Twelve Step Recovery Program for Crime Junkies

Serial Plagerist and Intelectual Property thief Ashley Flowers returns with another podcast based on another stolen concept.

Jason Cousineau and Eric Renderking Fisk| Feburary 11th, 2022

Jason Cousineau and Eric Renderking Fisk discuss the latest controversy from The Crime Junkie host and AudioChuck founder Ashley Flowers. Her new podcast “The Deck” is an obvious, blatant rip-off of another podcast that’s now in its second season: Dealing Justice.

Even after the countless charges of plagiarism from other True Crime Podcasters, it’s a genuine mystery why publications like The New York Times would publish fluff articles about her without actually using the word “plagiarism” when describing her instances of actual plagiarism? Why haven’t more True Crime Fans tuned her and her other programs on “AudioChuck” production company? Why is she still allowed to have a platform after committing a carnal sin in the realm of journalism that has caused journalists to lose everything for doing far less?

Episode Links and Sources

There’s a reason why we rarely speak about the modern day investigation into the Burger Chef. We have no confidence in the abilities of the officer who is currently tasked with looking into this high-profile quadruple homicide. And today, in the interest of transparency, we’re going to tell you exactly why that is.

Bill Dalton is the current lead investigator on the Burger Chef for the Indiana State Police. Ashley Flowers is a millionaire serial plagiarist who also makes true crime podcasts, most notably Crime Junkie. Together, they came up with Red Ball, a four-part podcast on the Burger Chef murders that ran in November of 2019. It was badly-written copaganda, but the backstory behind the series is even worse.

You see, Flowers handed over complete editorial control of her show to the state police. In exchange for this puffery, Dalton allowed Flowers to exclusively read and monetize investigative case files that not even the families of the victims have ever been permitted to see. And the Indiana State Police collectively shrugged their shoulders at the misconduct.

In this episode, we’ll get into Flowers’ reputation within the true crime community. We’ll talk to true crime podcasters Robin Warder and Esther Ludlow, who Flowers plagiarized, as well as journalist Cathy Frye, who blew the whistle on the scandal. We’ll tell you about all the unprofessional nonsense between Flowers and Dalton that Kevin witnessed firsthand. And we’ll break down why exactly all of this should horrify anyone who cares about unsolved cold cases in Indiana.

Because, to put it bluntly, the ISP seem to have learned the wrong lesson from this mess.

An award-winning 2003 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette four-part series on the murder of a Greenbrier teenager in 2002 is back in the national spotlight, and the dust-up threatens the standing of the nation’s No. 1 podcast, Crime Junkie.

On Aug. 15, former Democrat-Gazette reporter Cathy Frye, the author of the copyrighted series, wrote in a lengthy post to Crime Junkie‘s Facebook page that creator and host Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat plagiarized her work when they used it as a source for its March episode of the podcast…

… Turns out Frye may not be the first person to accuse Crime Junkie of lifting material. The Variety report said that Robin Warder, host of a true-crime podcast titled The Trail Went Cold, wrote about another death on Reddit in 2015. She told the magazine that in a May 2018 Crime Junkie episode, “Ashley Flowers is practically reading [from the Reddit post] verbatim without credit.”

Variety also reported that another listener posted on Reddit in June that an episode about a missing Oklahoma girl was almost a “word for word copy” of a 2018 episode of an Investigation Discovery TV show about the case.

The magazine says Crime Junkie has taken five episodes down from its website so far.

Is that enough for Frye? “Yes, I’m glad the Crime Junkie podcasters took down not only the episode in which they neglected to credit me or the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, but also other episodes that might be challenged by podcasters and newspaper or broadcast journalists.

Esther Ludlow’s “”Let’s Taco ‘Bout the Crime Junkie Plagiarism Scandal.” August 27th, 2019.

On this bonus episode I talk about breaking news in the true crime podcast community – the Crime Junkie plagiarism allegations.  My guests Steven Pacheco from Trace Evidence and Robin Warder from The Trail Went Cold have both been connected to this story.  My own podcast, Once Upon a Crime, has also been directly affected.  

Late last month, Ashley Flowers, 33, the producer of more than a dozen true crime podcasts, was racing between her home and her office in Indianapolis, preparing for the arrival of two babies. The first, her daughter Josie, was born Jan. 28. The second, due this week, is a new podcast she’s hosting called “The Deck.”

Like her hit show “Crime Junkie,” “The Deck” delves into true stories about murders and missing people. But for the new show, rather than drawing on crime stories in the news and suggestions from listeners, Ms. Flowers and her team have sought out cases represented in playing cards that law enforcement agencies print with the photographs of victims, then distribute in prisons in the hopes of turning up new leads. (Similar podcasts have come before.)

“These cards are kind of an agency’s last Hail Mary pass in trying to get very cold cases solved,” Ms. Flowers said last week in a virtual production meeting she conducted from her office at Audiochuck, the true crime media company she runs.

When is a “Spam Farm” not a “Spam Farm?” When it’s a Spam Farm! From a conversation with Aliya Coleman / Arafat Ul Alam. (As if this is his real name, too.)

Jason Cousineau

Jason Cousineau has known Eric since their chance meeting in a Turkish Prison in 1996, after Mr. Cousineau was sentenced for 20 years for smuggling 10,000 VHS and Lazer Disk copies of “Howard The Duck” into Turkey and clogging the ancient sewer system with them. After their daring escape involving rubber Gumby pants and a weaponized Karaoke machine, the two posed as employees at a Bio-Tech Company in Waltham, Massachusetts. Jason has also served as a member of The United States Coast Guard, “Best Humanoid” at Eric’s Wedding, and Editor and Reporter at Large for The Fedora Chronicles since 1936.

Eric Renderking Fisk

Eric Renderking Fisk is the founder and webmaster of The Fedora Chronicles and co-host of the paranormal podcast, “The Metaphysical Connection.” Eric has often described The Fedora Chroniclesas “a website that explores modern issues via reviews, social and political commentary, and podcasts through the lens of an amateur historian and with self-deprecating humor.” You can follow The Fedora Chronicles on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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