Podcasts

Casefile True Crime Podcast, or simply Casefile, is an Australian crime podcast that first aired in January 2016 and is hosted by an Australian man who remains anonymous. The podcast is released on a Sunday (EST) for three consecutive weeks, with a break on the fourth week. The series deals with solved or cold criminal cases, often related to well-known murders and serial crimes. Many early episodes relate to Australian cases, although notable crimes from the UK and the US are increasingly featured, and well-known cases from other countries have also been included. Unlike a number of similar podcasts, the series is scripted and narrative, relying primarily on original police or mass-media documents, eyewitness accounts, and interview or public announcement recordings. Larger and more-complex cases have received multiple-week serialised broadcasts, and case updates to previously aired cases are also provided from time to time. The series has been well received, and has won a number of awards since its debut.

Crime Writers On... is a twice weekly podcast hosted by a four-person panel consisting of American true crime authors: married couple Rebecca Lavoie and Kevin Flynn, crime noir novelist Toby Ball, and journalist and licensed investigator Lara Bricker. The podcast started on December 12, 2014, as a commentary on and review of the hit true crime podcast Serial, starting with the show's tenth episode about Adnan Syed and continuing into its later seasons about Bowe Bergdahl and the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas at the Justice Center Complex in Downtown Cleveland. Crime Writers On quickly grew to cover journalism and a variety of crime-related pop culture topics including other podcasts, films, television shows, and more. The panel often provides updates on the real life cases discussed in previous episodes as they develop.

This is a list of American crime podcasts. True crime podcasts were popularized in the United States by Serial, which debuted in 2014.

Lauren Spierer (born January 17, 1991) is an American woman who disappeared on June 3, 2011, following an evening at Kilroy’s Sports Bar in Bloomington, Indiana. At the time, Spierer was a 20-year-old student at Indiana University. Though her disappearance generated national press coverage, Spierer is presumed dead and her case remains unsolved.

Lauren Spierer was born January 17, 1991, to Charlene and Robert Spierer; her father was an accountant. She grew up in Scarsdale, New York, an affluent town in lower Westchester County. Spierer graduated from Edgemont High School in 2009 and enrolled at Indiana University, where she was studying textiles merchandising. Spierer was active in the Jewish community at IU and had spent the previous spring break planting trees in Israel on behalf of the Jewish National Fund.

Max Haines (January 4, 1931 – September 30, 2017) was a Canadian true crime newspaper columnist and author, widely syndicated internationally.

Max Haines was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, to Jewish parents, Alexander and Augusta (Rich) Haines, and attended Morrison High School there. He began researching murders from around the world, past and present, as a hobby. His "Crime Flashback" column made its debut in the Toronto Sun in 1972 with a column about Lizzie Borden. Over the next 35 years, he researched over 2,000 crimes and his "Crime Flashback" column was syndicated across Canada and in several Latin and South American countries. He also wrote 27 true crime books and a memoir, The Spitting Champion of the World, about growing up in Nova Scotia. Readership of his syndicated column was over 3 million per week. He lived in Toronto, Ontario with his wife Marilyn. He retired in 2006.

The Lululemon murder occurred on March 11, 2011, at a Lululemon Athletica store located in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, when Brittany Norwood, a store worker, murdered Jayna Troxel Murray, a fellow employee at the store. The case received widespread media coverage and was commonly referred to as the "Lululemon murder". In January 2012, Norwood was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Norwood lured Murray back to the store after closing by claiming to have left her metro card behind, then, after a brief argument, attacked her, inflicting 331 injuries, including head trauma and stab wounds. Murray died in the store's back hallway, after which Norwood staged a crime scene and claimed that intruders had raped both women and killed Murray. The prosecution was barred from introducing evidence that Murray had accused Norwood of shoplifting. The defense argued for a conviction of second-degree murder, claiming the attack was not pre-meditated. The case received intense media coverage and was commonly referred to as the "Lululemon murder".

Sword and Scale is a bi-weekly American podcast exploring nonfiction stories of true crime. It features a variety of narrated true crime stories intertwined with interviews with criminals, witnesses, victims, authors, 911 call audio, witness testimony, trial audio, interrogation tapes, music, and sound effects. The podcast was first released on January 1, 2014 by creator, host, Mike Boudet.

Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001. After eight years, Peterson was granted a new trial after the judge ruled a critical prosecution witness gave misleading testimony. In 2017, Peterson submitted an Alford plea to the reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time already served and freed.

Peterson's case is the subject of the French documentary miniseries The Staircase, which started filming soon after his arrest in 2001 and followed events until his eventual Alford plea in 2017. In 2019, he released his own account of his life since his wife's death in an independently published memoir, Behind the Staircase. The Staircase, a 2022 miniseries featuring Colin Firth and Toni Collette, also takes this murder case as its subject. Several other documentaries have been produced about Kathleen's death, including a sequel to the 2004 French documentary, podcasts, radio shows and other media.

The Vanished is a weekly podcast that focuses on the stories and circumstances of missing people, hosted by Marissa Jones. Most episodes feature interviews with the friends and family of the missing person, and sometimes the local law enforcement.

Since its launch in February 2016, The Vanished has received over 51 million downloads, and is currently part of the Wondery network. The show attempts to focus on people whose cases have been ignored by the media, such as people who are drug users or sex workers. Jones told the Daily Press, "A lot of our cases are not the ones that make the national headlines . . . So to have the chance to give these families a voice is very rewarding.”

Katherine Mary Knight is an Australian murderer and the first woman in the country's history to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. She was convicted for the murder of her partner, John Charles Thomas Price, in February 2000, and is currently imprisoned at the Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre in New South Wales. Knight stabbed Price to death, skinned him, and then put his skin on a meat hook. She then cooked his head and parts of his body with the intention of feeding them to Price's children but was stopped by police.

Anatomy of Murder is a 2015 Australian whodunnit - video game and is the debut work of Darren McNamara's company DM Financial Services. According to McNamara, it is the first free-to-play online murder mystery game.

The game was developed by DM Financial Services, a company focusing on producing original and engaging online gaming content. Led by online gaming entrepreneur Darren McNamara, Anatomy of Murder was the result of over 13 years of extensive R&D. McNamara faced considerable resistance from the entertainment industry regarding the format, the production values, and for spending too much money. In addition, he received feedback from a network that they wanted to be involved in commissioning a series from the ground up rather than being shown a finished pilot they didn't order. He chose to go ahead and create the game because he felt it showed how much he believed in the concept more than a "4 page glossy". He originally received few knockbacks from TV executives In 2013, so he instead went outside the box and approached audiences directly.

Parcast is a digital media firm and podcast network, that specializes in producing both scripted podcasts as well as audio dramas. It was founded in 2016 by podcaster Max Cutler and his father Ron Cutler in Los Angeles California.

In 2019, it was acquired by Sweden-based media firm and streaming service provider Spotify. Spotify spent over $56 million to acquire Parcast, however the total compensation has been reported to be over $100 million. This makes the Parcast acquisition one of the largest podcasting platform mergers in US history and largest single acquisition deal of Spotify's $400 million acquisition program.

Cutler, a 27-year old graduate of the University of Arizona, launched Parcast in 2016. He was inspired by the hit podcast Serial, itself a spinoff of This American Life. He believed that his network could produce podcasts of comparable quality while saving money on the production of individual episodes.

This is a list of American crime podcasts. True crime podcasts were popularized in the United States by Serial, which debuted in 2014.

Martha Maria Yeardley Smith is an American actress, artist and writer. She currently stars as the voice of Lisa Simpson on the long-running animated television series The Simpsons.