Who is Burt Templet from 'I Just Killed My Dad' on Netflix?

Burt Templet's life was taken by his own son, a truly unthinkable act. 

Their tumultuous relationship is scrutinized from multiple points of view in I Just Killed My Dad, Netflix's latest Skye Borgman docu-series. Was Burt the victim of a senseless crime, or was his son, Anthony Templet, acting in self-defense? It depends on who you ask. 

At first glance, the title of the new true crime series on Netflix seems straightforward, but as with any story in this genre, there's plenty to uncover, and the ethics behind it all are debatable.

What did Burt do to make his son resort to such a final act? The now 20-year-old alleges that his father committed physical and mental abuse that ultimately drove him to take his life in 2019. 

What did Burt Templet do?

Before uncovering the crime itself, let's backtrack.

In 2008, five-year-old Anthony was taken from his mother, Linda Thompson, by his father and Thompson's ex-husband, Burt. From there, he raised the young boy on his own in Louisiana. Thompson and her family weren't able to reunite with Anthony until news broke of the crime years later.

While growing up, Anthony was not only subjected to physical abuse—being punched, thrown or kicked—but he was also sheltered from the outside world, not receiving a public education and being constantly watched by Burt.

"He always wanted to know everything. I was always being tracked by something, whether it be a camera or mobile app," Anthony says in the documentary. "He wanted to be in control of everything, of me and the rest of the family in that house. I knew he was trying to control me."

Anthony is not the only one to make these claims. Burt's other ex-wife Susan, also asserts that he displayed similar behavior during their time together, so much so that she had filed an order of protection against him just a few months before the 53-year-old was killed.  

"Burt had an app on his phone; with every movement on a camera, he’d get a text of what was going on," Susan reveals. "Every time I turned my car engine off, he’d get an alert that it was off. If I parked here, he could know when I’d got home from the grocery store and how many bags I was carrying."

It was in June 2019 when then 17-year-old Anthony was in trouble for allegedly reaching out to Susan, his former stepmother. This resulted in a physical fight, and Anthony armed himself with his father's guns for protection.

"He tried to attack me," Anthony revealed to 9-1-1 in the documentary. "Then, we got into a fist fight. Then, I ran in his room, closed the door and got a gun. As I unlocked the door, he tried to…and then I shot him. I just killed my dad. I shot him three times."

Anthony's half-sister Natasha, who reunited with her brother after learning about the crime, also alleges that Burt was nothing but an abuser.

"He has been secluded and abused all these years by his own father. My brave brother had to defend himself for the last time against that evil man," she told WAFB.

Anthony confessed to the crime and was awaiting trial for manslaughter in 2019. After his release in 2021, he was ordered five years' probation, as his lawyer negotiated a plea deal and insisted that the teen was acting in self-defense.

Per Newsweek, he was given the special condition of obtaining his high school diploma, attending counseling and finding full-time employment or education in order to have his criminal record cleared. 

This is but one docu-series about abuse and kidnapping. A week after the Netflix release, Children of the Underground, a deep dive into Faye Yager's secretive organization, appeared on FX and Hulu, which tackles similar themes that attract fans of the true crime genre.