Crimes & Consequences - Hardcore True Crime

I am really excited to share some behind the scenes information with all the Podcast Guru listeners out there on behalf of the Crimes & Consequences podcast team. We consider our podcast, to be a “hardcore” true crime podcast, because we don’t hold back on the graphic details of the crimes. In fact, our goal in creating this podcast was to give our listeners as many specifics about the cases as possible. There is a dark side to humans that we find fascinating and we explore this through discussions of true crime homicide cases. In doing so, we discovered that there is also a very resilient side to people that often only surfaces during personal tragedies.

Advanced warning given

Because we deal with disturbing stories, we warn Crimes and Consequences listeners in advance if the episode is particularly graphic. For example, Episode 38 titled “The Surprise Party for Janet” tells the horrific account of a particularly brutal murder. In hosting that episode, I warned our listeners that the details of the crime would be ranked a 10 on what we have termed “the gruesome scale.” So for those who can’t handle the nitty gritty particulars of a murder (like my mom), we let them know in advance when to fast-forward through the graphic sections.

One of the questions I get asked the most as co-host of the show is which is my favorite episode. I personally was fascinated with the story behind Episode 28: Killings Around the Campfire. What happened to the five teen victims in that case is literally the plot to a horror movie with a surprise twist at the end. I also have a soft spot for cold cases that have recently been solved, such as Episode 39: The Comic Book Killer.

Crimes & Consequences was a Morbid Inspiration

Another question Tonya and I are frequently asked is what inspired us to start our own podcast. It may come as a surprise to many, but I’d never heard of a podcast until April of 2019, when my sister introduced me to Crime Junkie. Then I discovered Morbid and began listening to them on my drive to and from work. Tonya and I, being partners at our own law firm, would listen to different episodes and discuss them with each other during our lunch break. Last summer, after being a lawyer for 15 years, I began feeling burned out with my legal career and decided to learn about podcasting as a sort of hobby. The concept seemed simple enough: record a really interesting true crime story and share it with others. I learned very quickly that there was a lot more to podcasting than just telling a story. If thousands of people are going to be listening to you, it’s really important that each and every case is thoroughly researched to ensure accuracy; if you make a mistake someone is going to point it out.

This requires getting court records, transcripts, audios, autopsies and video recordings for cases and investing hours of time sorting through the material. Once the notes for the story are written then you can actually sit down to record the episode. You’d be shocked how many times you hesitate, repeat yourself, misspeak, mispronounce words or talk over someone during a conversation. I know we were. This is where the hours of editing the recording come in. There was a large learning curve with editing and recording, since we were starting from ground zero. In addition, I think it took us a few episodes to really figure out who we were and what we were about. What started out as two friends chit-chatting about true crime, developed into a show dealing with more serious issues such as wrongful convictions, questionable convictions, missing persons and unsolved murders. As the listeners sort through our playlist, they can hear the natural evolution into what we are today.

Learning the ins and outs

On the flip side of the research, recording and editing aspects of a podcast is the social media knowledge required to promote the podcast. Since we didn’t really use Instagram or Facebook prior to last year we knew very little about either platform especially when it came to promoting our podcast. It was imperative to us to learn the in’s and out’s of social media, because that is one of the keys to growing your podcast. Now we use them both daily as a means to spread the word about us and interact with our listeners. We use Facebook to go live with our Members Only fans and Instagram to go live with the public. We also created our own website, www.tntcrimes.com and make all of our own artwork. Literally everyday we are learning new things about this industry and incorporating them into our show.

In less than a year we went from knowing nothing about podcasting to having over 250,000 downloads and thousands of followers.  This has been quite an amazing experience and we have already achieved more than we ever dreamed possible with our podcast. We are humbled by our continued growth in the industry and really appreciate all of our listeners for supporting us and hope you will check out Crimes & Consequences too!