An innocent suspect, a forensic nightmare and a dead woman
Turning ten years of investigative work into a podcast.
"We presumed many listeners had heard about the case, but we had to start fresh. In fact we think listeners who knew a bit about the case were even more interested," says Matthew Brown, the co-producer of the podcast series "The Inge Lotz Story: A Miscarriage of Justice".
The murder of Inge Lotz (a beautiful 22-year-old woman) was a huge story in 2005 in South Africa. So, when constructing a podcast 16-years-later, Matthew (along with co-producer Catherine Rice) had to be conscious of what was in the public domain, what had been remembered and importantly what had been forgotten.
Tip 1# - Turning ten years of investigative work into a podcast
Matthew started researching the case over ten years ago. He went out and filmed interviews with detectives, lawyers and FBI agents in order to make a documentary. "I didn't have the right ending. I didn't know who murdered Inge," he says. So, when Catherine suggested a podcast series it was a perfect opportunity to collaborate and do some more investigating.
To structure the series they found the right rhythm with some trial and error. "There were some big moments in the case that we knew we wanted to spread out. Each major piece of evidence brought by the prosecutors had its own mini story," says Matthew. Each reveal had to come at a natural point in the overall story. "Sometimes this meant telling the story chronologically, but sometimes it meant moving things around. We wanted important reveals to be covered by an expert in that area," he says. They used Catherine's narration and an interview with author Antony Altbeker to hold the series together.
"To us there is quite a clear distinction between poor journalism and good journalism. In cases like these many people, including many journalists, believe one needs to 'let the audience decide'. We think that's lazy, cowardly and disingenuous. You are the journalist, you have all the details and research. You are allowed (and should) have an opinion," says Matthew.
In 2005 Inge's boyfriend Fred Van der Vyver was arrested and went to trial for the murder. In 2021 it was very clear to Catherine and Matthew, every world expert involved and three courts in South Africa that Fred was innocent.
"But while explaining that Fred was innocent, we also wanted to find out who actually killed Inge. We found the person who we think should have been extensively looked at as a suspect so we decided to talk about that in the last two episodes," he says. They conclude the series with an extensive first time interview with Fred and his interview really puts in context how a flawed justice system can ruin a person's life.
Throughout the series the producers make some pretty huge accusations towards the police. "There is always a risk when exposing people like this, especially when some of them are in positions of power," says Matthew. "But the News24 legal team went through every word and verified every accusation as valid and defensible in court."
The details of how and why the police framed an innocent man are very important for the public to hear. "We felt that information outweighed the possible repercussions," he says.
LISTEN NOW: The Inge Lotz Story: A Miscarriage of Justice. On the 16th of March 2005, the bloodied body of a twenty-two-year-old woman was discovered in her Stellenbosch apartment. She had been brutally bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Her name was Inge Lotz.
Produced by Catherine Rice and Matthew Brown.
Listen on News24.
Tip 2# - How to budget and promote your investigative podcast
"We could never afford to just go out and make this podcast, especially with interviews in America. Also, some evidence took years to find, so we basically did not budget the podcast," says Matthew. "I had filmed interviews and researched the case for a decade on my own time and money, so we had a lot of the material already."
Catherine is a podcast producer at News24 so her time was covered, and Matthew's time was covered for two months. "When that ran out we just kept going. It took us from January to September 2021," he says.
To promote the series they also produced a number of companion videos. "Matthew had a great deal of footage already, so it made perfect sense to cut six companion videos," says Catherine.
"The videos really brought the characters to life and added an extra dimension to the series. Matt had incredible visuals which we didn’t want to go to waste. It’s difficult to say whether the companion videos increased our listenership, but they did get a lot of views and the series brought in a record number of subscribers," says Catherine.
"People seem fascinated by crime, especially murder. Netflix's huge penchant for true crime has even become a meme. We couldn't really get away from that aspect even though for us this podcast is actually about our justice system, using this case as an example of how things can go wrong," says Matthew.
"In some cases the public are right to feel producers are taking advantage of other people's tragedies. We tried to be respectful and to avoid any salacious aspects," he says.
All the best,
Paul
If you'd like to chat more about podcasts you can just hit "reply" to this letter. I'd love to hear from you.
LISTEN NOW: The Inge Lotz Story: A Miscarriage of Justice. On the 16th of March 2005, the bloodied body of a twenty-two-year-old woman was discovered in her Stellenbosch apartment. She had been brutally bludgeoned and stabbed to death. Her name was Inge Lotz.
Produced by Catherine Rice and Matthew Brown.
Listen on News24.