???? EARS TO THE GROUND-

Small-town murder, large-scale corruption: Serial is back with a new longform investigative series, The Coldest Case in Laramie. Journalist Kim Barker returns to her high school town of Laramie, Wyoming, which she says is “the roughest place she’s ever lived.” Men were raised as “macho cowboys” in Laramie, Barker says, made to fight by teachers or held down and branded with letters. In 1985, a young woman was brutally murdered in Laramie and her apartment set on fire. Although several of Barker’s classmates became suspects, the murder of Shelli Wiley was never solved, yet everyone in Laramie says they know who did it: A former town cop named Fred Lamb, who was charged at one point and has even admitted to the murder on tape. Barker’s dogged investigation pulls apart a “cops protecting their own” mentality, violence against women, and racism in small town America.