In the nearly 20 years that Susan Randall’s been working as a private investigator, she’s seen Vermont’s most disadvantaged people struggling to have life’s most basic amenities. Sometimes her job is to interview people addicted to crack, to help determine whether they’re suitable parents. Sometimes her job is to examine blood spatter at gruesome crime scenes. She recently helped defend a client who murdered a DCF worker in broad daylight.
Content Note:
Descriptions of violent crimes
Susan has seen how humanity’s worst instincts become possible where cyclical poverty, incarceration, and drug addiction wreak havoc on communities.
There’s a necessary split screen in Susan’s mind. One screen shows a home life: dropping her kids off at lacrosse, helping them with school projects. And another screen shows a work life: prison visitation rooms, run-down trailer parks, the color-shifted skin of a corpse.
Producer Erica Heilman interviewed Susan over the course of three years. Erica is a private investigator herself, and Susan was her mentor. The two talk about the mechanics of the legal system, poverty and how to survive a job that takes such an emotional toll.
Producer: Erica Heilman of Rumble Strip
Editor: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot
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HBM104: Scrapheap Reactor
HBM103: Fate's Notebook
HBM102: Breath Holder
HBM101: Much Corruption
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HBM099: Spell for the Repulsion of Astral Vampires
HBM098: Feed the Queen
HBM097: Fox Teeth
HBM096: Are We Still Afraid?
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HBM091: Hypnosis of Hunger
HBM090: Two Small Creatures with Human Eyes
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HBM088: Riptides and a Sinking Ship
HBM087: Trifle Not with Sacred Things
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