Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

–Rumi

This winter Susan Randall worked with the defense on a sentencing case for a high profile multiple-murder here in Vermont. A sentencing is the time for considering the pain caused by a crime. It’s also a time to ask, How did we get here? What happened in the life of this person that led her to do what she did?

For months, Susan worked closely with the woman who committed these murders, creating a profile of her life, her history, and her family. It’s a story of almost unimaginable, multi-generational abuse…abuse which started two generations before her birth. In the end, the perpetrator received a sentence of life without parole. I’m not going to name her here because it’s a very sensitive case in Vermont, and this story is not about her. It’s about what it’s like to work closely on cases like these as a private investigator, and what happens after the cases are closed.

Susan’s private investigation business is here.

The music for this show was made by Emily Kueppers. Thank you Emily!