Content Warning: references to murder and child abuse

Next month, Netflix debuts the new true-crime documentary Girl in the Picture, directed by Skye Borgman, who in 2017 directed the maddening Abducted in Plain Sight. The film is based on the book, A Beautiful Child and follow-up, Finding Sharon, by Matt Birkbeck. 

The disturbing mystery is still as yet unsolved and fans of the genre hope that shedding new light on a 30-year-old case could bring us closer to answers, in the way that similar films, like 2018’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark led to the arrest and conviction of Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer.

True crime podcasts, like The Murder Squad — featuring Billy Jenson and Paul Holes — have also been responsible for bringing killers to justice. Rolling Stone reported that the podcast’s frequent call to action to its listeners to submit DNA samples to GEDmatch — a database used by law enforcement to cull ancestral information from its users to solve cold cases — led to the arrest of murderer and kidnapper James Curtis Clanton.

Now, true crime sleuths as they are called are counting the days until the release of this new film, and so are we.

Franklin Delano Floyd

In 1962, Franklin Delano Floyd was convicted of abducting and molesting a 4-year-old child in Georgia. After one year, he escaped prison and robbed a bank. He was captured and released on parole after 10 years. Within one month he was charged with assaulting a woman.

Sharon Marshall

In April 1990, his wife, Sharon Marshall was found dead in a suspicious hit-and-run. Sharon had gone out on a late-night shopping trip for baby items. She was murdered on her way back to the motel where…