Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo: all episodes

January 12, 2019 5:17 AM

Where is Cleo? Taken by child welfare workers in the 1970’s and adopted in the U.S., the young Cree girl’s family believes she was raped and murdered while hitchhiking back home to Saskatchewan. CBC news investigative reporter Connie Walker joins the search to find out what really happened to Cleo.

(This is the second season of the CBC series Missing&Murdered, the first having been 2016's "Who killed Alberta Williams" previously, the episodes of which actually appear in the same feed.)

Having been enthralled by Canadaland's podcast Thunder Bay, two recent FPPs alerted me to Connie Walker's work about very similar themes.

The way she weaves together what's at stake in the story of Cleo is spellbinding, and a rare example of the power of empathetic reporting.

The series recently won Best Serialized Story at the international Third Coast Audio Festival in Chicago.

Some related further reading/listening:
- N. Kiwanuka (TVO) Interview: Connie Walker on the power of a single story
- E. S. Buckley (High Country News) How Indigenous reporters are elevating true crime
- Canadaland episode: The Making Of Finding Cleo And Thunder Bay

posted by progosk (2 comments total)

An important quote from the High Country News article:
Maya Goldberg-Safir is the artistic director of the Third Coast International Audio Festival, known as “the Oscars of radio,” which this year awarded Finding Cleo “Best Serialized Story.” “I sort of ate it up,” she said about the show. She thought the true-crime genre gained a new edge in Walker’s hands. “She’s not only telling us the story, but she’s demonstrating how to tell the story,” Goldberg-Safir said. “We heard Sarah Koenig tell the process of Serial, but I think Connie’s process is particularly important to her.”
posted by progosk at 5:26 AM on January 12, 2019

I'm listening to the fourth episode. This is gripping and depressing as hell.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:52 PM on January 15, 2019 [1 favorite]