DNA Don't Lie

DNA Don't Lie is true crime as a conversation among three friends, Kim, Jackie and Danny, who say their names at the top and then take their time getting to a case. The name promises forensic DNA; the openings promise company. One episode starts with a dry remark about the world being on fire, then slides into mangled song lyrics and the habit of texting someone a song that brings them to mind. Another starts on Danny Boy, a tune one of them has heard often enough to cringe at. Another begins with Minnesota slang for doing donuts in a car, and another with the goat heads on the arms of the chair Danny sits in. At one point they joke that the show has only a handful of listeners, then greet a few of them by name. Pop culture runs through all of it. There is talk of listening to albums together on Fridays, starting with Mary J. Blige's debut, and a quick dispute over whether Get Rich or Die Trying was a debut at all. A binge-watched TV series teaches one of them that a Lucas machine performs CPR. A recommended watch about a death first marked a homicide and later changed to suicide gets a firm endorsement and a firmer opinion about the ruling. Then the case takes over. Recent episode titles name Neil Beagley, Jamie Toliver and Lester Eubanks, alongside the Taliesin Massacre and The Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre. The legwork is done out loud: in the Las Cruces episode, a quick search on the city's population turns into a comparison with Omaha and Sioux Falls. In the Taliesin episode, the conversation lingers on the houses Frank designed, with their walls of windows and stained glass, and on the town gossip that surrounded Frank and Maima. It ends with a shout-out to a friend named Doug and a wish to see some of those homes in person. On open cases the register shifts. The Jamie Toliver episode closes with a note that they have tried to bring attention to cases involving Black women and women of color, and that the obstacle is how little information exists; the Kansas City Police Department tip line follows. The Lester Eubanks episode asks anyone who might recognize him to study his picture and call the U.S. Marshals. The Las Cruces episode points to Crime Stoppers and notes that people have waited decades for answers. What a listener gets is laughter, swearing and detours, then a closing turn that treats whoever is listening as a possible witness.