A lot of people have asked me whether I will ever write a true crime book or crime fiction. Maybe. Others asked me if I will add podcasts to my blog. No, definitely not.
We all have our different ways to absorb information. We all have our diverse talents for sharing stories. I think mine is the written word. It allows me to take in information in my own pace and I can mull it over in my own words.
English is not my first language. Translating information in Dutch forces me to think deeper and slower about the material in front of me. I also write down thoughts about cases in notebooks. Writing by hand slows me down too. To me, that is what works. It is my tempo, my rhythm. In a podcast I will be forced into the host’s rhythm and especially if their first language is English, I will at some point struggle. I may still be thinking about a detail they mentioned and miss other things they’ve said.
As true crime podcasts are growing in popularity, I asked some of my friends to introduce their podcasts to you.
There are so many podcasts out there and as you will see, some host more than one. Here are six true crime podcasts from people who are very active on social media. I hope you will look them up.
Already Gone
Nina Innsted is the host of Already Gone. Her focus is primarily on cases from Michigan and the Great Lakes region. She is from that area, where she grew up, and she believes that the setting of the story, the community around the crime, is an important part of the story.
I asked her how she selects her cases: “The cases I select are usually cases that I remember from when I was younger, cases that made the headlines, but weren’t nationwide news. Many of my cases are new to listeners. If you want high-profile cases, or stories of serial killers, then my show won’t be to your liking, although I have covered several serial killers who lived and committed their crimes in Michigan.”
Stories that Nina featured include the Murders at Good Hart, the still unresolved murder of a well off family of six in their rural cabin just steps from Lake Michigan. Lesser known cases such as the death of Eddie Hollman, a 21-year-old murdered in the basement of his family home one morning while his parents attended Sunday service.
Whenever she can, Nina tries to interview law enforcement to get accurate information about open, unresolved cases, such as the December 2016 disappearance of Dani Stislicki and the 2013 workplace murder of Chelsea Small. She is pleased to work closely with law enforcement to keep unresolved cases in the public eye.
Already Gone – True Crime Podcast is a biweekly show available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and your favorite podcatchers. You can find the show on Facebook or on Twitter.
I was lucky to meet Nina at the inaugural CrimeCon and I wish her the best for the future.
Our True Crime Podcast
Jennifer and Cam pick cases that they find interesting: murder, missing persons or, both. The geography doesn’t really matter to them. It seem that lately they concentrated on cases from their area, Missouri. Jennifer and Cam are in the St Louis area. “There are a lot of interesting cases here, and we have found many are overlooked, which is perfect because we usually have followed the cases from the beginning.”
There is no real method for selecting cases. “Something will just jump out like your tweets with Teresa “Tess” Sue Hilt. That’s how we met online. Tess has a huge presence on my blog and suddenly Jenn starts to tweet back. She was astounded she had not heard of this cold case.
Cam and Jenn co-host so they each take the lead every other week. They spend an average of one week gathering information and then writing the script. Since they are not investigative journalists, they get their information by reading everything on the internet, court documents, newspaper articles, Reddit, etc. They also read relevant books and watch TV shows or documentaries on the case.
As for future plans, they “would like to start interviewing people involved in the cases we cover, we just need to figure out the logistics.”
New episodes come out every Wednesday usually around 7pm. You can find them on
Podbean and iTunes. They Twitter account is here.
Good luck, guys!
Skelecast
“My name is Steve and I am the host of Skelecast. I am a former deputy coroner, former EMS provider, former respiratory therapist and soon-to-be forensic anthropology graduate student. I am also a volunteer with a state level disaster forensics team and an on-call member of an international team. Additionally, I work for a nonprofit that does forensic search and recovery work, Kolibri Forensics. The Skelecast is unique in that it is part of the work of the nonprofit and therefore any proceeds or donations through Patreon benefit the organization and therefore donors and patrons are directly supporting work that is being done to bring people home to their loved ones.
The Skelecast was started to fill what I perceived as a gap in true crime podcasting. There are a lot of great podcasts that do a fantastic job of going over the evidence in the cases they cover. Where there is room for improvement is in teaching the science behind that evidence and why a finding does not always mean what people commonly think it means. Basically, each case is used to teach pertinent aspects of forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, forensic entomology, human anatomy and physiology, toxicology and so forth.
Cases are selected largely based on the presence of sufficient publicly available evidence to allow me to dig down and create a meaningful review of the case. While the first episodes tended to be high profile cases that have been covered elsewhere I am hoping to start working on profiling those unsolved or disputed cases that have not been subject to much attention. I will also take questions from listeners and explain a new topic they might be interested in or that I previously covered but they want more detail on. I especially like questions from kids because it helps keep them interested in science which is so critical nowadays.
For a lot of high-profile cases that have almost reached mythical proportions, the way the case played out is not the way it is presented by most podcasters and YouTubers. For example, the Isdal woman did not have her fingerprints sanded off. They are actually on file with INTERPOL and were used to like the luggage from the train station to the body. Somehow this removal of the fingerprints was added to the story– either to intentionally play up the “she was a spy!” angle or because of some form of incorrect translation. It has been simply become part of the myth of the Isdal woman but it is not grounded in fact. This lends an almost “myth-busting” aspect to the episodes which is unique.”
Steve is also a guest blogger here at DCC. He gave his insights in the case of the missing Beaumont Children.
Criminology
I asked Mike Morford to contribute to this post as I had the pleasure of meeting him at CrimeCon. Mike was very supportive as I had stage jitters but he told me “just keep looking at my face!”
Mike started experimenting with podcasts and while finding his way he launched more podcasts than I think he ever anticipated he would. So here’s Mike:
“In early 2017, I launched my true crime blog, I was inspired to do so after reading other crime related blogs like Alice’s Defrosting Cold Cases blog. The blog gave me freedom to write about the cases that I wanted to write about, big or small. I realized that researching and writing for a true crime blog, and keeping it fresh was no easy task. I had weeks where I would put out a couple of articles, then go weeks at a time without a new article.
I found myself often sidetracked by true crime podcasts that I was listening too. I decided that an article about some of the podcasts I was listening to made sense. In March of 2017, I published a post called ‘The True Crime Podcast Niche.’ In it, I got a chance to take a closer look at some of the shows I was listening to, what made them tick, and what was driving people’s love of true crime podcasts. Looking back now, I should have titled the piece ‘The True Crime Podcast Movement’, because it really is just that – a movement. In that article, I reached out to veterans in the field, Justin and Aaron from Generation Why. I also talked with Robin Warder from The Trail Went Cold who was just starting to pick up steam with his podcast.
My next contact was with Mike & Mike from True Crime All The Time (I didn’t know that one day, I’d be co-hosting a podcast with one of ‘The Mikes’). Finally, I wrapped up the piece by picking the brains of Amanda, Kenyon, and Lucy of the podcast, Wine & Crime, who mix in a few laughs with their true crime episodes. I learned something from each of the podcast hosts who were in various stages of their podcast’s growth, but more than anything, after publishing the article, I knew I wanted to host a podcast.
As with the blog, I knew that I could talk about cases large or small that were important to me. I just wanted to discuss cases that others might have a shared interest in but I didn’t know where to start. Luckily, I started corresponding with Mike Ferguson of the True Crime All The Time podcast. He and I shared an interest in the Zodiac Killer. We jumped in head first with our new podcast called Criminology. But as much as I enjoy co-creating, and hosting the heavily scripted Criminology featuring deep dives into large cases, part of me has always gone back to wanting to discuss those smaller and lesser known cases that deserve attention and closure. That’s what led me to my solo podcast, The Murder in My Family.
I launched The Murder in My Family in July of 2018, and in each episode, I discuss a murder case and interview a family member who recounts their efforts to get answers or justice in their loved one’s murder case. It’s been my sincere pleasure to give these family members a platform to discuss these murder cases, and to help generate awareness, or new tips in the unsolved cases. Still, I yearned for something that was much more casual and conversational, which brings me to my newest podcast venture, Crimesphere.
Launched in June, 2018, I co-host Crimesphere bi-weekly with Nina Innsted, the host of Already Gone. Nina and I have a very relaxed conversational style discussion about what’s happening in true crime news, media, books, TV, and podcasts. We also conduct interviews. Nina and I have really taken a relaxed approach to the show allowing it to grow organically, with word of mouth as opposed to heavy advertising. It’s a nice change of pace for me from my other podcasts.
In the world of True Crime Podcasts, there truly is something for everybody, the trick is to just go out and find it. The same goes for aspiring true crime podcast hosts. Your show is out there waiting to be made, go make it! Not to become rich, or famous, because that’s likely not going to happen, and most certainly not quickly. Make it instead because there are cases you want to talk about and share them with the world.”
Heartland Homicide
I met Kristy and Kasin at the inaugural CrimeCon in 2017. If I remember correctly we ran through the hotel solving clues while not trying to scare the other guests.
This duo has followed and delved into true crime cases since forever. If Kristy bought a true crime book, Kasin would read it next. “My love for true crime grew just as the obsession grew to what it is today. Now there are whole networks dedicated to true crime TV shows, docuseries and podcasts. It’s all just at our fingertips these days.”
This mother-daughter pair has been busy working, researching and recording episodes. The first one aired September 16. “Our first few episodes are completed, and we are now working on our first series. The series will be several episodes of different stories, but with something in common. For example, this first series we are doing is featuring cases that involve a perpetrator who is a child, under the age of 18, at the time of the crime. Other series will focus on unsolved/cold cases, missing persons, wrongly convicted, parent who murder their own children, etc.”
How do they select their cases? “The cases we choose have intrigued us in some way. They may be in a location that is familiar to us, or have details that just peak our curiosity. Sometimes it is difficult to choose just one case after narrowing it down to a few. If I’m stuck in choosing somehow, I reach out to other true crime friends or social media and ask for suggestions or help in choosing a case to cover. I usually choose the story, do the research and present the story, while my cohost, Kasin, reacts to the crazy cases and does most of the editing and production type work.”
Heartland Homicide is available on all major podcast platforms. The episodes are biweekly on Mondays. They are always open to suggestions for future episodes. You can reach them at Twitter, Facebook, and on Podbean.
Martinis and the Macabre
Erica and Billy cover morbid murders, mysteries, and add mayhem. They are located in Muncie, Indiana. They like to vary things so one week may be true crime and the next week might a mystery or a historical event. They do not really stick to geography, but now and then if they see they covered a lot of US cases, they try to find something in another country. Erica tries to find 4 or 5 sources for each topic, then cross-reference, and get as many facts as possible.
“Once a topic is outlined we pick a day to record, which changes all the time. I do all the editing, which I had to teach myself to do when we prepped the original 4 cases.” Their podcast is bi-weekly and released every other Wednesday.
You can find Erica and Billy on Facebook, Twitter, on Murder.ly, and their website is here.
I hope you enjoy these podcasts. If you have others to recommend head over to my blog’s Facebook page where the discussion takes place with other readers.