The Crime Junkie Case That Haunts Brit Prawat To This Day - Exclusive

As the leading true crime podcast in the industry, "Crime Junkie" has tackled it all — from murder to missing people and everything in between. Helping lead the charge is Brit Prawat, who co-hosts the chart-topping series alongside best friend Ashley Flowers. Together, the two lifelong sidekicks, who grew up in Indiana, have recorded hundreds of episodes that have been known to attract up to 10 million listeners per episode.

Each week, Flowers and Prawat lean into a little-known mystery to help garner attention for the case, often promoting education and advocacy, and leaving listeners feeling like they're sitting around having a discussion with pals about their latest true-crime obsession. For Prawat, each case is special and unique and has left its own imprint in her mind. But one case in particular has haunted the "Crime Junkie" co-host for years — even long before she and Flowers recorded a podcast episode about it. During an exclusive interview with Grunge while promoting her partnership with Temptations cat treats, Prawat opened up about the true-crime mystery that hit so close to home that she has never been able to forget it.

Based in Indianapolis, the "Crime Junkie" podcast has been in production since 2017, covering far-flung cases from across the country and spanning different decades. But it was an unsolved case right in their home state that has made the biggest impression on Prawat: the 1988 kidnapping, rape, and murder of an 8-year-old girl named April Tinsley from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

"It happened an hour and a half away from where I grew up," Prawat told us. "She was older than me, but her story felt so familiar to both me and Ashley. It was a story that we really wanted to tell, and it had been unsolved for 30 years [when 'Crime Junkie' first covered it in 2018]."

It's a case Prawat followed her whole life, so recording the episode titled "WANTED: Monster in Fort Wayne, Indiana" was both emotional and cathartic. A few months after the episode was released, Tinsley's case was officially solved when a suspect was arrested, charged, and convicted — and "Crime Junkie" ran a subsequent follow-up episode.

The conclusion gave Prawat a certain amount of relief. "As a mother, it's still a story that haunts me," she said, "but the fact that there is some closure and some justice makes it a little bit less haunting for me now."

New episodes of the "Crime Junkie" podcast premiere Monday and are available for listening and download wherever you enjoy your podcasts.

You can also watch Prawat's promotional podcast for Temptations at TemptationsTreats.com/Cat-Burglar.