True crime told in turns, signed off with a groan.
Crime In The Coconut pairs Amanda and Morgan, who alternate as storyteller and audience on cases ranging from the Richardson family murders to Christine and Lea Papin. The one listening is at times kept from reading up beforehand, so the reactions, jokes and side arguments come out unrehearsed.
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Crime In The Coconut is a two-person true crime conversation, and the conversation matters as much as the case. Amanda and Morgan take turns: one arrives with a story researched, and the other plays audience. The split does real work. In one episode the listening half protests about being barred from looking anything up in advance, and the storyteller explains that the surprise is the point. The cases lean toward murder, and a run of titles shows the spread: 'The Murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart', 'Christine and Lea Papin', 'The Hello Kitty Murder', 'Cold Mysterious Car Fire Case' and 'Vampire Boyfriend, Richardson Family Murder'. Other kinds of darkness get a turn too, as 'Jeffrey Lundgren and The Kirtland Cult' shows. The retellings care about what came after as well as the crime itself. The Richardson discussion stays on an accomplice who took a plea deal and on the Canadian rule that kept a suspect's name out of print. The Hello Kitty discussion stops to check a detail against a second source after the wiki account left it out. None of it stays solemn for long. Tangents are a big part of the show. A cult story becomes an earnest exchange about church camp, belief and the pull of community. The atmosphere is unpolished: drinks come out on mic, false starts get acknowledged, and one episode gets going only on its third attempt. Its closing notes that the pair had been drinking wine and recording for five hours, and asks forgiveness for the low energy. Guests sit in now and then, mostly to comment. They include Justin, introduced as Morgan's boyfriend, and Jeremiah, introduced as an intern from the studio where they record. During a car fire case, the talk slides into real unease about an uncaught shooter firing on cars along the highway Justin drives to work. Sign-offs have a routine of their own. After plugs for email and social accounts, where story suggestions are invited, episodes often end on a morbid pun, such as a gag built on a murder of crows. Some closings also tell listeners to stay safe, or to stay weird. One episode describes the second season, recorded in summer 2022, as six episodes, three from each of them, with stories that play into one another. For a first listen, 'The Murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart' is a natural place to start: Morgan introduces it as a personal favorite, a wrong-place, wrong-time story that is hard to stop thinking about. The case details can be graphic, including mutilation and dismemberment, and they sit right beside the jokes.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes true crime as loose, banter-heavy conversation between two people, with side stories, drinks on mic and gallows humor left in. It is a poor fit for anyone after polished, sober narration or clean language.
What sets it apart: Each case is told to a co-host who is sometimes kept from reading up beforehand, so the questions and reactions are live, and episodes often close on a deliberately awful morbid pun. Among the jokes, the pair still stop to cover plea deals and publication bans and to cross-check sources.
Hello! If you've stumbled on to our podcast then there is a chance you love true crime, mysteries, paranormal, morbid, or unexplainable things. Good news: SO DO WE! Join us each week for a new topic shared by either Amanda or Morgan on true crime, paranormal, folk lore, conspiracy theories and the like.
The cans clink, then Amanda and Morgan pull you into their disbelief at a brutal case.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grim family murder case filtered through loose ASMR chat and Canada's youth justice fallout.
Crime in the Coconut takes on a bleak family annihilator case with a deliberately loose setup, covering the 2006 Richardson family murders in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, with a guest folded into the discussion and an ASMR premise shaping the recording.
Jeffrey Lundgren's staged mind-reading and demon prophecy show how fear can harden inside a religious community.
Jeffrey Lundgren's path from an abused childhood in Independence, Missouri, to self-declared prophet of a Latter-day Saint cult in Ohio gives this episode a cold, uneasy pull.
A grim unsolved 1978 murder is revisited through a matchmaking event, police questioning, and two passed lie detector tests.
A 1978 murder gives the episode its grim center, and the case stays troubling because it never arrives at resolution. The host traces Leslie Barker's death from a matchmaking event at Red's to police questioning of a 30-year-old North Canton man who worked for United Airlines at…
A conversational but deeply grim account of Fan Manyi's murder, the Hello Kitty doll, and Afong's role in recovering the remains.
The Hello Kitty Murder keeps Fan Manyi's case at the center of a grim, hard-to-shake account from China. After the men find her body in the bathroom where she had been locked, they argue over whether she died after overdosing on methamphetamines.
A chilling true-crime retelling where ordinary responsibility leaves Cassie Jo Stoddard trapped in danger.
Crime in the Coconut treats Cassie Jo Stoddard's murder as a case where ordinary responsibility turns into danger. Cassie stays at the house to watch the animals despite being scared, while classmates Brian Draper and Tori Adamchick remain nearby after Matt leaves.
Podcast discovery from the Sherpa Chalet.
Witchy banter with glorious detours.
Female crime, told with grave attention.
Crime In The Coconut covers the Richardson family murders in Medicine Hat, Alberta, where 12-year-old Jasmine Richardson and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke were charged after the deaths of Deborah Richardson, Mark Richardson, and 8-year-old Tyler Richardson.
Crime In The Coconut covers Jeffrey Lundgren, a self-proclaimed prophet from Missouri who moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and built a small Latter-day Saints splinter group around chiastic scripture and temple symmetry.
Crime In The Coconut covers the 1978 unsolved killing of Leslie Barker, a 28-year-old Akron school teacher found charred in the back of her own 1977 Orange Grand Prix near Mentor Road.
Crime In The Coconut’s “The Hello Kitty Murder” centers on Fon Man Yee, a Hong Kong brothel worker in 1999, and Chan Manlok, a 34-year-old Chinese mafia member, drug dealer, and pimp.
Crime In The Coconut recounts the Papin sisters’ 1933 murders of Genevieve and Madame Léoné in Le Mans.
Crime In The Coconut covers the murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart, a 16-year-old house-sitting in Bannock County, Idaho, when classmates Brian Draper and Tori Adamchick returned wearing masks and gloves.
Crime In The Coconut’s “William Bonin, Part 2” follows the Freeway Killer case through Gregory Miley, Vernon Butts, Monroe, and William Pugh, with the hosts listing victims by age and method, including Charles Miranda at 15 and James McCabe at 12.
Crime In The Coconut centers this episode on Rodney Alcala, born in San Antonio, Texas on August 23, 1943, and later known as the “Dating Game Killer.” Amanda and Morgan trace his move from Mexico back to Los Angeles, his Army discharge after an AWOL episode, and the later diagnoses they list as antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, malignant narcissism, psychopathy, and sexual sadism.
The hosts return from a hiatus to discuss the Trump family in Australia, a true crime story, while bantering about quarantine and comparing Australia's size to the US.
The hosts catch up after a two-month hiatus, discussing their experiences during quarantine, including working at a hospital and the absurdity of temperature checker jobs.
The hosts discuss the mysterious case of the Sodder children who disappeared after a house fire on Christmas Eve 1945.
Two hosts introduce their new true crime podcast and begin discussing the Cleveland Torso Murders.