in with her parents when she arrived at the babysitting job, but that call never came.
Watch Now:Amazon#21 - Blindsided: The Story of Mylan Hicks
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/10/2021
In the fall of 2016, the CFL season was well underway and the Calgary Stampeders were on fire. When the Stamps beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 24 of that year, the team set a record winning streak. After the game, the team went out to celebrate. What should have been a fun night on the town, was instead marred by tragedy. A simple, accidental brush into the wrong person set the tone for the rest of the evening.
Watch Now:Amazon#22 - Surrey Six: The Gang Hit
Season 5 - Episode 14 - Aired 3/1/2024
When a mother left her Surrey, B.C. condo for work in the morning, she never imagined that it would be the last time she would ever see her son. She returned to a building that was surrounded by yellow police tape, and it wasn’t long before word leaked out that six men had been slaughtered inside. As Jules Knox reports, a well-placed surveillance team led officers to the suspects behind the largest gang-related mass murder in the province’s history, but several unexpected twists in this case soon jeopardized the search for justice.
Watch Now:Amazon#23 - I Heard Her Screams
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 2/25/2022
Two Eritrean refugees looking for a better life in Canada are murdered; 55-year-old Nighisti Semret is stabbed walking home from work; The remains of 28-year-old Rigat Ghirmay are discovered by a dog walker in a west-end park.
Watch Now:Amazon
#24 - The Evil and Senseless Plot Against Ray Johnson
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 2/27/2021
Ray Johnson was a loving father and grandfather. He lost the love of his life to cancer--and also battled cancer himself. His hobby was hunting for bargains and he was well known in garage sale/antique/flea market circles.
Watch Now:Amazon