Donnie Wahlberg Examines Some 'Very Scary People' When the True Crime Series Returns (Exclusive)

Blue Bloods star Donnie Wahlberg goes from fictional crime to true crime as the host and executive producer of Very Scary People, a series that delves into the depths of nefarious crimes and the masterminds behind them, when it returns for its sixth season with eight new episodes.

This season the series will offer more personal firsthand accounts and rare in-depth interviews from survivors and those who were impacted, which Wahlberg feels gives the stories a more emotional take.

“There are so many people impacted when something like this happens,” he tells Parade. “And it’s a delicate line making a show like this, because we don’t want to glorify serial killers. We really want to lend a voice to people who were impacted and survivors.”

The first episode back is the case of Anthony Sowell, aka the Cleveland Strangler, who on the surface appears to be a helpful member of his Cleveland neighborhood. Using his charm, Sowell lures unsuspecting women into his modest house. But once inside, he turns into a monster, leaving behind a twisted trail of torture, rape and murder.

“I think you’ll see that with the first episode, and you’ll see it more going forward,” Wahlberg says of the impact of the firsthand accounts, “it’s very important to let those voices be heard. I think it adds to the show. It makes it a little more personal. It brings home how real the stuff is.”

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Upcoming episodes feature an undetected serial killer posing as an FBI informant, a diabolical drug kingpin who terrorized New York City, a dangerous bodybuilding gang that inspired a Hollywood movie, and a rising boxing star turned coldblooded killer, among others.

“Sometimes it almost sounds like a horror movie we’re watching, but these cases are real life occurrences with real-life people,” Wahlberg continues. “If a serial killer kills 20 people, think how many other people are impacted by that: friends, family, coworkers, school mates, whatever it is. There are hundreds of people, thousands of people that could be impacted by what one serial killer does. Not to mention the fear that it can inflict in so many people who are not directly connected to it. It’s a lot.”

Also during our chat, Wahlberg talks about why sometimes it takes so long for these scary people to be caught, the issue of nature vs nurture and the Very Scary Lovers special he and wife Jenny McCarthy are hosting in February.

In addition to the scary people, what was scary about the Cleveland Strangler episode was that we have these women survivors who’ve gone to the police and told their stories and there’s no follow-up on it. That, to me, was incredible as well as the fact that they could have caught him earlier.

I think sometimes things happen; things get overlooked. Different factors go into cases like this. Anytime someone is able to do so much harm for such a long time it’s concerning. But it’s difficult to get into the mind of how these people work. A serial killer, their mind doesn’t work like the average person. It’s twisted. They can often be very intelligent and very capable of covering their tracks. I think sometimes mistakes happen during the investigation; things can be overlooked. Sometimes the stories can be so hard to fathom that it’s hard to connect the dots.

In the case of [the Cleveland Strangler], yes, certainly there were a lot of mistakes made during the investigation that could have probably stopped this quicker. A lot of times there are unwitting mistakes and sometimes someone’s testimony or someone’s story was not treated with the care that it deserved.

Anytime we cover any of these stories, there was a moment where something could have changed the course of the story and a serial killer could have been stopped sooner, and for whatever reason it didn’t happen. Hopefully, shows like this can help prevent those mistakes from happening in the future, and I’m sure lessons were learned by law enforcement.

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Very Scary People also addresses the question of nature versus nurture.

Yeah. Do things happen in someone’s life that can set them off? Is someone just born wired differently? I think it could be a little bit of both. It’s different in every instance. We explore that a little bit this season. It’s tricky.

America is fascinated by true crime right now. Before you started working on this show were you a true crime junkie in any way? Did you listen to podcasts or watch any of the true crime shows, like Dateline?

Forensic Files is my all-time favorite. I love American Greed. I love a lot of shows, but Forensic Files is to me the best ever.

You deal with fictional crime on Blue Bloods. But this show is true crime. Does one inform the other for you in any way?

Absolutely. I don’t think there’s Very Scary People if there wasn’t a Blue Bloods. I don’t think anyone would have said, “Hey, let’s get that guy from New Kids on the Block to host Very Scary People, he has so much fun on stage singing those pop songs. I think it was very easy to say the guy who plays Danny Reagan would be a great host for this show. I think in many ways Danny Reagan is the face of the show. Maybe Donnie Wahlberg is the producer of the show, but Danny Reagan is the voice of the show.

One of the scariest things about Very Scary People is that there’s no shortage of subject matter.

One of the reasons we decided to do the spinoff Very Scary Lovers, which Jenny and I host, was in all the research for finding people to cover on the show, we started to discover all these couples who do these awful things, too. It was like, “My goodness, we could do a whole series about couples who are depraved.” So, we talked to the network, and they were like, “Great let’s do it.”

You’re not wrong. There are lots of people, some we don’t even know about, have never even heard about, and I’m sure we’ll continue to discover more of them as we go through time. It’s a little unbelievable that there are people capable of these things, but that’s the world we live in.

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Very Scary Lovers is a one-time special airing Feb. 2 about Benjamin and Erika Sifrit. Will there be more?

I think we’ll be doing more of those, as well. There’s no shortage of stories, that’s for sure. In filming Season 6, we just started making all these discoveries of couples that we could cover, too. So, we just said, “Why don’t we try a special and we’ll go from there.” We fully hope to be doing it as a series, as well.

Do you think that these shows are educational as well as entertaining? Do you think people learn how to be safer? 

I wouldn’t say educational. I think that everyone that watches true crime in some way wants to get a better grasp of what makes people do horrible things. It may alleviate some fear. If you can get a better understanding of why someone would do this, it might help ease some fear.

Jenny, when we were shooting Very Scary Lovers, she literally said sometimes she likes to watch because she can learn things to look out for. If someone approaches her or whatever, it can remind her to be more aware of how easy it is to get tricked into something. Someone may have a plan to do something horrible and approach you seemingly innocent and well-intended and suddenly they’re not, they have horrible intentions. She said that, so I would say certainly it helped teach her a little bit.

I think we all get something out of it. I think the consistent thing is that we all are trying to gain some insight and understanding to just make these situations a little less scary and make us a little bit more aware of what to look out for.

Very Scary People premieres Sunday, December 15 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Investigation Discovery.

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