On the evening of July 27, 2000, 35-year-old Esther Penn was finishing one of the longest workdays of her life. She worked for a prestigious financial firm in New York City that managed investments for wealthy clients. Her job involved…
On November 3, 2013, Cleveland firefighter lieutenant Will Walker returned home with dinner for his wife. He had no idea that someone was waiting for him outside his house. Just minutes earlier, Will had been packing boxes because he and…
The Silence That Worried Maggie One spring afternoon in 1948, 12-year-old Maggie sat beside an open window in the kitchen of her home in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. She was supposed to be doing her homework. But she…
On March 17, 2019, a young businessman named Fun arrived at a hotel in Wuer County, central China, for a week-long business trip. He was traveling with his co-worker, Yomi. The hotel was far from what they expected. The carpet…
One night in 1943, during the Nazi occupation of Paris, Catholic priest Father Paul Labutte heard someone ringing his church doorbell just before midnight. The timing was strange. Paris was under a strict curfew because of World War II, and…
Late one night in 1934, 33-year-old hunter Harold Young arrived at a remote village in northern Thailand. He carried a rifle and planned to hunt in the wilderness surrounding the village. But before he could begin, he needed permission from…
What Is the Kisaragi Station Story? Around 11:00 p.m. on January 8, 2004, a woman in her early 20s named Hasumi was riding a train through Hamamatsu, Japan. She took this train every night to reach her overnight job. Her…
One morning in the first days of May 1896, a young man named Nicholas Romanov sat inside his palace in Moscow, Russia, listening nervously as one of his advisers presented the daily updates. Nicholas was only a few weeks away…
Introduction On November 28, 1993, a young fisherman in Madagascar caught what seemed like the luckiest catch of his life. The six-foot bull shark was worth more money than he had ever seen. It fed hundreds of people across his…
A first date is usually the beginning of a relationship. For Youssef and Mina El Houari, it became the start of one of Morocco’s most heartbreaking criminal cases. In May 2014, Mina traveled from France to Morocco to meet Youssef…