Welcome to the end of an era.
We want to let you know that with Friday’s final episode of Season 8 of Jury Duty, we are suspending publication of CrimeStory.com and the Jury Duty podcast, as well as this newsletter, to focus our energies on other endeavors. These new initiatives are only possible because of the work we’ve done here at Crime Story.
Shadow of Hope
One of those new endeavors is a podcast produced by our sister company, Pleasant Run Productions. “Shadow of Hope” explores the history of the People of Hope, a Catholic Covenant Community. At their peak in the 1980s, the People of Hope took over a parish in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, clashed with local residents, and built the suburban equivalent of a compound.
Over eight episodes, host Karen Ann Coburn tries to find out what led regular people – her neighbors, classmates, and friends – to commit their lives to this secretive group. In the process, she reveals the truth about life inside a Covenant Community and ponders the question, “What price are we willing to pay to belong to something bigger than ourselves?”
Humanistic Storytelling
We started Crime Story five years ago this month, in August of 2019. In honor of that milestone, we want to revisit our original mission statement by publisher Kary Antholis, excerpted below:
“When I was in my teens, I read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and then saw the film by Richard Brooks. Both works stimulated my sense of the humanistic possibilities of storytelling in the often-dehumanizing world of crime and punishment. Since then, I have found myself drawn to works of art, literature, film, music, and television that push the boundaries of those possibilities. I have come to believe that such stories can both enthrall a broad audience and stimulate serious-minded conversations about their underlying issues.
I wanted to create a forum where I and other like-minded folks could explore these kinds of tales: a forum for artists, advocates, thinkers, and policymakers to tell stories, deconstruct narratives, and share ideas that might contribute to meaningful reform of a criminal justice system riddled with injustice.
With the help of Ted Braun, a filmmaker and professor of screenwriting at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, I assembled a team of creative writers who were eager to find the humanity in everyday stories from the world of crimes, trials, and incarceration. Collectively, we aim to appeal to both people who are engaged by a well-told crime story, AND those who care about the fairness of our justice system.
With that as our mission, I started visiting the courthouses with some of the young writers whom we have commissioned. The energy, enthusiasm, and excitement they feel is infectious. They each share the thrill of having the opportunity to use their talents to tell stories of real people in a way that might engage and compel readers and help create empathy for those whose lives have been sucked into a messy and inhumane system. Their energy and belief in the progressive power of empathetic storytelling is Crime Story’s propeller.”
Five Years of Crime Stories
These last five years have been busy ones at Crime Story. Our work in that time has spanned media – from podcasts to TV and film to original reporting, essays, and interviews – and drawn millions of readers and listeners. Thank you all for following along.
Podcasts
Jury Duty covered, over nine seasons, the trials of Robert Durst, Kyle Rittenhouse, Travis and Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan (convicted in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery), former Olympic equestrian Michael Barrisone, Harvey Weinstein, Danny Masterson, OJ Simpson, and Alex Murdaugh. Over the last four and a half years, the podcast has gotten nearly five million downloads.
Firebug, hosted by Kary and produced and edited by Marc Smerling at Truth Media, about a serial arsonist who terrorized Southern California in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, will become an Apple TV+ original series created by Dennis Lehane and starring Taron Egerton, John Leguizamo, and Greg Kinnear.
Night Raid – a partnership between Crime Story, LAist, eOne, and Acast, based on original reporting for Crime Story – told the story of a chaotic 2014 SWAT raid on a home in San Gabriel that resulted in the death of Pomona police officer Shaun Diamond and the incarceration of David Martinez.
TV and Film
Created and produced by The Wire‘s David Simon and George Pelecanos, with Kary also serving as executive producer, the HBO limited series We Own This City, based on Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton’s book of the same name, chronicled the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s infamous Gun Trace Task Force.
The HBO original documentary The Slow Hustle, directed by Sonja Sohn and produced in association with Crime Story, examined the still-unsolved death of Baltimore police detective Sean Suiter and the costs of seeking justice within a corrupt system. The film was nominated for a 2022 News & Documentary Emmy in the Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary category.
The 2022 Apple TV+ original series Black Bird – produced by Kary under the Crime Story banner and starring Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser, and the late Ray Liotta – received rave reviews and numerous awards nominations. Hauser won a Critics’ Choice Award, an Emmy, and a Golden Globe for his performance as serial killer Larry Hall.
Writing and Interviews
CrimeStory.com featured exclusive columns by Contributing Editor, Georgetown Law professor, and prominent race and justice scholar Paul Butler; Michael Romano, Founding Director of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School; and Andrew Block, former Director of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice; original reporting and essays by Amanda Knox, veteran New York Times reporter Charles V. Bagli on Robert Durst, The Atlantic contributor and former federal prosecutor Ken White on the “Varsity Blues scandal,” and Emmy-nominated investigative journalist Michele McPhee on Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and the rise of MS-13.
It also featured original reporting from the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown LA by Kary, Sean Smith, and Chris Tarricone (on the “Hollywood Ripper”); in partnership with the RightWay Foundation, a series of essays by foster youth about their experiences in and out of the foster care system, co-written with Crime Story journalists; and exclusive excerpts from Inside the Robe: A Judge’s Candid Tale of Criminal Justice in America, by former LA County Superior Court Judge Katherine Mader.
For the “Expert Witness” series, Amanda Knox and Christopher Robinson interviewed criminal justice reporters like Emily Bazelon and Maurice Chammah, movement leaders and organizers like DeRay McKesson and Mike Africa Jr., and exonerees like Clay Chabot, who spent more than two decades in prison before DNA evidence overturned his life sentence, and Noura Jackson, who was wrongfully convicted of her mother’s murder at 18 years old.
For his “Storyteller Interview” series, Kary spoke with masters of crime and justice storytelling, including the makers of dramas like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Law and Order, and Criminal Minds; documentaries like Making a Murderer, The Jinx, and The Central Park Five; and podcasts like Serial and Dirty John. In August of 2019, he also interviewed then-sitting Attorney General William Barr on the “Crime Story Interviews” podcast.
Thank You!
We want to offer special thanks to our marketing consultant, Malcolm Stewart, our consulting editor, Hannah Teich, and our in-house producer, writer, editor, podcast host, and audio engineer, Chris Tarricone, for being with Crime Story every step of the past five years .
And finally, we thank you, our readers and listeners. We are so grateful to all of you for following us on this journey, and hope you will stay tuned for what comes next.
