Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and add free on Amazon music included with Prime.

It's Christmas time in Utah, 1979

and a small boy is singing into a cassette recorder.

He's putting everything he's got into his performance.

He likes hearing the sound of his voice on the tape.

He likes having an audience.

Then he stops.

He doesn't want to sing anymore.

He wants to talk.

There's something really important the child needs to say,

something he wants put on record in his own language.

But he's frightened, because it's a secret he's not supposed to tell.

He's been warned never to speak about it. It's a secret he's not supposed to tell. He's been warned never to speak about it.

It's a painful secret and a shocking one.

And the little boy doesn't really want to remember it at all. But he knows he has to remember.

He has to leave a trace before it's too late. This is the most important speech he will make

in his entire life.

Because imprinted onto the magnetic coating of the tape are the last grainy flecks and wisps of the child's memory.

Scratched sounds and muffled phrases that still makes sense to him.

These are the last words the scared little boy will speak in his mother tongue.

And buried somewhere in the hiss and dropout of the recording are the clues to who this boy is and how he got here.

Thousands of miles from home, torn away from everyone he's ever known.

...