EP 01
The file marked closed
A two-page report, a missing witness statement, and the question that started everything.
Limited series
8 episodes
Hearsay
A reporter reopens a case the police closed in 1994. Eight episodes. New evidence in every one.
Content note · Source-driven and handled with care. A fictional composite — see the FAQ below.
New episodes Thursdays · 8 episodes
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Latest
EP 03 · 48:30
The 911 call no one logged
16:32
/
48:30
Investigative · 8 parts
Hearsay
Case No. 94–0317 · reopened
Hosted by Della Marchetti · A Field Notes Audio production
8
Episodes
28.4M
Downloads
1,142
Listener tips
4.8 / 5
9,318 ratings
As heard on
The Atlantic Monthly
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Columbia Journalism Review
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The Marshall Ledger
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Harper’s
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The Coastline Review
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Longreads
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Nieman Storyboard
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The series
Eight episodes, in order
A limited series. Released weekly — three are live, the rest are dated below.
EP 02
What the timeline left out
Comparing the official chronology against three sets of phone records.
Latest
EP 03
The 911 call no one logged
A dispatcher remembers a call that never made it into the record. We pull the tape.
EP 04
The neighbor who kept a diary
Twenty years of dated entries, and four lines about the night in question.
EP 05
A receipt from the gas station on Route 6
One time-stamped slip places a car eleven miles from where the report says it was.
EP 06
The detective’s last interview
We reach the lead investigator, retired now, and ask the questions never asked in 1994.
EP 07
What the lab can read now
Evidence sealed for three decades goes to a modern forensic lab. We wait for the result.
Finale
EP 08
Who gets to call a case closed
What thirty years and eight episodes can — and cannot — settle. Where the file stands now.
About the show
A case file, reopened with the work shown
In March 1994, a small-county sheriff’s office filed a two-page report and marked one case closed. No charges followed. The file was never reopened. Three decades later, a box of records arrived in our newsroom — and the report did not match the documents inside it.
Hearsay follows that mismatch. Each episode is built from primary sources: incident reports, dispatch logs, public-records requests, court filings, and on-the-record interviews with people who were there. Where a document is unclear, we say so. Where a memory cannot be corroborated, we label it as memory. Nothing on this show is dramatized.
Every claim in the series is footnoted on a public sources page, published alongside each episode. Listeners have sent 1,142 tips so far; several reshaped the reporting. This is a limited series — eight episodes, then it ends. We would rather close honestly than stretch a story past what the record can hold.
Who reports it
The newsroom behind the file
DM
Della Marchetti
Reporter & host
An investigative reporter who spent eleven years on the courts and public-records beat at The Marshall Ledger. Her work on sealed case files has been cited in two state records-access rulings. She reads documents the way other people read novels.
@dellareports
JO
Jonas Okonkwo
Senior producer
A documentary producer and sound editor who builds each episode around the tape itself — dispatch audio, interview rooms, the texture of an archive. He runs the fact-check pass and keeps the sources page honest. Twelve years in public radio before this.
@jonasonsound“Hearsay is the rare true-crime series with the discipline of a newsroom. It never reaches past its evidence — and that restraint is exactly what makes it land.”
The record
Evidence archive
Every document referenced on the show, published in full. Sourced, dated, and free to read.
Exhibit A
1994
The original incident report
Two pages, scanned. The document the case was closed on.
Exhibit B
2025
Dispatch log, records request
Released under a public-records request. Names withheld for safety.
Exhibit C
2026
Interview transcript, episode 3
Full transcript of the on-the-record dispatcher interview.
The archive grows with each episode. New documents post the same Thursday the episode airs.
Before you ask
Questions, answered plainly
Is this based on a real case?
No. Hearsay is a fictional composite. The case, the documents, the dates, and every person in the series are invented. It is built to mirror how real cold cases actually unfold — a closed file, a contradiction, a slow re-examination of the record — but no real person, family, or investigation is depicted, named, or implied. We chose a composite precisely so that telling this kind of story responsibly never comes at someone’s expense.
How was the reporting verified?
Because the case is fictional, “verification” here means craft, not claim. Every episode is written against a self-consistent document set, fact-checked for internal logic by the producer, and reviewed so that procedure, terminology, and timelines reflect how investigations and records actually work. When the narrative is uncertain, the script says so out loud. We treat a fictional record with the same discipline a newsroom owes a real one.
Can I send a tip?
Yes — write to [email protected]. Since the case is a composite, tips here are listener notes: a document you think we mishandled, a procedural detail that rings false, a thread you want pulled in a later episode. We read every message and have folded more than a thousand into the series. We never publish a sender’s name without explicit permission.
Will there be a season 2?
Hearsay is built as a closed, eight-episode series with a real ending — not an open-ended franchise. If the team takes on a new case, it would be a separate series with its own file, not a continuation of this one. Subscribe to the newsletter and you will hear first; we would rather announce a second story only when the reporting is ready to carry it.
Are there transcripts and a sources page?
Every episode ships with a full, readable transcript and a sources page that lays out the documents and reasoning behind each scene. Both post the same Thursday the episode airs and live in the evidence archive above. Transcripts are screen-reader friendly, and the sources page exists so any listener can check the show’s work for themselves.
New episodes Thursdays
Follow the file to the last page
Eight episodes. New evidence in every one. Subscribe on your platform of choice and the next one finds you.
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