When the nights get long and the temps drop, there’s nothing cozier than curling up with an addictive true-crime series. That’s why we’ve vetted three of the best true-crime podcasts dropping this season, and we promise they’ll all give you chills — emotional and otherwise. From a jaw-dropping fertility clinic scandal in What Happened in Nashville to the return of your favorite fierce women fighting for justice in the fourth season of The Girlfriends: Untouchable to one journalist’s attempt to crack a cold case and catch the killer — or killers — who’ve evaded justice for almost 50 years, each one of these podcasts will have you hooked (and maybe sleeping with the lights on). So grab a blanket, hit play, and settle in for some seriously bingeable stories.
Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders
In the 1980s in Parker County, Texas, teens started turning up dead. Initially these deaths were ruled suicides or freak accidents, but as the bodies piled up, so did the questions. Were these kids actually victims of unspeakable violence, and if so, who was responsible? A lone predator? A racist hate group? Or something even darker — an entire police department willing to bury the truth to protect its own? Tense, atmospheric, and downright chilling, Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders is a journey into the dark heart of a small town — and the ghosts who refuse to be forgotten.
If you’ve listened to previous seasons of The Girlfriends, you may already know what to expect: Women coming together, comparing notes, and uncovering the ugly truths that powerful men have tried to bury.
This season, the girlfriends head to Kansas City, Kansas, where they encounter their darkest mystery yet. When Niko Quinn witnessed her cousin’s murder over 30 years ago, she expected the police to help. Instead, her search for justice exposed something far more sinister: A decorated detective who had spent decades preying on the very women he was sworn to protect. This season of The Girlfriends is a powerful, gut-punching listen about resilience, justice, and what happens when women take the law into their own hands, because no one else will.
When patients arrived at the Center for Reproductive Health in Nashville last spring, they expected to have their usual fertility appointments. Instead, they found the doors locked, with no warning, and no answers. Some patients were mid-IVF cycle, and others had embryos stored inside — many had spent thousands of hard-earned dollars on treatments that would never begin.
What Happened in Nashville unravels what went wrong at the once-trusted clinic — and the emotional wreckage left behind. Through intimate reporting and firsthand accounts, the series follows the women caught in the chaos as they band together for support, and fight to reclaim their dreams of becoming parents. The series also explores the surprisingly uncharted dark corners of the fertility industry, including minimal oversight, staggering costs, and the heartbreak that happens when hope squares up with bureaucracy. This isn’t your typical true-crime tale — it’s a haunting and heartbreaking glimpse into how a system meant to bring so much joy to families can lead to so much devastation.
