‘Serial’ producers to launch new true crime podcast

It’s true — Sarah Koenig’s crime investigations are back, just with a different name.

“Serial” producers Koenig and Julie Snyder and “This American Life” creator/“Serial” co-conspirer Ira Glass, will launch “S-Town,” another true crime series based in rural Alabama. While Koenig won’t lend her own dulcet tones to “S-Town,” longtime “This American Life” producer Brian Reed will host when the podcast kicks off in March.

According to Variety:

“The production of ’S-Town’ began when a man asked ‘This American Life’ to investigate the son of a wealthy family who had allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. Reed agreed to look into it — but then someone else in the Alabama town wound up dead, and another story began to unfold about a bitter feud, a hunt for hidden treasure and the mysteries of one man’s life.”

Ambiguous! But intriguing!

“S-Town” is one of three new projects the “Serial” team is in the process of creating, and it arrives more than a year after the podcast’s second season on the mysterious disappearance of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. While the first season, involving the murder of Hae Min Lee and her accused ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed, made the series an instant hit, many felt the episodic podcast wasn’t quite as addictive the second time around. (We can vouch for that.)

While we have a month before “S-Town” kicks off, here are three true crime podcasts to binge in the meantime:

My Favorite Murder

Comedians Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff might be hillllarious, but murder and crime not so much. Luckily, their neurosis and fascination with the subject matter tempers the darkness of macabre with storytelling that won’t keep you up all night.

In the Dark

Reporter Madeleine Baran investigates the murder and sexual assault of a young Minnesotan boy who went missing in 1989. While it starts as a whodunit, a modern day twist sends Baran’s reporting back to 2016, where sources and an alleged killer are suddenly available for comment.

Last Podcast on the Left

When it’s not bros being bros, Ben Kissel, Henry Zebrowski and Marcus Parks discuss cults, serial killers and the potentially paranormal. This one veers more on the side of historical non-fiction, featuring the likes of Internet oddity, CreepyPasta, and the Aum Shinrikyo death cult in Japan.