Someone Knows Something
April 19, 2016 2:35 PM   Subscribe

Someone Knows Something is a CBC podcast that attempts to uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of Adrien McNaughton. In 1972, 5 year-old Adrien was fishing at Holmes lake in Eastern Ontario with siblings, his father, and a family friend. After getting his line stuck on a tree in the lake, he gave his pole to his father, then walked to the edge of the woods near the lake, where he sat down and watched the others fish. That was the last anybody saw of him. The podcast is led and hosted by CBC producer David Ridgen, who grew up in the same area as Adrien's family. Ridgen has a history of tackling and solving cold cases.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates (29 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
I listened to the first podcast and really liked it... until the end, when there seemed to be some sort of discrepancy in the narrative or something? Then it seemed to me that that the podcast was essentially a Serial clone. Which I think for many people would be great. But in Canada at least (where our judges and law enforcement are not elected, unlike in the US), I am not sure if it is entirely appropriate for journalists to question the Crown, or to reopen cold cases. It's something for the police to do.

I also think the power dynamic between the CBC reporter and the people his is interviewing is very uneven.
posted by My Dad at 3:00 PM on April 19, 2016


...I gotta say, I don't find the disappearance of a small child near a body of water surrounded by wilderness really that mysterious. Even if they are quite certain he didn't wander into the woods and get lost, it takes silent seconds for a child to drown and divers don't always find bodies in murky lakes.
posted by tavella at 3:04 PM on April 19, 2016 [24 favorites]


Another awesome CBC podcast at the moment is the Campus podcast. Love it.
posted by My Dad at 3:06 PM on April 19, 2016


where our judges and law enforcement are not elected, unlike in the US),

fwiw, US federal judges aren't elected; state judges are sometimes elected but it varies wildly by state.
posted by BungaDunga at 3:20 PM on April 19, 2016


it seemed to me that that the podcast was essentially a Serial clone

I just binge-listened all eight episodes today (lots of work driving) and while I agree that Someone Knows Something is probably going to be pitched as Canada's answer to Serial, the shows are really quite different. While there are many differences, the big one to me is that because Serial was an investigation into how or whether a convicted man could have done what the state had claimed, Koenig proceeded without the approval or cooperation of the victim's family. In this podcast, we are dealing with a cold case, and the boy's family is actively working with the producer to determine what happened as a way to eventually, hopefully find some sense of closure. In turn, the contemplative aspects of each show are vastly different -- in Serial, the question Koenig returns to again and again is "is it really possible that this guy did it?" whereas in SKS the question is right there in the title -- "how is it possible that such a thing occurred and nobody knows what happened?" There's a bit more Picnic at Hanging Rock than Dateline to it, and that makes it fascinating (and, so far, quite tragic).
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 3:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]


And small kids can get *really* lost and go remarkable distances. Four year old Ottie Powell walked seven miles and up a mountain before he lay down to sleep forever.
posted by tavella at 3:28 PM on April 19, 2016 [12 favorites]


In this podcast, we are dealing with a cold case, and the boy's family is actively working with the producer to determine what happened as a way to eventually, hopefully find some sense of closure.

Okay, thanks for that. I love podcasts and I quite liked that first one, so I will give it another shot. I mentioned Campus earlier, but another obsession at the moment is the 3-part series on George Orwell running on Ideas at the moment. Fantastic stuff.
posted by My Dad at 3:44 PM on April 19, 2016


From the site's podcast listing page:
Two psychics, working independently, pointed to the remote town of Clyde Forks in their readings of Adrien McNaughton's fate and whereabouts.

Aaaaand they lost me.
posted by offalark at 3:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]


But in Canada at least (where our judges and law enforcement are not elected, unlike in the US), I am not sure if it is entirely appropriate for journalists to question the Crown, or to reopen cold cases.

Could you expand on this? I'm trying to understand how questioning officials or looking for the truth could ever be inappropriate outside of malicious or negligent lies. I also don't understand how being appointed as opposed to elected has any relevance.
posted by dragoon at 4:03 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]


Could you expand on this? I'm trying to understand how questioning officials or looking for the truth could ever be inappropriate outside of malicious or negligent lies. I also don't understand how being appointed as opposed to elected has any relevance.

I believe in Serial an elected (and crooked) law enforcement official was framed the kid?

Anyway, elected judges are absolutely less credible than appointed judges because elected judges are biased.

I am not suggesting that it is inappropriate to question legal decisions (although I have great faith in the Canadian legal system). I am just suggesting that it is up to law enforcement to reopen a cold case, not the producers from This American Life.

This may be a cultural difference. After all, Canada's motto is "peace, order and good government."
posted by My Dad at 4:27 PM on April 19, 2016


Maybe it was bigfoot?
posted by gideonswann at 4:36 PM on April 19, 2016


>elected judges are biased
Humans are biased. There is no such thing as an unbiased individual, whether elected or appointed.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Anyway, elected judges are absolutely less credible than appointed judges because elected judges are biased.

Given that I assume the people who appoint these judges are elected, I don't really see your point. Absolutely anything involving humans involves a degree of bias, and I don't see how obfuscating the selection process through another level of elected officials is any better. Not that elected officials are perfect, they are not, just that there is no reason to assume that appointed ones are any better.

This may be a cultural difference. After all, Canada's motto is "peace, order and good government."

Oh, I see, the motto invokes 'good government' so it must be present. Why didn't we ever think of that? That would have solved all kinds of problems.

I am not suggesting that it is inappropriate to question legal decisions (although I have great faith in the Canadian legal system). I am just suggesting that it is up to law enforcement to reopen a cold case, not the producers from This American Life.

Looking into the actions of your local government to ensure its quality is kinda the exact goal of the media in an open democracy, not trusting whole-heartedly in the decisions of whoever was appointed by a somehow un-biased other official. They can't 'reopen' a cold case in any meaningful way, but they certainly can look into anything the Canadian police have ever done without it being even in the slightest inappropriate or out of their area.

This all being said, yeah, kids drown and get lost in the woods all the time, I can't imagine there is anything fishy about this. I'm still real glad there are people around to check up on it though.
posted by neonrev at 4:44 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


This may be a cultural difference. After all, Canada's motto is "peace, order and good government."
I'm a Canadian, and I believe anyone who spots something fishy should be allowed to try to bring it to light. I think blanket trust in the law enforcement and judicial systems is woefully misplaced, and really does not serve certain people (for instance, women who experience sexual violence, people of colour, aboriginal people, poor people, mentally ill people...).
Toronto alone had at least two protests against the law enforcement and judicial systems just last month (#ibelievesurvivors and #blacklivesmatterTO, not to mention #missingandmurderedaboriginalwomen).
Canada is definitely not some kind of legal utopia where the system is working well!
posted by pseudostrabismus at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]


No offense, folks, but the "kids drown all the time" is kind of a weird and callous thing to say. I don't really get it.

Them: "Our child disappeared suddenly and without warning; after weeks of searching by hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement, no trace of him was ever found and we still don't know what happened to our son and brother, but we hold out hope that he may still be alive."

You: "LOL kids drown in lakes all the time, what's the big deal?"
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:49 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


I am not sure if it is entirely appropriate for journalists to question the Crown, or to reopen cold cases. It's something for the police to do.

Given the parade of wrongful convictions we've seen, due in part to malice, misconduct or incompetence on the part of both the Crown and the police at the same time, it's both appropriate and necessary for journalists to do.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:49 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]


I believe in Serial an elected (and crooked) law enforcement official [...] framed the kid?

That is not at all the editorial stance expressed in Serial; Koenig stated outright that she did not consider Syed to have been railroaded by a corrupt system, and that she considered law enforcement and the prosecution to have done their best in good faith.

Anyway, elected judges are absolutely less credible than appointed judges because elected judges are biased.

Now this all seems like an awkward pivot into a very specific personal point of contention you wish to advance.
posted by anazgnos at 4:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


This entire conversation went in a very weird direction. I would put "Questioning the Crown" as the #1 role of the media, because if you haven't noticed government is made up of people and even honest, unbiased people should have other people watching for the inevitable mistakes that get made. The foundation of good governance is open accountability for this very reason.

A lot has changed in how investigations are conducted since 1972, and I don't think it's the police's responsibility to constantly revisit closed cases to address this when there are plenty of open cases to pursue, so I think it's entirely appropriate for this guy to use private time and money to revisit the case, then present any developments to the authorities as they arise. Framing it all in an interesting story for public consumption is just what makes the whole enterprise possible.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:04 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


I am not sure if it is entirely appropriate for journalists to question the Crown

I am sure it is 100% appropriate for journalists to hold the Crown's feet to the fire at all times.

As for the elected/appointed thing, I think the real benefit there is that while possibly still biased (eg the misogynist fuckhead in Alberta), appointed judges do not have to worry about re-election, and therefore can render decisions that don't need to take oft-uninformed public opinion into consideration.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:06 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


I didn't say it wasn't sad, but if you are going to do a weeks-long series of podcasts I'd expect something really mysterious, and well... some percentage of people who die in the wilderness are never found. In Oregon it's about 20 percent. Search teams and dogs can intensively search an area and not find a body that is there. The three lakes that are within a half mile area are small, but still -- in a murky lake divers basically have to do fingertip searches, and that's hard to do completely. And if you take a look at the map, there's probably hundreds of lakes and other bodies of water within 7 miles.

They just seem far more likely solutions than the idea that a stranger managed to trek through the woods and abduct a child without their nearby family hearing them arrive or any protests from the child, or the fishing buddy managing to kill and conceal a child's body without anyone hearing or noticing. For either of those to happen, the child would have had to effectively already be lost -- out of earshot of their family. And what are the odds that a child gets lost in the woods and finds a killer, versus a child gets lost in the woods, continues to be lost, and dies of exposure?
posted by tavella at 5:16 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


tavella, I'm not really sure why you think the show pushes a narrative of abduction. Certainly the producer discusses the ways in which an abduction provides hope -- in a really strange, odd way -- to the family. But he is under no illusion, nor does he suggest, that that is likely what happened.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:21 PM on April 19, 2016


Well, the adult reconstruction, the psychics, and even the title of the show certainly play up that narrative. When in fact it's likely no one knows anything and his bones are at the bottom of a lake or under 40 years of leaf mould deep in the brush.
posted by tavella at 5:32 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Okay. Well, enjoy not listening to it!
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:34 PM on April 19, 2016


I binge-listened to this podcast a week or so ago. I think the idea that kids get lost, end of story is only one thread among many, and to isolate that one minimizes other threads that are very worthwhile: how the family has managed to carry on, how people can recall an event in wildly different ways, how each investigation specialist (divers, dog handlers, trackers) do their work, and how their experiences and opinions shade the story. I see the psychics being included as an illustration of how a personal nightmare becomes a public spectacle. That family seems like such lovely people.

Stories don't have to be tidy to be good, and I thought this one so far has been good.

And honestly the accents alone are worth the price of admission.
posted by Lou Stuells at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


I had no idea there were pockets of Canada where people speak with essentially full Irish accents.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 5:43 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


I've been really enjoying the series (sometimes I don't like the editing, but that's neither here nor there) and I find Ridgen to be really un-sensational.

There's a part where he scoffs that anyone in the family took the psychics seriously, because psychics are ridiculous. And then he admits to feeling really bad about this reaction, because who the hell tells a grieving family who got a sense of hope and possible closure from these corroborating psychics that he thinks the whole thing is silly. It made me really like him. He's been really kind and accommodating to the family's wishes through the whole thing I think, he doesn't push, he's just exploring the case. I think he got the new sketches made just because he thought the family might like them.

I think it's neat and interesting. I'm sure law enforcement was like some of the people here, "kids drown in lakes all the time" and they moved on. It's a neat idea to give something that seems fairly open and shut more attention, because it really did truly never get shut.

The accents are adorable. Also I love that he went and got his own Dad's maps. Dads are great.
posted by euphoria066 at 7:51 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


I had no idea there were pockets of Canada where people speak with essentially full Irish accents.

My grandfather was born a century ago in a small town not far from Ottawa. It was so full of Irish and their descendants (who had of course learned to speak from their elders) that he spoke with a powerful Oirish brogue, despite never having been any closer to Dublin than Montreal.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:17 PM on April 19, 2016


re: accents, I thought that's what Newfoundland was for.
posted by Lou Stuells at 7:21 PM on April 20, 2016


Even if you're not into Serial-adjacent podcasts, this is worth listening to at least once just to hear the fabulously creepy theme song.
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:56 PM on April 28, 2016


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