The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home

Smoke Screen is a podcast about swindlers. Every episode lasts between 30 and 45 minutes. The host of the podcast is Alex Schuman. A journalist by trade, Schuman has covered local and national politics. He also has experience as an executive producer for feature-length films.

Each season of the Smoke Screen podcast focuses on an individual running a con. The cons vary in scope and style, but they share something in common. They all cause grievous harm to their victims.

In Smoke Screen: Fake Priest, the podcast follows the trail of Father Ryan. For 30 years, he performed all the offices of a clergyman and even opened his own churches. But Father Ryan was no priest. He would move to another small town whenever people got suspicious. Over the decades, he swindled vast sums of money from unsuspecting parishioners.

In the same fashion, Schuman reveals scams of all kinds in different podcast seasons. There's Rama, a cult leader with a taste for fine things. He encouraged his followers to pursue tech careers to support his lavish lifestyle. There's also a Los Angeles council member representing a working-class Latinx neighborhood. His platform was to protect the area from encroaching gentrification. But his constituents discovered that he had been accepting bribes from developers.

Schuman also uncovers a puppy mill owner with unethical business practices. This investigation leads to the sinister side of the dog breeding business. Another probe focuses on Mark Grenon, the man who sold bleach to his parishioners as a cure for COVID-19.

At first, there's not much that ties all these people together. But Schuman finds the commonalities between them: greed and a disregard for the wellbeing of others. Smoke Screen is not afraid to expose these monsters for the benefit of its listeners.