‘Floribama Murders:’ True-crime show revisits disturbing Alabama cases
“Floribama Murders,” an Oxygen true-crime series that launched in January, continues in February with more tales of death on either side of the Alabama-Florida line.
The series featured several Alabama cases in January but appears to be focusing more on Florida cases in the weeks ahead.
Two of those early episodes with Alabama ties can be streamed for free at www.oxygen.com, and they provide a taste of the show’s brisk, no-frills, no-celebrity-host feel. In each, law enforcement officials and relatives of the deceased recount the opening days of a case – a report of a missing father, for example, or the discovery that the couple who owned an Alabama country store in a rural county have been found dead after being beaten and having their throats cut. Then investigators recount the steps that led them to identify the suspects who were prosecuted for the crimes.
In “Jackson County Injustice,” investigators in Jackson County, Fla., and Houston County, Ala., look into the disappearance of Dothan man Raul Ambriz Guillen in 2020; after his body was found in a shallow grave in Florida, three people were charged. “Clay County Killer” goes much further back in time, and much farther from the Alabama-Florida line, to recap the grisly 2001 murders of Billy and Debbie Triplett. Billy Triplett’s son and Debbie Triplett’s stepson, was convicted of capital murder and died in an apparent suicide in prison in 2016.
A third episode, “Hidden in Chunchula,” concerns the 2004 murder of Lisa Nichols, whose killer shot her and then attempted to burn her home in a cover-up. Among the investigators who appear in the episode is Paul Burch, then a Captain in the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, who has since become sheriff. Jeremy Jones, who had been using the alias John Paul Chapman, received a death sentence in 2005 and remains on death row at Holman Prison.
NBC Universal provided information on four upcoming episodes, all of which appear to be set in Florida:
“Devastated in Deltona,” Feb. 4: “In Deltona, Florida, a limo driver disappears amid rumors that he is hiding from gambling debts. Detectives are forced to search for body parts all over central Florida as they investigate a suspect’s horrifying story about why the man vanished.”
“Gone In Gainesville,” Feb. 11: “When a University of Florida students vanishes, police can’t ignore the possibility that he disappeared into the alligator-infested swamps around Gainesville. But they discover he may have fallen prey to a deadly danger closer to home.”
“Death Comes to Davie,” Feb. 18: “A son becomes the prime suspect when he reports finding his mother stabbed to death in their home in a gated community in Davie, Florida. But detectives must determine if seemingly obvious clues really point to him, or in another direction.”
“Lakeland Lotto Mystery,” Feb. 25: “Abraham Shakespeare goes from rags to riches when he wins a big Florida lotto jackpot. Then he disappears, and police must determine if he was escaping the greed of friends and family … or if his new-found fortune made him a target for foul play.”
“Floribama Murders,” produced by Blumhouse Television, airs at 8 p.m. Central time Saturdays on Oxygen True Crime; check local listings for availability.