Case Closed is not, we are told several times, like other true crime podcasts. “There’s a lot of true crime out there,” declares presenter Charlie Spicer, the executive editor of St Martin’s Press. “But it seems like the most interesting cases go unsolved. You walk away frustrated, and the killer’s still out there.”
The difference with Case Closed is that the case is, as promised, closed.
Sure, except that what separates the best true crime from the surfeit of average stuff is not the finale but the storytelling. Spicer ropes in colleagues to testify to his credentials. “We do look upon him as an authority,” attests one; the limits of the podcast medium mean we cannot see whether the colleague has a metaphorical gun to his back.
Whatever, Case Closed’s storytelling is pedestrian: mawkish, meandering, mediocre.
The first season focuses on the 2014 murder of Erin Corwin, a young Marine wife who lived in a military town near Joshua Tree in California.
Much is made of Erin’s naivety, both by Spicer’s assessment and by her foster mother. The emphasis on her “innocence” is discomfiting, not just because it sounds like a euphemism for virginity but also because it feels fetishising and predictable.
She loved animals and Sprite, and her only flaw was not tidying her room as a teen; all of which might be true but makes for a two-dimensional characterisation. Her boyfriend — then husband — is also poorly drawn.
There are the usual twists, turns and the narrative sustains mystery — until the resolution — but it’s not sufficiently pacy ever to take off properly. Case closed.
Listen to Case Closed on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher
