True crime is one of the hottest genres in podcasting today, so a show based around a true-crime podcast seems inevitable. Hulu's Only Murders In The Building follows a trio of characters played by Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez as they try to solve the murder of fellow building resident, Tim Kono. They then decide to make their investigation into a podcast, tracking the case and their attempt to solve it ahead of the police.
For many, true crime fascinates and repels at the same time, and often people can't look away or stop listening. Some podcasts tell the story of closed cases and others track current investigations as they happen, sometimes inviting the very subjects of their investigations to speak directly to their audience and explain themselves, just like in Only Murders In The Building.
S-Town
Produced by Serial and This American Life, S-Town is hosted and investigated by producer/reporter Brian Reed. Reed started his investigation nearly three years before the first broadcast after receiving an email titled, “John B McLemore lives in Shi*town Alabama.” John was insisting that the son of the town's richest man had committed a murder and it was being covered up.
As Brian investigates, another body turns up, an angry feud boils over, a secret treasure is hunted down, and the mysteries of one man's life and possible mental illness are exposed. The series surprises with every episode, and the journey's end is nowhere near its starting point. It's a true crime story that will keep listeners up at night -- told in seven chapters, all are currently available.
Serial
Season one of the podcast Serial broke through the true crime community to gain national attention, leading to a spike in the popularity of the genre. It told the case of Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore. In 1999, Hae disappeared after school one day, never to be seen alive again. Six weeks later, Baltimore detectives arrested her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. He is quickly tired and found guilty. But is he?
Serial is hosted by Sarah Koenig and produced with WBEZ Chicago and the producers of This American Life. It has won awards from DuPont-Columbia, Scripps Howard, Edward R. Murrow, and the first-ever Peabody awarded to a podcast. Each of the three seasons follows one true story and the first season led to the case of Adnan Syed getting a fresh look.
In The Dark
the podcast follows one case per season, often while it is happening. Season one followed the of a missing child, Jacob Wetterling, 11, who was kidnapped from his home in 1989 and later found murdered. His remains were not discovered until 2016.
Season two telling the case of a Black man, Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. Flowers always professed his innocence, and the District Attorney was found to have tossed jurors because of their race and had possibly suborned perjury. The teams investigate the crime, the suspects, and then the investigators themselves. They follow the sentence appeals and talk to many of the people involved in the case, showing how often, nothing about the prosecution's case adds up.
Up And Vanished
Produced by filmmaker Payne Lindsey, Up and Vanished follows a single unsolved case over the course of a season. It is also one podcast that is credited for finding the killer of their first season's subject, Tara Grinstead. Grinstead was a high school history teacher and former beauty queen who disappeared from her home in Ocilla, Georgia, on Oct 2oo5. Lindsey spends considerable time in Ocilla, talking to Tara's friends and even suspects, investigating the still-active case at times with a palpable sense of danger. In the middle of the podcast season, Tara's killer is found, or is he?
Produced by Lindsey and Tenderfoot TV, Up and Vanished is currently starting its third season of investigation. Season two covered the mysterious disappearance of Kristal Anne Reisinger from a remote community in the Colorado mountains. Season three is ongoing, covering the story of Ashley Loring HeavyRunner, a 20-year-old Indigenous woman who disappeared on June 13th, 2017. The podcast gets deep into active cases and, at times, the safety of the host seems in question.
Dr. Death
Produced by Wonderly, Dr. Death is a podcast that focuses on egregious medical malpractice by doctors who are either incompetent, just plain greedy, or both. The three seasons (so far) of the podcast tell the story of doctors who have injured patients, sometimes their actions resulting in a patients' death. Season one is the story of Christopher Duntsch, a Texas physician who had been promising but had ended up maiming 33 out of 36 patients, killing two of them.
Season Two covers Farid T. Fata a former hematologist/oncologist who has itted to masterminding one of the biggest health care frauds of all time by billing insurance and Medicare for unneeded chemotherapy. We stole some 34 million over six years. Dr. Death shows the listener that doctors may take an oath to "do no harm" but many don't pay attention. Dr. Death was also developed into a TV series for Peacock and features the same characters based on the former doctor's real-life patients.
On Our Watch
Produced by NPR and KQED, On Our Watch is a different sort of true-crime podcast, one that looks at criminal behavior by police departments. Using recently released records, (which they had to sue the police to get) the team looks at internal investigations conducted by the police on their fellow officers. They talk to the civilians involved in the cases, and the damage they suffered, both mentally and physically.
The limited series is hosted by criminal justice reporter, Sukey Lewis, and at the moment, consists of eight episodes. Over the course of the season, they examine the police shooting of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old shot by BART police as he lay face down on a train platform. They discover instances of police leaking info to drug dealers, an officer whose laziness hampered the search for a missing child, and one who used police resources to harass women and send them unwanted pictures. It's a shocking look behind the scenes of American law enforcement.