Lacking only trench coats and fedoras, they fire up their own podcasts, launch massive Facebook true-crime groups or go it alone like post-modern Miss Marples and Sam Spades in their quest to track down killers or crack open cold cases. Even after Bryan Kohberger, 28, was arrested and charged in December for the November slayings of four University of Idaho students, the more than , members of one Facebook group about Kohberger were still posting rumors and conspiracy theories about the case as were some members of a ,member strong Reddit group.
Kohberger himself was even suspected of posing as a citizen sleuth prior to his arrest and using an alias to join social media discussions on the case.
Some citizen detectives even find themselves the stars of some of the dozens and dozens of true-crime documentaries that have sprung up in the last few years. Sometimes their work put them ahead of the cops β but just as often it muddies the waters and can even put innocent people in danger, a number of people familiar with the online sleuth world told The Post.
In December, Rebecca Scofield, a history professor at the University of Idaho sued a TikTok tarot-reader-cum-cyber-sleuth, Ashley Guillard, for defamation after the would-be detective accused her of involvement in the college slayings.
Many of these people gravitate to high-profile cases to either monetize the tragedy or advocate for one side. Often they do both. It can become very narcissistic. They can just pick up their microphones or pen and let fly over the Internet β often in a livestream. The film follows Nestor and her Mile Marker podcast as she conducts an amateur investigation into the death of year-old Jaleayah Davis of Marietta, Ohio.
