Episode 78: True Crime Sleuths: Who Wins the Fenton Hardy Award for Excellence?

After a couple of weeks palate cleanser (while Kristina did more reading and research) we are once again back into the True Crime arc and today we are discussing true crime amateur sleuths. We are going to speak to the evolution of sleuthing, how sleuthing can help, how it can harm and overarching it all is what some online scholars have identified as a late modern backlash against experts. We’re going to be asking the question: do they sleuth because they do not trust the prevailing authority and how does solipsism fit into everything?

Sources

Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer 2019 3 part docuseries about an online manhunt. It is written & directed by Mark Lewis and was released on Netflix on December 18, 2019. The series chronicles events following a crowd-sourced amateur investigation into a series of animal cruelty acts committed by Canadian pornographic actor Luka Magnotta, culminating in his murder of Chinese international student Jun Lin.

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel 2021 4 part American docu-series directed by Joe Berlinger that chronicles the mysterious disappearance and death of Elisa Lam, a Canadian woman who was traveling in California on her own.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark 2021 is an American true crime documentary television series directed by Liz Garbus, Elizabeth Wolff, Myles Kane and Josh Koury, revolving around Michelle McNamara as she writes a book about and investigates the Golden State Killer.

True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray. 2016 a book about the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a University of Massachusetts student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004.

Dean, Michelle “True Crime Addict” and the Problem with Internet Sleuths. The New Yorker. June 23, 2016

Zhang, Sarah. WHAT IT MEANS TO NAME A FORGOTTEN MURDER VICTIM. The Atlantic, November 18, 2019

Banner, Adam. Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel’ and the problem with internet sleuths. ABA Journal. March 25, 2021

Jessica Maddox Professor Digital Media studies https://jessicamaddox-28868.medium.com/we-need-to-talk-about-internet-sleuths-5c498dfa70df

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