Home should be the place where we feel safest. Yet violence often happens there, behind closed doors, between people who once promised each other love, trust and a life together. Sometimes it begins with control, jealousy and lies. In other cases, it remains hidden from family, neighbours and friends for years. Anyone can become a victim, a woman or a man, young or old, wealthy, educated, apparently living in a happy relationship.
This October, Viasat True Crime explores these stories in Psycho-Spouse Season. These are relationships in which love has given way to manipulation, violence, deception and, sometimes, murder.
One of October's premieres begins almost like a scene from a horror film. In 1990, Marlene Warren opened her front door to someone dressed as a clown, carrying flowers and balloons. Moments later, she was shot. For more than three decades, the case remained unresolved.
The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep revisits the extraordinary investigation and Sheila Keen-Warren, who later married Marlene's widower and, in 2023, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. The documentary premieres on 8 October at 22:00 CET.
The second major premiere, The Push, is equally unsettling. Pregnant Fawziyah Javed died after falling from Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. Her husband claimed it had been an accident. The investigation, however, uncovered a history of controlling and abusive behaviour that completely changed the picture of their marriage. The Push premieres on 12 October at 22:15 CET.
The most dangerous relationships do not necessarily look troubling from the outside. Malcolm Webster, featured in Married to a Psychopath, appeared to be a charming partner. Behind that image was a pathological liar who murdered his first wife for financial gain and later tried to kill another.
My Wife, My Abuser: Captured on Camera offers a very different perspective. Richard Spencer endured abuse from his wife Sheree for around 20 years. No one knew what was happening inside their home, until Richard began recording the attacks. His story is a powerful reminder that stereotypes about who can be an abuser may make other victims more difficult to recognise.
Violence can also mean taking complete control over another person's body. Drugged and Abused: No More Shame revisits the Gisèle Pelicot case through the voice of her daughter Caroline Darian and other survivors of drug-facilitated sexual assault. Its message is clear: shame belongs with the perpetrator, never the victim.
Sometimes the nightmare begins with the discovery that the person sleeping beside you has been leading an entirely different life.
The Other Mrs Jordan tells the story of serial bigamist and pathological liar William Allen Jordan. Serial Killer Wives, meanwhile, gives a voice to people who discovered that their partners were capable of unimaginable crimes.
Then there is My Wife, My Killer and the Secret Footage, the story of a woman who planned her husband's murder and used a former boyfriend to carry it out. All these cases raise the same disturbing question: how well do we really know the person we share our life with?
Psycho-Spouse Season shows that domestic abuse does not begin only with physical violence. It can grow through financial control, isolation, jealousy, humiliation, threats, lies and gradually taking away another person's right to make their own choices.
These are true-crime stories, but they are also warnings. They encourage us to look more closely at signs that are easy to dismiss and remind us that behind the appearance of a perfect relationship, there may be a reality that no one has seen for years.
Psycho-Spouse Season airs on weekdays from Monday 5 October at 22:00 CET only on Viasat True Crime.
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