Hot Snakes Media Predicts a Future Where True Crime TV Leans Into the Weird

Office With a View: Eric and Shannon Evangelista break down the instincts behind their many nonfiction hits

Eric and Shannon Evangelista
Hot Snakes Media co-owners Eric and Shannon Evangelista (Credit: Casey Kelbaugh/Chris Smith for TheWrap)

Neither Eric nor Shannon Evangelista have had the career paths you would expect from a major player in nonfiction TV.

The former spent 14 years as a broadcast news reporter and newspaper journalist; the latter started her career as a federal criminal defense attorney, working in District Attorney offices from Manhattan to Orange County. But it’s precisely this background that helps the Hot Snakes Media co-owners stand out from the pack, particularly with true crime projects like Investigation Discovery’s buzzy “The Curious Case of Natalia Grace.”

“I was turned down for showrunning jobs at Discovery Channel a year before we started ‘Breaking Amish’ and ‘Amish Mafia,’ which were our first two shows and were record-breaking ratings successes for Discovery,” Eric Evangelista told TheWrap.

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