The hidden true crime gems you missed in 2024
the true crime that's worth your time
Today is my second-favorite (after our longread list) in Best Evidence’s annual Year in Review series. I love talking about properties that were overlooked or might have gotten by folks, as the true crime gold rush has flooded the zone to the point that even extra diligent followers of the genre are bound to miss stuff. It’s great that we get a second chance here.
As always, we’d love to hear about the properties you think were missed in the comments — and if you’re looking to catch up on our lists, here are our rundowns of the best vintage true crime properties we discovered this year, the projects we’re most excited for in 2025, as well as the best documentaries, longreads, podcasts, books, and dramatic adaptations.
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So it was only released a few weeks ago but will probably be missed outside of the Antipodes, but NZ current affairs site The Spinoff released a devastating first person account of a stalking victim. Zeni Gibson’s story shows, yet again, how stalking victims are underserved by the justice system, with useless cops, weak or nonexistent laws, and the stigma of being targeted. I have thought about it every day since I read it.— Margaret Howie, co-founder of Space Fruit Press
Probably THE FIRE WE CARRY by Rebecca Nagle. I want more people to read it.— Sarah Weinman, author & editor
As someone wwho lived for (my arguably least responsible) years in Bloomington, Indiana, I was deeply invested in College Girl, Missing: The True Story of How a Young Woman Disappeared in Plain Sight, which details the 2011 disappearance of Lauren Spierer from one of that college town’s most popular sports bars. Author Shawn Cohen was a reporter for the New York Post and is now with the Daily Mail, which isn’t my faaaaavorite thing, but he captures the rot-beneath-the-surface vibe of the collegiate overserving scene with impressive accuracy and has kept Spierer in the public eye better than anyone else has been able to. — Eve Batey, Best Evidence co-editor, journalist, and sighthound person.
I’m not sure a podcast from a Peabody award winner like Chenjerai Kumanyika (host of the late great Uncivil) could be called overlooked, but I haven’t heard much discussion of his latest series on the history of the NYPD, Empire City, in true crime spaces and I think there should be! — Tracy Bealer, author of True Crime Fiction on Substack
A couple out of the UK: Joan, which the CW gave up on almost immediately; and A Very Royal Scandal, which it feels like only I cared about — Sarah D. Bunting, co-EIC of B.E., proprietrix of Exhibit B. Books
THE CONTESTANT made by Clair Titley tells the extraordinary story of Hamatsu Tomoaki, who applied for a Japanese tv show in 1998, and spent 15 months naked in an apartment, surviving on winnings from entering magazine contests. He knew he was being filmed – but not that he was being filmed 24 hours a day, nor that the show was being broadcast in real time. (Side note – if you’ve ever wondered why the eggplant emoji had come to symbolise a certain anatomical feature, it is because the producers & editors of the show used it to cover Tomoaki’s bits). It’s an outrageous, pitiable, triumphant, and brilliantly made film. — Sarah Carradine, co-host of the Crime Seen podcast
DEVIL BEHIND THE BADGE by Rick Jervis — Elon Green, author of The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart’s New York (coming on March 11, 2025)
By the Fire They Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle. An outstanding read I wish I was seeing on more year-end “best of” lists.— Susan Howard, Best Evidence contributor (Instagram: @veronicamers)