The Best True Crime Podcasts of 2023
True crime is the most popular podcast genre, so coming up with the best of the year is a huge task. Here’s a list of the shows that kept us up all night in 2023: shows with top-notch reporting, unforgettable people, and twists that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Bakersfield Three
I was recently completely captivated by The Bakersfield Three , a 15-episode true crime series about a group of friends from Bakersfield, California, who either went missing or were murdered around the same time. I started the first episode in the morning, listened to every minute I could, and finished it by the end of the day. Three Bakersfield moms came together, working as one in incredible ways to raise money for Secret Witness and sonar equipment for their community, while also helping solve a boots-on-the-ground case and provide for each other. with the support. Host Olivia LaVoice uses their findings along with her own, untangling the web they spun before the disappearances/murders, trying to make sense of what happened, what their last days were like, and how everything is connected. Olivia spends time with each person, interviewing the people in their lives. These interviews are devastating. And what these people seem to have in common is that they each had one tiny mistake that sent them into a downward spiral. The Bakersfield Three is a thorough, intimate work that unfolds like a placeholder novel that you can actually get cozy with, if murder is something you like to get cozy with. (My mom started listening and gave a very valid review that the first few episodes were confusing. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but stick with it. It gets easier, and it’s worth it.) There are weird romances, three moms that become united heroes, three people who seemed to have everything going well until they didn’t, and there’s one hell of a twist. I don’t want to spoil anything, but something happened in episode 11 that shocked me. Happy overeating.
Blind request
When Devyn Gray killed her abusive partner in self-defense, she chose an unknown sentence in exchange for a guilty plea, also known as a “blind confession.” She took risks to avoid trial in a broken justice system in front of an unpredictable jury. After all, she was a black woman who killed a white man in Alabama. “Blind Pleading” details her story from the night of her murder to the night after her release, highlighting the problems with the American justice system and the realities that many people face every day dealing with them. The first episode was one of the most gripping true crime episodes I’ve ever heard, and the pulse of the story never stops beating.
Intrigue: Million Dollar Lover
Caroline Holland is 80 years old, wealthy and a widow who claims to have fallen in love with a homeless man named David Fought, 23 years her junior, who moved in with her. Is this a love story or a scam? That’s what Intrigue: Million Dollar Lover is all about. Some, such as Caroline’s daughters, who do not have it, claim that David is monitoring Carolyn’s condition. They have reason to be nervous: Not only is David much younger, but he admits to being a drug addict and drug dealer who spent time in prison for making homemade bombs that police believe were linked to a possible attack on Walmart. (Dave thought, and still thinks, that Walmart was going to chip us all.) But is it any of our business if an 80-year-old woman finds sex and love? It’s more complicated. Carolyn’s love for Dave may stem from her own trauma, which is inextricably linked to his. Not only is it a juicy story, the series is also well made. BBC journalist Sue Mitchell appears to be the third corner of the love triangle – Carolyn and Dave let her live in their world. She hears and observes everything, talks to everyone, which makes her a character in the story. Million Dollar Lover may be a love story or a story of financial abuse, but it is definitely a gripping family drama.
Girlfriends
In 1995, Carol Fisher was looking for love, so her friend Mindy introduced her to Bob Birenbaum, a Jewish plastic surgeon who flew airplanes and spoke several languages. (Mindy dated him and passed him on.) He was “perfect on paper,” a fact that allowed Carol to ignore several red flags, such as when he informed her that his ex-wife Gail was missing and presumed dead. Carol and Mindy start talking about him and, along with a group of other girlfriends, form a sort of armchair detective club where they try to track down what happened to Gail. It started out as a joke. But the dots are starting to connect, and in Girlfriends, Carol Fisher tells the story of how her friend’s gang of jerks found more than they bargained for, uncovering truths that the system didn’t. Very similar to Do You Know Mordecai? , is a mystery supported by a group of friends that I desperately want to join. Murder is no fun, but this podcast is.
Coldest Case in Laramie
From the people who brought us the series (Serial Productions and The New York Times) comes Laramie’s Coldest Case , the story of an unsolved murder that happened 40 years ago in Laramie, Wyoming. It is hosted by Kim Barker, a journalist who was in high school when the murder occurred. This is not so much a detective story – there are many conflicting leads and unresolved conclusions – but a story about the inner nature of true crime and journalism, how stories are reported and how we choose to tell them. This is a long interrogation piece that will leave you frozen in your tracks. When I finished, I went back to the first episode and listened to it again because this twist made me re-evaluate everything I had just heard.
Search
Returns is a roller coaster of a story that will have you hooked from the very beginning. We flash forward to 2020 at a fertility clinic at Yale University, where a nurse was secretly replacing vials of opioid painkiller with saline, causing women to undergo painful procedures without any relief. And no one believed them. Poignant, challenging and thought-provoking, it masterfully tells not just a stunning story, but also shares the voices of affected women – the very voices that were initially silenced. While there are some aspects that are difficult to hear, The Return’s superb reporting and direction make this compelling story extremely compelling.
You didn’t see anything
Yoans LaCour takes us through the 1997 hate crime that took place on Chicago’s South Side and changed his life forever in the gripping film You Saw Nothing . The show picks up from the day of the attack, when Johans was in his early 20s, writing plays, selling weed and living with his father, when horrific media coverage of the attack forced him to take matters into his own hands and work with the local neighborhood newspaper to investigate the crime. After a 10-year sentence, Yohans returned to Chicago, bringing a new perspective through archival audio and new interviews with those involved. Johans tells this story in a lively, poetic way that makes you feel like you’re inside a pop-up book. This story is a mixture of true crime investigation, personal memoir, and some of the best storytelling I’ve ever heard, and it wins in each of those categories. Johans enters this show boldly – within seconds you’ll want to hear what he has to say and he has a lot to tell.
13th step
Reporter Lauren Chuljian began receiving information about the founder of New Hampshire’s largest drug treatment network who allegedly sexually harassed and assaulted women. On New Hampshire Public Radio’s The 13th Step, she shares everything she found, revealing what could be considered the addiction treatment industry’s equivalent of the #MeToo movement. But the podcast also explores her own role in the investigation that put her in danger, and the risks journalists take to uncover the truth. The 13th Step explores a dark world that most people know little about, but it’s also a risky project in its own right, and you actively feel that risk in every carefully crafted episode.
Believe in magic
Jamie Bartlett of The Missing Crypto Queen is back with another investigation, this time about Megan Bhari, whose charity ( Believe in Magic , also the name of the podcast) groomed celebrities, gained political recognition, and funded a trip to Disneyland for her and her Mother. “Belief in Magic” gets dark quickly. (Spoiler alert: Megan dies.) And this isn’t just a story of two con artists covered in pixie dust, it’s a story of possibly FII (fabricated or induced illness, or Munchausen by proxy). Like The Lost Crypto Queen , this story feels like a live live wire, and Jamie invited us along with every twist, turn and dead end. And just like The Lost Crypto Queen , I doubt this story is over. The Scamanda podcast topped all the charts this year – I think this one is similar, but better.
Witness: Devil in the Ditch
Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch is a true crime podcast that will take you to amazing places. New York writer Larrison Campbell returned to the Southern city where she grew up to try to find out who killed her grandmother. But it’s not only true crime, it’s a memoir about a girl who goes home to find her grandmother and how a family copes with something crazy, like the fact that the matriarch might be killed by her nephew. Larrison doesn’t come and shake community members by the shoulders, demanding answers. She listens and allows us to observe with her. She shows us a town that reveals much of the mystery of the case, allowing us to come to our own conclusions. I would call it a memoir-style podcast that allows us to feel what it was like to be in this confusing situation.
Ghost Story
Tristan Redman is a serious journalist who doesn’t believe in ghosts, except for the one who may have lived in his childhood bedroom when he was a teenager. Fast forward about ten years: Tristan is married and discovers that his wife Kate’s great-grandmother, Naomi Dancy, lived (and was murdered) next door in 1937. For his podcast Ghost Story, Tristan began collecting stories from other people who had lived in his old bedroom and reported seeing the ghost of a faceless woman. Naomi was stabbed in the eyes, presumably by her brother, making this horrific story a true crime. But Tristan believes that the faceless woman is Naomi, and that she has a message: it was not her brother who killed her, but her husband. And so a true crime story turns into a ghost story, or maybe vice versa.
I’m not a monster
At 15, Shamima Begum left the UK to join ISIS, and for I’m Not a Monster , BBC journalist Josh Baker tracked her down to find out why. The story made headlines, but few were able to hear Shamima’s side of the story, perhaps because it was incredibly dangerous. Josh found himself in the line of fire to explore the controversy over her return and the UK government stripping her of her citizenship. Even after the series ended, Shamima’s story haunted me and I found myself listening to her words again and again. Josh is a phenomenal reporter: he carefully tells this explosive story closer to the source than any of us would like.