Kristi Lee
Kristi Lee created Canadian True Crime as a personal creative passion project in 2017.
She remains the primary writer, researcher, narrator and sound designer for the podcast.
Kristi was born in New Zealand’s South Island, where she spent her early childhood. As a teenager, her family moved to the UK for 18 months before settling in Australia, where she completed high school and university and began her career in marketing communications.
In 2009, she and her husband relocated to Canada and became citizens in 2015.
Kristi started Canadian True Crime while working full-time in Toronto’s financial district. Surprised when the podcast quickly found an audience, Kristi juggled it with her career for several years, working on episodes at night after her two kids were in bed.
She has no qualifications or training in criminology or any related field. Instead, she approaches each case with curiosity, rigorous analysis and close attention to detail, driven by a keen sense of justice and a desire to understand Canada’s justice system through the open court principle.
Highlights:
Kristi’s work with Canadian True Crime has received repeated national recognition from major podcast platforms including “Best of the Year” awards from Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music in Canada.
The podcast has been named among Canada’s top charting podcasts across multiple years, with several episodes also ranking among the top ten episodes for the year.
In 2024, Kristi’s original podcast series examining The Trial of Hedley’s Jacob Hoggard was optioned by Frantic Films and greenlit by CBC. The documentary Breaking Idol, directed by award-winning filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung, was released in 2025.
That same year, Kristi joined forces with survivors Jessica Baker and Kelly Favro to co-found Beyond The Verdict, an advocacy group to challenge harmful rape myths in the courtroom and advocate for trauma-informed justice.
Kristi Lee lives in the Greater Toronto Area with her family. She prefers to avoid the spotlight wherever possible.