‘I felt like things were missing’: Minnesota podcaster aims to make true crime more victim-centered

NINA MOINI: A Pew Research study found that 34% of US adults who listen to podcasts say they regularly listen to true crime podcasts, and a Minnesota-made podcast is taking that genre in a different direction. The podcast Truer Crime came out with season two this week. Let's listen to a clip from the trailer.

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CELISIA STANTON: In the aftermath of a tragedy, it's never long before the questions begin. How did this happen, could it have been prevented, and who's fault is it that it wasn't? It's exactly those questions we'll be exploring on my podcast, Truer Crime.

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WOMAN: University Police and Security. How can I help you?

LAUREN: Hi, this is Lauren. I called a few days ago. I've been getting these texts from a number of different people, and I think they're trying to lure me somewhere.

CELISIA STANTON: I'm Celisia Stanton, and on Monday, January 20, Truer Crime is back.

NINA MOINI: Celisia Stanton is the creator and producer of Truer Crime, and she joins us now, on the line.

Thanks for being here, Celisia, and congratulations on season two.

CELISIA STANTON: Thank you so much. I'm super excited to be chatting with you.

NINA MOINI: Me too. So Truer Crime, what a great idea. Tell me about the name of the podcast, what it means to you?

CELISIA STANTON: Yeah. I mean, for me, really, the show, it's right in the name, right? It's what does crime actually look like in our society?

I binged a lot of true crime. Before I started Truer Crime, I was a big listener of the genre. And I felt like a lot of times the stories that were covered or how they were covered weren't necessarily representative of what crime looked like in our real society. And so I wanted to do a podcast that really hit at some of those themes.

NINA MOINI: And it hit close to home, right, when I understand you actually became the victim of a crime yourself. Sometimes it's hard to identify with people, but then something like that happens. How did that inform your work?

CELISIA STANTON: Yeah. I mean, it was a pretty crazy situation. I had never been in any kind of media or podcasting before, and then I ended up being a victim of a financial crime, where I was defrauded of my life savings, and had to really go through that whole criminal justice process related to that. And it really was a big catalyst for me because, you know, in the aftermath of that happening, I was honestly just bingeing so much true crime, and it was 2020, so I was just doing a lot of like, cat puzzles, listening to true crime, and-- but with this newfound perspective of being a victim of this financial crime.

And I just was noticing so much about the stories that I was hearing, and kind of just telling my husband, like, all the things that I felt like were missing. You know, I felt like these true crime podcasts I was listening to, while they were entertaining and interesting in their-- in their storytelling approach, they weren't really engaging with, you know, maybe issues of race or gender or sexuality. They weren't talking about the root causes of crime, and, you know, like what it actually looks like to prevent crime.

They weren't, you know, talking about it from that sociological perspective. Even though I found the format interesting. So I was like, what if you could do a show that really combined both those elements? And in fact, my husband, basically-- I complained to him enough times that he was like, maybe you should just start your own show. And I was like, that's a good idea. And so that-- that's where kind of the inspiration came from is like, what if we could combine this powerful storytelling that is really entertaining and keeps people hooked with this sort of nuanced approach, where we really dive into the context, and, you know, have a lot of a lot more empathy for the experiences that victims and their families are going through.

NINA MOINI: So the first season premiered back in 2021, when you were having all these feelings around all of this, and I want to learn more about this idea of being victim-centered in-- you know, we think about that in podcasts and other forms of media. What does that mean and look like to you?

CELISIA STANTON: Yeah, that was something that I was thinking about a lot, especially when I was binging a lot of true crime, and before I actually had created the first episode of Truer Crime was like, what does it mean to be victim-centered? Because this was in 2020 at a time when I think there was just a lot more conversation happening about-- or the conversation about what does ethics and true crime look like? You know, especially, coming from victims and victim's family members are kind of led by them.

And so, for me, I was thinking like, OK, I'm now the victim of this financial crime. Victim-centered to me isn't just, oh, yeah, the victim was beautiful, and had this great personality. Victim-centered really looks like, how do we create a society where these sorts of things don't have to happen again?

And I felt like the takeaway from so much true crime media was like, be afraid of everybody. You know, you have to be hyper vigilant. Anyone could be out to get you. You can't trust your husband, your neighbor, your friend. You can never truly know anyone.

And for me, that was really unsettling. That didn't make me feel safer. And so I kind of was grappling with that idea of maybe being victim-centered was taking these stories that are tragic, that are really awful, but trying to set them up so that people can, you know, yeah, they're going to get entertainment value out of it, but how are they going to then go into their real life and maybe start a critical conversation or, you know, be involved with work that helps create safer and more connected communities?

NINA MOINI: And you're not just doing, you know, local cases or lesser known. You're doing a mixture of different types of cases. How are you picking which ones to focus in on?

CELISIA STANTON: Yeah. For me, I really, from the very beginning, I wanted to do episodic true crime. Meaning that every episode of true crime is a different case. You know, it's not one of those shows where we're covering one case over a series of episodes.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

CELISIA STANTON: And so that means we're doing lots of different stories. And I really always wanted to be seen as a true crime podcast, not like social justice or history, but truly true crime. And so for me, that was like, OK, we have to cover the gamut here, right?

So that could be an infamous case. Maybe there is a unique angle on a story that people think they know. For example, in season one, I covered Jonestown, which you know, is a story a lot of people know, or maybe they've heard the line like, "Don't drink the Kool-Aid," right?

But a lot of folks don't know that Jim Jones was actually really pushing ideas of racial and class equity-- class equity issues, and that the majority of the folks who died in Jonestown were Black folks and Black women, in particular, who felt like they were part of an activist organization.

You know, this season, we're covering the story of the Manson family murders, another infamous case. We'll cover it over two episodes. And that's the story people are familiar with, but they might not know that Manson was actually trying to incite a race war with these crimes, that he tried to pin some of his-- the killings on the Black Panthers. So, you know, really, part of it is, can I tell these stories that people think they know in a unique way?

And I also try to do some like historical cases. Cases that normally get considered history, they normally don't get the true crime treatment. But I was like, what would it look like to maybe tell these stories that have historical significance to an audience that likes true crime? Tell it in a true crime storytelling format.

So, for example, on Monday, we released-- on MLK Day, we released an episode about the untold story of Martin Luther King's assassination. People might know a thing or two here about that-- That he was killed in Tennessee on a motel balcony, that a man was convicted and sent to prison for that murder-- but a lot of people don't know that in 1999, the King family actually sued-- started a civil trial, suing the US government amongst several other entities and named groups, implicating them in King's assassination.

They don't believe-- the King family does not believe that the person who went to prison for killing King was actually the person who was responsible. And so there's a lot of really interesting details and evidence that I'm just shocked that, like, I didn't know about, and most people don't know about.

NINA MOINI: You're wanting to go deeper on stories that people might have already heard, and also uncover stories they've never heard of.

But before I let you go, Celisia, I want to make sure that you can talk about your launch event that's happening tonight. Tell us about it.

CELISIA STANTON: Yeah. So tonight, since we launched this Monday, tonight we're going to be hosting an event. It's called Podcasting From Below. I'll be hosting it alongside a wonderful co-host named Chris Stedman, who is the host of the podcast Unread and the founder of a new podcast production company called Good Judy.

And we're going to be in conversation tonight, at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis, to discuss what it's like to tell stories that are centered around justice and in podcasting. We'll have a pop-up bookstore from Black Garnet Books and a book drive for Women's Prison Book Project.

NINA MOINI: Awesome. Celisia, congratulations again on season two, and thank you for being here.

CELISIA STANTON: Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

NINA MOINI: Celisia Stanton is the creator and producer of the podcast Truer Crime. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Truer Crime has a launch event again tonight. We've got the information on that at nprnews.org.