11 (or so) True Crime Podcasts to Consider
Some of these shows are so new we can't even find them on any cool platforms yet.
the true crime that's worth your time
It’s a Halloween miracle! Somehow, I ended up with 13 new podcasts to tell you about, a spooky number in this spookiest of weeks. This issue must be meant to be! Let’s get into it. — EB
UPDATE: Hi, I can’t count! Sorry about that! You’ll have to make do with 11.
Carrie Low VS.
Launch date: Oct. 20
Episodes to catch up on: 2
This CBC podcast is hosted by journalist Maggie Rahr, and details the plight of Carrie Low, who was raped after “an average night out at a bar.” Low says that the cops she reported the attack to “failed to investigate properly, and only succeeded in traumatizing her further,” so now she’s on a mission to reform how sexual assaults are investigated.
Rebecca Lavoie on Her Podcasting “Side Hustle”
Launch date: Oct. 24
Episodes to catch up on: 1 (and that’s it!)
BE pal Lavoie, the co-host of Crime Writers On (among other accomplishments), is the subject of this episode of Slate’s longstanding Working podcast. There’s a lot of nuts-and-bolts-y stuff about the podcast biz, a treat for us process nerds. Perhaps most excitingly, though, is that Lavoie says that her side gig as a podcast “is more lucrative than my main hustle.”
Mississippi Goddam
Launch date: Oct 16
Episodes to catch up on: 2
This podcast from the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal outlet centers around Billey Joe Johnson Jr., a Black teen who was fatally shit during a 2008 traffic stop. The white deputy who pulled Johnson over claimed the football star shot himself, but locals told Reveal’s Al Letson that claim didn’t hold water.
Bad Women: The Ripper Retold
Launch date: Oct. 5
Episodes to catch up on: 6 (sorry!)
Historian Hallie Rubenhold seeks to debunk the traditional narrative about the Jack the Ripper case, with a focus on the five victims and what they endured as women in 1880s London.
Believe Her
Launch date: Oct 21
Episodes to catch up on: 3
Longform journalist Justine van der Leun hosts this show, which is pitched as “true crime, upside down.” It’s the story of Nikki Addimando, who admitted that she killed her partner, Chris Grover, in 2017. She’s been sentenced to 19 years in prison, and speaks to the show from jail. Its reason for being is all presented very cagily, which suggests that twists are afoot: copy like “believe Her is a riveting chronicle that grapples with assumptions we make about domestic and sexual violence, the long reach of trauma, and the ways in which survival is criminalized, leaving us shocked at how far people will go to avoid seeing what's right in front of them,” is quite the teaser!
Why the F.B.I. Loves Mob Podcasts [New Yorker]
Reporter Rachel Corbett rounds up a slew of podcasts hosted by former members of the Mafia, but we’ll only count this as a single entry so my newsletter subject line makes sense. Just as important is the image she suggests of loads of cops and feds listening to these podcasts to try to unravel various crimes. Snip:
The genre has drawn, alongside the usual true-crime obsessives, a more surprising set of devotees: F.B.I. agents, looking for a deeper understanding of some of the biggest cases of their careers.
“I spend hours and hours listening to these wise guys,” the retired special agent Bill Fleisher told me, the other day. Fleisher, who lives in New Jersey, spent most of the nineteen-seventies working on organized-crime squads in New York, Boston, and Detroit. “I could talk to them, I could polygraph them, I knew how they operated—but I could never get in their heads,” he said. “That’s why I like these podcasts. I’m beginning, like a shrink, to understand their thinking.”
Trapped in Treatment
Launch date: TBD
Extra reports that Paris Hilton is producing this podcast about the troubled teen industry, an issue that she’s been the face of since she took on Utah’s Provo Canyon School in 2020 documentary This is Paris. Via press release, Hilton says:
“For 20 years, I lived silently with the memories, and the trauma, from my experience at Provo Canyon School. This past year, thousands of survivors like me have shared their stories, helping to bring into public view what so many of us have locked up. Provo Canyon School will not be able to hide behind the abuse they’ve caused survivors any longer. I am so proud to be producing ‘Trapped in Treatment’ and can’t wait to take you on this audio journey.”
I Love True Crime. Should I Feel Guilty?
Launch date: Oct. 27
Episodes to catch up on: 1 (and that’s it!)
This episode of NYT podcast The Argument asks “Does our culture have a true crime problem?” Guests include attorney and Serial figure Rabia Chaudry and writer and BE pal Sarah Weinman (The Real Lolita). I suspect that neither will say “yes, you should feel guilty!” But who knows?
Sex, Lies & Murder
Launch date: Oct. 27
Episodes to catch up on: 1
Let me be frank: I’m suggesting this podcast mainly on the basis of its promised abundance, like I’d suggest we all go eat at Golden Corral. Probably not the best stuff, but plenty of it! This show, which dropped just yesterday, promises 40 fucking episodes of “real stories of sex driven crimes that have rocked communities.” This seems like a good fit for car trips where you want something you don’t mind talking over, but will be diverting enough to follow when conversation dwindles. The show’s so new they don’t seem to have their platform shit together quite yet, but the first episode is here.
An Absurd Result
Launch date: Oct. 27
Episodes to catch up on: 2
University of Montana journalism prof Jule Banville hosts this show on Jimmy Bromgard, who was wrongly convicted of assaulting an 8-year-old girl in 1987. Linda Tokarski, the now adult survivor of the attack, is extensively interviewed. "What happened with Linda is that she changed,” Banville says of the podcast. “She went from never talking openly about what happened to her, even through all the twists, to answering every question and wanting listeners of this podcast to know everything.”
Smoke Screen: The Sellout
Launch date: Oct. 26
Episodes to catch up on: 2
This collab with one of my favorite SoCal food sites, L.A. TACO, takes on gentrification, federal corruption, and political betrayal in Boyle Heights. None of the podcast copy mentions tacos, but I’ll keep listening anyway.
Friday on Best Evidence: A spoooooky Halloween thread!
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