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Thursday, april 29, 2021 • ThE BullETiN
cover story
True crime podcasts to obsess over
BY MAKENZIE WHITTLE • The Bulletin
D
on’t worry, your obsession with true crime stories is completely normal. Well, to an extent. Many people love catching up with all the dark and gritty
details laid out in a real-life mystery, murder or scandal. According to a 2009 interview with NPR, psychologist Dr. Michael Mantell explained that “we
have been fascinated with the conflict between good and evil since the beginning of time,” adding that reading, watching or listening to stories involving
true crime can give us a sense of catharsis stemming from a kind of rehearsal scenario — how we would fare in a similar situation as the victim.
If you haven’t gotten into the land
of true crime podcasts, it may seem
overwhelming. With hundreds to
choose from, here are just a few
to dip your toe into the genre,
each taking different approaches
to how they tell the stories, with
various degrees of gruesomeness
and topics.
You can catch any of these pod-
casts via your preferred podcast
platform.
American Scandal — Hosted by
Lindsay Graham (not the politician) the
podcast takes a look at the less murder-y
side of the true crime genre and instead
focuses on more of the political, business,
religious or celebrity scandals that have oc-
curred through modern American history.
With series on Enron, BALCO and sports
doping scandals, Lenny Bruce, the Branch
Davidians, the Tuskegee experiments and
even the Volkswagen diesel scandal, each
lasting between five and eight episodes and
includes dramatic reenactments by Graham
sprinkled in with the compelling research.
wondery.com
Conspiracy Theories — The incredibly
information-heavy
podcast hosted by
Molly Branden-
burg and Car-
ter Roy adds a
hefty dollop
of specula-
tion, along
with the real
stories of the
world’s most
controversial
events. Some
are true crimes,
others tragedies or
otherwise unexplained
phenomena, but each topic is heavily re-
searched and recounted to the last detail as
we know it before the hosts jump into some
of the wilder theo-
ries surrounding it.
Both Branden-
burg and Roy
are pretty skep-
tical about the
theories they
present but in-
stead of making
outright paro-
dies of them, they
treat each one with
the same amount of
detail as they do with the
known accounts. It’s more true
crime adjacent, ideal for those wanting to
ease into the pool of crime podcasts.
parcast.com
Morning Cup of Murder — Another op-
tion for easing yourself into true crime pod-
casts, this one in a daily, bite-sized form.
Host Korina Biemesderfer takes no more
than 10 minutes in each episode to quickly
recount an actual murder that happened
each day of the year. Like a daily desk calen-
dar, only instead of Far Side cartoons to flip
through, you get to hear about murderers.
audioboom.com
My Favorite Murder — If you don’t
mind some irreverent and macabre humor
thrown into talking about grisly murders,
then check out the bi-weekly podcast
hosted by comedians Karen Kilgariff
and Georgia Hardstark. In every ep-
isode, they each pick one murder,
story or historical event to discuss
through what they know and they
make it clear, this is just based on
their casual research. They do draw
clear attention to common threads
within these cases often involving
mental illness, sexual abuse and victim’s
rights. While the nature of it may seem flip-
pant given the seriousness of the crimes
they comment on, the episodes don’t feel
that way when you listen to them. Both Kil-
gariff and Hardstark clearly have respect for
the victims at the heart of the stories they
recount they just tell it in a way that feels
more approachable than a cut-and-dry doc-
umentary style. myfavoritemurder.com
Serial — This serialized documentary
show broke records becoming the
fastest podcast ever to achieve 5
million downloads on iTunes.
It also leapt to the top of the
streaming service’s charts
on its debut and stayed
there well after the first
season ended. Host
and executive producer
Sarah Koenig does a
deep, investigative dive
into one case per sea-
son with the third season
being a dive into the larger
criminal justice system. With
each case, Koenig talks with the ac-
cused, witnesses, friends, acquaintances
and more to get the heart of the story. The
podcast flows so well and is intriguingly
told, making it one of the best to follow.
serialpodcast.com
Small Town Dicks — Actress Yeard-
ley Smith co-hosts the podcast with twin
brother detectives Dan and Dave (no last
names) as they speak with actual small-
town detectives about the crimes they’ve
investigated as well as families of vic-
tims and people involved with
the cases. Names and identi-
fying details as well as re-
lationships and locations
are changed or omit-
ted to protect the vic-
tims and their families,
while the podcast uses
actual jailhouse inter-
view audio to plot the
events of what occurred.
It’s laid out very much
in that documentary style,
with Dan and Dave adding
their own insight into how cases
evolve and are solved. They are sincere in
their recountings and respectful of the cases
they cover that rocked small towns.
smalltowndicks.com
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Reporter: 541-383-0304, mwhittle@bendbulletin.com