When journalist Kim Barker ponders possible stories she’s for The New York Times she thinks of the murder of Shelli Wiley in 1985. Wiley, who had attended the same high school as her, was stabbed at home when she was 22 and then her apartment was set on fire. No one was convicted of the murder, but “everyone in Laramie says they know who did it.” Ex-cop Fred Lamb even seems to confess on tape, so how come he’s still out there? Barker gets access to all the files and interrogations and as she investigates, this cold case becomes more and more a story about memory and how humans remember events and modify memories.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of March 18, 2023