Podcasts: True Crime For Your Ears

[Epeolatrix]

16 hours ago, starri said:

I have hoped for a podcast to cover the Wonderland Murders for a while now.  I'm just not sure this is the podcast I wanted.  I mean, it's fine, and I'll keep listening because I find the story to fascinating, but it's just missing...I'm not quite sure.

I tried to listen to that one, too, but then just gave up and watched the movie (Wonderland, not Boogie Nights). I think it's that I don't like the acting. I didn't mind it as much with the Black Dahlia episodes because it felt like a really messed-up old-timey radio show, but for Wonderland it just didn't work for me.

[starri]

I think where I'm getting hung up is that their decision to mix two different timelines.  We get Holmes' story dating to the late 60s at the same time we're getting the story of the murder roughly twelve years later, with some additional backward-jumping to tell the story of the robbery that set the whole thing off.  They've finally more or less converged, but I also don't know if it's going to feel like gears are grinding when they start telling the story completely chronologically.

Plus, they seem to have given short shrift to big parts of the story.  Naturally Holmes is pretty well documented, as is Eddie Nash to a lesser extent, but the Wonderland Gang all seem interchangeable.  I can't help but think it might have been better to do one discrete episode on all the parts:  One about Holmes, one about the porn industry, one about LA drug culture, etc.  

I'm not squeamish, but they seemed to take somewhat sadistic pleasure in describing the actual murders.  It didn't upset me, but I can't imagine the general audience had that reaction.

[glowbug]

I have a hard time with Hollywood and Crime and their related spinoffs. Their style just doesn’t work for me. The Charles Manson one was the best IMO and I actually got through the whole thing, but I can’t even finish Hollywood and Crime and I don’t think I was really paying much attention to the episodes I did listen to because I can’t remember most of them. I tried listening to Wondland but my attention kept drifting and I couldn’t follow what was going on. I hope another podcast tackles it even if it’s only one episode of a larger true crime podcast. 

[starri]

I've never listened to their other podcasts, and I'm not really enthusiastic to sample them.  Although, like I said, I'm going to keep going as long as I can, just because I'm fascinated by these case.  Their podcast network also hosts Sword and Scale, and the guy who hosts that is such a creep that I'm hesitant to give even an unrelated podcast more listens.

I'm trying to think of a podcast where this story would fit.  There are enough entertainment industry links that it wouldn't be out of bounds for You Must Remember This, although they wouldn't be that interested in the crime parts.  It doesn't have the unsolved or miscarriage of justice angles that most of the other big True Crime podcasts like.  The Dirty John or Stranglers people maybe.  I don't know, my brain keeps thinking Last Podcast on the Left, and ugh, no.

[jenrising]

Two Australian true crime podcasts have had huge progress announcements (both of these are great if you haven't listened).

Trace - coroner's inquest: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-04/trace-podcast-partial-dna-match-links-priest-to-murder-site/10577306

Teacher's Pet - arrest: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-05/teachers-pet-chris-dawson-arrested-murder-charges-expect/10584024

[Jordan61]

I used to listen to Sword and Scale...until I listened to the Luka Magnotta podcast. They had a recording of Sergei Yatzenko dying, and it just went on and on and on. It was the most horrifying thing I've ever listened to, and it turned me off true crime altogether for a long time. I literally didn't listen to any true crime podcasts or even watch any ID for months. 

[smittykins]

I just finished Father Wants Us Dead, about the John List case.  It includes interviews with surviving family members, friends of the kids, and law-enforcement officers and attorneys.  

Spoiler

They even tracked down List’s second wife, but she declined to be interviewed.

[Minivanessa]

I listened to a recent four part podcast series by AARP: The Texas Elder Murders. Before listening, I read the article on the subject in the monthly AARP magazine. 

I was unpleasantly surprised by the fact that one guy killed more than 20 elderly people - all except one were women - and stole valuable jewelry and personal property. But until his final murder? All the deaths were unattended deaths which were processed by the police and coroner as natural causes. Even when families raised questions about missing valuables or their loved one having been just given a good report after a medical exam.

There's a lot to the story. It's been on my mind all day.