With I Just Killed My Dad, director Skye Borgman completes something of an unholy trinity of works for Netflix. The first, Abducted in Plain Sight, told the almost-incredible story of the kidnappings of Idaho teenager Jan Broberg who was abducted by her parents’ close friend Robert Berchtold – twice. The second, released last month, was Girl in the Picture, about the Sharon Marshall case. That unpacked the convoluted sufferings of Suzanne Sevakis – Marshall was one of the several aliases she was forced to live under – who was abducted by Franklin Floyd and raised as his daughter until he decided, after years of sexual abuse, to make her his wife. She died in a suspicious hit and run accident at the age of 20, as she prepared to leave Floyd, having had barely any life at all.
It is strange how well the true crime formula still works. All these years since the streaming platform first established the template with the breakthrough hit Making a Murderer, you still get sucked in by the set-up. I Just Killed My Dad opens with a description and reenactment of how the then 17-year-old Anthony Templet, from a comfortable, affluent home (“In my eyes, Burt treated him like a king,” says an uncle), took two guns in his hands and shot his father, Burt. He then calmly called 911 to report what he had done and waited outside for the police.
