One day in 1987, a young girl in a small town in upstate New York disappeared and then turned up dead. For seven years her murder went unsolved, until police finally caught the killer, a local man whom everyone knew. The town would never be the same, according to our listener Jen who grew up there. She’s a true crime fanatic and first-time podcaster who wants to investigate how the murderer got away with it for so long. In this episode of How To!, we bring on Jessica Garrison, a BuzzFeed News senior editor of investigations and author of the book The Devil’s Harvest. She shares the story of a notorious California contract killer who got away with more than 30 murders over 3 decades before he was brought to justice. In order to understand how that could happen, Jessica says, you need to look at the victims, who are often powerless and overlooked by society because of their class, race or immigration status. The ways in which we tell their stories can have outsized consequences on the entire criminal justice system.

If you liked this episode, check out “How To Forgive the Unforgivable.”

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