Dateline Originals

4.6 (21K) · TRUE CRIME · UPDATED MONTHLY

Long-form audio investigations from the Dateline NBC team — exclusive stories and cold cases told in full, serialized detail across multiple episodes.

7D AGO

The Last Call Killer: Part 5 — Justice, Finally

The conclusion of our five-part investigation into Herb Baumeister, the serial killer who preyed on gay men in Indianapolis throughout the 1990s. After three decades, new evidence has brought fresh legal action. Keith Morrison on what the final chapter looks like for the families who waited so long.

14D AGO

The Last Call Killer: Part 4 — What the Property Hid

The excavation of Baumeister's Fox Hollow Farm property in 1996 revealed the remains of eleven men. But investigators believe the real number is higher. This episode examines the forensic investigation and the witnesses whose testimony came years too late.

SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

Cold Case Files: Extended Edition — The Zodiac Letters Decoded

An extended deep-dive into the Zodiac Killer's still-undeciphered communications. Cryptographer David Oranchak, who cracked the Z340 cipher in 2020, walks through what the messages actually say — and what the remaining coded letters may contain.

28D AGO

The Last Call Killer: Part 3 — The Pattern Emerges

As missing persons reports accumulated throughout the early 1990s, a detective in Indianapolis began to see a pattern. The victims were all gay men who had been to bars along a specific corridor. But in 1993, gay men going missing was not front-page news.

35D AGO

The Last Call Killer: Part 2 — The Suspect's Family

Herb Baumeister's wife Julie and his children had no idea what was happening. This episode focuses on the family's account of living with a man who kept an extraordinary secret — and the specific moment Julie began to suspect that something was very wrong.

42D AGO

The Last Call Killer: Part 1 — The Missing Men

The first installment in our serialized investigation. Correspondent Andrea Canning traces the disappearances of men from Indianapolis gay bars throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s — cases that received almost no media coverage and no police attention.

49D AGO

Gone: The Disappearance of Maura Murray — New Evidence

A special standalone investigation revisiting the case that has captivated the internet for 20 years. Dateline's team spent 18 months re-examining the evidence. This episode presents new information about the hours before Maura's crash that has never previously been reported.

56D AGO

The Preacher's Wife: A Cold Case Reopened

In 1983, Janet Hausler was found dead in her Nashville home. Her husband, a prominent minister, was questioned and released. Forty years later, a DNA genealogy breakthrough has given investigators a new suspect. Dennis Murphy on the case that has never left his desk.

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Hosts & Guests

Andrea CanningCorrespondent

Keith MorrisonCorrespondent

4.6

out of 5

21K Ratings

The serialized format makes it unmissable

The serialized format that Dateline Originals uses is so much more satisfying than stand-alone episodes. You actually get to understand the case in full context. The Last Call Killer series was some of the best true crime audio I've ever heard.

TrueCrimeJourney · Mar 5, 2026

Dateline at its best

This is what happens when Dateline's journalism has room to breathe. The regular feed is good but this is exceptional. The cases chosen are interesting and the reporting goes much deeper than anything on the broadcast version of the show.

DatelineVeteran · Feb 18, 2026

Required listening for true crime fans

If you already subscribe to the main Dateline podcast, Dateline Originals is a no-brainer. The production values are impeccable and the serialized investigations are genuinely revelatory. Cold case DNA work has transformed what's possible in this space.

PodcastPurist · Feb 2, 2026

About

Dateline Originals is the premium, long-form companion to Dateline NBC. While the main Dateline feed offers self-contained episodes, Dateline Originals goes deeper — multi-episode serialized investigations where each case gets the full treatment it deserves. These are the cases that can't be told in 45 minutes: the cold cases that required years of reporting, the trials that spanned months, the families whose stories are too complex for a single episode. Produced by the same award-winning team behind Dateline NBC, with narration from the show's correspondents, Dateline Originals represents the pinnacle of true crime journalism in audio form.