Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waders. This podcast was
Speaker 1: recorded on to some he's known as the anonymous host.
Speaker 1: Others have nicknamed him Casey. If you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2: And you're a fan of true crime, you'll probably recognize
Speaker 2: this voice.
Speaker 3: Asking's indicating they'd applied the patches in the lead up
Speaker 3: to their deaths Stranger Still, the evidence suggests that the
Speaker 3: couple had ingested, but.
Speaker 2: The host of Australian true crime podcast case File has
Speaker 2: kept his identity secret for nine years and so far that's.
Speaker 4: Been working pretty well for him.
Speaker 2: Casey might not let us tell you his real name,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't mean we can't tell you his story.
Speaker 2: I'm Jemma Bass and this is True Crime Conversations amom
Speaker 2: of Me, a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes
Speaker 2: by speaking to the people who know the most about them.
Speaker 2: We've got a bit of a different episode for you today.
Speaker 2: Case File is what you would call one of our
Speaker 2: direct competitors. We both work in the Australian true crime
Speaker 2: podcasting space and we're regularly up against them in the
Speaker 2: various podcasting charts. They're wildly popular, often number one, with
Speaker 2: people all over the world attracted to the podcast's distinct,
Speaker 2: no frills approach to storytelling. It all started with one
Speaker 2: typical Aussie bloke as he calls himself in his spare room,
Speaker 2: deciding to give podcasting a go while recovering from a
Speaker 2: sporting injury. Now the anonymous host and his team are
Speaker 2: in the years of more than eight hundred thousand people
Speaker 2: every month. He doesn't really do interviews, you'll only find
Speaker 2: one or two on the internet, but we managed to
Speaker 2: convinced him to come into Momma mea HQ for an
Speaker 2: exclusive sit down chat. I don't know what I was
Speaker 2: meeting him in real life. He wasn't not what I
Speaker 2: was expecting. Probably more clean cut than the descriptor he
Speaker 2: gives of being a typical Aussie bloke, but maybe that's
Speaker 2: just me being too stereotypical. The feedback from my colleagues
Speaker 2: who sneak to peak is that he's younger than they imagined.
Speaker 4: Make of that what you will.
Speaker 2: And when I say sneak to peak, several of my
Speaker 2: colleagues not only hobbed, but chased this man down the
Speaker 2: halls of our office. Honestly, there was more excitement in
Speaker 2: here than when we have some Hollywood celebs grace our halls.
Speaker 2: Please enjoy my chat with the anonymous host of case File.
Speaker 2: I'm going to start with some quick fire questions, getting
Speaker 2: to know you questions.
Speaker 4: I will accept no comment if I have to.
Speaker 3: Okay, sounds good, favorite sport, Rugby league, favorite food.
Speaker 5: Toy.
Speaker 4: That was a toughie. You had to think about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was Indian maybe.
Speaker 4: Favorite song and or artists.
Speaker 3: Favorite song Flowers and You by touche A Moore, very specific.
Speaker 3: It's getting quite the play at the moment. It's not new,
Speaker 3: it's actually probably ten years old now. But good song.
Speaker 2: Favorite thing to do on the weekend, golf, favorite place
Speaker 2: in Australia, Blue Mountains, m TV.
Speaker 3: Show cobra Qui what Yeah, just because it's so tacky
Speaker 3: and cheesy, but they really lean into it. And I
Speaker 3: was a fan of the Karate Kid movies when I
Speaker 3: was young, so it's a bit of a nostalgia thing.
Speaker 5: It's like it's bad, but it's good bad.
Speaker 4: If you could have dinner with anyone alive or dead,
Speaker 4: who would it be?
Speaker 6: Kirk Cabaine Ooh, I'm hearing a music yeah, big music fan. Yeah, well,
Speaker 6: or actually Kirk Cobaine or Cliff Burton original Metallica basis.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, there we go.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've learned more about you in the
Speaker 2: last few minutes than I can find on the entire Internet.
Speaker 2: And I'm not actually allowed to tell listeners your name.
Speaker 2: It's been nine years of you making case file. Have
Speaker 2: you ever considered just revealing who you are? Or has
Speaker 2: it become part of the brand?
Speaker 3: Not really, No, I guess it has become part of it,
Speaker 3: but inadvertently it's kind of like an accident because it
Speaker 3: was never planned. It was never supposed to be a thing,
Speaker 3: the anonymous hosting, but it just kind of took off
Speaker 3: into a life of its own. I guess we have
Speaker 3: started branching out. I've done a few live appearances in
Speaker 3: recent times. There's no photo policy, and I still don't
Speaker 3: reveal myself as such. It's more just the case, false
Speaker 3: story and that sort of thing. I'm comfortable with that.
Speaker 3: That's been fine, But yeah, I don't think I'll ever
Speaker 3: be a personality, so to speak.
Speaker 2: Well, it's very fun trying to look at what people
Speaker 2: have kind of found out about you? Is that fun
Speaker 2: to watch people trying to work it out?
Speaker 3: I did get a little bit of a kick out
Speaker 3: of it, sort of initially. I haven't looked at it
Speaker 3: for a few years now, but there were some weird
Speaker 3: and wild theories.
Speaker 5: There are out there.
Speaker 3: Some I'm like, how do people even come up with that?
Speaker 3: That is like completely made up?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: They stayed it like it's just so matter of fact.
Speaker 3: It's eye opening.
Speaker 4: Actually, well fans, is it fans that have nicknamed you Casey?
Speaker 5: Yes? That came from listeners.
Speaker 3: So just that came off the back of the anonymous
Speaker 3: host thing, people like, well, who is this person?
Speaker 5: What's going on?
Speaker 3: And I can't remember if it was a Reddit thread
Speaker 3: or a Facebook group maybe, but there's one of those,
Speaker 3: and listeners just started using case and that sort of
Speaker 3: took off.
Speaker 2: It's probably more catchy to say than anonymous host, So
Speaker 2: I can see.
Speaker 3: Why that's a bit of a mouthful. Isn't it an
Speaker 3: anonymous host? It doesn't really.
Speaker 2: But you've taken on Casey as kind of like the
Speaker 2: identity as well. You've got an Instagram handle, is that
Speaker 2: you Casey?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: That's me for photography? Bad photography? Mind?
Speaker 3: You on the iPhone is a bit of a hobby
Speaker 3: of mine, particularly live music and stuff. So it's just
Speaker 3: like a just something I like to do in a downtime,
Speaker 3: play around with a few photos and stuff.
Speaker 5: I thought, oh, I'm not as well put them.
Speaker 3: Out there, I guess, and adopt the name yeah, and
Speaker 3: just lean into the name yep.
Speaker 4: Take me back to the start.
Speaker 2: How did you find yourself sitting down and starting a podcast?
Speaker 3: So it's something that I'd wanted to do for a
Speaker 3: little while, a few years. I'd say I was a
Speaker 3: pretty early adopter of podcasts.
Speaker 4: So it's twenty sixteen, right.
Speaker 3: That's when case fol started. But I've been listening to
Speaker 3: podcasts since I think it's like two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: to something like that. So my housemate at the time
Speaker 3: put me onto them. I'd never heard of them, and
Speaker 3: leaning back into that music theme, I discovered Alternative Press
Speaker 3: had a podcast and it was just long form interviews
Speaker 3: with a lot of the bands that I liked. I
Speaker 3: thought it was really cool because up until that point
Speaker 3: there'd never really been anything like that to get insight
Speaker 3: into artists. It was a snippet in a magazine or
Speaker 3: a little bit here or there, but to get this
Speaker 3: really long form conversation. I was immediately drawn in loved it,
Speaker 3: and so I'd been a fan for a few years
Speaker 3: and that sort of branched out into other podcasts after that,
Speaker 3: and it was always in my mind I thought this'd
Speaker 3: be cool to do, and I played around with a
Speaker 3: few ideas, maybe a rugby league one, maybe a music one.
Speaker 3: I started looking into music pretty heavily, but obviously a
Speaker 3: nightmare because you can't play music, podcast licensing, all that
Speaker 3: sort of stuff, So I wasn't really sure how to
Speaker 3: approach that. And I'd always been a consumer, I guess
Speaker 3: of true crime from a young age. I remember back
Speaker 3: I would have been like ten. I was babysat by
Speaker 3: my auntie a lot back then, and she had this
Speaker 3: whole shelf full of true crime magazines. I forget the
Speaker 3: name of it, you know, but it was like a
Speaker 3: weekly one available at their newsagents magazine. Yeah, so every
Speaker 3: week one a new one would come out at the
Speaker 3: magazine and it was like in long form on one case,
Speaker 3: and she had a whole shelf of them. So it
Speaker 3: was probably way too young to be reading about the
Speaker 3: Yorkshire Ripper and other such cases. But so from a
Speaker 3: young age, and I remember always having an interest in
Speaker 3: the human.
Speaker 5: Side of it, was like what causes it? How does
Speaker 5: this happen? Even from such a young age.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: I don't think I was throwing around terms like nature, verse,
Speaker 3: nurture back then, but essentially that's what I was wondering
Speaker 3: at that time, like how does this happen? It was
Speaker 3: It wasn't like a lifelong thing, you know, I'd sort
Speaker 3: of in and out of it. A book would come along,
Speaker 3: like I think one of the first books I read
Speaker 3: was Helter Skelter at true crime books that is.
Speaker 5: And then there was.
Speaker 3: ABC had a like a tele dramatized based on true
Speaker 3: events called Blue Murder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I got right into that and tried to
Speaker 3: find every book that I could on that case and
Speaker 3: the players that were involved in that. So I've always
Speaker 3: had an interest in it. And so around this time,
Speaker 3: Cereal had been out for I think a few years
Speaker 3: by this point, but I was a late adopter to Cereal,
Speaker 3: and Making a Murderer was big at that time as well,
Speaker 3: So true crime was sort of back bubbling bubbling, and
Speaker 3: it just occurred to me just because I'd always had
Speaker 3: from a young age and interest in it. I thought,
Speaker 3: I wonder if that is some that would work on
Speaker 3: a podcast, and I started researching. So this is twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: hard to imagine, but a very different landscape. Back then,
Speaker 3: there was hardly any true crime podcasts, very different to today.
Speaker 4: Especially in Australia.
Speaker 5: I'm guessing I don't think there were any in Australia.
Speaker 3: I could be wrong. There might have been something that
Speaker 3: I just didn't find. I'm not saying case f I
Speaker 3: was the first, but the handful that I did find
Speaker 3: were a lot more formatted around that multiple hosts, round
Speaker 3: table discussion format. There was obviously serial, the documentary style,
Speaker 3: and then there was another one or two like that
Speaker 3: that would play nine to one one calls and interview
Speaker 3: clips and things like that. Now, at that time, I
Speaker 3: was heavily influenced by a podcast called Hardcore History by
Speaker 3: Dan Carlin. What I found so fascinating about that podcast
Speaker 3: was the in depth storytelling by a single narrator. So
Speaker 3: up until that point I'd only ever heard like interview
Speaker 3: style podcasts. I thought that's what podcasts. Well, there was
Speaker 3: Serial that was more documentary style, but I'd never really
Speaker 3: heard anything like Hardcore History, which was just one voice,
Speaker 3: no clips, no nothing, just his voice for like five
Speaker 3: hours telling a story something complex, like a complex historical event,
Speaker 3: and it was so compelling. I thought that just got
Speaker 3: my mind ticking over. I was like, Oh, it showed
Speaker 3: me that was possible. And when I was trying to
Speaker 3: come up with the format and then looking what was
Speaker 3: out there with true crime, I saw I couldn't find
Speaker 3: anything out there like that, and so I just borrowed,
Speaker 3: copied inspired by whatever you want to say, Dan Carlin's
Speaker 3: hardcore History into true crime.
Speaker 2: It just goes to show that sometimes it's the simplest
Speaker 2: ideas that end up being gold because it really is
Speaker 2: just your voice for an hour, sometimes an hour and
Speaker 2: a half. There's no other audio apart from like a
Speaker 2: bit of a music bed sometimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there is a music bed. Very rarely do
Speaker 3: we play like interrogation clips or things like that. We
Speaker 3: have done, but it's pretty rare that that all happened.
Speaker 3: So usually it's just my voice.
Speaker 2: Yep, you're listening to true crime conversations with me, Jemma Bath.
Speaker 4: I'm speaking with the anonymous host of case File.
Speaker 2: Up next, we go back to the start the making
Speaker 2: of the very first episode of Case File. So take
Speaker 2: me through recording that first episode.
Speaker 4: Where are you? What does it look like? Do you
Speaker 4: have a mic? Do you have a setup?
Speaker 5: It was bad, It was very bad.
Speaker 3: I had no idea what I was doing from a
Speaker 3: technical standpoint.
Speaker 5: One mention of the word.
Speaker 3: One, there is enough essentials down the spine of those
Speaker 3: who remember the case that dominated the television reports, radio
Speaker 3: air waves, and print media of the day. One of
Speaker 3: my hobbies is I played guitar bass guitar at home,
Speaker 3: and I had a little interface that I could record
Speaker 3: myself on garage on my Mac and so on. That interface,
Speaker 3: which was designed to plug a guitar in it also
Speaker 3: had like this little mic smaller than the size of
Speaker 3: a five cent piece on it. I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: that'll do. So I just plugged that in to the laptop.
Speaker 3: It was sitting on my desk nowhere in my mouth
Speaker 3: over there somewhere, and I just started talking, did what
Speaker 3: I could on garage band with my limited knowledge, and
Speaker 3: then released it. It sounds awful, but so what I'm
Speaker 3: very thankful for in those early days we got some
Speaker 3: good constructive feedback in that. Look, this content is pretty good,
Speaker 3: but this sounds awful. Can you get someone to do
Speaker 3: something with your audio? I thought that's probably fair enough,
Speaker 3: so I advertised for an audio producer on a freelance website.
Speaker 5: Yeah, things up work, I think it was.
Speaker 3: And it was hard to write that job the scriptum
Speaker 3: because I didn't know what I was asking for, because
Speaker 3: I had no knowledge of what I was doing. So
Speaker 3: I put together something and probably twenty to thirty people applied,
Speaker 3: and so I thought the best way to work this
Speaker 3: out was I just had a one minute snippet from
Speaker 3: an episode and the job description was fixed. This just
Speaker 3: show me what you can do, basically. And then I
Speaker 3: listened to it and there was one standout, which was
Speaker 3: Mike Megus, who is still the current case for a
Speaker 3: producer to Next Day. Yeah, nine years on, so he
Speaker 3: was one of the applicants. I listened to his snippet
Speaker 3: head and shoulders above anyone else. Then I looked at
Speaker 3: his resume. Worked at Pinewood Studios in the UK, worked
Speaker 3: on this Star Wars movie, worked on this Disney movie.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, dear, no, no wonder, it sounds so good,
Speaker 3: but I can't afford this. But I messaged him and
Speaker 3: we got chatting, and he had actually just left Pinewood
Speaker 3: Studios and was coming out as a freelancer. He hadn't
Speaker 3: worked with podcasts before, so he was keen to just
Speaker 3: try it and dip his toes into it, get experience
Speaker 3: with podcasts, and he gave me a very favorable rate.
Speaker 5: So thank you, Mike.
Speaker 2: So you found him at a good time, a good time.
Speaker 2: How many podcasts in were you hiring Mike?
Speaker 5: Was? Episode seven was the first one he worked on.
Speaker 2: And by that point, did you have an audience? What
Speaker 2: did your audience look like in those early episodes.
Speaker 3: I remember my goal when I released the first episode
Speaker 3: was to get to one hundred, one hundred downloads, one
Speaker 3: hundred downloads, and that happened in twenty four hours, and
Speaker 3: so by the end of the first week it was
Speaker 3: about one thousand, and it sort of slowly, just it
Speaker 3: sort of came in blocks. So by six months we
Speaker 3: were averaging fifty thousand plus an episode. Then by the
Speaker 3: end of the first year it was two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand an episode, and then before I knew it
Speaker 3: into the second year was a million plus. Just was
Speaker 3: like stages, It was very it almost didn't seem real
Speaker 3: because there was no promotion.
Speaker 5: There was nothing say how did.
Speaker 2: You like, did you just go on to one of
Speaker 2: the platforms and release it? Did you advertise it on
Speaker 2: social media?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: How did you get it out there?
Speaker 3: It was I believe the first hosting platform was SoundCloud actually,
Speaker 3: so I put it on SoundCloud and through there they
Speaker 3: had an RSS capability, So it went out to Apple
Speaker 3: and all the everywhere that you can get podcasts, set
Speaker 3: up a Facebook.
Speaker 5: Page and it just grew, it just grew. It was
Speaker 5: just word of mouth.
Speaker 4: What was the first episode on do you remember?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: The first episode was the Wonder Beach Murders.
Speaker 4: So a really infamous one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, infamous Australian one. And I guess I covered that
Speaker 3: one because it was a case that I'd heard a
Speaker 3: lot about growing up. It was sort of almost mythical
Speaker 3: in a way, the way it was about an urban
Speaker 3: legend of not an urban legend, obviously it's real case,
Speaker 3: but the way it was spoken about growing up, it
Speaker 3: was almost like that. And I realized I knew nothing
Speaker 3: about it, so I thought that was a good place
Speaker 3: to start. Just as this wasn't planned, This wasn't supposed
Speaker 3: to go to an audience This was a project that
Speaker 3: I was doing while I was off work injured, so
Speaker 3: it was literally just to fill in the time until
Speaker 3: I went back to work. So I didn't get crazy
Speaker 3: because this was my third serious rehab from an injury
Speaker 3: in quick succession, and that can be a pretty dark
Speaker 3: and lonely time, especially for someone who likes to play sport,
Speaker 3: keep fit active. It's almost sort of part of my identity.
Speaker 3: So being stuck through the rehab process it was pretty tough.
Speaker 3: That third one was a pretty serious injury too. So
Speaker 3: I'd been wanting to start a podcast for a few years.
Speaker 3: I thought, well, this is my chance, and yeah, I
Speaker 3: none of this was planned.
Speaker 5: Maybe do three.
Speaker 2: Episodes as your podcast started to grow. I know you're
Speaker 2: anonymous to the world, but your loved ones they would
Speaker 2: have known that you were starting a podcast. What did
Speaker 2: they think about it?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 5: Not many.
Speaker 3: I kept it pretty much well on the down low.
Speaker 3: I told a few friends and they kind of just
Speaker 3: laughed at it, said, though, that's stupid, what are you doing.
Speaker 3: What are you doing that for? Basically, you know, in
Speaker 3: a friendly banter tight way, I guess, But yeah, I
Speaker 3: kept it pretty well on the down low, just something
Speaker 3: that I just did put my head down and just
Speaker 3: kept putting it out there. No one I worked with
Speaker 3: knew about it.
Speaker 4: So you ended up going back to work and you
Speaker 4: were doing this on the side, yep.
Speaker 3: Yep, So I went back to eventually got back to work,
Speaker 3: and yeah, just on the days off and you or
Speaker 3: after work even Yeah, kept working on case file and
Speaker 3: it kept growing and growing and growing. Eventually I realized
Speaker 3: that I needed help yep. So we got our first
Speaker 3: researcher and writer to assist, and yeah, from there, the
Speaker 3: team has just gradually grown and yeah, now we have
Speaker 3: two full time audio producers, three full time researchers, writers,
Speaker 3: and additional freelancers as well.
Speaker 2: Wow, prior to hiring a researcher to obviously help you
Speaker 2: write those scripts because they're long, they're detailed, how much
Speaker 2: work were you putting into that script?
Speaker 4: Because it's.
Speaker 2: It's hard to get that amount of detail, and like,
Speaker 2: if you get anything wrong, people are going to pick
Speaker 2: up on it.
Speaker 4: Is it ours?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a non stop It was literally I
Speaker 3: didn't have anything else in life. I go to work
Speaker 3: and I come home and like I'd work shift work,
Speaker 3: So sometimes after a night shift, I'd literally just not sleep.
Speaker 5: Because it was that full on. So, yeah, it was a.
Speaker 3: Lot, a lot of there's still a lot of work now,
Speaker 3: but obviously it's much smoother in operation with having such
Speaker 3: a talented team working on it now.
Speaker 5: But yeah, back then it was pretty full long.
Speaker 2: Given it's your baby, though, it's your case file is
Speaker 2: your child? Do you struggle to give it to other people?
Speaker 2: Are you very close to it still in terms of
Speaker 2: the writing of those scripts and the research and how
Speaker 2: the process goes.
Speaker 3: No, I've got a lot of faith in the team,
Speaker 3: So it's once it's been very fortunate just to find
Speaker 3: such talented and hard working people who I trust. So
Speaker 3: once these people have my trust, it's I'm happy to
Speaker 3: step away. And so the writing and research team now
Speaker 3: is fully led by women. All the rids of researchers
Speaker 3: are women. The head writer, Millie is in charge of
Speaker 3: all the cases, what we're covering, what's the release schedule,
Speaker 3: all of that. Mike's in charge of the production side
Speaker 3: of it, the audio production, what music goes on, and
Speaker 3: sort of the audio production elements. So yeah, and I
Speaker 3: have full trust in the whole team to do that
Speaker 3: because this.
Speaker 2: Is no longer well and truly no longer your side hustle,
Speaker 2: this is your job, right When were you able to
Speaker 2: kind of be like, Okay, goodbye, former career, I'm doing this.
Speaker 3: So case fil was released in episode one in January
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. It was the end of twenty seventeen where
Speaker 3: I took leave without pay from my job for a year,
Speaker 3: just to I was very on the fence and uming
Speaker 3: and a ring and I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3: This is, so I thought I'd take the year leave
Speaker 3: without pay. And that year went so quick it's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Was almost like I blinked and then works ringing me,
Speaker 3: are you coming back? And I still wasn't sure at
Speaker 3: that stage. I requested another six months and they said
Speaker 3: either coming back or you're leaving, And so ultimately I
Speaker 3: just decided to leave and try it full time.
Speaker 5: And yeah, so still able to do it. Now?
Speaker 2: What were you sure about? What made you think so hard?
Speaker 2: Did you love your former career?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say that it was just more stable. I
Speaker 3: guess so because it was it's the unknown a podcast,
Speaker 3: So I don't know, especially back then in two thousand
Speaker 3: and seventeen, it was just it was very much outside
Speaker 3: of my comfort zone, I guess, and I just wasn't
Speaker 3: sure about it. It was like, ah, this is a big
Speaker 3: risk and pressure, but it was good. It was the
Speaker 3: best decision I made.
Speaker 2: This is a bit of a nerdy behind the scenes question,
Speaker 2: but it's pretty common knowledge that advertisers get a bit
Speaker 2: scared of true crime as a genre because we talk
Speaker 2: about murder, blood gore, you know, often deeply harrowing content.
Speaker 2: Has that been a challenge for you in trying to monetize.
Speaker 3: It has been relayed back to me a little bit,
Speaker 3: But from what I've picked up over the years, that
Speaker 3: is a very much Australian thing, right, not so much
Speaker 3: in the US. And we're very fortunate where we have
Speaker 3: such a big audience in the US. It was actually
Speaker 3: half our audience for a number of years was US based.
Speaker 3: It's okay, it's sort of come back a little bit now.
Speaker 3: I think it's even Australia thirty five percent Australia thirty
Speaker 3: five percent US roughly. So we've always had that big
Speaker 3: US audience and the US advertisers don't have that same viewpoint.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to know, like male female split for your podcast,
Speaker 2: do you have a lot of is it mainly women?
Speaker 4: Is it mainly men?
Speaker 5: I believe it's seventy thirty female.
Speaker 4: Seventy percent female?
Speaker 5: Yes, wow, I mean I don't know how accurate that is.
Speaker 3: I don't know how they measure that, but that's the
Speaker 3: stats that come up on our dashboard. Yep, Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was seventy seventy thirty.
Speaker 4: Because we're a bit skewed.
Speaker 2: Obviously we're a women's media company doing a podcast, but
Speaker 2: we have the most male listeners of all the podcasts
Speaker 2: on our network.
Speaker 5: Oh, because a lot of.
Speaker 2: Men don't listen to our the podcast, but they listen
Speaker 2: to us. So that's why I'm so curious to hear it,
Speaker 2: because I do hear that it's women mainly that like
Speaker 2: to listen to true crime podcasts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's certainly the case for us. The live show
Speaker 3: that we did in Australia in November in Melbourne, that
Speaker 3: was it was probably ninety plus women in the audience.
Speaker 3: So yeah, very much skewed towards mostly female listeners.
Speaker 4: Fans of case File.
Speaker 2: The og might not realize, but you have about, if
Speaker 2: I'm correct, twenty one other podcasts under kind of the
Speaker 2: banner of case File presents smaller you know, like the
Speaker 2: Easy Street Murders. You've got like a kind of serie
Speaker 2: on that particular case. How did that come about in
Speaker 2: terms of like branching out and doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's something that I had thought about pretty
Speaker 3: early on. Once Case File started getting successful, I was
Speaker 3: really interested. As much as my vision for Case fil
Speaker 3: was the style that we do now, I also obviously
Speaker 3: really like Cereal and that style as well, and I
Speaker 3: was interested in trying to do some of that long form, investigative,
Speaker 3: deep dive stuff. And so that's basically how it came about.
Speaker 3: The Case File presents idea, let's give a platform to
Speaker 3: other people to tell their stories. So you know, we
Speaker 3: have like Vicki Petratus, who's done a number well known
Speaker 3: true crime author journalists, pis whoever sort of has a story,
Speaker 3: and we're able to provide that platform, give them an
Speaker 3: audience to elevate their stories.
Speaker 4: And do you work really closely with those podcasts?
Speaker 3: Depends on the show, okay, it just it depends on
Speaker 3: the show, depends on the creator. Some people are like,
Speaker 3: let me alone, I'll send you when I'm done, and
Speaker 3: I'm happy with that because I've obviously put that I
Speaker 3: trust them enough to offer them the opportunity. So I
Speaker 3: believe that they can do it, but other people wanted
Speaker 3: more hands on approach and can you help me outit this?
Speaker 5: And what do you think of this? And so it
Speaker 5: just depends on the show.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to be as involved or as uninvolved as
Speaker 3: they want me to be.
Speaker 2: And this is news to me. But I found out
Speaker 2: today that Case File has a game. Yes, so you
Speaker 2: can play case File board game.
Speaker 3: It's a board game. Yeah, so Goliath, the board game company,
Speaker 3: reached out to us and wanted to do a game,
Speaker 3: and we were a bit unsure about that. Obviously, had
Speaker 3: to just see what they had in mind. But obviously
Speaker 3: it's a completely fictional storyline, and you know, we're happy
Speaker 3: with what they came up with. And yeah, so that's
Speaker 3: They've just released a version two, so they must be
Speaker 3: happy enough with our version one went. Version two is
Speaker 3: only available in the US at this time.
Speaker 5: Though.
Speaker 4: What's your lens?
Speaker 2: Every podcast has like a bit of a lens as
Speaker 2: to how they pick a story or a case that
Speaker 2: they're going to cover.
Speaker 4: Do you have a way to pick?
Speaker 3: There's no one lens I would say, other than we
Speaker 3: don't do a case just because it's gruesome, or to
Speaker 3: cover the gore or you know, big gratrudus or anything
Speaker 3: like that. There's got to be a reason for it. Like,
Speaker 3: I'm personally close to unsolved cases, so I like covering
Speaker 3: those and giving those a voice. But there's reasons to
Speaker 3: cover other stories as well, you know, the societal impacts,
Speaker 3: justice system issues, wrongful convictions, problems with police investigations, voices
Speaker 3: who were ignored, under represented community. There's many, many different reasons.
Speaker 3: It just depends on the case. Yeah, but generally there
Speaker 3: has to be a reason. There's some sort of forensic
Speaker 3: element that's interesting to put out there, or the genetic
Speaker 3: genealogy stuff that's become big in recent years, that sort
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you find that there are certain kind of
Speaker 2: styles that your audience prefers. I'll give you an example
Speaker 2: from our side. Whenever we do an episode about a cult,
Speaker 2: it goes really well. Okay, do you have kind of
Speaker 2: episodes that you know are going to go well before
Speaker 2: you've even put them out?
Speaker 3: Not really, We're pretty each episode is pretty on par
Speaker 3: with another episode. Yeah, they all do pretty well. So
Speaker 3: we don't really have an insight into this particular case.
Speaker 3: We'll do better than this particular case. Nothing like that
Speaker 3: that doesn't come that doesn't factor into the decision.
Speaker 4: Meaning, are there.
Speaker 2: Any episodes I know you've done over three hundred but
Speaker 2: that you're particularly proud of.
Speaker 3: But the ones that stand out to me would be
Speaker 3: one like the unsolved murder of Britney Phillips, which is
Speaker 3: a US case and I touched them earlier that unsolved
Speaker 3: cases are the ones that are closest to me. And
Speaker 3: Maggie Zingman, who is Brittany's mother, came across her story
Speaker 3: in that she couldn't get any coverage for her daughter's
Speaker 3: unsolved murder that happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, And so she's
Speaker 3: been driving around for fifteen eighteen years whatever it was
Speaker 3: at the time when we actually covered the case. She's
Speaker 3: got her car decked out in like a rap with
Speaker 3: all the details of her daughter's crime and just driving around.
Speaker 3: She's been to every state in the continental US multiple times,
Speaker 3: just driving around. She calls a caravan to catch a killer,
Speaker 3: just raising awareness, just you never know, someone might know
Speaker 3: something somewhere. And despite that, she was unable to get
Speaker 3: any sort of national coverage or anything. So we were
Speaker 3: put in touch and we were able to cover that
Speaker 3: story on Case File.
Speaker 5: I forget when that was released.
Speaker 3: It was a few years ago now, But to this day,
Speaker 3: Maggie will still will email me and say she still
Speaker 3: gets people emailing her because they've heard the Case File episode.
Speaker 3: And there's been no sort of groundbreaking tips at this point,
Speaker 3: but there's been a few things here and there, and
Speaker 3: she's just so appreciative of that coverage.
Speaker 5: So to me, that's something very worthwhile.
Speaker 2: I find it so interesting that you worked closely with
Speaker 2: a family member to create that script. I'm guessing do
Speaker 2: you do that often? Do you have family members or
Speaker 2: people that were close to the crime involved in the
Speaker 2: crafting of the episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not every episode, but it does definitely happen. And
Speaker 3: I guess because we have that single storyteller style, we
Speaker 3: don't include interview clips that might not be overly apparent
Speaker 3: that we do that, but it does happen, Yeah, you
Speaker 3: know often, will have. I mean, at this point, we
Speaker 3: get unfortunately, way more emails than we could ever get
Speaker 3: to for from family members or advocates or friends or
Speaker 3: family who requesting us to cover cases. I wish I
Speaker 3: could get to all of them, but it's just not
Speaker 3: possible at this point.
Speaker 2: Are there any stories that haunt you? Obviously every story
Speaker 2: is usually horrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean all the unsolved ones,
Speaker 3: I mean they all haunt you. They will have an
Speaker 3: effect at some level. The unsolved ones where we work
Speaker 3: with family are particularly harder than others. I would say, yeah,
Speaker 3: the Brittany Phillips one I just touched on. I was
Speaker 3: lucky enough to meet Maggie in person last year at
Speaker 3: Crime Con for the first time, so that was really
Speaker 3: good to meet her in person. The series that I
Speaker 3: released last year on the Case File Presents Platform Missing
Speaker 3: Neam that I that took me over four years to
Speaker 3: put together that series, So obviously that four years that
Speaker 3: had an effect.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting because like at the start of the chat,
Speaker 2: you were talking about, you know, seeing the books in
Speaker 2: your aunties and being like, oh, yeah, true crime and
Speaker 2: now it's you live breathe talk about it every day.
Speaker 4: Does that have an effect on you?
Speaker 5: I guess it does.
Speaker 3: Obviously has because I can't consume any true crime stuff
Speaker 3: anymore outside of what's required for work. So people might
Speaker 3: be talking about the latest Netflix series or whatever, there's.
Speaker 5: I haven't watched any of them. I've got no idea.
Speaker 3: It's just not something that I can do outside of
Speaker 3: what's required for work now, so I've got to seek
Speaker 3: other sort of avenues to unwind and stuff. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so I guess it's hard to say. I guess when
Speaker 3: you're living every day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can still watch the Netflix shows and I
Speaker 2: live and breathe true crime every day.
Speaker 4: So I think it just is different people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it just depends on There's no sort of right
Speaker 5: or wrong answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, has your research ever I know you were talking
Speaker 2: about Britney's moum, but has it ever kind of led
Speaker 2: to a break through or helped an investigation?
Speaker 3: I don't think so, not that I know of, Like
Speaker 3: that Case File episode hasn't directly led to a case
Speaker 3: being solved. Obviously, we've covered unsolved cases that have then
Speaker 3: become solved, not because of the case fil coverage, but
Speaker 3: that has happened. We've definitely received tips over the years,
Speaker 3: you know, I've had tips come directly to me and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I can't I'm not an investigative agency, Like
Speaker 3: I can't do anything with this, and sort of encourage
Speaker 3: those people to contact the relevant law enforcement agency.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of pressure on you though, as well,
Speaker 2: getting tips through your email and you're like, I'm just
Speaker 2: toasting a podcast.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3: I get it's tough too because a lot of these
Speaker 3: cases are decades old, and so from the point of
Speaker 3: view of the person like, well, the police don't care,
Speaker 3: they're not doing anything. That's probably their perception. Whether that's
Speaker 3: the truth or not, I don't know, it could be different.
Speaker 3: But if there is ever something I could actually do
Speaker 3: to help a case, of course I would do it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think I definitely don't want to be
Speaker 3: overreaching and trying to take on the role of an
Speaker 3: investigative agency. I think the first port of call is
Speaker 3: the police.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you've no doubt watched the True Crime Space
Speaker 2: explode over the last nine years. I mean, we're here,
Speaker 2: we've popped up and plenty of other podcasts. Do you
Speaker 2: fixate on the charts? I mean you're usually at the
Speaker 2: top of them, so you don't need to have to worry.
Speaker 2: But is it interesting watching it explode and all these
Speaker 2: new podcasts in your kind of space come up?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It still remains one of the most popular, I believe
Speaker 3: of the podcast categories, and there's been all sorts of
Speaker 3: shows that have popped up since and continue to be popular.
Speaker 3: And yeah, obviously there was In Australia we have the
Speaker 3: Teacher's Pet which has led to a result, So there's
Speaker 3: been a lot that has happened over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why do you think Case File still dominates all
Speaker 2: these years later?
Speaker 5: That's a great question. I have no idea.
Speaker 3: It's almost like every day I wake up, I'm like,
Speaker 3: is this the day where everyone stops listening? Or it's hard?
Speaker 3: It doesn't seem real. And it's pretty rare to have
Speaker 3: been for a show to be at the top for
Speaker 3: so long too. I mean, obviously we have regular early episodes,
Speaker 3: so those bigger sort of investigative shows like Your Teachers
Speaker 3: pattern stuff that are limited run, they can't say the
Speaker 3: top because they're not there. Yeah, they're short runs, so
Speaker 3: we have that to our advantage. But yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 3: and we don't take it for granted. We continue just
Speaker 3: to put our heads down, work really hard and try
Speaker 3: to continually improve the episodes and what we're doing, and
Speaker 3: as long as people keep listening, we will keep doing it.
Speaker 2: Well, you've obviously met some of your audience in real life.
Speaker 2: You've done a few in person chats, but do you
Speaker 2: get a lot of feedback from audience of where they're
Speaker 2: listening and.
Speaker 4: Why love the show.
Speaker 3: The most common feedback that I have gotten from people
Speaker 3: in both in person people email in and write comments
Speaker 3: and stuff, is just they appreciate the no nonsense storytelling,
Speaker 3: I guess, the empathetic storytelling. There's no banter or chit chat,
Speaker 3: so I guess they like that about our style as well.
Speaker 3: And just what I touched on before that it's not
Speaker 3: just we're not just telling stories about gratuitous violences. Generally
Speaker 3: something else to it, some sort of impact somewhere, judicial system,
Speaker 3: criminal justice system, police whatever. And yeah, that's I guess
Speaker 3: the most the most common feedback that I've gotten.
Speaker 2: I have a feeling you accompany many people on their
Speaker 2: road trips.
Speaker 3: In terms of where they listen. Yeah, yeah, road trips
Speaker 3: is very popular. Gym walks runs, that sort of thing
Speaker 3: is very popular as well.
Speaker 5: And it's funny.
Speaker 3: Actually, Anthony the other audio bridge was at a friend's
Speaker 3: house recently and he's popped out of the car and
Speaker 3: he's heard my voice.
Speaker 5: He's like, what's going on here?
Speaker 3: And it turns out a neighbor of his friend was
Speaker 3: in the garage doing a workout and had Case File laring. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's never happened to me. I've never bumped into anyone
Speaker 3: listening to case File really, no, well.
Speaker 5: Not that I know of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you haven't seen it on their phone. I've done
Speaker 2: that a few times where I've seen our podcast.
Speaker 5: On someone's phone. Yeah, no, no, never.
Speaker 2: Because your voice is very familiar now, like you've done
Speaker 2: over three hundred episodes, and you didn't have any audio training.
Speaker 4: Did you.
Speaker 2: No, But I think most people that listen would be
Speaker 2: able to recognize your voice in a lineup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe, but some people don't know. At an event
Speaker 3: only last week and I was talking to someone and
Speaker 3: I mentioned I was from case File. There was a
Speaker 3: podcast event and they were like, oh, a famous voice,
Speaker 3: so who does the voice? And so they had no
Speaker 3: idea that it was. I'd say that's me, and they
Speaker 3: were like, oh, you sound very sefferent in real life.
Speaker 4: So you do tell people that you come across that you.
Speaker 3: Are not everyone, but in that environment, I was okay
Speaker 3: to talk about it that particular event, but it's not
Speaker 3: something or I just freely disclosed and day to day
Speaker 3: on the street or anything like that.
Speaker 2: No, next I ask the anonymous host of case File
Speaker 2: who he will reveal his identity to.
Speaker 4: Nerdy again.
Speaker 2: But I was at the Australian Podcast Awards and I
Speaker 2: hear you were too. I was, but I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: known it because I didn't know what you learn.
Speaker 5: I was just lurking in the shadows at the back
Speaker 5: of the room there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you don't well, I don't remember you getting up.
Speaker 2: Case File Presents at least got an award that night.
Speaker 5: From memory, we were nominated, didn't didn't win.
Speaker 4: Would you have gotten up if you won?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: No, I think members of the a cast team were
Speaker 3: going to step in and do that for us.
Speaker 5: So that was easy.
Speaker 3: Street and Troubled Warders were both nominated in different categories.
Speaker 2: So you are still very careful in terms of like
Speaker 2: you'll do certain things, like you'll stand in front of
Speaker 2: an intimate audience, but you won't get up on a
Speaker 2: stage in a podcasting awards.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't know why.
Speaker 3: It probably seems a bit contradictory. No, it clever and
Speaker 3: in saying that, if I was at that award show
Speaker 3: and bumped into you and you introduce yourself, Like at
Speaker 3: that sort of environment, I would have said who I was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well i'll recognize you now now you will. Yes,
Speaker 2: Where do you think the future of podcasting is going?
Speaker 2: Is someone that's been in the world for so long
Speaker 2: because it is so saturated.
Speaker 3: Now, I think from what I read and see, everything
Speaker 3: seems to be pointing towards video. Videos come a very
Speaker 3: big thing, which I don't know what kind of Well,
Speaker 3: video is not podcasting, though, it's a different thing.
Speaker 4: You'll have to get a good silhouette.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we've just made changes to our YouTube channel
Speaker 3: so we release on YouTube as well. So as of
Speaker 3: the first episode we've released this year, we've incorporated sort
Speaker 3: of pitches and maps and different things that will overlay
Speaker 3: on the screen and it's kind of like an animated
Speaker 3: studio silhouette of a person recording. So we've made some tweaks,
Speaker 3: leaning into the video a bit more, doing what we
Speaker 3: can because obviously we are limited. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: very different landscape now than was to when Case File started.
Speaker 3: I find it now when we release case File present shows.
Speaker 3: Sometimes even though we have a massive audience to advertise
Speaker 3: that too, sometimes it can not take it's just very
Speaker 3: hard to break through now. I think there's so many
Speaker 3: established shows launching a new show much tougher. Not to
Speaker 3: say it can't be done, of course it can be,
Speaker 3: it's just much tougher now. I think the barrier to
Speaker 3: entry is a little bit higher now.
Speaker 2: So if you were to try and release your episode
Speaker 2: one from twenty sixteen now and do what you did now.
Speaker 3: I think that would be what the original It would
Speaker 3: turn out to what the original thought was three episodes,
Speaker 3: and I'd be back to work. Yeah, I couldn't see
Speaker 3: it taking off now, just with how bad the audio
Speaker 3: was as well. So I think there's a much higher
Speaker 3: level of quality now audio production and just the product,
Speaker 3: the shows themselves, the content.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Do you still love it?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah still.
Speaker 3: As I said, I wake up every day just so
Speaker 3: I can't believe that the show has the audience that
Speaker 3: it has, and that I get to work with such
Speaker 3: a talented group of people and people listen, and that
Speaker 3: we get to do this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very fortunate.
Speaker 2: So you've just come back from summer break in February,
Speaker 2: lucky bugger.
Speaker 3: Yes, although that is a bit of a misconception. I
Speaker 3: like to clear up that we've been bombarded with one
Speaker 3: star review, so we've taken too long off. I can
Speaker 3: assure everyone we have been working very hard. I mean,
Speaker 3: of course we had two weeks off over the Christmas
Speaker 3: New Year period itself, but as soon as the last
Speaker 3: episode came out last year, we would have wrapped that
Speaker 3: up in October, so as soon as that was sort
Speaker 3: of done and recorded, might not have been released yet,
Speaker 3: but we were straight onto twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: So listeners rest assured you were working.
Speaker 3: You just went related to Yeah, we sort of need
Speaker 3: that three month lead in just to get ready for
Speaker 3: the new year, because otherwise it can In past years
Speaker 3: it's just been a nightmare. We've barely been days ahead.
Speaker 3: Like I've finished recording an episode, got to get it
Speaker 3: to Mike. He's got three days to put the audio production,
Speaker 3: get it out and that's not a good way to operate. Stressful,
Speaker 3: so we try and keep ahead of that.
Speaker 2: Now, So what can we expect. What are some of
Speaker 2: the episodes that you have coming up?
Speaker 3: Listeners can expect I think more of what they have
Speaker 3: come to know and love about Case File, as varied
Speaker 3: cases from Australia from around the world. There's all sorts
Speaker 3: of different cases more recent older. We are launching with
Speaker 3: the two parter on the Night Caller, which was the
Speaker 3: serial offender Eric Agacook in Perth, Western Australia, and I
Speaker 3: think what's interesting about that case is just such a
Speaker 3: different time when that was happening, and you have this
Speaker 3: prolific serial offender just wreaking havoc across the city, and
Speaker 3: yet they didn't put it together that it was the
Speaker 3: same offender. I mean, there's multiple wrongful convictions despite a
Speaker 3: confession from Eric A. Gocook in this case after he
Speaker 3: was eventually caught and he confessed, and they put together, oh,
Speaker 3: this was all the same guy. There's people sitting in
Speaker 3: prison for his crimes and despite a full detailed confession
Speaker 3: that it still took a while for those guys to
Speaker 3: get out. I just's certain things about that case that
Speaker 3: blow my mind.
Speaker 4: Do you ever struggle to hold back your opinion in
Speaker 4: your script writing?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I have plenty of opinions on those cases,
Speaker 3: but yeah, very mindful that that's not what case follows about.
Speaker 5: It's going to remain neutral.
Speaker 3: Just tell it, just tell the facts, And sometimes I
Speaker 3: think people forget that. So like if we are very
Speaker 3: common gripe for listeners and that we'll get emails about
Speaker 3: is about the use of polygraph tests. So if we
Speaker 3: mention in a case like you know, certain suspect was
Speaker 3: brought in given a polygraph test and passed and failed
Speaker 3: or whatever, people write in like furious, this is junk science.
Speaker 3: It's been debunked. We're not advocating, just that's what happened. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So even though we don't give opinions, people can sometimes
Speaker 3: hear things and think that we are. But yeah, just
Speaker 3: keep it neutral. This is what happened. And that's case
Speaker 3: file basically.
Speaker 2: And I know you said you can secret from your
Speaker 2: friends and family, but I'm assuming they know what you do.
Speaker 4: Now what do they think they know?
Speaker 3: Now? Yeah, Yeah, they're pretty sort of blown away by
Speaker 3: it as well. Some of them can't believe it. They
Speaker 3: hear my voice a lot.
Speaker 4: Do they listen?
Speaker 3: Some do, Some don't, Yeah, some sort of. Some are
Speaker 3: turned off by my voice actually because they can't take
Speaker 3: it seriously because they know it's me, you know. Some an'
Speaker 3: into true crime and stuff like that. Yeah, but quite
Speaker 3: a few friends and family do listen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, thank you for coming into the studio. I
Speaker 2: know it was a bit of a treck for you.
Speaker 2: That's not giving too much away, is it.
Speaker 5: No bad traffic, very bad traffic.
Speaker 2: Everyone can keep listening to you, but just call you Casey.
Speaker 4: Thanks to Casey for telling us his story.
Speaker 2: True Crime Conversations is a Mum of Meer podcast hosted
Speaker 2: and produced by me Jemma Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with
Speaker 2: audio design by Jacob Brown.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week
Speaker 4: with another True Crime Conversation.