Suspect
4.8/5
Critic Rating
4.5/5
Listener Rating
Suspect is an investigative series about mislaid justice and the kinds of weighty decisions that detectives, lawyers, and jurors make every day - decisions that, once made, are almost impossible to reverse.Season 3: Five Shots in the Dark follows Leon Benson, who spent 24 years in an Indiana state prison for the 1998 murder of a young man named Kasey Schoen. His conviction hinged on the testimony of two eyewitnesses – but what if their memories turned out to be wrong? And what if the people who knew what really happened had never been allowed to speak? Suspect Season 3: Five Shots in the Da...
Critic Reviews
Score: 4.8
Fiona McCann • Irish Times • Mar 25, 2023
"(Season 2) If it all feels a little unsatisfying, that might be the point. It’s a rare true crime that can be neatly wrapped and understood. But Suspect is nonetheless a well scripted, deeply sourced, expertly edited exemplar of its genre: Shaer and Fantz are experienced professionals, and they bring their journalistic chops to the subject. In season two, Fantz does her best to trace a clear line through a messy story. But with so many dead leads and so much buried evidence and contradictory testimony, it’s no wonder jurors had difficulty agreeing."
Score: 4.9
Mara Davis • Paste Magazine • Nov 1, 2022
"(Season 2) Journalist Ashley Franz digs up all kinds of leads but focuses on one person. His shady story and history doesn’t confirm everything 100 percent, and I wasn’t fully convinced. Like season 1, Suspect leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions. There’s definitely more to this story."
Score: 4.9
Ximena Smith • Stuff NZ • Oct 22, 2022
"(Season 2): They’re two very different cases and are decades apart, but what ties both seasons of Suspect together is the hosts’ painstaking attention-to-detail as they comb through the evidence (and flaws) of each murder’s investigation. Stylistically, Suspect is very Serial-esque: a well-worn-yet-reliable approach to true-crime storytelling."
Score: 4.8
Emma Dibdin • New York Times • Nov 23, 2021
"That gathering provides a wide array of suspects, all of whom are investigated in this absorbing, emotional ten-episode series."
Score: 4.5
Mr. Hipster • Mr. Hipster Blog • Oct 19, 2021
"...this story feels particularly modern and present in a way a lot of the others pods I’ve listened to don’t. I suppose in feeling more like an old-fashioned doc, this feels weirdly modern and different. The theme of justice is certainly part of it, but the approach is very different. The hosts don’t personalize the story. They don’t integrate their feelings, or even act as the audience avatar. It’s more academic than that — yet wholly effective and compelling nonetheless. The end result of the pod is, like most true crime programming, not particularly satisfying. So in one sense, you’re frustrated. And in another you’re also happy, but sad. It’s all very confusing feelings wise. But it’s certainly worth a listen..."
Score: 4.9
Nicholas Quah • Vulture • Oct 7, 2021
"Suspect is a very good listen. In terms of pure execution, it’s probably the best narrative true-crime podcast I’ve heard all year. The resulting product is tight as hell, a listening experience of such efficiency that I couldn’t help but compulsively move from each episode to the next. Suspect is a little bit like the true-crime podcast version of a Gerard Butler movie or a really good episode of Law and Order: an exemplar of its genre, but not a revolutionary, which I sincerely mean as praise."
Listener Reviews
Score: 4.5
Safoora B. • Mar 1, 2022
"Stumbled on to this true crimes podcast about a murder during a Halloween Party in the Seattle area in October 2008. The host of the podcast does a great job of combing through all the details and taking the listeners through the events. He received a letter from the accused which led him to look into the murder and then the trial. This case also shows that DNA evidence doesn't always "work."…"
