"Good news, good news! I'll call on Sunday."

Kristin Smart did not call on Sunday and would never call again. For Smart, Memorial Day weekend in 1996 began as any other long weekend - filled with excitement for a night of partying and fun. Smart, 19, was a freshman at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, probably never imagining her name plastered all over billboards and headlines nationwide. Smart's story gained national attention across newspapers, reported on popular true crime shows, and captured the nation's attention. The mysterious disappearance and murder of Smart rocked the little college town to its core. The journey to finding Smart's killer was not easy. In fact, it would take 25 years until a man with a mic and a passion for catching criminals joined in on the manhunt. So, who killed Kristin Smart?

If you are, like me, an insomniac prone to scrolling through true crime TikTok or reading Wikipedia updates on crime investigation at night, these whodunnit cases like Smart's keep people interested in the lives of the missing, murdered, and mourned. The true crime genre examines the stories of real victims and their endured crimes, often through literature and podcasts.

When watching our favorite true crime solvers recount a traumatizing crime, their appearance beams with lively voices and animated hand gestures. Their engaging energy is palpable through the screen. However, the audience does not see the recurring nightmares and second hand trauma behind the happy facade of their favorite creators. Behind every storyteller lies someone who recounts some of the most horrific crimes ever committed while harboring the deepest scars.

Patricia "Patches" Brown, or who some might know as "youcancallmepatches," on TikTok carries her emotional scar close to herself. Reaching an audience of over 800,000 followers, Brown curates her TikTok page to update her audience on the latest and trendiest crime stories in the media. She reports on both active and unsolved criminal cases, and works directly with a victim's family to create awareness with efforts to find the perpetrator.

After scouring through police reports, interviewing friends, and family of the victim, and conducting outside research, Brown sometimes takes on trauma from her work.

"I always try to reiterate that it seems so ridiculous for me, just as a person who makes videos in the comfort of my own home, to sit here and talk about the victims. I'm just sitting here reporting on it, but there have been times where I had to take a week off," said Brown.

For Brown, the overwhelming sense of guilt and sadness follows outside her workplace and bleeds into her personal life.

"There have been times where I had to take on this information and post about it, and I would have nightmares, and then I'd have to take a week off, and then I'd feel guilty because I'm like, 'why am I feeling this is my choice?' These victims didn't have a choice, but this is my choice to report on this," said Brown.

Brown is not alone in her loneliness and difficulty compartmentalizing business and personal life. For host of the podcast "Truer Crime," and former professional debater Celisia Stanton also finds reporting on true crime emotionally draining.

"There is a layer of disassociation. Distancing yourself and being able to compartmentalize is like remaining open to empathy and compassion because that's how a good story is. That's how you tell a good story as a storyteller. I think [true crime storytelling] is a tough thing to balance. I'm not sure that I have this perfect balance at all," Stanton said.

Difficulty of balancing mental health and true crime content

The horrific details of the crime can lead to deep traumatic impact, which was the case for host of the hit podcast "Morning Cup of Murder," Korina Biemesderfer. "I guess I do have second-hand trauma because I hear all these stories with all this stuff that happens to kids specifically. So, I guess my secondhand trauma more so comes in the form of caution and over caution," said Biemesderfer.

The sentiment of feeling unsafe after mass crime consumption is spread throughout the true crime content creator community. With more exposure and access to the horrid details of each case, it is hard to place distance between the reality of themselves versus the victims of these crimes. To find a healthy balance between content for entertainment and balancing mental health needs, sometimes cutting the true crime down cold turkey is needed. Like all good habits, finding a balance helps creators find new inspirations and create authentic content for the viewers and the creators themselves. Biemesderfer was lucky to find her happy medium.

"I try really hard to give myself a clock-in time and a clock-out time. I couldn't read that kind of stuff outside of work hours anymore. Once I clock out, true crime and stuff like that is kind of non-existent in the house," says Biemesderfer.

However, other creators like Stanton and Brown without a healthy balance, unintentionally bring the baggage or trauma from the cases creating a seemingly never-ending cycle of fear and grief. In the chaos of the real world, the victims' families should be grieving over their loved ones. Nowadays, with true crime-solving mysteries taking over media consumption, the pain is somewhat shared between groups of strangers on the internet.

"I'd find myself alone in the house; it was really scary because I felt so vulnerable. It's ridiculous to sit here and think that my paranoia is equivalent to the victims. But yes, absolutely, there have been times where I have had horrible, horrible nightmares. I want to start investing in Ring cameras and like putting stuff around because my paranoia is just at an all-time high," said Brown.

Behind the scenes, your favorite true crime sleuth dedicate hours, months, and sometimes years to report traumatic events. The dedication to their craft takes a deteriorating mental toll. With one in three Americans consuming true crime content at least once a week, more creators feel the pressure to create increasing amounts of crime content to generate revenue and views, which comes at a high cost to their editorial integrity and mental health.

Many times, podcasters and other online sleuths are reliving the experience as a witness to a crime through the detailed retelling of horrendous crimes against innocent victims. As amateur investigators, they dig through police files, interview those who knew the victims, and sometimes physically look for clues for a person they have not even met. For many creators like Brown, Stanton, and Biemesderfer, the goal is not simply to gain views but to reveal a sense of humanity.

Like journalists, content creators have enormous pressure to get the newest information to the masses to get views, likes, and comments – ultimately generating revenue. With the pressure to pump out information and stiff competition on their respective platforms, the true crime industry is cutthroat, often rewarding those who post the most no matter the cost.

"It's very blatant on the people who care and the people who don't care. And there are people in this space who blatantly don't care; they want to be the first person. They do things for clout. They release information they're not supposed to be releasing," said Brown.

True crime is a form of journalism in the sense that, many true crime content creators faces conflicting editorial decisions such as posting morbid images of the deceased or not verifying the facts surrounding the crime, all while keeping the information entertaining.

"At the end of the day it's still views on your channel and it's still people tuning into you because kind of like I was saying earlier you become like a news outlet to people on TikTok."

Brown feels the pressure to create more content to maintain and increase viewership and audience engagement.

"There is sometimes this pressure where if you don't post, your video views go down; your followers go down, your viewership goes down. TikTok is like a place where you solely can post video after video and respond to comments. So it's easy to be in this constant wheel of just posting and posting and posting, and sometimes, it gets oversaturated, and it gets sensationalized, especially in the true crime sphere," said Brown.

Like many creators, Brown spends her time curating her page to tailor the content that her viewers want to see, which is true crime. With seemingly never-ending work hours, completing a single 30-second explainer video on a particular case can take up to a week.

However, the fascincation with true crime did not begin in the online atmosphere. Instead, people would receive their daily dose of true crime through literature and television. So, how has true crime evolved?

The increase in true crime podcasts, television shows, and online sleuthing is nothing new. However, the different media forms we consume content have significantly changed over time. From the folklore of evil spirits to the creation of missing people posters that evolved into "online sleuthing," the sense of a community rallying together during a time of distress was present.

Since the nineteenth century, newspapers have featured lost and found and missing person posters all over their pages to sell their papers. Then the media evolved into Pulp magazine to carry on the theme of misfortune and trivia of crimes in a fictional setting. A lot of American literature doused itself with true crime novels like "We Keep the Dead Close" by Becky Cooper to Truman Capote's best-selling novel, "In Cold Blood," all contained gruesome details that engage the readers to want more. However scary these horror stories may be, in a twisted way, they also bring a sense of entertainment.

Shows like "America's Most Wanted," "Unsolved Mysteries," "Dateline," "ABC 20/20," and online amateur crime solvers on social media all shaped the way. Sensationalizing heinous crimes in great detail always grabs the attention of many. Over the last decade, reporting on murder cases while parsing through tragic evidence in the form of podcasts joined the true crime craze. After the hit podcast "Serial" launched in 2014, they had the same cultural impact similar to television and literature— a creation of sensationalized fear. Click the timeline above to see the evolution of true crime.

True Crime in the Digital Era

A world that revolves around likes, comments, shares, shock value, and validation equates to success, leaving journalistic integrity out the window. However, not only are podcasters and online sleuths navigating the blurry lines between entertainment and truth, but they must also balance the weight of not dramatizing crime.

The true crime community find themselves in a delicate position to report accurately while showing respect to the victims and the families in times after tragedies. The blend between entertainment and reality is a slippery slope, where social media platforms become a soap box for online sleuths to turn tragedy into profit without respect for the victims. However, with all bad things come the good. One of the biggest benefits of true crime sleuths is their ability to solve decades-old cold cases. That was the case for solving Kristin Smart's disappearance and murder.

Native San Luis Obispo resident and musician Chris Lambert set his sights on solving this decades-old case, reigniting interest in Smart's story. Lambert was only eight years old when Smart disappeared, but he passed by Smart's missing person billboard for years, wondering about her story. To find the answers, Lambert created his podcast, "Your Own Backyard," discussing Smart's case and interviewing potential witnesses.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Lambert discussed his initial idea to start his own podcast.

"I thought I'd give it a shot and see if I could get a few people talking," Lambert said. "All I have to do is get over my shyness and start calling these people out of the blue and start asking really personal questions," said Lambert.

Click the image to uncover Kristin Smart's story

The podcast became a success with over 7.5 million downloads and landed the #2 top on Apple's podcasts list. When Smart's killer was arrested in late 2021, Lambert's work was credited with bringing forward key witnesses by San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson. A musician with no journalistic or investigative background was able to lead to the arrest and sentencing of Smart's presumed killer.

Smart's story is no anomaly; online sleuths are the new waves in helping uncover cold cases. From Gabby Petito, whose missing van was found through the keen eye of YouTube vloggers that ultimately led investigators to her body, to the podcast "Real Life Real Crime" which led a former detective to find Courtney Coco's killer, many more victims of crime continue to receive justice through the help of online sleuths.

Whether sleuthing has more positive or negative attributes, all experts agree: it brings awareness to the victims and the need to solve their cases.

"I'll come across a story, like, 'how have I never heard about this? How is this not in my history books?' Especially at crimes against people of color, or just stories that I feel are untold from marginalized groups, and if someone doesn't tell them they're just going to remain hidden," said Biemesderfer.

From the moment a story is picked up by an online sleuth, it brings people together to: fight for justice, put a face to a name, and give the victims honor. This is especially true for victims of color and marginalized groups.

Kevin Lord, Director of Lab and Agency Logistics at DNA Doe Project, see's both sides to online sleuths.

CLICK the video ABOVE to learn more about DNA Doe Project

"I think it's really a double-edged sword. There are definitely cases that haven't been solved that wouldn't maybe necessarily have been solved without either online sleuths or podcasters, journalists, whatever, looking into them, and I think that's great that any of these cases are solved, and it can be really valuable, especially with cold cases," said Lord.

Psychology of True Crime

So, what about a gruesome murder or cold case intrigues the public? Is it the suspense of catching a killer? Or the absolute need for justice? Whether in mourning or a session of an hour-long amateur investigation, there is no doubt that crime brings community people together.

“Psychological studies have shown that to the extent that you consume nothing but scary content, it gives you a worldview that. The world is even perhaps scarier than it really is. I think there is that potential jeopardy, it can exaggerate your sense of danger," says Bonn.

For Dr. Richard Lettieri, a forensic neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst, the interest in crime can be attributed to our fascination with understanding others.

"I think people kind of want to understand more about other people and themselves. So you look at this true crime, and it's a way of vicariously looking at something in people and in ourselves that's at a distance, and that's safe and that you can start to integrate and absorb more and understand and try to get an understanding of it. That's a fundamental curiosity about people and their humanity and their own humanity and that of others," said Lettieri.

While the mental health effects can negatively impact influencers, it can also cause psychological impacts on the viewer. Dr. Scott Bonn, a criminologist and crime analysis, says, "psychological studies have shown that to the extent that you consume nothing but scary content, it gives you a worldview that. The world is even perhaps scarier than it really is. I think there is that potential jeopardy; it can exaggerate your sense of danger."

In fact, the over-sensationalization of crime has distorted the truth of crime that occurs in real life. For example, there is a common misconception that crime is at an all-time high. From the coverage of school shootings, senseless robberies, etc., you can not help but feel that crime is at an all-time high. However,that is simply not the truth. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's index, the homicide rate in the United States was at its peak in 1991, with an increase during the pandemic, but in 2023 crime is still relatively low compared to the 90s.

Dr. Bonn suggests, "look at the source of the information," as people with mass influence have something to gain by the point of view that they're taking.

While it is easy to focus on the abundance of crime coverage, there are issues with the stories untold by the media. According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) database, about half a million people go missing in the United States every year. However, there is inequity of coverage between women of color and white women. For example, of those missing in America, 25% fall into the white woman category but they recieve 75% of major media reports coverage. The phenomenon of interest in missing white women over women of color in media is known as "Missing White Woman Syndrome,” a term coined by the late Gwen Ifill. The media is interested in covering the "the blue-eyed, blond-haired, white coeds missing on spring break. Those are the only ones we ever hear about," says Bonn.

More influential crime content creators like Brown and Stanton want to see the change in ethical content on big platforms like TikTok and Instagram. However, the change is partly dependent on listeners behavior patterns and if the audience is ready and interested to consume ethical and unbiased crime content.

A look into the future

Will there be a change?

"It's possible that nothing's going to change because at the end of the day, if listener patterns don't change or people still consume unethical crime, but if people still consume this more exploitative true crime, then no, it's not really going to change," says Stanton.

As for the future, Stanton is bright-eyed with the direction of online true crime content. Stanton is ready for change and leads for more ethical sleuthing.

"I do think that some folks are wanting to change. I am hopeful and optimistic about it. The biggest thing is more creators who are really trying to be intentional because it allows listeners to think more critically about what they're consuming," said Stanton.

So, who killed Kristin Smart?

While Smart's remains are unknown, she was declared legally dead in 2002. However, after 25 years and with the help of Lambert's hit podcast, Paul Flores was convicted of Smart's murder in March 2023 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Flores was the last person spotted with Smart on the night of the Memorial Day party. Like Smart's case, many more unsolved crimes continue to receive the online sleuth treatment.

Speaker Highlights

Slide through the speakers to learn more

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Celisia Stanton host of "Truer Crime"

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Criminologist and author of the best-selling nove "Why We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World’s Most Savage Murderers."

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Investigative Genetic Genealogist, DNA Doe Project

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Crime Psychologist