Crime Writers On...

Complaints about harsh punishments, sexual abuse, and a fatal field trip surfaced about a Utah teen treatment center. State regulators did little about it - even when its director was accused of rape and using residents as workers in his home. The new podcast “Sent Away” is a joint investigation among The Salt Lake Tribune , KUER, and APM Reports. It looks at the troubling history of Integrity Hou...

In 1990 Laurie Bembenek escaped from a Wisconsin prison through an open window. When the former Playboy bunny went on the lam, she became a media sensation and a folk hero. But did the former cop and calendar girl known as Bambi actually commit the crime she was in prison for - the murder of her husband’s ex-wife? The new show “Run, Bambi, Run” from Apple Podcasts looks back at the sexy-and-sexist...

After walking away from Villanelle at the end of last season, security analyst Eve Palastri is immersed in her new obsession. With the help of friends new-and-old, she’s closing in on the mysterious yet powerful cabal known as The Twelve. Elsewhere, Villanelle is having an identity crisis. Can she leave behind her life as an assassin and prove to herself - and to Eve - that she’s not a monster? Go...

Officials say prisons protect the public from lawlessness, but often they’re the most lawless places in the country. And the security used to keep detainees IN , also keeps OUT transparency and accountability. In season 4 of “Motive” from WBEZ-Chicago, host Shannon Heffernan explores the Illinois prison system. She finds their rural locations, protective culture, and hostility toward inmates creat...

When Betsy Faria was murdered in 2011, police aggressively pursued her husband, Russ. But the evidence pointed to her BFF Pam Hupp. And while bad things continued to befall people around her, TV news magazines homed in on Pam and her web of lies. Renée Zellweger stars in “The Thing About Pam,” the NBC dramatization based on the NBC podcast based on the NBC news magazine Dateline. OUR SPOILER FREE...

In February 1978, the car of five men with either mental health or intellectual disabilities was discovered on a high mountain road, far away from their anticipated destination. By the summer it became clear where the group had gone, but what happened to them in those months remains a troubling mystery.  The seven-episode podcast “Yuba County Five” from Mopac Audio recalls the missing persons case...

After his suicide shocks his family, Conrad Roy’s mother learns he’d been having a virtual relationship with a girl in another town. But investigators combing their text messages discover instead of stopping him, Michelle Carter may have instructed him to take his own life.  Elle Fanning and Chloë Sevigny star in the Hulu docudrama “The Girl from Plainville.” The series captures the sadness of two...

Teenage actress Evan Rachel Wood turned heads with her unlikely relationship with much-older shock-rocker Marilyn Manson. Behind the scenes, the musician’s love bombing morphed into physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The two-part HBO documentary "Phoenix Rising" lets Wood tell her complete story for the first time. She recounts the evolution of a classically abusive relationship, elevated by a...

In 2017, two people set to sea in a homemade submarine. Only one returned.  The two-part HBO documentary “Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall” recounts the famous Nordic murder case, including its complicated investigation and motives around snuff-film sex fantasies. It also explores the life stories of a rising journalist and an eccentric inventor.  OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "UNDERCURRE...

This week, we rewind to our September 16, 2019 review of "Over My Dead Body: Joe Exotic." Wondery’s “Over My Dead Body” returns for a second season with the story of Joe Exotic. Host Rob Moor introduces us to the charismatic and controversial exotic animal collector who claims to be a target for ruin at the hands of a woman whose husband vanished under mysterious circumstances. FOR OUR SPOILER-FRE...

Carole Baskin runs a Florida sanctuary for tigers with her doting husband. Her efforts to stop a traveling cub-petting operation sends her on a collision course with mercurial zookeeper Joe Exotic, who sees Carole as an existential threat to his livelihood. Based on season two of the podcast “Over My Dead Body,” the eight-part Peacock series “Joe vs. Carole” stars Kate McKinnon and John Cameron Mi...

The crime writers welcome Ronald Young Jr. from the HBO Docs Club podcast to fill in for the vacationing Toby Ball! In True Crime Update: MD prosecutors agree with Serial's Adnan Syed to test DNA on crime scene evidence not previously tested. What does it mean that the state supports re-testing and how might it affect Adnan's effort to win his release. Then: high-achiever Elizabeth Holmes went to...

Juvenile detainees in the Golden State are given an opportunity for service: fighting wildfires in California. The documentary “Fireboys” on HBO Max is a coming-of-age tale of incarcerated youth given a chance to earn money, reduce their sentence, help their community, and build their self-esteem. But will the lessons learned on the fire line give them hope for the future or set them up for more d...

In April 2016, eight members of the Rhoden family were murdered in their Appalachian homes.  Investigators were puzzled at why an entire family would be annihilated. Was it because of their illegal marijuana operation? Or was it a more personal motive?  In “The Pink Moon Murders” from Cavalry Audio and iHeart, host David Raterman explores the Pike County shootings.  FOR OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF...

Since his conviction for murdering Rhoda Nathen in her hotel room, Elwood Jones has maintained his innocence. To believe him means to accept his argument that he was framed by the police. From the Cincinnati Enquirer and USA Today comes season 4 of “Accused: The Impending Execution of Elwood Jones.” Host Amber Hunt looks at alternative suspects, shaky evidence, and investigators who spent a year r...

For decades, he was an A-list entertainer who projected an image of wholesomeness. But the public was shocked to learn of Bill Cosby’s dark double life - one in which the so-called “America’s Dad” was drugging and raping women for years. The four-part Showtime series “We Need to Talk About Cosby” examines all aspects of Cosby’s life - both as a trailblazer and beloved entertainer and as a felon. W...

Anna Delvey was a twenty-something who posed as a young German heiress while living on the amenities of New York’s super rich. Magazine writer Viviant Kent sees Anna’s story as her shot at professional redemption. She struggles with her editors and with her subject to retell Anna’s path from Instagram darling to high society to incarceration. Anna Chlumsky and Julia Garner star in “Inventing Anna,...

Anna is drowning the loss of her daughter and the end of her marriage in bottles of red wine. She’s taken by the kindness of the handsome widower and his daughter who’ve moved in across the street. Then one night, Anna peers across the way to see the man’s girlfriend get her throat slashed. When police say the girlfriend is safe in Seattle Anna sets off to confirm she’s not crazy, prove a murder h...

Using a popular dating app, Cecilie connects with a caring playboy named Simon - the son of a rich diamond broker who wears designer clothes, dines at five-star restaurants, and flies her around Europe in a private jet. Though it seems like true love, their lives are upended when Simon goes on the run to escape his violent business rivals. Cut off from his fortune, he convinces her to borrow money...

In 2014, a letter emerged detailing an elaborate plot by Islamic extremists to infiltrate schools in Birmingham, England.  It became known as The Trojan Horse Affair. When journalism student Hamza Syed met podcaster Brian Reed, he told him about the scandal and the unexplored question of the author’s true motives.  They teamed up to investigate where the ham-fisted letter came from in the first pl...

In 2003, a pair of teenage boys emerged from the woods around Vernon, British Columbia. They claimed to have lived their lives in the wilderness with no contact with civilization. As the town rallied behind them, the so-called “Bush Boys of B.C.” attracted international media attention - as well as the suspicions of the Mounties who wanted to know their true identities. From Campside Media, season...

Omar Navarro has offered Marty and Wendy Byrde a plan to finally walk away from their debt to the Mexican cartel. All they need to do is help the drug kingpin go legit and receive immunity from prosecution in America. Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, and two-time Emmy winner Julia Garner return for season four-part one of “Ozark.”  The series again finds the Byrdes dealing with complications large-and...

Just in time for the Winter Olympics, the podcast “Torched” from FilmNation Entertainment recalls some of the most controversial moments surrounding the games. Hosted by former skier and noted poker game runner Molly Bloom, this an anthology podcast looks at a different kind of human drama of athletic competition. Each episode features a story of scandal, disgrace - and sometimes - redemption.   F...

The Cliftons have not seen their mother in years. She ran off with David, the boyfriend who controlled her money and her life. What’s his connection to Rob, a supposed MI-5 agent who in 1996 took a trio of college kids into hiding, claiming they’d been targeted by IRA assassins? From Netflix, “The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Con Man” looks back at the exploits of Robert Freegard - accused...

In 1989, as she was preparing to divorce her husband, Birgit Meier vanished from her home in Lüneburg, Germany.  Detectives began to focus on the neighbor’s gardener, a man with a violent past and a secret room filled with instruments of torture and kidnapping. The Netflix German import “Dig Deeper: The Disappearance of Birgit Meier” follows a group of experts as they attempt to do what police hav...