Portrait of a True Crime Podcast
On a Tuesday afternoon in Overland Park, Kansas, Kelsey Dunbar, who publishes a true crime podcast, climbs into her 2021 Subaru Forester. She adjusts the Blue Yeti microphone mounted to the center console, and lowers the windows exactly one inch.
“For the acoustics,” she says. She has given this some thought.
Dunbar is the creator, host, producer, and merchandise director of Shadows & Whispers, a true crime podcast with 140,000 subscribers and what Dunbar refers to, without irony, as “a community.”
The community calls itself the Whisper Sisters. Dunbar calls them her besties. The Whisper Sisters buy the merch: a Stanley tumbler in matte black, a hoodie reading SEEK TRUTH, and a tote bag featuring a magnifying glass over a shadowy figure that has moved 340 units.
Dunbar releases new episodes every Thursday and considers her true crime pursuits a discipline.
“I feel a responsibility. These stories deserve to be told.”
Dunbar, 34, came to true crime in 2020, having given up a career in pharmaceutical sales. She was looking, as she puts it, for “her thing.” She found it at 11 p.m. on a Wednesday, three episodes into a podcast about a Florida woman who had poisoned her entire book club.
Despite her fervor, Dunbar’s efforts are not universally appreciated. She reached out to the family of a Terre Haute murder victim in November in a Facebook message that she describes as “very thoughtful and sensitive.”
She followed up in December, and again in February with her media kit. In March, having located the family’s address through a public records site subscribes to for $12.99 a month, she mailed a handwritten note with two business cards, in case the first got lost. She has not heard back.
Dunbar found a cousin of the victim on Instagram and left a red heart beneath a memorial photo with the words “she matters” before sliding into the DMs. The cousin’s account is now private.
“I think they’re just not ready,” Dunbar says. She has set a calendar reminder for fall.
She presses record. Outside, a dog barks. Dunbar does not flinch. She is exactly where she believes she belongs.
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