Before diving into specific criminal cases, host Melissa Deadrich sets the stage by turning the lens on the true crime genre itself — examining why we're so drawn to these stories, how media framing shapes what we believe, and what biases we bring to every case we consume.

In this episode:

• Why true crime has become a cultural phenomenon — not just something we watch, but something we actively participate in
• The psychological roots of our fascination: threat detection, morbid curiosity, and the need for closure
• How the victim-villain-motive-resolution template can oversimplify real cases
• Who gets attention in true crime — and who gets left out
• How media framing shapes public belief before we even realize it
• A breakdown of key cognitive biases at play: confirmation bias, availability bias, attribution error, and hindsight bias
• Why these patterns matter beyond entertainment — and why Melissa created this show

Timestamps

• 0:00 — Introduction: What shapes the story of a criminal case?
• 0:20 — Welcome to Episode 1 / What this show is about
• 0:43 — True crime is part of the culture — and we're not just watching anymore
• 1:04 — What the genre can do at its best (Serial, Making a Murderer)
• 1:55 — Why the genre can also oversimplify
• 2:25 — The central question: Why are we drawn to true crime?
• 3:09 — Being drawn to true crime doesn't mean something's wrong with us
• 3:08 — The psychological draw: threat detection and brain wiring
• 3:31 — Morbid curiosity — and why it's not automatically unhealthy
• 4:22 — Uncertainty and the need for answers
• 5:07 — The moral dimension: right, wrong, empathy, and justice
• 5:59 — How media framing tells us how to understand what happened
• 6:26 — Obvious vs. subtle framing — and how it shapes interpretation
• 7:13 — The "perfect victim" problem and who true crime typically focuses on
• 8:20 — How offenders get labeled — and what those labels leave out
• 9:30 — Motive in true crime — the layers that don't make it into the story
• 10:08 — Resolution — and why justice is rarely that clean
• 10:39 — Bias and media framing working together
• 10:41 — Confirmation bias in true crime
• 11:32 — Availability bias — and the serial killer distortion
• 12:07 — Attribution error: "Only a monster could do that"
• 13:16 — Hindsight bias — and how it fuels victim blaming
• 14:12 — Why all of this matters beyond entertainment
• 15:05 — How true crime shapes beliefs about the justice system
• 15:25 — The genre's blind spots and real-world consequences
• 16:24 — What this show is here to do
• 17:12 — Closing: Crime stories are about more than what happened
• 18:26 — Follow the show + what's coming in Episode 2

Sources

• Slakoff, D. C., & Duran, D. (2025). A New Media Frontier, or More of the Same? A Descriptive Analysis of the

“Missing White Woman Syndrome” in Top True Crime Podcasts. Race and Justice.

• Boling, K. S., & Slakoff, D. C. (2025). “What an invasion, an immense invasion”: Examining the adverse effects of

true crime media on co-victims. Crime, Media, Culture.

• Scrivner, C. (2021). The Psychology of Morbid Curiosity: Development and Initial Validation of the Morbid

Curiosity Scale. Personality and Individual Differences.

• Sommers, Z. (2016). Missing White Woman Syndrome: An Empirical Analysis of Race and Gender Disparities in

Online News Coverage of Missing Persons. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 106(2), 275–314.

• Vicary, A. M., & Fraley, R. C. (2010). Captured by True Crime: Why Are Women Drawn to Tales of Rape, Murder,

and Serial Killers? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1(1), 81–86.

• FBI National Crime Information Center (NCIC). 2024 Missing Person and Unidentified Person Statistics.

• FBI Uniform Crime Reporting / CJIS. 2024 Homicide Clearance Statistics.

• CDC MMWR (2024). Intimate Partner Homicide Among Women — United States, 2018–2021.

• U.S. Department of Justice. Tribal Justice and Safety: Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Data and

Research.

• Pew Research Center (2023). Who listens to true crime podcasts in the U.S.?

• YouGov (2022, 2024). True Crime: How does the genre affect Americans?

• Edison Research / audiochuck. True Crime Consumer Report.

• Council on Criminal Justice (2025). When Crime Statistics Diverge.

• Murder Accountability Project (2025). National homicide clearance trend data.

• Black and Missing Foundation. Missing Persons Statistics 2023.