Wendy (left) and Jill Blackstone were sisters. Jill pled guilty to manslaughter of Jill.
Snapped, (Apple TV+ and Prime Video), is a show that notes “Each year, approximately 16,000 people are murdered in the United States. Seven percent of the killers are female. Who are these women and what drives them to kill? Oxygen’s hit true crime series, Snapped, profiles the fascinating cases of women accused of murder.”
Episode 21, which aired on November 2024, was called “Jill Blackstone,” and is based on a 2023 podcast that was reported and hosted by Emmy award-winning journalist Barbara Schroeder click here.
This editor got hooked on Schroeder’s work after hearing a Bad Bad Thing, a six-episode podcast. In that story, a woman suspects her husband of having an affair with his dynamic and beautiful boss, and secretly begins recording the lovers. The twists and turns in this true-life story were unpredictable and fascinating.
Schroeder is uncanny in selecting projects, including The Blackstone Sisters. In February 2022, Jill Blackstone was sentenced to eight years for the death of her sister, Wendy, 49, in March 2015.
Blackstone, 59 , pled to one felony count of voluntary manslaughter for her sister and three felony counts of animal cruelty involving three dogs, two of whom died.
Police contended that Jill Blackstone — who has worked on such programs as The Jerry Springer Show, Divorce Court, The Tony Danza Show and Family Court with Judge Penny — set the garage on fire, killing her sister and two of the dogs, and staged it as an accident.
Shroeder’s podcast about the sisters, includes six episodes and in the final one “Family secrets are exposed by an FBI forensics search of the sister’s computers, and a third elusive Blackstone sister makes an appearance . . .”
After the sixth episode, Pray for Me, Shroeder speaks to the lead detective on the case to answer listener questions. Later, prosecutor Gretchen Ford joins Shroeder in a Bonus Episode: Law and Order.
Schroeder, a Palisadian, is also known for Talhotblond (2009) and Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist (2018). She is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who has written for magazines and worked with the national television show Extra! She is also a documentary film maker.
Most recently, she wrote a story about the Briana Kupfer trial.
Last week, Shroeder was asked about her next project. With Clark Fogg, she wrote Beverly Hills Confidential: A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murders (2012), which has been summarized as “Straight from the files of the Beverly Hills Police Department come the scoops the media often missed, and many never-before-published images enhance the blood-curdling accounts. Meet a Hollywood wannabe―at least she’s finally a cover girl, now―sprawled on a gurney, but what’s that mysterious message carved on her back?”
Shroeder is considering possible podcasts from that book – or maybe she’ll write a new book: Pacific Palisades Confidential. Is there enough hidden crime in the Palisades? If there is, Shroeder will find it.
In the meantime, enjoy The Blackstone Sisters, and then go back and listen to The Bad Bad Thing.