by akopsa
My first night in Louisville, Jim showed me his guns. The born-and-bred Kentucky boy stores them in a hulking safe with a keypad lock, hidden inside a walk-in closet. Over 5 feet tall and almost 4 feet wide, it easily holds Jim’s collection of pistols, rifles and handguns, with room to spare. Lining the back of the door is a leather organizer with more guns snugly tucked in its pockets. One by one, Jim pulled out gun after gun, […]
Categories: Investigations
by akopsa
Taylor Hirth and I are curled up on a leather couch at the home of her friend in Kansas City, Missouri. It is late afternoon, and the only light in the room is from the television playing a tape of Taylor, now 31, sitting in a police interview room. I watch her as she scrutinizes every word and movement on the screen. Is there something that she didn’t say right? Is she remembering all of this correctly? Could she have done […]
Categories: Investigations
by akopsa
How a Bungled Police Investigation Led to a Possible Rape Victim’s Shaming One sexual-assault kit. Clothing — underwear, dress pants, sport jacket, white shirt and shoes. Four vials of blood. One container of urine. Photos of bruises and abrasions on the woman’s body. Dried secretions, soil and debris, suspected semen and saliva. Matted hair cuttings. The Jefferson City Police Department gathered all these things from a young woman named Brittany Burke after she called them to report a possible sexual […]
Categories: Investigations • Tags: sexual assault
by akopsa
Sex Ed Without Condoms? Welcome to Mississippi Last fall I sat at friend’s dining table in Jackson, Mississippi, talking with people about sex, politics and religion. These subjects are rarely mentioned individually in polite Southern company — the idea of discussing them all at the same time took on an air of scandal. As it happens, these topics are my specialty as an investigative reporter, and Mississippi lured me by topping two national lists: the state is the most religious in […]
Categories: Investigations
by akopsa
The daily tally of prisoners in Yaoundé Central Prison, on the outskirts of Yaoundé, Cameroon, is on a chalkboard the size of a Ping-Pong table affixed to the wall. Today there are 4,113. The prison administrator—we started calling him “the Governor”—tracks the inmates. This one is in the hospital, that one is being transferred, another set free. Murderers, petty thieves, carjackers and burglars are among the 4,113—and at least twenty of the prisoners housed at Yaoundé Central Prison are there just […]
Categories: Investigations
