I am going to tell you a story that a powerful state doesn't want you to know about tens of thousands who have disappeared.

Once they get into the hands of the military, they will be tortured brutally.

It's a story so dangerous to tell that for some it's meant ending up on a kill list.

She was seen as a dangerous political actor and tried to Pakistan security, but she was a local hero.

The kill list, a six-part investigative podcast, available now.

Get early access to episodes at cbc.ca slash listen or by subscribing to the cbc true crime premium channel on Apple podcasts.

This is a cbc podcast.

Oh, hi, is this Linda?

One of the first calls I made as we started this podcast was to Linda Sterling, the woman who ran the daycare out of the powder blue bungalow she shared with her husband Ron and son Travis.

Oh, hi, my name is Lisa Rundle and I'm a producer at cbc. How are you?

Out of some kind of automatic politeness maybe, Linda didn't hang up, but she didn't want to talk.

I'm not sure if I'm right or not.

Yeah, we just talked to Linda Sterling. She's asked us not to use the audio so we're not going to you're not going to hear it.

I can say that she was just audibly very upset as soon as I mentioned the word Martensville. She was quite overcome and you know could not understand why we would drag it up.

I'm debriefing with my producer Alina right after the call. We're both a bit shaken.

It certainly seemed to feel that it would cause a lot of pain and you know I talked to her about what I thought the you know why I think it's important why I'm doing this and

I'm part of it because she asked me why would you do this and I actually think that's a really important question.

But what I'm also aware of is that sometimes what's in the public interest is not in the interest of the people at the center of the story.

And it's one of the hardest parts of this job is to balance those things.

But I know that I need to have a really good answer to that question to make sure that we are doing the right thing.

Her question would continue to echo in my mind as I worked on this series pleading and accusatory at the same time.

What good can come of this?

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