They solved a horrific crime in their community. Don't mind the colorful fur suit.

Americans love true crime shows. More than half of U.S. adults say they are hooked on the genre, according to a June 2024 YouGov poll. (I should know, I'm one of those fans.) But The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster was the first true crime docuseries I’ve seen to feature its subjects dressed in colorful anthropomorphic fur suits peeling back the layers on a horrific crime.

It follows furries, or members of a community of fans who dress as animals with human characteristics, as they investigate a cache of information called the “Furry Zoosadist Leaks.” The investigation began in 2018 and revealed a sinister criminal conspiracy of animal abuse within the animal-loving furry community. The docuseries explores how furries themselves led a citizen investigation that led to real-life arrests.

To see Patch O’Furr, a longtime furry journalist for Dogpatch Press, speaking on camera with measured calm on his face in plain clothes as he recounts the horrors of the case, is a fascinating juxtaposition with other shots of him throughout the series in which he wears the blue-and-white fuzzy paws of his fur suit. It’s not something we see every day, but it was a bold choice that put on display his love for the community despite what a few rotten apples had done. In the opening scene of the docuseries, O’Furr says, “I never tried to be a hero, it’s just … who else is gonna do the job?”

Patch O'Furr, wearing the paws of his fur suit, appears in The Furry Detectives. (Courtesy of Sundance TV)

He is who he is, both behind the keyboard and in front of a global stage.

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Letting O’Furr — and the other furries who appear onscreen, like Connor Goodwolf and Naia Okami — dress in both their street clothes and in their fur suits was an important element to Theo Love, who directed the four-part docuseries.It premiered in June at the Tribeca Film Festival and is now airing new episodes on Thursdays on Sundance Now and AMC+.

Love tells Yahoo he wanted his subjects to be comfortable, especially given how furries sometimes end up at the “wrong end of the joke.”

“And you are giving me a huge gift in telling me your story,” he says of the furries. “So my job is to tell your story the way it exists in your mind.”

“I never tried to be a hero, it’s just … who else is gonna do the job?”

Patch O'Furr

The choice to include some furries in their fur suits on camera came from the playfulness that’s so core to their existence. “In some ways, we needed some sugar to help the medicine go down,” Love explains. The goal isn’t to make fun of anyone, it’s to allow them to show their true selves.

A man with furry paws types on the computer in The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster. (Courtesy of Sundance TV)

A different kind of crime solver

Love now holds furries in high regard, but he didn't know much about the fandom when he was tapped to direct the docuseries. He just found it refreshing to tell a true crime story from a new angle. The genre gets “tired” when the “good guys are always cops solving crimes,” he says.

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“The heroes of our story are furries, a group of people [who] are just not very well understood. A lot of times, they’re judged. And so to celebrate furries doing something really incredible, it was a privilege. … In this situation, they’re saving man’s best friend — our ultimate furry buddies, dogs,” Love says.

A furry wears a detective outfit in The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster. (Courtesy of Sundance TV)

It took a lot of convincing to get people to go on camera for the documentary. Zoosadism is a heinous crime — not something people like thinking about or being associated with, even if they’re just recounting the objective facts of a case. Even the people who helped solve the case felt backlash within the community and were accused of making the already ridiculed fandom face even more bad press.

“It's very much like hidden abuse in a church community where people want to pray it away and act like it's old or offensive to talk about,” O’Furr tells Yahoo. His reporting on Dogpatch Press is the basis for much of what’s covered in the docuseries.

A gathering of furries. (Courtesy of Sundance TV)

“Either this gets told, or it gets brushed under [the rug] and guilty people continue using your spaces,” O’Furr writes in a post on Dogpatch Press, explaining his involvement in the docuseries. “Then it gets worse, and next time, outsiders will tell the story for you with even less agency in how you are seen.”

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Since furries are so often ridiculed for their interest in costumes and developing anthropomorphic “fursonas” that they role-play with, which is sometimes but not always sexual, it can be hard for them to be taken seriously. They don’t dress in fur suits, often expensive, cumbersome and sweat-inducing, for attention. They do it because it makes them feel authentically like themselves and helps them find community.

Connor Goodwolf plays with his pet dog in The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster. (Courtesy of Sundance TV)

Ridicule leads some to feel like they’ve been pushed into the margins of society, where bad behavior can fester and disgruntled individuals can become radicalized. Concerns that multiple members of the fandom had ties to Nazism made headlines in 2017 and have led to the cancellation of at least one convention. For furries who genuinely love animals and role-playing as them, this association is horrific on a moral level, but has also tainted their perception and made them wary of what outsiders might think.

‘Furvengers,’ assemble

A strong contingent of furries wasn’t fond of the existence of this docuseries — or even the original blowing of the whistle about the Zoosadism Leaks in 2018 — for fear of how the community at large would be portrayed. But it’s a uniquely furry story about the triumph of a fandom over the people using the joyful fandom to conceal their illegal acts. Back then, law enforcement tried and failed to uncover the culprits behind the crime for years, so furry vigilantes known as the Furvengers took matters into their own hands.

Kero the Wolf, aka Kero Yamimora, was interviewed as part of The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster after being accused of a crime by the community. He was not charged. (Courtesy of Sundance TV)

They used their remarkable tech savvy to pore over chat logs on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, which was the main channel used in the Zoosadism Leaks, leading to the arrest of a furry involved in animal abuse, who then led them to the suspected ringleader, who was arrested as well. The investigation involved combing through disturbing chat logs and screening traumatizing video footage of animal abuse, but the Furvengers maintained in the docuseries that protecting animals made it all worth it.

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Love says that the story is, at its heart, about ordinary people who went to extraordinary lengths for justice, regardless of what ridicule they might receive inside or outside of the fandom.

“If you’ve ever looked at a furry and thought, ‘These people are weirdos and something to laugh at,’ you’re going to watch the series and be pretty surprised at how heroic they really are,” he says.

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