The Tamesis
In 2025, true-crime podcasts continue to be perhaps the most addictive genre out there, bringing all the mystery and primal fear of a Law & Order episode directly into our ears. More than a decade on from that fateful first season of Serial, we now live in a world where true-crime pods have changed laws, freed the wrongly accused, and finally laid disappeared people to rest in peace.
And oh, the variety! You may find yourself going deep into the crimes of Victorian-era conwomen, or enraptured by a suburban murder that seems stranger than fiction. Whatever you’re into—and whether you’re already an obsessive or just wading into the world of cold cases and red herrings—here are Vogue’s picks for the best true-crime podcasts to try now.
Unicorn Girl
The scam podcast is still going strong in 2025, as evidenced by the popularity of this Apple Original investigation into the life and eventual imprisonment of influencer Candace Rivera. On Unicorn Girl, journalist and Scamanda creator Charlie Webster dives deep into the unraveling of Rivera’s picture-perfect public persona, which serves as a great reminder not to believe everything you see on social media.
The King Road Killings
If you devoured all the news that was fit to print about the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in their off-campus house in 2022, this might just be the podcast for you. ABC News correspondent Kayna Whitworth manages to bring some much-needed restraint and dignity to the highly publicized crime in this reported audio series, which follows the case against Brian Kohberger (the criminology PhD student charged with the murders) in an in-depth investigation of what it means for such a violent crime to mar the much-vaunted peace of a small town like Moscow, Idaho.
Hollywood Crime Scene
You Must Remember This fans, this one’s got your name all over it; if there’s one thing the City of Angels isn’t lacking, it’s a long legacy of crimes against celebrities, and that’s exactly what hosts Rachel Fisher and Desi Jedeikin dive into in this podcast that examines scandalous true-crime stories involving famous people including Connie Frances, the Olsen twins, and Traci Lords.
Devil in the Desert
In 2012, a sheriff’s deputy found a woman wandering in the Mojave Desert with her hands bound who soon led authorities to discover a violent attack perpetrated against her roommate. Devil in the Desert goes deep on alleged perpetrator Hossein Nayeri, a man with ties to California’s then-nascent medical marijuana industry, whose wife ended up acting as an informant in order to lure him back to the US for arrest. The brutality described on this podcast isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s still a fascinating listen.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
You may think you’ve gleaned everything you need to know about the suspicious 1974 death of plutonium-plant worker Karen Silkwood from the Meryl Streep and Cher-led movie about her life (which, fun fact, Nora Ephron co-wrote the screenplay for), but this podcast will prove you wrong. Fifty years after Silkwood’s death, more details of the work she was doing at the time to help a New York Times reporter uncover the truth about her plant’s unsafe conditions are coming to light, and the voices of two longtime reporters who have covered the case for the past half-century lend crucial authority to Radioactive’s investigation.
Pulse: The Untold Story
In our uniquely American era of increasingly common mass shootings, the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre still looms large for many members of the LGBTQ+ community. This podcast places the tragedy in its proper context as a hate crime as well as one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history, questioning much of the media narrative surrounding shooter Omar Mateen and filling in the gaps around the FBI’s failures to prevent the attack.
The Outfit
If you’re a fan of The Sopranos’ inimitable sartorial style but have watched all the reruns you can handle, you absolutely need to check out this podcast, in which hosts Alana Hope Levinson and Dan O’Sullivan greet listeners each week with a new story about the history of organized crime. From Al Capone’s legendary monogrammed shirts to a glamorous FBI agent with “a gun in her Gucci,” The Outfit will make you appreciate the little details of mob life in ways you likely never have before.
They Will Kill
Sisters Courtney and Sadie Eck bring listeners in on the seemingly minor details of less-publicized, not-always-headline-news crimes on They Will Kill, a podcast that’s notable for its responsible and measured tone. Instead of giggling about murder or in any way satirizing the serious crimes they’re dedicated to reporting on, the Ecks bring a level of thoughtfulness to their audio series that’s much appreciated in our desensitized times.
True Crime Garage
If you couldn’t get enough of the recent HBO docuseries The Yogurt Shop Murders, you’ll be glad to know that the long-running crime podcast True Crime Garage has dedicated a recent episode to a newly discovered break in the case. Hosts Nic and the Captain are prolific in their reporting, meaning that there’s probably an episode of this audio series for almost any crime you’re interested in learning about, provided you’re willing to sift back through the archives.
Rotten Mango
Stephanie Soo, the host of this podcast dedicated to “true crime and all things spooky,” has touched on a wide variety of recent and current crimes on Rotten Mango, from the death of John O’Keefe to China’s “Uncle Red” criminal case to the horrifying discovery of a missing 14-year-old girl’s body in a car registered to singer D4vd—big tabloid energy, to be sure, but in a mysteriously compelling way.
The Rise and Fall of Ruby Franke
While Utah momfluencer Ruby Franke spent years trying to dominate the media narrative about her family through her YouTube channel 8 Passengers, this podcast from Wondery fills in many of the blanks about Franke’s frightening alliance with her self-help business partner Jodi Hildebrandt and escalating abuse of her six children. Franke and Hildebrandt are now serving the maximum sentence for child abuse, but interest in their case lingers on, and The Rise and Fall of Ruby Franke is perhaps the most complete audio timeline of Franke’s downward spiral out there.
Deviant: The Hart Family Murders
In March of 2018, wives Jennifer and Sarah Hart appalled the nation by driving their van off a California cliff, killing themselves as well as their six Black adopted children. The Hart murder-suicide brought up complex questions about family well-being, child abuse, mental health, and transracial adoption, all of which are explored in Deviant: The Hart Family Murders. While it’s by no means an easy listen, the podcast is well worth your time.
Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo
A young Cree girl named Cleo was taken from her family in Canada by child welfare workers in the 1970s and subsequently adopted in the US, eventually going missing after allegedly hitchhiking back to Saskatchewan. Produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and hosted by Cree journalist Connie Walker, this podcast provides a powerful firsthand look at the ugly reality of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis in Canada and the US by delving deep into Cleo’s story.
Wisecrack
This six-part limited series from Tenderfoot TV and iHeartPodcasts follows the true story of comedian Edd Hedges, who returned to his home in a small English village after a stand-up performance in 2015 to find a murderer at his door; this Baby Reindeer-style series, which began at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, expertly straddles the line between comedy special and true-crime thriller.
The Apology Line
In the early 1980s, a phone number papers New York City’s streets, allowing strangers to spill their secrets via voicemail. Messages pour in, and for 15 years, what began as a social experiment takes on a life of its own. Those recordings, collected by Allan Bridge—known as Mr. Apology—are uncovered by Bridge’s second wife, Marissa, who lets listeners into what it means to be the keeper of secrets—and the toll that responsibility can take.
Bear Brook
It’s the summer of 1985, and we’re in the woods of New Hampshire—specifically, Bear Brook State Park. In the midst of an innocent game of hide and seek, three boys come across a barrel, which they decide to kick and knock over without looking inside.
Fifteen years later, a second barrel is found just 300 feet away from the first. The barrels’ contents lead to the discovery of four slain bodies: a woman and three young girls. Who are these victims? What happened, and why? New Hampshire Public Radio host Jason Moon delves into a decades-long cold case—ultimately uncovering a serial murderer.
The Binge Crimes: Lady Mafia
The Binge Crimes is an absorbing anthology series in which the last season, Night Shift, investigated the case of one of the US’s most prolific killer nurses. Its eighth season, Lady Mafia, presents Sara King, a.k.a. the “Female Bernie Madoff” and the “Anna Delvey of the OC,” taking us into the world of a glorified loan shark and supposed master of deception. Does the world have it all wrong, or is she swimming in millions of dollars of other people’s money? It’s a colorful, high-stakes tale from an ever-bingeable archive.
Bone Valley
In 1987, 18-year-old Michelle Schofield was found dead in Florida, and two years later, her husband Leo was convicted for the murder. However, fingerprints were discovered at the scene that would eventually lead to Jeremy Scott, a man whose violent history includes armed robbery and assault. In just nine episodes, Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker re-examine Leo’s fight for justice and uncover new evidence linking Scott to a string of murders.
The Boy in the Water
The tragic case of three-year-old Lachlan Jones seemed like a clear, closed case to authorities: The boy had run away from his home in Gore, New Zealand, got over a fence, and fallen and drowned in the local sewage oxidation ponds. Horrific, but open-and-shut. In this riveting, years-long investigation by journalist Melanie Reid, however, doubt is cast. Could a child really have gotten that far, with no marks on his feet? Reid relentlessly delves into forensic evidence, mismatched witness statements, and questionable police behavior, her efforts eventually leading the case to be reopened twice, and later, to a full coronial inquest. Its following seasons go inside that courtroom. Will the small town with a big secret receive its reckoning?
Broomgate: A Curling Scandal
When you think of curling (if you…ever do), you might think of it as quite a charming sport, with camaraderie, honor, politeness, and sportsmanship built in. This six-part series blows open a controversy that threatened to tear apart the curling community forever. Semi-pro curler and fully pro comedian John Cullen acts as host with first-hand interviews, going inside the 2015 scandal where a team used one broom instead of two during a game. While it’s more of a cheeky send-up of the true-crime mechanic, Cullen approaches it with the rich storytelling and analytical eye that the genre thrives on.
Can I Tell You a Secret?
Few of us can claim to be our entirely authentic selves online, but in Can I Tell You a Secret?, Guardian journalist Sirin Kale unspools a disturbing, decade-long tale of catfishing and cyberstalking in Cheshire, England. It all starts with an innocuous message from someone who seems to be a young woman: “Can I tell you a secret?” The podcast was made into a Netflix docuseries earlier this year.
The Clearing
The Clearing offers an unexpected spin on the conventional true-crime podcast formula, with its central voice being not just an investigative reporter, Josh Dean, but also the daughter of the culprit, April Balascio, who tipped off police in 2009 after suspecting that her father was responsible for a spate of murders in the early 1980s. Charting both her father’s devastating crimes and the trauma he inflicted on his own family, besides the families of his victims, The Clearing is sensitive rather than sensationalist as it deals with this thorny subject, marking it out as a rarity in the world of true-crime reporting.
Cold
Hosted by investigative reporter Dave Cawley, each season of Cold focuses on a missing-persons case. First up is a retelling of Susan Powell’s disappearance in West Valley City, Utah, in 2009, for which Cawley corralls police documents, diary entries, and never-before-heard wiretapped audio.
Crime Junkie
Each week on Crime Junkie, host Ashley Flowers looks into some of the most compelling (and mysterious) cases ever, from the murder of Loren Donn Leslie, whose remains were found along Canada’s Highway of Tears, a 450-mile stretch of road where dozens of women, most of whom were Indigenous, have been known to vanish or be found murdered, to the “yogurt shop killings” that rocked Austin in 1991.
Dark Downeast
Maine! Connecticut! Massachusetts! In Dark Downeast, investigative journalist Kylie Low sheds light on cases—from unsolved murders to missing persons and survivor stories—in settings that one might otherwise associate with quaint, seaside getaways. Listeners hear from loved ones and detectives in detailed accounts that put the victim, and their legacy, at the heart of each story.
Darkness: The Orange Door
Hosted by former University of Texas journalism students Tinu Thomas and Haley Butler, Season 1 of Darkness tells the story of 21-year-old Jennifer Cave, who in August 2005 was set to start a new job. But when Jennifer’s boss called her mother, Sharon, to inquire about Jennifer’s whereabouts on her first day, Sharon knew something was wrong. Immediately, Jennifer’s parents began calling friends. When they still couldn’t locate her, they took matters into their own hands, and visited Jennifer’s friend Colton Pitonyak’s apartment within the Orange Tree Condominiums. They would find that Pitonyak wasn’t home—but on the other side of the door lay Jennifer’s brutally murdered body. As two women who walked the same campus paths that Jennifer had 15 years earlier, Thomas and Butler felt compelled to share Jennifer’s tragic story through exclusive interviews and transcripts from family, friends, and detectives—and their work is utterly absorbing.
The Deck
In The Deck, Crime Junkie’s Ashley Flowers explains that for years, some law enforcement agencies replaced the faces in playing card decks with images of missing and murdered people. Distributing these cards throughout prisons, investigators hoped inmates would come forward with helpful information.
Every week, The Deck sheds new light on a cold case, like that of Jenny Linn (Queen of Hearts in California) or Ivory Green (Jack of Spades in New York), sharing stories from their loved ones and detailed interviews with detectives.
Dig
In the first season of Dig, from Louisville Public Media’s Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the shocking story of Jen Sainato, who reported her rape to Louisville police in January 2018, reveals the city authorities’ long history of failing to appropriately investigate rape cases. It’s a tough and infuriating listen that puts a much-needed spotlight on a failing justice system, with expert interviews, dogged reporting, and a turn in the case no one saw coming.
Dirty John
We’ve never devoured a podcast as quickly as we did this one about an interior designer named Debra who meets a handsome, perfect-seeming doctor named John claiming to have just returned from volunteering with Doctors Without Borders in Iraq. As you might imagine, John isn’t quite who he claims to be, and at the risk of spoiling the at-times-unbelievable story that Dirty John chronicles, let us assure you that this one most definitely ends up falling into the true-crime category.
Down the Hill: The Delphi Murders
On Valentine’s Day in 2017, two teens, Liberty German, 14, and Abigail Williams, 13, were found murdered near a hiking trail in Delphi, Indiana, after going missing the day before. When police released a short audio clip believed to belong to the male suspect, it included only three words: “down the hill.” The podcast breaks down the tragic story that continues to haunt Indiana today.
Dr. Death
Another podcast that proved so riveting it was quickly adapted into a TV series, Dr. Death charts the horrifying career of Christopher Duntsch, the now-imprisoned neurosurgeon who performed a series of disastrous operations on patients around the Dallas-Fort Worth area over several years, leaving 33 injured and many eithers maimed or paralyzed. Not only does the show offer insight into Duntsch’s sociopathy as he continued to cause harm, but it also highlights the dangers and dysfunctions within the American medical system. A warning: Some of the details of Duntsch’s malpractice veer into grisly territory, so it’s not a podcast for the squeamish or faint of heart.
The Dropout
While the shocking story of Elizabeth Holmes’s rise and fall as the founder of disgraced medical tech company Theranos has been retold across a number of platforms, little has captured her toxic mix of ambition and hubris as powerfully as ABC News podcast The Dropout. (It even served as the basis for the Emmy-nominated Hulu show starring Amanda Seyfreid.) An added bonus? The podcast’s host, Rebecca Jarvis, released a follow-up miniseries charting the developments around Holmes’s trail in California in 2022, which proved to be just as riveting as any John Grisham courtroom drama.
Forgotten: Women of Juarez
Is it a serial killer, a satanic cult, or human traffickers? Hundreds of women are going missing in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, and those who turn up are found dead, with their wrists bound and mysterious symbols carved all over their bodies. This iHeart radio production attempts to get to the bottom of the femicides, navigating corrupt authorities and missing potential suspects.
Happily Never After: Dan and Nancy
Married life for Nancy and Dan began like a fairytale. Decades later, ensconced in the suburbs, Nancy was spending her time writing novels filled with romantic escapades, double-crossings, and murder when, in 2018, Dan was shot dead. In a podcast as darkly compelling as a season of Desperate Housewives, host Heidi Tretheway, who was once in Nancy’s writing club, asks whether Nancy and Dan’s story was really stranger than fiction.
Home Sleuth
Home Sleuth highlights everyday crime wonks who have unraveled mysteries and burst open cold cases, from the first real internet investigator in the 1990s to accomplished true-crime YouTubers. Each episode also features insights from true-crime expert Rachel Monroe, surveying the world’s enduring obsession with the genre and the ethical issues it dredges up.
In the Dark
The award-winning investigative-journalism podcast first made waves with its 2016 debut, in which journalist Madeleine Baran and a team of reporters revisited the 1989 abduction of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling. For season two, Baran and team focused on the case of Curtis Flowers, a man who was tried six times for the same crime in Mississippi; while season three followed the fallout (or lack thereof) after a group of Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians in 2006. The show is now in its fifth season.
Killer Fun
Hosts Jackie (who holds a master’s degree in psychology from Harvard) and Christy (a classic internet sleuth) are the brains behind Killer Fun. We love a well-researched podcast with lighthearted dialogue on topics ranging from hit shows to true crime. More merry than morbid, the episodes make for easy listening if you’re looking for something on the lighter side.
Lady Killers
In this BBC Sounds podcast, historian Lucy Worsley casts a contemporary feminist lens on the crimes of Victorian-era women. We cycle through the 19th and 20th centuries, meeting proto-Anna Delvey art hoaxer Ann Mary Provis, London’s notorious beauty scammer Madame Rachel, heiress turned fugitive Violet Charlesworth, and shoplifting queen Alice Diamond, among others, all with the help of Worsley’s rotating team of women investigators.
The Lady Vanishes
The 1997 disappearance of Marion Barter, the former wife of Australian soccer great Johnny Warren, is the subject of this podcast. The bizarre circumstances of Barter’s disappearance (she was last seen getting on a plane for an overseas holiday) are closely reviewed, but the human resonance of the still-unexplained loss of a mother, teacher, and friend is deeply felt in every episode.
Last Podcast on the Left
Technically, this series focuses on “all the horrors our world has to offer, both imagined and real,” but the body of work that hosts Marcus Parks, Ed Larson, and Henry Zebrowski have built up around real-life figures like Jeffrey Dahmer, Patty Hearst, and (more recently) Gypsy Rose Blanchard is impressive enough for Last Podcast on the Left to qualify as one of the very best in the true-crime genre.
LISK: Long Island Serial Killer
For two decades until 2010, an unidentified suspect murdered nearly a dozen people, mostly female sex workers, and left their bodies along a secluded stretch of Long Island’s Ocean Parkway. This podcast, inspired by the bestseller Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, recalls the gruesome case with unheard interviews from family members, police, and more.
LOST HILLS: Dark Canyon
The death of Mitrice Richardson—a 24-year-old who was arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2009 for failing to pay her bill at a Malibu restaurant, and then disappeared shortly after her release—is given crucial context in this podcast from New Yorker writer Dana Goodyear, whose holistic deep-dive into “the dark side of Malibu, California” is not to be missed.
Morbid: A True Crime Podcast
Best friends Alaina Urquhart and Ashleigh Kelley have range: In addition to serial killers and mysterious deaths, they also tackle other true-crime subgenres such as spooky myths, creepy history, and haunted places.
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Navy SEAL John Allen, better known as internet personality MrBallen, spills unsolved secrets on his weekly podcast. Following a near-death experience while serving in Afghanistan, MrBallen discovered a love for true crime, sharing podcasts on serial killers and strange disappearances. His no-holds-barred style is matter-of-fact, descriptive, and will get you hooked 30 seconds in. N.B.: the episodes aren’t for the faint of heart and come with warnings.
My Favorite Murder
True-crime junkies who don’t take themselves too seriously should start here. MFM is a biweekly safe space for comedians/hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark to break down the cases that keep them up at night, from the Golden State Killer to Black Dahlia and the Zodiac murders. The show’s devoted listeners, also known as “murderinos,” have made it one of the podcast world’s biggest hits, spawning a live show and a book: Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered.
Operation Seal Bay
It all begins in a small, sleepy fishing village in west Wales in 1983, where a local farmer discovers a secret underground bunker. Across six episodes, we hear the captivating story of a community and their police force taking on an international drugs ring—and the Danish millionaire behind it all. Totally audacious, with a cast of charming, sharp-eyed locals.
Root of Evil
Hosted by sisters Yvette Gentile and Rasha Pecoraro, Root of Evil takes a look back at one of the most infamous cases in the history of American crime: the Black Dahlia murder. But Gentile and Pecoraro’s interest in the case runs deeper than most. The great-granddaughters of one of the prime suspects, George Hodel, now believe that Hodel was indeed culpable; but alongside their investigations into the murder, they also look back at the effect the case had on their family, making this as much a tale of intergenerational trauma as it is a deep dive into the infamous murder of Elizabeth Short.
Scamanda
Award-winning journalist Charlie Webster takes listeners on an emotional rollercoaster in this blockbuster podcast, following the bizarre but very real story of a woman named Amanda. After she was diagnosed with cancer, Amanda became an early influencer, documenting her illness through a popular blog. But it’s not long before her story begins to unravel. (For more, also check about the recent ABC docu-series chronicling the same subject.)
Serial
You can’t delve too deeply into the true-crime podcast genre without stumbling into Serial, the Sarah Koenig-hosted series developed by the team behind This American Life and now owned by the New York Times. All of its seasons are worth checking out, but the first—which revolves around the 1999 killing of Korean-American high school student Hae Min Lee—hews the closest to true-crime, while also injecting a healthy dose of investigative journalism into the blurry territory of the case it covers.
The Shrink Next Door
A bizarre tale led by the charismatic host Joe Nocera, a New York Times journalist who decided to dive into the case after his psychotherapist neighbor, Ike Herschkopf, mysteriously disappeared, The Shrink Next Door looks at how therapy can go very, very wrong. Talking to a number of Herschkopf’s previous patients—among them Marty Markowitz, who vividly describes the way his therapy sessions spun out of control as Herschkopf began inserting himself into Markowitz’s life—the podcast’s many twist and turns make it as compelling as it is horrifying.
Sistas Who Kill
Described by hosts (and best friends) MaRah and Taz as “a true-crime podcast about Black Women told by Black Women,” this podcast shifts the lens through which true-crime is often filtered in order to spotlight how Black female perpetrators are mistreated by the criminal justice system. Among the cases considered is one involving former HBO actress Lakeyria Doughty, who in 2021 was accused of fatally stabbing of her girlfriend.
Southern Fried True Crime
Native Tennessean Erica Kelley uncovers true-crime stories of the Deep South in a series that makes you feel almost like you’re sitting on a back porch somewhere, hearing the latest local gossip. Kelley’s southern twang adds to the ambiance, bringing small-town crimes to light while also laying bare “how southern fried the justice system can be.”
Stakeknife
Freddie Scappaticci (a.k.a. Stakeknife) lived as a double agent, doing hits for the Irish Republican Army on alleged informers during the Troubles while also acting as an informer for the British. (The podcast begins with the release of the story that finally identified Scappaticci—and his hurry to hide.) It’s a murky, complicated plot that will have you holding your breath; fans of Patrick Radden Keefe’s book and FX TV series Say Nothing should take special note.
S-Town
This podcast from the producers of Serial has been out since 2017, but the narrative holds up, even a handful of years later. In it, an Alabama horologist named John asks This American Life to investigate an alleged murder in his loathed hometown of Woodstock—the titular “shit town”—and ends up deeply affecting the staff of the show with his personal story. The moral center of the podcast may be questionable, as McLemore killed himself in 2015 while the podcast was still in production, but it makes for genuinely fascinating listening.
Suspect
This 2021 podcast follows the classic format of examining a specific cold case with painstaking detail. In Season 1, it’s the unsolved murder of 24-year-old Arpana Jinaga, who was found strangled in her Washington State apartment in 2008 after a Halloween party in her building. Journalists Matthew Shaer and Eric Benson take listeners back to the night in question and through a trial, poring over the issues embedded in the case—from the misuse of DNA to the broken relationship between race and policing.
Tom Brown’s Body
The tiny city of Canadian, Texas is the backdrop for this narrative podcast—hosted by Skip Hollandsworth of the award-winning Texas Monthly magazine—about the 2016 disappearance of a popular high school senior. When Brown’s remains are found two years later, everyone in the Panhandle community is a suspect (as the true-crime cliché goes), including members of Brown’s own family.
True Crime Obsessed
Consuming too much true crime can leave you in desperate need of a comedic pick-me-up. That’s where the hilarious, theater-loving duo Patrick Hinds and Gillian Pensavalle come in. Without ever making fun of the actual crime, the cohosts recap popular true-crime documentaries, from Tiger King to Making a Murderer, with a much-needed lighthearted, sassy twist.
Up and Vanished
While the first season of this podcast revolves around the unsolved case of Tara Grinstead, a high school teacher and former pageant queen from South Georgia who was last seen in October 2005, the second—which is even better executed—focuses on the disappearance of Arizona native Kristal Reisinger, who vanished from what was described as a “full-moon drum circle” in Colorado in 2016 and hasn’t been seen since. Subsequent seasons have looked at the cases of Ashley Loring Heavyrunner in Montana, and Florence Okpealuk and Joseph Balderas in Alaska.
Welcome to Your Fantasy
Murder meets G-strings in historian Natalia Petrzela’s eight-episode dive into the sordid, largely unknown story “behind the powerful mullets, oiled pecs, and non-stop parties” of the Chippendales dancers. The twisted tale tracks how mastermind Steve Banerjee built the male revue into a phenomenon—and how drugs, greed and crime tore it all down.
West Cork
This podcast tells the story of French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier, who was found dead near her holiday home in 1996. First recorded by Jennifer Forde and Sam Bungey in 2021 but still every bit as spine-tinglingly chilling today, West Cork takes the listener inside a tight-knit community in which suspicion is slowly beginning to attach itself to everyone. Many of the podcast’s guests have never spoken publicly before, including members of Toscan du Plantier’s family and locals still shaken by the circumstances surrounding her death.
White Lies
This devastating podcast from NPR, which, in its first season, looked back to the 1965 murder of Reverend James Reeb—a white pastor involved in the civil rights movement—in Selma, Alabama, is a powerful window into the secrets and unspoken truths of race relations in the American South. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting, White Lies is a masterful work of audio journalism broaching subject matter that still feels depressingly relevant 60 years later.
Your Own Backyard
Hosted by journalist Chris Lambert, Your Own Backyard is a compelling, multi-part documentary podcast that investigates the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. YOB debuted in 2019, and Lambert’s extensive yet respectful storytelling helped reignite interest in the case after more than 25 years, eventually aiding in the conviction of Paul Flores—the man found guilty of murdering Smart—in March 2023. The series takes listeners back to where it all started (in San Luis Obispo, California), and later brings them to court, where Lambert thoroughly recaps trial events with the help of the prosecution team and the jury.
