May 20, 2004. A lawyer named Brandon Mayfield walks out of a Portland, Oregon courtroom a free man. About two weeks earlier, Mayfield was arrested by the FBI because they thought they had his fingerprint on a key piece of evidence in the investigation of a terrorist train bombing in Madrid, Spain earlier that year. But by this afternoon in May, that key evid ... Show More
Aug 24
Did Homer Write the Odyssey? (Was He Even Real?)
August, sometime in the 500s BCE. In Athens, the Great Panathenaia is in full swing: chariot races, boat races, a hundred cattle slaughtered for the feast. And at the center of it, a competition in which performers recite the work of one poet, and one poet only: Homer. But nobody ... Show More
41m 1s
Aug 17
The Wire That Connected the World
August 17, 1858. New York City wakes to a hundred-gun salute. Church bells ring, flags fly from public buildings, and by nightfall, fireworks light up the sky. The city is celebrating a telegram from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. Not what it says, but how it traveled: alo ... Show More
32m 55s
Aug 10
The French Monarchy Falls in a Day
August 10, 1792. At midnight, a single church bell begins to ring in Paris. Then another. And another. It's not a call to mass… it's a call to arms. For three years, King Louis XVI and his family have been living as prisoners in a palace, under virtual house arrest at the Tuileri ... Show More
34m 21s
Mar 2025
5 - When It All Falls Apart
<p>One suspect is freed, another makes a surprising choice, and an investigator is accused of planting evidence.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of persona ... Show More
25m 36s
Nov 2010
Cognitive Psychology - Testosterone and City Traders - Suicide Bombers
Forensic Science, Psychology and Human Cognition: When the Oregon attorney, Brandon Mayfield, was arrested for the Madrid bombings six years ago, the FBI's fingerprint examiners claimed they were 100% sure that his fingerprints were on the bag containing detonators and explosives ... Show More
28m 13s
Oct 2025
The Knot (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
<p>On a September afternoon in 2000, an FBI forensics analyst stood in her lab in Quantico, Virginia, staring into a microscope in confusion. She was looking at two strands of hair that were evidence in a murder investigation. And something wasn’t right. She checked the label o ... Show More
39m 9s
Apr 2025
The Knife: Off Record – 104
From pop culture to the FBI, the perception of polygraphs varies wildly depending on who you ask. So, Hannah and Patia speak to an expert polygraph examiner whose work led to a bombshell confession in a half-decade old missing persons case, turned murder. Show Notes: https://w ... Show More
48m 13s