The "Monster in the Shadows" docuseries will air on Peacock starting Aug. 26.
When Brittney Wood went missing nearly 10 years ago, a much bigger crime was coming to light. Now a new docuseries aims to bring the attention back to finally finding the Alabama teen.
"I thought there was potentially maybe a different story, not necessarily a bigger story behind all of the headlines,” Thomas Leader, director of “Monster in the Shadows,” explained.
“And by speaking with the family, I wanted to try and find out, and basically put Brittney back into the spotlight really, and make sense of what was happening.”
Brittney was 19 when she was last seen with her uncle Donald Holland on May 30, 2012. The next day he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Brittney’s family realized she was missing when she didn’t respond to their texts and calls about Donald. Prosecutors in Alabama say he was under suspicion of child molestation at the time.
Further investigation revealed he and his wife Wendy were running a child sex ring that even victimized their own children, authorities said.
Several family members have been convicted or pleaded guilty. They include Wendy Holland, her twin sister Mendy Kent, her husband Dustin and their uncle Randall Wood.
Even Brittney’s mother, Chessie Wood, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment.
Chessie maintains her innocence and says she was completely unaware of what her family members were doing until after her daughter’s disappearance. She has said she believes her brother-in-law, Donald Holland, killed Brittney.
Leader says regardless of what she may have done, Brittney deserves justice.
“If there's just that nugget of information, anything that could potentially help,” Leader said. "Because even if we get beyond the fact that it's Chessie that's trying to find her daughter, Brittney had a daughter, too. I think she was about 2 years of age when [Brittney] went missing. So it's trying to find those answers for her.”
“Monster in the Shadows” is on Peacock starting Aug. 26.
