On Christmas morning, Laura Nowlin was in her living room with her infant son. They were getting ready to leave to spend the day with family. Then, Laura heard a knock on the door. She says it sounded frantic.

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In 1833, a writer named Catharine Williams began working on a new book. She’d published books of poetry and about the Revolutionary War before, but this book was going to be different. It was going to be about a Methodist minister, a mill worker, and a murder. 

Kate Dawson’s book is The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne.

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In 1993, a family was found murdered in their home. A Maryland police spokesperson described the homicide investigation as the most “exhaustive and labor intensive” in the department’s history. And then investigators found a strange manual - written by someone calling themselves Rex Feral.

This episode was originally released in 2018.

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Scott Darlington ran the post office in a village outside Manchester for four years. One day, the computer system told him there was money missing from the branch – and he was accused of theft and fraud. “I started thinking, ‘Maybe I’ve done this and I just haven’t realized that it’s been me.’”

Nick Wallis’s book is The Great Post Office Scandal. Scott Darlington’s book is Signed Sealed Destroyed.

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When David Hahn was 16, he started working on something that caught the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the FBI.

Ken Silverstein’s book is The Radioactive Boy Scout.

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The story of one day in one neighborhood in Chicago – and the people living there who try to stop ICE agents from arresting their neighbors.

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On Halloween night, in 1992, an unusual television special aired on the BBC. Nobody expected what happened next. “The technicians were looking up at the big screen in the lobby, saying to each other, ‘My God, what's going on in Studio One?’” 

This episode was first released in 2022.

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In 1883, a sailing captain named Thomas Dudley accepted a job no one thought was a good idea: to sail a small ship called the Mignonette halfway across the world.

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When Audrey Ryan’s father told her he once found 20 pounds of hash while he was fishing for scallops, she didn’t believe him. But he said that he wasn’t the only one who had found drugs in the ocean. 

Audrey Ryan wrote about the Tusker for Boston Globe Magazine.

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In 2006, a group of young men and teenagers were arrested under the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act for planning to set off bombs in Toronto. They were known as the Toronto 18. One of the group’s leaders was a 20-year-old named Zakaria Amara.

Michelle Shephard wrote about Zakaria Amara for The Walrus magazine.

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