Lois Gibson has a rare gift: A gift for accurately drawing people she’s never seen before, from fragmented descriptions from traumatised witnesses. And that gift is incredibly useful to the Houston Police Department. 

Lois is the world’s most successful forensic artist. Over 40 years, on more than 5089 cases, she’s worked with victims and witnesses to painstakingly piece together a likeness of a suspect. And in more than 1313 cases, her drawings have nailed it with a conviction - case closed.

This is the story of how she found this talent in one of the very darkest moments of her own life.

 

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Miss saHHara was born to be a beauty pageant queen. As a child at home in Nigeria she would wrap herself in a mosquito net and sashay along a make-believe cat walk, delivering inspirational speeches to an imagined audience. 

But when she grew up and started to compete, she found that not only was she rejected from all the mainstream pageants she tried to enter, even trans beauty pageants seemed to celebrate all the cliched cisgender beauty norms. 

So, Miss saHHara decided to do something about it: She founded Miss Trans Global, a pageant where everybody is welcome, and where your advocacy and community work mean much more than the lightness of your skin or the bounciness of your hair.

 

Related Resources

Sylvia Rivera Law Project 

Big Door Brigade - Mutual Aid Toolbox

Transgender Law Centre

Trans Rescue

The Gender Reveal Podcast

Jesse Lou Lawson - Media consultancy

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is not affiliated to any of these organizations and we are not in a position to endorse them.

 

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Phyllis Omido is just a few months into a new job, when her infant son starts to get sick. Fevers, dehydration, hospitalisation - Phyllis is scared. Then the doctors give her some shocking news: Her son has lead poisoning. The metal smelting plant where Phyllis works, just outside Mombassa, Kenya, is leeching toxic chemicals into the water of the nearby river. And her son isn’t the only one who’s unwell: she believes the factory is poisoning the whole community.

So Phyllis turns campaigner, and starts gathering stories from all over town. Children with skin burned off, babies dying in the womb, women with mysterious fatal illnesses… And she’s going to force her employer, and the Kenyan government, to pay attention. It’s a fight that will see her life threatened, and her dubbed ‘The Erin Brockovich of East Africa’.

 

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Jasvinder Sanghera was just 15 years old, her mum told her that she was going to be married to a man she had never met. Jasvinder’s older sisters had been through similar things. But instead of going along with the way things had always been in her family and community, Jasvinder escaped.

And then, she helped thousands of other women and girls to do the same.

Related resources

Karma Nirvana - https://karmanirvana.org.uk/ 

Unchained At Last (a US-based NGO) https://www.unchainedatlast.org/get-help/

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is not affiliated to any of these organizations and we are not in a position to endorse them.

 

The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts.

For more from Novel visit Novel.Audio 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fourth and final bonus episode of Season 3 and our first ever LIVE episode of The Girlfriends!

Recorded in front of a live audience from Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire, UK, Anna is joined by author Kate Summerscale to discuss her book, “The Peepshow” and the wider impact of the True Crime genre. 

 

If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show please reach out to NO MORE at https://www.nomore.org a domestic violence charity we’ve partnered with. 

 

The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.
 

You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, Girlfriends Listeners! We want to share a new show you might enjoy, Sacred Scandal: The Many Secrets of Marcial Maciel

About the show: Sacred Scandal is back for a fourth season. The Many Secrets of Marcial Maciel is a gripping investigative podcast that uncovers the mysteries behind one of the Catholic Church’s most powerful and controversial figures. Through the voice of Elena Sada—a former consecrated lady in the Legion of Christ—the series exposes Marcial Maciel’s double life of abuse, fraud, and manipulation, as well as the silence and complicity that allowed him to thrive. Blending survivor testimony and in-depth reporting, the show reveals how faith, power, and secrecy collided to protect a predator, and how those who lived inside his empire found the strength to break free.

Listen here and subscribe to Sacred Scandal: The Many Secrets of Marcial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anna sits down with author, lawyer and activist; Leigh Goodmark, to discuss the problems of prisons. Especially when it comes to imperfect victims, like Kelly. 

And Anna asks - is prison abolition really the answer? 

 

If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show please reach out to NO MORE at https://www.nomore.org a domestic violence charity we’ve partnered with. 

 

The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.

You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anna deep dives into the story of Tina, who you first met back in Episode 7. 

Unlike Kelly, Tina fully admits that she committed a terrible crime. But is prison the right place for her?  And does she deserve to be forgiven? 

 

If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show please reach out to NO MORE at https://www.nomore.org a domestic violence charity we’ve partnered with. 

 

The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. 

You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bruna DiBiase is the judge who presided over Kelly’s resentencing. But long before Kelly walked into her courtroom, Judge Bruna’s life had already been touched by tragedy. 

In the first of four bonus episodes, Anna sits down with Bruna and her daughter Lisa- to discover how this mother and daughter found their way back to each other, from opposite sides of the law. 

 

If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show please reach out to NO MORE at https://www.nomore.org a domestic violence charity we’ve partnered with. 

 

The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. 

You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Struggling to adjust to life outside of prison, Kelly tries to start fresh.  

And Anna discovers that while her story is nearly over, for Kelly… it’s only just the beginning. 

 

If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show please reach out to NO MORE at https://www.nomore.org a domestic violence charity we’ve partnered with. 

 

The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. 

 

You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.