As Nancy O’Dell begins her hosting duties for “Crime Exposé,” she finds herself going back to her roots as she brings true crime to syndication.
“This has never been done before. It’s an original true crime show — not news — made for syndication,” O’Dell told TheWrap. “Syndication is where I lived; that was the audience that I talked to for so long with ‘Access Hollywood’ and ‘Entertainment Tonight’ … it’s really going back to my roots.”
The half-hour true crime series, which debuts Sept. 23, centers on one case per episode and explores a number of suspects before ultimately revealing the perpetrator and solving the crime. Cleared in 95% of the U.S., “Crime Exposé With Nancy O’Dell” will be available on Fox stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Orlando, Minneapolis and Houston, along with Sinclair Broadcast Group stations in 52 other markets.
“We take you through the whole thing,” O’Dell explained. “You’re wondering, ‘Is it the boyfriend? Is it a husband? Is it a random stranger? Is it a carjacking?’ … it just takes you to all these fascinating cases.”
Not only will O’Dell reunite with familiar syndicated audiences in “Crime Exposé,” she also returns to her roots as she digs into a slew of solved crimes, bringing her back to her time as a crime reporter and local news anchor in Myrtle Beach and Charleston, S.C., as well as an anchor for WTVJ-TV, an NBC-owned station in Miami.
While O’Dell moved onto entertainment reporting when she joined “Access Hollywood” in 1996 and as an “Entertainment Tonight” anchor from 2011-19, she knew she wanted to return to her origins at some point, and partnering with “Forensic Files” producer Trifecta Entertainment was the perfect opportunity. “I always loved it. I literally would go … into that job every day, just finding it fascinating — some of the police work and the detective work that would be done,” O’Dell said of her early crime reporting.
“[I] became really good friends with a lot of the cops there … they would actually let me do a lot of ride-alongs. I would go along on some of their drug busts,” she recalled, adding that she has even posed as a sex worker to aid police, though it “never went past the street.”
Each episode of “Crime Exposé With Nancy O’Dell” will conclude with a safety spotlight, which consists of brief informative tip from the series’ own law enforcement safety contributor that follows up on each day’s story.
“One of the things that research shows of why true crime is so incredibly popular, especially with females, is that you watch it and you learn how not to become a victim,” O’Dell shared, noting how if an episode followed a disastrous meet-up from a dating app, the segment could provide resources for a background check.
Beyond helping inform cautious viewers, O’Dell said telling victims’ stories can also help give a voice to grieving family members to avoid others from facing a similar fate, saying, “They speak out or talk about what they went through and maybe it gives them some kind of closure.”
As O’Dell debuts “Crime Exposé,” she hopes viewers enjoy both the storytelling as well as the feeling of safety from potential crimes. “Hopefully they will take away something … they hear in the story or … safety spotlight is at the very end of the show … that gives information of what they can do to prevent this from happening,” she concluded.
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