LEXINGTON, KY – The Rotary Club of Lexington will hold its weekly meeting on Thursday, Nov. 14, at The Mane on Main, Chase Bank building on Main St. The guest speaker is David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast: Dedicated to Honoring Victims and Told Through the Eyes of the Police Who Work the Crimes
This meeting will also be on Zoom. For the Zoom link please email, trafton@rotarylexky.org.
If you would like to have lunch, please contact Jenny@rotarylexky.org to reserve your meal.
David Lyons retired from the Lexington Police Department in 2020, after nearly 28 years of what he says with a sincere smile, was the best job a person could have, in the best city a cop could walk a beat. During his career, David worked through the ranks, and retired as a Commander, leading members of the Investigation and Patrol bureaus of the police department.
David’s favorite assignment was the handful of years he worked as a homicide detective with a small group of dedicated investigators. While TV and movies make the work of a “murder cop” look flashy, he found it to be an assignment that humbles a cop and takes them into a world that only other murder cops understand.
In retirement, David occupies his time with two paths that mean a great deal to him.
The first is his role as a Master Instructor with FBI-LEEDA (the Law Enforcement Executive Development Association), where he travels the United States teaching police officers and police executives leadership skills and concepts, moving the policing industry forward.
The second is a project that he started soon after retirement. After diving into the world of podcasts as a listener, he found there was great, perhaps even fanatical, interest in a genre known as “true crime’.
After listening to some true crime podcasts, good and bad, he found that one thing was rarely found in the podcast landscape: authenticity. Seeing this, David developed his own podcast and YouTube channel: The Murder Police Podcast. Listeners and viewers not only hear about a murder or suspiciously missing person cases, they hear the story from the experts that take part in these investigations. The show advocates for crime victims, educates the listener and viewer, and counters myths and misunderstandings about investigations and the criminal justice system.
David’s wife, Wendy, co-hosts the show and, after three years, the podcast is about to pass 500,000 international downloads and ranks in the top 1 percent of 3,439,978 podcasts globally, of all genres.
David is in the final stages of producing a book titled True Crime and Consequences, discussing the intersection of the True Crime genre and investigations.
David and Wendy live on a small farm in Nicholasville Kentucky with Wendy’s teenage son Jasper, where they tend to a small menagerie of animals.
David holds degrees in Police Administration, Management and Ethics, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a leadership focus.
In 2017 he completed FBI National Academy Session 267.
Rotary in Review
THE STORY BEHIND TRUE CRIME
The “perp” – or, more politely, the speaker – at our November 14 meeting has been identified: David Lyons, retired Commander of the Lexington Police Department. He was introduced by Lawrence Weathers, Police Chief of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government. In his introductory remarks, Chief Weathers, who worked closely with David, said that he is a person of integrity, trust, and respect. In addition to being a Master Instructor with FBI-LEEDA (the Law Enforcement Executive Development Association), David and his wife, Wendy, have developed a very successful podcast and You Tube channel: The Murder Police Podcast.
The Lyons’ motivation for creating the podcast was to ensure authenticity when talking about murder and missing persons cases. David said that podcasts on this genre can range from the unrealistic and exploitive to the thoughtful and well researched. The focus of their podcasts is to memorialize the victims and serve as victim advocates. This is done by addressing a particular crime through the lenses of Who, What, When, Why, and How – the basic tenets of both good journalism and police detective work.
David said that the Who is comprised of four groups of stakeholders: those in the criminal justice system, fans who are interested in the topic, content creators, and the victims, some surviving; some not. The What is the public’s desire to learn more about a particular crime, ranging from casual interest to a fascination with the details, like nomenclature, means, and motives, to the unmasking and capture of the subject. At the extreme, some even get involved in actual investigation of the crime, leading Lyons to wonder “what could go wrong with that?” When is “how long ago” did the crime happen. He observed that the first murder involved Cain and Abel, which was “a long time ago” but is still the subject of conversation today. Detective stories emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, followed by vaudeville acts, then radio and television series. The How of the popularity of true crime podcasting defied a clear explanation, but Lyons believes it comes down to a fascination with or a desire to understand how one person can do such bad things to another. How also includes how to get started, how does one investigate the crime, and how to treat the victim and others with dignity and respect. Finally, the Why involves curiosity, although some platforms involve a macabre approach, including the sharing of crime photos. David emphasized that there has to be a loving and caring emphasis.
He concluded his presentation by saying that true crime podcast developers need to have critical thinking skills, conceptual imagination skills, and to provide a “fair trial” by staying within the legal framework. He emphasized the importance of an ethical approach to the Story Behind True Crime.
– Paul B. Chewning
DID YOU KNOW? MORE ABOUT PODCASTS
According to industry observer Podchaser, as of March 2024, there were 23,000 true crime podcasts. 61% of the listeners to the top twenty-five podcasts are women; the average median age in 29.5. Such podcasts are most popular in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Brazil, the Philippines, and India.
- The Editor