This is exactly right.

This story contains adult content and language.

Listener discretion is advised.

She's First Nations. I'm not. And just not alone, she is six times more likely to be murdered than me.

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co-host of the podcast,

Buried Bones on Exactly Right. And throughout my career, research for my many audio and book projects has taken me around the world.

On Wicked Words, I sit down with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true crime cases.

This is about the choices writers make, both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the unpublished

details behind their stories.

For decades, scores of indigenous women and girls have vanished from an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia called the

Highway of Tears. Journalist Jessica McDermott is from that area, and she decided to investigate

why so many cases were either ignored or dismissed.

She interviewed family members and friends of some of the victims for answers.

She tells me about her book, Highway of Tears, a true story of racism, indifference,

and the pursuit of justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

Tell me how you came across the story,

you live near or you grew up near the Highway of Tears, is that right?

Yeah, so I was raised sort of in a rural area right off the highway

near a town called Smithers, which is about

halfway along and geographically. So when I was a kid and as I was growing into a teenager,

this was something that was going on quite frequently. In 1990, there was a 15-year-old girl

...