10 Times Pop Culture Solved Real Life Crimes

True crime is big business. Books about the world's most awful serial killers, unsolved mysteries and the like make up a large proportion of non-fiction sales, and are popular enough to warrant their own section in both online and brick-and-mortar stores.

TV shows like the 3 Cs - Cold Case, Cops and Crimewatch - offer moving pictures to go with the descriptions of horrific crimes, whether they were eventually solved or otherwise. For the most part, despite the ubiquity and bank, it's a genre that's existed on the peripheries of popular culture. Nobody wants to admit to being fascinated with subjects such as this - it raises all sorts of questions about their own state of mind.

Or at the very least their poor taste.

That's starting to change, though. And the effects of this new school of true crime is changing too. This past year listeners were gripped to the podcast Serial, which picked apart the particulars of a murder case from over a decade ago. Not only did it turn the investigation into an engaging narrative, presenter Sarah Koening's tenacity and new evidence inspired a re-opening of the case.

Not only is true crime gripping audiences, but it's catching the eyes and ears of law enforcement officials too. Just this week a HBO documentary lead to the arrest of a man for a string of high-profile unsolved murders - and that's not the first time books, film and TV have helped to secure a perp.