RedHanded

The amount of research these two do is insane. Episodes are well organized. I like that they usually—but don’t alway—agree and the present facts before their opinions. They are also quite funny and there’s a mix of levity with the heavier themes. Lovely!

i started listening a while back and i’ve listened to every episode since the beginning. i love that the girls disagree with one another and offer differing perspectives. they challenge each other and that’s what makes it interesting. sometimes i don’t agree but they always make me think. i appreciate the research that goes into the episodes and that their opinions change over time. thanks girls, y’all are my favorite podcast out there!

I’m not a proud true crime listener and I don’t identify with anyone who is. I can’t deny though that these two ladies make every bit of news/history/true crime incredibly entertaining. Besides being witty and just the right amount of sarcastic, their accents just make everything even better. I binge this show on 1.8x speed, regular speed is not doable. And I don’t care what they say about people who listen to true crime to go to sleep, I’m one of those people now thanks to Hannah and Saruthi. No other voices could make listening to such terrible events so pleasant! However, I am Old Roman Catholic (we pray for the Popes return to Christianity) and the jabs at Christianity/Jesus/Communion/etc hurt my heart.

I honestly don’t know how I’m just discovering these two, absolutely fabulous true crime queens! After listening to recent shows and loving them, I decided to start from the beginning! All the way back to 2017. May I recommend Halloween Part 2 the crime is great but the story of Surithi’s travels to Iceland had me rolling. Thanks ladies.

I never questioned the information in this podcast (or read the reviews), until listening to the Delphi murder trial verdict episode. Much of the information presented was factually incorrect, which would be shown by reading the trial documents, including those from the three day hearing where the defense presented evidence for the Odinism theory, which was found to be unsubstantiated and therefore not admissible during trial. Obviously opinions may vary, but many of their opinions are not based on the actual evidence presented by both sides, or the events and testimony from hearings and the trial. (I do however agree that the true crime fan psychologist should not be practicing in the criminal justice system, let alone treating a suspect in a notorious case!) So now I’m wondering what other episodes are factually incorrect?! I generally agree with their interpretations and opinions, but how many of them are based on wrong information? I see some other reviews subsequent to their Karen Read trial coverage, which I did not listen to or read about from any source, so perhaps that was another misinformed take? I previously believed this was the best true crime podcast, where information was imparted in a mostly unbiased way regardless of the expressed opinions, but I’m sad to now question what I’ve been hearing! Using true crime stories as entertainment is something I’m personally conflicted about. Why am I so interested? Am I just a prurient gossip? I soothe my qualms by at least seeking out the facts and evidence, listening to or reading either primary sources or those whose information is from primary sources. I thought Red Handed was such a podcast, but I don’t know anymore, although can’t quite bring myself to give one star. Used to be all the stars :(

On the surface, and on first listen, you might expect the two hosts, who appears to portray themselves as empathetic, left-leaning feminists, to be knowledgeable and kind. They do, in fact, do extensive research on the cases they relate, at least as far as cold hard facts go, but they — perhaps ironically, given who they are — have very little care for marginalization and oppression in any genuinely way and repeatedly display a truly stunning lack of genuine empathy for others or knowledge about people who are different from them, much less a care to learn. These two appear to find their predatory colonizing royal family admirable and find the subject of racism and discrimination on the throne funny. They crack jokes about how Jonestown was “because of socialism” and act like that means no one, including the infants, children, abused women, and the families that fled were truly victims. They appear to have little idea of how mental health medications truly work, decrying their use because they have a potential side effect of suicidal ideation (protip: all psych meds can cause inverse reactions for the very thing they’re meant to treat by the very nature of how the brain works). They insist at one point that homophobia doesn’t cause closeted people to flee from sexual encounters or claim they would never participate in them knowingly and that homophobia and transphobia have no connection. I listened for quite a while, thinking for a long time that I was being uncharitable and misinterpreting what they meant, or simply noticing completely accidental lapses in knowledge or judgment that, surely, they would seek to correct, but over time these little moments of callousness and egoism built up to be absolutely unbearable, and I found I would rather seek my information from anyone else than these two. One can only take so much punching down before realizing it’s because they really, genuinely do not care, and when it comes to true crime, that is simply not acceptable to me.