r/Dateline

A body found on a rural road, a possible poisoning, and a mystery involving mushrooms? Dateline really said, “Let’s make everyone suspicious of dinner.”

Blayne Alexander guides through this tangled case AND she's doing it with some truly fabulous eyebrows. Seriously, they deserve their own correspondent credit. 👏

Let’s discuss!

🍄 At what point did you begin to suspect what had happened?

🍄 Which detail or interview stood out to you most?

🍄 Did you find the investigation convincing?

🍄 Was there anything you thought Dateline should have explored more?

🍄 Most important question: Will you ever look at a mushroom dish the same way again?

Share your thoughts, theories, frustrations, and favorite Blayne moments below!

⚠️ Spoilers are welcome in this thread since it aired last night, Friday, July 24.

Episode-Manner of Death

The prosecution case is thin. The one witness who tried to catch her in a recording failed. And his testimony is suspect because he has a long record. He tried to beat her and she called the cops on him and sent him to jail. Was this revenge?

I couldn’t say for sure that she’s innocent, but I don’t find enough to convict.

Did I miss something?

The Secret Life Of the Homecoming Queen - Season 4 Episode 8

How many of these episodes show women excusing their part in the murder of their spouse/partner on not getting enough personal attention? All the while mentioning how the women around them are jealous of how pretty they are while teaching Bible class to children on how to live a good life, being kind to others… while emailing sex scenarios to the other pastor, their husbands best friend? Seriously? While teaching the wages of sin are death she is shocked that her husband died? Could she not hear what she preached? As I watch Dateline Unforgettable the theme is how shameless the people are to get on tv and expose themselves for the psychopaths that they are. They are so lacking in humanity that they don’t recognize that they lack any trace of it. For some reason Michelle seems especially cold hearted.

Spoiler***

I just watched the most recent dateline about the brother who killed his brother and family in Colts Neck, NJ. What killed me is when they mentioned how Paul’s nephew brought Paul to school for ‘bring a special person to school day.’ Then, how are you able to stab two innocent children, let alone your own family? Then he almost killed his own wife and children in a fire! I am wonder if he had been diagnosed with previous mental health issues. Did his wife or family see the signs? This one just really got me.

I'm trying to find a specific episode from 2008 I think (Season 16, episode 9). It looks like peacock only has seasons 18 and newer. Does anyone know who I might be able to find a specific episode that pre-dates season 18? Thanks!

Anyone remember and have thoughts on this one.
Chanin is found murdered and posed in the bedroom of her house. She is seeing other men. Her ex-husband is convicted. Their children staunchly claim their dad is innocent.

At the end, my husband and I were sure he would be found not guilty because of reasonable doubt. We were stunned at the verdict. I looked for more information on line to see if there were things left out of the show that would point more concretely to his guilt, but I couldn’t find anything. Anyone have more information?

Just watched this one again tonight. Michelle Reynolds has an affair with husband’s best friend. They are all heavily involved in the church. Lover ends up stabbing Thad Reynolds to death.

Do you think she is putting on a soft, sweet southern voice for the interview? Do you think she knew about it and deserves jail time? From her interview, nothing was ever her fault.

It‘s a long shot that anyone will know this episode based on my minimal details, but I thought it was worth a shot. There‘s an episode from many years ago (maybe 5-10 years?) that has stuck in my mind and I don’t know why since I remember very little, except that the main suspect did not get caught. What I do remember is that the main suspect, who clearly committed the murder, simply refused to cooperate with authorities. I feel like she lived in Colorado, near Denver, but I could have that wrong. But there was lots of recorded phone conversations with a friend or family member, and also authorities, where she basically refused to speak a word about the murder. She was almost cocky and arrogant about the whole thing. Part of me thinks she was maybe a lesbian, but I could be mixing that up with another story. But I just seem to remember her living in a cabin or a cottage on her own, and going about her life, even though all evidence (circumstantial) pointed to her as the only possible suspect. Anyway, I know this isn’t a lot to go on, but maybe someone out there knows!

I’m binging Dateline and it is only reinforcing that the police aren’t really capable of protecting anyone and even less capable of investigating the fatal crimes and catching the real perpetrators (there are always exceptions). It’s a really good example to add to my own experiences with inept policing, and I really feel like we are giving too much power (and weaponry) to people who have no business having it. On average it takes less than two years to become a police officer, be given incredible power over other people, and be given deadly weapons that kill. Policing culture is such that they protect one another over anyone else. It seems like we aren’t really getting the most qualified and best candidates to “serve and protect” our communities. The only “good cop” is one that cares so much about their job and the people that they expose their “brothers in blue” when they’re not doing their jobs.

Smoking gun and last day and most memorable or whatever it’s called all have normal subtitles. But for 20 years the subtitles on dateline are either 5 min ahead or 5 min behind or totally stopped, like what is going on? Even current season. It’s 2026! I know it’s not just me, if I see dateline on at the gym, at a hotel, wherever, it’s the absolute worst subtitles I’ve ever seen. Substitles exist on every show now, it seems like there’s a system for this. I’m just posting this hoping peacock/whoever realizes they need to look at how bad this is.

Any ideas on how to find an episode from around June 2006?

I’m a legal assistant and had a woman leave me a somewhat odd voicemail this morning wanting to talk to one of the attorneys I work for. I forwarded it to him via email and said per our files she was a past client from the early 2000s, but I wasn’t sure what she was asking was something we could help with (or honestly anyone). He ended up immediately calling me and basically saying ‘oh noo we are not going to be able to help her. I did some work for her a long time ago and ended up passing her along to another attorney. But she was on Dateline’ among some other crazy details I’m not gonna disclose.

My attorney sent me some obscure blog post a man wrote after viewing the episode in June 2006, so that’s how I know it aired around then. I searched her name and her daughter’s name (she basically made allegations against her ex husband, kidnapped her daughter and fled the country) plus Dateline and nothing comes up on Google. I want to watch the episode SO bad. They apparently interviewed an attorney who used to work at my firm in it. And I ended up having to speak on the phone w the woman to tell her we couldn’t help and it was kinda unhinged too. So I’m like, I GOTTA see this. Is there like a contact at NBC you think I could reach out to about archival episodes?

This episode was from several years back, so it might be a long shot. The father (who was white) was convicted of killing his wife/the mother (who I think was Asian). He originally said she had run away but then it became apparent that was not true as she was missing several years. They had two or three older adult children who were split on the father’s guilt. One of the children (I think the son) originally thought the father was innocent but after the trial/evaluating all the facts decided he had to be guilty.

I know you are new and I appreciate the new life that’s coming to this sub. I just have one suggestion:

No more “I hate x host” threads. They don’t add anything to the conversation. Complaints about a specific journalist’s voice or outfits is just not valuable discussion on a true crime forum. If it happened occasionally sure. But it’s a lot of hate threads that are just shallow personal attacks.

If you don’t want to ban them altogether, maybe do a vent mega thread and move all the discussion there. People who insist on having their complaints aired publicly can connect with other like minded folks.

I did a search of the subreddit and didn’t find anything similar. I’ve been watching Dateline from the beginning but now I tend to binge several at once. Does anyone notice how the interviewer and their subject repeat each other? When you watch several episodes at once, it’s so obvious. I have a little experience with news shows - my family was on a similar show many years ago, and the main reporter did not interview us personally. They did a video interview of a couple people but it looked like he was a big part of the reporting. So now I’m thinking repeating these answers may be added in after a producer does the actual interview and then they have the reporter just repeat the answer to look like they are there. Or maybe my neurodivergence just notices way too many patterns 😂 Btw, I think story producers are fantastic and do such a hard job that takes several months to build a story and don’t get enough credit.

Kimberly and Katie of A Date with Dateline interviewed Mr. Mankiewicz this month!

If you haven’t listened to the A Date with Dateline podcast and are a fan of Dateline, you should check them out! They post weekly and are so hilarious at recapping Dateline episodes. u/zestyclose_cold1455 mentioned in another thread that their podcast is like watching with a friend and I can’t agree more!

Thank you to a fellow Redditor, I am pinning this post to get ideas on how to decorate the place. Please tell us mods your ideas on what updates you'd like to see around here to make it more exciting and interactive!

View Poll

This subreddit has no changes made from its original default reddit design. Upon first entering, it looks like it's completely dead and forgotten. Once you start reading the dates of the threads you realize there is a lot of life here, but the mods have done little to provide for that community. There's no banner, no pinned threads on new episodes, no link to the official 24/7 livestream on Youtube, nothing. There's 7 mods... come on guys, you can do some work to give this subreddit the look and feel that it deserves.

Does anyone else remember this semi-recent episode? This is about a woman who marries a pharmacist who owns a racetrack. The pharmacist dies with his wife Cindy being the only one who is at home.

Cindy's sister is on the episode and she appears to be a complete lunatic, I am literally laughing my ass off at half the things she says, she is wild!

Her: KEN FINALLY STOOD UP TO THE KIDS, THEY WERE NO LONGER GOING TO RULE HIM! (speaking to the convenient will that Cindy found that leaves all assets to her).

Her: Ken loved those dancing clubs, naked ladies all over him. Let me tell you that all stopped when he met my sister Cindy!

Her: If you dont believe what Im saying, check the baggy! Turns out it is a pubic hair in the baggy, I don't know why it was in there! That is what the detectives told me! (in relation to a hair placed in a baggy in a fake confession letter sent to her from the 'killer')

I don't mean to laugh at the misfortune of others, but the small town nature of Dateline brings along some of the most unusual characters you have ever seen. Anyone who grew up with family in rural America recognizes many of the characters. A whole slice of the country that is lost to those of us who grew up around larger cities.