Michael Jackson The Verdict : 14 Not Guilty - Pt. 1 of 2

This Feels Criminal: A True Crime Podcast (Formerly Killer Queens)

This Feels Criminal | Formerly Killer Queens

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2026

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fourteen counts. Not guilty on every single one. Twenty-one years later, Netflix has reopened the case — and one of Michael Jackson's own defense witnesses is about to change his story.

In June 2005, Michael Jackson walked out of a Santa Barbara courtroom acquitted of all 14 child sexual abuse charges. Netflix's new three-part docuseries "The Verdict" revisits that 2005 trial, and in Part 1 Tyrella and Nikita break it down episode by episode — the Martin Bashir interview that started it all, the raid on Neverland, and the fingerprint evidence at the center of the case.

We also get into what the documentary left out: the surprise witness who blew up the "captivity" story, and the "neutral" family friend with an undisclosed tie to the prosecution. This is Part 1. Part 2 — who flipped, and where the estate stands in 2026 — drops Thursday (out now for patrons).

Content warning: discusses child sexual abuse allegations, grooming testimony, and substance use.

Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/og to download and binge all the archived episodes today!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.
0:05.8	I wonder which emergency.
0:07.0	We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.
0:10.1	For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.
0:19.0	A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water.
0:25.2	Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:29.0	In February 2003, the most famous man on the planet sits on camera next to a 13-year-old
0:35.6	cancer survivor named Gavin Arvizo, holding his hand and telling
0:39.3	a British journalist that children sleep in his bed. He doesn't see anything wrong with that.
0:45.1	Well, can't you share your bid? The most loving thing they do is to share your bed with someone.
0:50.7	You really think that. Yeah. That one sentence is the match.
0:54.9	The raid, the arrest, the six-month trial, the 14 not guilty verdicts, 21 years of argument.
1:00.8	All of it starts there.
1:01.9	And Michael Jackson said it on purpose.
1:04.6	In an interview, he set up himself thinking he would fix his image.
1:10.7	Netflix just dropped three hours about how that
1:13.6	spectacularly backfired. We watched it, but we also read the parts that they left out.
1:21.2	I'm Nikita. And I'm Terrellah. And welcome to this feels criminal.
1:28.9	Did you ever hear a story and think, we're not getting the full picture?
1:33.0	That's where we start.
1:34.6	On this feels criminal, we unpack crime, corruption, and conspiracy with curiosity,
1:39.9	context, and just a touch of chaos.
	...

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