Em Gessen

I think most of my family was hoping for some version of this too.

Some piece of evidence that wouldn't exonerate Alan necessarily, but would make what he'd done seem a little less horrible.

All that wishful thinking seemed like nonsense to me, honestly.

I figured the one thing that would put an end to it was Alan's trial.

That's next time on The Idiot.

The Idiot was reported and written by me, M. Gessen, and produced by Daniel Guillemette with Andrei Barzenka and Lika Kramer of Libro Libro Studios.

Our editor is Julie Snyder.

Additional editing by Ira Glass and Sarah Kaney.

Research and fact-checking by Ben Phelan and Marisa Robertson-Texter.

Original score by Alison Leighton-Brown.

Additional music from Dan Powell and Marion Lozano.

The show was mixed by Phoebe Wang with additional mixing by Katherine Anderson.

Additional production by Fia Bennett.

At Serial Productions, Ndeye Chubu is our supervising producer.

Mac Miller is our associate producer.

Video production by Sean Devaney.

Art direction from Kelly Doe.

Art by John Fern.

Credits music by Bob Dylan.

At The New York Times, our standards editor is Susan Wesley.