Last Seen

On a sunny Saturday in 2016, Benine Timothee left her house to visit a friend who lived close by and never returned. She had lived in the United States for only three months when she was shot and killed outside a corner store in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. No arrests have been made, and there are no suspects in the case. This is the second episode of our three-part series, A Family's Peace, reported by independent investigative journalist Shannon Dooling. In part two, we learn just how hard it has been for Benine's family to get any details surrounding her death, and why. Despite the hurdles, Shannon tracks down new insights to share with Benine's family members. She also dives into a theory that has haunted Boston's Haitian community for years about who really killed Benine.

This week, we're bringing you another food-related mystery - this time from our friendly neighbors to the north, Vermont Public and Brave Little State producer Josh Crane. If you go out to eat right now, you’re likely to run into restaurants that are struggling because they’re missing a crucial ingredient: staff. In this episode, Josh sets out to solve the mystery of the COVID-era restaurant industry exodus, by telling the story of one Vermont diner, The Guilty Plate. The full version of this story was originally published on December 1, 2022 on Vermont Public's podcast, Brave Little State.

For years, WBUR senior arts and culture reporter Andrea Shea drove by an old, mysterious factory in Cambridge, Mass. To her surprise, it turned to be the last vestige of a 20th century candy hub called Confectioner's Row. Manufacturing jobs dried up, and only one factory, Cambridge Brands, remains. In this episode of Last Seen, Andrea walks us through the history of Confectioner's Row and meets face-to-face with the CEO of Cambridge Brands — who is touted as a real life Willy Wonka.

The third season of Last Seen, coming November 2022, is a collection of personal and political mysteries from public radio storytellers that you won't want to miss.

People will tell you Richard Bento is a good actor — on and off the stage. Over the past decade, he's been a pillar of the New England community theater scene - acting in and directing countless productions, and fostering the love of theater in other thespians. But lately, he's been at the center of some real life dramas swirling behind the scenes, involving accusations of fraud, embezzlement, and other kinds of scams. After disappearing from one local theater for a time, he's been known to pop up at another and pull his stunts all over again, leaving a wake of mistrust and missing funds behind. Reporter and producer Quincy Walters (WBUR) investigates Bento’s con artistry and his most recent vanishing act.

When artist Alison Byrnes opened a package she had mailed to herself two years earlier, she was expecting to find a sealed box of her prints - but that's not what was inside. The United States Postal Service had made a rather serious mistake. Instead of artist prints, USPS delivered a little blue urn -- containing the ashes of a total stranger. Attempts at finding the family of the deceased failed, and the cremated remains of Jennings L. Heffelfinger sat abandoned and forgotten, year after year. That is, until 2019, when intrepid reporter Sophie Bearman took over the case. Determined to solve the mystery, Bearman embarks on a personal and professional journey to get the urn back where it belongs. But how much help is too much? Amid a pandemic that forces us to ponder mortality incessantly, Episode 7 offers a refreshing and unexpected take on life and loss.

When three friends went on a rum-fueled rampage one night deep in the Nevada desert, they never expected the trouble they would find themselves in a week later. The men broke into a remote unit of Death Valley National Park known as Devil's Hole — a mysterious flooded cave that happens to be home to the one of the rarest fish on Earth, and one that's critically endangered too. This episode, based on Paige Blankenbuehler's High Country News feature, is a bite-size crime story starring an obscure species of tiny fish, and some hedonistic humans who stepped a little too far over the line, and suffered some big consequences. Last Seen host Nora Saks dives into the fraught relationship between humans and nature, and the long arm of the law intended to protect our most vulnerable species.

Every school kid learns that there are exactly eight planets in our solar system. But what if we told you there might be a ninth? A world that may be six times the size of Earth and take 12,000 years to orbit the Sun. The only thing is, while some scientists are convinced Planet Nine exists, no one has seen it. Yet. Science journalist and WBUR producer Dean Russell (Endless Thread) traces the lives of two astronomers, separated by a century, bound by their thirst for finding that missing planet. This Last Seen story of obsession reveals the unexpected reward when one astronomer gets it wrong — and the fallout when another gets it, seemingly, right.