The Blotter Presents

Latest Episodes:

Episode 20: 020: The Murder Of Laci Peterson And The Stacey Castor Case Aug 16, 2017

Show notes

As the 15th anniversary of Laci Peterson's disappearance approaches, A&E interrogates the case against her widower Scott with The Murder of Laci Peterson -- and Kim Reed returns to interrogate the rationalizations of Scott's defenders (and make fun of Nancy Grace). Kim's also got another crime tale with a personal connection as we dig into a Forensic Files about a Southern Tier black widow.
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Episode 19: 019: The Zodiac(s) Aug 09, 2017

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Good news: neither Eve's nor my dad is the Zodiac! Bad news: True Crime With Aphrodite Jones isn't as skeptical as it could be about claims like that. Later, we look at some local-news takes on the Zodiac case, and the great Forensic Files runs into some story-structure problems in its episode about the east-coast version, Eddie Seda. Dumb profiling, junk science, and the two pairs of glasses everyone wore in the '60s, all in the latest The Blotter Presents!
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Episode 18: 018: Son Of Sam Aug 02, 2017

Show notes

Chipperish Media/How Story Works chief Lani Diane Rich sat down with me to see which Son Of Sam stories worked -- Investigation Discovery's, Smithsonian's, or the 1985 CBS version starring Martin Sheen -- and the one that's so bad it's good may surprise you. Why do David Berkowitz's crimes still preoccupy us? What's with every single Sam-doc producer having to put several minutes of public-domain disco on the soundtrack? And who decided Eriq LaSalle should only have one line? We'll try to answer all these questions in our latest episode.
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Episode 17: 017: Gone: The Forgotten Women Of Ohio And The System Jul 26, 2017

Show notes

Monty Ashley joins me this week to take a look at TV's second run at the murders in Chillicothe, Ohio. Paradise Lost's Joe Berlinger comes in with a hot serial-killer theory, then shifts gears -- but not before giving airtime to a grieving aunt's crackpot theory (and wasting some on chopper shots of a cemetery). Will we keep watching? And how does Berlinger's 2014 series on breakdowns in American criminal justice, The System, stack up? All this, plus the supernatural hypothesis Monty hopes Gone ends up with, on an all-new episode!
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Episode 16: 016: The Jury Speaks And Live PD Jul 19, 2017

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Oxygen's four-night "event," The Jury Speaks, debuts this coming weekend, and my husband Dan is "back" to talk about what we learned about Michael Jackson, George Zimmerman, Aphrodite Jones, and the rules of evidence. Later, we look at A&E's Live PD and whether it protects and serves its portrayal of law enforcement. Were our objections overruled? Have a listen and find out.
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Episode 15: 015: H.H. Holmes Jul 12, 2017

Show notes

Noir novelist and Radio Free Dystopia co-host Toby Ball is back -- and may never come on the pod again after Sarah D. Bunting subjected him to American Ripper and H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer. Is Holmes just too tough a subject for documentaries to cover effectively? Did the creators miss opportunities to explore new angles on The Devil In The White City's already well-told tale? And why must Ripperologist crackpots insist that famous people are also "Saucy Jacky"? All this and much laughing at wretched re-enactments on the latest TBP.
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Special Guest: Toby Ball.

Episode 14: 014: Aileen Wuornos Jun 28, 2017

Show notes

Deadly Women devoted a "Predators" segment to Aileen Wuornos; Chris Huff and I devoted a Cold Case segment to lamenting the "Go Toros!" acting from the day players, before moving on to Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, which stars Jean Smart and Park Overall in a weirdly elliptical but also very empathetic treatment of Wuornos's life in crime. Boston marriages, honeysuckle accents, gender politics, and Oscar politics, all in Ep 14.
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013: Jonestown Jun 21, 2017

Show notes

American Experience's "Jonestown: the Life And Death Of Peoples Temple" and 1980's Guyana Tragedy: The Story Of Jim Jones make up our all-Cold-Case episode this week, as Eve Batey comes back to talk about the Peoples Temple's lasting effect on San Francisco, and California; what Jim Jones's particular breed of amoral manipulation and surreal paranoia can tell us about today's headlines; and who we'd have cast as the late Congressman Leo Ryan instead of Ned Beatty. Which property is more effective at conveying why everything went so horribly wrong for "Dad"'s flock? And...seriously: What is the story with the monkeys?? All this and the woman who once played Christina Crawford on an all-new The Blotter Presents.
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Episode 12: 012: Menendez: Blood Brothers And John List On American Justice Jun 14, 2017

Show notes

Alex Collins joins Sarah D. Bunting for a riot grrrrl, Bill Kurtis, and two VERY unhappy families.
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011: Bill Cosby: An American Scandal And The Dr. Robert Neulander Case Jun 07, 2017

Show notes

Charter member of the Virtual True Crime Book Club Kim Reed reunites to talk about The National Enquirer Investigates's take on the Bill Cosby allegations as they go to trial this week. What is his wife's role in all this? Has he gotten a fair trial in the court of public opinion -- and is that because of his race? And would you be better off listening to WHYY's pod on the story instead? Later, we dig into Dateline and 48 HRS's differing takes on Syracuse OB/GYN Robert Neulander, whether he killed his wife Leslie, and some notes Kim has for him on his bedside manner.
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