The Real Stories Behind ‘Worst Roommate Ever’ - Netflix Tudum

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    The Real Crimes Behind Worst Roommate Ever

    You thought your roommate was bad?

    By Reyna Cervantes
    July 17, 2025

Have you ever had a roommate upend your entire life? Not just the kind who leaves dirty dishes in the sink or uses all the hot water, but that particularly terrifying kind of roommate with the dark, sinister side you’re constantly fearful of, the roommate who never pays rent or signs a lease or, perhaps, is a serial con artist. Or worse: a roommate that is a mass murderer? 

Each episode of the new Netflix true-crime documentary series Worst Roommate Ever explores some of the most historically horrifying roommate experiences ever exposed. From clogging toilets to global cons to backyard burials, these real-life cases examine the complexities of relationships between strangers and the dynamics of human nature.

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All the identities of Jamison Bachman

Made infamous by a truly hard-to-believe account, Jamison Bachman was a serial squatter who believed he had committed the ultimate con. As reported in New York magazine, Bachman used false identities to trick unsuspecting renters and turn their lives upside down, starting by clogging toilets with kitty litter and stealing light bulbs in the house he was staying in and, in some cases, eventually ejecting owners from their own homes using dubious legal tactics. He even sent a roommate’s pets to a kill shelter. In another instance, Bachman viciously attacked one of his roommates with a serrated knife, slicing her thigh open. Bullets were found in his room after he was arrested for his brother’s murder — but no gun was ever recovered, implying he had more sinister plans in mind. In 2017, Bachman took his own life in a jail cell while awaiting trial.

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K.C. Joy gets a face-lift

Back in 2014, local Southern California news reported the story of Maribel Ramos’ death at the hands of K.C. Joy. When her mother passed away, Ramos needed a roommate in order to make ends meet. What she didn’t suspect was that the mild-mannered Joy would grow an unhealthy obsession with Ramos, allegedly spending over $10,000 on plastic surgery to make himself look younger in the hopes that he could make himself more attractive to her. When those feelings weren’t returned, things turned catastrophic. Joy stopped paying rent altogether and refused to leave. Ramos soon turned to the police to notify them that her situation was potentially dangerous. She soon disappeared without a trace. Authorities began surveilling Joy to see if anything suspicious arose, but nothing came of it — that is, until they looked into his internet activity on a public library computer. Police said Joy used an online map to look up a specific location off the trail where Ramos would walk, which is where the police discovered Ramos’ body. That same year, ​​Joy was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life.

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Dorothea Puente’s house of horrors

Dorothea Puente was a prominent member of the Sacramento community in the 1980s who opened a shelter for local folks seeking housing. But Puente murdered the revolving door of tenants to line her own pockets with their Social Security. After a tenant who managed to get away in 1988 became suspicious, Puente’s crimes were discovered. She had turned her home into a clockwork slaughterhouse, using her yard as a shallow cemetery for the numerous lives she took. Puente was eventually convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, where she died in 2011.

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Youssef Khater, the worldwide grifter

According to Worst Roommate Ever, Youssef Khater pulled global schemes in Denmark, Brazil and Chile; a Texas Monthly feature in 2015 exposed him. A marathon runner, Khater allegedly managed to convince an entire community of Palestinian ex-pats in Denmark that he was an underprivileged Palestinian (he’s Lebanese) and that he needed help raising the funds to send him all the way to Brazil to run a “jungle” marathon. In Brazil, he managed to convince an English fellow runner to give him money to invest in property under the false pretense that he would pay it back in full. Khater then went to Chile and set up shop at a long-term hostel, where he fabricated stories of heroic acts that he supposedly achieved while in the Danish special forces. His grift ended when he met an American named Callie who took a room there. After attempting to frame her for stealing a load of cash, ambushing her and leaving her for dead, he tried to leave the country. There was just one problem with this master plan: She survived and was able to pin everything on him. Khater was convicted of attempted murder in Chile and, after serving a light sentence for this horrific act, was extradited back to Denmark. After a stint in a Danish prison, he traveled to Costa Rica. As shown in the series, his current whereabouts are unknown.

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