On October 22, 1989, in the small town of St. Joseph, Minnesota, eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint. Twenty-seven years later, Danny Heinrich led authorities to the boy’s remains. What lies between is the riveting story of the search for Jacob, told by his mother, Patty. With down-to-earth candor, she details the investigation as it unfolds, discusses her family’s struggles, and shows how she maintained her energy and optimism.

When Boady Sanden first receives the case of Elijah Matthews, he’s certain there’s not much he can do. Elijah, who believes himself to be a prophet, has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the past four years, convicted of brutally murdering the pastor of a megachurch. But as a law professor working for the Innocence Project, Boady agrees to look into Elijah’s file. When he does, he is alarmed to find threads that lead back to the death of his colleague and friend, Ben Pruitt, a man shot to death four years earlier in Boady’s own home.

At age sixteen, Brian Banks was a nationally recruited All-American Football player, ranked eleventh in the nation as a linebacker. Before his 17th birthday, he was in jail, awaiting trial for a heinous crime he did not commit. Discover the unforgettable and inspiring true story of a young man who was wrongfully convicted as a teenager and imprisoned for more than five years, only to emerge with his spirit unbroken and determined to achieve his dream of playing in the NFL.

At the age of 16, Cyntoia Brown, a victim of sex trafficking, was arrested for killing a man who had picked her up for sex. Two years later, she was sentenced to life in prison. In this audiobook, written over the 15 years she was incarcerated, Cyntoia shares her most intimate experiences as an inmate. A coming-of-age memoir set against the shocking backdrop of a life behind bars, Free Cyntoia takes you on a spiritual journey as Cyntoia struggles to overcome a legacy of family addiction and a lifetime of feeling ostracized and abandoned by society.

No Justice is the harrowing story of Robbie Tolan, who early on one New Year's Eve morning, found himself being rushed to the hospital. A White police officer had shot him in the chest after mistakenly accusing him of stealing his own car...while in his own driveway.

Growing up in a tough Washington, D.C., neighborhood, Chris Wilson was so afraid for his life he wouldn't leave the house without a gun. One night, defending himself, he killed a man. At 18, he was sentenced to life in prison with no hope of parole. But what should have been the end of his story became the beginning. Deciding to make something of his life, Chris embarked on a journey of self-improvement - reading, working out, learning languages, even starting a business. He wrote his Master Plan: a list of all he expected to accomplish or acquire.

Sentenced to 65 years in a Texas prison, Damon West once had it all. He came from a great family, in a home full of God, love, support, and opportunities to reach any goal. A natural born leader, an athlete with good looks and charm, he appeared to be the all-American kid pursuing his dreams. Underneath this facade, however, was an addict in the early stages of disease. After suffering childhood sexual abuse by a babysitter at the age of nine, Damon began putting chemicals into his body to alter the way he felt.

An empowering memoir of courage and hope in the face of injustice—and the basis for the ABC television show, For Life—Marked for Life is the true story of Isaac Wright Jr.’s battle to win his freedom after being wrongfully imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, and a critical indictment of America’s judicial system.

Seventeen years old and facing nearly 30 years behind bars, Jarrett Adams sought to figure out the why behind his fate. Sustained by his mother and aunts who brought him back from the edge of despair through letters of prayer and encouragement, Adams became obsessed with our legal system in all its damaged glory. After studying how his constitutional rights to effective counsel had been violated, he solicited the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongfully convicted, and won his release after nearly 10 years in prison.

Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine then to crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a Black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over 15 years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction.

When Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods met, Nigel was a photography professor volunteering with the Prison University Project and Earlonne was serving thirty-one years to life at California’s San Quentin State Prison. Initially drawn to each other by their shared interest in storytelling, neither had podcast production experience when they decided to enter Radiotopia’s contest for new shows...and won. Using the prize for seed money, Nigel and Earlonne launched Ear Hustle, named after the prison term for “eavesdropping”.

Weldon Long knows firsthand that Maui is nicer than prison. After 13 years of federal and state incarceration, he emerged a transformed man: a powerful speaker, driven motivator, and successful trainer/entrepreneur. Long holds a BS in law and an MBA in management, despite dropping out of high school in the ninth grade.

The true-life story of the woman whose life sentence for nonviolent drug trafficking was commuted by President Donald Trump thanks to the efforts of Kim Kardashian West - an inspiring memoir of faith, hope, mercy, and gratitude.

Brittany K. Barnett was only a law student when she came across the case that would change her life forever - that of Sharanda Jones, single mother, business owner, and, like Brittany, Black daughter of the rural South. A victim of America’s devastating war on drugs, Sharanda had been torn away from her young daughter and was serving a life sentence without parole - for a first-time drug offense.

Racial tensions had long simmered in Benton Harbor, a small city on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, before the day a White narcotics officer - more focused on arrests than justice - set his sights on an innocent Black man. But when officer Andrew Collins framed Jameel McGee for possession of crack cocaine, the surprising result was not a race riot but a transformative journey for both men.

When a mysterious stranger unveils a long-hidden truth, Lauren Malloy’s life is thrown into chaos. For years, Lauren believed her mother, Lori, died of natural causes, but the shocking reality is that her loving mother was brutally murdered when Lauren was just an infant. Now, 30 years later, Lauren is on a relentless quest for justice. Over the past four years, she’s embarked on an emotional journey filled with unexpected twists, recording hundreds of hours of interviews with law enforcement, family, friends, and even potential suspects.

In the heart of the rolling green hills of Ireland a huge abandoned psychiatric asylum looms large and holds its secrets close, until one family fights to find the truth about their long lost great grandmother. Presented by Irish celebrity and mental health advocate Niall Breslin - this is the untold story of the quest to find patient Julia Leonard, alongside many others, who came to die in St Loman’s Hospital near Dublin. Why was Julia in St Loman’s? And what happened to her and other patients who found themselves within its walls?

In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.

When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?

The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.

Will Johnnie Veal—convicted of the murder of two police officers in 1970—be granted parole after 50 years in prison? How can he convince the parole board he’s reformed when he insists he’s innocent? What is prison time even supposed to accomplish? These are the questions that propel The Parole Room forward as it builds toward Johnnie’s 20th parole hearing—after 19 rejections.

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.

Across six revealing lectures, Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson will introduce you to one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and divisive writers in Flannery O’Connor and the Scandal of Faith. Beginning with an overview of her brief but remarkable life, Professor Wilson will then take you through an exploration of themes in O’Connor’s work and the hallmarks of her literary style. You’ll get a clearer picture of O’Connor’s historical and geographical context while digging into how her stories can transcend time and place.

In Episodes, lifelong best friends Kat and Mara take listeners on an unfiltered journey through friendship, mental illness, and survival. Kat, a successful professional, is preparing for marriage and motherhood. On her fourth round of IVF, it happened—a frantic call to Mara. Mara comes over to find Kat, her friend of 25 years—the one who'd always been levelheaded, hilarious, and over-the-top thoughtful—trying to jump through a window.

How did DEA agents orchestrate the capture of one of the world’s most wanted weapons dealers? How does an all-female, unarmed group of rangers stop poachers from killing South Africa’s most majestic wild animals? And how did a scrappy crew of soldiers help desperate Afghans escape Kabul during the Taliban’s rapid takeover? Welcome to Heroes Behind Headlines: Only the Brave, where host Ralph Pezzullo takes you on deep dives into extraordinary true stories, told to you by the experts and the brave men and women who lived them.

In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.

Best-selling author Bryan Burrough recently made a shocking discovery: The small town of Temple, Texas, where he had grown up, had harbored a dark secret. One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer. In this chilling tale, Burrough raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare.

Dear Cousin: The Stalking of Susan Fensten is the gripping true story of one woman's quest for long lost family. After the deaths of her sister and estranged father, Susan searches for relatives on an early online genealogy forum. When she meets cousins from her grandfather's other family, they're everything she'd hoped for—until it all goes to hell.

Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.

The inspiration for the major motion picture Priscilla directed by Sofia Coppola, this New York Times best seller reveals the intimate story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, told by the woman who lived it.