The best true crime podcasts of 2024
the true crime that's worth your time
Welcome to day two of Best Evidence's fourth annual Year in Review, in which we celebrate the best true crime properties, complain about the worst, and spin hopeful dreams about the future of the genre. Keep checking back all this week and next for other responses including great book recommendations, hidden gems to seek out, and infuriating flops to avoid.
Today our brilliant group of experts is weighing in on the best true crime podcasts of the year. Should we all be listening to Season 3 of In The Dark, which is about civilian slayings by U.S. Marines in Haditha, Iraq? It sure looks that way! Tell us what you think, as well as what shows you had in your ears this year, in the comments.
My "no big surprise" nominees are season 3 of In the Dark for their deep dive into the massacre at Haditha and Noble, a look into the Tri-State Crematory scandal of 2002.— Tracy Bealer, author of True Crime Fiction on Substack
In The Dark, S03; Hush, the latest from Leah Sottile/OPB — Sarah D. Bunting, co-EIC of B.E., proprietrix of Exhibit B. Books
BROOMGATE was outstanding for me for several reasons. It's very well made, gripping, and well-paced. And any podcast, documentary, book or telly that can fascinate you with something not only outside your experience but which you might normally dismiss as 'not interesting' gets extra credit. BROOMGATE concerns the huge scandal in the world of curling - an argument about brooms. it's sooooo good. — Sarah Carradine, co-host of the Crime Seen podcast
I didn't yet finish it, but I have to shout out Who Shat on the Floor at My Wedding season two, The Case of the Tiny Suit/Case, because it is just unabashedly silly, yet also grounded in an true story. It's the kind of levity I needed and look forward to returning to. — Andy Dehnart, founder of reality blurred
IN THE DARK: Season 3 — Elon Green, author of The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart's New York (coming on March 11, 2025)
I stuck with some existing veterans who have ridden the highs & lows of the post-Serial tides, such as Crime Writers On... for piping hot takes and small town gossip updates, Swindled for deep dives on various con artists, hoaxers, & sociopaths, and Disgraceland - who along with stories from rock'n'roll hellraisers of yore have been doing in depth work on the breaking Diddy news sifting the wheat from the chaff. I've also enjoyed Wondery's The Bog Flop, which is not true crime in general but dabbles there - getting into the flop era of some notorious public figures, including OJ, Tonya Harding, and Dicky Nixon. — Margaret Howie, co-founder of Space Fruit Press
In the Dark Season 3! Nobody does it better. — Sarah Weinman, author & editor
In 2022, Bloomberg's Rachel Adams-Heard wrote and reported In Trust, a groundbreaking 2022 podcast about the business dealings behind the Reign of Terror against the Osage Nation (that is, the homicides depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon, and many more). Just last week, the show dropped a special bonus episode detailing how the tribe has recently reclaimed many of the land rights lost during that massacre. It's a moment of hope in what feels like a very bleak winter. — Eve Batey, Best Evidence co-editor, journalist, and sighthound person.