Elle has a great interview with Laura Beil, the host of Bad Batch and Dr. Death. The mag describes her as “The Voice Of True Crime Podcasting,” and that’s not especially wrong -- as the person who talks us through those shows, the veteran Dallas Morning News medical reporter is as good a “voice” of the genre as any.
Gems from the profile include the revelation that complaining listeners said that they “preferred the host of Dr. Death to Bad Batch,” that she doesn’t “true crime being dethroned anytime soon,” and that her inbox has been filled with letters saying "Here's another horrible doctor to look into." You can listen to Bad Batch here and The Blotter Presents’ discussion of it here; Dr. Death and the show on TBP are here, and here’s the full Elle interview with Beil. -- EB
A New England task force has found a novel way to keep cold cases in front of the public. According to The Independent, Pawtucket Police Det. Susan Cormier regularly gives public lectures to explain how investigators approach cold cases. But then there’s this: apparently Cormier is behind the production of “a deck of cold case playing cards, a statewide initiative where a deck of 52 playing cards were sold to the public and inside the walls of the Adult Correctional Institutions.”
So, I found the cards: they’re apparently $5 (plus $2 shipping and handling). The idea Cormier says, is to “keep up with modern times and keep people interested, getting it out to the public and getting the word out … Most people think these crimes are either already solved or they thought ‘Everybody knew so-and-so killed that person’ but people back then were reluctant…Once you open that dialogue, whether it’s the cards, news, social media, it opens a lot more doors for people to talk.” Plus, stocking stuffer, I guess? -- EB
Poland is peeved at The Devil Next Door. The Netflix series about efforts to determine if a Cleveland man was a notorious concentration camp guard prompted a letter from Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to the streaming company, The New York Times reports, an objection to a map that appeared in the doc.
According to Morawiecki, the show suggested that Poland was in charge of the Nazi-run concentration camps that were placed in the country during the Holocaust, and said that the filmmakers should have made it clear that Poland was under German control during that period. Variety reports this afternoon that Netflix has agreed to amend the footage, adding a note that makes it clear that the camps in question were in Nazi-occupied territory. --EB
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