In The Dark

In the Dark examines the 27-year-old cold case of the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling in central Minnesota. After a confession and conviction, the podcast asks what went wrong, and with immaculate storytelling talent and journalistic precision asks why it took so long to solve. A tour de force of investigative reporting by Madeleine Baran and her colleagues, In the Dark is as deftly incisive in telling the human tale as it is full and unrelenting in its attention to broader policy implications. One hears a soulful exploration of the parents’ decades of grieving and subjection to endless supposed leads, and of the impact on a wrongfully implicated man’s life. But Baran also turns a rare eye toward policing in small towns where “nobody thought this could happen” and castigates the relative unaccountability of sheriff’s offices nationwide, while also considering how missing child cases are handled, the politics of sex offender databases, and multiple ins and outs of investigative police work. Crime stories are ubiquitous, but for transcending the genre and advancing its scope of possibility, In the Dark wins a Peabody Award.