What’s Up With Women and True Crime?
I’ve listened to hundreds of True Crime Podcasts to bring you a top twenty list
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I often look around at other headphone-clad women as I traverse London’s streets or sit on public transport and wonder what’s going on in their ears. I’ll be surveying a plump, velvet-eared schnauzer sweetly snoozing on its owner’s lap on the Victoria Line while the secret narrator in my ears describes some sort of absolutely foul, harrowing crime. ‘He took her leg from the crime scene in an IKEA bag, later pickling it in the basement of the home he shared with his elderly, senile mother. The killer’s eventual confession revealed that he had intended to eat it. The preserved leg was discovered by police in what was later described as a ‘cannibal’s pantry’ in the murderer’s home, along with several decomposed organs from unidentified human individuals, the preserved head of an Alpine goat, a DVD of Star Trek: Voyager Season Two and a terrarium of live salamanders. Neighbours described the man as ‘a low-key sort of chap. Kept to himself, you know? But he didn’t seem obviously the type to eat legs or breed lizards.’’
Here’s a slightly uncomfortable question we probably don’t ask with sufficient frequency and curiosity: What’s up with women and true crime? It’s certainly a phenomenon, and one in which I enthusiastically engage, but it pulls us into slightly squiffy territory. As a form of entertainment, we voraciously and disproportionately consume the stories of women who have disappeared or been murdered, generally by men. Women are well aware of the physical vulnerability we can feel in navigating the world. Most men are not predatory of course, but some are. Every woman has had near-misses and found herself in frightening situations (ask any woman you know if you’re sceptical), and as a result we possess a usually mild but persistent consciousness of how badly wrong things can go. This fear naturally influences our decisions.
The keen interest in true crime among women isn’t new. A 2010 University of Illinois study found that about 70 per cent of reviews of true crime books were written by women (men wrote 82 per cent of the book reviews on war). Statistically, men make up the vast majority of perpetrators of violent crime and also the vast majority of its victims. It’s fascinating, then, that women are the people who are disproportionately interested in violent crime as a phenomenon, particularly (and perhaps unsurprisingly) in the instances where women are its victims. We are fascinated and horrified by that worst case scenario – the lunatic, the sadist, the predator you can’t or don’t see coming. The person to whom you have no logical or relational connection. The primal fear in us all reaches out for the women who disappear into the night for no better reason than the demented entitlement and animal rage of some guy.
If you have a look at popular articles attempting to unpack this online, you’ll notice that they offer a variety of theories to explain women’s fascination with this supremely dark and potentially exploitative genre of entertainment. It’s an evolutionary impulse to understand predation, some argue. That one’s a bit weak. We tend to flatly attribute complex, culturally loaded behaviours to evolutionary psychology alone when we can’t find a more nuanced explanation to satisfy us. It’s a genre that humanises women and attempts to relocate them in a story that might otherwise prioritise the male perspective, say others. This explanation is not much more satisfactory. Anyone who is a fan of the genre will know that the figure of the male criminal is almost always the focus. This is especially the case with the most violent criminals, like serial killers. While many well-meaning podcasters and journalists work hard to reify the female victims’ humanity and presence in the world for the listener, the spectre of the killer is the pervasive presence. The woman’s death is interpreted through the life and actions of her killer and consequently, to a large extent (unjust as it may be) in the context of the podcast, so too is her life.
There are some abysmal arguments addressing the question of why women are so interested in true crime. A common one suggests that we all possess and are drawn to a measure of darkness. It’s human nature to be fascinated by death and our own vulnerability. This impulse is not unique to women. If it explained the phenomenon, every Tom, Dick and Jonty would have their headphones brimming with severed legs along with me on their Jubilee line commute. Another which comes up surprisingly often is that women’s interest in True Crime is a feminist issue – since many (but certainly not all) of these podcasts are made by women and listened to by women, this makes them by default a sort of feminist enterprise. This is an exceptionally lazy argument which doesn’t care to sincerely unpack the source of the interest. True crime may indeed be a genre that facilitates women in exploring themes like death, destruction, mental illness, power and gender, but it doesn’t follow that we are using True Crime to do that in a healthy way, or that we are drawn to True Crime podcasts for such constructive reasons at all. Women are just people. Not every grim hobby we take up is automatically a form of resistance or political liberation. It can be, but if we are being entertained by the victims’ plight while supporting a platform which gives voice to it, that is as much voyeuristic as it is subversive.
Let’s be honest. As a genre, True Crime often commodifies the stories of female victims and elevates male killers to a sort of ponderous figurative status. The temptation is to see serial killers, for example, as something more than a subcategory of really angry, dangerous man baby. However, if we choose to see such people as entities beyond human understanding – something not just monstrously human but otherworldly and satanic – then we are to some extent romanticising them. We are considering men throughout history who have broken into women’s homes, assaulted them and bashed their heads in, or pulled these women off the street as they did nothing more than live their lives, as special as opposed to aberrant. Their behaviour is certainly intellectually interesting and difficult to relate to for most people, but it is beyond all else pathetic. Really, desperately pathetic.
The Richard Ramirezes and Joseph di Angelos of the world aren’t superhuman figures in the stories that frighten and entertain us. They’re human at the least evolved level – people without empathy, with inordinate amounts of misplaced, badly wired rage at women and the world. They’re fucked-up egomaniacs. The people who murder opportunistically, occasionally, or only once within the true crime universe are also somewhere on that scale, but at a less extreme point. After all, true crime podcasts don’t tend to be made about the straightforward stories. It’s the mysterious ones we love – the ones that reveal the worst and most primal capacities of human beings. Even the best and most ethically intended of these podcasts (the ones like The Teacher’s Pet below which help to bring old injustices back to the public consciousness and embarrass complacent law enforcement into investigating) commercialise the deaths or disappearances of women. They reveal the intimate details of these women’s lives and sometimes grotesque deaths and sell them to us as entertainment. If there’s a thorough, consistent ethical defence of that which doesn’t leave at least some unresolved discomfort rattling in the gut, I haven’t found it.
So I am a hypocrite, because I have listened to more episodes of these podcasts than I can count since 2015. Certainly hundreds. I find them psychologically fascinating, and I am that woman on the train waving merrily at babies while listening to a blood-soaked narrative about pickled legs and coercive relationships. I consume the worst-case-scenario stories of other women while I indulge in my own sheltered, comfortable life. I don’t think it would be respectful to try to mount a defence of that behaviour which leaves me feeling ethically spotless. I don’t feel entertained by their stories the way I am entertained by a comedy show or a good work of fiction (or those YouTube videos of cats attempting to jump on things and falling very far short). I am absorbed rather than overjoyed or titillated (thank goodness), but it is a form of entertainment. True Crime is a kind of recreation. Rather than trying to defend that, it might be a good idea to accept the conflict inherent in it and feel a bit uncomfortable.
The Most Interesting True Crime Podcasts (in my opinion)
A note: I prefer true crime podcasts focusing on a single story over a season or more. This might be because the detail required to fill many episodes allows for deeper interrogation into the facts and more contextual information about the people involved. It’s harder to portray victims with authenticity if you’re squashing the whole story into an hour. That’s the charitable interpretation. It might also be because I’m inquisitive, intrusive or just slightly messed up. Further, not all of the below centre women, or even murder – they’re just the most interesting of the genre that I have engaged with over the last seven or so years.
The Australian newspaper’s Hedley Thomas is an investigative journalist whose podcasts are consistently very compelling. This one covers the disappearance of Lyn Dawson from her Sydney home in January 1982, leaving behind two little daughters and her husband, Chris. The podcast looks at Lyn and Chris’ rocky marriage and the exploitative and totally inappropriate relationship that Chris was having with his teenage student and family babysitter, whom he moved into the house days after his wife’s disappearance and later married. The podcast looks at the Australian judicial system, police incompetence and the culture of Australia in the 1980s. The podcast is updated by The Teacher’s Trial, which follows the trial taking place this year of a person who was arrested for Lyn’s murder as a direct result of The Teacher’s Pet podcast.
This was one of the first true crime podcast series I listened to. Hosted by Karina Longworth of fascinating Hollywood history podcast You Must Remember This, it is a detailed investigation and analysis of Charles Manson, his cult and the infamous Manson family murders which took place in 1969. It provides rich and useful context about the victims, the Manson family itself, and the unique social environment in which it all happened. Longworth does a brilliant job of maximising humanity in her analysis and retelling.
A major issue with True Crime as a genre is that it invariably focuses on the disappearances and deaths of white women. In this podcast available through audible, host Erika Alexander (whose mellow voice further humanises the content) goes looking for Tamika Huston, a 24-year-old black woman who went missing in South Carolina in 2004. The podcast looks at the culture which treats the cases of missing black women as somehow less urgent or valuable. In an attempt to subvert the norms of the genre and highlight a system that ignores missing black women and girls, the podcast takes a deep, unflinching look at the struggle experienced by Huston’s family, the attitude of law enforcement and tries to portray who Huston really was. The podcast has a neo-noir, slightly stylised feel in its music and atmosphere which further sets it apart.
4. The Witness: In His Own Words
Following the story of Joseph O’Callaghan, the youngest person ever to enter Ireland’s witness protection programme, this podcast explores class, organised crime and masculinity over twelve episodes. O’Callaghan speaks about his own astonishing experience from being groomed and co-opted into organised crime as a little boy to helping to convict two Irish drug dealers. The story is harrowing but gives a fascinating insight into the vulnerability of some young men who become involved in organised crime.
This BBC podcast sees Mark Horgan and Ciarán Cassidy going in search of Irish Olympic swimming coach George Gibney, who avoided trial in Ireland in 1994 on 27 counts of rape and sexual abuse against children. Gibney fled the country, ending up in the USA. The podcast talks to victims, examines the legacy of Gibney’s abuse and the system that concealed and protected an abuser, and features an incredible moment when Horgan and Cassidy finally find and confront Gibney himself.
6. The Truth About True Crime with Amanda Knox: Killing for Love
This story of a conviction for murder and eventual freeing from prison would be fascinating enough if it weren’t being relayed by a person who had the same experience. This podcast examines the circumstances that led German student at the University of Virginia Jens Soering to be sentenced to life in prison for the brutal 1985 double murder of Derek and Nancy Haysom. Soering had been engaged in a relationship with their daughter Elizabeth. Knox’s unique experience of conviction, imprisonment and freedom makes her conversations with Soering all the more interesting, and there is a conversation in the series between Knox and actor Martin Sheen, who has long maintained Soering’s innocence.
The Australian’s Hedley Thomas is back again with this investigation into the murder of Shandee Blackburn – a young Australian woman who was walking home from work when an unidentified man brutally took her life. Significant portions of the walk were caught on CCTV. Over twenty episodes, Thomas uncovers what appear to be grievous errors and oversights in the testing of DNA related to the case. The podcast is a brutal examination of abusive relationships and systemic failures and makes a real effort to depict Shandee and the people in her life with authenticity.
8. West Cork
By now you have likely heard of this one, available through Audible, but it absolutely merits its reputation. Anyone growing up in Ireland in the 90s will have a fascination with the unsolved 1996 murder of Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan du Plantier days before Christmas near Schull, in isolated West Cork. The gripping podcast sees two British journalists head to the area (whose artist community features many British accents but where such an accent would nonetheless not necessarily endear a person to some) to unpick Ireland’s most mysterious and sensationalised murder of the last thirty years. It gives voice to a still-brittle community over fourteen episodes and talks extensively with the now-infamous person who many locals believe to be responsible for the murder.
Writer Jon Ronson accedes to a husband’s request that he look into the 2017 suicide of 23 year-old porn actress August Ames after she’d been the victim of a Twitter pile-on by industry colleagues in this Audible podcast. Ronson’s instantly recognisable, affable and pleasingly goofy voice lends his usual awkward but unrelenting inquisitiveness to the investigation of the people and industry that contextualised Ames’ tragic death. He soon discovers that there may be more to the story than first appeared.
10. Evil Has a Name: The Untold Story of the Golden State Killer Investigation
One of the most notorious serial killers whose crimes took place from 1976 to 1986, the Golden State Killer was given many monikers by the media – the East Area Rapist; the Original Night Stalker; the Visalia Ransacker. Unidentified for over forty years, this man committed unspeakable crimes, wearing a mask and breaking into victims' homes at night. Advances in DNA technology led to the arrest of a 72-year-old police officer in April 2018. This is a fascinating podcast, but not one for everyone. It includes descriptions of violent crime and sexual assault, and I made the mistake of listening to it while alone on a trip in rural Washington. It scared the crap out of me.
11. Hollywood Crime Scene: Richard Ramirez Parts 1 & 2
Hollywood crime scene is a podcast hosted by True Crime enthusiasts Rachel Fisher and Desi Jedeikin, and it does bring levity to really dark material which might be enjoyable or offensive, depending on your preference. This is the only recommendation on the list that isn’t a long series investigation, and I’ve included it for two reasons. Firstly, Richard Ramirez, known as ‘The Night Stalker’ is a notorious and even slightly romanticised figure in popular culture. There are several good video documentaries on him, but the extremity of his crimes and depravity are such that he always ends up being the centre of every documentary touching on the period when he terrorised Los Angeles in the 1980s. There is a sort of lore around Ramirez that is a bit stomach-churning.
As a result, I think a couple of hours of our finite lives are sufficient to learn about what Ramirez did, and how his crimes impacted both his victims and culture during that period. Secondly, Fisher and Jedeikin’s levity is refreshing here because they don’t treat Ramirez with deference. They do contextualise his traumatic upbringing, but they also taunt him a little, which feels fitting. Further, Ramirez just takes a strong stomach. So, give it two hours if you’re interested, and then see if you want to give more time to learning about his victims – this is another one to avoid if you’re alone in a wood cabin in rural Washington (or anywhere, really).
12. Root of Evil
This podcast investigates the infamous, brutal 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia, but not in any way you’ve encountered before. Rasha Pecoraro and Yvette Gentile, great-granddaughters of Dr. George Hodel, long thought to have been the Black Dahlia killer as a result of an investigation conducted by Hodel’s own son, dig further into the history of the Hodel family. They seek to uncover whether their great grandfather might indeed have been a murderer. What they learn is astonishing, and reveals a family unlike any most of us could imagine as they explore themes of family, power, and madness. This podcast does contain some significantly disturbing content, so it is best avoided if that’s unappealing to you.
13. Bad Blood
This podcast examines the sensational story of corporate fraud Elizabeth Holmes, the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire who was ultimately convicted for lying to investors, doctors and patients about the technology she sold through her company, Theranos. Journalist John Carreyrou broke the scandal. Now, across twelve episodes he unpacks the story of the woman who presented herself as the next Steve Jobs and about whom it seems almost nothing was real. It’s wild.
This investigative podcast looks into NXIVM (pronounced ‘Nexium’), whose leader was convicted sex trafficker Keith Raniere. Those who escaped it described the organisation as a sex cult. This podcast is more interesting than it is accomplished, but it does follow one woman’s journey out of a cult, exploring themes of gender, coercive control, and power. As you can imagine is always the case with cults, things get very weird very quickly.
Another podcast from The Australian newspaper, this one takes a deep dive into Sydney-born convicted conman Hamish Watson, who duped victims in the US, Canada, Britain, Hong Kong and Australia, swindling them out of millions of dollars. The podcast reveals Watson’s profligate life and fantastical lies, his penchant for Porsches, hair dye and Botox, talks to some of the many people he has harmed, and goes looking for the still-unrecovered money he stole.
16. Serial
I first listened to Serial in early 2015. It was really the true crime podcast that started the new wave of true crime content and many of us (including me) can source our interest back to presenter Sarah Koenig’s warm voice, approachable manner and persistent questioning. It investigates the murder of much-loved high school student Hae Min-Lee and the eventual conviction of her teenage boyfriend, Adnan Syed, despite what appears to have been a dearth of physical evidence.
17. Dirty John
Sometimes what you want in a true crime podcast is just an almost unbelievable story. Girls like dating doctors, right? So why not just pretend to be one? Debra Newell marries a man called John, only to discover that he isn’t even vaguely who she thinks he is. The truth is sinister, frightening and dangerous. This is one of those sensationalised stories that feels potentially a bit exploitative, but the women in the story willingly take part in the podcast and I can only hope that they make serious money from telling their astonishing story.
Host Payne Lindsey heads to Ocilla, Georgia to investigate the October 2005 disappearance of high school teacher Tara Grinstead, working with a private detective to unearth new evidence. This is one of those true crime podcasts that sensationalises its content, but it is interesting, featuring numerous bonus episodes, updating on progress in the case over time, and attempting to depict the complexity of the young woman at its centre rather than merely using her as fodder for good narrative.
Veteran journalist Joe Nocera found himself next door to a neighbour named Ike. Ike was a sort of celebrity therapist and socialite, but there was far more to him than that. As Nocera discovers, he exploited and manipulated patients for decades, destroying lives and exerting control over vulnerable people. The journalist digs into his neighbour’s background to tell a fascinating story about mental health, trust, truth and power.
This podcast tells the story of playboy cover girl Dorothy Stratten who was murdered at the age of just 20 by her controlling and violent estranged husband, Paul Snider. He killed Stratten in 1980 before turning the gun on himself. Stratten’s story is fascinating – she was ‘scouted’ by the 26-year-old Snider when he walked into the Dairy Queen where she was working aged seventeen. What followed was a relationship based on grooming, exploitation and coercion, ending in Stratten’s murder when she broke ties with Snider and began to try to assert her independence. This podcast relays that story, Stratten’s rise to fame through Playboy and her relationship with director Peter Bogdanovich, but in a dramatised manner that feels both tasteless and gratuitous at times. If you have listened to a more sensitive and sober account of Stratten’s story, do let me know.
If you are after even more true crime podcast recommendations, you’ll find a second article here.
This is an absolutely fascinating thing to think about. I have so many friends (and an aunt) who are women obsessed with true crime stories, and also fictionalised-but-unsettlingly-real-feeling crime stories, and I've long wondered what is driving it. I also say this as someone who got hooked on "Serial" when it was first airing. But generally, I find true crime deeply frustrating, and I wonder how much of that is a recognisably male response and how much is just my own preferences/biases/obsessions at work.
(I find it frustrating because, yet again, it so often feels like a glorifying and attention-platforming of the worst men in the world, which I guess it is when it's "bad" true crime, ie. sensationalist and predatory true crime? And my reaction to that is usually "oh yay, we're talking about the shittiest men on the planet yet again, why, why can't we stop, why are we still feeding the egos of all these narcissistic monsters", and it makes a voice within me start yelling about how desperately so many men seem to need better role models and "how is this helping?" etc. - and while that's a deeply simplistic reaction, for reasons you addressed in the first part of this piece, it's a really visceral one for me. It genuinely breaks me out in a sweat, even though I know it's blinkered. At the same time, it's more than a little absurd, since my fiction-reading tastes include crime fiction - Ann Cleeves for the win - and I love a fascinatingly awful antagonist as much as anyone - and, as I said, I was ravenous for new episodes of Serial when season 1 was airing.).
Also, there's a related thing I wonder about. I've heard from at least a dozen male friends, and I gather it's a pattern, that men greatly prefer reading non-fiction unless it's sci-fi, fantasy and horror fiction. (Or war fiction, I'm guessing.) There was a big widely-cited Nielsen study a while back that concluded that women massively outbuy men when it comes to fiction (80% of sales, according to this: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/07/why-women-love-literature-read-fiction-helen-taylor) and also that when men read fiction, they tend to read male authors. But mostly, men seem to go for non-fiction - so why not true crime nonfiction? What other forms of nonfiction do women dominate in?
Also, owning a DVD copy of season 2 of "Star Trek: Voyager" is a clear red flag. If they also have "Brave New World" in their bookcase, get the hell out of there. Get out NOW.
This was so good, Laura. Thank you! As a fellow consumer of lots of true crime, I especially liked the conclusion: "True Crime is a kind of recreation. Rather than trying to defend that, it might be a good idea to accept the conflict inherent in it and feel a bit uncomfortable." This rings very true to me.
Also, thanks for the podcast recommendations. There’s a few I have missed and will dive into as soon as I get the chance. I would like to add a recommendation of my own. When I feel that all the true crime gets a little bit too dark, I always turn to the wonderful podcast “Drunk Women Solving Crime”. It’s – as their slogan goes – “true crime with a twist … of lime!” Real cases, loads of fun and a surprisingly good way of getting an insight into crime and punishment throughout history. You find the podcast where you find all other podcasts. Have fun!