Crime Writers On...

In 2007, 20-year-old Vienna Luke was staying with her sister and brother-in-law in British Columbia. One evening, while her sister was away, Vienna had drinks at home with Justin Sewell, but memories of the evening were hazy. She kept her suspicions a secret, but years later when photos Justin took of her that night surfaced, it confirmed her fears she had been sexually assaulted. Royal Canadian Mounted Police set in motion an unusual sting operation: Vienna would wear a wire, sit down with Justin, and get him to confess to what he did to her. 

In the CBC Podcast “Personally: Agent Layla,” host Jodie Martinson helps Vienna tell her story of survival and empowerment confronting her abuser to secure his arrest. It goes deep into her ordeal, and its effects on her and her family divided by her accusations.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "PERSONALLY: AGENT LAYLA" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 12 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE. 
 

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This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In an effort to find the elusive criminal, the FBI encourages publication of the UNABOMBER’s Manifesto. Agent Joanne Miller thinks the essay contains linguistic clues to his identity, and its denouncement of the Industrial Revolution sounds familiar to the brother of Ted Kaczynski. As a teen math prodigy, Kaczynski attended Harvard and took part in a psychology study where he was made to defend his views on free will during confrontational interviews. The provocative experiment nurtures something within the student that will someday be expressed through violence. 

Netflix’s “UNABOMBER” stars Jacob Tremblay, Russell Crowe and Shailene Woodley. The film runs on parallel timelines — one showing a young Ted Kaczynski slowly becoming radicalized against modern society at Harvard in 1958, and the other showing the FBI following clues in his manifesto that lead to his 1996 capture. 

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "UNABOMBER" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

In Crime of the Week: wedding party.
 

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Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 2012, fledgling war correspondent Austin Tice was abducted in Syria. No group claimed responsibility, but the U.S. believed he was being held by the Assad government. When rebels toppled the dictator and opened the borders in 2024, Western journalists seized the chance to search the regime’s files for clues to Tice’s fate. Guided by secret documents and new contacts, the reporting team crisscrossed the fractured nation for new information on who held Tice, where he was kept, and why he was targeted for abduction. Their investigation took them through abandoned prisons, interrogation facilities, and active conflict zones in search of answers.

From BBC Radio 4 and NPR’s Embedded comes “Where is Austin Tice?” season three of “I’m Not a Monster Presents.” Josh Baker and Sara Obeidat take listeners on a breathtaking race against time to uncover evidence about the missing freelancer. The immersive podcast attempts to bring clarity — and hope — to a story long shrouded in uncertainty.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "WHERE IS AUSTIN TICE?" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.
 

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Lizzie Borden struggles to thrive as a young woman in Gilded Age New England. With the help of a worldly housemaid, Lizzie devises a plan to rid herself of her inattentive father and repressive stepmother, and live life on her own terms. The gruesome axe murder of her parents leads to Lizzie’s arrest and America’s first “trial of the century.” The public is divided on whether a woman could commit such a violent crime, creating an enduring cultural myth that both dismisses — and underestimates — the power of female rage.

Netflix takes a whack at the legendary true crime in “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” starring Ella Beatty and Vicky Krieps. The anthology series reframes the famous case to highlight the oppressive station of women throughout history. It also contains a parallel modern-day storyline featuring Sarah Paulson as Aileen Wuornos, whose fixation with the Borden story informs her own killing spree.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "MONSTER: THE LIZZIE BORDEN STORY" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 12 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

In Crime of the Week: moving the furniture.
 

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Folks in Gainesboro, Tennessee were curious about who was scooping up large swaths of land in their tiny Appalachian hamlet. They were shocked to learn the buyers were venture capitalists with ties to Christian nationalists who planned on moving en masse and changing the town to fit their extremist views. Longtime residents banded together in fear of a far right takeover. As the newcomers became more emboldened, so do the townsfolk who try to stand up to them. The question becomes how far will people go to defend their world view and who in town gets to define what a community is?

In the podcast “Our Town” from Bloomberg News, host Meribah Knight brings us the story of those in an unassuming battleground where a social experiment is underway. It’s a portrait of a community forced to confront what happens when ideology meets everyday life.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "OUR TOWN" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.
 

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

True crime enthusiasts Eileen and Keen Umbehr convince an investigative journalist to cover the case of a woman they say has been wrongfully convicted for a double murder. Dana Chandler says she was in Colorado when her ex-husband and his girlfriend were killed in Kansas. After Chandler wins a retrial, reporter Joe Sexton looks into the problems with the state’s case and the conduct of prosecutors. But he’s also intrigued by the Umbehrs, who’ve spent a decade trying to prove Chandler’s innocence. 

The HBO documentary series “A Killer Story” follows the journalist and two armchair detectives as they search for the truth about whether Chandler really committed two murders, though she says she was 500 miles away. It also examines the Umbehrs’ true crime obsession, their disregard for inconvenient facts, and what it would mean for the couple if Chandler were to lose her retrial.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "A KILLER STORY" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

In Crime of the Week: It's time to meet the Muppets.
 

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Kayla Elliott agreed to be a surrogate mother, she thought she was helping a wealthy Chinese couple add a second child to their family. After the girl was born, the intended mother seemed indifferent. Only later did Kayla discover that Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang had been paying multiple surrogates to carry children to live in their fortress‑like mansion in Los Angeles. The pair had been exploiting the largely unregulated world of surrogacy, establishing their own agency in which women carried the couple’s children. Both investigators and the surrogates were left wondering why these two had gone to such lengths to obtain more than 20 children — and what kind of life those children were living.

From the team at In the Dark and The New Yorker comes “The Journey.” Host Ava Kofman investigates how a mysterious, wealthy couple was able to collect more than two dozen babies from surrogates around the country — and questions what the couple’s motivations were. The podcast also explores how the lack of professional regulations and settled case law regarding surrogacy left authorities and gestational carriers with few options.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "IN THE DARK: THE JOURNEY" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.
 

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 2014, after law professor Dan Markel was murdered in his Florida home, investigators turned to his ex‑wife for answers. The pair were in a contentious custody battle, and Wendi Adelson wanted to move their children closer to her affluent parents and brother. Police arrested the shooter, whose ex‑girlfriend was on the payroll at the Adelson family dental practice. But evidence that any of the relatives paid for the hit was elusive. Nearly a decade after the killing, secret recordings and accomplice testimony finally led investigators to those who orchestrated Markel’s death: his ex‑wife’s brother, Charlie Adelson, and her mother, Donna Adelson.

The Hulu true‑crime series “Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel” retraces the twisting investigation into the Adelson family, accused of using a hitman to settle a custody battle. The show not only follows how investigators assembled the pieces and won convictions in the case; it takes a deep dive into the dynamics among a controlling mother, a pampered daughter, a playboy son, and the black sheep of the family.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "WELCOME TO THE FAMILY" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 9 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

In Crime of the Week: Inconvenience store.
 

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jacob Kingston was a member of “The Order,” an insular Mormon polygamist sect, when he built a biodiesel refinery. He partnered with shadowy Armenian businessman Levon Termendzhyan to ship the fuel overseas and take advantage of lucrative tax credits given to renewable energy producers. But the operations were largely on paper, as the company racked up big government checks for fuel never produced. The unlikely pair spun a web full of dirty cops, political connections, and transnational money laundering that ripped American taxpayers off for nearly one billion dollars.

In the podcast “Kingdom of Fraud” from Novel and iHeartPodcasts, host Michele McPhee explores one of the largest tax frauds in history and the colorful characters behind it.  The series recounts how members of a polygamist sect and a globe‑trotting fixer exploited a broken system, and how investigators took them down.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "KINGDOM OF FRAUD" BEGING THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

FBI rookie Alice Black believes the death of a billionaire’s son has been staged to look like an overdose. She goes on the hunt for a suspect. Catherine Grace is killing those involved in the underage prostitution ring, seeking revenge for being trafficked and for the death of best friend. While the case progresses, Alice deals with her own trauma as a domestic violence victim forced to work the case with her abusive ex. As both women walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur.

Hulu’s crime drama “Furious” stars Emmy Rossum, Lola Petticrew, and Jake Lacy. The series goes beyond the typical police procedural, following women confronting the wounds they carry and the simmering anger beneath them — a force that threatens to consume everything in their lives.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "FURIOUS" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 12 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

In Crime of the Week: I scream, you scream.

For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.

Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.

This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

About the show: Crime Writers On… is the original true‑crime review podcast, covering the best in true‑crime podcasts, documentaries, TV, film, journalism, and storytelling.

From Partners in Crime Media — creators of These Are Their Stories, the Law & Order aftershow and Netflix's You Can't Make This Up.

Keywords: true‑crime review, podcast review, documentary review, TV review, media criticism, pop‑culture commentary, crime documentaries, journalism, storytelling

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.