Serial

Rachel goes back to California, to the place where she grew up and where her brother and father died, to find answers. For more information on 'We Were Three': https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/podcasts/we-were-three.html

Rachel retraces how her family, over decades, fell apart and came back together. For more information on 'We Were Three': https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/podcasts/we-were-three.html

Rachel goes back to California, to the place where she grew up and where her brother and father died, to find answers. For more information on 'We Were Three': https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/podcasts/we-were-three.html

A three-part series from This American Life producer Nancy Updike. When Rachel McKibbens’s father and brother died suddenly last fall, two weeks apart, from Covid, she’d had no idea her father was sick, and no idea her brother was dying. They were unvaccinated, but the story of what happened started long before that. All three episodes of "We Were Three," a new show from Serial Productions and The New York Times, are available now wherever you get your podcasts.

It’s Baltimore, 2022. Adnan Syed has spent the last 23 years incarcerated, serving a life sentence for the murder of Hae Min Lee, a crime he says he didn’t commit. He has exhausted every legal avenue for relief, including a petition to the United States Supreme Court. But then, a prosecutor in the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s office stumbled upon two handwritten notes in Adnan’s case file, and that changes everything.

A man banned from working in education in the aftermath of the Trojan Horse letter inspires Brian and Hamza to track down one last witness with him – in Australia. And all three travelers find their faith tested.

Birmingham authorities struggle to explain why they disavowed their own findings about the Trojan Horse plot. But when Brian and Hamza make a discovery deep inside some court documents, everything suddenly makes sense.

Hamza takes a long, hard look at what the government found when it investigated more than 20 majority-Muslim schools in Birmingham. And our two reporters have a confrontation – with each other.

Hamza and Brian learn that the Trojan Horse letter wasn’t the only unsigned letter alleging an extremist operation was afoot in Birmingham. An interview with a couple who lodged complaints against their school starts out cordially, but six hours later, the atmosphere is so tense that not even an offer of tea can smooth things over. And Hamza stops pretending he’s not angry about what he’s hearing.

A series of frustrating interviews with Birmingham politicians leaves Brian and Hamza wondering if crucial information about the Trojan Horse letter was kept from officials in London. Then one rainy Friday afternoon, Brian hears back from a government source who wants to meet right away.