Somewhere on the sun-baked roads of Spain, an older man with a craggy face and missing teeth was filming himself walking. He spoke about local history, mused on human nature, and built a following of tens of thousands. He had also murdered four people.
The TikTok Killer is a two-part Spanish true crime docuseries directed by Héctor Muniente, streaming on Netflix in 2026. It centers on the 2023 disappearance of 42-year-old Esther Estepa from Seville, and the investigation that gradually pointed toward José Jurado Montilla, the wandering TikTok vlogger with four murder convictions from the 1980s. Montilla had served 28 years of a 123-year sentence before his release in 2013, after which he reinvented himself as an eccentric travel personality online.
Each episode runs roughly 45 minutes. Muniente keeps the story anchored on Esther, not on the spectacle of the man suspected of killing her. The series resists true crime’s worst instincts, placing the victim and her family at the center from the first frame. It does not always hold together on a structural level, but its moral compass points steadily in the right direction.
A Woman Worth Knowing
The smartest thing The TikTok Killer does is spend real time establishing who Esther Estepa was before anything went wrong.
She grew up in a working-class family in Seville, close to her mother Pepa and sister Raquel, and she carried that closeness with her even as she spent her adult years drifting across Spain. Esther rarely stayed in one place for more than a year, moving through temporary jobs and borrowed rooms. She was affectionate and quick to laugh, though it took time to earn her trust.
A difficult period with an abusive ex-boyfriend led her to a domestic violence shelter, where she met Elena and Encari, two women who became, in Encari’s own words, more like sisters than friends. Later, in Tarragona, she moved in with housemates Miguel Ángel and Vanesa, whose recollections are fond if laced with the particular frustration of someone who gave a friend a chance they didn’t quite take.
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The crack in the story arrives on August 23, 2023, when Pepa begins receiving text messages from Esther’s phone. The tone is all wrong. The messages claim Esther is heading to Buenos Aires and won’t be coming back. Raquel, who knew her sister’s voice better than anyone, saw through them immediately.
The family’s testimony throughout the series gives Esther a life that the crime alone could never have conveyed.
A Walking Red Flag With Good Wi-Fi
On TikTok, José Jurado Montilla presented as a harmless curiosity. A drifter in his sixties, weathered face, gap-toothed grin of a man who had long since stopped caring what anyone thought of him. He slept in shelters or under the stars. He quoted local history. He handed spare change to vagrants he met on the road. His feed had a scruffy, almost literary quality that made him oddly watchable.
The reality was considerably darker. Between 1985 and 1987, Montilla murdered four men, apparently for robbery and the thrill of it. He admitted to the first killing but claimed self-defense, denying the other three. A Spanish court sentenced him to 123 years. He served 28, released in 2013 after a controversial legal technicality overturned the sentencing framework. The series treats this as what it plainly is: a significant failure of the justice system.
After Esther disappeared, Montilla wasted no time inserting himself into the story. He called her family. He posted videos expressing grief and concern. He also, with a brazenness that is difficult to fully absorb, described having a sexual relationship with Esther in videos posted while she was still officially a missing person. Creepy does not quite cover it.
Investigators eventually obtained his phone. What they found led to his arrest. He is also suspected in the 2022 murder of a 21-year-old student referred to in the series only as David. At the time of the documentary’s release, Montilla remained in custody awaiting trial.
Rough Edges, Real Feeling
Structurally, The TikTok Killer is a slightly uneven production. Episode 1 builds Esther’s story and the early investigation. Episode 2 widens the lens to Montilla’s criminal history and eventual arrest. The division makes sense on paper, though the timeline editing can be choppy, occasionally pulling the viewer out at moments that deserve more patience.
There are also questions the series simply does not answer. Montilla traveled extensively and appeared to stay in reasonably comfortable accommodation, with spare cash to give to strangers. How he funded any of it on a travel vlogger’s income is never addressed. It is a conspicuous gap.
Where the series genuinely earns its runtime is in its use of Montilla’s own footage. His TikTok videos function simultaneously as evidence, character study, and confession of temperament. Watching him perform concern for Esther on camera, knowing what investigators later found on his phone, is genuinely chilling.
The series closes with Esther’s family meeting Elena, Encari, Miguel Ángel and Vanesa for the first time, celebrating her life together. Quiet, bittersweet, and completely unforced. After two episodes of procedural grimness, it is the moment the documentary earns.
The bigger question it leaves open is harder to shake: if a convicted serial killer can walk free, rebrand as a TikTok personality, and kill again, what exactly did the system learn?
The TikTok Killer is a gripping true-crime docuseries that premiered on March 6, 2026. The series investigates the chilling disappearance of Esther Estepa, a 42-year-old woman in Spain, and the digital trail left behind by an influencer known as “Dynamite” Montilla. Through a blend of social media footage, police archives, and family interviews, the production explores how a seemingly friendly traveler’s online persona masked a dark and violent history. As of today, the series is available for streaming exclusively on Netflix.
Where to Watch The TikTok Killer Online
Full Credits
Title: The TikTok Killer
Distributor: Netflix
Release date: March 6, 2026
Rating: TV-MA
Running time: 48–55 minutes per episode
Director: Héctor Muniente
Writers: Antonio Díaz Pérez, Adolfo Moreno
Producers and Executive Producers: Arantza Sánchez, César Martí, Santi Aguado
Cast: José Jurado Montilla, Esther Estepa, Josefa Estepa
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): José Luis de Castro
Editors: Vanessa Marimbert, Iván Aledo
Composer: Lucas Vidal
The Review
The TikTok Killer
The TikTok Killer is a lean, purposeful true crime documentary that keeps its moral priorities straight. It honors Esther Estepa as a person rather than reducing her to a case file, and it uses Montilla's own footage against him with quiet, damning effectiveness. The editing stumbles occasionally, and some questions go unanswered, but the emotional core holds firm throughout. Muniente has made something restrained and genuinely unsettling.
PROS
- Victim-centered storytelling that gives Esther real depth
- Montilla's TikTok footage used brilliantly as both evidence and character study
- Family interviews are raw, credible, and emotionally grounding
- Raises serious questions about Spain's criminal justice system
- The closing scene lands with quiet, earned power
CONS
- Timeline editing is occasionally choppy and disorienting
- Montilla's finances are never explained
- The two-episode format can feel slightly stretched in places
