True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.
The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 percent focus on tales of serial killers.[1][2] True crime comes in many forms, such as books, films, podcasts, and television shows. Many works in this genre recount high-profile, sensational crimes such as the JonBenét Ramsey killing, the O. J. Simpson murder case, and the Pamela Smart murder, while others are devoted to more obscure slayings.
The first true crime magazine, True Detective, was published in 1924. It featured fairly matter-of-fact accounts of crimes and how they were solved. During the genre’s heyday, before WWII, 200 different true crime magazines were sold on newsstands, with six million magazines sold every month. By itself, True Detective had two million in circulation. The covers of the magazines generally featured women being menaced in some way by a potential criminal perpetrator, with the scenarios being more intense in the 1960’s.
Public interest in the magazines began declining in the 1970’s, and by 1996, almost none were being published, including True Detective, which had been bought and shut down by a new owne