Keith Morrison is getting into the true-crime podcast game, with a show that actually involves the impersonation of a Dateline producer. The podcast, which will drop on September 18, is called The Thing About Pam. It’s an investigation into the 2011 slaying of Betsy Faria, which many, including Morrison, himself, suspect was done by a woman named Pamela Hupp, who is currently serving a life sentence for another homicide.

“From the beginning, it appears that this woman has been plotting and planning and blaming everyone else for the crimes that she has committed,” Morrison told Vulture. “It’s a pattern and we keep seeing that pattern, even now that we’re talking to new witnesses who have known her over the years and discovered the deceptions and frauds that she employed.”

One of those alleged frauds, Morrison says, went down in 2016 when “someone matching Hupp’s description who claimed to be a Dateline producer” approached a woman “and offered her $1,000 to record a scripted sound bite about 9-1-1 calls.” The woman refused and reported the interaction to police, saying that she grew suspicious as the person who approacher her couldn’t prove a connection to the show. You can listen to a trailer for the podcast (Morrison’s first!) here. -- EB

Unbelievable, the Netflix series based on a Marshall Project and ProPublica collaboration from 2015 called “An Unbelievable Story Of Rape,” was released today. The eight episode dramatic adaptation boasts an impressive pedigree: It was scripted by (married, to each other) novelists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and stars folks like Kaitlyn Dever (as the un-believed victim), Merritt Wever, and Toni Collette.

I haven’t delved into it yet, but this Slate review, by Inkoo Kang, suggests to me that the elements that made her critical of the show (she calls it “methodical” and cites its alleged “journalistic dryness”) might make folks like us enjoy it even more. After all, my biggest complaint about true crime-based drama is often that the creators decided not to let the facts get in the way of a good story. If, as Kang suggests, the opposite decision was made here, I might be able to live with that. -- EB

Inspired by the NYT’s “50 States Of True Crime” feature, Sarah and The Blotter Presents Patreon supporter Susan have proposed swaps for seven of the Times’s picks. Arizona, California, Hawai’i, Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon, and Utah all get new entries from the pair, both of whom are eager to bring light on books besides the (in many cases, extremely low-hanging) fruits of the NYT’s research. You can read all about their trades here. -- EB

Folks eager to learn more about the real story behind Hustlers have a couple good options this weekend. The film, which I reviewed here, opens across the nation today, presumably to crowds of people who will spend several hours of their life attempting to figure out exactly what Jennifer Lopez does (food, workout, etc) to look the way she does. But beyond the question of J-Lo’s magical glow is the question of how accurately the movie reflects the activities of Roselyn Keo (Candace Wu, in the movie) and Samantha Barbash (Lopez).

A great place to start is, of course, Jessica Pressler’s 2015 article “The Hustlers at Scores,” which has presumably been kicking ass as an archived item on New York magazine’s website. Your next stop: A piece Rachelle Hampton published at Slate last night, which swiftly runs down the movie’s key elements and compares them to the on-record reality. (It’s loaded with plot spoilers, including an especially delightful reveal in the movie, so I’d hold off reading until after you see the film.)

Finally, you should set your DVR for tonight’s episode of 20/20, which interviews Keo and fellow Hustler Karina Pascucci (she was sentenced to four months of weekend jail in the racket, which would make her the closest real person to movie characters Annabelle or Mercedes, I guess?). The show also interviews Dr. Zyad Younan, who says he went out for three dates with Pascucci, and blacked out during each.

Though surveillance footage showed him at Scores (the club referred to as “Moves” in Hustlers) for at least one of those nights, Younan says he doesn’t recall the visits, which resulted in $135,000 worth of credit card charges. After he disputed the charges with American Express, Scores sued him for the bill, a court battle that received coverage like this salacious piece from the Daily News. (Scores lost the suit.) “They wanted to destroy me,” Younan tells 20/20. “That was their absolute goal — to destroy me financially [and] embarrass me.” You can see the full report when 20/20 airs on Friday at 10 PM ET. -- EB

Monday on Best Evidence: A very unlikely true-crime pairing.

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