After struggling for years to make it in the crowded true-crime podcast genre, local podcaster Sarah Findlay finally caught a lucky break last week when her best friend mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
“It’s just so nice to see years of hard work pay off when your childhood best friend, Chelsea, suddenly goes missing and, because police can’t figure out what happened to her, you have to find out what happened to her through your now chart-topping podcast instead,” said Findlay, whose former failed true-crime podcasts include “The Case of the Missing Ferret” and “Shoplifter Dan.” “They say luck is when preparation meets opportunity, so when my mom broke the news to me that Chelsea hadn’t been seen or heard from in days and that all her personal belongings were left inside her abandoned vehicle, I knew I’d finally made it.”
Asked for tips on success for other aspiring true-crime podcasters, Findlay said her first tip is to have someone they love suddenly disappear.
“I mean, definitely don’t, like, deliberately carry out a pre-meditated murder using all the information you’ve gathered over the years about successfully hiding a dead body,” Findlay said, suddenly wringing her hands and blinking fast while avoiding direct eye-contact. “If this business is meant for you, you just gotta keep the faith that someday someone you care about deeply will suddenly disappear in a really haunting way that lends itself to a nice narrative arc, definitely without any of your assistance.”
As of the publishing of this story, Findlay’s sister has also been reported missing, already inspiring a second eagerly-awaited spinoff podcast starting next week.
