PODCAST DETECTIVE

MOST PEOPLE WANT TO LEAVE THEIR painful pasts behind. But producer Madison McGhee ’15 has fearlessly confronted hers to find out what happened to her father, John, on the morning of July 11, 2002. She’s even made a 2024 True Crime Awards-shortlisted podcast called Ice Cold Case, where she investigates his unsolved murder.

“There was this tug, this pull, where it was like, I have to do it,” says McGhee. “But also, I sort of see projects in my brain as files, and I had other ideas, but I couldn’t get there until I did this one.”

The West Virginia native was only 6 years old when her father was fatally shot in the doorway of his home in Belmont County, Ohio. However, she didn’t learn that his death was a homicide until she was about to graduate from high school. She carried this unsettling news to Charleston, where she began at the College as a biochemistry-turned-communications major.

For the most part, McGhee suppressed her emotions about the incident. She released some of that pent-up energy by joining various extracurricular activities, including the Charleston 40 Tour Guide Association and the Student Government Association, serving as a junior class senator.

“I had to really learn while I was at CofC how to pivot and adapt and shift and turn on and off feelings so that I could get through a day and attend a student government meeting and give a tour of the College and be in a sorority and do all of these things while I’m dealing with all this crazy stuff that nobody knew about,” she says.

The adaptability skills McGhee refined at the College would come in handy. In 2020, after moving to Los Angeles, she decided to do something about her father’s mysterious murder by creating the podcast. Although she had worked as a producer for several years, earning credits from major television networks like Freeform and the Food Network, McGhee had yet to venture into podcasting. But, determined to find answers, she bravely took the leap.

The first nine episodes of Ice Cold Case premiered in 2023, garnering critical acclaim and national press coverage and even charting on Apple Podcasts. Since then, McGhee has delivered nine more episodes, with another installment set to premiere in 2025. 

Each episode delves further into her father’s life and the circumstances surrounding his death. Ice Cold Case also features interviews with her extended family members, police officers and – most astonishingly – the prime suspect in her father’s murder. McGhee believes conducting such interviews upholds the integrity of her podcast and that of the true crime genre.

Ice Cold Case isn’t the only project keeping McGhee busy. She’s now transitioning from field producing to sending pitches to direct comedy specials. She also signed with a literary management company, Bellevue Productions, that is passing around her scripts, including a psychological thriller set to shoot in 2025.

“I look at my career as like a pinball machine: You hit things, and you go and you go and you go until you finally get where you’re going,” says McGhee, who is grateful for the success of Ice Cold Case. “It just wasn’t enough to just sit in a room and hit record and go; it had to be crafted in order for people to care – and, thankfully, they did. Or else, I’m not sure I would have felt the closure of just doing it.” – Zeniya Cooley