Turn on the TV, pick a podcast, or go on social media, and you will find it: true crime. In 2021, it’s among the fastest-growing entertainment genres with tales of terror told across all platforms. Of course, we know why there’s so much of it. True crimers are insatiable, drinking up stories of humanity’s lowest lows every hour of every day.

And yet, true crime is not just entertainment. These are real stories of real people in really terrible moments — and that comes with real consequences.

So, as a deluge of new titles arrived this year, Mashable spoke with experts in the space to more completely understand the fascination with true crime, and the guilt fans sometimes feel over it. Their reactions outline a thorny problem for Hollywood creators and consumers alike, as the genre booms but the dark underbelly remains under-discussed. 

When police arrived to arrest Jeffrey Kelavos, he was watching CSI. That made a real impression on the woman Kelavos was accused of brutally attacking.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, what you did to me was nothing like CSI,” survivor and victims advocate Patricia Wenskunas says. “But did you really get your ideas from watching some crime show?’”  

Certainly, the assault reads like something from a primetime crime drama. Kelavos and Wenskunas met at a 24 Hour Fitness in Southern California where he was her personal trainer. They had never exercised outside of the gym. But on April 4, 2002, he showed up at her home, as if it were normal.  

In a phone interview, Wenskunas recalls what followed: “[He] came into my home. Then he drugged me, wrapped my face and head in Saran wrap, beat me black and blue, the whole time screaming that he was going to kill me. Then he threatened to kill my son.” 

Wenskunas’ son was not home, and she was ultimately able to break free — leaping from a 12-foot balcony and fleeing to a neighbor’s house to call 9-1-1.

Orange County officials charged the intruder with making criminal threats, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder. But despite prosecutors producing recorded admissions of the defendant’s guilt — Kelavos left Wenskunas a series of disturbing voicemails just hours after the attack — the superior court judge assigned to the case dismissed the attempted murder charge. Kelavos served just 120 days.

“I will never understand it,” Wenskunas says. “I didn’t and still don’t feel justice was done in my case.” 

Since then, that judge has been barred from the county’s courthouses(opens in a new tab), and Wenskunas has made her experience central to her life’s work. As the CEO and founder of the nonprofit Crime Survivors Inc.(opens in a new tab), she oversees efforts to help victims of sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, human trafficking, child and elder abuse, and attempted murder.

It’s a “blessing and a gift” to reclaim her experience for the good of others, Wenskunas says. She’s shared her story countless times through public speeches and news outlets to help others heal. But when it comes to recounting what she experienced for so-called “true crime fans” — the ones pressing play millions of times each day to hear terrifying stories just like hers — Wenskunas is less eager to share.

“What happened to me is not ‘a story,’” she cautions. “It’s my life.”

The true crime genre — the business of packaging, marketing, and making money off of stories like Wenskunas’ — is growing at a remarkable speed.

In the digital age, true crime exists across virtually every medium, reaching more people than ever before. Documentary films, TV series, podcasts, Twitter accounts, Facebook groups, Reddit forums, and even YouTube and TikTok channels have been built around the subject.

We’ve seen real-world horror stories remixed with everything from makeup tutorials to ASMR(opens in a new tab); delivered to our homes via subscription service(opens in a new tab); and even made the theme of an annual fan convention and soon-to-be cruise(opens in a new tab). Not to mention, there’s all the true crime-themed merchandise that comes with those ventures.

To be sure, true crime is good business. Not only is the subject extraordinarily popular, but since facts can’t be protected by U.S. copyright law, the most sensational cases can be — and are — retold infinitely across formats.

In January 2020, Women’s Health ranked 11 true crime movies and series about Ted Bundy(opens in a new tab), out of countless books, podcasts, and videos. Never mind that the notorious serial killer was executed by electric chair in 1989; Bundy’s story and the suffering of his more than 30 confirmed victims lives on(opens in a new tab) and on(opens in a new tab) and on(opens in a new tab).

The genre isn’t exploding because it’s new. Historians trace the commodification of our cultural crime fetish to as early as the mid-16th century, when the practice of pamphleteering(opens in a new tab) collided with increased literacy rates throughout Europe. Though readership was still limited to aristocrats with enough money and time for such diversions, gruesome stories of murder and assault rapidly came into violent vogue. 

In the century that followed, crime pamphlets and magazines rolled in salacious tales of cruelty and gore, touting the tormented confessions of high-profile prisoners(opens in a new tab), details of the supposed spectral evidence at witch trials(opens in a new tab), and more. How the genre got its name isn’t known precisely, but by the time Random House published Truman Capote’s nonfiction In Cold Blood in 1966, “true crime” was a widely accepted literary term.

Dr. Amanda Vicary, a social psychologist and chair of Illinois Wesleyan University’s psychology department, studies the proliferation of modern true crime. She says the genre has grown so rapidly in the past ten years, measuring its size and reach, at least in any quantitative sense, isn’t feasible.

“You’d have to take into account who’s watching true crime on TV, who’s reading about true crime in Facebook groups, who’s downloading true crime books on their Kindle, even who’s following along [with true crime coverage in] the newspaper or online,” she says.

That’s a herculean task on its face. But when you consider that studios, distributors, publishers, and individual creators may not want to provide that data — and are rarely obligated to do so by the law(opens in a new tab) — Vicary contends it would be “almost impossible to get an idea of the percentage of the population that is following true crime.” 

Without that figure, estimating the monetary value of the genre is a nonstarter. Yes, viewers can see Netflix’s latest true crime docuseries jump to the top of the platform’s self-reported charts. And sure, fans know the My Favorite Murder hosts are making the second-best money in the podcasting biz, per Forbes(opens in a new tab). But analysts can never know just how much money is on the line when the purveyors of the latest true crime blitz face pushback. That’s troubling, especially when you examine how the trend got started.

Vicary, like other experts in her field, pegs the start of the 2010s true crime boom to two projects: Serial (2014) and Making a Murderer (2015).

The investigative podcast and Netflix docuseries each tell a different story of a female murder victim and a man who claims to have been wrongly accused of her killing. It’s a narrative arc that’s proven especially winning among true crime consumers (see the hyper-popular The Jinx or The Staircase) and, for better or worse, tends to favor the accused.

Serial raked in an estimated 40 million downloads in its first three months of streaming, per CNN(opens in a new tab), with some analysts going so far as to credit the show with an overall spike in podcast listening that year. And according to Business Insider(opens in a new tab), Making a Murderer amassed 19.3 million viewers in just its first five weeks — closely mirroring the viewership of bonafide zeitgeist Stranger Things Season 1(opens in a new tab), which would earn 20 millions views in its first month in 2016.

Of course, plenty of other true crime content was coming out before then. Forensic Files, the longest-running true crime show on TV, began in 1996 and ran until 2011 — releasing 400 episodes along the way. The same year Forensic Files ended, chart-topping true crime podcast Last Podcast on the Left debuted; they’ve released more than 600 episodes since then.

But Vicary suspects the wrongful conviction component helped Serial and Making a Murderer breakthrough to the mainstream in an especially meaningful way.

“Even people who may not have had interest in the stereotypical true crime podcasts had this element of ‘Oh no, is there someone we need to hold to account right now?’” she says.

Such controversies, Vicary argues, act as a kind of grist for the true crime grinders. Both Serial and Making a Murderer spurred significant discourse as amateur detectives everywhere “investigated” these cold cases they suddenly saw as urgent. And so a kind of perverse fan theory craze took hold, and the resulting debate doubled as free advertising.

Petitions to release Steven Avery, the so-called star of Making a Murderer, reached the White House with enough momentum that then President Barack Obama actually responded(opens in a new tab). Similar support for the subject of Serial Season 1, Adnan Syed, gained steam, with a trust fund for Syed’s legal defense(opens in a new tab) earning just shy of $250,000.

As a consequence of their high-profile nature, however, Serial and Making a Murderer also faced increased scrutiny. Accusations of exemplifying white(opens in a new tab) privilege(opens in a new tab) and partaking in unethical(opens in a new tab) journalistic(opens in a new tab) practices(opens in a new tab) plagued Serial and its host Sarah Koenig, while Netflix faced allegations that Making a Murderer’s filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos had intentionally left(opens in a new tab) out(opens in a new tab) important(opens in a new tab) details(opens in a new tab). 

“There aren’t many cases I would consider myself an ‘expert’ on,” Vicary says of the documentary series, which heavily implies Avery’s innocence. “But I think the guy is guilty. I don’t trust it.”

It later became widely known that ahead of Making a Murderer’s release, victim Teresa Halbach’s family spoke out against the project in a statement via the Associated Press(opens in a new tab). Similar statements were made by the family of victim Hae Min Lee following the release of Serial. Both cases, as it turned out, had been covered at length in the true crime space before — and the families’ wishes that their loved ones be left out of any future entertainment ventures had gone ignored.

The two projects gained wildly problematic reputations. And yet, Making a Murderer went on to even further examine Avery’s case with a Season 2, released in 2018. Serial moved on to less controversial cases(opens in a new tab), but that didn’t kill the interest in Adnan Syed. HBO made his case into a documentary series in 2019.

So growth across the genre has steamed ahead, even if the extent of that growth remained worryingly immeasurable. Numerous think pieces asking questions like “Is our growing obsession with true crime a problem?(opens in a new tab)” and “Is true crime as entertainment morally defensible?(opens in a new tab)” have appeared alongside flippant Saturday Night Live sketches poking fun at our nation’s apparent new pastime. Underlying it all are the twin beliefs that true crime as popcorn entertainment is getting out of hand, and yet the genre is impossible to control.

“There would have to be some really extreme violations for people to actually stop and think about what they're watching,” says Vicary, both as a psychologist and avid true crime fan herself. “When I’m watching a show or whatever, I don’t stop and think to myself, ‘Oh, but did the victim’s family consent to this?’ And if I don’t think that, I’m guessing most people don’t either.”  

As a victims advocate, however, Wenskunas refuses to see basic respect in the true crime space as a lost cause. She argues companies intent on telling crime stories without the permission of the people who actually lived them should be held to account — if not by laws proposed by advocates like her, then by the court of public opinion.

“That is absolutely retraumatizing victims,” Wenskunas says. “Shame on [these companies] if that’s what they’re doing. Nobody has a right to your story.”

And yet, it seems these violations rarely gain the attention they deserve. For example, a 2020 article for Time titled “The Human Cost of Binge-Watching True Crime Serie(opens in a new tab)s” included part of an email sent to the producers of Netflix's I Am a Killer. In it, the stepmother of a homicide victim wrote that she did not want her stepson featured on the series: “As a parent, a fellow human being, I beg you not to do this.”

Netflix declined to comment for that article (or this one). The series went on as planned, featuring an extensive, sympathetic conversation with the man’s killer, as well as interviews with family members of the victim accused of using his murder to spur their public speaking careers. The streaming service has debuted dozens of new true crime titles since.

Still, for all its potentially unscrupulous underpinnings, there’s no denying true crime has educational value — and, for better or worse, most Americans’ understanding of the justice system is forged in the entertainment space(opens in a new tab).

In a 2017 study examining the real-world effects of crime-centric entertainment, Vicary asked 323 of her undergraduate students how they might break into a home without being arrested(opens in a new tab). She also surveyed their TV-watching habits and overall relationship with the crime genre.

“What I found is that the kids who watched a lot of CSI-type shows were better at planning their crime,” Vicary says. “People are definitely learning from all these shows and all these podcasts on a real, practical level.” 

In her study, Vicary questioned how this theorized “CSI effect(opens in a new tab)” might help criminals cover their tracks. But the concept has more far-reaching implications.

At racial justice organization Color of Change(opens in a new tab), the true crime boom’s impact on systemic racism is of particular interest. With few exceptions, the sensationalized genre advances a profoundly inaccurate vision of the crime landscape — one that almost always disadvantages Black people. Not only does it portend a rising criminal tide entirely unsubstantiated by statistics(opens in a new tab), but it also skews our understanding of where crime happens and to whom.

“Black women, for example, are majorly missing from crime shows as victims of violent crime,” says Kristen Marston, director of culture and entertainment advocacy. “And [whose story is and isn’t told] does matter, because it’s a direct depiction of whose lives are valued.”

In sociology, the phenomenon of disparate media coverage for white victims, as opposed to Black, brown, or Asian ones, is known as “Missing White Woman Syndrome(opens in a new tab).” In lay terms: a white woman goes missing and the media goes crazy, but a Black woman disappears and reporters everywhere pass up the story. For decades, advocates have fought against this particularly egregious example of bias in true crime and Marston says the genre is slowly becoming more inclusive.

But the rise of amateur true crime creators, particularly in podcasting and on social media, could be stalling that hard-won progress when it comes to more complex biases. For example, while an aspiring true crime content creator might think covering a well-known white serial killer, like Bundy, would be devoid of any potential racial bias, Marston argues such implications are always present.

“You always get more of a backstory with white perpetrators, don’t you?” Marston says. “So what does that do to our criminal justice system, when Black people are portrayed as one-dimensional and dangerous, but white people — even serial killers — still get to be human?” 

These issues, Marston says, will become ever-more important as the genre and its audience keep growing. But with so many voices in the space, they could also become more egregious.

“If you don’t have the right background, you could easily ignore the complexity of the justice system and the racism that, depending on the case, may be at play,“ she says. “And there is a significant responsibility when it comes to fueling something like that.”

Marston and advocates like her acknowledge true crime coverage can also bring considerable benefits — namely, educating would-be jurors about complex criminal topics, be it false confessions, faulty eye-witness testimony, police brutality, or wrongful convictions, that can help protect marginalized people.

“What I’ve noticed, personally, is that there are conversations that might not happen elsewhere, but do happen in true crime,” Marston says. “Conversations around evidence handling or conversations about the lack of support [a victim’s] family got when their loved one went missing. I can’t say this statistically speaking, but I tend to see those nuanced conversations more in the crime genre.”

“I always tell my students, ‘You guys might be on a jury someday,’” Vicary says. “‘Or you might be arrested for a crime, and you’re going to know not to answer any questions and ask for a lawyer.’ There is that educational component to true crime that I think is really valuable.”

Martson agrees the genre is worth the work it will take to improve. After all, if our fascination with true crime is to persist, better to have it debated openly than kept in the dark — and public pressure, Marston says, can make the difference.

After months of lobbying Fox Broadcasting, Color of Change successfully helped bring the controversial Cops to an end after 30 years on the air. The long-running program notoriously glorified police through ridealong-style documentary work, and drew increased criticism following the murder of George Floyd by police in 2020. The organization isn’t stopping there.

“We're going to keep pushing, we're going to keep holding people accountable, we're going to keep working to educate people behind the scenes,” she says. “[Real, lasting change] is going to be a combination of all of those things. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we will keep fighting for it.”

Existing at the intersection of education and entertainment, true crime is on an ethically treacherous perch; that much is undeniable. But the genre’s consequences aren’t always so abstract. Chris Cook, a private investigator in Humboldt County, California says she’s seen well-meaning crime obsessives actually derail investigations.

“It’s happened in the past where someone gets too involved, they don’t have the right information, and they leak it,” the former sheriff’s deputy says. “Then, the victim’s family gets excited about a new suspect or person of interest, and they want me to explore that when I’m already on a good trail.”

Containment, Cook says, is the responsibility of the investigator — and, with 28 years of experience in the field, she is more than capable of reining in enthusiasts on her cases. Still, the proliferation of true crime in the digital age has spurred a breeding ground for amateur detectives and vigilantes, who could create real trouble for rookies down the line.

“If you have new investigators or new law enforcement officers that [get] caught up in that, then yeah, I see that as being a potentially huge, huge problem,” Cook says. “But are we at that point? I don’t know yet.”

In recent years, titles like Don’t F**k with Cats(opens in a new tab), The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel(opens in a new tab), and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark(opens in a new tab) have shined a spotlight on internet sleuths, depicting an army of true crime fans ready to help solve cases regardless of experience. Cook says there’s no way of knowing how many of these aspiring detectives are out there, what cases they’re looking into, or why.

These people may be creating serious obstacles for investigators. But Cook says they can also, and in her work often are, a tremendous asset.

“I wish I’d kept track of all the calls and emails I get about people wanting to work for me,” Cook says warmly. “They don’t even care if they get paid. They think they have talent, and want to get on board right now.”

Many of these people contact Cook specifically because of Netflix’s Murder Mountain (2018), a six-part docuseries centered on the killing of Garret Rodriguez(opens in a new tab).

A 29-year-old from San Diego, Rodriguez went missing shortly after moving to Humboldt County in 2012. His family hired Cook to look into the case, and, within a matter of weeks, Rodriguez’s body was found in a shallow roadside grave. Cook looked to true crime to help further her investigation.

“I only [appeared in Murder Mountain] for the attention it brought to Garret’s case,” Cook says. “I’ve always had sources, who are not professionals, who I trust. I’ll tell them about a case and they’ll say, ‘Have you thought about this? What about this?’ It helps to look at it from their perspective, from a non-law enforcement, non-investigator perspective.” 

In the weeks that followed Murder Mountain’s release, Cook says dozens of viewers caller her with theories about Rodriguez’s killer. And just as many sought her help in finding their own loved ones, whose cases had been neglected or forgotten. While Rodriguez’s case remains unsolved, Cook says seeing one project inspire so much compassion and hope motivated her to invest more in the true crime space.

“There are so many people who are feeling exactly like the Rodgriguez family felt when they weren’t getting answers about their missing child,” Cook says. “They’re difficult cases, but fascinating as well. And I’ve solved a lot.”

Now, in a sort of real world tribute to the genre, Cook is starting her own podcast, Beyond Murder Mountain.

“I want the listeners to hear it from the horse's mouth, from the victims, from the actual witnesses, from the cops, people that were actually involved in the investigations and who have years of experience such as myself,” Cook says, adding her show will cover many previously unknown stories. “What we’re bringing to it is the real deal.”

Still, whether media coverage furthers investigations enough to be worth any unwanted attention remains unknown(opens in a new tab) in a broader context. Sure, series like America’s Most Wanted, To Catch a Predator, and Unsolved Mysteries have directly aided in the capture of criminals, while documentaries like HBO’s controversial Paradise Lost trilogy have helped free the wrongly accused. But how many false leads and red herrings they’ve created along the way, and whether that’s done more harm than good in the aggregate, no one can say for sure.

When Michael Myers returns in Halloween (2018), the slasher icon kicks off his murder spree by killing a pair of true crime podcasters(opens in a new tab). That stuck out to Gillian Pensavalle and Patrick Hinds, the hosts of popular comedy podcast True Crime Obsessed.

“We can always tell when someone has never listened to an episode of our show,” says Hinds of the genre’s critics — even those masked, knife-wielding ones. “Because if anyone makes the assumption that True Crime Obsessed laughs at or exploits murder [and assault], then they clearly haven’t listened to it.”

Impassioned lovers of entertainment, Hinds and Pensavalle entered podcasting by way of Broadway. In 2013, Hinds started interviewing Tony winners for his podcast Theater People, and by 2016, Pensavalle was hosting The Hamilcast: A Hamilton Podcast. Eventually, the duo found each other at a New York City happy hour and the promise of true crime came calling.

“We started out with the idea of making a nerdy, NPR-style show, where we would interview people from the true crime world about new releases,” recalls Hinds. 

“But when we went back to edit the pilot, and we got to the part where we were reviewing and recapping this documentary The Imposter(opens in a new tab), we realized that not only was it very different from anything else in the true crime space, but that we were able to bring humor to these dark subjects in a way that didn't ever laugh at the victim or the crime.”

“Looking back on it, of course that’s what we landed on,” says Pensavalle. “Because that's what we were doing when we were hanging out at happy hour. We were talking about true crime, asking, ‘Did you watch this?’ or ‘Did you hear about this?’”

Those frenzied, post-viewing interactions, Pensavalle and Hinds say, are what attracted True Crime Obsessed’s fan base in the first place. With a dedicated Facebook group of nearly 40,000 listeners — “We didn’t even start it, they did!” says Pensavalle — the show has become a digital hearth for fans crowding around the true crime fire. 

“We found that we became an outlet for people trying to process what they were seeing in true crime documentaries,” says Hinds. “It’s one thing to watch, go to bed, and have nightmares. It’s another thing to watch, then listen to people you think are funny talk about it, recap it, and rehash it. It gives people a way to process [true crime] that isn’t so scary.”

That most of these listeners are women, Pensavalle says, is no surprise. Shortly after True Crime Obsessed launched in 2017, actor-turned-activist Alyssa Milano called on “all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted” to post #MeToo on Twitter(opens in a new tab). And so began the downfall of high-profile predators, like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, as victims everywhere sought recognition. True crime, of course, kept booming.

“Every woman out there has some kind of brush with true crime,” Pensavalle explains. “And I think [spaces like these] help women feel seen, even if we haven’t been through what’s happening in the documentary. Trauma is trauma.”

“We are so obsessed with women,” adds Hinds. “And we’re so obsessed with the power of women. One of our big slogans from our podcast is ‘Let the women do the work.’ It’s on all of our merch; it’s something people write in the Facebook group all the time. It’s the thing we always, always highlight.”

Pensavalle says the phrase has even appeared on graduation caps, becoming a kind of rallying cry for young women starting careers in law, criminology, and forensic science. Competing podcasts like My Favorite Murder and Crime Junkie have seen their respective slogans — “Stay sexy and don’t get murdered” and “Be weird, be rude, stay alive” — reach the same, sentimental heights.

“It makes me cry, honestly,” says Pensavalle. “Podcasting is such an intimate medium, not just to listen to, but to create. You really do forget [your reach].”

Certainly, shows like True Crime Obsessed have their detractors, even amongst people who admit to enjoying them. In a 2020 essay for Mother Jones(opens in a new tab), one true crime fan wrote of some podcasts’ pro-police bias: “The genre is the most dangerous kind of propaganda — it not only teaches us a lie but makes us feel safe, and maybe even just, while learning it.”

But Pensavalle and Hinds say they thrive off of commentary and criticism, constantly seeking to make their show more inclusive of all true crime fans.

“We have made a real effort to give our listeners an avenue to communicate with us,” says Hinds. “We've been very clear that we want feedback. We want interaction. We want to know what they're thinking.”

“We’re constantly having conversations about ‘What is the right move here?’ and ‘How can we sort of have it all — and do right by everybody involved?’” adds Pensavalle, noting the show regularly hears from family members of victims who have appreciated their loved ones’ stories being included on the podcast. “We want to do the right thing.”

But in the end, like so many others, Pensavalle and Hinds must grapple with a vexing problem: When do empathy and explanation stray into exploitation? And how much do good intentions matter, if the end result has the potential to hurt more than help?

“Honestly, I’m really hopeful,” Hinds says of the genre’s future. “With every new documentary that comes out, with every new book or podcast, we are all learning how to do better.”

“I wanted to be able to allow other victims to see that you are not alone in your trauma,” Wenskunas explains of her decision to participate in the series. “To see that there are other people out there who have different and unique experiences, but that would be able to help and support you through this process.”

Wenskunas says she’d do it again. Still, sharing your story isn’t something the victims advocate recommends to all survivors. 

“I’ve also witnessed people who are very judgmental, very critical, even harassing and doubtful to [victims who share their experiences],” she says. “And then you hear about these [entertainment companies] that are making a ton of money off these shows, while the victims are getting like an airplane ticket, a meal, and maybe a $500 stipend.”

That disparity isn’t right, of course. But when asked whether she thinks true crime entertainment benefits or exploits victims as a whole, Wenskunas responds with the conflicted tone so many experts in the space use. She laughs, sighs, and finally says, “Well, it depends. Who’s watching?”

Against the rising tide of a runaway movement, it seems true crime fans have been tasked with an essential duty. In bearing witness to this type of story, our role as audience members goes beyond taking an interest in tragedy. Instead, we are asked to remain ever critical of the systems that profit from the suffering that follows, and use our community to ask essential questions about our world: What is justice? What is exploitation? What is right, and what is wrong?

“It’s on all of us,” Marston from Color of Change says. “It’s on viewers to make those decisions, to say, ‘This is egregious’ or ‘This doesn't tell the reality of my community’ and then decide not to support it. And it’s on everyone who works in the entertainment industry to do better.”

In the modern marketplace, brands that are perceived as unethical can become less competitive. As a result, Marston says public pressure can now practically influence what big Hollywood companies do(opens in a new tab). By choosing to analyze what we see on a case-by-case basis, audiences have the power to change the conversation around true crime — to demand appropriate respect for the victims, adequate socioeconomic context for the crimes, and accurate portrayals of police activity.

“That’s how you get justice to happen — you don’t shut up about it,” agrees Hinds from True Crime Obsessed. Pensavalle adds you should feel empowered to do your own research and draw your own educated conclusions about the true crime stories you hear.

“When people do that in the right way, then we can really make some change,” says Hinds.

Perhaps by shifting their fandom’s energies away from amateur detective work and toward informed entertainment criticism, true crimers can positively impact American culture’s understanding of justice as a whole. If they can fight against the gravity of desensitization to instead refocus on the human element of these stories, then they can honor the real people at their center.

“I always tell people, ‘Yes, I am a survivor,’” says Wenskunas. “‘But I’m also a mother and a grandmother. I’m a community leader. I’m a woman. I’m a friend. And I’m a child of God.’”