Judi Richardson had never listened to a podcast when Kylie Low called her in the summer of 2021.

Low, who produces a Maine-based podcast called “Dark Downeast,” said she wanted to do an episode about her daughter, Darien Richardson. Darien was shot as she slept in her Portland apartment in 2010, after two intruders fired into her bedroom. She later died as a result of her injuries. No one has ever been charged in her death and few details have emerged.

Judi Richardson liked that Low already knew a lot about the case and that she promised to spend time with the family, that she’d give them more time to talk than they had during brief TV and newspaper interviews over the years.

“She came to the house, and we just sat and talked in my kitchen. What really got me was that she centers on the victim,” said Richardson, of South Portland. “She gave us a new avenue for getting Darien’s story out there.”

Low has been creating and hosting episodes for her podcast since late 2020. She focuses largely on cold cases from Maine and New England. A journalism major at the University of Maine, Low says part of her motivation for starting “Dark Downeast” was a desire to tell stories that matter in her home state. She also wanted to help the families of cold case victims feel like they have not been forgotten. As an intern for a Bangor TV station more than a decade ago, she had covered the case of Ayla Reynolds, the toddler who vanished from a Waterville home and has never been found. That story, she said, “hit me in the gut.”

Judi and Wayne Richardson, the parents of Darien Richardson, whose murder in 2010 remains unsolved, pictured in 2014. The case was the subject of episodes on the Maine-based podcast Dark Downeast. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

“What I’m trying to understand, what I’m trying to help my audience understand, is a family’s loss from a violent crime or an unexplained disappearance is totally different from other loss. We can’t just handle it and present it as entertainment,” said Low, 34. “The mothers, fathers, uncles, brothers, everyone who is speaking out about these stories, they are the voices that should be heard the loudest. And that’s what I’m striving to do with my show.”

GROWING AUDIENCE

Until this year, Low both produced and marketed the show herself. Then, in January, the podcast production company Audiochuck – founded by true crime podcaster Ashley Flowers – began marketing and distributing “Dark Downeast.” The company also handles post-production, freeing up Low to spend time on research, interviews and recording.

Low works out of her home in southern Maine, but did not want to say the specific town where she lives.

During its first week as part of the Audiochuck network, “Dark Downeast” debuted at No. 1 on the Apple Podcasts all-categories chart. In mid-February, it was No. 42 among all Apple podcasts and No. 12 among true crime podcasts, according to Chartable, a podcast tracking website. Episodes of “Dark Downeast” have been downloaded more than 11 million times since it began in 2020, Low said.

Kylie Low, creator and host of Dark Downeast, has focused on many Maine cold cases. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

New episodes are available weekly on Thursdays, on the “Dark Downeast” website and on several podcast sites. Episodes are usually 35-45 minutes long, and some cases are covered in two episodes. She’s produced more than 150 episodes so far, and more than half of the cases she’s covered involve Maine. On the website, Low lists the source materials she used for each episode.

Brittany Bigelow, head of podcasts at Audiochuck, said the company was interested in working with Low largely because it is committed to producing “elevated true crime content that serves the victims and communities” involved.

“Kylie is meticulous in her reporting and leads with heart as she guides the listeners through each episode,” Bigelow said.

Amanda Robinson, who has been listening to “Dark Downeast” since it began, agrees. A Saco native who lives and works in Washington, D.C., Robinson said “Dark Downeast” came up as a recommended podcast in her Instagram feed, probably because she listens to other true crime shows. She was intrigued because the cases are often from Maine but has stayed with it because of Low’s attention to detail and the way she treats her subjects.

“I love how much care and attention she puts into the research and how she really leads with the stories of the victims and the surviving family and friends,” said Robinson, 30. “Some podcasts are very sensational, dealing a lot more with the act of the crime.”

LOVE OF TELLING STORIES

Low grew up mostly in Farmingdale, near Augusta, and went to Hall-Dale High School. She was involved in theater and acting while in school and thought she might pursue acting as a career. She was in plays and musicals, both at her high school and in local community theater. But at the University of Maine, she took journalism courses and realized that she could tell stories that way.

“What I had loved about (acting) was the storytelling part of it. So when I thought about a career path in that direction, with potentially a little bit more stability, that’s how I found journalism,” said Low, a 2012 University of Maine graduate. “I found I could tell a story, ask questions, dig deep and share those stories with an audience.”

In her senior year at UMaine, Low became interested in investigative journalism and did a TV news internship with Bangor station WVII. She was on the scene in Waterville around the time Ayla Reynolds was last seen there.

She remembers watching news media from around the country descending on Waterville to cover the story. It bothered her that Ayla’s story got only a couple minutes of air time on most networks. She thought it deserved more attention, more depth. It was one of the first stories she did as an episode of “Dark Downeast,” years later.

After college, she created videos for businesses and did public relations work. One of her jobs was traveling on tour with the band One Direction and shooting video content and blogging, for tour sponsor Nabisco. When she got back to Maine, she started making videos of local concerts for Townsquare Media, owner of several Maine radio stations. That led to an opportunity to sit in with, and eventually become part of, the morning team on pop music station WJBQ, also known as Q97.9. She was on air for about two years, along with Lori Voornas and Jeff Parsons, from 2015 to 2017.

Low and her husband then moved to New York City, where she worked on radio and as a producer for a business podcast. She moved back to Maine early in the pandemic, while still working for the business podcast. In New York, she had listened to true crime podcasts and had begun thinking about creating one that treated the victims and subject differently than others did. Having some extra time back in Maine revived that interest.

KEEPING CASES ALIVE

Low started airing “Dark Downeast” episodes in the fall of 2020. She said that once she started interviewing families, in person and often in Maine, she started to feel the weight and responsibility of telling stories of victims and their families.

“I think the moment when it landed heavily on me was talking to Judi Richardson. There were photos of Darien on the wall, there were poems Darien had written her mother, in her handwriting,” said Low. “I knew I couldn’t just tell these stories as entertainment.”

Kim Higgins is among the victims’ family members who appreciates Low’s attention to detail. Her sister, Cathy Moulton, was 16 when she was went missing in 1971.

Over the years, detectives had pieced together Cathy’s movements, and believe she was taken from Portland by an older boyfriend. But her body hasn’t been recovered, and no suspects have ever been named. Low knew Cathy’s case was one of the oldest cold cases in Maine and decided to do episodes on it.

Higgins said the “Dark Downeast” episodes on Cathy – in December of 2020 – were accurate and did a good job at getting her sister’s story out to more people. She feels the more the story is retold, the likelier it is some answers will eventually surface.

“I feel like every podcast, every newspaper piece that comes out generates a little flurry of activity and interest,” said Higgins, of Windham. “But we’re not there yet. My sister is still missing.”

Kim Higgins holds a photo in 2021 of her older sister, Cathy Moulton, who went missing from Portland in 1971. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

“Dark Downeast” quickly gained a following after debuting in 2020, including people in law enforcement who recognized that Low was helping keep cold cases alive and could prompt new information about cases.

In 2022, Kennebunk police detective Stephen Borst was trying to think of ways to generate new leads in a nearly 60-year-old missing persons case, when a colleague suggested he call Low. Low, through her extensive research about Maine cold cases, suspected immediately that Borst was emailing her about Bobby Desmond, who had gone missing as an 11-year-old in 1964.

The episode Low produced about Desmond became available Sept. 5, 2022, on “Dark Downeast,” and within 24 hours it had been downloaded about 6,400 times. Borst said he got calls and emails from as far away as California and Central America. While the responses didn’t generate new developments in the case, Borst feels the publicity helped keep the case alive.

“Some people wanted to say thank you for not giving up, trying to solve the case. Others suggested some things we might want to try or think about,” said Borst. “We’ll take all the help we can get on a case like this; we’ll gladly sift through any responses we get. Kylie put a lot of effort into it. It’s a 60-year-old case, and she’s bringing it to the forefront using 2024 technology.”

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