Another day, another crime documentary on Netflix – but The Women and the Murderer doesn’t follow the usual formula. Directors relay the horrific saga of a serial killer using only the voices of the women directly involved with the murders, manhunt and eventual trial. The documentary opens with home video footage of women having fun in Paris, but the joy is tainted as crime-scene images are edited into the sequence with increasing frequency. Then we meet Anne Gautier, recalling the day when she called her daughter and a strange man answered the phone. He was a first responder. “It’s over,” is all he said. Anne drove to Paris, not knowing until she arrived that her daughter Helene had been stabbed to death in her apartment. Martine Monteil was a rarity in France: a female cop. Helene’s murder was only one among a rash of similar stabbings and sexual assaults’, so finding the perpetrator was one of Martine’s biggest priorities. Meanwhile, Anne takes it upon herself to aid in the investigation. As Martine provides a logical angle for the narrative, Anne gives an emotional one. More than two years passed without a break in the case until the body of 19-year-old Magali Sirotti was found. Hysteria ensued, putting the cops under even more pressure. And finally, a piece of paper, among who knows how many thousands, turns up a DNA match. His name: Guy Georges.

– Compilation