- Sela Freuler attended a school for troubled girls that made headlines over the death of a student.
- When a true-crime podcast used her story for an episode, she spoke out against the genre.
Sela Freuler, a 30-year-old woman from Phoenix, Arizona, unexpectedly became the subject of an episode of a true-crime podcast — and now she's using her platform to speak out against the genre.
Freuler is a former attendee at Lakeland Girls Academy, a Florida institution for troubled teens that closed earlier this year after a 17-year-old girl named Naomi Wood died in its care in 2020.
She has been open in her criticism of the school, having been a student there from 2007 to 2009, and has published essays online and spoken to several news outlets about how the school was run. She also made TikToks about how she felt neglected by the institution while she was a student there. But when the "Popcorn Murder Stories" podcast used her experience as the basis for an episode, she wasn't happy.
The 30-year-old TikToker told Insider she thinks the true-crime genre should take more care to platform crimes and tragedies responsibly and respect victims mentioned in their episodes.
Freuler said it was 'very upsetting' to hear her story retold without her consent
In a TikTok video posted on November 10, Freuler said several true-crime podcasts had attempted to tell her story without contacting her but she singled out one that she found particularly offensive, called "Popcorn Murder Stories" — a relatively small show hosted by two women named Emily and Megan (Insider agreed to withhold their last names due to privacy concerns amid ongoing backlash) with 142 episodes dating back to 2019. A description of the show on its Apple Podcast page describes it as a "mostly true" crime podcast.
In audio recordings of the episode, which Freuler reacted to in her TikTok, the hosts could be heard describing Freuler as a "monster," and making factually inaccurate claims about her.
@mzrainbowbrite When strangers attempt to profit from your experience while also throwing you under the bus…that’s a problem, and contributes to the silencing of survivors. #truecrime #podcast #breakingcodesilence #iseeyousurvivor #culttok #cultsurvivor #activism #lakelandgirlsacademy #lakeland #florida ♬ original sound - Rainbow Brite
Some of information in the podcast appeared to have been taken from Freuler's TikTok videos, many of which discuss the situation lightheartedly, but Freuler told Insider the hosts added their own jokes, which made her feel uncomfortable and as though the hosts were not taking her story seriously. She also accused them of victim blaming for focusing on her behavior.
"It's one thing for a victim or survivor to talk about their own experiences and to use humor. But it's a completely different thing when somebody else talks about your insecurities or your experiences with that same level of deprecating humor. It just doesn't work," she said.
Freuler said the podcast hosts did not contact her for comment or to be interviewed for the episode, which was first posted towards the end of 2021 but was deleted shortly after she mentioned the podcast on TikTok around a year later.
"It's very upsetting to just hear a mangled fictionalized account of your whole life by complete strangers," she told Insider.
After Freuler's video circulated online, receiving 260,000 views, "Popcorn Murder Stories" received an influx of negative reviews on Apple podcasts, as people referred to the show as "unethical" and "disrespectful" towards victims. Its entire back catalog has since been removed from all platforms.
On November 23, Freuler posted a follow-up video saying that one of the podcast hosts apologized to her in a private email, which Insider has seen screenshots of.
@mzrainbowbrite Reply to @jennyblank981 lose/lose situation #breakingcodesilence #troubledteenindustry #lakeland #florida #teenchallenge #fostercare #adoptee #polkcounty #gradyjudd ♬ original sound - Rainbow Brite
In a statement given to Insider, Emily said that she and Megan had intended to "amplify" the voices of victims by discussing Freuler's videos and not to "shame her."
"We take Sela's concerns very seriously, so as soon as we found out from her viewers that she was unhappy with our coverage of Naomi's case we wanted to honor her requests for accountability," she said, adding, "We tried to give the situation the careful thought it deserves, and when we did it became clear this was part of a bigger conversation about whether humor is ever appropriate in the true crime space — so in the spirit of harm reduction, we decided it was best to also take the podcast down altogether."
Freuler's experience with the podcast represents a broader issue with the way true-crime content treats trauma like entertainment, she said
Freuler said she thinks the humor used in the "Popcorn Murder Stories" episode is emblematic of the way true-crime content is increasingly blending entertainment and reality, pointing to recent trends such as content creators doing their make-up while explaining the events of a crime, or using comedy to discuss them.
"It's created a desensitization, so it feels more like they're talking about horror movies that you can enjoy and watch popcorn with, instead of real life," she said.
While "Popcorn Murder Stories" is a smaller show than many mainstream true-crime podcasts and TV shows, which are largely held to higher fact-checking standards, Freuler said she thinks her incident with the podcast shows how there is a wide-reaching lack of accountability towards victims in the genre as a whole.
Most recently, a Netflix adaptation of the life and crimes of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer came under fire when relatives of victims spoke out against it. Insider reported that Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey, one of Dahmer's victims, said the show did not contact her but depicted a scene of her giving an impact statement at Dahmer's 1992 sentencing. Ryan Murphy, the show's creator, said that his team reached out to "around 20" of the victim's families, but nobody responded to them, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.
Freuler said that in such instances, she thinks that true-crime creators have a responsibility to weigh the impact of their content and to do their best to make sure the real voices of victims and survivors are represented.
"If you're going to use somebody's real lived experience as a subject, you really owe it to them to take into consideration their thoughts and feelings," she told Insider.
Freuler said she continues to use TikTok to share her story.
"I think it's validating to be able to tell your story in your own words and find community with people who have experienced similar things through social media," she said.
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.