Endless Thread

In the days after the 2013 Boston bombing, an online hunt for the perpetrators falsely accused Brown University student Sunil Tripathi. Police later discovered that Tripathi, who had been showing signs of depression, had died by suicide.

Endless Thread revisits his story — one of family and mental health — on the 10th anniversary with documentarian Neal Broffman and Tripathi's sister, Sangeeta Tripathi.

Editor’s note: This story mentions suicide. You can reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline toll-free by calling or texting 988.

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Our intrepid sound designer, Matt Reed — musician/composer extraordinaire —recently became a dad. He picked up a Glo Worm for his baby son, Sam. It's a plush musical baby toy made by Hasbro that's been around for decades. It plays standard, well-known lullabies like "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "Frère Jacques," etc. "Straight hits," as host Ben Brock Johnson says in this episode. "Straight hits."

But there's one melody on the toy that was a complete unknown to Matt. It's in a minor key, it's slow. Is it creepy? "Yeah, it's definitely got that vibe," Matt says. "Funeral zone."

So, he brought this idea to Endless Thread's pitch meetings where we throw around episode ideas.

"I turn to the internet like most weirdos do, I guess, when they're obsessing over their child's toy to figure out what song it is," Matt says. "And there's other people on the Internet who are also... curious? Confused?"

There are two Reddit posts about this creepy music, a YouTube video, several unhelpful emails from Hasbro to concerned parents, and numerous guesses and theories.

"We were concerned by the addition of an unlisted song too," writes YouTuber deefrontier5798. "It's creepy and sad, and the fact that the creators withheld information puts up a red flag."

In this episode, we ask Hasbro directly and try alternate routes. Sometimes Endless Thread doesn't get to the complete bottom of Internet mysteries. But this isn't one of those times.

We hope you like nursery rhymes. :)

What do livable and walkable urban environments have to do with "the real life Hunger Games"? And why are people in Oxford, England and elsewhere coming out in droves to protest seemingly innocuous traffic restrictions?

On this episode of Endless Thread, co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson explore one of the strangest conspiracy theories circulating today: the 15-minute city.

On a sunny day in March 2020, researchers in South Africa discovered the bodies of two giraffes. From what they could tell, the giraffes had died a few days earlier. But the cause was a mystery. To understand what happened, producer Dean Russell turned to the subreddit AskScience. He discusses his findings with Endless Thread co-hosts Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson.

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Dean Russell. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

Why did Jacob Wideman murder Eric Kane?

In 1986, the two 16-year-olds were rooming together on a summer camp trip to the Grand Canyon when Jacob fatally — and inexplicably — stabbed Eric.

That night, Jacob went on the run, absconding with the camp’s rented Oldsmobile and thousands of dollars in traveler’s checks. Before long, he turned himself in and eventually confessed to the killing — although he couldn’t explain what drove him to do it.

It would take years of therapy and medical treatment behind bars before Jacob could begin to understand what was going through his mind that night. It would take even longer to try to explain it to his family, to his victim’s family and to parole board members, who would decide whether he deserved to be free ever again.

This debut episode of “Violation,” a podcast from WBUR and The Marshall Project, introduces the story of the crime that has bound two families together for decades.

Jacob’s father, John Edgar Wideman, is an acclaimed author of many books on race, violence and criminal justice. He spoke with Violation host Beth Schwartzapfel in a rare, in-depth interview about his son’s case that listeners will hear throughout the series, including this premiere.

Evan Kail is a wise-cracking antique dealer and TikToker. Last September, his world turned upside down when one of his videos ignited an international media frenzy. In his words, the TikTok created a "perfect storm." The subject of the video? A photo album from WWII which Evan believed contained photographs of the Nanjing Massacre — a horrific episode during Japan's invasion of China in 1937.

This episode is about historical memory, why the Nanjing Massacre is still an incredibly sensitive topic in China and Japan, social media virality, and the true contents of that WWII photo album.

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Megan Cattel. Mixing and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson are the co-hosts.

We thought Endless Thread fans would want to hear this trailer for a new podcast from WBUR.

Violation tells the story of two families bound together by an unthinkable crime. It explores America's opaque parole system and asks: How much time in prison is enough? Who gets to decide? And, when someone commits a terrible crime, what does redemption look like? 

Listen to the trailer and if you like what you hear, head over to the Violation feed wherever you get your podcasts and hit subscribe so you'll get new episodes when they drop, beginning March 22.

Last fall, freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got a new neighbor: an owl. What wasn't clear was whether the owl was trying to befriend them, or catch them.

Endless Thread host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter talk about how the owl gained online campus fame, and get a surprise update from the person who knows the owl best.

It's been eight months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and more people are relying on Reddit for help accessing abortion services than ever. Endless Thread revisits r/auntienetwork and looks at how it and other online communities are trying to fill the widening gaps in abortion access.

Credits: This episode was written and produced by Grace Tatter. Mixing and sound design by Matt Reed. Ben Brock Johnson and Grace Tatter are the co-hosts.

The people of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon are still recovering from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people and injured thousands more. Two weeks later, another earthquake shook the region.

Ben and producer Quincy Walters talk about ways the disaster is being chronicled on social media — from a Twitter user predicting a catastrophic earthquake just days before the actual earthquake happened, to mysterious lights in the sky that can help geologists better forecast earthquakes.