Best Serial Killer Podcasts: Beyond the Celebrity Killers
The best podcasts about serial killers — ranked honestly. Including overlooked cases that deserve the attention Bundy and Dahmer have monopolised, and the investigative work that actually matters.
ListenTrueCrime Editorial
The serial killer podcast genre has a problem: it's dominated by the same names. Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, Manson. These cases have been covered in every medium, from documentaries to Hollywood films to multiple conflicting biographical accounts. Podcasting has done the same.
This guide focuses on the cases and podcasts that deserve more attention — including some of the best investigative work done in this space — while being honest about which of the famous-name podcasts are actually worth your time.
The Best Serial Killer Investigation: American Predator
American Predator covers Israel Keyes — and if you don't know the name, that's the point.
Keyes was an Alaska-based contractor who, between approximately 2001 and 2012, murdered an unknown number of people across the United States. The number could be as low as 11, as Keyes himself partially confessed, or significantly higher — he refused to give investigators a full account before his suicide in custody in 2012.
What made Keyes uniquely disturbing was his methodology. He buried "murder kits" — containing rope, murder weapons, and other materials — at remote locations across the country, sometimes years before using them. He flew to locations far from his home state of Alaska, rented cars, and drove hundreds of miles to commit murders with no geographic relationship to his real life. This defied every FBI profiling convention: there was no victim pattern, no escalation, no geographic cluster.
The podcast — based on Maureen Callahan's definitive book on the subject — brings FBI agents who interviewed Keyes into the story. Their accounts of trying to get information from a man who seemed to enjoy their helplessness is genuinely chilling.
Rating: 7/10 — The best podcast in this space for listeners who want something they haven't already heard
The Most Overlooked: Casanova Killer
Paul John Knowles murdered at least 18 people across the United States in 1974. He committed his first murder in July, was caught in November, and was killed while attempting to escape custody in December. In five months, he committed what would be recognised as one of the most prolific murder sprees in American history.
He is almost completely unknown — because he was operating at exactly the same time as Ted Bundy, and the media could only pay attention to one charismatic, articulate serial killer at once.
Casanova Killer addresses this gap: a dedicated examination of a case that has been consistently overlooked despite its scale.
Rating: 6/10 — Important for the historical record
Boston Strangler Revisited: Stranglers
Albert DeSalvo confessed to the 13 Boston Strangler murders in 1964-65. He was never actually tried for them — his confession was used to commit him to a mental institution, and he was later stabbed to death in prison. But the case was considered closed.
Modern DNA analysis tells a different story. DNA from one of the murders, when tested in 2013, did not match DeSalvo. Stranglers revisits the case with a full awareness of this new evidence and asks what it means for a confession that was always questioned by investigators who worked the original cases.
This is the most interesting question in serial killer podcast history: what happens when the certainty collapses? The Strangler case doesn't have a clean answer, and the podcast is honest about that.
Rating: 7/10 — Excellent for cold case and forensic science fans
The Psychology: What the Best Podcasts Get Right
The most irritating flaw in serial killer podcasting is the tendency toward explanation. Many podcasts, particularly scripted dramatised ones, spend significant time attempting to explain why a serial killer became a serial killer — the abusive childhood, the defining moment, the psychological turning point.
This is largely fiction. Forensic psychology understands certain things about serial killer behaviour — fantasy escalation, the cooling-off period, victim selection — but the question of causation is far murkier than most podcasts suggest. Plenty of people who experienced childhood abuse, trauma, or neglect don't become serial killers. The explanatory frameworks podcasts reach for are more satisfying than accurate.
The best podcasts in this space — American Predator, Stranglers — are honest about this uncertainty. They don't pretend to know why. They document what happened with as much specificity as the evidence allows.
The Famous Cases: Which Podcasts Are Worth It?
Most of the famous serial killer cases have been covered in podcasts of varying quality. Here's an honest verdict on the territory:
Ted Bundy: Extensively covered. The quality varies enormously. Most podcasts add nothing to the public understanding of a case that has been exhaustively documented elsewhere. The best approach to Bundy is Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me — a book, not a podcast.
John Wayne Gacy: Several decent long-form documentaries but nothing distinctive in podcast form.
Jeffrey Dahmer: The Netflix drama series dominates current attention. Podcast coverage tends to be derivative.
BTK: Dennis Rader's case is genuinely frightening and his communication with police and media is some of the most compelling primary source material in serial killer history. Several podcasts cover it adequately.
The Golden State Killer: Paul Holes' podcast The BG Files is the most authoritative — Holes was the cold case detective who played a central role in the investigation. Start there.
The Geographic Clusters: Podcast Coverage of Specific Cases
Some serial killer cases have generated better podcast coverage than others precisely because there's new information available:
The Original Night Stalker / Golden State Killer: The DNA genealogy breakthrough in 2018 created a wave of interest and excellent podcast coverage. The BG Files is the essential listen.
The Delphi Murders: Technically an unsolved double murder rather than a serial killing, but the case's unique combination of audio evidence and sustained community investigation has generated exceptional podcast coverage.
Boston Strangler: The Stranglers podcast is the definitive audio account of a case where the DNA evidence has undermined the established narrative.
The Uncomfortable Question
Serial killer podcasting raises an ethical question that the genre hasn't fully answered: what do victims' families owe to public curiosity?
Many families of serial killer victims explicitly oppose the podcast treatment of their relatives' deaths. They find that the entertainment framing — the true crime aesthetic, the suspenseful editing, the audience enthusiasm — reduces their family members to plot devices.
This is a serious objection. The best response to it isn't to stop making podcasts about serial killers, but to make them better: to centre victims as people rather than as victims, to avoid the aestheticisation of violence, and to be honest about the limits of what audio entertainment can actually contribute to understanding.
American Predator does this better than most. So does Stranglers. Many podcasts in this space don't.
Quick Rankings
| Podcast | Case | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| American Predator | Israel Keyes | 7/10 |
| Stranglers | Boston Strangler | 7/10 |
| The BG Files | Golden State Killer | 7/10 |
| Casanova Killer | Paul John Knowles | 6/10 |
| Morbid | Various | 7/10 |
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