From the newest hit Netflix show to the docuseries that everybody’s talking about, it’s no secret that we are all obsessed with true crime. Long-distance friends and moms Tabitha Kane and Gretchen Macaulay went so far as to start their own podcast, “Housewives Of True Crime.” Since 2019, these two investigative enthusiasts have covered one provocative case after another, even when they're over a thousand miles apart between North Texas and California. Now with more than 450 episodes to date and thousands of listeners tuning in weekly to Spotify, Pandora and Apple Podcasts, it’s safe to say these two are living their motto of “wine, true crime and in bed by 9.”
TABITHA: WE’VE BEEN BEST FRIENDS FOR… pretty much our entire adult lives. We’re both married, we both have kids and we toyed with the idea of podcasting together for a long time. Then in 2014, Sarah Koenig came out with ‘Serial,’ which was sort of the first true crime podcast to take off. We were both pretty obsessed and found ourselves talking about cases in the carpool line on the way to school.
GRETCHEN: OUR EVERYDAY MOM LIFE… wasn’t going to be interesting enough to podcast about on the daily. Then one day, it went off like a light bulb. We always end up talking about true crime, so why don’t we cover true crime?
TABITHA: MY FASCINATION WITH TRUE CRIME STARTED… when I was in high school. A local woman was murdered in my hometown, and the courtroom was right across the street. After school, instead of going to hang out with my girlfriends, I would go and sit in the courtroom and watch this case. I think people are just naturally intrigued by other people’s lives and learning the things to look out for.
GRETCHEN: WE TRY TO DISSECT… as much information as we can. We start with local newspapers, we read a lot of books, watch some documentaries. We get our hands on pretty much anything we can find.
TABITHA: EVERY WEEK, WE TAKE TURNS TELLING… a story. Gretchen doesn’t know what I’m going to share, and I don’t know what she’s going to share. We ask questions, and we respond to each other. That’s the whole point — to get each other’s organic reaction.
GRETCHEN: IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE… accommodating to each other’s lives. Sometimes that means we have to record at midnight. Sometimes it means recording at 5 in the morning. We’re just fortunate enough to have something like this podcast that allows us the flexibility to do everything that is important to us.
TABITHA: WE HAVE NOT MISSED A RECORDING IN… five years. We release new episodes every Monday and keep our schedules flexible when our calendars get crazy.
GRETCHEN: IT'S NOT WORTH DOING WHEN… we’re tired or distracted. We don’t sound like ourselves, we’re not prepared. It just defeats the purpose, because we only share this story with our audience once. We need to be at our best when we do it or just don’t do it at all.
TABITHA: THE BEST CASES TO COVER ARE ALWAYS CRIMES OF… passion. We like focusing on cases that have a good twist and a good takeaway. Most often, that takeaway is ‘Don’t cheat on your spouse.’
GRETCHEN: WE’VE BEEN DIVING INTO MORE… interviews this year, and that’s been really fun for us. We recently talked with former New York City detective Tom Smith, who was also part of the terrorism task force with the FBI. We also have an upcoming interview with a victim whose husband made an attempt on her life. That’s the beauty of podcasting — it can go wherever it takes us.