Episode 7: A Most Unusual Houseguest

Last Seen

WBUR

True Crime, Missing, Mystery, Boston, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When artist Alison Byrnes opened a package she had mailed to herself two years earlier, she was expecting to find a sealed box of her prints - but that's not what was inside.

The United States Postal Service had made a rather serious mistake. Instead of artist prints, USPS delivered a little blue urn -- containing the ashes of a total stranger.

Attempts at finding the family of the deceased failed, and the cremated remains of Jennings L. Heffelfinger sat abandoned and forgotten, year after year.

That is, until 2019, when intrepid reporter Sophie Bearman took over the case. Determined to solve the mystery, Bearman embarks on a personal and professional journey to get the urn back where it belongs. But how much help is too much? Amid a pandemic that forces us to ponder mortality incessantly, Episode 7 offers a refreshing and unexpected take on life and loss.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Last scene is made at a public radio station, WBUR in Boston, which means it's made possible
0:06.0	by you, the listener.
0:07.9	If you want the show to keep going, support it.
0:10.5	Give in any amount at WBUR.org slash pod power.
0:14.5	That's WBUR.org slash pod power.
0:18.1	Thank you.
0:19.1	Here's the show.
0:38.0	Everyone I know has a story about an item getting lost to the mail.
0:42.5	A birthday present from a loved one, a postcard they're expecting from Alaska, an Amazon
0:48.0	order.
0:49.0	Hey, Sophie has that ever happened to you?
0:51.5	It definitely has.
0:52.9	But I feel like recently I'm in a state where I get really upset about something not
0:57.5	seeming like it's going to arrive and then eventually it does.
1:00.8	I'm talking to multimedia journalist Sophie Bareman.
1:04.3	How many pieces of mail do you think the Postal Service handles each day?
1:08.8	Oh my gosh.
1:09.8	I mean, it's got to be millions.
1:12.4	I don't know.
1:13.8	Yeah, I looked it up because I was really curious.
1:17.0	And it turns out the Postal Service handles over 170 million pieces of mail each day.
1:25.0	So you know, that's a lot.
	...

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