“We’re all potential victims,” Mariana Van Zeller said at SXSW during the panel “Explore the Unexplainable: True Crime with Nat Geo,” held on March 10th, 2024. The lead-in question from Tom McDonald, EVP, Global Factual and Unscripted for National Geographic, was about why viewers love the true-crime genre so much. Of the panelists, Mariana Van Zeller was a familiar face. Season 4 of Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller recently concluded, and Season 5 is currently in production. Trafficked makes it clear that crime is constantly happening all around us, and with half of the worldwide economy being grey and black markets that aren’t well researched, they can be easy to miss.
The panel gave a preview of two upcoming projects on the horizon. TJ Martin is the award-winning producer behind the One Day in America franchise, which debuted in 2021 with 9/11: One Day in America, followed up last year with JFK: One Day in America. Attendees at the panel were the first to see footage from the next installment, Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown, airing later this year. As with the previous entries, One Day in Jonestown uses archival footage and recent first-person interviews with survivors and witnesses to take audiences back to the tragic events of November 18th, 1978. TJ Martin shared his attraction to the story of disenfranchisement and systematic oppression in America feeding an opportunist like Jim Jones, a reminder of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. The footage shown included on-the-ground coverage of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan’s attempt to rescue people from Jonestown that led to his death, kicking off the tragic events.
The other upcoming project is Killer Lies: Chasing a True-Crime Con Man (previously titled Pathological) from The New Yorker reporter Lauren Collins, expanding her reporting of Stéphane Bourgoin. Attendees were treated to the introduction of the first episode about France’s most well-known serial killer interviewer, who amassed a huge following of true-crime fans. But as they learned how to spot a lie through his work, a group of armchair sleuths quickly began to see holes in his stories, uncovering Stéphane’s own web of lies and crimes. The series promises to reveal many jaw-dropping twists when it airs later this year.
With all three panelists having studied journalism, one of the first topics was ethics. “If you feel okay standing on stage and saying what you did, it’s probably ethical,” Lauren Collins said about the need to sometimes throw out the rulebook and do what feels right. For example, journalistic integrity says that you shouldn’t pay or reward an interviewee, but on an assignment to interview a homeless person, Lauren walked away with one less jacket, having offered hers to the cold participant. Mariana Van Zeller had a similar anecdote about spending the night in a homeless camp and being offered shelter in someone’s tent, inviting them to breakfast at Denny’s the next morning. TJ Martin brought up a fair point that interviewees are giving up their time and their stories, and sometimes that deserves something in return.
Naturally, when it comes to asking participants to revisit past trauma, a high degree of care is required. In Lauren Collins’ experience, sometimes participants are grateful for the opportunity to have a platform, while others benefit from prior conversations about triggers or things they don’t want to talk about. On a show like Trafficked, Mariana Van Zeller finds that the criminals who are willing to talk are hoping for some understanding and empathy rather than to brag about what they’ve gotten away with. Her role on the show often has her asking moral questions, such as documenting a car theft in L.A. Was there more benefit from stopping that one heist, or would it serve a greater good to show the bigger problem to enact lasting change? Obviously, the latter was the answer in that case.
As a genre, true crime highlights the illusion of safety. Bad things happen, and you can’t predict where, when, why, or who. But paying attention to projects like Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller, Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown, and Killer Lies: Chasing a True-Crime Con Man can make us better informed and better able to navigate potential threats we may find ourselves exposed to. Past installments of Trafficked and One Day in America are available to stream on Hulu. Stay tuned for release date announcements for the three series featured in this SXSW panel.