Crime Weekly Podcast Crossed A Line

On Getting Away with Murder

Taylor Ellison
4 min readFeb 1, 2022

Most known for re-telling notorious stories of murder and crime via YouTube and Apple podcast, Crime Weekly hosts, Stephanie Harlowe and Derrick Levasseur have crossed a line.

I am not referring to “laying groundwork” over six episodes for listeners to “formulate their own opinion” about convicted murderer, Scott Peterson. Crime Weekly using twelve hours to convey Lacey Peterson’s life in the name of “attention to detail” is the perfect example of exploitative. What makes six episodes “exploitative?” Crime Weekly has twelve opportunities for sponsorships and twelve-times the amount of commercials, between YouTube visual episodes and podcast audio episodes. If Investigation Discovery+ can provide details of the life and murder of Lacy Peterson and her unborn son, Conner in the 90-minute special, Crime Weekly should not require 12 hours to do the same.

I am also not referring to lack of transparency, claiming “demonetization” starting in December 2021. Hosts used “YouTube is demonetizing videos” as a commercial to sell Patreon, another source of income and way to financially exploit the victims covered in each episode. The transparency I would expect from a creator claiming “demonetization” would be receipts to prove this to be true, especially if this is baiting viewers. What’s more, demonetization does not mean the authors are not paid for the ads placed on their channel. Demonetization means videos are not recommended based on community guidelines and…

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Taylor Ellison
Taylor Ellison

Written by Taylor Ellison

Happily divorced, single mom, reviewing books and managing a Bookstagram account as if people actually care about what I have to say. Posting weekly.