Top True Crime Podcasts

With a smile and optimism that epitomizes South Florida in the 1980s, Billy Halpern is the last person anyone expects to find brutally murdered. Six months after his body is found, throat slit ear-to-ear in a professional execution-style hit, the investigation goes cold. When his best friend and girlfriend turn up dead, investigators realize Billy might have been caught up in a larger scheme involving the city's most dangerous criminals, local wise guy and mob associate Bert Christie and decorated ex-cop Gil Fernandez. 

Despite circumstantial evidence tying a growing list of crimes back to Christie and Fernandez, the murders go unsolved for years. Decades later, investigative journalist and former cop Scott Weinberger and Detective Danny Smith agree to work together to solve this murder mystery. Ultimately, this two year investigation will expose the true motive behind this killing spree and uncover new evidence including the DNA of the killer. Justice for Billy Halpern is just a listen away. 

Get compelling docos, podcasts, features and more with our new home for crime shows: Hunting Justice.

ABOUT THE EASEY STREET MURDERS
In 1977, in the heart of Melbourne, friends Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett were both stabbed to death in a frenzied ambush inside their home, on Easey Street in Collingwood.

Over a six-part series of features, podcasts and mini-documentaries, we go back to the Sues’ childhood, their move to the city, their shocking deaths and the many attempts by police and forensic investigators to find justice for Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett.

For more visit: easeystreetmurders.com.au

To unlock bonus content from The Easey Street Murders, and listen to episodes early and ad free, subscribe to Crime X+ on Apple Podcasts, or theheraldsun.com.au

ABOUT THE MUSROOM COOK
The story of a seemingly ordinary family lunch that turned out to be anything but normal.

Follow the journalists piecing together the puzzle of how three people died after sitting down to share a meal in the small Australian town of Leongatha, Victoria.

With the woman who prepared that meal now accused of murder, The Mushroom Cook explores the story so far – and reports on the court hearings as Erin Patterson faces trial

For more visit: themushroomcook.com.au

To unlock bonus content from The Mushroom Cook, and listen to episodes early and ad free, subscribe to Crime X+ on Apple Podcasts, or theheraldsun.com.au

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Voices for Freedom is a podcast dedicated to raising awareness about the harrowing realities of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation, highlighting the courageous individuals working relentlessly to combat this global crisis.

The podcast is produced by Our Rescue (formerly known as Operation Underground Railroad), a nonprofit organization committed to combatting child sexual exploitation and human trafficking around the world. Hear compelling interviews, share powerful stories, and reveal critical insight that will both educate and inspire. We invite you to join the fight by visiting our website at OURRescue.org or follow us on social media @OurRescue.

A downstate man moves to Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula, then vanishes. Suspicions spread from the neighbor he was staying with, to the girlfriend he fought with, to the cops who were supposed to find him.  

From the Detroit Free Press, “Where Secrets Go to Die: The Disappearance of Derrick Henagan” is an eight-episode serial podcast. Award-winning journalist John Wisely examines a murder case in a natural paradise and uncovers drugs, sex and other local secrets.

All eight episodes are now available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Want to dive deeper? Check out freep.com/secrets for photos, videos, documents and more tied to the case.

Links to specific episode content can also be found in the description of the trailer for this series.

An Aurora dentist accused of poisoning his wife searched online for undetectable poisons before purchasing both arsenic and cyanide, according to an affidavit.

Aurora police arrested James Toliver Craig, 45, on Sunday March 19th. He was booked in jail around 2 a.m. on a charge of first-degree murder after deliberation in connection with the death of his 43-year-old wife Angela Craig, who died in a hospital Saturday.

Arsenic, DDS is a podcast that will chronicle the events leading up to the death and we will be following all of the legal proceedings beginning with Dr. Craig's first court appearance.

Read the entire affidavit:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23718101-23cr664-craig-james-toliver_redacted

Join Andrew Pledger in exposing Bob Jones University, a school known for its culture of indoctrination and control. BJU is a fundamentalist Christian college with roots in white supremacy and authoritarianism. The monthly podcast features survivors' stories from the university, and its affiliated churches, camps, and day schools. The show also explores BJU's influence beyond the university and its impact on American society. This show is a continuation of the limited series "Surviving BJU: A Christian Cult.”

Join my Patreon for bonus episodes and other exclusive content: https://www.patreon.com/4ndrewpledger

My Linktree: https://andrewpledger.mypixieset.com/links/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. 

Season 7 - The Burden: Bad Cops

Baltimore, Maryland likes to call itself Charm City. But you have to wonder: Is the nickname ironic?  Consider one of the city's star cops, a sergeant so accomplished that he earned his own nickname, the Golden Boy.  But Golden Boy led a double life. Said one of those who encountered him in the street.  "I was robbed by the Baltimore City Police….with a gun … armed robbery."  No one believed the allegation. Then a GPS tracker was discovered where it shouldn't have been; next, a wiretap went up on a cop's phone. An FBI agent couldn't believe what she was hearing. Are these guys  gangsters? And then … an insider turned witness. "Like Rambo said, burn it down. And that's what I did."  Welcome to Charm City, where it was sometimes difficult to tell the protectors from the predators.

Season 6 - The Burden: Lives of Crime

Ever wondered what it’s like to live on the edge? 
To not follow the rules? 
To live outside of the law? 
On Lives of Crime you'll hear true stories from criminals themselves, narrating moments from their lives and expounding upon the crimes they’ve committed. This first person narrative podcast series creates an intimate connection between criminal and listener. It’s true crime without intermediaries. Presented without judgment, each episode features a single voice - a person with a criminal past - telling us the deeply personal details of their lives. We hear about their crimes, sure, but Lives of Crime goes beyond that. We hear the stories that shaped them, the moments that made them, the details that changed the direction of their lives for good or for ill.
True Crime Told by true criminals. 

Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance

On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder,  and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.”  David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish?

Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run

“Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. 

Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger

Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. 

Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country.

Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood 

Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. 

This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago.

Season 1 - The Burden 

In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname.

Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance.

For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. 

Welcome to The Burden.

Imagine you were a fly on the wall at a dinner between the mafia, the CIA, and the KGB. That’s where this unprecedented story begins. A journey through the dark world of Russian intelligence where, for the first time, a professed “sex spy” tells her story. All of it. 

Host Neil Strauss (Rolling Stone, The New York Times) brings listeners into the dangerous world of sexpionage, where enemies of the State are not the only victims. So too are the spies themselves, brainwashed to believe that their bodies belong to Russia and meticulously trained to become “the perfect weapons.” Who is Aliia Roza? From the creators of the hit podcast series To Live and Die in LA, this is To Die For.

The Deep Dive Podcast Network is a collection of serious (and sometimes not-so-serious) stories created by journalist and entrepreneur Andy Tarnoff. The first season, "Deep Dive: MH370," was a critically acclaimed 31-episode true-crime podcast with Andy's co-host, Jeff Wise, about the mystery of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. The network has now expanded into new topics, like "Wine Acoustics" with The Dandy Warhols' lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor, "The Feed," a look into the absurdity and the humanity of Facebook Marketplace, and "Celebrity Adjacent with Carole Caine." Watch this channel for more deep dives!