How to Save True Crime: A Reading List of Wrongful Conviction Stories By Maurice Chammah Feature Stories about wrongful convictions open our eyes to systemic injustices in the U.S. court system. Maurice Chammah, a staff writer at The Marshall Project, compiles his recommended longreads within the genre.
The Hare Krishnas of Coal Country By Ashley Stimpson Feature The world is full of make-believe. Some of it is sweet, some of it is sick. It persists because we have found no other antidote for pain.
A Sketch Artist, a Grieving Mother, and An Unsolved Mystery By Longreads Feature They set out to solve a cold case. The more they dug, the more terrifying the truth became.
‘The City Just Lied’: Remembering the 1921 Tulsa Massacre By Seyward Darby Highlight One hundred years later, journalists look back on the massacre of “Black Wall Street.”
‘Transforming Craft Into An Act of Protest’: Embroidery In Response to Femicide in Mexico By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight An embroidery collective in Mexico sews the stories of slain women.
Bonded by Grief, Pain, and Loss By Krista Stevens Highlight “Do you know what it means to have a wound that never heals?”
Detective Fitbit By Carolyn Wells Highlight Can Fitbit data help to convict the alleged perpetrator of a brutal murder?
“What Do I Know To Be True?”: Emma Copley Eisenberg on Truth in Nonfiction, Writing Trauma, and The Dead Girl Newsroom By Jacqueline Alnes Feature “We were interested in dead girls, but so interested in them that we were trying to do the opposite of what had been done before.”
Closure in Service of Grief: the Septuagenarian Couple Who Locate Bodies Under Water By Krista Stevens Highlight “What Gene and Sandy offer is not the hope of rescue, but the solace of finality. They have spent years crisscrossing North America in the service of grief.”
The Guy who Ordered a Hit On His Stepmother for $5 By Krista Stevens Highlight Death, delivered as per your instructions.
This Month in Books: ‘I Don’t Want To Become a Giant Insect!’ By Dana Snitzky Commentary This month’s books newsletter is a bodily affair.
How Thailand’s Rich Escape Prosecution By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Thailand’s criminal justice system is plauged by an accepted double standard, where corruption prevails.
It Comes in Waves By Lilly Dancyger Feature Years after her cousin was killed, Lilly Dancyger is haunted by images of murdered women in the news.
Fugitive Justice By Jennifer Lunden Feature After stumbling upon the scene of the capture of an escaped murderer, clinical social worker Jennifer Lunden grapples with the polarities of innocence and guilt, social neglect and social justice.
No One Knows Why Gunshots Are Terrorizing the Malibu Mountains By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Dead bodies, shots fired at passing cars, rumors of a survivalist carrying a rifle — what is happening around Malibu Creek State Park, and did police capture the right suspect?
Murder in the Name of Drug Prevention By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Filipinos are reckoning with their presidents’ violent approach to the drug trade.
Jill the Ripper By Tori Telfer Feature True crime’s massive gender gap (95% of murderers are male) isn’t really one that needs fixing. And yet, since the beginning, a steadfast minority of Ripperologists have argued that Jack was really Jill.
‘The Most Versatile Criminal In History’ By Jonny Auping Feature Journalist Evan Ratliff has uncovered the shocking reach of Paul Le Roux’s criminal enterprise — a global network of pawns, most of whom were unaware of the full extent of the empire.
The Hackers Who Led a Young Woman to Her Death By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight How did an ambitious, kind 23-year-old go from working at a California cannabis dispensary to living in Manila with an internet criminal?
They Wanted Her Body By Rafia Zakaria Feature Thinking of Qandeel Baloch’s murder as an honor killing doesn’t capture the whole truth. She was silenced for revealing men’s hypocrisy.
Who Killed Canada’s Pharmaceutical Giants? By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight The investigation into the murder of two Canadian pharmaceutical giants remains inconclusive.
Vladimir Nabokov’s Other Favorite Crime By Sarah Weinman Feature While the Sally Horner case gave ‘Lolita’ its main character, the Edward Grammer case gave the book an almost perfect murder.
How MS-13 Targeted Latino Youths for Execution on Long Island By Krista Stevens Highlight ‘Too often, Suffolk detectives acknowledge, police have stereotyped young immigrants as gang members and minimized violence against them as “misdemeanor murder.”’
Sabrina By Longreads Feature A video of a missing woman being murdered has surfaced on the internet, confirming the worst. Her boyfriend, lying low at a friend’s house, stumbles upon a radio program whose enigmatic host says she’s still alive.
The Killer Who Spared My Mother By Diana Whitney Feature In an attempt to understand her own chronic pain, Diana Whitney uncovers a violent trauma from her mother’s past.
Twenty-five Years After Breaking Brandon Teena’s Story: An Apology By Katie Kosma Highlight Journalist Donna Minkowitz realizes 25 years later she was victim to her own internalized homophobia and ignorance on trans issues when she broke the story of Brandon Teena, subject of Boys Don’t Cry.
‘I Had Nothing To Do With It But Have Been Punished’: Issac Bailey On His Brother Moochie, the Murderer By Tori Telfer Feature Issac Bailey wants us to recognize that the families of perpetrators need just as much support as the families of victims.
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.”
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