Snowball Is A Must-Listen For Sweet Bobby Fans

If you avidly listened your way through Sweet Bobby, chances are you’ve also devoured Netflix’s own true crime offerings, The Tinder Swindler and Inventing Anna. So, you’re probably in need of another gripping tale to embroil yourself in. Are we right? Well, look no further. New Zealand journalist Ollie Wards has your next listen covered, with his podcast Snowball. Available to listen to on BBC Sounds, Snowball follows Wards’ investigation into his former sister-in-law, Lezlie Manukian, across seven dramatic episodes.

As the journalist explains in the podcast, the trouble with Manukian started a few months after she married his brother, Greg. Having told his family that she’d owned successful restaurants in California and Hawaii, Wards’ parents agreed to secure a loan for her to start another in their local town of Matakana, near Auckland. The situation went downhill quickly and it was only a matter of time before Manukian left Greg and New Zealand all together to return to the United States — but not before warning Greg that “the snowball is about to hit you.” That snowball hit with a vengeance, resulting in Wards’ parents losing their home and life savings in order to pay the loan that Manukian left in the dust.

Wards subsequently starts his year-long investigation which, like Sweet Bobby, is captured in real-time through the podcast. The journalist soon discovers that Greg isn’t the only person to have been duped by Manukian, who’d already left a trail of victims across the world before they’d even met. Wards soon discovers that Manukian has a habit of setting up restaurants “only for them to stall a few months in,” as per Stylist.

As Wards digs deeper into Manukian’s lies and deceit — which also includes a bizarre origin story of smuggling, threats to kill, and a trust fund — Snowball’s host eventually locates Manukian and confronts her, finally get the answers he has been searching for. “It’s been an interesting process and brings some closure,” Wards said at a press event per Mamamia. “We got some answers to some long-running questions that have been bubbling away for years.”