You Most Likely Binge on Grizzly True Crimes Podcasts While Delicately Examining Lettuce Heads in the Produce Aisle
Let me just go on the record as saying that Middle America True Crimes Podcasts are our generation’s romcoms: the more meth, misogyny, and harems, the better.
Akin to my dad refusing to follow the herds in getting a smartphone until his Verizon Voyager literally snapped in half, I unfoundedly refused to listen to True Crimes podcasts simply because everyone else was. When Serial took over every conversation, I stood firm, indignantly content in my steadfastness.
However, this past March, I found myself quarantined completely alone and tragically bored. Hours felt like days so I turned to other’s narratives to fill the time. With sports podcasts an early victim of the pandemic, I finally went back on my self-decreed ban of True Crimes, which has subsequently spiraled into a ceaseless binge. Tales about gory crimes, corrupt police, twisted families, and dangerous religions has become the soundtrack to my long runs, bike rides, and errands.
So to indoctrinate any other naysayers with my ten favorites thus far:
1) In the Dark, Season 1 – The investigation into the abduction of Jacob Wetterling yielded no answers for 27 years. This explores how law enforcement mishandled one of the most notorious child abductions and how those failures fueled anxiety about stranger danger and led to the nation’s sex-offender registries.
2) Bear Brook – Two barrels. Four bodies. And the decades-long mystery that led to a serial killer. A podcast about a cold case that’s changing how murders will be investigated forever.
3) The Thing About Pam – In 2011, Russ Faria came home to find his wife, Betsy, dead. He was soon charged and convicted of her murder. But Russ Faria insisted he did not kill her. Betsy’s brutal murder set off a chain of events that would leave one man dead, another man implicated, and expose a diabolical scheme
4) Cold – Susan Powell vanished in 2009 and her body has never been found. From the beginning, police suspected Susan’s husband, Josh, had murdered her but never arrested him. You’ll learn why Susan stayed with an abusive husband, why Josh did what he did, and how the system failed Susan and her sons.
5) The Officer’s Wife – Hours after an argument with his wife, police officer Matthew Boynton radios for help, reporting hearing gunshots inside his home. Officers find his wife inside a locked closet, with a gunshot to her head. Underneath her body, officers find her husband’s weapon. But this story of small-town romance gone wrong was far from over.
6) The Drop Out – The story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos is an unbelievable tale of ambition gone terribly wrong. How did the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire lose it all? How did the woman heralded as “the next Steve Jobs” find herself facing criminal charges and jail time? How did her technology, meant to revolutionize healthcare, potentially put millions at risk? And how did so many smart people get it so wrong along the way?
7) To Live and Die in LA – In 2018, Adea Shabani, a 25-year-old acting student who had moved to Los Angeles a year earlier to pursue her dreams, vanished out of nowhere from her Hollywood apartment. The door was left unlocked. There were no leads and no witnesses. This is the story of what happened next.
8) Root of Evil – When Elizabeth Short, known as The Black Dahlia, was killed in 1947, it gripped the country. 70 years later, it remains America’s most infamous unsolved murder. Many believe Dr. George Hodel was the killer, thanks to an investigation by Hodel’s own son. But murder is just part of the Hodel family story, one filled with horrifying secrets…
9) Broken Harts – Six black children were adopted by Sarah and Jen Hart, both white. On Jen’s Facebook, it looked as if they were the perfect blended family. Then in 2018, the family’s car was found belly-up on the rocks below California’s Highway 1. The murder-suicide made national headlines, leaving many wondering what possibly led to the fatal crash.
10) Very Presidential – It’s the most powerful position in American politics. But behind the oath to preserve, protect and defend, lie dark secrets posed to leave some legacies in disgrace. Uncover the most damning details surrounding history’s most high-profile leaders
Do you have a True Crimes Podcast you loved that isn’t on this list? PLEASE let me know because I’ve moved on very niche podcasts, like one I just listened to about Titanic Conspiracy Theories, and there’s really no telling where this deviant path may lead...