Greed, corruption, and jazz: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba

In the early 60s, there was a voice calling for an Africa free from foreign powers, a united Africa, a liberated Africa. And then those same foreign powers plotted his murder. In his Oscar-nominiated documentary, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, director Johan Grimonprez explores the historical and cultural context surrounding the assassination of the Congo’s first democratically-elected leader – and why the film is historic, but not nostalgic. 

How much does public perception really mean? In the case of Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse from the UK, it became the difference between a normal life, and a life behind bars. The facts stand, but how they are seen can paint an entirely different picture. On one side, this could be one of the most horrific cases of serial killing the UK has ever seen. And on the other side, this could be one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the country’s history.Award-winning documentarian Daniel Bogado returns to Crime Story to discuss one of his latest documentaries, Conviction: The Case of Lucy Letby, which explores all angles of the Letby story.

Eleni Polinski grew weed so wonderful that she had New York state officials courting her throughout the cannabis legalization process. Then she came home to a busted down door, and no weed to be found.Reporter Rosalind Adams joins Crime Story to talk her article "The 'Godmother' of Weed vs. Her Uncle, the DEA Agent," which she wrote for The City. She tells us about the time she spent with the Godmother, and how New York has been handling legalization. You can read her article here.  

Two years of anonymous texts, stalking, questions and harassment. And the person behind it all only introdcues more questions once they are revealed.Skye Borgman comes back to Crime Story to discuss her docuseries Unknown Number: The High School Catfish. You can watch Unknown Number on Netflix. 

Eligio Bishop, also known as NatureBoy, started out with a pretty simple purpose – dump the system he was currently in, one that systemically harmed him throughout his life, and trade it for a future off-grid in the tropics. Soon, others started joining and the group began livestreaming their idyllic lives throughout Latin America. But then, things got darker: NatureBoy ended up in prison.Rolling Stone writer David Peisner joins Crime Story to unpack the story of Eligio Bishop, and the world that got built around him. You can read his article "Inside Carbon Nation," here.

In 2023 Ontario resident Kenneth Law was arrested in his Mississauga home and later charged with first degree murder. He was accused of selling poison to people at risk of self-harm.More recently, prosecutors said that the murder charges would be dropped as Law would plead guilty to 14 counts of aiding suicide. His trial had previously been scheduled to start in spring 2026.But who is Kenneth Law? And how did he get into the business of suicide? This week we're joined by Hunting The Suicide Salesman host Daemon Fairless to help us make sense of this story.

In the late 2000s, the host of northern Brazil’s most-watched TV shows was a hero. Wallace Souza gained infamy for his sensational program “Canal Livre,” not only because he was a former cop set on cleaning up the streets, but because his team was always the first to be on the scene to report on the horrific crimes supposedly plaguing the area. They’d arrive so early, in fact, that suspicions turned to Souza himself as the criminal mastermind orchestrating the crimes for viewership.Award-winning documentarian Daniel Bogado joins Crime Story to discuss his docuseries Killer Ratings for an in-depth and human look into the Souza case. You can watch Killer Ratings on Netflix. 

When the book, The Salt Path, came out in 2018, it quickly became a blockbuster hit. It’s the story of a woman named Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, who has been diagnosed with a terminal neurological disorder. According to the telling, their decision to walk the Salt Path, a 1000 km trek across the south west coast of England, leads to miraculous healing.Against all odds, the walk appeared to reverse symptoms of Moth’s terminal illness. The Salt Path was followed up by more books, and in 2024, a Hollywood movie starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.But ultimately, the bestselling memoir may be more fiction than fact. Chloe's investigation uncovered a past allegedly riddled with financial deceit, challenging the story of how Raynor and Moth lost their home, and casts doubt on the miraculous reversal of Moth's terminal illness. Her podcast, The Walkers: The Real Salt Path, dramatically unravels the full, unshared details of the couple's journey.This week on Crime Story, Chloe Hadjimatheou unravels the Salt Path.You can hear The Walkers: The Real Salt Path here.You can read Chloe's article here. 

Forged is a six-part series, from CBC in Canada and ABC Australia, host Adrian Stimson, an artist from the Siksika Nation, travels from Thunder Bay to the Northern Territory of Australia, to reveal what's believed to be the largest art crime fraud in the world.In this first episode, rock star Kevin Hearn of the Barenaked Ladies is doing rock star things — like buying paintings. And what better painting for an iconic Canadian rocker to buy than one by Norval Morrisseau, one of the most iconic Indigenous artists in Canada? But when Kevin’s Morrisseau painting is featured in an exhibit, it gets taken down because the head curator says it’s “questionable.” Kevin tries to get some answers but every answer leads to more questions. Adrian Stimson traces Kevin’s dogged quest to find out the truth about his painting — and learns how this one painting is the key to cracking a whole underworld open. All episodes of Forged are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/ForgedxCS

Host of CBC Podcasts’ series FORGED (and artist himself) Adrian Stimson joins Crime Story to discuss the life and work of Norval Morrisseau, and the forgery ring that eventually spun out into an entire network of forged paintings, For years, fakes flooded galleries and auctions across Canada, raising painful questions about who profits from Indigenous art and who gets erased. Listen to FORGED here.