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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Edward Helmore

‘It’s hell being famous’: second violent death of Serial podcast character raises ethics questions

A youngish white man with a bushy dark beard, sunglasses, brimmed hat, blue checked shirt with the arms torn off, and tattooed arms stands in a level cemetery looking at a small, brownstone tombstone.
Tyler Goodson at the grave of his friend John B McLemore, in Green Pond, Alabama, on 3 May 2017. Goodson was killed by police on 3 December 2023. Photograph: Jay Reeves/AP

That fame can come with a price is a truism most associated with stars of film and screen or other arts. But the inhabitants of one small town in rural Alabama, deep in the American south, have discovered the truth of that notion via one of the most popular mediums of the internet age: the podcast.

Woodstock, a speck on the map halfway between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, was the subject of the hit 2017 podcast S-Town, which followed the often bizarre goings-on, and even more complex relationships, in a small American community where nothing was ever quite as it seemed.

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