Well, if you’re like me you no longer no what day it is during this holiday season. This past year has been a hectic one, and due to a lot of different factors, I decided to take a break from producing new episodes after Thanksgiving to regroup and give myself a break to spend time with my family.
I did still want to create an end-of-year wrap up for the podcast, so this will close out 2024. This episode is beneficial because it helps me take a closer look at what episodes performed the best and what platforms showed the most growth. This past year I continued producing weekly episodes, while for most of 2023 I was on a bi-weekly production schedule. I’m not going to lie, being the only member of my podcast team, it’s been challenging to write and produce most of the scripts solo. I did have some help from my daughter when she was home from college this past summer, so shout out to Mia Roberson for her assistance!
Another exciting thing has happened, and I think this podcast directly impacted that. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve written a suspense/thriller novel that I have a really good feeling about. After collaborating with a developmental editor earlier this year, I began querying literary agents to see if they would be interested in learning more about the book. I’ve done this before with other novels I’ve written and never gotten much interest. It’s a difficult process, because for every agent you contact, you send a pitch letter, sample chapters, and anything else they request. Every agent wants something different, so this is a time-consuming process, as is finding agents who are looking for the type of material you write.
This past spring, I began reaching out to agents with my novel, titled “It’s a Miracle I’m Alive.” The book is about a true crime podcaster who is trying to solve the disappearance of her older sister. It’s told through alternating points of view, diary entries, news articles, and podcast transcripts. I’ve had three different agents request to read the book, and I think this podcast helped generate their interest. While I have not received an offer of representation yet, I’m hopeful I will find an agent in the new year. I’ve also spent some of my time off from Missing in the Carolinas creating a comprehensive outline on a new novel, so that has been invigorating.
Another amazing thing that happened was that a representative from the show “Dateline: Missing in America” reached out to me and asked if I wanted to participate in a promo swap. This was an opportunity for me to run a short ad for our show for free and in return, we ran one for them for an equal amount of impressions. I hope to do even more of these types of podcast swaps in the future.
Now let’s talk podcast stats. Analyzing download numbers has always been a little difficult because every podcast platform presents them in a different way. I do know that listeners consumer the podcast mostly on Spotify and not as much on Apple Podcasts, which are my two main platforms. SoundCloud is our podcast host, and it appears the numbers it shows are a combination between the Spotify and Apple Podcast listeners.
Missing in the Carolinas released 42 new episodes this year. We’ll talk about Spotify stats first. The show has 8,228 followers on the platform. It’s now been streamed more than 570,000 times. In 2024, the show increased its followers by 16 percent. 49 percent of the listeners are new this year. The first episode, Three Mysteries in the Carolinas, has been streamed 326 percent more than the average episode. The show was streamed in 63 countries, the U.S. being the top country (maybe mention second vs US, second to US…).
People who listen to Missing in the Carolinas also listen to Dateline NBC, 48 Hours, Crime Junkie, Murder in America, and Casefile True Crime.
37 percent of listeners are 55 are older.
28 percent are 45-54
22 percent are 35-44
85.3 percent of listeners are female, 11.4 percent are male, and 3.3 percent are not specified.
In audiobooks, they listen to Mystery and Thriller, True Crime, and Romance genres.
We’re a top show for 1,600 fans on Spotify.
The average podcast rating is 4.4 stars.
Here are the top five episodes downloaded from 2024 on Spotify.
Episode 87-Missing and Murdered in Columbia, S.C. received 2,386 streams, which means the episode was played for at least 60 seconds. Episode 87 discussed different crimes from the Columbia area of South Carolina. This includes 20-year-old Mike O’Boyle, who was murdered in the spring of 1980 and 65-year-old Jack Robinson, who was stabbed to death at a boat landing near the South Carolina Fairgrounds in 1996. I also discussed Paula Merchant, a college graduate who went missing in January of 1999 after becoming addicted to drugs as a coping mechanism for debilitating migraines. The episode concluded with the still-unsolved mystery of Shelton Sanders, a University of South Carolina student who went missing in 2001 after visiting the home of a friend.
Episode 85-Denise Durham, Shelby Wilkie, and Marissa Carmichael received 2,460 streams. This episode featured two murders that have since been solved, and the disappearance of a young mother in Greensboro who went missing earlier this year. Denise Durham was a 16-year-old high school student in East Flat Rock, North Carolina when she was murdered unexpectedly, shocking their small community. The perpetrator was even more shocking, he was a 64-old former Broadway performer who was also Denise’s vocal coach. Thirty-eight-year-old Shelby Wilkie went missing in the Hendersonville/Asheville area in early January of 2012, and police soon zeroed in on her husband Michael as a suspect. Shelby had become trapped in an abusive marriage, and was struggling to leave because she and her husband were also the parents of a three-month-old daughter at the time. When she went missing, her co-workers and friends and family knew she wouldn’t have left without telling anyone where she was, because they had been helping her plan an official separation from Michael. In January of this year, 25-year-old Marissa Carmichael went to a nightclub with some friends in Greensboro, and sometime in the early morning hours, tried to call 911 from an Exxon station. The people she’d been with had left her at the gas station and her phone was still in their car. When officers arrived a short time later, the store clerk said Marissa had left with someone already. Marissa is the mother of five young children and her family is still looking for her, and the alleged friends she was with that night aren’t talking.
Episode 83-James Chambers, Cole Thomas, and Sydney West received 2,394 streams. In 2018, a man confessed to the murder of North Carolina resident James Chambers, but his body has never been found. Cole Thomas had joined a work crew up north when he traveled to North Carolina in 2016 with some co-workers, but he got caught up in a drug deal he didn’t want to be involved in once they arrived. His co-workers have had conflicting stories about what happened to Cole, and the case has taken many twists and turns. North Carolina resident Sydney West moved to California to attend her dream college, but struggled emotionally during the pandemic. In 2020, she was caught on camera visiting the Golden Gate Bridge, but what happened after that is something her parents haven’t been able to determine.
Episode 81-National Stalking Awareness Month and Peggy Klinke’s Story received 2,402 streams. I interviewed Debbie Riddle, whose sister Peggy was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 2003. Peggy realized her relationship with Patrick Kennedy was not healthy, and she tried to do everything right, filing restraining orders and even moving to another state to get away from him. Unfortunately, this story illustrates how determined stalkers can be and Peggy’s sister became an advocate for stalking awareness and changing the way law enforcement and legislation handles the crime of stalking.
Earlier this year, a young boy died at a wilderness therapy camp in the North Carolina mountains. His death ignited an ongoing investigation into the facility, and I realized a 17-year-old young man had also died in 2014 while out on an excursion with Trails Carolina. Episode. 88-The Deaths at Trails Carolina received 2,496 streams.
Let’s talk stats from Apple now. Followers are 2,000 as opposed to the almost 9,000 on Spotify. The average podcast rating is 4.7 stars.
The top cities for the podcast are:
Charlotte
Atlanta
Nashville
Chicago
Birmingham
The Apple Podcast Top Episodes were a little different from the Spotify streams. For Apple, they were:
Ep. 106-The Little Rascals Daycare Case
323 Plays
Ep. 105-Missing and Murdered in The High Country
358 Plays
Ep. 111-The Murder of Jeni Gray and the Abduction of Leigh Cooper in Boone
340 Plays
Ep. 103-The Mysterious Life and Death of Doris Duke
316 Plays
Ep. 107-Eric Rudolph, The Escape, Part 1
311 Plays
My son headed off to college at Appalachian State University, so naturally, I became interested in some unsolved crimes and disappearances in that area. I shared the story of Martin Roberts, the student who went missing from Boone in April of 2016 in Episode 8. For Episode 111, I shared the story of Jeni Gray and Leigh Cooper, two Boone residents who crossed paths with a malicious man named Daniel Brian Lee.
In addition to missing persons cases, this year I wanted to take a deep dive into a variety of historical topics, tangentially related to true crime in our area, and these episodes included the following episodes during the summer months:
Ep. 109-Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and the PTL Scandal
Episodes 107 and 108-The Escape and Capture of Eric Rudolph
Ep. 106-The Little Rascals Day Care Case
Ep. 103-The Mysterious Life and Death of Doris Duke
One of the most intriguing episodes I wrote this year was Episode 84, “The Business of Body Brokers.” I first got the idea for this story after listening to another podcast series called, “Cover Up: Body Brokers,” about a funeral director in Colorado who sold body parts and tissue from her deceased clientele, often lying to their loved ones and giving them fake cremains in return. I also discovered a North Carolina man named Philip Guyett operated as a body broker in our state for several years, before eventually being convicted of mail fraud. I felt like the public needed to be educated on the differences between organ donations and donating one’s body to science.
Listeners responded to this episode much like I did. Tracy Owens wrote on Facebook, “This was an interesting episode. Very informative.” The account “Breakfast with Bimbos” wrote on Instagram, “I’ve never thought about this before.”
I also wanted to highlight some nice reviews the podcast received on Apple Podcast this year:
Stephh wrote:
I discovered this podcast a few months ago and I really enjoy it. Between the two states there is a ton of cases to talk about although they really can break your heart. I recently listened to the multi-story episode that featured Crystal Todd from South Carolina. I remember that case very well. I’ve watched the Unsolved Mysteries episode on her case many times. It’s a very cruel world. I appreciate you taking the time to share these with us and all your hard work. Can’t wait for more! Be safe everyone.
Youngerceo wrote:
Excellent regional true crime podcast by someone intimately involved familiar and invested in the cases. Variety of cases covered means you get lots of different topics and it never gets cookie-cutter or stagnant. Cannot recommend more highly!
You can listen to the full episode here.
