In The Dark
The New Yorker
In the Dark, hosted by Madeleine Baran, is an award-winning investigative-journalism podcast that started in 2016. Its first season looked at the mysterious abduction of Jacob Wetterling in rural Minnesota and the lack of accountability that sheriffs face when they fail to solve cases. Season 2 examined the case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. In 2020, In the Dark released a special report on the coronavirus pandemic in the Mississippi Delta. In 2023, In the Dark joined The New Yorker and in 2024, it released “The Runaway Princesses,” a four-part series that asks why the women in Dubai’s royal family keep trying to run away. Season 3, released in 2024, asked why no one was punished for the killings of twenty-five civilians in Haditha, Iraq.In the Dark won the Pulitzer Prize for audio for Season 3. The podcast is a three-time Peabody Award winner and, in 2019, became the first podcast to win a George Polk Award, one of the top honors in journalism. The program has also received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.New Yorker subscribers get early, ad-free access. In Apple Podcasts, tap the link at the top of the feed to subscribe or link an existing subscription. Or visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe and listen in the New Yorker app.If you have comments or story tips, please send them to inthedark@newyorker.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books
36 snips
Jan 30, 2024 • 39min
The Runaway Princesses, Episode 1: Sisters
Exploring the daring escapes and mistreatment of Dubai royal family princesses, highlighting their struggles for freedom and justice. The podcast sheds light on the dark truth behind Sheikh Mohammed's treatment of women, revealing exploitation and mysterious disappearances.
Jan 23, 2024 • 3min
Trailer: The Runaway Princesses
The wives and daughters of Dubai’s ruler live in unbelievable luxury. So why do the women in Sheikh Mohammed’s family keep trying to run away? The New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake joins In the Dark’s Madeleine Baran to tell the story of the royal women who risked everything to flee the brutality of one of the world’s most powerful men. In four episodes, drawing on thousands of pages of secret correspondence and never-before-heard audio recordings, “The Runaway Princesses” takes listeners behind palace walls, revealing a story of astonishing courage and cruelty."The Runaway Princesses" is a four-part narrative series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Subscribers to The New Yorker have early, ad-free access to all episodes. Visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe.
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Mar 9, 2023 • 11min
An Announcement
Big news! In the Dark has a new home and a new team of partners. The podcast now comes to you from The New Yorker—the legendary home of extraordinary journalism.____In the Dark is a Peabody Award-winning podcast that tells deeply reported stories. Season 1 investigates lapses by law enforcement after the kidnapping of eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling. Season 2 examines the case of Curtis Flowers, a Mississippi man tried six times for the same crime. In the Dark journalists have already started reporting on Season 3. We can’t tell you what it’s about yet, but it’s the most ambitious story we’ve pursued, and we’re thrilled to have the resources of The New Yorker and Condé Nast Entertainment to help us tell it. For more on the new partnership, check out the team’s interview with David Remnick on The New Yorker Radio Hour. And follow other podcasts from The New Yorker, including The Political Scene, The Writer’s Voice, the Fiction podcast, and the Poetry podcast.
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May 6, 2020 • 30min
Coronavirus in the Delta, Episode 2: Parchman
How do you self-isolate when your home is a single room that you share with 107 men? That's what inmates at Mississippi's infamous Parchman prison have been wondering for six weeks.
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Apr 30, 2020 • 40min
Coronavirus in the Delta, Episode 1: Greenville
A storm hits Greenville just in time for Easter. Two pastors and a mayor clash over how to do church during a pandemic.
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Apr 23, 2020 • 3min
Trailer: Coronavirus in the Delta
A new limited-run series from In the Dark, reporting on Covid-19 in the Mississippi Delta. Episodes every Thursday, beginning April 30. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
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9 snips
May 1, 2018 • 53min
Season 2, Episode 2: The Route
The case against Curtis Flowers relies heavily on three threads of evidence: the route he allegedly walked the morning of the murders, the gun that investigators believe he used, and the people he supposedly confessed to in jail. In this episode, we meet the witnesses who said they saw Flowers walking through downtown Winona, Mississippi, the morning of the murders. Some of their stories now waver on key details.
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12 snips
May 1, 2018 • 42min
Season 2, Episode 1: July 16, 1996
On the morning of July 16, 1996, someone walked into a furniture store in downtown Winona, Mississippi, and murdered four employees. Each was shot in the head. It was perhaps the most shocking crime the small town had ever seen. Investigators charged a man named Curtis Flowers with the murders. What followed was a two-decade legal odyssey in which Flowers was tried six times for the same crime. He remains on death row, though some people believe he's innocent. For the second season of In the Dark, we spent a year digging into the Flowers case. We found a town divided by race and a murder conviction supported by questionable evidence. And it all began that summer morning in 1996 with a horrifying crime scene that left investigators puzzled.
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4 snips
Apr 16, 2018 • 2min
Trailer: Season 2
Curtis Flowers has been tried six times for the same crime. For 21 years, Flowers has maintained his innocence. He's won appeal after appeal, but every time, the prosecutor just tries the case again. What does the evidence reveal? And how can the justice system ignore the prosecutor's record and keep Flowers on death row?
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23 snips
Sep 7, 2016 • 39min
Season 1, Episode 2: The Circle
When Jacob Wetterling was taken, authorities launched what would turn into one of the largest searches for any missing person in the history of the United States. But that first night, law enforcement didn't cover all the basics.
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