Florence, Alabama. 1988. A preacher has an affair. A woman is murdered. One death cascades into more, stretching across decades and leaving no one untouched — victims, bystanders, perpetrators, and those just trying to help. Eventually, the consequences lead to the center of a hot national debate on who should be allowed to live, who should die, and how the state should execute them.

On The Alabama Murders, Malcolm Gladwell asks: why, in our efforts to alleviate suffering, do we so often make it worse?

Pushkin+ subscribers can binge the entire season of Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders early and ad-free. Sign up on the Revisionist History show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.