Download True Crime Podcast

[Haziel Barbour]

Thetrue crime podcast genre took off in 2014, when the popular public media radio show This American Life premiered a podcast called Serial, taking a second look at a long-resolved murder case. The show became a sensation, getting 80 million downloads in its first two years and sparking a boom in true crime podcasts.

Today, there are thousands of true crime podcasts. Listeners are more likely to be female than male, and 41% of regular podcast listeners who listen to true crime are ages 18-49. Based on average daily rankings of top podcasts on Apple and Spotify, true crime is the No. 1 genre. The podcasts included on this list are based on popularity, listener data from top podcast charts, online buzz and uniqueness of the subject matter.

Hosted by MaRah and Taz, best friends since high school, the podcast looks at Black women killers from an interesting angle: showing how the justice system treats them differently than white women murderers. The show has become so popular the podcasters now do this full time.

Hosted by Skip Hollandsworth, whose soothing voice is half the reason to tune in, this podcast explores the 2016 disappearance of high school senior Tom Brown and the botched investigation into his death. It is as much a portrait of the personalities involved as a true crime effort.

Hosted by autopsy tech Alaina Urquhart and her niece, Ash Kelley, a hairdresser, Morbid is a lighthearted take on murder, with the pair choosing a famous (or sometimes not-as-famous) crime to dive into each week. Their entertaining personalities, and not necessarily any new insights, are the reason to tune in.

Hosted by Madeleine Baran for The New Yorker, this podcast bills itself as long-form investigative journalism. It does deep dives into cases that had unsatisfactory conclusions and demand more attention. The reporting is top-notch, and the narrative builds suspense.

Hosted by Jadyn Harlow, this mission-driven podcast brings attention to the many cases of missing Black and Brown people who receive minimal public attention and lackuster police efforts. Harlow highlights the untold stories of the missing as a service to their families in hopes of helping them return.

Hosted by Rebecca Jarvis, The Dropout chronicles the stunning duplicity of Elizabeth Holmes, the Stanford dropout who bilked investors out of millions through her startup Theranos, which never delivered on its promise to deliver test results with a drop of blood. The ABC News podcast inspired the Hulu series The Dropout.

This podcast is best for those who loved the well-done Hulu series or prefer mostly bloodless (excuse the very apt pun) true crime. You can listen to The Dropout on iTunes, ABC Audio, Spotify, Amazon Music and Podbean.

Hosted by Jennifer Forde and Sam Bungey, the podcast revisits the 1996 unsolved murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a French film producer. The podcast includes new interviews and evidence, raising questions about why the suspect was never arrested and how his continued presence in the community has played out in West Cork, Ireland.

This podcast is best for true crime fans who want to listen in Spanish and those concerned about violence against women. You can listen to The Red Note on iTunes, Audible, Podtail and Cumulus Pod Network.

Hosted by Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace, White Lies is a Pulitzer Prize finalist from NPR News doing investigative deep dives into important cases. Season one looked at what really happened in the murder of a white pastor in the South, while season two studied a prison takeover by Cuban detainees.

Hosted by Laura Beil, this podcast ranks among the most popular of all time and was turned into a Peacock series. Each season does a deep dive on a doctor who took advantage of the public trust and betrayed it in the worst, most hurtful and criminal ways.

Hosted by freelance journalist Chris Lambert, Your Own Backyard looks into the 1996 disappearance of Kristin Smart, a Cal Poly student, from a party. The podcast claimed more than 12 million downloads in its first year, and it sparked a reinvestigation of the case, leading to two arrests.

This podcast is best for those who like thinking about the bigger picture related to true crime and its impact on society. You can listen to Criminal on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible and Pandora.

True crime podcasts offer the perfect blend of escapism, horror and sometimes even a little hope. All the best true crime podcasts on this list will put you on the edge of your seat as you queue up episode after episode to get to the truth.

In 2024, we really are getting some of the best true-crime podcasts ever. True-crime continues to be perhaps the most addictive podcast genre out there, bringing all the mystery and primal fear of a Law & Order episode directly into our ears (while also allowing us to catch up on the drama on the go.)

In the Dark is back! The award-winning investigative-journalism podcast first made waves with its 2016 debut, when journalist Madeleine Baran and a team of reporters revisited the 1989 abduction of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling. For season two, Baran and team focused on the case of Curtis Flowers, a man who was tried six times for the same crime in Mississippi.

In its newly released third season, In the Dark joins The New Yorker to collaborate with writer Heidi Blake on a four-part series about the Dubai royal women who risked everything to flee Sheikh Mohammed.

Ever since Havana-born artist Ana Mendieta fell to her death from the window of her 34th-floor Greenwich Village apartment in 1985, activists and fans have insisted that her husband, Carl Andre, was to blame. This six-episode podcast from Pushkin Industries is hosted by art historian Helen Molesworth, who provides context not only for Mendieta's death but for the extraordinary life she lived (and the body of artistic work she left behind).

Best friends Alaina Urquhart and Ashleigh Kelley have range: In addition to serial killers and mysterious deaths, they tackle other true-crime subgenres such as spooky myths, creepy history, and haunted places.

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I created 16 ready-to-go episode listening guides that I can print or assign digitally through Google Classroom. They are ready when I need a quick time-filler or when my students are begging for another podcast. Click HERE to grab this resource.

If you are looking for a longer podcast, Up and Vanished is a must! Host, Payne Lindsey, narrates each step of his sleuthing adventures as he investigates the mysterious disappearance of high school teacher Tara Grinstead. This podcast has several episodes, but will hook your students right away and leave them hungry for more.

Bear Brook, a podcast series from New Hampshire Public Radio, focuses on four unsolved murders from the 1980s near Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire. These episodes will have you gripping your seat with anticipation! After seeing other Forensics teachers post about using this podcast in their classrooms, I decided to use it for my Forensics Friday assignment. My students loved it! For this podcast, I had my students complete this one-pager assignment.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast is a true crime podcast that looks at multiple recent deaths associated with the Murdaugh family of South Carolina. The program is hosted by Mandy Matney of FITSNews.com who has been following the case since the 2019 boat crash that killed Mallory Beach. It is captivating, suspenseful, and will leave you thinking about this case long after the podcast ends. Wendy Rauch, a member of my Forensic Teacher Facebook Group, shared this image of a murder board that she had her students complete during the podcast. What a great idea!

I never wanted to be at the center of a sensational true crime story. Nobody does. But once I was thrust into the public eye, there was no going back. One moment I was living my life as an anonymous student. Without warning, my every action was under a microscope. Even after my acquittal, no part of my life was safe from scrutiny and judgment.

As I tried to find some meaning in the senseless murder of my roommate, as I tried to process the trauma of my resulting wrongful conviction, the storytellers descended like vultures, transforming all that tragedy into content. True crime sunk its teeth into my life and it has yet to let go.

The world was a lot more violent in the past. Back in medieval England, historians estimate the murder rate was ten times what it is today. It may not seem that way, but that is largely a result of how swamped we are with media about crime. This has been true since the invention of the printing press and the spread of print media. By the 16th century, more official police departments were forming, crimes were being prosecuted, defendants were standing trial, public executions were taking place and early printers were running off broadsheets and pamphlets about all the gory details. The visibility of crime went way up.

These posters and pamphlets often focused on familial murders, the murders of children, or romantic and marital murders. And the ethical questions that ricochet through the true crime world today were present even back then. Was it morally proper to focus on the perpetrator instead of the victim?

The most prominent answer back then said not only was it proper, but it was necessary. These pamphlets and broadsheets usually had a moralizing message. They were designed to both maintain the social order and protect the souls of the citizenry from being corrupted by the devil. This religious motive was seen as perfectly consistent with the lurid stories and gruesome images being printed, often by clergy.

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