A good true crime podcast will have you glued to your headphones for hours, and Serial might be the best of them all. The team behind the award-winning investigate series has returned with a new podcast focusing on a 1985 murder that has been left unsolved for decades. The Coldest Case In Laramie was released in the last week of February, and is divided into eight parts, each around 25-35 minutes long, and is available on most big streaming services.

 

The Coldest Case In Laramie is hosted by New York Times reporter Kim Barker, best known for her work covering the war in Afghanistan that was adapted into the Tina Fey starring Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The idea for the podcast originated in lockdown when Barker refamiliarized herself with a case that she remembered from her teenage years. In the town of Laramie in Wyoming, 22-year-old Shelli Wiley was found dead, stabbed and her flat set on fire. The horrific murder shocked the community, with two arrests that later proved dead ends. The murder remained unsolved but stuck with Barker for life. Hardly anything new developed in regard to the case until 2016 when a Laramie police officer was arrested, but again, the charges were dropped soon after.

 

 

Barker found out about this incident in 2021. Despite the apparently strong evidence connecting former officer Fred Lamb to the murder including DNA samples and witness statements, a trial never occurred. The charges were supposed to be refiled, but this still hasn’t happened, so Barker wanted to investigate why. The podcast sees her reach out to Shelli Wiley’s family members and others close to her to ask about their memories of the investigation and why the 2016 charges against Lamb were not further pursued. The breadth of interviews and evidence featured is one of the reasons why Coldest Case is such an intriguing listen, with recollections from other suspects in the case, to the bizarre interrogation that lead to Lamb’s arrest, to the main suspect himself. It all paints a picture of the town that Barker describes as “mean” and full of “cold people”.

 

The podcast makes a point of saying that the question of who committed the crime is not the main purpose of the series, and is more an examination of how memories of events, particularly traumatic ones, can be warped and incorrect. It also shows how the search to find closure and answers can become damaging. All eight episodes of The Coldest Case in Laramie are now available, and despite its grim subject matter, it’s worth a listen.

 

You can listen to The Coldest Case In Laramie on Spotify
For more on podcasts, check out the best podcasts about TV shows
 

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