How does family's private tragedy relate to 70 years of history? On this episode, we talk with journalist and author Paige Towers about her new book 'What They Stole: A Familicide Rooted in Intercountry Adoption.' It investigates the 2008 murder-suicide of the Sueppel family in Iowa City and how that tragedy sheds light on the fraught history of international adoptions in America.
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On October 29, 1978, the city of Mount Pleasant was rocked by the murder of mother and daughter Clementine and Karol Beavers in their home. The case had gone cold until a third woman, Susan Wheelock, was killed in her place of work, six months later. CJ Williams, an Iowa federal judge, was Karol's classmate, a coworker of Susan's and he knew the convicted killer. These murders influenced Williams to seek a career in criminal justice, and his book delves into the multilayered story of these murders that rocked his hometown and changed the course of his life. (This episode was originally produced in October 2025.) -
One of the most influential criminologists in the world explores why Americans are drawn to the true crime genre. Then, efforts to preserve a wetland in northwestern Iowa. -
An Iowa federal judge reckons with the murders that rocked his hometown and changed the course of his life.
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Cold cases are resolved on an almost weekly basis by new investigative techniques and forensic technologies that can process DNA evidence from long dormant crime scenes.
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Jerry Mark is serving life behind bars for the deaths of four family members. His lawyers and advocates are pushing for a new trial based on what they say is new evidence in the case. -
Criminologist Matt Delisi discusses his new book, What DNA Evidence Reveals About Criminals: Cold Case Criminology.
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Taken Together: Who Killed Lyric and Elizabeth?, a three-part documentary about the unsolved murder of two Evansdale girls, has spent several weeks on Max’s Top 10 series list. -
Family members of Kevin Cram shared emotional victim impact statement during Wednesday's sentencing. -
A teenager was found guilty on Thursday of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the deaths of two students that he shot at Starts Right Here earlier this year.
