Investigation Discovery’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ Examines the Dangers of Love

Love is never predictable, and that is exactly what Investigation Discovery is out to prove in new true crime docuseries Heart of Darkness.

Premiering on the network on Feb. 9, with new episodes airing every Saturday at 9 p.m. ET, the six-part docuseries tells the real-life stories of causalities of love, which executive producer Thomas Latter told PopCulture.com detail “humanity at its most shocking.”

“Each episode of Heart of Darkness tells an extraordinary story of deception, heartbreak and tragedy,” Latter said. “All six of the episodes center around a different real-life murder case — all of which are rife with stunning twists, startling mysteries, and incredible, stranger-than-fiction truths. These stories are told with a raw and unflinching honesty by those closest to the tragedies: they are immersive, nail-biting and jaw-dropping first-hand accounts of humanity at its most shocking.”

While Latter notes that “it’s always a challenge to find the right stories” for series such as Heart of Darkness, a team was assembled to find lesser known real-life tales of love-gone-wrong that were perfect to bring to the small screen.

“Talos Films assembled a team of researchers and producers who spent months looking for exactly the right stories, and this hard work has resulted in this series feeling incredibly fresh — with stories never filmed for Investigation Discovery before, so each has a rawness that is both tangible and rare,” Latter revealed.

Finding the right stories to tell is just the beginning of the efforts behind the series, though, with a number of ingredients required to create a “perfect” true crime docuseries that will have viewers craving each episode to follow: “finding the right interviewees, telling a story through all of the significant perspectives, archival materials, and drama.”

Heart of Darkness, Latter says, has all of those. Boasting interviews with “family, friends, law enforcement,” whose “eloquence and willingness to honestly share their stories is of paramount importance,” and home movies, police materials, and family artefacts, the series is able to give viewers “an emotional honesty and integrity” that sets itself apart from other docuseries.

“The series is unflinching in its detailed depiction of every beat of these extraordinary, tragic, and scarcely believable stories. Each case is told and examined with an unprecedented forensic detail, and is augmented by a vast array of revelatory archival materials,” Latter said.

“The series includes unsettling home movie footage of a boy who grew up to kill his mom, a startling jailhouse confession that helps blow a cold case wide open, and interrogation room video of a young man confronting his murderer father to try and extract a confession,” he added. “The interviews too are completely fresh too: for most of our contributors, this is the first time they have spoken on camera. As a result, their interviews are heartfelt, visceral, and inspiring.”

While Latter himself is unable to pick the most shocking episode of the series, as there are “jaw-dropping twists in each, where the perpetrator is the last person viewers will be expecting,” Heart of Darkness promises to keep viewers glued to their screens.

Set to air on Saturday, Feb. 22, “Gambling With the Devil” will tell the true tale of Yvonne Oulton, who was found by her husband and son bludgeoned to death in the back of her minivan. As the investigation into her murder unfolds, a series of lies is unearthed.

“Mommy Dearest,” airing on March 2, follows the investigation into the murder of mathematician and mother Sara Williamson Raras and the tip from a “jailhouse snitch” that led to unlikely suspect – a person whom Raras trusted and a person that nobody expected.

Other episodes in the docuseries include “Lust for Murder” and “History of Violence,” which aired earlier this month, as well as soon-to-air episodes “Murder in the Poconos” and “Murder on the Homefront.”

New episodes of Heart of Darkness air Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery.