Jay native featured on 'Criminal'

A female voice describes a typical rural American childhood.
She grew up on a farm with her parents. Grandpa lived next door. They had dogs, cats, chickens, goats.
Then, host Phoebe Judge steps in to narrate:
“Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up an only child in the small town of Portland, Indiana.”
So starts the most recent episode of “Criminal,” a podcast that is a member of Radiotopia through the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). The show is currently ranked 26th by iTunes in terms of total listeners.
The 51st episode — “Money Tree” — of the podcast, which seeks to tell tales of complex crimes, unravels the story of Betz-Hamilton dealing with identity theft. It begins in her youth and carries through to present day, as she is now an assistant professor of consumer studies at Eastern Illinois University with her research focusing on child identity theft.
“Criminal” learned of Betz-Hamilton’s story through an article she wrote about her experience and thought the circumstances fit the “Criminal” format, said Judge in an email interview this week. The show contacted Betz-Hamilton, who had previously shared her story with The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, Fox Business News and others, and she agreed to take part in the podcast.
“To do it, it was a fun experience,” said Betz-Hamilton, who went to the NPR affiliate in Champaign, Illinois, to record the show. “It was a pretty low-key experience in terms of the actual recording of the podcast.
“But the experience of the reaction from listeners and the reach that it’s had has been really overwhelming.”
Organizations that have contacted her include the Australian Broadcasting Company, with which she will have an interview Friday. She’s also heard from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a group that focuses on helping children “at risk of poor educational, economic, social and health outcomes,” about working on a project having to do with identity theft.
The reaction has been more than she expected.
“I didn’t even know there was a following for podcasts,” she said.
Betz-Hamilton graduated in 2000 from Jay County High School, where she was involved in FFA as well as the speech and academic teams. She was also a 10-year member of the Jay County 4-H cat club.
To listen to her episode of the podcast, go to http://www.thisiscriminal.com.