Casefile True Crime Podcast

Casefile True Crime Podcast, or simply Casefile, is a weekly (sometimes fortnightly) true crime themed podcast that first aired in Australia in January 2016 hosted by an Australian man who remains anonymous. The series deals with solved or cold criminal cases, often related to well-known murders and serial crimes. Most of the cases relate to Australian cases (e.g. Port Arthur or the Snowtown murders), although notable crimes from the UK and the USA are also regularly featured,^[1] and cases from Canada, France, Guyana, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, and Ukraine have also been included. Unlike a number of similar podcasts, the series is scripted and narrative, relying primarily on original police or mass-media documents, eyewitness accounts, and interview or public announcement recordings.^[2] Larger and more-complex cases, such as The Yorkshire Ripper, The Moors Murders, and The East Area Rapist, have received multiple-week serialised broadcasts, and case updates to previously aired cases are also provided from time to time. The series has been well received, and has won a number of awards since its debut, including Best of 2016 (iTunes).

Production

The podcast first aired on 9 January 2016^[3] and was conceived by an anonymous Australian host who started producing the show in 2015 in his spare room.^[1] The host had just had surgery and was listening to a lot of podcasts and true-crime shows (e.g. The Joe Rogan Experience, Hardcore History, Serial and Making A Murderer) at the time, and was encouraged by Joe Rogan to make his own based on in-depth research and a storytelling style.^[4] According to one source, the host remains anonymous because "he wants the stories, facts, and questions speak for themselves"^[5] and "It makes the show about the stories and that's it."^[4] According to another review, the podcast's:

deliberately sparse production value became its strongest asset, plunging listeners into a pool of ambient silence with a host neither named nor contextualized. ... the podcast does not go the typical route of parading listeners through a montage of primary source material like evening news reports or interviews with now-wizened investigators; instead, the stories are unfolded slowly and methodically by the anonymous host, with just enough editorializing to make it feel like a friend or a witness is relaying the tale.^[6]

In its current format, the 2018 Casefile team now consists of two researcher/writers, two composers, a designer, and the host/narrator.^[7] It has also had a producer, Mike Migas, “since about episode 7”, which led to episodes 1–6 being reworked.^[4] Researchers have also travelled internationally to access primary resources in some cases, such as former researcher and co-writer Anna Priestland, who travelled from Melbourne to visit the national archives in Kew in 2017 to examine police files on Myra Hindley.^[1]

Each case includes a corresponding page on the podcast's official homepage, which details information such as special thank yous, official support phone numbers and websites (for Australia, the UK, the US, Canada and New Zealand), other credits, and resources (such as books, websites, videos, documents, articles, maps, wanted posters, and suspect sketches), as in this example. Warnings are regularly given at the start of podcasts due to the graphic content. It is available via numerous sites.^[8] One episode, Case 55 (Simone Strobel, released 15 July 2017), has been removed due to legal issues, although general details of the case itself are publicly available.^[9][10][11]

Episodes

(Note: release dates are based on the official website.)

Reception

Along with the recent rise in true crime podcasting, as seen in Serial or S-Town, the series has been reviewed positively by several sources:^[12][4]

Rolling Stone (22 July 2016):

As Casefile points out in their tagline, fact is scarier than fiction. But what the podcast might really prove is that fact is even scarier when told in a thick Australian accent – especially when accompanied by ambient, pulsing noise from a trio of professional sound designers and musicians. In each weekly episode, which can run anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half, the narrator... calmly tells a story of a devastating Australian crime. The podcast expertly covers murder and abduction, sometimes walking the listener through the criminal's trial, and other times discussing potential theories for a crime whose perpetrator was never caught.^[13]

Evening Standard (28 March 2017):

The Australian-made show, which launched in January last year, has regularly featured in the UK’s top 10 podcasts on iTunes in recent months. It also regularly reaches the top 50 in the US chart, rising as high as fourth last July. ... Its mini-series on Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe received 5.8 million downloads — the most for a single case since the launch. Its most popular single episode was on British tourist Peter Falconio ... [which] has more than 4.2 million downloads. A series covering the Moors Murders ... had more than a million downloads in four days.^[1]

Download statistics by iTunesChart.net state that Casefile has charted in the top 100 in 4 regions, with peak ranking positions of the podcast including: Australia (1), Canada (9), United Kingdom (14), and United States (7).^[14] In Australia, the podcast has consistently been in the top 10 since May 2016.^[15]

Awards

• Best of 2016 (iTunes)^[16]
• CastAway 2017 Australian Podcast Awards^[16]
• Discover Pods award (Most Innovative Podcast 2017)^[17]
• Off the Charts 2017^[16]

See also

• Serial (podcast)
• Criminal (podcast)

References

External links

• Official website