“The best thing that can be said about this crime was from the prosecutor,” said Megan Cloherty, former It’s All Journalism producer and co-creator of 22 Hours: An American Nightmare, a new true-crime podcast from WTOP News Radio in Washington, D.C. “She said: ‘This a crime that nightmares are made of.'”
Jack Moore, the podcast’s co-creator, agreed with that assessment.
“It strikes to the primal fear of anyone, being attacked in your home, with your family, being held captive, and being unable to protect or save the ones that you love,” he said.
22 Hours dives deep into the brutal 2015 home invasion and murder of the Savopoulos family that shocked the nation’s capital.
“There was a lot of extraordinary things about this crime,” Moore said. “The family was very wealthy. It happened in a very wealthy part of D.C. But, it really revolves around a family and this horrible thing that happened to them.”
Both, Cloherty and Moore covered the case for WTOP, following it day-to-day through the courts.
“The man who was accused of doing it and then went on trial and was convicted of doing it, a big part of his defense was, ‘It wasn’t me, it was my two brothers,” Moore said. “So now you have another family that is completely shattered by this horrifying crime.”
The 10-episode podcast series 22 Hours: An American Nightmare debuts Monday, June 10. Listeners can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Podcast One.
Reporters Meghan Cloherty and Jack Moore join IAJ producer Michael O’Connell in studio to talk about their new true-crime podcast, 22 hours: An American Nightmare. They discuss what it was like covering the 2015 home invasion and murder case for WTOP News Radio in Washington, D.C., and the challenges they faced turning the story into a 10-part podcast series.
