I never fancied myself a big "true crime" story fan, mostly because in my post-broadcast-TV hipster move a few years ago, I am generally anti-weekly-procedural anything. But after being sucked into How to Make a Murderer (Thank you, Netflix, for the break from fifteen versions of CSI), I've been more open to it a a legit form of entertainment to fill my ears while cleaning my pool.
Think of In The Dark as Serial meets Stranger Things. One of my other podcasts suggested I give it a try, so I went for it. It's a 9-part series about the 1989 kidnapping and disappearance of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling somewhere in one of those M-states up north (I find the thick midwest accents endearing when it's NOT coming out of Sarah Palin's piehole). This was the case that spurred national sex offender registries, but it wasn't solved until 27 years passed--just this August, in fact--when the murderer confessed.
As Madeleine Baran expertly unpacks the case for us, it becomes clear that most of the interest behind the case involves just how bungled up it was. But she takes it further, and leads us to the slow realization that this small town police department's flaws are more widespread in the country than we'd like to believe.
I just finished it yesterday, and I am definitely looking forward to anything else Baran and her team of investigative reporters can bring to my bluetooth headphones.