Serial podcast in the fall of 2014. Through 12 incredibly well-researched and well-produced episodes in the show's first season, Koenig recounted the circumstances surrounding Lee’s death, tracing the evidence the state had presented against Syed. Serial episodes were downloaded more than 175 million times as of March 2017, making it the most popular in podcast history.
Through tenacious digging, Koenig and her team zeroed in the existence of McClain as a potential alibi witness. McClain had written a letter in 1999, soon after Lee's death, claiming she saw Syed at the school library at the time the state theorized the murder had occurred. Gutierrez didn't follow up with McClain.
Here are the 20 best podcasts to listen to if you love true crime. Isn’t LPotL more a paranormal/Lore type podcast. I know they cover serial murderers but isn’t the.
Koenig never ultimately took a position on whether Syed was guilty or innocent, but her deep dive into the case raised questions among many listeners as to whether Syed had received a fair trial. One of the show’s executive producers agreed, telling NPR that she felt the show exposed serious inconsistencies in the state’s version of events.
“To me,” Julie Snyder said, “some sort of remedy seems appropriate.”
Because of the widespread interest in the case, Syed’s case didn’t end there, either in podcast-land or in the courtroom. Syed’s friend Rabia Chaudry, who is a lawyer, picked up where Koenig left off and began the Undisclosed podcast with fellow attorneys Susan Simpson and Colin Miller. The trio continued to follow Syed’s case and explore potential legal challenges to his conviction. Chaudry has credited Simpson's 'eagle eye' with uncovering critical information about McClain.
Chaudry had brought Syed’s case to Koenig’s attention in the first place, and she later secured an affidavit from McClain that would play a major role in Syed's request for a new trial.
What’s Next for Syed — And for True Crime Podcasts?
For Syed, the Maryland’s Attorney General can appeal this ruling to the highest state court within the next 30 days. The basis for the state’s appeal could be the opinion of the dissenting judge in the appellate decision, Judge Kathryn Graeff, who wrote that Gutierrez had acted reasonably in not contacting McClain, citing 'potential cause for concern regarding the trustworthiness of Ms. McClain’s alibi.'
Alternately, the office could choose to proceed with a new trial or not to retry at all in light of what has occurred since the original trial — including the international attention the case has attracted.
As for true crime podcasts, the concept has exploded and shows no signs of stopping. Serial’s success in both listener numbers and in moving the wheels of justice has undeniably inspired other would-be podcasters to delve more deeply into cases and deliver their stories to a wider audience.
Crowdsourced, listener-driven investigative podcast Truth & Justice with Bob Ruff began as Serial Dynasty when Ruff took it upon himself to delve even further into Syed's case, even finding new information. After that, Ruff expanded his case file to include many unsolved crimes and possible miscarriages of justice, including that of the West Memphis Three in which three teenagers were tried and convicted of the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys but freed after 18 years in prison when DNA evidence from the crime scene cast doubt on their guilt.
Two years after Serial came Up and Vanished, Payne Lindsey’s look into the 2005 disappearance of Tara Grinstead in Georgia. Partway through the first season of the podcast, two arrests were made in connection with Grinstead's disappearance and, as it turned out, murder. Although Lindsey didn’t uncover any smoking gun evidence through his podcast, some credit the increased attention to the cold case as inspiring certain individuals to come forward with new information.
Unconcluded by Shaun Gard and Scott Jamison about the 2006 disappearance of Jennifer Kesse follows the same vein of focusing on one case and has even produced some promising leads. Other podcasts feature different cases weekly; True Crime Garage, for example, has compiled nearly 200 episodes, covering a mix of both widely publicized (serial killer John Wayne Gacy's case and Tupac Shakur's death) and more obscure crimes, such as the still-unsolved, horrific Austin Yogurt Shop Murders, in which four teenage girls were bound and killed in Austin, Texas in 1991.
Taking yet another angle on true crime podcasts is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom, based on the files of the Innocence Project, which features one-on-one interviews with those who have been exonerated after serving time for crimes they didn't commit.
Overall, the legacy of Koenig's Serial weighs heavily over the entire genre of true crime podcasts, and this win for Adnan Syed is a win for all of them, too. Along with helping to secure a new trial for Syed, Serial has proven that, when done well, a podcast can be an effective way to shine a spotlight on our justice system and even help fix past wrongs — a concept everyone, even those not prone to listening to podcasts, can support.
On paper it was an old story, told many times over the years.
In the early 1980s, Sydney housewife and mother-of-two Lynette Dawson suddenly disappeared. Over the next 30 years, police searched fruitlessly for her.
But now, exactly 37 years after her husband Chris Dawson said he last saw her, investigators may finally be closer to finding out the truth.
Last month, police finally made an arrest in the case: Lynette's husband. He has always denied any involvement.
It is hard to say exactly what prompted this latest development, but more than a few people have pointed towards a podcast released in May 2018.
The Australian's series The Teacher's Pet - which reinvestigated the case in huge detail and uncovered new witnesses and evidence - caught the attention of millions of people around the globe.
As yet, it is unclear exactly what role, if any, the podcast played. After all, police had been conducting their own reinvestigation for the past three years.
However, many have been left wondering: if not for the work done by journalist Hedley Thomas and his team, would they have jumped into action so quickly?
'We're not law enforcement'
It is not the first time it's been suggested that a wildly-successful podcast has had an impact on the justice system.
Years before The Teacher's Pet became a must-hear, Serial was essential listening. It focused on the conviction of Adnan Syed, who was jailed for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee back in 2000, and ended with a retrial being ordered.
In 2018, it was the turn of another US podcast, In the Dark, to raise questions about a murder conviction. The show's second season told the story of Curtis Flowers, a black Mississippi man tried six times for the same crime by the same white prosecutor.
That a man could be tried six times for the same crime seems shocking in itself, but more shocking still were the allegations of racial bias, and shifting witness statements - which kept listeners hooked.
The US Supreme Court is now due to hear Flowers' sixth appeal. If that fails, his lawyers will take the case back to the Mississippi Supreme Court - this time aided by the podcast's discoveries.
However, In the Dark's Madeleine Baran says she and her team were not - and had never been - 'trying to solve the crime'.
'We are not law enforcement,' she stresses.
It may be for just that reason that podcasts do manage to turn up evidence - or pull apart what were once believed to be cast-iron truths - missed by officials.
'We have an advantage in that we're not the prosecutor and we are not the defence,' Baran says. 'That is really important - you need to be calm with factors going either way.'
You also, of course, need to tell a good story - good enough to capture the attention of everyone from truck drivers to joggers.
Last hope
There was no suggestion Police Scotland had done anything wrong in its investigation into the murder of Alistair Wilson, the father-of-two shot dead on his doorstep in the sleepy seaside town of Nairn 13 years ago.
But the fact it remained unsolved so many years later caught the attention of BBC journalist Fiona Walker, the reporter behind last year's hit podcast The Doorstep Murder.
'I think everybody wants the crime to be solved, but after 13 years people had lost faith in the official process,' she explained.
'They felt our investigations unit was a way of taking another serious look at it.'
Baran recognises this loss of trust in the authorities: she certainly saw it in Mississippi.
'The people talking to us had been really treated poorly by the whole process,' she said. 'They did not want to talk. They were not easy to get to talk.'
In fact, Baran and her team would spend a year living in the town, building trust, returning over and over to speak to people, teasing out their recollections.
For Walker, a tip-off from a source who did not trust the police was the opening she needed to get started on her own investigation.
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'The source had this breadth of information and he needed to off-load it,' she said. 'He had knowledge, a social conscience. But at the same time, he was genuinely scared for his life.'
This access to people who might otherwise not speak to officials connected with the case can give these podcasts an edge.
'People have felt they can come forward to me who are not coming forward to the police,' Walker acknowledges. 'It is easier to approach me. I've invited them to approach me.'
But both journalists point to other factors as well: time, and a determination to leave no stone unturned.
For Walker, that meant having patience during 'months and months' of little to no movement as she waited for people to decide to talk.
For Baran, it meant re-treading old ground, pushing every contact, and - at one point - digging through piles of prison booking-in cards in an abandoned plastic factory on the off-chance it might contain the one piece of information she was missing.
It was only later, looking at photos, they discovered they had hit the jackpot.
'We realised one of these cards was this name that we have been trying to find for a year - among all these mouse droppings.'
Of course, there are pitfalls too: the potential for a so-called 'trial by media', as thousands of armchair detectives try to work out exactly whodunit, is not insignificant. Could the information the podcast puts out potentially end up prejudicing or damaging a future trial?
Turning the tide
And yet, even the police have cottoned onto the medium as a way solve crimes.
In California, Newport Police Department's Jennifer Manzella hit on the idea as a way to help them track down Peter Chadwick - a millionaire property developer they allege killed his wife back in 2012. He skipped bail in January 2015.
Mr Chadwick presented Newport PD with a relatively unique problem, in that his wealth meant 'he has the resources to be anywhere in the world', Manzella explained.
So getting the story out far and wide was imperative - and there was only one medium Manzella could think of with the power to do just that: a podcast.
And it worked. The afternoon Newport PD unveiled Countdown to Capture, there were 'dozens' of tips. More followed, and continue to drip in even now, months later.
'We could never have anticipated the amount of interest. They came forward in their droves,' Manzella says.
'We have gone years without getting any tips. We had done national television appeals and got no tips, or maybe one.'
It has given everyone hope - not least his wife's family.
'He is living in somebody's community somewhere,' Manzella told the BBC. 'We just need people to tell us.'
Her words are almost echoed by Det Supt Gary Cunningham, the man leading the investigation into Alistair Wilson's death back in Scotland: 'Someone out there knows why Alistair Wilson was killed and who was involved in his murder.'
Neither Newport PD nor the BBC's podcasts have helped solve the case - yet. There is still the chance they may prove key.
'The podcast is not fleeting: it is continuing to reach new people and at any point there might be that one person with the information to solve it,' Walker points out.
But that also means any further developments will also be scrutinised closely by millions who now feel they have a stake in the story - and there is nothing like the expectation of millions to focus the mind.