The Butcher and the Wren

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses graphic violence and potentially disturbing themes related to a serial killer and his crimes.

Alaina Urquhart is the author of The Butcher and the Wren, but she is also an autopsy technician and a notable true crime podcaster. Urquhart began Morbid: A True Crime Podcast with her niece, Ash Kelley, in 2018. The two are similar in age and often refer to each other as “sisters” on the podcast. Much of the popularity of Morbid stems from Urquhart’s unique perspective as an autopsy technician blended with the colloquial, easy to understand, and, when appropriate, comedic nature of the podcast due to the organic banter between Urquhart and Kelley. Urquhart has said in an interview with CrimeReads, “Gallows humor has a place in the death industry, to allow workers to cope with the sometimes suffocating sadness that comes with the job, but it can never be in relation to the victim” (Odintz, Molly. “Morbid Podcast Host and Autopsy Technician Alaina Urquhart Talks True Crime and Turning to Fiction.” CrimeReads, 22 March 2022). Urquhart maintains a clinical tone when discussing the details of the victims’ deaths, but she and Kelley often use humor to mock the killers, such as when Urquhart and Kelley covered the BTK Killer (who is also mentioned in Wren’s internal dialogue in The Butcher and the Wren) and referred to him only as “Dennis” in sardonic tones to avoid using his chosen serial killer moniker.