Crime Writers On...True Crime Review

Returning to work after a family tragedy, FBI Agent Tom Brandis is put in charge of a task force to find who has been robbing drug stash houses run by the ruthless Darkhearts motorcycle gang. Robbie Prendergrast is out for revenge since the bikers killed his brother for sleeping with a leader’s wife. But when a holdup turns deadly, Robbie leaves with the eight-year-old son of the people they just killed. Now both the bikers and law...

British Columbia police were stumped by the 2017 murder of Jessie James, an avid “dirtbag” rock climber, campground philosopher, and shit-posting online troll who lived out of his truck. After years of dead ends, investigators learned the victim had been using an alias, after walking away from a checkered past in the US. Reporter and local climber Steven Chua dug into the story of this con artist who was among the first to harness ...

Journalist Laura "Lo" Blacklock is invited on a cruise aboard a superyacht filled with Richard and Anne Bullmer’s ultra-wealthy friends to raise money for the terminally ill woman’s charity. On the first night, Lo hears a commotion from the cabin next door and spots a woman floating in the water. Lo believes it was the mysterious blonde she saw taking a shower in cabin 10. But with all of the crew and passengers accounted for, no o...

In February 2022, Florida deputies responded to a service call in which a white woman complained about Black children in her neighborhood playing near her property. Though deputies found the behavior innocuous, Susan Lorincz continued to call the police on the kids, fueling growing tension among neighbors. Then in June 2023, Ajike Owens went to Lorincz’s door to confront her after the woman allegedly threw a roller skate at her son...

The official One Chicago Podcast kicks off with Jason Beghe, who has played Sergeant Hank Voight on Chicago P.D. since day one. He joins host Brian Luce, a former Chicago cop and current P.D. producer, to discuss their work on set, Voight’s moral complexity, and the importance of telling the truth of the story. Production Designer Greg Van Horn, known on set as “Merlin,” also shares how he creates the iconic locations that bring th...

Fascinated by a 2000 unsolved local murder, Susan Galbreath decided to become a citizen sleuth. With the help of a British journalist, the Mayfield, KY homemaker identified Quincy Cross and five others of kidnapping and killing Jessica Currin, then raping her lifeless body and setting it on fire. While the press loved the story of an amateur detective cracking the case, serious problems were overlooked. The theory of the crime chan...

TV producer Jodi Tovay caught a standup comedy set in Scotland that took a dark and captivating turn. Interwoven with his earnest jokes, comedian Edd Hedges told the terrifying story of how a killer struck his neighborhood - then attempted to get into his house. Years later Tovay convinced Hedges to further explore the crime that continued to haunt him. And as she learned more about what happened that night in 2015, and Hedge’s pla...

While studying in Italy, Amanda Knox and her boyfriend are arrested for the brutal murder of her British roommate. Although they convicted another man for killing Meredith Kercher, authorities also try Knox - relying on a coerced confession and compromised DNA evidence. She finds herself cartooned and slut-shamed in a Kafkaesque legal system. Despite an eventual acquittal, Knox remains vilified in the tabloids and pursued by prosec...

True crime fan Lizz Melgar Rose found herself in the middle of her own case. In 2012, her father Jim was murdered in his Texas home while her mother Sandy was tied up and left in a closet wedged shut by a chair. But Sandy Melgar’s inability to recall details of the home invasion made police suspicious. Lizz claimed investigators never pursued other leads, including evidence of a burglary, choosing instead to believe Sandy tied her ...

Ashley and Albert Debelbot had just put their newborn McKenzy to bed for the first time, but hours later rushed the infant back to the hospital after finding a bump on her forehead. When she died, police concluded the parents harmed her and charged them with murder. Facing an overzealous prosecutor, a partial judge, and ineffective defense attorneys, the Debelbots spent twelve years in prison trying to clear their names. But a new ...

He left his child in the backseat of a hot car. He said it was a tragic accident - the police said it was a calculated murder. We’ll go back to our  May 7, 2016 discussion of “Breakdown: Death in a Hot Car" from host Bill Rankin and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

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A group of pensioners at a British retirement village have an unusual hobby: they gather weekly to ponder cold cases. But when its co-owner is murdered in the midst of a business dispute over closing the Cooper Chase facility, the elderly sleuths insert themselves in the mystery. With a mix of senior citizen charm and a lifetime of hidden expertise, the Thursday Murder Club digs into the shady backgrounds and dodgy business associa...

Many feared their lives would be forever altered after New Years 2000. For some, it was - just not in the ways they thought. We’ll go back to our Dec 10, 2018 review of “Headlong: Surviving Y2K” from Dan Taberski.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "HEADLONG: SURVIVING Y2K" BEGIN IN THE FINAL SIX MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

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Thirteen-year-old Lauryn thought the cruel texts about her and her boyfriend were just another case of teenage cyberbullying. But the messages didn’t stop. They escalated, becoming more vicious, graphic, and relentless. Everyone had a theory. Parents blamed classmates. Teachers suspected students. Police hit dead ends. Then a digital breadcrumb buried deep in the texts exposed the last person anyone expected.

From Netflix and the di...

Three neighbors put their true crime fandom to the test in a real life mystery. But they won’t solve just any crime…only murders in the building. We go back to our September 6, 2021 review of season one of the Hulu classic starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selina Gomez, "Only Murders in the Building."

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING" BEGIN IN THE FINAL SEVEN MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

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At a Chicago hospital, labor-and-delivery nurse Clara Hochhäuser prepared to give birth to her own set of twins. But during her Caesarian section, her epidural never kicked in, subjecting her to feel the pain of the entire procedure. Despite her cries of agony, her own colleagues downplayed her suffering as routine discomfort. The incident forced an obstetric anesthetist to realize Clara’s experience was not uncommon. Not only do t...

He forced a standoff with the federal government over grazing rights, then gave the world a peek into his follower’s radical vision for America. We’ll revisit our August 3, 2018 review of season 1 of Bundyville from Longreads, Oregon Public Broadcasting and host Leah Sottile. 

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "BUNDYVILLE" BEGIN IN THE FINAL FIVE MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

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In 1991, four teenage girls were found murdered inside a frozen yogurt store in Austin, Texas. The building had been set on fire, and the crime scene was compromised by the blaze. With no clear motive and little physical evidence, investigators struggled to make sense of what had happened. Years later, after coercive police interviews, a group of men pointed fingers at each other about the crime. Though their stories didn’t complet...

A Chicago accountant flees to the backwoods to launder money and pay his debt to a Mexican drug cartel. We’ll revisit our August 18, 2017 review of season one of the crime-thriller classic “Ozark.”

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "OZARK" BEGIN IN THE FINAL FOUR MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

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