Plugging in to life and crime

Hugely successful true crime podcast Casefile has almost clocked 10 years. Its anonymous host remains just as elusive.

In January 2016, ”Casey” released the first episode of Casefile.

Crime and its punishment have fascinated people since before Fyodor Dostoyevski’s great novel.

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood reconstructed in visceral detail the killing of a Kansas family.

Reinventing the genre in 2014, serial podcast listeners passively participated in piecing together the unanswerable question. Why?

Carrying the true crime torch into its 10th year, Casefile tops Apple Podcast charts with an annual 80 million listeners.

Criminal proceedings are retold by an anonymous host to ambient music. “Casey” as fans of the show call him, speaks to Review over the phone, his voice familiar but unknowable.

In a statement of agreed facts: he’s 41, he likes to read history books, on his bedside table are Stalingrad by Antony Beevor, and Churchill and Orwell by Thomas E. Ricks.

He listens to punk music, and podcasts. His favourite is Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History – a single narrator, heavy on research.

In 2015, a shoulder reconstruction was followed by a serious knee injury from playing rugby. Off work with nothing to do but physical rehab, he gave recording his own podcast a go.

Tracing the abhorrent began at age 10, delving through his aunt’s true crime magazines, “I was instantly drawn into the why and the how, nature or nurture. Are these monsters, is this evil?” he says.

In January 2016, he released the first episode of Casefile.

Each case is retold chronologically through facts and the guiding principle, “What if that was about me or my family? Would I be OK listening to it?” says Michal “Mike” Migas, the composer and producer.

Review video calls Migas in Bristol after a piano lesson. He began at age 9, and also plays guitar. Now 37, daily instrument practice informs the rhythm and pacing of his audio editing.

Migas worked as a sound editor at Pinewood film studios in the UK, and first saw the Casefile ad on Upwork, a freelancing website: “I started this as a hobby, and it’s getting traction, but I have no idea what I’m doing. Need help.”

Migas reached out and passed the test by fixing an audio file. Casey didn’t think he could afford him. Migas offered a mates’ rate and got the gig. He joined for episode seven in mid-February of 2016. It was a hit. They pumped out episodes and have now passed 300 cases.

The business of podcasting can be boom or bust. Swedish platform Acast penned a partnership with Casefile in 2024, and posted its first ever profitable year of $11.55m. The company claims to have paid out $44.9m to creators in Australia and New Zealand since 2017.

Casefile has expanded to three full-time writers/researchers, two full-time producers, plus freelancers. Casefile Presents was registered in 2019, and consists of 16 shows.

Former contributor Anna Priestland says Casefile attracts a level of respect unrivalled by most podcasts, and the team has even been asked by police to help with research. Although when pitching to US and UK production companies, “one of the first questions they ask me is, ‘why are you doing this? Why you? What do you want to say?’”

In Casefile’s early days a blog expose by an Australian Financial Review journalist posited some theories which may reveal more personal motivations for the hosts’ anonymity than it being a mere business gimmick. Casey would rather keep the focus on the story.

Reluctant to dig deeper, the anonymous host redirects Review to an interview he gave Raquel O’Brien’s Unfiltered podcast. The two collaborated when Casey heard her series Silent Waves while on a run. It stopped him mid-stride and spoke to him about something he hadn’t said out loud before.

“There was an abuse incident that happened when I was young. That had a big impact on my life and how I am with people,” he says.

Has he confided to someone in person? Review asks. Three people. His close circle knows about his alter-ego. “Do I want to have this conversation with them? If they hear it and they want to chat about it, that’s fine,” he says.

Parasocial relationships form through podcasting; listeners feel like they know the host, but it’s a one-way communication. As with music, a podcast can become a communal experience when presented before a live audience.

Getting out of his comfort zone in May 2024, Casey did a live show at CrimeCon in Nashville.

In one decade, Casefile is reported to have had 800 million total listens.

“A lot of the time you forget people are listening. It was nice to have an in-person interaction, feel the listeners,” Casey says.

Some people were puzzled at the request for “no photos, no recording”. But everyone was polite and present, the host’s privacy maintained and trust in others reaffirmed.

Unsolved cases continue to resonate with the anonymous host. He wants to make more series like the latest, Missing Niamh.

It’s pretty incredible, Migas says, “an Aussie guy with no background knowledge, no experience, no network, grew this into a team making something people enjoy, wait for weekly and find a connection in this chaotic world”.

Listen to Casefile on your favourite podcast app.