Netflix is releasing a true crime series about The Times Square Killer next month

Netflix is releasing a true crime documentary called Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer, which will be available next month. The series is created by Joe Berlinger, and is part of a renewal of his Crime Scene series with Netflix, which started with Crime Scene: The Vanishing of the Cecil Hotel, which was released earlier this year.

The Times Square Killer will have three episodes and is the first of three more seasons for the documentary show. It will examine how the danger and depravity of New York’s Times Square in the late 1970s and early 1980s made it possible for one man to commit — and nearly get away with — unthinkable acts in a nearly-lawless area rife with drugs and sex work. These three episodes will delve into the social and systemic forces that allowed horrific crimes to go unnoticed for too long.

Announcing the new season, Netflix shared a teaser video captioned: “The team behind Crime Scene: The Vanishing at The Cecil Hotel is back. They’ll next explore the danger and depravity of NYC’s Times Square in the 70s & 80s — a place that made it possible for one man to commit unthinkable acts. Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer premieres 12/29”.

In a statement, Netflix added: “We always saw potential for Crime Scene to be an ongoing series about how certain locations became accomplices to crimes that took place there. Now, as part of our deepening creative partnership with Joe and on the heels of the high interest in season one, we are pleased to renew the series for three additional seasons — each tackling a new location with a dark past.”

Joe Berlinger and the team are said to be already at work on the third and fourth seasons of Crime Scene, as well as a recently announced documentary series about the rise and fall of American financier and ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. The first in the Crime Scene series, The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, explored the real-life mysterious disappearance, subsequent death and conspiracy theories surrounding tourist Elisa Lam at the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. She disappeared and her case went viral after strange CCTV footage of her from inside the hotel elevator was released. She was later found dead in a water tank on the top of the hotel. The hotel had a dark history of strange deaths and goings on there.

Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer will be available on Netflix from December 29th. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• I live opposite the Cecil Hotel and this is what it’s really like there

• A history of all the death and violence that has happened at the Cecil Hotel

• Ranked: The best true crime documentaries on Netflix, according to Rotten Tomatoes