Last Seen

By WBUR

Society & Culture

What's Last Seen about?

Season 4: "Postmortem" is about the stolen bodies of Harvard and the gray market for human remains. Find out what happened at Harvard Medical School: how body parts were stolen and sold across the country. Who did this and why? Coming soon, April 2024.

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Last Seen episodes:

04.16.2024
TRAILER: Last Seen S4 'Postmortem': The Stolen Bodies of Harvard
Hundreds of people donated their bodies to Harvard Medical School hoping to advance science and train the next generation of doctors. Meanwhile, prosecutors say that for years, the school's morgue manager treated it like a storefront, letting potential customers browse...
03.11.2024
Last Seen presents: "Beyond All Repair," a new murder mystery podcast
Introducing Beyond All Repair, a new WBUR podcast hosted by Amory Sivertson. This series tells the story of a murder, but also the woman who was accused of that murder, Sophia. Sophia was newly married and six months pregnant when she...
10.06.2023
Introducing ‘The Gun Machine’, a podcast about how America was forged by the gun industry
Produced by WBUR, Boston’s NPR, in partnership with The Trace, The Gun Machine looks into the past to bring you a story that most Americans never learned in history class: how early partnerships between mad scientist gunsmiths and a fledgling...
03.23.2023
'Violation,' Part 1: Two sons, lost
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,...
03.15.2023
Last Seen introduces Violation, a new podcast about who pulls the levers of power in the justice system
We thought Last Seen 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...
12.27.2022
A family's peace | Part III
On a sunny Saturday in 2016, Benine Timothee left her house to visit a friend who lived close by and never returned. She had lived in the United States for only three months when she was shot and killed outside...
12.20.2022
A family's peace | Part II
On a sunny Saturday in 2016, Benine Timothee left her house to visit a friend who lived close by and never returned. She had lived in the United States for only three months when she was shot and killed outside...
12.13.2022
A family's peace | Part I
On a sunny Saturday in 2016, Benine Timothee left her house to visit a friend who lived close by and never returned. She had lived in the United States for only three months when she was shot and killed outside...
12.06.2022
The Guilty Plate
This week, we're bringing you another food-related mystery - this time from our friendly neighbors to the north, Vermont Public and Brave Little State producer Josh Crane. If you go out to eat right now, you’re likely to run into restaurants that are...
11.29.2022
Chinese pie
Mashed potatoes, corn and ground beef. These aren't the ingredients for shepherd's pie, but for Chinese pie, a traditional and very famous French Canadian dish. WBUR producer Amanda Beland, grew up eating Chinese pie, or pâté chinois, with her French Canadian...
11.22.2022
Confectioner's Row
For years, WBUR senior arts and culture reporter Andrea Shea drove by an old, mysterious factory in Cambridge, Mass. To her surprise, it turned to be the last vestige of a 20th century candy hub called Confectioner's Row. Manufacturing jobs dried...
11.14.2022
Berried treasure
WBUR senior arts reporter Amelia Mason is on the hunt to solve a mystery that has been haunting her for years: why are black raspberries so hard to find? The answer takes us through grocery stores, farms, foraging expeditions, and...
11.09.2022
Trailer: 'Last Seen,' Season 3
The third season of Last Seen, coming November 2022, is a collection of personal and political mysteries from public radio storytellers that you won't want to miss.
04.29.2022
Tell Us What You Think of Last Seen
Season 2 of Last Seen just wrapped, which means it's time for a listener survey! The second season of this show was one big experiment. We brought you an anthology of ten new mysteries - from the esoteric to the straight forward -...
03.29.2022
Episode 10: Searching for a Miracle
On his way to Hollywood, a young Black man named Winston Willis stopped in Cleveland in 1959 to shoot a little pool and walked away $35,000 richer. He used his winnings to open over two dozen businesses on Cleveland's East...
03.22.2022
Episode 9: Bad Actor
People will tell you Richard Bento is a good actor — on and off the stage. Over the past decade, he's been a pillar of the New England community theater scene - acting in and directing countless productions, and fostering...
03.15.2022
Episode 8: The Emotional Lives of Everyday Objects
Many prized possessions and artifacts imbued with sentimental value go missing, unintentionally. But, what about when we choose to renounce the items that mean the most to us -- like that mixtape your old girlfriend made, right before she broke...
03.08.2022
Episode 7: A Most Unusual Houseguest
When artist Alison Byrnes opened a package she had mailed to herself two years earlier, she was expecting to find a sealed box of her prints - but that's not what was inside. The United States Postal Service had made a rather...
03.01.2022
Episode 6: A Hole in the Silence
Spain has one of the highest number of forced disappearances in the world, second only to Cambodia. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, fascist troops killed tens of thousands of people and threw them into...
02.22.2022
Episode 5: Belly Up
When three friends went on a rum-fueled rampage one night deep in the Nevada desert, they never expected the trouble they would find themselves in a week later. The men broke into a remote unit of Death Valley National Park known as...
02.14.2022
Episode 4: Africa’s Lost Year of Hope
In 1960, dubbed "The Year Of Africa", a pair of bold leaders fanned the flames of hope for a brighter future in the Belgian colony of Congo. But by the following year, that hope had been dashed by outside forces. Using...
02.08.2022
Episode 3: The Lost World
Every school kid learns that there are exactly eight planets in our solar system. But what if we told you there might be a ninth? A world that may be six times the size of Earth and take 12,000 years to...
01.31.2022
Episode 2: Out of Time
Freeports are the most expensive and secretive warehouses in the world, which now hide some of the world’s cultural treasures from the public eye. Join Ben Brock Johnson as he traces the path of one lost Modigliani painting, "Seated Man with...
01.31.2022
Episode 1: Murph
In 1964, Jack Murphy, or "Murph the Surf," pulled off the biggest jewel heist in New York City history only to be caught 48 hours later. Amory Sivertson traces the enigmatic life of this folk hero and examines why men like...
01.19.2022
Trailer: 'Last Seen,' Season 2
The new season, coming out Feb. 1, has 10 new true-crime mysteries that you don’t want to miss.
11.04.2021
Coming in February: Things that have gone missing
WBUR’s popular true-crime podcast returns, with mysterious tales about people, places, ashes, planets, endangered species, feelings and much more.
10.29.2020
Last Seen Presents: Anything For Selena
Listen to the trailer for "Anything For Selena," a new podcast from WBUR and Futuro Studios coming in January 2021. Subscribe now so you don't miss it! About The Show: On March 31, 1995, nine-year-old Maria Garcia came home to find her mother...
07.08.2020
Last Seen Presents: 'Madness'
"Madness" is a new investigative series from our fellow WBUR podcast, Endless Thread. Told in 5 parts, "Madness" unravels the shocking history of CIA-funded mind-control experiments. In the first episode, Endless Thread presents powerful accounts of abuse at a psychiatric hospital...
11.04.2019
Last Seen Presents: A Place Of Respite
Last Seen's sister podcast, Kind World, recently produced a special series featuring stories of kindness and compassion at the U.S.-Mexico border. Tell us what you think of Last Seen! Please fill out our short survey.
07.30.2019
Last Seen Presents: The Amber Room
Last Seen fans, here's a story about one of the greatest missing treasures of all-time, The Amber Room, from our friends at WBUR's Endless Thread podcast. The Amber Room was a treasure of kings and an architectural marvel before being stolen...
05.28.2019
Last Seen Presents: 'Infectious', Part 1
"Infectious: The Strange Past and Surprising Present of Vaccines — and Anti-Vaxxers" explores the weird, winding story of scientific innovation, medical disasters and online virality that radicalized new parents and created a movement that threatens to send us back to the...
04.22.2019
Last Seen Presents: Kind World
Last Seen wants to tell you about another great podcast: Kind World Tell us what you think of Last Seen! Please fill out our short survey.
12.07.2018
Last Seen Presents Endless Thread
We’re back in your feed to share a project we think you’ll love. There will be more from Last Seen in the new year. Until then, we wanted to share another mystery with you: an episode of the great WBUR...
11.19.2018
Episode 10: 'Last Seen' Live
A behind-the-scenes conversation about how we investigated the most sensational unsolved art heist in history.
11.12.2018
Episode 9: 'The Big Dig'
We follow a mobster's tip to excavate a lot in Orlando.
11.05.2018
Episode 8: 'Flimflammer'
After a parallel heist gone wrong, did Brian McDevitt succeed at the Gardner Museum?
10.29.2018
Episode 7: 'I Was The One'
Was the world's greatest art thief the inspiration, or actually the mastermind, of the Gardner heist?
10.22.2018
Episode 6: 'Befriend And Betray'
This is a story about how to plot an art recovery, and then blow it entirely.
10.15.2018
Episode 5: 'The Bobbys'
We trace the art's possible path from Boston to Connecticut to Philadelphia.
10.08.2018
Episode 4: 'Two Bad Men'
Were George Reissfelder and David Turner involved in the Gardner heist?
10.01.2018
Episode 3: 'Not A Bunch Of Jamokes'
Was the heist planned in the belly of Boston's criminal underworld operating out of a Dorchester auto body shop?
09.24.2018
Episode 2: 'Inside Job?'
On the night of the heist, security guard Rick Abath made the critical mistake of letting the thieves into the museum. In this episode, we ask if it was indeed a mistake.
09.14.2018
Episode 1: '81 Minutes'
In 1990, two thieves stole 13 irreplaceable artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. We take a closer look at what happened that night.
07.16.2018
Introducing 'Last Seen'
A look into the largest unsolved art heist in history: the theft of 13 irreplaceable artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. "Last Seen" begins Sept. 17.