American Nightmare

Really great series, short and to the point. No unnecessary filler like so many of the newer true crime docs that have been flooded out onto the streaming services the last few years. I don't remember hearing about this story so it was all new to me and extremely interesting. If these true crime series have taught me anything it's that you need to get a lawyer immediately whenever you're talking to police and that the police very rarely want to do any work. Hopefully now that this is out the police officers and fbi agents involved are fully held responsible for their actions. Their treatment of the victims in the video footage they released was truly disgusting.

Another True-Crime documentary from Netflix. It does a good job of presenting the police's point of view in the first episode, expands on what was the truth in the second and third episodes. It's a very bizarre tale, and it's understandable that the police would be sceptical. However, a good example of why multiple leads should be followed in an investigation. Initially, that the boyfriend has murdered his girlfriend. But instead of actually trying to prove this, they devote a great deal of time interrogating the boyfriend. And then when the girlfriend actually shows up alive, deal of time to saying that they created a hoax. But if they had devoted at least some time to actually investigating their story, they may have found the perpetrator. One question I have about the series is that they mentioned that they were kidnapped by more than one person, no only one person has ever been convicted of this crime. That person sent multiple emails to a newspaper claiming that there were two other people involved in the crime. The target of the crime was the boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. Her ex-boyfriend was an FBI agent who was investigating this crime. So why wasn't he investigated? Why was no one following up the leads of the two other assailants? It feels like the investigation is actually incomplete, but the law establishment was happy that they had one conviction, and they didn't go forward to finding the other people responsible for the crime. It's a good examination of what can go wrong when you focus on one theory during an investigation.

"American Nightmare" is a short documentary that enrages you, not because it's a low-quality production - it's quite the opposite: It enrages you because it does an effective job of exposing injustice and incompetence from authorities who are supposedly here to serve and protect. You are reminded of the barriers women face when victimized. This is why most do not report. To this day, even post-Harvey Weinstein and the strong feminist movement, female victims are still not believed. It's easier to just forget that this is happening in our society, but thanks to good documentaries like this one, we are reminded that not only do victims get victimized twice, the law enforcement victimizers are actually rewarded and not punished for their smug incompetence.

For fans of the true crime genre, American Nightmare offers a very well documented, detailed and also with the real victims, they are not actors. They even have audio and video evidence.

This documentary rise the questions around judging and pointing fingers without sufficient evidence, disbelief and the failings of our institutions, the truth is that it is not a new issue, although in this case it is extremely cruel and I would say that it is even illegal. The word 'negligence' falls short in this case, it is much worse than negligence.

I would have liked to know more about Andrea's ex-partner, the FBI agent, but it still doesn't matter for the final result. And also a psychological profile of Matthew Muller could have maybe added a new view to the story.

When a citizen finds themselves in a dangerous situation, their first thought is to get help from the authorities because that's what they are meant to do, at least come forward to prove they are not lying! But what if they deny to believe you? The officers tried everything to break them down by pointing fingers at them from the beginning. Really frustrating! My blood pressure went up! And if that were not enough, let's talk about the press, always inventing things just to damage and break our lives. I will tell journalist Henry Lee, from the San Franciso Chronicle, not to judge without knowing, that is not doing your job well at all!, but simply wanting to harm others in every way. I hope it happens to you one day, let's see if we believe you. Asking for forgiveness later makes no sense any more, damage is already done!

I just hope that after all this unnecessary drama and loss of a lot of money, the organizations that should help us when we need it most have learned something.

I absolutely recommend it!

This documentary was very intriguing.

The slow start, the presentaion of events and the unbelievable stories led me to thinking, yep this is a Gone Girl copy but for real!

I vaguely remember the story but not the outcome.

The way the couple were individually shown in both police interviews and even the Netflix interviews truly sounded like the kidnapping was not true and actually bizarre.

I placed trust in the police investigation as that has been my point of truth but now find I need remove my bias and think more carefully about jumping to conclusions.

Watch this and draw your own conclusions.