True Crime Club Brings Together Walls’ Amaeteur Detectives

The first meeting of the true crime club – via @swwtruecrimeclub on Instagram

True Crime Club has been around for about a year, being a fairly new club, founded in November of 2023 last school year. Seniors, Lexi Padre and Nardos Jebril, lead the club. 

Padre had the idea to start True Crime Club after watching a true crime documentary. She said, “I started wondering if Walls had a club to talk about true crime cases. So I asked around and figured out we didn’t have one so I decided it would be really fun to have a club to talk about cases and what we thought about them.” From there, membership quickly grew. Penelope Champa (‘28) shared, “I heard about True Crime at summer bridge. I wanted to join it because I love reading murder mysteries and true crime books.”

The members of True Crime Club are very interested and immersed in discovering and solving mysteries, analyzing the events following up to a murder. Isabella Escobar (‘28), a member of the club, shared that “I am enjoying true crime club because the club members make the experience entertaining while creating visual and narrative interpretations of the crime cases found locally and internationally.”

Padre explained, “we think every time we meet is interesting in itself because we talk about taboo things such as murder.” Both Padre and Jebril are outgoing and love to discuss things they are passionate about, like crime cases. Escobar (‘28) shared, “the club members make the experience entertaining while creating visual and narrative interpretations of the crime cases”

Ther club has discussed a wide range of cases, including multiple cold cases. Some cases the members of True Crime Club have discussed include: the Menendez Brothers, the JonBenet Ramsey case, Lauren Giddings, Dan Schiender, Jenette McCurdy, Night Stalker, and Elisa Lam. Most of these cases are widely known, but the club also discusses cases that are not as well known as they have just as much depth to them.

One case in particular that True Crime club has discussed recently was the JonBenet Ramsey case. At six years old JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her family’s home, and the case has still not been solved to date. There are many alleged murderer suspects like the father, her brother Burke, and numerous other males, seeing as she participated in pageant shows and was very well known in the town of Denver Colorado. She was found dead around Christmas and there were many different discussions that the club concluded based on the evidence from the unsolved case. It was interesting to see the club being so lively and exciting as new conversations and arguments spurred amongst the group of students.

The membership and interest amongst True Crime Club has grown vastly over the last year. Padre and Jebril remarked that the club went from being very small with around seven people, to growing to twenty people this year with forty sign ups from the club fair. Recognition has grown and the club has become more established and intriguing to students, collecting a wide audience of the freshmen class this year. 

Anyone interested is welcome to join on Monday mornings at 8:30 in Ms. Philip’s room.