1. In the Dark, season 1 – A heartbreaking, fascinating, and frustrating investigative narrative of how a child abduction case was mishandled for almost 3 decades. The missteps led to a national over-worry about stranger danger and societal miscalculations of relative risk. It’s painful to hear what Jacob Wetterling’s family suffered, but the step-by-step inquiry into the facts is tremendous.
2. Believed – Super disturbing and important (be prepared for nightmares), this podcast chronicles Larry Nassar’s decades of sexual abuse of patients within and beyond his role as the USA Gymnastic national team doctor. It’s a chilling description of how even well-meaning adults can have blinders on when it comes to a physician, simply based on his perceived higher social status. You will not believe how he got away with it for so long.
3. Mobituaries with Mo Rocca – On a lighter note, I love Mo Rocca and I love learning about people, so this podcast is a gem for me (and hopefully, you). Mo is a witty comedian who was president of Harvard’s Hasty Puddings Theatricals during college and, currently, a regular panelist on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me (another favorite podcast of mine). In Mobituaries, he covers the “biographies” of variety of people and movements, from Audrey Hepburn to the death of the Country Broadcasting System. I’d particularly recommend the episodes on the original “Siamese Twins” Chang and Eng, Sammy Davis, Jr. (you’ll learn how he gruesomely lost his eye), JFK Impersonator Vaughn Meader, The Orphan Train (I’m amazed I had not heard about this historical moment previously), Laura Branigan (“Gloria” singer), and first brother Billy Carter.