A warning to listeners. This episode contains explicit language and descriptions of sexual violence.

I'm Amy Britton and this is Canary, an investigative podcast from the Washington Post.

Chapter 6. You can always have the last word.

Dear Judge Morrison, I hope that the letter finds you well. My name is Amy Britton and I'm an investigative reporter from the Washington Post.

Last year I authored an article about Lauren Clark, a sexual assault victim whose case she handled in DC Superior Court.

After months of reporting, I was finally ready to reach out to Judge Morrison.

So I was sitting at my desk, typing a letter to him. I wrote that, quote,

Carol Griffin, a 60-year-old woman from Birmingham, Alabama, alleges that you sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager.

Griffin has said this assault happened in the mid 1970s, on the Morrison family property near Marion, Virginia.

I didn't include the full details of Carol's allegations.

I wanted to ask him about those sensitive details in person, so I requested an interview.

As I told him in the letter, quote,

I understand that the story is not complete without the chance to speak with you in extensive detail.

And then I put the letter in the mail.

It's a pretty serious letter to send to someone.

I'm just thinking of kind of like the ripple effects that happen after you send something like this.

And that's not something that I take lightly.

A lot of times, as an investigative reporter, people tend to ask me,

how do you know when the reporting is over?

How do you know when you're done, or if you've got more work to do?

That's a tough question to answer.

Any reporter at the Washington Post might give you a different response.

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