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#10 in True Crime Podcasts
of 14 ranked entries
David Ridgen · CBC · Since 2016
Ridgen personally works each cold case alongside grieving families rather than reporting from a distance, and his direct, hands-on investigative involvement gives the show an intimacy closer to advocacy journalism than typical true crime. Recorded specifics: launched 2016, host David Ridgen, network CBC. Panel highlighted ridgen’s direct, hands-on involvement in each case is genuinely uncommon in the genre, a strong track record of Canadian cold cases getting renewed police attention and consistently centers grieving families rather than sensationalizing the crime itself. The reservation on record is the slower, relationship-driven pace is a deliberate contrast to punchier true-crime shows.
Score breakdown
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on True Crime Podcasts.
On the record
| Launched | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Host | David Ridgen |
| Network | CBC |
| Rating | 8.6 |
Panel verdict
What it gets right
Where it gives ground
1 appearance
From the same list
Phoebe Judge · Since 2014
Judge treats crime as a lens for genuinely strange human behavior rather than a formula to repeat, and the show’s range — a heist, a wrongful arrest, a man who legally impersonated a doctor for years — refuses to stay inside true crime’s usual grooves.
Madeleine Baran · APM Reports · Since 2016
Baran’s team spent years re-investigating a wrongful murder conviction with the rigor of an actual legal appeal, and their reporting on the Curtis Flowers case directly contributed to his eventual release — journalism with a documented, real-world outcome.
Laura Beil · Wondery · 2018
Beil reported on a surgeon who kept operating and kept maiming patients despite repeated warnings to the hospitals employing him, and the show’s real fury is aimed less at the surgeon than at every institution that let him keep a scalpel.
Gilbert King · Lava for Good · 2023
King, a Pulitzer-winning author, spent years re-investigating a Florida wrongful-conviction case, and the show’s late-season turn — actually locating a credible alternate confession — is the kind of reporting payoff true crime rarely delivers for real.
Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark · Since 2016
Kilgariff and Hardstark built the genre’s most successful comedic entry by treating true crime fandom itself as the subject as much as the cases, and "stay sexy, don’t get murdered" became one of podcasting’s most recognized sign-offs.
Ashley Flowers · audiochuck · Since 2017
Flowers built a tight, efficient weekly-case format that consistently tops the podcast charts, trading the slow-burn investigative approach of prestige true crime for a briskly paced, highly repeatable structure.
Casefile · Since 2016
The Australian-produced show’s host has stayed anonymous since launch by deliberate choice, letting meticulously sourced case files speak without the parasocial host relationship most true-crime shows lean on.
Payne Lindsey · Tenderfoot TV · Since 2016
Lindsey started investigating a cold missing-persons case as an independent amateur project, and the show’s reporting is widely credited with generating new leads that helped finally close the real Tara Grinstead case.
Top 49 rankings are editorial. Scores are produced from the published criteria on each list and are refreshed on the cadence stated there. Figures shown across this section are curated demonstration data.