May 6, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Lisa Cortés
Culture Representation: The three-episode documentary series “Murder Has Two Faces” features a racially diverse group of people (Latin, African American, white and Asian) who are connected in some way to U.S. murder cases that have been in the news.
Culture Clash: The series compares and contrasts media coverage and law enforcement’s handling of similar murder cases where the victims were white and the victims were not white.
Culture Audience: “Murder Has Two Faces” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching true crime documentaries about how race plays a role in how people perceive crime victims.
“Murder Has Two Faces” is an admirable and candid true crime series that compares how similar murder cases are given different priorities by the media and law enforcement when the victims are white or not white. Robin Roberts hosts and does interviews with professional compassion. It’s not the first true crime documentary series to show how white supremacist racism can affect what happens to these murder cases. However, it’s the first that does a notable compare-and-contrast racial examination for well-known murder cases that have striking similarities.
Directed by Lisa Cortés (who is an executive producer of the series), “Murder Has Two Faces” has three episodes that all focus on the murders of women who were under the age of 35. The first episode, titled “Motherhood Interrupted,” compares and contrasts the cases of two murdered women who were eight months pregnant and were found dismembered separately in the San Francisco area in 2002: Laci Peterson (who was white) and Evelyn Hernandez (who was Latina). The second episode, titled “The Capitol Killings,” compares and contrasts the unrelated cases of two murdered women who worked for U.S. Congressmen in Washington, D.C.: Joyce Chiang (who was Asian) in 1999, and Chandra Levy (who was white) in 2001. The third episode, titled “Good Guys Gone Bad,” compares and contrasts the murder cases of killers who targeted sex workers who were the same race as the killers: Philip Markoff (also known as the Craigslist Killer) was white and was the prime suspect in a 2009 crime spree in Boston, while Khalil Wheeler-Weaver (also known as the Tagged Killer) is black and has been convicted of a 2016 series of murders that happened in New Jersey.
A few people who give commentary in all three episodes: Amara Cofer, creator of Black Girl Gone: A True Crime Podcast, talks about the racial disparities in coverage of cases involving white people versus coverage of cases involving people of color. Bobby Chacon is a retired FBI profiler who was involved in diving searches in the cases of Laci Peterson, Evelyn Hernandez and Joyce Chiang.
The cases in “Motherhood Interrupted” are so similar, for a period of time before one of these murders ended up being solved, investigators and the media mistakenly speculated that the same person could have committed both murders. The dismembered bodies of Peterson and Hernandez were both found on the shores of the San Francisco Bay. Both women were eight months pregnant with sons. Peterson and Hernandez were reported missing just seven months apart from each other.
Laci Peterson’s murder received worldwide media attention and is still the topic of many news reports and documentaries. She was reported missing in December 2002. The bodies of 27-year-old Laci and her unborn son Conner (who was her first child) were found in April 2003. It’s common knowledge that in 2004, her husband Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering Laci and Conner. In 2020, his death penalty sentence was overturned, and he was re-sentenced to life in prison without parole. Scott Peterson still maintains that he’s not guilty of these murders.
Hernandez, whose murder remains unsolved, was reported missing in May 2002, and her body was found in July 2002. She was a 24-year-old single mother who was pregnant with a son named Fernando. The father of Fernando is a married older man named Herman Aguilera, who worked as a limousine driver at the time of her disappearance. Just like Scott Peterson, the father of Fernando was an unfaithful husband who reportedly did not want this pregnancy. It’s mentioned in the documentary that murder is the number-one cause of death for pregnant women.
Aguilera, who was married at the time he and Hernandez had their affair, was last questioned by the San Francisco Police Department in August 2002, and he was never named as a suspect. Aguilera claims that he talked to Hernandez on the phone on the day that she disappeared, but he says he didn’t see her that day. Aguilera doesn’t have a solid alibi for the entire time that Hernandez could have disappeared that day. However, there has been no evidence that he saw her that day.
The documentary mentions that Aguilera could not be reached for comment. Unlike Scott Peterson, Aguilera has never publicly commented or given any interviews. The documentary does not disclose the name of his wife, but it’s mentioned that Aguilera and his wife stayed together after Hernandez’s disapperance and murder were in the news.
Hernandez also had a 5-year-old son named Alex from another relationship. Alex also went missing on the same day that Hernandez went missing. Although her body was found, the bodies of Alex and Fernando were not found. Fernando is presumed to be dead, but Alex is still officially a missing person.
The documentary also points out that socioeconomic class has a lot to do with prejudices in how murder cases are covered. Hernandez was a working-class immigrant who was originally from El Salvador. Laci Peterson was a middle-class homemaker who was born in the United States. Both had different experiences of the American Dream, but Laci was considered the more “important” story by the news media.
Although “Murder Has Two Faces” compares and contrasts what happened in the cases where the murder victims were white and were not white, it doesn’t spend too much time rehashing the enormous amount of media coverage that the white victims got. Instead, the docuseries makes sure that the women of color who were the murder victims get a thoughtful spotlight so that loved ones can talk about what these women were like when they were alive.
For “Motherhood, Interrupted,” the interviewees who knew Fernandez personally are Mayra Escobar, a Guatemalan immigrant, who was a friend of Hernandez since they were in high school together; Reina Solis, Hernandez’s sister who happens to be deaf; Twiggy Damy, a friend of Evelyn’s; and Berta Hernandez (no relation to Evelyn Hernandez), who was Evelyn’s drama teacher at a youth center called Casa de Los Jóevnes. They all describe Evelyn as someone who had an outgoing and strong personality.
Escobar says, “Evelyn had a light around her. Evelyn was such a charismatic person. She wanted to feel that she was important.” However, Escobar doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulties that Evelyn had in her life. According to Escobar, Evelyn left home at age 16 because Evelyn was not getting along with her strict mother. Evelyn also struggled financially.
Evelyn was also feeling despondent over her disintegrating relationship with Aguilera and his lack of enthusiasm for the arrival of their unborn child. For example, he wanted nothing to do with Evelyn’s baby shower that was supposed to take place a few days after she disappeared. (The baby shower was canceled because of her disappearance.) Escobar says that during the last few months of Evelyn’s life, Evelyn distanced herself from her family and friends. Damy says that it wasn’t until after Evelyn disappeared that her friends and family found out that Aguilera was married.
Lyanne Melendez, a reporter for KABC-TV in San Francisco, says she was “outraged” about the disparity between the media coverage that Laci Peterson got compared to Evelyn Fernandez. However, she makes this admission when commenting on the media that covered the Evelyn Fernandez case: “We were not pushing police like we did with Laci Peterson.” Melendez later comments on how Latin people are treated as crime victims compared to how white victims of similar crimes are treated: “As a Latina, it made me sad. It made me feel like we were not good enough.” She also notes of KABC-TV’s coverage of the Evelyn Hernandez murder: “We could’ve done better and not let go of the story.”
Dan Dedet, a detective who handles cold cases (investigations that have reached dead ends) at the San Francisco Police Department, comments in the documentary about the case of Evelyn Hernandez and her missing sons: “We could use the help from the public. We have a [phone] tip line where people can remain anonymous. I will never forget Evelyn and Alex. I would really like to close this case before I’m gone.”
The documentary mentions that there was also a language barrier that could have hindered the investigation because it’s uncommon for police investigators to know sign language, and investigators who know sign language weren’t readily available to communicate with Evelyn’s sister Solis, who is non-verbal. In the documentary, someone does voiceover interpretation for Solis’ sign language. There are also sometimes culture barriers when most of the investigating officials in the U.S. are white and only know how to speak English, and they have to interact with communities where the majority are people of color whose first language is not English.
Solis says she is always praying for Evelyn, Alex and Fernando: “They’re in heaven, and they’re being taken care of now.” Escobar adds, “We want justice for Evelyn and the boys.” Other people interviewed in this episode are Holly Pera, a retired homicide detective for the San Francisco Police Department; and Kelly St. John, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle; Danielle Slakogg, professor of criminology at Cal State University.
“The Capitol Killings” episode features impactful and heart-wrenching interviews with Roger Chiang, Joyce Chiang’s younger brother, who was a tireless advocate in pushing the police and the media to not let Joyce’s case become forgotten. Joyce, who was 27 years old when she died, disappeared from Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle in January 1999. Her decomposed body was found in the Potomac River in April 1999.
Roger describes the childhood that he and Joyce had as two of four siblings born in the United States to parents who immigrated from Taiwan. He says that they experienced angry racist bullying from people when they lived in Chicago as children. Roger remembers that this was his parents’ response to the racism: “They pushed us to do better.”
Joyce was a protective sister, says Roger, who adds: “She was one of the most loving, caring human beings in the world.” Amy C. Well, who was Joyce’s classmate and friend at Smith College, describes Joyce as the life of the party. Judy Kim, who was Joyce’s best friend in college, also describes Joyce as caring and very charming.
After graduating from Smith College, Joyce took night classes at Georgetown University Law School while she had a day job as an immigration advisor to U.S. Congressman Howard Berman. After she graduated from law school and passed the bar, she became an attorney at the U.S. immigration and Naturalization Service, which was the job she had at the time she disappeared.
Chandra Levy was a 24-year-old intern who worked with then-U.S. Congressman Gary Condit at the time she disappeared in May 2001. Her decomposed remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002. In the time period between her disappearance and when her remains were found, there was a media frenzy that included the scandal that Condit was having an affair with Levy.
Condit, who always denied accusations that he was responsible for Levy’s disappearance, was considered the main person of interest until Ingmar Guandique, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, was caught and convicted of murdering Levy. A jailhouse informant gave a crucial tip that Guandique confessed to the crime, and DNA evidence proved that Guandique was the killer. His 2010 murder conviction was overturned in 2016, due to prosecutorial misconduct. Instead of getting a new trial, he was deported to El Salvador in 2016.
The widespread media exposure for the Levy case helped revive interest in the Joyce Chiang case. But some people believe that it’s a shame that the media will more likely pay attention to a case of a murdered person of color if it can be linked to a case of a white person who’s been missing or has been murdered. Naomi Ishisaka, assistant managing editor for the Seattle Times, comments on this racial inequality: “Our culture has ideas of what is a universal victim. And that is dictated by race and class and age … When it comes to Asian Americans, I think we’re largely invisible.”
Joyce Chiang’s family and other loved ones did not get the same closure for her case that there was for Levy’s case. There was the additional nightmare of Joyce’s case being erroneously described as a probable suicide by Terrance “Terry” Gainer, who was assistant chief of the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia from 1998 to 2002, and chief of the United States Capitol Police from 2002 to 2006. Gainer made those suicide theory remarks to the media after Joyce’s body was found. Roger Chiang believes there was some racial bias from Gainer (who is white) because Gainer pushed a theory that Joyce, who was under an internal investigation in her job, could have killed herself as part of Asian culture that teaches that suicide is an option for people who want to punish themselves for disgracing their families.
It wasn’t until 2011, when two murder suspects were identified as causing Joyce’s death, that the Metropolitan Police finally admitted their mistake and described Joyce’s death as a homicide that has been solved. The police believe that the two suspects—Steven Allen and Neil Joaquin—were drug users who robbed, kidnapped, and murdered Joyce because they saw her walking alone on a street and thought she would be an easy target. Allen and Joaquin became suspects because they committed similar robbery/kidnapping crimes, according to the Metropolitan Police.
The police theory is that the suspects dumped Joyce Chiang’s body in the Anacostia River (where some of her belongings were found), which leads to the Potomac River, where her body was found. Unfortunately, no one has been arrested or charged with her murder because not enough evidence was found to definitively link any suspects to the crime. Allen is currently serving a life sentence for an unrelated crime. Joaquin was last reported to be in his native Guyana and cannot be extradited for this case.
During this episode, some of Joyce’s answering machine messages are played for people being interviewed, and it moves some people to tears when they hear the messages. Roberts gets tearful when talking to Roger, who is emotional during many moments. However, he also expresses gratitude that Joyce’s death is now rightfully classified as a homicide, not suicide. He and many people felt that the suicide theory was unnecessary damage to her reputation when she couldn’t defend herself.
Other people interviewed in this episode are Laura Ashburn, reporter for WJLA-TV Washington, D.C., from 1996 to 2000; Chuck Regini, a retired FBI agent; Joe Gentile, a retired public information officer for the Metropolitan Police; journalist Eddie Dean; and James Young, a a retired police detective for the Metropolitan Police.
The “Good Guys Gone Bad” episode is about serial killers who had deceptive appearances of being harmless and upstanding young men. Markoff, the so-called Craigslist Killer, was a medical student in Boston with no previous arrest record. Investigators say that Markoff found his victims through ads that they placed on the website Craigslist. He was accused of robbing three sex workers and murdering one of them (Julissa Brisman), all during April 2009. Markoff was arrested and pleaded not guilty. In August 2010, when Markoff was 24, he committed suicide by asphyxiation in a Boston jail where he had been awaiting a trial whose start date had not been set at the time of his death.
Wheeler-Weaver, nicknamed the Tagged Killer, also used the Internet to find his victims. He contacted them through the Tagged social network. Just like Markoff, Wheeler-Weaver (who worked as a security guard) was in his early 20s and did not have a criminal record when he was arrested for murder. Because of DNA evidence and phone records, Wheeler-Weaver (who was born in 1996) was convicted of three murders that happened from September to November 2016. He received a sentence of 160 years in prison and won’t be eligible for parole until 140 years into his sentence, which means that he will die in prison.
The three murder victims—19-year-old Robin West, 20-year-old Sarah Butler and 33-year-old Joanne Brown—were strangled or asphyxiated, and their bodies were found in Orange, New Jersey, which was Wheeler-Weaver’s hometown. In 2022, Wheeler-Weaver was charged with the murder of 15-year-old Mawa Doumbia, who died of strangulation. He has maintained that he is not guilty of these four murders. At the time this documentary was released, a trial date had not been set for the Doumbia murder case.
This episode has perhaps the most blatant example of racial and socioeconomic prejudice when comparing how the authorities handled the Craigslist Killer case and the Tagged Killer case. In both cases, there were survivors who escaped attempted murder. But in the Craigslist Killer case, the survivors were immediately believed, and the media issued widespread warnings about the Craigslist Killer’s methods and the types of women he was targeting. Markoff was arrested within two weeks of his killing spree that he was accused of doing.
By contrast, Tagged Killer survivor Tiffany Taylor (who escaped by convincing Wheeler-Weaver to go back to her motel room to retrieve her phone that had damning evidence) wasn’t taken seriously by police when she reported that Wheeler-Weaver raped her and tried to murder her by strangulation. Taylor said she knew Wheeler-Weaver’s name, address and other important identifying information. But when police questioned him, they believed his denials and didn’t investigate further. Taylor was dismissed as a disgruntled sex worker who wanted to get revenge on a customer.
Taylor is interviewed in the documentary and says she still struggles with knowing that Wheeler-Weaver killed Butler after he tried to murder Taylor. She and many other people believe that Butler’s murder could have been prevented if police had taken Taylor’s evidence seriously and had arrested Wheeler-Weaver. Instead of sensationalizing the gruesome aspects of the attempted murder, this documentary takes the time to let Taylor tell the circumstances that led her to become a sex worker.
Taylor says she and her single mother fell on hard times after her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and they became homeless. Taylor says she was “running the streets to survive.” She was five months pregnant when Wheeler-Weaver tried to murder her. Taylor says one of her biggest motivations to survive was to not only save herself but also her unborn child.
One of the most emotionally moving parts of the entire series is when Robin West’s father Rev. Leroy West meets up with Taylor and comforts her. Taylor tells him, “I really appreciate you checking up on me.” He responds, “I’ve lost a daughter but gained a daughter.” They embrace in a very heartfelt moment that looks completely authentic, not staged.
Earlier in the episode Leroy West and his son Azrien Lee-West talk about what Robin was like. They both describe her as having a lively personality but she began to become rebellious at age 15 when her parents separated in 2016. Leroy says that whatever sex worker activity that Robin was involved with, she was new to it when she was murdered. Leroy comments on being angry at Wheeler-Weaver: “My anger is not going to bring my daughter back. Helping people is a way of keeping Robin alive.”
Other people interviewed in the “Good Guys Gone Bad” episode are Michael Krusznis, retired lieutenant of the Newark Police Department; Paul Sarabando, retired sergeant of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office; Lea Webb, New York state senator of the 52nd District; Anthony Johnson of WABC-TV New York; and journalist Julia Martin.
If there’s any constructive criticism of this docuseries, it’s that documentary could have had an episode for a murder case involving an Indigenous/Native American person. Cases involving missing and murdered people have devastated a significant percentage of the Native American population but these cases rarely get national media coverage. During the media frenzy when travel vlogger Gabby Petito went missing in Wyoming in 2021, there were 51 Indigenous/Native American people (most of them women) who were reported missing in Wyoming in 2021, according to the National Crime Information Center. None of these cases for Indigenous/Native American people got even a tiny fraction of the media attention that Petito’s case got.
“Murder Has Two Faces” might not eliminate the problem of racial inequalities in how murders are reported by the media and investigated by law enforcement. However, this documentary series is a definite step in the right direction in bringing more awareness to the added injustice of certain crime victims being treated as inferior because of their race. And hopefully, this documentary will inspire more people to make a difference in reducing this problem.
Hulu premiered “Murder Has Two Faces” on May 6, 2025.
