The story of a man who committed a murder when he was a teenager. He got away with it, and didn't tell the police for twenty years.

Alex Kotlowitz reports on a woman with the power to change two people's lives...and at the height of her power, she doesn't even know she has it. Alex is the author of Never a City So Real and other books.

When Anne Staggs started to fall for an inmate named Charles in the Texas prison system, she was up against odds as daunting as they ever get for two people. It was against the rules, possibly dangerous, and could have gotten her fired.

Medical Examiner L.J. Dragovic, in Pontiac, Michigan, explains how every crime scene is like a novel.

When he was a kid, Josh Martin's mother Nancy told him that if anythingever happened to her, he needed to take care of his brother Ben. This confusedJosh, because Ben was his older brother, and he felt that if anything heshould be the one taken care of.

Medical Examiner D.J. Drakovic, in Pontiac Michigan, explains how every crime scene is like a novel.

When Jessica Robinson was sent to adult prison at the age of 14, the state did such a terrible job taking care of her that several women—an embezzler, a convicted murderer, and some thieves—stepped in to mother her. Alex Kotlowitz reports.

Host Ira Glass talks about the story of Cain and Abel, and the question in the story, "Am I my brother's keeper?" It turns out that the story doesn't really answer that question very satisfyingly.

Jason Minter lived through the worst trauma you could imagine: He was at a friend's house, a gun pressed to his head, while his mother and another woman were raped and shot to death in the next room by robbers. He was six.

This is the story of two people—one in his late teens, one in his late fifties. Both have good reasons to be mad at the world, but what they did with their anger—and what society did with them—are very different.

Performance artists Iris Moore and Larry Steeger provide monologues on forgiveness.

Monica Childs's story continues. She tells the story of how she was asked by her boss to do something illegal...and how she refused...and the repercussions she suffered.

Susan Drury tells the story of what happens when one of the most respected men in town gets accused of sexual harassment by one of the most trusted women in town. For a lot of the townspeople it was a difficult decision, but they chose to believe him over her.

Two stories about daily life in Cicero. First the tale of Dave Boyle, who stumbled into Cicero politics accidentally in the 1980s, suffered the bruises, and left town.

Modern-day fables of two different kinds of do-gooders during and after the 1994 genocide in the African country of Rwanda. Philip Gourevich, author of the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, tells first about international relief workers who served as "caterers" to some of the Hutu powers as they continued their policy of ethnic cleansing after fleeing to refugee camps.

Actor Michael Chernus reads Etgar Keret's short story "What Of This Goldfish Would You Wish?" in which a young man decides to make a documentary about the secret longings of everyday Israelis. But he's not prepared for what he sees in the house of a man named Sergei.

Host Ira Glass talks to Rachel Howard, whose father, Stan, was murdered when she was 10 years old. His case was never solved.

Host Ira Glass talks to Randall Bell, who specializes in assessing how tragedy affects real estate. He's found that the market is much quicker to forgive and forget a scandal than the neighbors are.

Host Ira Glass with jazz musician Ed Ryder, who was in prison in Pennsylvania for twenty years for a murder it was later proven he did not commit. Ryder played jazz in the pen and out of the pen.

Ira reads an excerpt from James Ellroy's memoir My Dark Places.

What if you're remembered in ways that you don't like? What if you're remembered for something someone else did? In this act, we consider the case of Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey Oswald. In 1965 she spent three days with reporter Jean Stafford, who wrote about Mrs.

The story of Collin Warner continues. His friend Carl manages to convince the real shooter and the victim's brother (who watched him die on the sidewalk) to testify on Collin's behalf.

Former Harpers magazine editor and TAL contributor Jack Hitt wrote an editorial about Susan Smith, who murdered her two children in South Carolina. The editorial redirected the rage from Smith toward Hitt.