Tortoise Investigates

In a small town in north Wales, an alleged theft at a local estate agents plants the seeds for a global blockbuster.   Credits: Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou Additional reporting - James Urquhart Producer - Matt Russell Artwork: Observer design with acknowledgements to Angela Harding Music supervision & sound design - Karla Patella Narrative editor - Gary Marshall Executive Producer - Jasper Corbett

There are 19 seasons of Tortoise Investigates available ad free to Observer subscribers. Start listening today.  

Thank you for listening to Foundling. We've had so many listeners write to us with questions, that we've decided to publish a bonus episode for subscribers to The Observer. It's a bit different to the 6 earlier episodes; this time Lucy is joined in the studio by Jess and the two of them set out to answer your questions.   

Jess ignores a plea from her birth mother to stop searching for answers. She decides to track down her father.    Credits:  Reporter - Lucy Greenwell Producer - Katie Gunning Original theme music - Tom Kinsella Sound design and additional music - Rowan Bishop Podcast artwork - Blythe Walker Sibthorp Narrative editor - Gary Marshall  Editor - Jasper Corbett  

Jess is shocked when she makes a new discovery about her birth mother. Credits:  Reporter - Lucy Greenwell Producer - Katie Gunning Original theme music - Tom Kinsella Sound design and additional music - Rowan Bishop Podcast artwork - Blythe Walker Sibthorp Narrative editor - Gary Marshall  Editor - Jasper Corbett  

On 6th October 1987, a newborn baby is found on the verge of a remote country lane in Suffolk. Police comb the area for clues and appeal for witnesses, but the mother is never found. The baby, Jess, is adopted. Journalist Lucy Greenwell has never forgotten the day when Jess was discovered. She was a child and lived nearby. For decades Lucy has wondered; what happened to Jess, and what could have driven a mother to leave her child in such an isolated place? When Lucy tracks Jess down, she finds a woman already deep in her own search for the truth, and a story far more tangled than either of them expected. What unfolds is a tale of long-held secrets and unintended consequences that spirals out of Jess's control.   Foundling is a six-part original series from Tortoise Investigates and The Observer  

Jess gets some surprising visitors and Lucy receives a call from Jess's birth father.   Credits:  Reporter - Lucy Greenwell Producer - Katie Gunning Original theme music - Tom Kinsella Sound design and additional music - Rowan Bishop Podcast artwork - Blythe Walker Sibthorp Narrative editor - Gary Marshall  Editor - Jasper Corbett  

Jess's DNA results lead her to a close blood relative, who has her own extraordinary story.  Reporter - Lucy Greenwell Producer - Katie Gunning Original theme music - Tom Kinsella Sound design and additional music - Rowan Bishop Podcast artwork - Blythe Walker Sibthorp Narrative editor - Gary Marshall  Editor - Jasper Corbett  

Jess does a DNA test. And she and Lucy travel to visit a house where Jess's birth mother once lived, and try and work out how nobody noticed a thing.   Credits:  Reporter - Lucy Greenwell Producer - Katie Gunning Original theme music - Tom Kinsella Sound design and additional music - Rowan Bishop Podcast artwork - Blythe Walker Sibthorp Narrative editor - Gary Marshall  Editor - Jasper Corbett  

Journalist Lucy Greenwell goes in search of Jess following rumours and unanswered questions about where she was born and who gave birth to her.  Credits:  Reporter - Lucy Greenwell Producer - Katie Gunning Original theme music - Tom Kinsella Sound design and additional music - Rowan Bishop Podcast artwork - Blythe Walker Sibthorp Narrative editor - Gary Marshall  Editor - Jasper Corbett    

With question marks now raised over how The Salt Path began, Chloe Hadjimatheou starts to track down other characters from the book. Did Raynor Winn and Moth ever walk the path the way they claimed? Credits: Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou Additional reporting - James Urquhart Producer - Matt Russell Music supervision & sound design - Karla Patella Artwork - Observer design with acknowledgements to Angela Harding Executive Producer - Jasper Corbett  

When the television cameras come to a heritage cider farm in Devon, Moth and Raynor Winn take centre stage. Within weeks, they vanish. The farm's owner, their friend, is left to piece together the disparity between what he'd witnessed…and what Raynor Winn had written about. Credits: Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou Additional reporting - James Urquhart Producer - Matt Russell Artwork - Observer design with acknowledgements to Angela Harding Sound design - Karla Patella Executive Producer - Jasper Corbett

Moth is suffering from a rare and terminal illness: corticobasal degeneration. Life expectancy rarely extends beyond eight years. But almost two decades after his diagnosis, Moth is still defying the odds. Has he discovered the secret to a medical miracle? Credits: Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou Producer - Matt Russell Sound design - Rowan Bishop Fact checking - Madeleine Parr Music supervision - Karla Patella Artwork - Observer design with acknowledgements to Angela Harding Executive Producer - Jasper Corbett

In the aftermath of her initial investigation, Chloe hears from a close family member of Moth's. The story is one of deep divides…and another theft. But it takes her one step closer to understanding who Moth and Raynor Winn really are. Credits: Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou Producer - Matt Russell Artwork - Observer design with acknowledgements to Angela Harding Music supervision - Karla Patella Sound design - Rowan Bishop Executive Producer - Jasper Corbett

At a motorway service station, Chloe meets someone close to Raynor Winn who's nervous about coming forward. It turns out she's another character from The Salt Path…and she's Raynor Winn's niece. And she's not turned up empty handed…   Credits: Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou Producer - Matt Russell Artwork - Observer design with acknowledgements to Angela Harding Music supervision  and sound design - Karla Patella Executive Producer - Jasper Corbett

The Salt Path was the supposed bestseller debut book by Raynor Winn, selling millions worldwide. So when two more sequels came along with increasingly bold claims on reversing a terminal illness, why did the publisher Penguin not question it more?  Chloe also goes on the hunt for Raynor Winn's fourth  book…her true debut written years before The Salt Path. Credits: Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou Producer - Matt Russell Artwork - Observer design with acknowledgements to Angela Harding Music supervision - Karla Patella Sound design - Tom Burchell Executive Producer - Jasper Corbett

Raynor Winn's memoir The Salt Path was a bestseller and literary phenomenon with millions of people captivated by this true story of financial ruin, terminal illness, and healing through nature. Raynor Winn has since published two more books and The Salt Path has been adapted for the big screen, starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson. At its heart it is a simple tale, of a couple embarking on a 630 mile trek in the face of stark adversity. When faced with nothing, they chose to walk. Then Chloe Hadjimatheou received a tip-off that the memoir may not be the "unflinchingly honest" account it claimed to be. And it led her to ask: how far can you bend the truth before it begins to break?

Journalist Rachel Sylvester investigates the case of 'Australia's worst serial killer'. And discovers, in a story about mothers who have been accused of murdering their own children, there is one man who connects them all: a doctor called Roy Meadow. Our thanks to The Francis Crick Institute for sharing recordings and insights.

Kathleen Folbigg is just trying to survive. She's a grieving mother, sentenced to life in jail for killing her four infant children. That is, until a small group of people start to question whether she might be the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice. Our thanks to The Francis Crick Institute for sharing recordings and insights.

Scientist Carola Vinuesa and her team test their extraordinary genetic discovery in a court of law. Our thanks to The Francis Crick Institute for sharing recordings and insights.