The Coldest Case in Laramie Serial Productions/New York Times
Sunday Feature: Carol and Muriel (Radio 3) | BBC Sounds
The Rabbit Hole Detectives Folding Pocket
Owain Wyn Evans (Radio 2) | BBC Sounds
Ooh, a new true crime cold case podcast from Serial! Stop the clocks, etc. Actually, don’t stop them, but turn them back to the first series in 2014, just to remember how different the audio and TV climate was when true crime wasn’t a thing. Imagine! Now, as the recent tragic death of Nicola Bulley has demonstrated, true crime has ballooned from a successful media genre into a lunatic, hands-on approach to the news. Don’t just shout at the telly, spout unproved theories on TikTok and rock up at the crime scene with a spade and a phone camera. After all, these days, who would trust the police?
Which brings me to The Coldest Case in Laramie, a new eight-episode podcast from Serial Productions and the New York Times. Over lockdown, searching for a story, journalist Kim Barker remembered a strange case from the town she lived in as a teenager: the murder of Shelli Wiley, 22, in 1985. Wiley was stabbed and her flat set on fire. No one was convicted of her murder. So far, so standard podcast fare, but there’s a twist and it’s this. Everyone in Laramie, Wyoming, says they know who did it and the person they name – a former Laramie cop named Fred Lamb – was even charged at one point. He’s even seemed to admit to the murder, on tape. So why is he still free?
