Imperative Entertainment, the Santa Monica, CA production house that has expanded beyond film and television into podcasting, last month announced it had teamed up with Westwood One to distribute, market, and monetize its shows. There is one more podcast on that list, In the Red Clay, a true-crime podcast that tells the story of Billy Sunday Birt, who may have been responsible for more than 50 murders in Georgia.
The podcast is hosted by Sean Kipe, who was in the northeast Georgia farm town of Winder in 2019 to film an HBO series when he learned of Birt’s story. “My time in this unassuming little town and the people I would meet there would prove to be something that I could never had expected,” he said on the show’s preview. “What I unearthed was a story shrouded in scandal and mystery — a story with secrets never before revealed — with one man at the center of it all.”
During the production of the podcast Kipe discovered clues that he said were “hidden in plain sight” about Birt’s killing spree when he came across maps made that offered clues to mysteries that have stumped investigators for decades. “We’ve discovered the Xs and crosses that Birt had marked on the maps so many years ago might just lead us to hidden treasures, or maybe even a body,” he said. Birt died in prison in 2017.
In the Red Clay is the sixth series from Imperative Entertainment’s podcast division. Jason Hoch, President of the unit, is the Executive Producer of the 12-episode series.
The first three episodes were released this week. The remainder will be released Tuesday mornings.