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A new podcast exploring the enormous popularity of true crime podcasts yielded surprising findings about why listeners predominantly women are drawn to the often-fraught medium.

When two recent Stanford University graduates began to work on their aptly titled True Crime Podcast Podcast (the duplication is intentional), they expected to uncover a lot of really more sinister aspects of this media genre, co-producer Kyleigh McPeek told HuffPost. Instead, she and her co-producer and co-host, Grace Carroll, were surprised by how many people have found validation, empowerment, empathy, community and closure through true crime podcasts.

Its a much more complicated conversation than we anticipated, McPeek said. Theres definitely some real problems with it, but also a lot of really positive benefits.

Over the 18 months they worked on the True Crime Podcast Podcast for a school honors project begun in their senior year at Stanford, McPeek and Carroll interviewed podcasters, researchers, journalists and attorneys, as well as some of the people who work behind the scenes to help podcasters turn their hobby into a profit-sustaining enterprise.