About Uncover

CBC Podcast's Uncover is an award-winning investigative series, with each new season exploring a different high-stakes true crime and justice story.

Season 8: Brainwashed

It's not all in your head. It's in your history.

Brainwashed is a multi-part investigation into the CIA's experiments in mind control from the Cold War and MKULTRA to the so-called War on Terror. We learn about a psychiatrist who used his patients as human guinea pigs at a Montreal hospital and what happens in times of fear when the military and medicine collide. We discover the ripple effect that the devastating experiments have had on the survivors, their families, and on thousands of other people around the world. And how they are fighting back.

Brainwashed2:55Trailer: Brainwashed

Brainwashed is an investigative series into the CIAs covert experiments in mind control from the Cold War and MKULTRA to the so-called War on Terror. Listen to the voices of the survivors and their families, the conscientious objectors and the lawyers and journalists who have fought to have this story come to light. Go into the hospital rooms where psychiatric patients became unwitting guinea pigs for such so-called treatments given Orwellian names like psychic driving and de-patterning. We look at what happens in times of fear, when the military and medicine collide and how without accountability, a torturous cycle continues.

About the host: Two-timeUncover hostMichelle Shephard is an award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker, who reported from more than 20 countries during her two decades at the Toronto Star, including multiple trips behind the wire at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Among her documentaries is the Emmy-nominated film Guantanamo's Child, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015 and won Canada Screen Awards for best direction and the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social or Political Program. She speaks often about issues terrorism and civil rights, once reported from a "Spy Cruise," is working away at a novel, and has a dog named Dorothy Parker.

Season 7: Dead Wrong

One criminal investigation. Countless failures. What went wrong?

A botched police investigation, missing evidence, and a wrongful conviction in a city plagued with more than a hundred unsolved missing and murdered cases. Uncover: Dead Wrong takes us through the twisting, almost unbelievable story of Glen Assoun, who spent more than 17 years in prison for the murder of Brenda Way, a crime he did not commit.

How did institutions fail him and who really killed Brenda?

Uncover3:17S7: Dead Wrong - Trailer

Twenty-five years ago, Brenda Way was found murdered in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. A botched investigation followed, resulting in the wrongful imprisonment of Glen Assounwho served more than 17 years for the crime. How could one investigation go so wrong? And where is the justice for Brenda?

About the host:Investigative reporter and host Tim Bousquet founded the Halifax Examiner. Before starting the Examiner, Bousquet exposed corruption and misspending in Halifax for seven years as the news editor of The Coast altweekly. Bousquet is responsible for fearless investigative reporting that makes a difference, and the Halifax Examiner continues that tradition. It is an independent, adversarial news site devoted to holding the powerful accountable.

Season 6: Satanic Panic

Believe the children...?

Throughout the 1980s, Satanic cults were widely believed to be preying on children torturing and terrorizing them as part of dark rituals. Across North America, there were hundreds of false allegations, scores of unjust criminal trials and countless lives torn apart. But never any real proof.

By the early 90s, the panic reached the tiny Prairie town of Martensville, Saskatchewan. And nearly 30 years later, the people touched by it all are still picking up the pieces.

So what happened? And why do so many still believe to this day?

Uncover3:18S6: Satanic Panic - Trailer

About the host:Lisa Bryn Rundle has been a producer at CBC Radio for a decade & change, mostly at q & Out in the Open. She co-created and co-produced a summer series all about our complicated relationships with animals today, Tooth & Claw. Before radio, she worked in magazines, including as senior editor for an award-winning magazine named after the most unattractive marine mammal. She co-edited the anthology Turbo Chicks, about young women and feminism. She lives with two dogs, two small children and a vegan.

Season 5: Sharmini

20 years later, her murder still haunts her family, the community, and one journalist.

On June 12, 1999, 15-year-old Sharmini Anandavel disappeared on her way to a job that police believe didn't exist. Four months later her remains were found in a North York ravine. Host Michelle Shephard revisits the murder two decades after she first covered it as a cub crime reporter at the Toronto Star.

Uncover3:04S5: Sharmini - Trailer

About the host:Michelle Shephard is an award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker who has covered issues of terrorism, civil rights and crime during her two decades at the Toronto Star, where she reported from more than 25 countries, including multiple trips to Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and the U.S. Naval prison in Guantanamo Bay. She was the co-director and producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Guantanamo's Child, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015 and won a Canadian Screen Awards for best direction and the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social or Political Program.

Season 4: The Cat Lady Case

Four people vanish from secluded cottage country.What happened, and how does one family connect the victims?

In 1998, 77-year-old Joan Lawrence vanished without a trace. All police could find were her 30 cats, shot dead. The case remains unsolved, but new witnesses, unsealed documents, and fresh promises from the OPP are shedding a light on one of cottage country's darkest crimes and on the importance of caring for the elderly when they're alone, isolated, and at their most vulnerable.

Uncover3:38S4: The Cat Lady Case - Trailer

About the host:Zander Sherman is a bestselling author and award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, and many others. In 2017, he worked on "Murder in Cottage Country," a CBC The Fifth Estate documentary that won him a Canadian Screen Award.

Season 3: The Village

Two waves of unsolved murders, 40 years apart. Who's killing men in Toronto's gay village and why are they getting away with it?

For years, Toronto's Gay Village worried a serial killer was in their midst. Men were disappearing from the neighbourhood but police insisted there was no evidence of foul play. Then, in January 2018, police arrested Bruce McArthur for the murders of eight men. Police are now re-opening dozens of unsolved murders from the Village, dating back to 1975. Journalist Justin Ling has covered this story for over five years and now he's going back to shed light on these long-forgotten murders and the social forces that enabled them

Uncover3:52S3: The Village - Trailer

About the host:Justin Ling is an investigative journalist who has worked across the country, focusing on stories and issues undercovered or misunderstood. His forthcoming book on the Bruce McArthur case will be published by McClelland & Stewart in early 2020.

Season 2: Bomb on Board

A plane blown from the sky. 52 victims. Four suspects. One investigation.

Exploding mid-air on July 8, 1965, Canadian Pacific Flight 21 plummeted into the woods in the B.C. Interior, killing all 52 people aboard. While the investigation determined a bomb brought down the passenger plane and four suspects were at the top of the list no charges were laid. In a CBC Podcasts co-production with The National, Ian Hanomansing and Johanna Wagstaffe uncover one of the largest unsolved murders on Canadian soil.

Uncover2:53S2: Bomb On Board - Trailer

About the co-hosts:Ian Hanomansing co-hosts The National. An award-winning journalist, Ian previously reported national content out of Vancouver. Ian has won a Gemini and a Canadian Screen Award for Best National Anchor.

Johanna Wagstaffe is an on-camera meteorologist and science reporter for the CBC. She has hosted two award-winning CBC podcasts: "Fault Lines" and "2050: Degrees of Change."

Season 1: Escaping NXIVM

Uncovering the rise of Keith Raniere, NXIVM and those who tried to leave.

Over the past year, CBC documentarian Josh Bloch has been investigating NXIVM, a self-help group led by Keith Raniere, that attracted the attention of actors, millionaires and even a visit from the Dalai Lama. This season: how one woman went from star recruiter for the group to a key force in the fight to take it down.

Uncover1:58S1: Escaping NXIVM - Trailer

About the host:Josh Bloch has worked on the CBC Radio daily current affairs show The Current since 2012, most recently as a documentary editor.