Podcast Corner: True crime as entertainment misses the mark — badly — with Ana Kriegel case
Tank Sinatra and Brooke Slater of Psychopedia.
True crime is among the biggest forms of entertainment, enjoying a surge of interest over the past decade.
That’s true of the likes of Netflix (Making a Murderer, Monster) and it’s true of podcasts too (My Favorite Murder, Crime Junkie, and closer to home Mens Rea and the limited series West Cork and The Witness).
The US podcast Psychopedia has been running since March 2023, quickly building a dedicated listenership and paying fans on Patreon. It says it’s a “true crime podcast infused with comedy… making it a crimedy”.
Hosted by Brooke Slater and Tank Sinatra, the former presents a horrific true crime case even week to which the latter reacts.
They’re nearing 100 episodes - and Irish cases have featured in that tonne. Two episodes were about the 'Scissor Sisters' and episode 86, entitled ‘Killing is my Kink’, discussed Graham Dwyer’s murder of Elaine O’Hara.
Episode 90, released a month ago, featured one of Ireland’s biggest comedians and podcasters, Joanne McNally, as it outlined the tragic tale of teenager Ana Kriegel. The episode is called 'Ireland’s Youngest Convicted Killers'.
This is where true crime as entertainment just feels wrong as this ‘crimedy’ makes for terrible listening.
The case is horrific. Two teenage boys were convicted in 2019 of the murder of the 14-year-old girl in May 2018.
McNally seems there mostly because 1) she’s a fan of the podcast, and 2) Slater seeks her out to help pronounce place names like Leixlip.
Talking about falling down internet rabbit holes, Slater says while doing the research on cases, “I literally have to go outside to touch grass, like I have to bring myself to sanity, I have to bring myself back into the world of the living… you can’t lose your humanity.”
Throughout there are breaks in this particular story for pop quizzes and jokes.
By the end, McNally declares: “I feel sorry for everyone involved, to be honest. I feel sorry for the parents of the two lads, I feel sorry for obviously Ana’s family, for Ana, the whole thing is disgusting.”
The tone of some of the chat in the last eight minutes, after they’ve gone through the case, feels misguided. "This was so much fun," they declare at the end.
If you’ve made it that far, like Slater doing her research, you might need to go outside to bring yourself back to sanity.
Meanwhile, following the multi-award winning podcast Where Is George Gibney? (Second Captains/BBC Sounds), Mark Horgan and Ciaran Cassidy return with a new 10-part series from Friday, November 22.
Three years in the making, Cover details the true story of a senior member of the IRA known as Stakeknife, whose double life as a British Army agent helped him to get away with murder.
