You’re Putting My Brain Where, Exactly? By Michelle Weber Highlight When you donate your body to science, you don’t get a whole lot of say over what happens to your parts.
Just Another Bugout Behind Bars By Michelle Weber Highlight How and when did prisons become one of the New York’s major providers of mental health care — and can we actually call it “care”?
When the Answers Wash Out with the Tide By Michelle Weber Highlight Police eventually figured out who killed Jaimee Mendez, but not how or why.
In Just 40 Hours, You Too Can Be an Expert By Michelle Weber Highlight Pamela Colloff took the same 40-hour course that is the sum total of the training many blood spatter experts claim… and it did not inspire confidence in the reliability of this particular forensic “science.”
When Forensic “Science” Is Anything But By Michelle Weber Highlight Despite what “Law & Order: CSI” tells us, blood spatter patterns don’t necessarily hold all the keys to a crime scene.
Vacating Convictions from Crooked Chicago Cops By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight A group of Chicago cops spent years framing innocent men, but thanks to one determined woman, their convictions are finally getting overturned.
A Pyramid Scheme for the Social Media Generation By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight A new breed of charlatan posts images of their fake opulent lifestyles on Instagram to lure followers into investing in sketchy financial products.
The Mexican Mafia and the Conspiracy Behind the Tati Torrez Prison Murder By Krista Stevens Highlight Manuel “Tati” Torrez was killed in broad daylight in the prison yard at ADX Florence. But who was really behind it, and why?
The Surprising Case of One Houston Robber By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight The alleged ring leader of a group of violent armored car robbers isn’t the person friends and family knew.
Born Again By Longreads Feature “Rebirth therapy” was meant to help a troubled girl start over, but it ended her life instead.
Unearthing the History of Lynching, One Story at a Time By Danielle Jackson Highlight The descendants of lynching victim Elwood Higginbotham learn the circumstances of his 1935 murder in Oxford, Mississippi.
Want Your Husband to Stay True? Kill a Hummingbird and Roll it in Oil and Honey By Krista Stevens Highlight People are capturing and killing hummingbirds for cockamamie love potions, and Mexico doesn’t seem to care.
When the Amber Alert System Fails: An Abduction on Navajo Land By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight It took the murder of a young Navajo girl to get the tribal police to refine their Amber Alert system. But will these changes work?
How to (Almost) Get Away With Murder By Krista Stevens Highlight No one twigged that whenever a member of the Harrison family died, it was always just before an important hearing in a bitter child custody battle.
How Baltimore Police Abused Their Power By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force were celebrated for getting firearms off the street, until detectives discovered they were also robbing criminals of guns, drugs and money.
Did Brian Easley Have to Die? By Aaron Gell Feature A desperate veteran, missing his disability payment, walked into a bank and took several people hostage. This is how he got there.
Elderly Japanese Women Are Turning to Crime to Find Companionship in Prison By Krista Stevens Highlight For some elderly women in Japan, prison offers companionship and a life free from worry.
The Death Row Book Club By Aaron Gilbreath Feature When Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to death for two murders he didn’t commit, he used his time to create a book club for death row inmates.
What Happened Onboard the ‘Nautilus’? By Michelle Legro Highlight May Jeong searches for answers after the death of her friend, journalist Kim Wall.
What If Forensic Science Isn’t Really Science? By Michelle Legro Highlight When bad forensics enter the courtroom, it can become impossible to get rid of them.
A Teen and a Toy Gun By Leah Sottile Feature This is the story of the last day of 17-year-old Quanice Hayes’s life. It involves a police department that says they have no good way of deciphering between real guns and fake ones, and a family still searching for answers.
You’re On Death Row, You’ve Asked to Die, But the State Won’t Kill You By Krista Stevens Highlight Despite their hard-stance bluster, death penalty states rarely impose the ultimate sentence, even if you’re the prisoner and you ask them to.
How ‘Cops’ Became the Most Polarizing Reality TV Show in America By Longreads Feature What one of TV’s longest-running reality shows says about race and our relationship with the police.
Native Americans’ Persecution Continues; Only the Uniforms Have Changed By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Between deadly police shootings and a white correctional officer sexually assualting Native American women, the Bad River Band of the Ojibwe nation feels more preyed upon than protected.
The Encyclopedia of the Missing By Jeremy Lybarger Feature She keeps watch over one of the largest databases of missing persons in the country. For Meaghan Good, the disappeared are still out here, you just have to know where to look.
Every Woman Her Own Bodyguard By Longreads Feature Before women got the right to vote, they learned jiu-jitsu and boxing to defend themselves on the streets
Homelessness and Colorado’s Public Lands By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Illegal encampments on Colorado’s public lands are creating unsafe conditions for locals and damaging the land with trash.
Longreads Best of 2017: Crime Reporting By Longreads Reading List We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in crime reporting.
How Angry Racists Plotted to Kill Somali Refugees in Kansas By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight A small town welcomed hundreds of Somali refugees. A militia splinter group wanted them dead.
