'Women are obsessed with listening to true crime before bed. I have a theory why.'

If you want to support independent women's media, become a Mamamia subscriber. Get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts, articles, videos and our exercise app, MOVE.

"Oh for me, it's a pre-bed thing, I love drifting off to it," my friend Sophie told a group of us as we sat around a fire pit over the weekend. 

We were discussing our favourite true crime podcasts, and our conversation quickly confirmed several of the theories I'd long suspected about women's fascination with grizzly stories — and why, exactly, we tend to be so much more obsessed with the genre than men, (women are nearly twice as likely as men to regularly listen to true crime, according to researchers in the US).

It's a protection thing: we're scared of being a victim ourselves one day and these stories offer us a sense of control and preparedness.

It's a human interest thing: we love stories about people and their psyches; the scars and the scandals; the relationships and the red flags. 

Oh, and here's the reason I rarely hear discussed: we like to understand our chances of getting justice if something awful like this ever happens to our friends or our sisters or our future daughters. Because, let's face it, we'll probably be the ones fighting the cases on their behalf.

Watch: Are you ever scared inside a women's maximum security prison? Post continues after video.

This latter theory might surprise you, but let me explain — because it surprised me too, when the point was first raised to me several months ago, during the making of my own true crime podcast, (In)Justice: Killer Privilege, for Amazon's Wondery.

The podcast topped true crime charts when it launched, and has since prompted a discussion in Swiss parliament after we discovered the killer had been seen posing on dating apps around Europe since the killing. The story resonated, and I wasn't surprised. It had all the ingredients it needed to grip your classic true crime crowd: super-rich protagonists, a gruesome killing, an extraordinary series of legal twists and turns. 

But here's the part I didn't expect. There was a gendered element to the story, too. Both the victim and perpetrator in our podcast might have been male – but the person who spent the next decade fighting for justice afterwards was Morgan's mother, Faber. Not his financier father, who has never given an interview with the media since his son's killing. And that, to me, was telling. 

Katie Strick explains why women are obsessed with true crime. Image: Supplied.

"Why is it always the mother?" Faber asked me one day during our recordings, as she talked me through her parental instinct to try to protect her child in his death as fiercely as she had throughout his life. "It's a story worth telling: who are these mothers? These mothers who are, you know, making the scrambled eggs in the morning and then suddenly find themselves out there standing in front of a microphone, facing the media, half their makeup smudged because they're still crying, standing up for their dead child?"

Faber and I were deep into one of several hours-long interviews about her battle for justice at the time, and she was telling me about the women who'd supported or inspired her in her fight. I say women because, well, all of them were. These warrior-like figures fighting for their dead child or loved one. June Steenkamp, mother of Oscar Pistorius's victim Reeva. Mechelle Turvey, mother of 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy Cassius who was killed in a racially motivated attack. Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, mother of London schoolgirl Ella, who died of air pollution. The Mothers of Plaza de Majo, whose children were kidnapped in Argentina. 

"I think as mothers we're automatically defenders," Cheryl Simmons, a friend of Katja's whose daughter Julie was run over by her then-boyfriend in 2016, told me in episode four of the podcast, in a bid to try to explain the phenomenon. "If you think about it, we carry those babies inside of us for nine months. My daughter heard my heart before anybody even knew it."

Listen to this episode of True Crime Conversations. Post continues after podcast.

Simmons and Faber were onto something, in that moment: the idea of that unbreakable motherly bond — that female intuition that we must protect our loved ones, whether it's our own child or a friend's or even a stranger's. Just look at the MP now backing Faber in Swiss Parliament, Nina Fehr Düsel, who just so happens to be a woman, too. 

It's something listeners have picked up on over recent months as well. "Probably shouldn't be listening to this just before becoming a mother," a pregnant friend texted me after bingeing the series. It terrified her: the thought of raising a son who might fall into drugs or the wrong crowd one day. What if he goes on to befriend a criminal like the killer in my podcast? 

"Going to make him listen to this when he's old enough," she joked, even though we both knew it wasn't really a joke at all. Because here's the thing about women: we're hardwired to prepare ourselves for danger — and that extends to our loved ones.

We check our friends have got home okay. We drive off only once we've seen them open their front door. Maybe, then, our obsession with listening to these stories isn't solely about picturing ourselves as the victim, half the time. It's also about picturing ourselves picking up the pieces after. 

"Completely gripped", "utterly speechless" and "haven't been able to stop thinking about it" are among the most common messages I've received from women and girls since my podcast came out. Some speak of their horror at the gory details. A few have spoken of warning their single friends about the killer, in case they come across him on an app. 

But by far the common message of all was how in awe they were of Faber. "Wow, what an amazing woman Katja is," almost every female friend who's listened has texted me after finishing all six episodes. Sadly, I don't think their comments have been a case of fangirling Faber and her legal prowess, most of the time. It's that most of us hope to be mothers one day, and we can only hope we'd be as strong as her, as courageous, if we ever end up in that awful position ourselves. 

All episodes of Katie's podcast are available now. Just search (In)Justice: Killer Privilege wherever you get your podcasts.

Feature Image: Gettty.