Addicts are found over-dosing on the streets every day in New Hampshire, the small, bucolic state President Trump recently called a “drug-infested den.” Chris Cuomo visits the front-lines of America’s opioid epidemic, to see what’s being done to turn this deadly tide. It’s an uphill battle for the first responders, police departments, addiction specialists, and courts, who are instituting new programs and solutions to reduce the rising death toll. The hour follows the lives of addicts trying to kick their deadly habits as well as the efforts of those working tirelessly to save them.
An alarming number of bodies is piling up in Dr. Corrine Stern’s jurisdiction, and it’s her job to figure out who they are and why they’ve died. She is the lone medical examiner in the border town of Laredo, Texas and has become an expert in identifying the bodies of migrants who die crossing the border, but her caseload is much more than just that. Despite dealing with horrific cases on a regular basis, Dr. Stern is committed to treating all of her “patients” with dignity and works tirelessly to give their families closure. In this hour, Cuomo gets a first-hand look at Dr. Stern’s advanced forensic techniques but also the impact working so intimately with death has on a person’s life.
Emotionally-charged custody battles take place with increasing frequency in two small towns on the border of Arizona and Utah, a hidden corner of America, where former members of the FLDS, an extreme polygamous sect still under the control of Warren Jeffs, their imprisoned leader, wrestle and argue with women in prairie dresses to get their children back. Chris Cuomo finds himself in the middle of an hours-long tug of war, and meets mothers and fathers who have fought long and hard to reclaim their kids, at great personal cost.
More and more American children are being recruited into the sex trade, sometimes girls as young as 10 years old. It is now become a booming multi-million dollar business that feeds on young, vulnerable, homegrown kids, who are forced into selling their bodies to enrich their traffickers. Chris Cuomo explores the mean streets of Los Angeles, California, where law enforcement battles this rising tide of exploitation, and meets officers and activists who are trying to help young victims and put their predators behind bars. The hour’s guide is Rachel Thomas, a survivor whose own fall from grace and back serves as a cautionary tale.
What is life in prison really like for the fastest growing segment of incarcerated Americans? Chris Cuomo is granted unprecedented access to New York State’s only maximum security prison for women, witnessing some of the most important moments of some of the inmates’ lives. From the first day of a young woman who put her love of drugs over her two young children, to a dominatrix who killed two of her customers and is now allowed conjugal visits with a husband she met on a prison dating website. Cuomo talks to the warden about the problems of drugs in prison, and whether rehabilitation is possible: spending time with a woman who has spent 26 years in prison for murdering her own grandmother as she waits to find out whether her fifth parole hearing will finally set her free.
Cuomo goes inside a maximum-security prison for an exclusive interview with one of America's most notorious serial killers, Joel Rifkin. Cuomo is Rifkin's mind-hunter, asking him tough questions about his sordid sex life, why he brutally murdered 17 women and how he was eventually caught. Beyond the horrors of the killings themselves, Cuomo tries to understand what motivated Rifkin, who is serving more than 200 years for his grizzly yet methodical crimes.
Julie was abducted from her church parking lot by a stranger. Gabrielle was attacked as she walked home from work alone at night after the Uber app on her phone malfunctioned. Despite the growing attention on sexual assault, an alarming number of rapes go unpunished; more than 98% of the time the perpetrators never spend a single day in prison. Cuomo hears the firsthand accounts of rape survivors and examines what hurdles they face to get justice.
When Debra Newell clicked on John Meehan's online dating profile, she thought she'd finally found the perfect man. He said he was a doctor who volunteered his services in Iraq, but as their relationship grew, Debra began to have an uneasy feeling. Cuomo unravels the twisted tale of what happened to Debra when her promising love story went horribly wrong and somebody ended up dead.
Three women a day are killed by a former or current husband or boyfriend. Nicole Beverly is desperately trying to avoid that fate. When she met her husband in college he was a football star and they were in love. She never imagined the relationship would turn violent and he would end up holding a gun to her head. Kevin is in prison for his violent attacks on her. Now his release date is coming up and a judge will decide if he should go free. Cuomo follows Nicole as she goes through the court system, trying frantically to keep him behind bars. If he gets out, she is convinced he will kill her...so she is prepared to go on the run and into hiding with her two sons. Cuomo goes inside the epidemic of intimate partner violence that can turn lethal for so many women.
Like most identical twins, the Spahalski brothers have a lot in common... but they may be the only identical twins who have both separately committed murder. Cuomo meets face-to-face with Robert Spahalkski inside a maximum-security prison where he's serving 100 years to life for four murders. The host confronts him with details of his crimes and tries to glean insight into the cause of his murderous urges. Could the desire to kill be a genetic trait? Cuomo tries to find some answers to the age-old question of nature versus nurture.