Secrets True Crime

Secrets True Crime is a serialized investigation hosted by Amber Sitton, built season by season around individual cases. The episodes are numbered, and the narration says outright that they are designed to be heard in order. Each one restates the show's purpose at the start: 'What is done in darkness will eventually come to light.' A content advisory follows, and several episodes warn of strong language. The season on Jessica Hamby shows most clearly how the show works. Jessica Leanne Hamby, a 24-year-old mother of three, has been missing since January 3rd, 2018. The reporting around her is built mostly from records. One passage reads a Messenger exchange she sent at 5:42 a.m. on January 3rd, then remarks on how abruptly it breaks off. Another lays out a woman's calls and messages to Derek Motes across 14 minutes, followed by a newspaper report of a welfare-check request to the Russellville Police Department. A collision report is read almost line by line, stopping distances included. It sits beside what Jessica's father, Keith, learned about a car known to stall, and the show keeps local speculation separate from what the report records. The show also maps people, linking names to drug dealers and users around Haleyville and East Franklin County and to those often mentioned in connection with Jeremy Abbott's death. Former housemates describe a bitterly cold start to January and a room at the Haleyville Motel. Sitton brings herself into the story when it matters. She describes Special Agent Brown pressing her about a cemetery on federal land where a human remains detection dog had indicated remains, and she notes that he is the only officer who has asked whether her team had turned anything up. Episode titles from this season include 'Covert Connections', 'Wicked Webs' and 'Coincidences or Camouflage'. Another story concerns Eric Cates and his dog Gypsy, found dead on March 21st, 2015, burned in the cab of his white S-10 pickup in Empire, Walker County, Alabama. In that story the material is testimony: Alabama Deputy State Fire Marshal Phillip Freeman collected fire debris, and lab results pointed to a medium to heavy accelerant, with gasoline ruled out entirely. Sitton follows that last detail with a dry 'Well now, you don't say.' Asides like that stand out against narration that is otherwise measured and exact. The show also holds back: a man not yet charged goes unnamed, and so does a woman tied to the Hamby case. Several episodes credit Michael Fleming as co-writer alongside Sitton, with audio production by Kane Power. What a listener gets is a case built from documents in plain view, with a clear line kept between the record and the rumor.