Hi Revealer,
After 13 long years, we fulfilled a promise we made to a grieving family. And now we’re ready to share it with you through our new serial podcast, Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe. Over seven episodes, you’ll hear our investigation into the suspicious death of Billey Joe Johnson, a Black teenager who died during a routine traffic stop with a White police officer in 2008.
My colleagues and I examined how police handled the investigation and why Billey Joe’s family felt cut out of the process from the beginning. His family never got the answers they wanted. We’ll take a long look into America’s cracked foundation, where justice isn’t equal for everyone.
But before we start, we need to have a covenant between us: If you're looking for a true-crime podcast, that's not what this is. We’re not detectives trying to solve a case. And we are not asking the Johnsons or anybody else to relive the worst thing that has ever happened to them for our listening pleasure.
This serial is not about commodifying Black death. It’s about looking at the system and exposing the fissures.
Billey Joe is not just a character in a podcast. He was a human being whose life had dignity, and that is why we want to understand his death.
I sincerely hope you’ll join us as we try to unravel the question at the heart of this story: Was justice served in the case of Billey Joe Johnson?
And one more thing: I’ve wrestled with this case for over 13 years of my life. Reveal spent more than 18 months investigating it. Please show your support for our relentless investigative journalism and donate today.
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