Catch Me A Killer is being shown on Alibi in the UK. It's a gripping police drama that sees real-life psychological profiler Micki Pistorius on the hunt for some of the worst serial killers in history.
Game of Thrones’ star Charlotte Hope plays Micki, who in the 1990s was the first woman who used psychological profiling to help the police get into the minds of mass murderers. Each episode brings to life another of her most high-profile cases, including that of Sipho Thwala, aka the Phoenix Strangler, who murdered 16 women and carried out 10 rapes in Durban’s sugarcane fields in 1996, and the Station Strangler, who slaughtered 22 young boys. There’s also the ABC Killer, Moses Sithole, whose murderous spree began in Atteridgeville, continued in Boksburg and finished in Cleveland, and ‘cannibal killer’ Stewart Wilken. The real Micki Pistorius acted as a consultant on the series, which also sees her go through difficult times in her personal life and shows how the weight of catching these monsters took its toll on her.
"Micki was amazing, she really supported me all the way through it,” says the show’s star, Charlotte. "I really wanted to do her justice and I’m so grateful I got to play her."
Here’s everything you need to know about the Alibi series Catch Me A Killer…
Catch Me A Killer release date
The 11-part series Catch Me A Killer premieres in the UK on Alibi on Tuesday March 5 2024 at 9pm, with most episodes running weekly on the channel (see episode guide below). Episodes one and two are a double bill, as are episodes eight and nine and 10 and 11. Catch Me a Killer is also available on Sky Box Sets and NOW, and also available to stream worldwide from Showmax.
Is there a trailer for Catch Me A Killer?
Yes the Catch Me A Killer trailer shows how Micki had to go to some dark places in order to get into the heads of killers. Take a look below...
Catch Me A Killer plot
Catch Me A Killer tracks Micki Pistorius (no relation to Oscar) as she goes from lecturing in psychological profiling to trying to help the Cape Town police find the ‘Station Strangler’ who has murdered 22 young boys. It then follows her as she moves around South Africa, hunting serial killers by understanding what makes them tick. However, she has her own personal problems to deal with and faces resistance from those who dismiss the science behind her methods.
Catch Me A Killer cast — Charlotte Hope as Micki Pistorious
Charlotte Hope plays Micki Pistroius (no rleation to Oscar). Chharlott is best known for her roles as Myranda in Game of Thrones. She played Catherine of Aragon in The Spanish Princess and has also been in The English Game, The Nun, Bancroft, The Musketeers, Holby City and Whitechapel.
Who else is starring in Catch Me A Killer?
The Catch Me a Killer cast changes as Micki moves around police stations in South Africa but Donna Cormack-Thomson is a series regular, playing Erika, Micki’s assistant. Steven John Ward is Micki’s love interest Mark, while Sean Cameron Michael is real-life FBI criminal profiler Robert Ressler. Gavin Werner, Ivan Zimmermann and Vaugh Lucas also star.
Catch Me A Killer episode guide
Here's our brief guides to the 11 episodes of Catch Me A Killer...
Episode one (part 1)
Psychology lecturer Micki Pistorius is asked to help Cape Town police hunt down the ‘Station Strangler’, a man who has killed 22 young boys and shows no sign of stopping.
Episode two (part 2)
Micki is still on the trail of the Station Strangler and begins to understand his mind.
Episode three
Micki is called to Pretoria where a killer has left eight bodies so far in Cleveland’s mine dumps. She must also meet a man who confessed to three murders but is now claiming not to remember anything.
Episode four
In Atteridgeville Micki is on the hunt for the ABC Killer, who has murdered 15 women.
Episode five
Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode is suspected of numerous murders and rapes but is refusing to speak. By understanding his past, can Micki get a confession out of him?
Episode six
Back in Cape Town, Micki is helping the cops look for a man who has murdered a string of prostitutes.
Episode seven
Micki is asked to testify in the case of Stewart Wilken, a man known as the ‘Cannibal Killer’.
Episode eight (part 1)
Exhausted and overworked, Micki is asked to help find the ‘Phoenix Strangler’ who has dumped several bodies in sugar cane fields.
Episode nine (part 2)
Micki is still desperately trying to catch the Phoenix Strangler, but the case is taking its toll on her.
Episode ten (part 1)
In Pretoria, the police are hunting a man who has shot 16 people in a year. Can Micki get inside the head of the ‘Saloon Killer’?
Episode 11 (part 2)
Micki is still trying everything to catch the Saloon Killer. But can she track him down before his body count piles up?
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Charlotte Hope on Catch Me A Killer
What can you tell us about Micki Pistorious in Catch Me A Killer?
Charlotte Hope says: "Micki starts off as a teacher of psychology and she gets brought into the South African police force to help them understand the psychology of serial killers so she can help catch them. Initially she is met with some resistance and they are not very sure about her because they think her methods are somewhat woo woo. Then she becomes a really integral part of the police force and her understanding of the psychology and getting into their brains is a revolutionary way of working. She’s only the second profiler to ever have done this kind of work after Robert Ressler in America for the FBI and the first woman to be doing it, and it revolutionises the way that the police engage with hunting these killers. It becomes less about them being pure evil monsters and more about trying to understand why they’ve become that way and what it is about their upbringing and their childhood that turned them into the people that they are."
It does take its toll on her, doesn’t it?
Charlotte reveals: "It took its toll on me. The subject matter is really heavy and truthfully the fact that all of the stories we were telling were real serial killers and real people who died, it took a big emotional toll on me. As Micki unravelled, to a certain extent I unravelled as well. By the time we get to some of the later episodes it’s some of the work I’m the most proud of because I was just kind of like a livewire really. By the end it was pretty dark.
Did it make you appreciate what the real Micki went through?
Charlotte explains: "Oh completely. She was dealing with it for real. I was making a TV show and I ultimately got to go home at the end of the night and have a hot bath and forget all about it. These people were living with her non-stop for a long time. Micki was amazing, she really supported me all the way through it. I remember there was day when we were filming the first episode and we find the hand in the desert and that day impacted me so much because it was the first time I was really seeing it as she did. I remember calling her at the end of that day and she talked me through it, and she was so kind. She said something to me like ‘I can really see in your eyes that you know what pain is."
Can you tell us about some of the challenges Micki faces?
Charlotte says: "She is going through a lot in her own life. She just been divorced but she really is one of those people who buries herself in her work in a way that probably is not that healthy but she really feels a responsibility because she is in this position where the faster she works, the fewer people die. As soon as she figures it out, they are able to catch that person and another person won’t be murdered. These are serial killers, so there are sometimes dozens of victims. I think that responsibility lays so heavily on her that it was impossible to step away. I also understood why. I was obsessive about wanting to tell the story as well as I could and to represent her as well as I could. Sometimes that came at a cost of my taking care of myself and I’m just an actor. She was really dealing with life or death and of course that is going to take a toll."
She’s greeted with scepticism at first, isn’t she?
Charlotte says: "Yes, they don’t want her there at all and she’s a complete outsider. She has the comfort of being an outsider but she’s completely on her own and all the rest of the detectives are going back to their families. Micki goes home and it’s just her and the serial killers that are going round and round in her head. There’s no escape from it."
Had you heard of Micki or any of her cases before?
Charlotte says: "No, I knew none of them. I read her book when I was auditioning and I thought it was fascinating. The cases are astounding and terrifying and all true."
How did you find filming in South Africa?
Charlotte says: "It was heaven. South Africa is just a magical, and complicated, place. The crew on this job are the best crew I’ve ever worked with. They really took care of me and I had such an amazing relationship with anyone I worked with. And with the actors too. We had some incredible actors on the show. Donna, who plays my assistant and comes in in episode three, we became best friends and we did all of our prep work together. It’s very rare that you get those dreamy, magical jobs when you become family but this was one of them and it made it possible. If I’d been dealing with it all on my own, it would have been a heavy toll I think. I didn’t get to see that much of South Africa though. I saw a lot of it from the back of the car. My boyfriend was there at the time, and he really had all these amazing adventures and saw all these incredible things. But I loved Cape Town so much."
Did the sets and costumes make you feel like you were stepping back into the 1990s?
Charlotte says: "I really have done so much of corsets and stuff that to me the 90s felt like I was wearing normal clothes. Quite a lot of them I kept. I was like, ‘this is incredibly fashionable’ so I thought it was great. It all comes back. The series was incredibly shot. I remember seeing some of the stills from the first week and I was like, ‘oh wow this is going to be really beautiful.’ Everything looked like a movie. I used to get the stills at the end of every day, and I was amazed by how good it looked."
Was there more pressure to get this right because Micki is a real person?
Charlotte says: "Yeah, I felt a real responsibility because I read Micki’s book and thought she was just such an amazing woman that I really wanted to do her justice. But I also had a huge amount of freedom. There was no point that I was trying to play a copy of Micki. I really was given a lot of free rein to take the character that was on the page and make the best version of Micki I could. The funny thing is I never set out to mimic her. Then, a few weeks in, one of our researchers who knows Micki very well came up to me and was like ‘Charlie it’s uncanny, you have the same mannerisms as her, you’re doing the same expressions and speaking the same way’. I was like ‘am I? Amazing that that has happened, but I wasn’t trying to."
Are you a fan of a psychological thriller?
Charlotte says: "Yeah I find the psychology aspect particularly fascinating. Less so true crime but I watch a lot of documentaries and watch so many interviews on things like this. I watch this psychology thing that breaks down the process of interviewing suspects and how it works and what are the flags for when people are lying and what are the flags when people are hiding things. I really enjoy that aspect of it in general. With this show, it was really just the script that got me. I remember reading the first two episodes and just thinking ‘wow this story is amazing and this woman is amazing’ and being so grateful that I got to play her."
What cases really stuck with you?
Charlotte says: "All of them. The Station Strangler story was amazing. At the time we were filming he was up for parole and was potentially being released so it felt very prescient. A lot of the crew were from Mitchell’s Plain and because it was in the 90s they remembered it. We all had a real awareness that this isn’t a story, it was part of people’s very active history. All of the cases are terrifyingly fascinating in several ways."
