How police in US are using the power of podcasts to crack unsolved murders

Houghton and Vartarian had just been assigned to Elgin's new cold case unit in 2024 when the chief informed them that the job would also involve podcasting."We're already starting this new unit," Houghton recalls. "Why are we adding something else new on top of that?"Houghton and his partner begrudgingly began figuring out how to arrange episodes and soon discovered the process was also helping them structure the investigation. They formed different theories about what had happened to the missing 23-year-old, and each theory naturally formed an episode.The podcast not only generated tips but also gave the detectives more ways to find leads. They started going through posts on social media about their own programme."They'd say, like, 'Oh, my mom worked with this person, or I live in this neighbourhood and I remember this.'"The detectives ultimately solved the case through old-fashioned policework; one of their theories had been that Schepers had crashed her car and ended up in the river.They had found a 1999 local newspaper story claiming that police had searched salvage yards by helicopter as well as dragging the Fox River but there was no evidence the latter had happened. And they...