Based on: Gamache, K., Rice, K., Allen, A., & Pontbriand, W. (2026). The impact of true crime podcasts on cold case investigations and victims’ advocacy. Journal of Psychology & Behavioral Science, 13, 163–179.
When a case goes cold, the silence that follows can be deafening. Families are left holding grief that has no resolution, no courtroom, no verdict. In recent years, true crime podcasts have stepped into that silence — and the results have been complicated. As a cold case advocate, I’ve watched this genre grow from a niche interest into a cultural force. And I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about what that means for the families we fight for.
That’s why a newly published study from Roger Williams University caught my attention — and why I believe every advocate, every true crime listener, and every family member navigating an unsolved case deserves to read it.
Gamache, Rice, Allen, and Pontbriand’s 2026 article, “The Impact of True Crime Podcasts on Cold Case Investigations and Victims’ Advocacy,” published in the Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Science, takes a rigorous look at how the true crime media landscape intersects with justice — and where it falls short. The study brings together three groups who rarely sit at the same table: law enforcement, victim advocates, and true crime content creators. What they found confirms what many of us in the advocacy world have felt for years: the impact of these podcasts is real, complex, and deeply consequential.
How the Research Was Done
The researchers used a qualitative phenomenological design — a method rooted in uncovering the lived experiences of people deeply embedded in a subject. Rather than relying on statistics alone, they conducted in-depth interviews with law enforcement officers, victim advocates, and true crime podcast hosts and producers. This approach matters because the experience of navigating cold cases and true crime media cannot be reduced to numbers. It requires listening.
That methodology resonates with me. As advocates, we know that the most important data often lives in what families say when someone finally asks the right questions.
Three Perspectives. One Painful Reality.
The study identified meaningful differences in how each group views the role of true crime podcasting — differences that speak directly to the tensions advocates encounter every day.
What Law Enforcement Said
Officers expressed serious concern about the wave of amateur online investigators that true crime podcasts tend to inspire. Web-sleuthing, while often well-intentioned, can compromise active investigations, spread misinformation, and interfere with the careful, methodical work that solving a case requires. Their message was clear: public attention without proper boundaries can do real damage.
As someone who works closely with families and investigators, I understand both sides of this tension. Families often turn to podcasts and online communities because they feel the system has forgotten them. Law enforcement, operating under their own constraints and pressures, sometimes struggles to communicate that work is still ongoing. That gap — between families desperate for answers and investigators who cannot always share what they know — is where so much pain lives.
What True Crime Content Creators Said
Podcast hosts and producers described the constant pressure of balancing compelling storytelling with factual integrity and genuine empathy for victims’ families. This is a tension I recognize. The most responsible creators in this space know that behind every episode is a real family — real people who are going to hear their loved one’s story told by a stranger to an audience of thousands.
The research reflects what many in the true crime community grapple with: the line between awareness and exploitation is not always clear, and crossing it — even unintentionally — can cause profound harm.
What Victim Advocates Said
This is the section of the research that matters most to me — and the one I would encourage every advocate to read directly in the full article. Advocates identified what the researchers describe as a dual reality: true crime media has the potential for both harm and healing.
That framing captures something essential. I have seen families retraumatized when their loved one’s story is sensationalized, their grief turned into content, their unanswered questions treated as plot points. I have also seen renewed attention bring forward new leads, connect isolated families with communities of support, and remind the public that a case is not closed just because it has gone cold.
The difference between harm and healing often comes down to how the story is told — and whether the family’s dignity is kept at the center.
The Bigger Picture: What This Research Reflects
Beyond the three professional perspectives, the study speaks to several truths that those of us in advocacy work encounter constantly.
The Commodification of Grief
True crime is now an industry. Serial killer merchandise, podcast sponsorships, and “true crime tourism” exist alongside genuine journalism and advocacy work. The risk is that as the genre grows, the human beings at the center of these stories can be reduced to content. When that happens, families pay the price.
This research adds academic weight to a concern advocates have raised for years: the entertainment value of true crime should never come at the expense of the people living inside those stories.
Racial Disparities in Who Gets Heard
The study touches on a disparity that the advocacy community has long confronted. Whose stories get told — and whose cases get covered — is not a neutral process. Data from the Urban Institute confirms that homicide clearance rates for Black victims sit at approximately 43%, compared to 75% for white victims. That gap in justice is mirrored in the true crime genre, where stories of white women and girls historically dominate coverage.
As advocates, we have a responsibility to call this out — and to amplify the voices and cases of communities that have been systematically overlooked, both by law enforcement and by media.
The Fantasy That Breaks
One of the most powerful observations embedded in this research is the moment when true crime stops feeling like entertainment and starts feeling like reality. For families living inside these cases, it never felt like entertainment. This research asks the broader public — and content creators — to sit with that discomfort.
Why This Research Matters to Me Personally
I was interviewed as part of the research process that informed this study. While my specific quotes were not included in the final published article, the research team shared that the perspective I provided contributed to the core themes developed in the Advocates’ section. That feels right to me. Advocacy work is rarely about individual recognition — it is about ensuring that the experiences of families and advocates shape the way researchers, policymakers, and the public understand these issues.
To know that the voices of advocates helped build the framework of this study is meaningful. It is a reminder that when academics and advocates work together, the research produced is more grounded, more honest, and more useful.
A Call to Action
The conclusions of this study are not abstract. They carry direct implications for how we move forward:
For true crime content creators: Approach every case with deliberate care. Know that your platform reaches families who are still waiting for answers, and that how you tell their loved one’s story has consequences.
For law enforcement: Recognize the communication gap that pushes families toward outside media for information, and invest in trauma-informed, transparent engagement with co-victims.
For advocates: Engage with this research. Share it. Use it to make the case — to media, to policymakers, and to the public — that ethical standards in true crime storytelling are not optional.
For listeners: Ask who is telling the story, how they are telling it, and whose dignity is being honored. Your attention is not neutral — it shapes what gets made and what gets covered.
Unsolved cases do not just leave questions unanswered. They leave lives fractured. True crime podcasts can be part of the solution — or they can deepen the wound. The difference lies in the choices made by everyone involved, from the researcher to the content creator to the listener.
As a society, we must do more to support victims’ families — not just through renewed investigative attention, but through a media landscape that treats their stories with the seriousness and humanity they deserve. The consequences of getting this wrong are too heavy to bear, and too unjust to ignore.
Read the Full Research
“The Impact of True Crime Podcasts on Cold Case Investigations and Victims’ Advocacy” by Gamache, Rice, Allen, & Pontbriand (2026) is published in the Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Science, Vol. 13, pp. 163–179.
References
Gamache, K., Rice, K., Allen, A., & Pontbriand, W. (2026). The impact of true crime podcasts on cold case investigations and victims’ advocacy. Journal of Psychology & Behavioral Science, 13, 163–179. https://docs.rwu.edu/fcas_fp/1204/ https://doi.org/10.15640/jpbs.v13p13
Altholz, R. (2020). Living with impunity: Unsolved murders in Oakland and the human rights impact on victims’ family members. UC Berkeley International Human Rights Law Clinic. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Living-with-Impunity.pdf
Connolly, J., & Gordon, R. (2015). Co-victims of homicide: A systematic review of the literature. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 16(4), 494–505. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838014557285
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2023). Reducing racial inequality in crime and justice: Science, practice, and policy. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26705 https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26705/chapter/4
Reed, M. D., & Caraballo, K. (2022). Voice of the victims: Accounts of secondary victimization with the court system among homicide co-victims. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(13–14), NP10832–NP10861. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260521989732
Sharpe, T. L. (2015). Understanding the sociocultural context of coping for African American family members of homicide victims: A conceptual model. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 16(1), 48–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838013515760