The Idiot - Chapter 2

Serial

Serial Productions & The New York Times

Society & Culture, News, True Crime

4.5 • 82.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

M. seeks out Allen’s ex-wife, Priscilla, who tells her side of the story. It begins with a whirlwind romance but quickly turns to chart Allen’s betrayal: taking her son from Russia and stranding Priscilla and her daughter in Moscow. What follows is Priscilla’s two-year odyssey, a journey that includes surviving a brutal attack and shocking arrests in Zimbabwe, only to reach the U.S. and have Allen take the boy again.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In the early morning hours of July 28, 2022, when the FBI showed up at my father's house in Cape Cod, they knocked on another door to Priscilla's.
0:12.3	So they knock, and when they told me they were FBI, I thought they were there for me.
0:19.3	This is Priscilla.
0:20.4	So I started like literally physically shaking.
0:23.5	I started thinking in my head, it was just like you're being deported, you're going to be deported, you know.
0:28.3	And I think they saw that I was so scared and they told me, calm down, we're here about Alan guessing.
0:35.9	Alan, my cousin, Priscilla's ex.
0:38.8	And they said to me,
0:40.5	Alan has been arrested.
0:46.2	I was like, okay, for what?
0:48.7	What happened?
0:50.4	And they said he's been arrested for murder for hire.
0:54.2	And I'm like, what's that?
0:56.2	Like, made no sense to me.
0:59.1	And then the girl told me, she's like,
1:01.8	this is going to be a bit shocking,
1:05.3	but he hired somebody to kill you.
1:10.3	You know, it's...
1:11.6	You know when you run water through a sieve?
1:16.1	That's how I felt like I was receiving the information.
1:19.1	It came in and went out.
1:20.9	I didn't understand it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Serial Productions & The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Serial Productions & The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.