Meet Our True Crime Podcast Camille Anderson and Jennifer Flanders

Today we’d like to introduce you to Our True Crime Podcast Camille Anderson and Jennifer Flanders.

Hi Camille and Jennifer; we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Cam and Jen have known each other most of their lives, but one night at the skating rink, we fell for the same boy and have been best friends ever since. Besides boys and roller skating, we both had a passion for Unsolved Mysteries and horror films. Thus spent many weekends glued to the tv, watching acted scary movies and hoping they could help Robert Stack solve a mystery. Fast forward to 2017, when we went to their first Crime Convention. We met true crime TV personalities such as Nancy Grace and Josh Mankiewicz of NBC’s Dateline. We also spoke to pioneers of a relatively new medium called Podcasting. We got the idea to host and produce our podcast about true crime there. After a year of planning and discussing our true crime podcast, we finally ordered equipment. Now it was time to name our project. We tried several names, like Midwest Murder Moms. Nope didn’t fit. The trend then was to have some alcohol in the name, but we felt “Doing Harm on Boone’s Farm” would not bring in an audience. Finally, after months of debate on what we would call our true crime podcast, a light went off. The best name was in front of us, and “Our True Crime Podcast” was established. On July 11th, 2018, we released our first episode; the rest is history.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth road? What’s that? The first six months were tough. The writing and research were easy, but the audio? Not so much. We spoke at different volumes, and leveling our voices was not as easy as we had hoped. It was frustrating, and there were tears, but we never gave up. However, we hired someone to edit, and he ensured the audio quality was perfect. Hiring Nico from We Talk of Dreams has made a difference, and we don’t cry as often. As you can imagine, great audio is essential to a podcast. Once our sound was better, we started to gain more listeners. Since life sometimes throws us a curveball, we’ve also had help along the way with research and writing. Sometimes we have listeners send in scripts, or we have had other podcasters help out. Right now, Lauretta Allen is writing for us. She’s a published author herself.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Cam is a high school language arts teacher, and Jen is a stay-at-home mom. Both have teen children who are embarrassed by their mom’s podcast. (We think they secretly think it’s cool.) Our True Crime Podcast focuses on lesser-known crimes, shying away from serial killers who have been covered repeatedly in the media. We do many episodes that involve St Louis and Missouri, but we also do cases from around the globe, such as England, Australia, and South Africa.

One of the things we are known for is our annual “12 Nightmares Before Christmas”. Every year on December 13th, we release an episode every day until Christmas Eve. The number of the day correlates to the victims in the episode. We’ve been doing this since we launched, and this holiday season will be our fifth year.

Many people don’t like conversational true crime podcasts and feel that the hosts talk or banter too much at the beginning of an episode. We don’t; we get straight down to business. Once introductions are out of the way, we dig in. We feel we are different from other true crime podcasts because we are 100% ourselves. What you hear is exactly how we are in real life, so there are a lot of mistakes. Those mistakes are edited out, but we include them as outtakes at the end. Our listeners enjoy an excellent palate cleanser after a dark episode. We are proud to have consistently released an episode at 4 pm CST every Wednesday for over four years. Rarely have we missed a deadline, and our listeners show their appreciation by tuning in every week.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
We have learned that planning is critical, research must always be vetted, and release times are consistent. We have two out of the three down. While we always say we will get ahead, we often re-work the episode a mere hour before we record. We have learned podcasting is not just reading, writing, and recording. We have had to learn about analytics, audiences, and getting ads for revenue, allowing us to keep doing what we love.

We need to get the facts correct each week and deliver them in a way the audience can relate to. We often hear our listeners say that it feels like sitting down at a table with their best friends, chatting about true crime when they play our podcast. To us, that is the greatest compliment. We’ve been humbled by families that have reached out to thank us for covering their loved one’s cases. They were grateful for our honest reporting and for not being sensual with the details. Having the families reach out to us makes us strive to improve. Doing a true crime podcast, you have to remember that you are covering the worst day in someone’s life, so we try to deliver the case in a way that the victim’s families won’t be traumatized. What started as a hobby has turned into a passion. By doing this podcast, we have made friends from all over the world, The true-crime community is very welcoming, and many of the large podcasts assisted us along the way. They have been there to answer questions and help us grow. That is why we always try to help the new ones just starting. We are paying it back.

Contact Info:

• Website: ourtruecrimepodcast.com
• Instagram: @ourtruecrimepodcast
• Facebook: Our True Crime Podcast
• Twitter: @ourtruecrimepod
• Youtube: Our True Crime Podcast

Image Credits
Tessa Anderson True Crime Podcast Festival