Introducing Crime Show

May 18, 2021·38 min·3 clips

Detective Cabrera digs two feet into Dorothea Puente's yard and pulls loose what he thinks is a tree root — it is a femur bone.

The handoff begins with a thrown camera. The preview sends Conviction fans to Crime Show, a new Gimlet series hosted by Emma Cortland, with episodes promised every two weeks. Judy Moise gets a call from Sacramento police after Todd throws a class video camera against a wall at his middle school. At first, the trouble looks small enough to explain away. Todd is 13, quiet, and changing in ways a parent could miss or misread. The host keeps widening the story from there. Judy's suburban life, with cookouts, a lawn, and the routines of a steady home, does not feel quite so steady after that day. Years later, Bert enters. Before Dorothea Puente takes him in, he is hard to reach, barely talking and avoiding eye contact. Afterward, the difference is startling. Dorothea buys him clothes, feeds him, and gives him the domestic care that can make even wary people soften. Judy sees it in Bert's body. He talks in full sentences, looks her in the eye, and comes back to Detox looking so much better that people notice. Then Mary Ellen breaks the spell. The veteran social worker tells Judy about a Dorothea from F Street who had been arrested for drugging clients. The description feels off to Judy. Her Dorothea seems older and frailer, the kind of woman who nurses kittens, not the younger, chubby woman Mary Ellen remembers. Bert tips the balance. His recovery makes Dorothea look changed, or at least believable enough. Judy lets the warning pass. The preview leaves that regret hanging while doing its job too: follow Crime Show on Spotify, where the next chapter waits under pink footprints.

As heard by us

A slow-burn true-crime setup where hope, doubt, and warning signs keep colliding.

Crime Show opens with a Sacramento school call that turns a classroom incident into a wider story about fear, care, and what adults can miss. Emma Cortland's calm narration keeps Judy Moise at the center as she describes the slide from a typical suburban life into worry over…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want true crime that starts with a school call and turns unsettling.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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