The Murder Sheet (The Burger Chef Murders) Q&A: How To Develop a True Crime Podcast

 An Interview with The Murder Sheet Co-Hosts, Creators and Producers: Áine Cain & Kevin Greenlee

The new podcast The Murder Sheet launched a miniseries — titled “You Never Can Forget,” taking a line from the burger chain’s old jingle — delving into the unsolved murders of four Burger Chef employees on November 17, 1978. Exactly 42 years later, The Murder Street podcast debuted to overwhelmingly positive reviews with a miniseries about those unsolved murders.

Thank you, Áine and Kevin, for agreeing to the interview. Listeners often find that the process of mixing the ingredients to a successful podcast is as fascinating as the podcast itself. The unveiling of “The Murder Sheet” pulls back the curtain on a narrative of senseless violence, 40-year mysteries, investigative sideshows, false starts, and “McGuffins.” Let’s explore the genesis of the podcast and your personal journey as part of the podcast life cycle.

Podcast Reports: We know from listening to the podcast that both of you have been heavily involved in this case for several years. At one point in your journey, did the concept of the podcast begin to take shape?

A. We really began seriously thinking about starting a podcast over the summer. We’ve wanted to work on a joint project on this case for a while, and that seemed like the perfect medium. A podcast could easily reach an audience and allow us to cover all the twists and turns in this case.

Podcast Reports: How did you mold the basic shape of the podcast concept?

A. We knew from very early on that we wanted to start out with the Burger Chef murders, since we met while investigating that case. But we also thought that a podcast could allow us to branch out into covering other crimes in the long term. So kicking off with a miniseries on the Burger Chef case seemed like a natural fit. We will then delve into a “case of the week” format, although we do have a few more miniseries ideas in the pipeline for the future.

Podcast Reports: Áine, since you have significant expertise in the retail sector, did that drive the overarching concept of the podcast to focus on crime in the restaurant industry?

Áine: Unfortunately, violence against retail employees — especially fast-food employees — is a disturbing reality. That is something I definitely learned from reporting on retail at Business Insider. In our research for The Murder Sheet, we discovered dozens of cases where entire shifts of fast food restaurant workers were brutally killed — often by their fellow or former coworkers. There’s a readily-identifiable pattern when it comes to most fast food murders. But it goes beyond homicides. 

A group of McDonald’s employees even sued the Golden Arches over this very phenomenon. Kevin and I are interested in looking into murders and other serious crimes, in part, because they often tell us something about society’s ills. There’s something very upsetting about a country that seems fine with sacrificing workers’ safety for the convenience of getting a hot meal quick and cheap.

Podcast Reports: How did the planning for Murder Sheet go? Plan the episodes first? Write the script first and then split the script into episodes?

A. For The Murder Sheet as a whole, we started out with a long research phase. We created a Google spreadsheet with hundreds of different restaurant crimes. From there, we picked out a few that we’d like to cover — obscure but interesting cases that deserve more attention.

With “You Never Can Forget,” we sat down and figured out the top theories regarding the Burger Chef murders. Then we outlined the miniseries, trying to ensure that the episodes flow together. We then script each of those episodes.

This building once housed a Burger Chef restaurant in Speedway, Indiana and was the site of the unsolved murder of four restaurant employees.

 Podcast Reports: Áine, since you’re an investigative reporter and Kevin, you’re an attorney, and accustomed to asking questions, how did you lay out the sequence of your investigation?

A. Kevin began looking into the case first, so he put in a lot of legwork around the fundamentals of the crime early on. Since we’ve started working together, we’ve come across a few leads that we have jumped into. We sort of just look into whatever is popping up in the Burger Chef case.

In terms of the miniseries “You Never Can Forget,” we basically took all the big theories and tried to lay them out as best we could.

Podcast Reports: The music you use in the podcast is very dramatic and eerily echoes the senseless violence inherent in the crime. How did you choose the music?

A. We decided that we wanted original music early on in the production process, but we also knew that we weren’t talented enough to throw a tune together on Garageband. At some point over the years, Kevin had become aware that there was another Kevin Greenlee out there.

And he was a composer! At first, we looked into him because we thought it might be funny to have two Kevin Greenlees on the project. But his sample music was truly awesome, so we reached out. Kevin Tyler Greenlee is a wonderfully talented composer and a delight to work with, and he can be reached at http://www.kevintg.com/.

Podcast Reports: How did you procure the sound and audio expertise for the podcast?

A. Expertise is definitely not the word we’d use! The Murder Sheet is produced by the two of us. We don’t have any outside help, except in the form of online tutorials on Youtube. Kevin has gotten good at putting the podcast together.

Then we just try to listen to it together to make sure it sounds decent. We really hope it sounds okay to listeners, but that’s something we’re always a bit paranoid about. We haven’t gotten any complaints on audio quality yet, though.

Podcast Reports: For both of you, how was co-hosting a podcast? Were you immediately comfortable, gradually easing into the role or working hard to overcome the learning curve?

A. Co-hosting has been fun. The two of us talk about the Burger Chef case and other crimes a lot anyway, so it’s just a matter of writing up the scripts in a way that’s easy to follow and dividing up the lines.

We both are less formal than we sometimes sound on the podcast, but we decided early on that we didn’t want to do anything remotely resembling a comedic true crime podcast.

Podcast Reports: Áine, you work at Business Insider and have published for such notable media outlets as Politico Playbook, The London Evening Standard and Independent, Inc., how does writing and producing a podcast differ from print for you? How did your print background prepare you for podcasting?

Áine: The journalistic fundamentals remain the same, but otherwise my day job and podcasting side job are quite different!

I certainly rely on my reporting experience in the podcast. That means striving to remain fair, reaching out to people to get their side of the story, and treating information with a healthy sense of skepticism without being narrow-minded. Those are all skills and practices that you hone as a print journalist.

Podcast Co-Host Áine Cain
is a senior retail reporter for Business Insider, covering major national retailers and multi-level marketing schemes, COVID-19 outbreaks on cruise ships, and retail-related crimes.

In other respects, it’s quite different. I am fortunate enough to work for Business Insider, a successful and widely-read business news site. Being a reporter there means that I have access to a large platform when it comes to my business journalism. Running an independent true crime podcast, we have had to work to start building our own platform and get in front of potential listeners who might find the show interesting.

Podcast Reports: Kevin, how has your experience as an attorney prepared you for podcasting?

Kevin: My insatiable curiosity and my need to find things out is part of the reason I became an attorney. I think the podcast helps satisfy that side of my personality. “You Never Can Forget” is a miniseries that takes the listener through a variety of interesting theories. Subsequent episodes of The Murder Sheet will take an investigative dive into undercovered crimes. 

Podcast co-host Kevin Greenlee is an attorney from Indianapolis who began extensively researching the Burger Chef case in 2016, and represents the family of victim Ruth Shelton.

Putting that all together requires curiosity and an ability to ask questions and understand the nature of crime and the criminal justice system, so I’m thankful for my experience in the legal field.

Podcast Reports: What do you foresee for future episodes of The Murder Sheet?

A. We’ll be continuing to cover the Burger Chef murders for the time being. At some point, after about six or seven episodes, we’ll shift to a “crime of the week” style of podcasting.

We’re definitely open to doing future miniseries on other crimes, however. And even further down the road, once we’ve said everything we could possibly say about restaurant-related homicides, we’ll likely switch to a new topic and create a new “murder sheet” for that.

Check out The Murder Sheet: You Never Can Forget Miniseries (Investigating The Burger Chef Murders) here.