What Happened to Her

Massachusetts State police interview the man Sandra was seeing, married Stoughton police detective Matthew Farwell. During a non-recorded conversation in a school parking lot, Farwell refers to Sandra as a casual fling. But her friends tell the police a very different story. And Sandra’s death certificate puts investigators and the family further at odds.

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In February 2021, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore is found dead in her apartment in eastern Massachusetts. Officers quickly label the death a suicide. This news confounds her family, because Sandra was pregnant and planning for her future. And they worry about the mystery man she was dating—an older, married cop from her hometown.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741. Please take care while listening.

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When Isolde Raftery was in her senior year of high school in the late 90s, the budding journalist and her best friend published a piece in the school newspaper that deeply fractured — even shattered — the image the school had of itself. Not only that, it led the two teenage friends to believe they were responsible for the death of a teacher, who died by suicide. Twenty-five years later, Isolde, now managing editor at KUOW, and her friend Ella, a civil rights attorney, reinvestigate their own story to get to the bottom of the guilt they carried, in a fantastic podcast called, Adults in the Room. In this episode of What Happened to Her, Melissa Jeltsen talks to Isolde about the web of grooming and abuse they uncovered, what it was like to turn her investigative lens on herself, and how the story has changed her perspective of what they and their fellow students experienced. 

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741. Please take care while listening. 

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Lisette Johnson survived what almost no one does: her husband shot her, then killed himself. Murder-suicides happen every week in America, and they usually disappear after a local headline — with the perpetrator dead, there's no trial, no unfolding story. Except, Lisette lived, and what she told Melissa Jeltsen has shaped how she's covered these cases ever since.

When a murder-suicide made national news this spring — Virginia's former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax killed his wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, then himself — Melissa thought of Lisette. In this first episode of What Happened to Her, Lisette shares her story.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline at thehotline.org or call them at 800.799.SAFE for free, confidential support 24 hours a day.

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For four seasons, investigative reporter Melissa Jeltsen has told the stories of women whose lives — and deaths — were shaped by the failures of the systems meant to protect them. Now she's widening her lens, with new episodes every week. In What Happened to Her, Melissa takes on the stories that won't let her go. Women whose deaths were too quickly ruled suicides. Women no one believed. Cases everyone else called closed. Some weeks, a mystery unfolds across multiple episodes. In others, Melissa sits down with fellow investigative journalists and podcast hosts to go behind the scenes on the cases — and the women — they just couldn't shake.

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As new chapters unfold, experts examine whether the law can truly recognize the harm caused when fertility care fails. Former CRH patients are left to reckon with the lives they’re living — and how far some have diverged from what they once imagined.

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Two former employees describe what they saw as the clinic unraveled. Their stories, and a look into public records, help piece together how CRH fell apart. Plus court documents reveal Dr. Vasquez’s version of events.

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Months after the shutdown, patients finally hope to reclaim their embryos. But as auditors begin comparing records to what’s actually in storage, they uncover widespread inconsistencies — raising new fears about what may have happened inside the clinic.

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As the fallout widens, patients uncover troubling new information about who was providing their care. Their discoveries trigger a wave of questions — and draw the attention of both state regulators and criminal investigators.

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Word spreads that the fertility clinic has shut down without warning. As desperate patients band together, they realize their plans to get pregnant are now on hold. What will happen with the embryos stored inside the now shuttered clinic? 

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Sydney McDowell walks into her Nashville fertility clinic expecting a routine appointment. Instead, devastating news sends her scrambling to get her embryos out before they’re trapped inside.

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What Happened in Nashville is a deeply reported investigation into the sudden collapse of a Tennessee fertility clinic, and the patients caught in the fallout. When the Center for Reproductive Health shut down without warning, people lost access to their embryos, their treatments were abruptly cut off, and many were left scrambling to recover money, medical records, and time they couldn’t afford to lose. Through intimate conversations with the patients who lived through it, host Melissa Jeltsen reveals the emotional and physical toll of the clinic’s abrupt closure. But the story reaches far beyond a single clinic. The series exposes the cracks in a fertility industry built on hope, high price tags and minimal oversight. What Happened in Nashville isn’t just the story of one tragedy — it’s a warning about a system where families have everything at stake and far too little protection.

Listen here or on the iHeartRadio app.

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Melissa heads to Wisconsin to cover the ricin trial. Jess is there too, determined to come face to face with Kore. We hear powerful firsthand accounts from the victims and key investigators from Oklahoma.  In a stunning moment, Kore's ex-husband takes the stand and reveals a shocking confession.  As the jury prepares to deliver its verdict, the stakes couldn’t be higher. 

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In our season finale, five years have passed since Talina disappeared, but Jess continues to obsess over the details. Meanwhile, Talina’s family searches to define closure as a murder trial remains elusive.

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Uncovering an incident in Wisconsin from 2014 sends Jess chasing a new set of questions. But as COVID stretches into the fall of 2020, the official investigation slows to a standstill…until a momentous discovery.

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New evidence is popping up all over town - all over Oklahoma, in fact. The police seem closer than ever to solving the case when a sudden death throws Jess - and the investigation - for a loop.

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Talina’s family gets involved in the search from afar. Meanwhile, the non-stop investigation starts to take a toll on Jess. And the police turn up evidence that upends the whole timeline of events.

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Weeks pass with no sign of Talina. Her friends, as well as the online sleuths and the local sheriff start to uncover strange clues—a burned mattress, a missing persons poster—all casting suspicion on Talina’s roommate, Kore. As the pressure builds, Kore shares her side of the story.

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Jess discovers Talina Zar isn’t the missing Oklahoma woman’s real name, and the meaning of the moniker unlocks a door to a fantasy world ripped from the pages of 1970s pulp fiction — a fictional world where men reign and women serve and a real-life subculture where people try to live according to the principles in the books. Talina may have found her people in this fringe BDSM community, but was there something more sinister hiding among the kink? And did it have something to do with her disappearance?

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Jess and the sleuths connect with people who knew Talina Zar in real life. As the sleuths begin to formulate a picture of who Talina is, and what might have happened to her, they get the sense that not everyone is telling the truth. At the same time, local police begin their own parallel investigation.

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Jess Trevino lived a quiet life of true crime fandom - until she stumbled upon Talina Zar’s cryptic Facebook post. Isolated because of COVID, Jess assembles an online team of amateur sleuths determined to find out where Talina went. As they get wrapped up in the lives of total strangers, the sleuths discover that the question of What Happened to Talina Zar ? has no easy answers.

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It’s April 2020 and the world is locked down. In Oklahoma, a woman named Talina Zar posts a chilling message on Facebook: she’s sick with COVID and heading to a remote lake, alone — to recover, or to die. Then, she vanishes. As days turn into weeks, strangers online — true crime obsessives with time to kill and nowhere to go — begin digging into her disappearance. What they uncover is something far stranger, and far more disturbing, than they could’ve ever imagined.. In Season Three of What Happened To…, investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsen unravels a mystery born from isolation, obsession, and a pandemic that made everyone feel like a potential suspect.

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Libby Caswell is unable to share her experience of domestic violence in her own words. In this bonus episode, four anonymous women tell their stories of domestic abuse- the details they remember, the ones they wish they could forget, and how they eventually got out.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline for help at 1-800-799-7233.

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The nuisance law in Independence, Missouri played a pivotal role in Libby's story. In this bonus episode, hear Melissa's extended conversation with Sandra Park, former ACLU lawyer and current head of the Civil Rights Bureau of the NY State Attorney General’s Office, as they discuss what nuisance laws are, how they're often misused and what's being done about them.

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Go behind the scenes on the making of What Happened to Libby Caswell. Host Melissa Jeltsen talks to fellow journalist and podcaster Emma Gray (MSNBC columnist, host of the Love To See It podcast, and co-author of the Rich Text Substack) about what drew Melissa to Libby's case, what she looks for when considering a new investigative project, why she focuses on stories about violence against women, and what she hopes both seasons of What Happened To tell us about how we, as a culture, view women's lives and deaths.

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In the final episode, a new witness comes forward with details that raise tantalizing questions. Cindy becomes a national advocate for changes in how domestic violence is handled.

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Libby’s mom Cindy hires a private investigator to uncover new clues. Investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsen visits the motel for herself. And Libby’s friends open up about the last week of her life.

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