A Good Conversation About Not Only The Cases But The Way Different Generations Approach True Crime

My name is Mark Jeacoma and I have worked within the entertainment, design and marketing industry since 1996. I was instrumental in launching properties such as Harry Potter, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Magic School Bus and many other children properties while working for Scholastic Entertainment in NYC. I left to work for The Village Voice and was hired to give the overall website and newspaper a more refined and retro/postmodern design. I designed their covers and editorial layouts until I left in 2011 to work from my home and to raise my son. My wife is amazingly supportive of my podcasts and "stay at home dad" business.

"Unsolved Mysteries Rewind" was born from an idea that my co-host, Kim had in March 2020. We are both fans of the true crime genre and especially the TV show, Unsolved Mysteries. Kim and I have well over a decade between our ages and we feel it makes for a good conversation about not only the cases but the way different generations approach true crime.

We choose an episode a week to discuss in great detail. We scour through newspaper archives, forums, run background checks, we do everything we can to provide a detailed update to 20+ year old cases. Kim is not only a natural research expert but, she approaches each case with great attention to detail. Sadly, very often we find that crime didn’t end with the celebrity of being on UM. We take each case very seriously, keep the chatter to a minimum and try to remind everyone that not only are these real cases with real people but are also real tragedies that may be effecting families to this day.

We have a dedicated listenership for such a new show. Some of the listeners have offered to help with research, design, etc. We love our listeners and feel we appeal to a wide audience.

Kim and I are fans of True Crime podcasts and we found that what was lacking in the world of Unsolved Mysteries podcasts was the seriousness and detail oriented research. There are a few that are VERY entertaining and I absolutely LOVE our neighbors in the genre but what we wanted was detail oriented updates. I feel we are achieving precisely what we sought out achieve.

We released our first episode in April 2020, one month after Kim came up with the idea. We did a few trial runs and tests, playing with intro and outros (we are fortunate enough to have music and voiceover work provided to us by fans of Unsolved Mysteries who believed in us) and pretty much haven’t looked back - we are releasing episode 20 this week! Every Tuesday!

Every Tuesday we release an episode! We approach the recording with the intention of 99% no editing. Unsolved Mysteries Rewind has a goal of recording a conversation about an episode, live. Editing episodes will rarely take longer than 1-2 hours which is mostly, EQ, leveling and mixing.

I am a stay at home dad and Kim runs a family business as well as is a homesteader - we are life hackers and will always find the time to do this and the other podcast projects.

We are having such a fun time that it’s really a labor of love and currently, all costs associated are out of pocket. As a web developer we use my dedicated server and I maintain the website stillunsolved.com so the costs are minimized since we approach it from a DIY POV.

Unsolved Mysteries Rewind is a commercial free podcast, I have a personal issue with commercials. In 2001 I bought my first TiVo and just dislike most advertising. I get it, bills need to get paid but when I need to get 4-5 minutes into an episode to get to the actual episode and then every 10-15 minutes the host will interrupt to sell me a mattress, I need to question how many mattresses are people really buying?

We currently have about 20k downloads a month

Podcasting is a great way to release information without restriction.

As a musician with a fetish for pro audio gear I use a lot of different equipment to record. I use Mac and PC to record and edit. Lately I have been enjoying the Magix (Previously Sony) Acid/Sound Forge with VST plug-ins.

Unsolved Mysteries Rewind rarely has guests but when we do they will find us through Facebook

We use Skype to record but have used Zoom as well.

We are all word of mouth. Facebook, Twitter, etc - nothing special. It's what we know

We are 75% iTunes but it’s always changing and really inaccurate.

Everything we do can be found on stillunsolved.com

We are always working on ideas for different shows but right now we are having such a good time with Unsolved Mysteries Rewind so that’s our focus at the moment.

My advice to any podcaster is to get your sound right, do your research and try to bring something different to the table. And self edit.

stillunsolved.com is the best place to learn about what we do and how to obtain the podcast.