Serial’s Success Inspired Tons of New True Crime Docs—But How Do They Hold Up in 2022?
By Ruth Young
Image: Netflix
After the podcast Serial dropped in 2014, the true crime documentary genre underwent a boom, inspiring a slew of similar podcasts and documentaries that tackled cold cases and mysteries. Now, there’s no shortage of true crime podcasts or docs, but at the time, Serial was ground-breaking. According to E!, it was the first podcast to ever reach 5 million downloads; its first season was downloaded more than 135 million times and by 2018, the series had been downloaded 340 million times. And while the genre of true crime had been popular before Serial, the podcast definitely helped make it mainstream. By 2020, true crime had become the third-most-popular genre among podcasts.
But almost a decade later, and following the news that Serial’s subject, Adnan Syed, had been freed after spending 23 years behind bars, we’re think about Serial ‘s legacy. The podcast has been criticized for its journalistic practices, how it treated its main subjects and host Sarah Koenig’s involvement in Syed’s case following the podcast’s conclusion—and many of the stories it inspired are similarly complicated. After all, the true crime genre provides a window into the cases they cover, but never really provides much follow up. Here are five other true crime podcasts and docs that sparked controversy, and what actually happened to the people they covered.
Making a Murderer
Making a Murderer followed Steven Avery over a 10-year period that saw him released from jail after 18 years for a crime he did not commit, to being convicted of a second unrelated crime a mere two years later. The series begins by outlining the 1985 crime Avery was wrongly convicted of and the subsequent civil lawsuit he filed against the people who put him behind bars. But the first episode ends with the filmmakers introducing the murder of Teresa Halbach. From there, they set out to explain to viewers how this murder connects to Avery’s previous wrongful conviction.
Air date: Its first, 10-part season aired on Netflix in December 2015 and was followed by a second season in October 2018. This series was written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos.
Where they are today: Both Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, remain incarcerated.
The controversy: Making a Murderer faced many critiques following its release, most notably that the documentary was incredibly one-sided and attempted to lead its viewers to the conclusion that Avery was framed by the police for Halbach’s murder. This series makes use of common cinematic techniques to heighten the tension between Avery and the legal system—with pretty much every episode ending with a cliff-hanger, it was very easy to get wrapped up in the story the filmmakers were trying to tell.
The Staircase
In 2003, after one of the longest trials in the history of North Carolina, Michael Peterson was found guilty in the murder of his wife, Kathleen. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Staircase follows Peterson and his legal team's investigation into Kathleen’s death and attempts to give viewers a first-hand look into how her death impacted the entire family.
Air date: This documentary, which was written and directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, was first released in October 2004 as an eight-part series. The filmmaker returned to Peterson in 2012 to film an additional two episodes. After that, Netflix picked up the series and an additional three episodes were filmed. The Staircase was then re-released as a 13-part series on the streaming site in June 2018.
Where they are today: In February 2017, Peterson entered an Alford plea, which means he plead guilty to the voluntary manslaughter of Kathleen while maintaining his innocence. Peterson was then sentenced to a maximum of 86 months in prison with credit for time served, and since he had already been in prison for over 98 months, he did not face additional prison time and was released. Peterson currently lives in Durham “in a ground floor apartment with no stairs,” according to his defence attorney David Rudolf.
The controversy: Similar to the criticism of Making a Murderer, this film was criticized for the way Peterson was represented by the filmmakers—as a heroic underdog taking on the giant legal system. However, it conveniently forgets to mention that Peterson developed a relationship with one of the filmmakers. According to Vox writer Aja Romano, Sophie Brunet, who edited all 13 episodes of The Staircase, fell in love with Peterson while the film was being made. “She and Peterson corresponded while he was in prison and later dated for many years—all while she continued to edit the series,” Romano asserts.
American Murder: The Family Next Door
In 2018, Christopher Lee Watts murdered his wife and their two children. He initially maintained they were missing and that he had no knowledge regarding their disappearance, but within a few days, he confessed to murdering his wife and later admitted to murdering his children as well. American Murder begins by looking into the disappearance of Shannan Watts and her two children, but spends most of its time detailing the ins and outs of the marriage between Shannan and Chris. It’s only in the final minutes of the film that viewers see a taped video confession where Watts admits to the murders and his subsequent sentencing.
Air date: This film was directed by Jenny Popplewell and was released on Netflix in September 2020.
Where they are today: In November 2018, Watts plead guilty to multiple counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole. Watts is currently serving his sentence at the Dodge Correctional Institute in Wisconsin.
The controversy: After the film's release on Netflix, many questioned if the streaming service went too far in its depiction of the case. The film featured an array of texts between Shannan, her husband and several of Shannan’s friends. Viewers called out the documentary for revealing so much of Shannan’s personal life and questioned if Netflix should have gone to the lengths it did to divulge this information. The film recreates these texts as animated text bubbles, which highlight Shannan’s frustration with her husband’s lack of interest in their sex life or relationship. These messages expose the intimate details of the marriage between Shannan and Chris and paint a picture of a failing relationship that anyone would have wanted to get out of—which to some, subtly blamed Shannan for her own murder.
My Favorite Murder
This podcast is hosted by American comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. On each episode, the hosts take turns sharing the details of murder cases, taking breaks to discuss movies they saw that week or self-care tips they learned in therapy. This podcast's focus on self-care and therapy has become a staple topic for its weekly episodes, with the hosts often openly discussing their own struggles with depression, alcoholism and anxiety. The hosts willingness to share these personal details of their own lives has spurred a growing online community of over 400,000 fans who not only discuss each other’s fascination with serial killers but also offer support to one another with their own mental-health struggles. Fans, who call themselves ‘Murderinos,’ have made Kilgariff and Hardstark the highest earning podcasters out there. According to Forbes, the duo made a reported USD$15 million in 2019.
Air date: My Favorite Murder premiered in January 2016 and has quickly become one of the most popular podcasts in the true crime genre, garnering 35 million downloads each month.
The controversy: My Favorite Murder occupies a huge space in the podcast world; the hosts consistently sell out live events and are in the ears of millions of listeners each month. But, one of the biggest criticisms Kilgariff and Hardstark face is how they discuss the role of law enforcement within the cases they present on their show. An early episode looked into the case against Larry Singleton, who in 1978 raped and violently attacked a teenage girl. After serving eight years of a 14-year sentence, Singleton was released. He then went on to commit a murder and was sentence to death. “Unfortunately, he died of cancer in a prison hospital, instead of being fried,” Kilgariff says, concluding her story on Singleton.
As Andrea DenHoed argues in the New Republic, “the show partakes in a long-standing relationship between the crime-story genre and modern law enforcement, in which the stories we tell about crime and how to stop it prop up a system that is often as much about maintaining fantasies of social order as it is about implementing real justice.”
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, Madness
This docuseries follows the life of former zookeeper and convicted felon Joe Exotic, with an additional focus on the community of ‘big cat’ conservationists and collectors within the United States. This series begins by examining the world of these collectors, many of whom operate zoos within their backyards and allow visitors to interact with lions and tigers in unconventional ways. The relationship between these collectors and the conservationists who are trying to end this practice provides fodder for this series’ biggest conflict, which culminates in an attempted murder plot against Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue.
Air date: This series, which was directed by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, dropped on Netflix on March 20, 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic and quickly became a cultural phenomenon.
Where they are now: On September 7, 2018, Exotic was arrested and accused of hiring two hit men to kill Baskin. Exotic was sentenced to 22 years in prison on January 20, 2020 and remains incarcerated in a Federal Medical Center in North Carolina.
The controversy: The backlash to this series was two-fold. First, some viewers felt the filmmakers did not do enough to address the way the collectors mistreated their animals. And, some critics believed the filmmakers exploited their (human) subjects, too. According to the Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation, there’s a simple explantion for how “Exotic manage[d] to have two husbands at the same time, who both identified as heterosexual, and were several years his junior. His primary method of manipulation was chemical: there are allegations that he was supplying meth and marijuana to them to keep both men under his thumb… Exotic’s actions are similar to what traffickers do to those they prostitute. Traffickers often either get their victims addicted to drugs or exacerbate existing addictions in order to make them dependent on the trafficker for access to the drugs.” Yet, by the end of this series, Joe Exotic comes out the other side looking like an unlikely hero and his erratic, misogynistic and at times dangerous activities appear as simply quirky traits.