Dive deeper into your true crime addiction with the best podcast ever

Crime is the part of society most people want to avoid. The reasons one turns to it vary, but it’s best to watch them through modern-day campfires like our mobile devices — it’s here where you’ll get access to the best crime podcasts that you can listen to whether you’re on the road or on your love seat by the burning fire. 

One day, our time will be “back in the day”. Historians will look at this time and maybe, they’ll call it the golden age of podcasts. Today’s hosts will be the pioneers of the art and it looks like true crime will be amongst the top genres. True crime made a world all on its own, giving us rich stories enveloped in several subgenres. 

We’ve found some of the best true crime podcasts to put on your playlist!

Serial

Serial is an investigative journalism podcast hosted by journalist and reporter Sarah Koenig. She tells single stories over multiple episodes. Koenig is believed to have “pioneered investigative storytelling” for the medium. 

Payne Lindsey, host of Up and Vanished speculates that this podcast paved the way for many others. Serial was published in 2014 as a spinoff of the public radio program This American Life. The podcast’s first season gave birth to a storytelling renaissance and provided hope for creators alike. People realized that the old-media format of serialized week-by-week radio programs could still gather great and new audiences. 

The podcast’s narrations themselves went from crime stories of the clearly identified good & bad guys to diving deeper into the human experience. They’ll talk about flawed investigations and failed justices. You’ll listen to things that’ll make you think. 

Up and Vanished

Is it possible for somebody to just suddenly leave the face of the earth without so much as a trace left behind? Can it be that sometimes, nobody is responsible for the disappearance of so and so? Do people really go somewhere far away and just never return? Do other worlds play a bigger role in our world than we realize?

You might’ve guessed it from the name but Up and Vanished scrutinizes missing persons cold cases by going over old leads, talking to witnesses and conducting on-site investigations. 

This podcast began as a twenty-something merely surfing the web and looking at a cold case. He sold cookies to fund his show!But we all have to start somewhere. Now, Up and Vanished is deemed a very important title. 

With assistance from a private investigator, aspiring filmmaker and musician Payne Lindsey gave us his show’s first season by exploring the Georgia town where beauty queen Tara Grinstead disappeared in 2005. He even crawled beneath a house with his microphone because he believed a body might’ve been buried there. 

Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo

A hashtag has been popping up all over social media lately. It just says, 215 children but what about 215 children? It might come across as a title or very short story but it’s going to pave the way for perhaps thousands of stories. We’re getting close to confronting a dark chapter in American history. It’s recent yet little is known about it. 

CBC reporter Connie Walker hosts Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo. It’s a history podcast educating the public about the systemic oppression of Native Americans in Canada. She knew, however, to get a wider audience, she’d have to take it to the true crime genre. 

Needless to say, Walter succeeded in getting more attention with the show’s great opening season called Who Killed Alberta Williams? It observes the unsolved case of a murdered young woman from 1989. Perhaps, you’re interested in the follow-up series Finding Cleo. You’ll dive into many history lessons while feeding your true crime addiction. 

Cleo is really a young girl named Nicotine Semaganis. She was taken from her Saskatchewan Cree family home by government welfare workers in the 1970s as part of a “horrific program” called the Sixties Scoop. You’ll learn the truth about some long-covered up things and what really happened to this girl. 

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Looking for the best crime podcasts? Do you have any favorites? Let us know down below!