From Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders

Deep Cover

Pushkin Industries

True Crime, History

4.3 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Here's a preview from the new season of Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast, The Alabama Murders. Florence, Alabama. 1988. A preacher has an affair. A woman is murdered. One death cascades into more, stretching across decades and leaving no one untouched — victims, bystanders, perpetrators, and those just trying to help. Eventually, the consequences lead to the center of a hot national debate on who should be allowed to live, who should die, and how the state should kill them. On The Alabama Murders, Malcolm asks: why, in our efforts to alleviate suffering, do we so often make it worse?

Find Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders wherever you get podcasts. To get early access to ad-free episodes and extra content, subscribe to Pushkin+ on the Revisionist History show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:09.7	Malcolm Gladwell here.
0:11.2	Today you'll hear a preview from the latest season of Revisionist History.
0:15.0	My podcast is about The Overlooked and Misunderstood.
0:18.3	This season, The Alabama Murders. We'll look back to 1988 in northwest Alabama. We'll, the Alabama murders.
0:22.1	We'll look back to 1988 in Northwest Alabama
0:24.8	where a man committed a crime
0:26.7	that spiraled out of control.
0:29.0	A woman was murdered,
0:30.8	and her death cascaded into more tragedies,
0:33.7	leaving no one untouched,
0:35.3	victims, bystanders, perpetrators,
0:39.5	and even those just trying to help.
0:46.8	The Alabama murders ask the question, why in our efforts to alleviate suffering, do we so often make it worse?
0:54.2	Here's the preview. Find revisionist history, The Alabama Murders, wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:59.6	And if you want to hear the full story right now, add free, subscribe to Revisionous History on Pushkin Plus.
1:00.8	Sign up on the revisionist history show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus.
1:10.8	Maybe you remember it it August 2003.
1:14.9	Everything went dark.
1:17.6	A couple of trees on the East Lake transmission line outside of Cleveland
1:21.0	grew a little bit too tall,
1:23.1	and the electrical line at that precise point,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.