Laci Peterson and Chandra Levy's murders shocked the nation.
Both were well-publicized cases, becoming household names, still discussed decades later. Now, Robin Roberts new true crime series, "Murder Has Two Faces," investigates victims who's cases didn't receive high-profile headlines, despite eerie similarities.
The true crime doc, airing on Hulu, dives deep into two cases, uncovering why one became a household name while the other received little to no attention.
The first entry in the series, "Motherhood Interrupted," begins with the story of Evelyn Hernandez, a young pregnant mother living in San Francisco who went missing with her five-year-old son, Alex, shortly before her baby shower. Evelyn's friends and family push for police to search harder for her and work within the community to find her, but to no avail.
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Evelyn's case only gains attention when another young, pregnant woman goes missing a few months later: Laci Peterson. Laci's face and story dominates local and national media, as her husband, Scott Peterson, comes into focus as a suspect. Scott's defense, at one point, attempts to tie Evelyn's story into reasonable doubt about Scott's involvement with Laci's disappearance and death, suggesting that two pregnant women missing under similar circumstances must be the work of a serial killer or even Satanists.
But Evelyn's case goes cold after the brief burst of media attention, and her friends and family are left without answers, even after her body is discovered in San Francisco Bay, just as Laci's was. Her young son, Alex, has never been found.
The women shared so many similarities, they were both young, pregnant, had partners who had affairs (Evelyn was dating a man named Herman who was married), and had loving supportive friends and family who worked tirelessly for answers.
So why is Laci a household name and Evelyn barely remembered? What about Joyce Chiang, who went missing in the same Washington D.C. area as Chandra Levy? Or the victims of the Tagged Killer, a young man who used an early online app to lure victims in a similar manner to The Craigslist Killer?
"Murder Has Two Faces" speaks with experts from law enforcement, media, and social analysts to evaluate where the attention on each case diverges, which comes down to racial and socioeconomic differences, pushing the viewer to question their own feelings.
The show highlights that no one victim is more important than another and doesn't shy away from recognizing flaws in the investigations, often impacted by assumptions and stereotypes that lead to cases going unsolved or, as is the case covered in the third episode about the Tagged Killer, allowing a murderer to go free and continue harming people.
Roberts even takes herself to task, subtly, by including clips of her own reporting on the high-profile cases, acknowledging the flaws in media coverage and who gets attention, and therefore resources, and who doesn't.
The veteran journalist spoke with People Magazine recently about the series, saying, "The hope is people are going to say, 'Oh my goodness, I knew this to be true' and know that there is a disparity and it's wrong.'"
She continued, "And for all of us, those of us in the media, the public, law enforcement, to all take ownership of this and go, this is not right," Roberts added. "It should not matter what you look like. Everyone who is a victim of a crime is deserving of justice."