By 2017, the true crime podcasting space might have already seemed crowded — but perhaps what it was missing was full body chills.

That was the year Ashley Flowers and her pal Brit Prawat launched their true crime podcast Crime Junkie into an arena that already included pioneers like Serial (2014), Generation Why (2012), and My Favorite Murder (2016). The casual way Flowers narrated crimes to her friend, who responded with dramatic gasps and her trademark exclamation (“Full. Body. Chills.”), resonated and their breezy takes on everything from local Indiana cold cases to high-profile murders (they think Scott Peterson’s innocent) drew in legions of listeners — so many, in fact, that Flowers was able to quickly quit her day job and turn her attention to podcasting, full time.

Over the years, that dedication has paid endless dividends. Crime Junkie rapidly shot to the top of the podcast charts and never left; last year it was Apple’s second most-popular podcast — beating out Joe Rogan. Its success enabled Flowers to launch her own expanded podcast network, Audiochuck, publish a bestselling thriller novel, and rake in a staggering $45 million a year. Bloomberg recently reported Flowers’s revenue, along with news of an investment of $40 million from the Chernin Group, a venture capital firm that’s funded cultural cornerstones like Tumblr and entertainment projects like Reese Witherspoon’s production company. That likely means the sky’s the limit for Flowers and Audiochuck, which according to Bloomberg was valued at $250 million. But with great opportunity comes great scrutiny — and scrutiny hasn’t always done Crime Junkie many favors.

There’s no question that Crime Junkie is a juggernaut. But because it’s a juggernaut, it inevitably plays an outsized role in the broader conversation around true crime itself. So far, it sits uneasily within larger debates about responsible content creation, fan engagement, the rights of victims’ families, and the ultimate question of whether true crime is journalism or entertainment.

Ashley Flowers’s route to podcasting was unconventional — but, wow, has it paid off

Before 2016, Ashley Flowers wasn’t an investigator — her only interaction with the world of criminal justice was as a volunteer with her local Crime Stoppers branch, where she served on the board of directors. But that year, Flowers, then a 27-year-old startup worker, proposed a true crime radio segment to air on a local Indianapolis station in order to promote the Crime Stoppers organization. After about a year of doing the local segment, Flowers’s lifelong bestie Prawat suggested she listen to Serial. Soon, Flowers had decided to expand her radio gig to a true crime podcast.

“It really started as a way to get the Crime Stoppers name out there, and it has grown into so much more and allowed for the platform to bring attention to a lot of really amazing nonprofits,” Flowers said in a 2019 radio interview. That’s a slightly different narrative than the one she gave the New York Times in 2022. In that version, she said, “I........

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