by Annalise

I was recently featured on my favorite true crime podcast! Let me tell you how that came about.

I’ve always been enthralled by the mysterious. Documentaries about alien encounters, Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, and supernatural events were my favorite thing to watch growing up. Anything ridiculous or unbelievable, I wanted to read and learn about it. I vividly remember being in a waiting room when I was about 10, and picking up a magazine with an article about Elvis. The author staunchly claimed that Elvis was still alive. The most convincing point the author made was that an attendee at his funeral claims to have seen his brow sweating in his own coffin. The only problem is…dead bodies don’t sweat. This grotesque contradiction was fascinating to me, and I even adopted the author’s outlandish opinion for a few years. My parents and older sisters tried to tell me that it was a fictional magazine article, but I wanted to believe the unbelievable.

As I grew older, I was able to distinguish between fiction, parody, and reality. While I still enjoyed the occasional fantasy story, my focus had shifted to life-like mysteries and the victory of justice. I watched every age-appropriate murder mystery show I could find; Monk, Midsomer Murders, Medium, Rosemary and Thyme, Psych, to name a few. Mostly realistic mysteries with just a thread of the outrageous were both entertaining and satisfied my longing for justice for the fictional victims.

I soon realized that happy endings weren’t entirely realistic and shifted to only the true stories of documentaries, and this eventually led me to the vast world of podcasts. My favorite true crime podcast is called Crime Junkie. The hosts are two women who grew up as neighbors and best friends. Together they investigate crimes, murders, and disappearances, and then tastefully tell the victim’s story. They crowdfund and donate to search parties, rewards for information, and foundations that have been born from tragedy.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a reoccurring theme throughout their show, and that is Domestic Abuse. In every single case of domestic homicide, it is discovered that domestic abuse was first present. These two things are undoubtedly linked, and the hosts of Crime Junkie don’t shy away from this fact.

Although done sensitively, the show can have some heavy subject matter, which is why once a month they feature a listener and their dog. It’s the perfect way to ease the load and bring the focus back to something lighthearted and pure. I submitted my story (many of you may recognize it) and it was chosen to be featured on an episode! If you’d like to listen to it, and perhaps become a Crime Junkie listener, the link to the episode is below. My story is mentioned at the end but both stories featured are worth listening to.

Listener discretion is advised.

 

SURVIVED: Chrystul Kizer and Cyntoia Brown