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Hunting Warhead · CBC

Episode 4: Impact Statement

November 11, 2019·48 min·4 clips
Homeland Security agents show Jen photos of her children taken by Ben Faulkner during his visit.
The visit begins carefully. The host enters the home of a close relative of Ben Faulkner and tells her she can stop or take a break whenever she needs. They call her Jen. Her name and state are withheld, though she lives in the United States. Control matters here. Before the harder memories come up, the host makes sure the interview belongs to her. Then the story turns domestic. Jen remembers Ben in the room with her children while she moves around the house, fetching a laundry basket, a napkin, a diaper, wipes, and the baby. The scary part is how small the gaps are. She counts the moments when he may have been alone with a child in seconds, not minutes: 15 seconds, 20 seconds, long enough to turn around. Afterward, he left fast. His reason sounded casual, maybe a trip to Tennessee to see a buddy, but that speed lands differently now. The photos make it worse. On her phone, Jen has Ben playing on the floor, after the pool with a towel, near the goggles, crouched behind a child. The host has mostly seen press clips and his mug. Jen has family pictures. That difference hurts. For listeners and the host, he is part of a case. For her children, he was someone they cried after at the airport. The goodbye is the piece that stays. A child in the back seat calling for Ben makes the trust feel even harder to bear.

As heard by us

A careful family interview turns a case into a study of memory, secrecy, and uneasy ordinary life.

The piece stays close to a relative of Ben Faulkner, named Jen, and lets small domestic details carry the weight: stairs, a laundry basket, a baby on the floor, and phone photos from a visit that might have seemed almost ordinary at the time.

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Why you'd press play

When the story turns personal, a close relative gives the episode its most revealing pulse.

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