My 8-episode podcast tells the story of Megan Hess who ran a family-owned funeral home. Her tiny Colorado community thought she was a hero for offering steep discounts on cremations. But she and her mother, who worked in the back of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home, had ulterior motives and a very dark secret. They were really running a cross-continental criminal enterprise...that dealt in human bodies.
Read MoreDeep in the North Carolina woods, the men trained at night for what they called "seek out and destroy" missions.
They fought each other in hand-to-hand combat, running drills at a bucolic encampment near Fort Bragg. Glenn Miller, an ex-Green Beret, ran the place. Wiry and mustached, the Vietnam veteran paced its grounds in fatigues.
Read MoreMy investigation “Destroyed” uncovered that police nationwide trashed rape kits – most never tested for DNA – in at least 400 sex crime cases before the statutes of limitations expired or when there was no time limit to prosecute. The destruction followed flawed and incomplete investigations and, in some cases, violated the law.
Read MoreEmployees of one of the world’s most powerful Casino owners told me he abused and threatened them.
Reform comes slow for a master jewel thief. You have to live the life of speedboats, close calls, and multimillion-dollar scores, get popped, serve eleven years, get out, and then, tempted to do just one more house, get sent right back.
Read MoreAdvocates for sexual assault survivors have long reported stories of hospitals turning away victims who are then forced to make hours-long trips in rural areas for treatment – if they make the trips at all. As a result, survivors and their efforts to seek criminal prosecution suffer.
Read MoreWhile the physical and emotional toll of rape is enormous, so, too, are the financial costs. I spoke with survivors who, because of their attacks, lost days from work, or found themselves unable to work again. Some described how their rape led them to drop out of college, setting them back years in pursuing their education and delaying their entry into the workforce. Others had to relocate after being assaulted in their homes.
Read MoreThe former Army soldier told me that in the 12 years since she was taken hostage in Iraq, she had never sought therapy to reckon with that trauma. She’s paid for that in many ways, including suffering constant nightmares. The men come for her every night. They chase her through the woods. The crunching of the earth beneath her boots drowns out her pounding breath. She turns but can’t see their faces. Before they grab her, she wakes up.
Read MoreThis multi-year investigation revealed that military family members were attempting and committing suicide during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but the Defense Department was not keeping track of their deaths. The story offers intimate portraits of a teen, a spouse, siblings and a mother and father whose vicarious trauma brought them to the brink.
Read MorePulitzer-winning reporter Sally Kestin and I collaborated on this quintessential shoe-leather story that required us to dig some 35 years in the past to uncover a powerful charity leader’s hidden sex crime conviction. We methodically tracked down Bill Murdock’s victim – combing through yearbooks, talking to classmates, tracking down retired teachers – and helped her tell her story for the first time. We also dug into the charity leader’s claims of awards which we discovered were bogus or exaggerated. From tip to publication, this story took six weeks.
Read MoreThree years after the Army private was thrown in solitary confinement for leaking secret government documents, I spoke with Manning’s friends and acquaintances. They said he’s the type that can’t resist getting involved if he perceives an injustice and he has a tendency to spark confrontation with authority figures.
Read MoreThis profile was written as the regime of Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad killed thousands of innocent men, women and children and political opponents. Before the Syrian war, al-Assad’s posh wife Asma presented herself as a modern woman who cared about human rights and bettering the lives of Syrian children. When they needed her defense the most, she wasn’t there.
I profiled “Big Al,” a 20-something Syrian blogger trying to survive the war.
Read MoreJulian Assange was constantly uprooted as a child. His parents were in the movie business and on the run from a cult. A computer geek who sharpened his skills at 16 years-old on a Commodore 64, Assange was driven by a need to challenge authority.
Read MoreI wrote this story in the early days of the Syrian war after hearing people at a party complain that they didn’t understand what the war was about or why they should care. Sometimes story ideas are obvious.
Jason Puracal, a Peace Corp veteran, was working as a real estate agent in San Juan del Sur when he was framed for money laundering and international drug trafficking, his attorney said. Desperately underweight and sick in a violent and filthy prison, Puracal’s defense raced to free him.
Read MoreVictoria Sanford and other interviewers of war crime victims absorb what psychiatrists call secondary trauma. A better word, perhaps, is found in the Mayan culture. "Susto" is what the women Sanford was interviewing called it when they noticed her struggling. She had "fright sickness.”
Read More“Get in the bathtub now!” someone shouted to Erin Mason. Five seconds ticked by. “We were flying.”
18 years after their family members died at Waco, some Branch Davidians believe David is coming back to save them.
Read MoreAt 79, Daniel Ellsberg prepared to be arrested again, this time in support of the WikiLeaks leaker
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