Beyond All Repair - What's next after Violation? Introducing a new murder mystery, "Beyond All Repair"

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

If you loved Violation, host Beth Schwartzapfel has a new recommendation for you. Hosted by Beth's esteemed colleague, Amory Sivertson, Beyond All Repair is a new murder mystery podcast from WBUR & ZSP Media — launching March 7, right here in this feed.

WBUR Podcasts, Boston. violation and it was but i'm dropping in here one more time to leave you in good hands wbur the station that we at the marshall project partnered with to bring you violation has a new series coming out that i think you're gonna like and that will hopefully fill the violation sized hole in your heart in some ways it will literally fill the violation size hole because you will be able to listen to it right here in this feed you don't have to go anywhere or subscribe to anything else. This new show is a sibling he said, she said murder mystery called Beyond All Repair. The reporter behind the series, Amory Severson, we go way back. And I've been hearing about this story for about as long as she's been working on it. So I wanted her to come here and share more about it with you.

Hey, Amory. Hey, Beth. Thanks for having me in your feed. You know, Amory, violation would never have happened without you. You were our biggest cheerleader and I am forever in your debt for that. I am honored to have Beyond All Repair in my feed. Well, thank you. That means a lot to me.

And it was a dream come true to watch come together because part of the reason why we're chatting now is that the story that became Violation and the story that has now become Beyond All Repair, which will be the next thing in this feed. We were like talking to each other about these stories before we knew that they would end up becoming podcast series. Yeah, I mean, I think there's always been a sort of mind meld, you know, you had the audio expertise, I had the criminal justice background, and we would kind of just shoot the shit about what we thought would be good podcasts, what we thought would be good stories, how we thought like the Marshall Project and BUR could work well together. And it's just really cool to watch

how this has evolved. Yeah. So for listeners who are very confused and are like, who the heck is this woman? I will just say for your sake, hello, I'm Anne-Marie Sievertson. I make podcasts at WBUR, and I typically co-host a show called Endless Thread. And the story that is Beyond All Repair actually sprung out of an episode of Endless Thread. I'm not sure if you knew that, Beth. Did you know that? I didn't know it until I listened to your first episode today. Okay. So we talked to, for Endless Thread, my co-host Ben Brock Johnson and I talked to a guy named Shane. And we were talking to Shane about his experience with homelessness when he was a teenager, shortly before he graduated from high school. I was angry and pissed and sad.

I only had until morning when school started for like some normalcy. And Shane had this kind of timeline of trauma in his upbringing. And just one of the notches along that timeline had to do with something that happened involving two of his siblings. And in particular, his sister, who when he was 13 years old, she was accused of murder and was charged with murder. I remember going into the lunchroom and this group of kids is coming toward me. And the kid that I don't like is like, so is it true that your sister killed someone? And we didn't go into the details, really, when we were talking to Shane to make that Endless Threat episode because it was, again, just one part of his story.

But he reached back out to me a few years later in 2021 and said, hey, you remember my sister? She wants to tell her story and, you know, be believed and try to change her life. The only thing I can do because I'm at my bottom is stand up for myself because I have zero expectations that anyone else can do it for me. Before I ever talked to this woman on the record, Shane's sister on the record, I wanted to talk to you about it immediately. Do you remember that phone call?

Oh, I remember it so well. I think it was a beautiful sunny Saturday and I was working in my garden and I had you in my ear and we were talking while I was weeding. And I remember thinking, holy shit, this story, it just has so many layers. It's just every time you think it's done, you find out there's more to it. Yeah. And you were catching me up on the Jacob Weidman story because you had already been working on that. And it did just feel like one of these moments where I just felt really lucky to have someone that I could talk to that that we could talk together

about our stories and kind of nerd out together. Totally. Ditto. Right back at you. So I described Beyond All Repair as a sibling. He said said, murder mystery. But tell me about is brutally murdered. She's bludgeoned to death with fireplace tongs. And Sophia, just a couple days later, is arrested for the murder. And she finds out that it is one of her brothers, not Shane, the youngest that we did the episode of Endless Thread about, but another brother named Sean who has accused her of the murder. The person kind of took, it was like stalking off their face.

It turned out to be my sister. And Sophia, you know, has always said that she did not commit this murder, but she is arrested, she is tried. She gives birth to a son in jail, and she hasn't seen him since. So here we are 22 years later. She's now in her mid-40s. She is currently in hiding, and she's been talking to me for about three years and telling me her side of the story. Her goal is to get justice for her late mother-in-law and really she wants to meet her son. She wants to meet this son that she hasn't seen since the day that he was born.

And I do not want another one of his birthdays to go by without at least having an image of me and hearing the truth about what I'm sure he's read and heard about his entire life. Sounded to me like you were careful to say she says she didn't do it. But yeah, what do you think? Did she do it? Oh, Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth. You're going to have to listen to Beyond All Repair to find out. What I can say is I know where I land on what happened. And Shane, who I mentioned in the beginning from that episode of Endless Thread, he has become a part of this too and will make an appearance throughout the series because Shane is a lawyer now. He went from, you know, being unhoused to now being a lawyer.

And now he has gone through the case file, not with me, but kind of adjacent to me. And I've gotten to hear and the listener will get to hear his thoughts on the case as both Sophia's brother and Sean's brother, the person who accused Sophia, and as a lawyer. Even if she committed murder, I know that I love my sister, but she needs to also be held accountable if she committed murder. He also comes to a conclusion and lands in a place at the end of the series about what actually happened. I just loved Violation so much, and I was so happy to see you put that out into the world, and lucky us to get to learn more of Jacob's story and to have you as our guide along the way. So congratulations. Thank you. And congratulations to you on Beyond All Repair.

I'm so excited to hear it. I'm so excited for our listeners to hear it. And I just want to tell our listeners to stay subscribed to Violation to hear Beyond All Repair in just a few weeks. Amory, can you believe it's just a few weeks? You ready? Well, to that point, we got the trailer first. That's February 22nd. So that'll be the first thing that people get to hear. And then we'll drop episodes one

and two together on March 7th. Stay tuned, people. Thanks, Beth. My pleasure. Thank you.