Top True Crime Podcasts

In 2019, Netflix’s true crime docuseries Don’t F*** With Cats became a sensation. With millions of views, feline and crime fans alike propelled the series to become one of the year’s most streamed true crime documentaries. Now, the amateur investigators who cracked the case, Deanna Thompson and John Green are teaming back up to tackle new unsolved crimes. Over the course of each season, the duo uses their investigative prowess to bring justice to cases across the country. Working with victims’ loved ones, law enforcement, forensic specialists, and other experts, Deanna and John prove that while you don’t want to F with cats, you don’t want to F with them either.

For one mother, believing the truth cost her everything.   

After a contentious divorce, Cindy was ready to begin again. To her surprise, she found a new partner, Kenny. Days after their engagement came a devastating allegation that Kenny abused her 9-year-old son.   

To Cindy, the facts behind the accusation didn’t add up. She believed the claims had less to do with reality, and more to do with retribution by her ex-husband.   

As the allegation tore her family apart, Cindy faced an impossible choice: stand by her child or stand by what she believed to be the truth.   

Her decision led to years of frustrating court battles and a war over what really happened.   

In the third season of Burden of Guilt, one family’s painful unraveling raises difficult questions about loyalty, manipulation, and what happens when the people you love no longer agree on what is true.  

You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at Burdenofguiltpod@gmail.com.  For more Burden of Guilt, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts. 

The first season of Burden of Guilt has been turned into a docuseries, now streaming only on Paramount+. Available to watch HERE! Make sure to binge all episodes of the podcast that inspired the show before you watch!

Host Tristan Redman is a seasoned journalist who doesn’t believe in ghosts. But weird things happened in the bedroom he lived in as a teenager. When he discovers years later that subsequent occupants of the same house have been visited by the ghost of a faceless woman, he’s curious. Because it just so happens that Tristan’s childhood home is right next door to the house where his wife’s great grandmother, Naomi Dancy, was murdered in 1937 – killed by two gunshots to the face. Could there be a connection between the ghost and the murder? Tristan decides to investigate and soon finds himself going where no son-in-law should go, deep into his wife’s family history, asking questions no one wants answered.‘

Best Documentary Podcast’ Ambies 2024 award-winner and ‘Best True Crime’ British Podcast Awards 2024 nominee, Ghost Story, is now also an Apple Podcasts ‘Series Essential’.

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Ghost Story ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

The human body is a miracle. But when it’s not working, it can be the stuff of nightmares. On this new series from master storyteller MrBallen, we’re sharing medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are surgically calibrated to make your blood run cold.

From bizarre, unheard-of diseases and miraculous recoveries to strange medical mishaps and unexplainable deaths — you’ll never hear the phrase “heart-stopping” in the same way again. MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between MrBallen and Wondery, the award-winning company behind Dr. Death.

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

The tight knit fabric of a small town can be torn apart when a violent crime happens.

Join host and advocate Hilarie Burton Morgan in the companion podcast to SundanceTV's powerful true crime documentary series, "It Couldn’t Happen Here." Along with key crew from the TV series as her co-hosts, Burton Morgan will dive deeper into the cases covered on the show featuring never before heard archive and a behind the scenes lens of how the team tackles these head-scratching and heart-breaking stories. "It Couldn’t Happen Here" encourages everyone to get curious, get involved, and ask how can I help when it appears the system has failed?

After listening to this podcast, you'll find yourself thinking twice about our series title: "It Couldn't Happen Here". It can, and it does, more than you would think.

For more information on the cases we cover or if you have a case you’d like us to tackle, please follow our advocacy work on @ICHHstories on Instagram and Twitter

On a January night in 1995, 18-year-old Christa Pike and two other teenagers lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. They taunted, beat, and slashed Colleen, carving a pentagram into her chest, before Christa picked up a piece of concrete and smashed Colleen’s skull, killing her. Those salacious details stood out during a national Satanic Panic over ritual abuse and suburban cults. The Knoxville News Sentinel later accused Christa of killing “for love and Satan.” She was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by electrocution—one of the youngest women ever to be sentenced to death in the United States.

Thirty years later, Christa is still alive, incarcerated at a Nashville prison and the only woman on death row in Tennessee. She has spent much of her adult life in solitary confinement. In the decades since the murder, evolving understanding about brain science and trauma have cast Christa’s wildly violent act—and death sentence—in a new light. We now know that the brain of an 18-year-old remains underdeveloped and impulsive. Christa has a horrific history of abuse, violence, and family neglect; the first time she attempted suicide, she was 9 years old. That kind of trauma can arrest healthy development, leading some young adults down a disastrous path. 

As Christa approaches her final appeals, a team of state and federal defenders are urgently trying to save Christa’s life. Her date of execution could be set any time. If executed, she will be the first woman killed by Tennessee in almost 200 years. Should a woman who committed a violent crime as a damaged teenager be granted a chance at rehabilitation? And is justice best served through retribution or mercy?

Global investigations from the BBC. Gripping stories from around the world – delve into a World of Secrets.

Latest season:

Catching My Teacher. They were taught to obey. But they learnt to resist. When students from a network of boarding schools in Indonesia hear about a dark secret at the heart of a national institution, they set out to find the truth — not knowing what it will cost them. This is a story about friendship, love and who you can trust.

Also, previously on World of Secrets:

Searching for Soldier Dad. DNA detectives track down the British soldiers who fathered children in Kenya then disappeared.

Al Fayed Predator at Harrods. Women accuse Mohamed Al Fayed of rape.

And The Abercrombie Guys. Investigating sexual exploitation claims against the former CEO of fashion giant Abercrombie & Fitch.

*FREE Episodes Released every Monday during active seasons. Paid Brevity+ Subscribers get Early Release, Ad Free Listening, Bonus Episodes and access to the War Room on www.theguiltpodcast.com

In this hit investigative podcast, Ryan Wolf investigates some of Australasia's most enduring unsolved criminal cases.

In the upcoming Season Seven, Ryan dives into a case in his own backyard. Where is Sara Niethe, one man holds the answers, can he finally solve this case.

Season Six

On August 28th 1999, 16 year old Jessica Gaudie was babysitting in Nambour, Sunshine Coast, Australia, when she vanished without a trace. In 2001 Aboriginal tracker Derek Sam was convicted of her murder, but denies his involvement and will not lead Police to Jessica's remains. 26 years later Ryan is on the ground in Australia looking for answers, and finds that he's not just looking for one missing woman, he's looking for three.

Season Five

In November of 2021, while the world was in lockdown. Dave Davan, a farmer in the rural far north community of Herekino found two bottles of wine in his mailbox. Assuming they were a gift he drank them, little did he know one bottle had been laced with the deadly poison Paraquat. In December Dave lost his short battle and sadly passed away. Three years on his murderer walks free. Ryan journeys to the remote and isolated far north to find the answer to the question: Who Killed Dave Davan?

Instagram: ryanwolfnz & brevity_studios

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Wisconsin is no stranger to high-profile cases and horrific murderers, from the notorious Jeffrey Dahmer to the perplexing Ed Gein. But on a cold night in February 2022, a new name was added to the list of Wisconsin’s worst: Taylor Schabusiness. From the outset, the details of the case shocked even the most hardened detectives and traumatized young rookies. Using Law&Crime Network’s gavel-to-gavel coverage, Severed Affair provides an in-depth narrative of the disturbing case. The Law&Crime original podcast uses exclusive audio and court footage to piece together the gruesome story.

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Severed Affair ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

Once upon a time, there were two titans of the crypto industry: Sam Bankman-Fried, the child of Stanford professors and founder of FTX, and Changpeng Zhao, the nomadic founder of Binance. The pair were the faces of crypto, generating billion-dollar fortunes comparable to the likes of Elon Musk and Bill Gates. That is, until their rivalry threatened to burn the entire industry to the ground.

For years, the pair had waged a cold war as Sam fought to unseat Zhao, or CZ, and dominate the industry. Then, last year, CZ fired a warning shot: one that would send FTX into a downward spiral, and reveal what prosecutors describe as a staggering $8bn fraud at the heart of Sam’s empire. Now, as Sam potentially faces decades in prison, journalist Tom Wright has been investigating the hidden origins of his feud with CZ – starting with a key witness: CZ himself.

It’s Madrid, March 2017. A former official in Venezuela's oil ministry, a lawyer, and three financial advisors are meeting to discuss business. They want to move corruptly-obtained cash without anyone noticing. But little do they know, one of them is wearing a hidden microphone, and records the whole conversation, laying bare the mechanics of a plot to launder millions of dollars embezzled from Venezuela’s state oil company.

From OCCRP and the Colombian production company La No Ficción, this investigative series dissects this secret recording and the broader corruption scheme that siphoned off $1.2 billion from Venezuela's state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).

Across five episodes, it follows exiled Venezuelan journalist Laura Weffer as she tries to track down Carmelo Urdaneta, the former oil ministry official who plays a key role in the billion-dollar money laundering conspiracy.

The series also traces the human cost of this corruption, including Laura’s own journey into exile and the voices of other Venezuelans who were battling a severe economic crisis at the same time that their oil money was being “cleaned” by professionals abroad.

To learn more about organized crime and corruption, sign up for our newsletter at occrp.org/newsletter

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This podcast was originally produced in Spanish. But in light of recent events in Venezuela, we are sharing it with a wider audience through this English version, a human-reviewed AI translation. This is our first time using this technology, so minor variations and AI-imperfections may occur. The podcast is available in the original Spanish, at the below links:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5inyH4WRo1H82KgvmnmUHh
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cuello-blanco-manos-sucias/id1872501127

We would love your feedback on this experiment at occrp.org/podcast

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One July night in 1995, Deputy Sheriff William G. Hardy was shot behind the Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. At the same time as the murder, at least ten people saw Toforest Johnson four miles away, at a popular nightclub called Tee's Place. But detectives zeroed in on him as a main suspect in Deputy Hardy’s murder anyway, ultimately resulting in Toforest being tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. For over a quarter century, Toforest has been confined to a 5’ by 8’ cell on Alabama’s death row.

In 2019, investigative journalist Beth Shelburne began covering the case, going down a disturbing rabbit hole revealing many unsettling facts that cast grave doubts about Toforest’s guilt. The facts she found tear at the very foundation of the American criminal justice system: No eyewitnesses or physical evidence tied Toforest to the murder; the state tried to convict a different man for the same crime; and perhaps most disturbing of all, Toforest’s conviction relied on an ‘earwitness’ – a woman who claimed to have eavesdropped on an incriminating phone call, a woman whom prosecutors paid for her testimony, in secret. That payment was not disclosed to the jury, Toforest, or his lawyers until after he had been on death row for 17 years.

From the team behind the award-winning hit podcast Bone Valley, Lava for Good’s Earwitness is an 8-episode docuseries that asks the question, “How did an innocent man end up on death row — and why is the state still trying to execute him over the objection of the prosecutor who put him there?” Shelburne’s unprecedented access to key players—the lead detective, lead prosecutor, witnesses, jurors, and the earwitness herself— illuminate a story filled with disturbing twists, frustrating ambiguities, and shocking admissions. The story of Toforest Johnson and the state's enthusiasm for the death penalty in the face of such troubling evidentiary flaws brings to light the failings of a criminal justice system run amok.

Earwitness is available every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. To hear episodes 1 week early and ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good+ on Apple Podcasts.