How a passion for true crime created a podcast and a love story

The relationship between Indianapolis attorney Kevin Greenlee and New York journalist Aine Cain sounds like the perfect setup for a Hulu crime series – something like “Only Murders in the Building,” but darker.

The duo met, fell in love and married while researching an infamous, unsolved cold case murder, and now work together on their own true crime podcast, The Murder Sheet. It’s become a full-time job for the duo, pulling roughly 1 million downloads per month.

“This whole thing was very on-brand for both of us,” Cain said. “When I told my friends how the two of us met, they were like, ‘Yeah that sounds about right.’”

The couple met a couple of years ago, while Greenlee was an Indianapolis-based attorney working primarily in intellectual property law and Cain was working for the magazine Business Insider in New York City.

“I got interested in the Burger Chef murders case,” he said. “I happened to see something on television about how it was still unsolved, and I started poking around.”

Greenlee soon began researching the case on behalf of a client who was a sister of one of the four victims.

He spent a lot of time on a website called newspapers.com, which allows users to find out who else is interested in particular topics. Greenlee discovered there was a person in New York who was also voraciously reading everything they could find about the case.

It turned out to be Cain, who had somehow talked her Business Insider editor into letting her do a feature story about the Burger Chef case.

Greenlee got in touch with Cain and asked why she was so interested in the case.

“I got a reach out from this random guy in Indiana, and we sort of connected,” Cain recalled. “I did the story, and after the article came out Kevin and I kept talking and we sort of realized that we were in love. And now we’re married.”

The two have set up shop on the Indianapolis north side, where they write and record new podcast episodes from their home.

Greenlee says Cain at first wasn’t sold on the idea of pursuing this form of media, but he persuaded her.

“I told her I thought the conversations we had were interesting and that people might enjoy listening to them, and it would be a fun thing to do together,” he said. “When I first suggested this, it was before we were married or living together. Part of my thinking was, at least this way I get to talk to her for an hour a week.”

They developed an approach to their work that they say sets them apart from some other true crime podcasts.

While such programs are often created by “fans” with no particular investigatory skills and much-too-credulous attitudes, Cain says she and Greenlee make a point of applying legal and journalistic rigor to the stories they investigate.

“It felt like it all fit together in a way where we could bring both of our skill sets to bear,” she said. “Even though Kevin’s background was in intellectual property law and I was working the retail beat. Being a journalist and a lawyer, you learn to think in certain ways that can serve you well when you’re analyzing a true crime case.”

Still, their work draws criticism on social media from family members of victims and others associated with the cases the duo covers. A common refrain is that they cover others’ tragedies for personal gain.

How it started

The first case the two covered was the 1978 Burger Chef murders, in which four fast food workers at a Speedway, Indiana Burger Chef fast food restaurant were kidnapped, taken to a secluded location and murdered.

Their first podcast debuted on Nov. 17, 2020, the anniversary of the crime. Greenlee and Cain spent many an episode covering various aspects of the still-unsolved murders, trying to warm up what’s become a very, very cold case.

Originally, they planned to do a lot of stories about killings and other crimes that took place in restaurants.

They were so serious about it that Cain developed a large spreadsheet of such incidents – from which The Murder Sheet got its name.

But after their Burger Chef shows they elected to cast a broader net, doing one-off interviews and shorter analyses of other cases.

Cain’s ability to do research and construct a narrative is very helpful.

But they believe Greenlee’s legal chops also give the couple a unique advantage.

He knows how to read legal documents and can parse information from them that other podcasters and conventional journalists might miss.

“In all the cases we explore, there’s a bunch of court filings that lay people are very interested in, but often have trouble understanding on their own,” Greenlee said. “People are really interested in the legal process, but no one has ever really explained all the details to them.”

Greenlee says he’s surprised by the tolerance – and even enthusiasm – their audience shows for what he himself sees as the minutest of legal minutia.

For instance, they recently interviewed a Washington, D.C. attorney who went deep into the weeds about preparing and presenting oral arguments before an appellate court.

“He told us, ‘This isn’t going to be interesting to anyone at all,’” Greenlee said. “But people really enjoyed it and really got a lot out of it. Attorneys don’t always realize how interested people are in their work.”

The Delphi trial

Over the past year or so, the couple have spent a great deal of time on what’s become their signature project—the Delphi murders.

On Feb. 13, 2017, Delphi, Indiana residents Abigail “Abby” Williams, 13, and Liberty “Libby” German, 14, were brutally murdered during a walk on the Monon High Bridge.

German, apparently aware that they were being stalked, had the presence of mind to take smartphone footage of their presumed attacker as he followed them, and even engaged him in conversation.

A snippet of that conversation was released to the public, along with a still of the alleged attacker, whom police initially referred to as “bridge guy.”

The grainy image was little better than the typical Bigfoot photo, providing few facial details. Various theories were put forth and leads pursued, but it wasn’t until Oct. 26, 2022 that a local man, Richard Allen, was taken into custody.

On Nov. 11 of this year he was convicted on all counts. Sentencing is set for Dec. 20.

Covering the case—especially the trial—was something of a baptism by fire for the couple. There were no cameras in the courtroom and extremely limited public seating.

Which meant that if Cain and Greenlee (who didn’t have a media pass) wanted to watch the proceedings, they had no choice but to line up many, many hours before the courtroom opened and hope they got seats.

“It was really one of the most insane reporting experiences I’ve ever had,” Cain said. “There were times when we had to get there at midnight, before the line started forming. We were either waiting outside in lawn chairs or on the ramp or on the sidewalk, and I felt very gross doing it. But we felt we were dedicated to our audience about getting information about what was going on, so we kind of just locked in.”

Things got so hectic that the couple found themselves putting in 12- to 18-hour days as they waited for hours to get in the courtroom, watched the day’s proceedings, then rushed home to organize their thoughts and put together a fresh podcast.

“I think we missed one session and then we missed the verdict,” Cain recalled. “But other than that, we were able to go in, take notes, and then report to our audience what was going on. So we were able to provide daily coverage.”

Though the Delphi case is obviously winding down, it doesn’t feel like that to Greenlee and Cain. The couple have written a book on the case, called Shadow of the Bridge: The Delphi Murders and the Dark Side of the American Heartland, available this August from Pegasus Books.

Not that they haven’t started pursuing other mysteries.

“We have a couple of other cases that we’ve covered with some depth,” Cain said. “Whenever we cover a case, we really try to think about what kind of value we can add. Are we covering it just to make another episode, or can we add some helpful legal analysis or talk to someone who hasn’t been talked to or raise awareness of a case that hasn’t gotten much attention?

“I think that whatever we focus on, we want to bring some of that to the case.”•