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SERIES 10 - DIAGNOSIS OF A CRIME SEASON 2: THE TRIAL: In the highly anticipated return of Melanie Reid’s latest podcast investigation, Diagnosis of a Crime, listeners are given unprecedented access inside the high stakes criminal trial of a professional athlete, examining whether young parents accused in complex medical cases are receiving fair access to justice. Find out what happens when medical evidence from New Zealand docto
On the eve of trial, we are with the pro athlete and his wife at their home, where emotions are running high as neighbours and supporters gather around the family. Everything is on the line, because what’s about to unfold in the courtroom could chang
What if the evidence used to convict parents isn’t as solid as it seems? In this pre-season bonus episode, Melanie Reid speaks to a scientist and adjunct law professor who exposes cracks in the medical evidence used in court - and asks whether bad sc
In this season finale, a second family’s case erupts with a revelation that will leave listeners questioning everything. And when Melanie and Bonnie demand answers from Health NZ, the former head of Starship Hospital’s child protection unit responds
With the pro athlete’s court date looming and three international experts now set to testify, the couple hopes the prosecution will drop the charges. Melanie also speaks with the mother of the young dad still in prison, following the revelation there
After going back over the investigation files, the pro athlete’s wife becomes convinced the criminal case against her husband is substandard and irresponsible. And as the trial approaches, we finally receive the news we’d long been hoping for.
Will the breakthrough international expert reports in the pro athlete case throw everything into question? And why is a plea deal suddenly on the table?
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The focus shifts back to the South Island pro athlete’s case as his trial draws closer. With no local doctors prepared to go to court, Melanie and Bonnie seek out international experts - and what they find could change everything.
As the Delve team digs deeper into the North Island case of a young father in prison, a bigger question emerges: is the medical certainty behind the diagnosis of non-accidental injury more belief than science?
A young father is serving six years in prison, but his case takes an extraordinary turn when Melanie Reid’s investigation finds there is no evidence of rib fractures to his baby. How can someone be convicted on injuries that don’t exist? And what hap
A family in shock, a father behind bars and a controversial medical diagnosis at the centre of it all. The Delve team begins its investigation into whether key evidence used to convict a young dad even exists.
It’s been described as career-ending for New Zealand doctors to go up against the Starship Children’s Hospital experts, so the Delve team takes this investigation international.
As mentioned in the episode, here is a link to the 2017 Swedish SBU re
How do you go from a successful pro athlete to the prime suspect in a criminal case? In this episode we depart from the norm, taking listeners right inside the central police station to hear the moment by moment interview between the detective and th
A well-known professional athlete is devastated when doctors accuse him - and police charge him - with the unthinkable. As the family’s ordeal unfolds, with phone taps, 24/7 supervision and an impending trial, serious questions begin to surface about
A rural South Island family’s life is turned upside down when one of their newborn twins’ medical emergency spirals into a diagnosis they have never heard of. Armed police turn up to their home and a two-year legal battle ensues that costs them more
In a season finale that pulls no punches, Coroner Ho delivers his final conclusions. With serious questions about supervision, the post mortem, the police investigations and the rush to label Lachie’s death an accident, the spotlight now turns to wha
What does the Coroner say about those Facebook messages? And did police uncover all the cellphone location data? Coroner Ho examines the circumstantial evidence surrounding the key question: how did Lachie end up in the pond?
Accident or foul play? A flawed post mortem leaves Lachie’s cause of death uncertain, as the coroner weighs drowning, head trauma or both, and investigates how Lachie’s body ended up with the wrong pathologist.
How did a 3-year-old make it 1.2km across rough terrain, over a gate, at night in a full nappy, without leaving a scent trail? The Coroner assesses whether Lachie could have reached the ponds on his own.
When was Lachie last seen alive? Coroner Ho retraces the timeline, starting with the kitchen door the three-year-old reportedly escaped through, his purported time at neighbour Debbie’s house, and Lachie’s mother, Michelle Officer’s, 111 call.
The courier depot, the pineapple sprinkler and the pizza order form part of a tangled timeline, as conflicting accounts come under scrutiny while the Coroner considers whether Lachie’s death happened earlier in the day.
Six people say they saw a child running down Salford Street the night Lachie died - but do all their stories line up? We dig into the Coroner’s take on the reliability of these sightings.
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The Coroner goes over Lachie’s final hours, from his mother’s account and her 111 call, to what happened on Salford Street, the police search and the moment his body was found near the ponds.
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Melanie Reid heads to Gore to catch up with Paul Jones and Karen McGuire, just weeks before the Coroner delivers his long-awaited findings into the death of Lachie Jones. We will be covering those findings in depth for season 4 of The Boy in the Wate
After years of fighting, could there be good news at last, or has the system already decided the fate of the family at the centre of Fractured? In the explosive season finale, the DELVE team makes one last push to turn this case around.
Zita’s future comes down to this very moment. It’s her final shot - the immigration appeal outcome. After everything they’ve fought for, it all hangs on this one decision.
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Our podcast investigation into Zita’s case intensifies as top criminal defense lawyer Kerry Cook joins the fight, cutting straight to the flaws at the heart of the case - does this mean there’s a glimmer of hope for Zita?
The last time Zita celebrated her daughter’s birthday was when she turned one. Since getting out of prison, Zita has made endless requests to be at her daughter’s sixth birthday party. Surely she will be allowed to go?
Was the baby at the centre of this investigation put into a foster home and her mother sent to prison based on a flawed diagnosis? After reviewing all the medical files, a Norwegian brain surgeon speaks out.
As the level of frustration with the bureaucracy reaches new heights host Melanie Reid’s patience is tested.And what chance does Zita have of getting to see her now 5 year old daughter in person?
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In a gripping conversation with Canadian neuropathologist Dr Roland Auer, we unravel the unsettling truth behind one of medicine’s most controversial diagnoses. Why are so few experts speaking out? What if the science we've trusted is being misread,
Melanie and Bonnie head to see Zita and Ravi - and are surprised Zita still has an ankle bracelet eight months after her release from prison. Zita, who hasn’t seen her daughter in person for more than three years, opens up about the relentless challe
An esteemed US obstetrician specialist upends Starship Hospital’s diagnosis of non-accidental injury when he analyses Baby K’s heart monitor tracings. He says the main injuries sustained by Baby K happened during labour and delivery - not parental ab
Could New Zealand’s leading children’s hospital have wrongly diagnosed Baby K’s skull fracture? In this eye-opening episode, a world-renowned biochemist and geneticist analyses the high-resolution CT scans, and his findings turn the whole case upside
Step into the gripping world of Fractured, the monumental investigative podcast from award-winning investigative journalist Melanie Reid, as it returns for its second season. The truth is rarely simple. And in season two the shocking revelations will
We’ll be launching season 2 of Fractured soon, but before we do, we are going to play you some extracts from a US documentary called The Syndrome. It’s a film that challenges the scientific validity of Shaken Baby syndrome and highlights the impact o
As we prepare for season two of Fractured, we are publishing this special bonus episode. In 2019, Melanie Reid and the Newsroom team released a groundbreaking video investigation that exposed the practice of newborns being taken directly from hospita
In this special bonus episode, we talk to Peter Ellis’ sister, Tania, about what has happened since the Supreme Court quashed her brother’s convictions. Has his family received an apology from the government for the miscarriage of justice? And what a
A book blows the case wide open and reveals the power and politics behind the case.
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Panic spreads through the families - a frenzy being led by therapists and police.
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Police are convinced Ellis is not acting alone, and the fear and paranoia go through the roof.
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We’ve interviewed dozens of people about their experiences with ‘Chris the Kiwi’ Ashenden, his billion-dollar company, and his market-leading AG1. They have questions stemming from his history of criminal dishonesty, from the job losses as he quietly
We’ve come 12,000 kilometres from Auckland to Medellín, on the trail of Chris Ashenden, the chief executive of AG1. We don’t have his number or his address, but we think he lives here.
Today’s Medellín is a vibrant city that’s attracting new inve
The US Food and Drug Administration reveals it’s received 118 adverse event complaints from AG1 users – this year alone. In particular, there are 30-plus reports of liver harm in 2023 and 2024.
The billion dollar company dismisses the liver harm
We talk to people like Andy and Lisa who’ve used AG1 – and they’re not happy. They want to know what’s in the green powder supplement, in what quantities – and whether there’s any scientific evidence it has any health benefits.
For years, AG1 has boasted of being ‘Made in New Zealand’. But where is its mystery factory? We track down a little-known contract manufacturing company in the sunny city of Nelson – and discover a much darker story.
Joe Rogan is one of the world’s wealthiest influencers – and we’re told AG1 is one of his best clients, paying him about $10 million a year to promote its popular green powder. Scientist Dr Andrew Huberman gets about $2 million. Gwyneth Paltrow, Form
A leaked recording reveals the Kiwi founder of billion-dollar supplements firm AG1 misrepresented his criminal history in public statements and in a meeting with the company’s president and staff, just this year. Chris Ashenden’s high-powered America
Travelling to New Zealand’s southernmost city, with a chill wind that feels like it’s blowing off Antarctica, we discover it was a woman named Dee Chisholm who first blew the whistle on Chris the Kiwi’s criminal property schemes.
We track down families who lost their homes in 'Chris the Kiwi’ Ashenden’s property dealings. And what happens next is what Powder Keg, the podcast, is all about – Ashenden, his unorthodox billion-dollar business and his magical mystery powder.
When investigative journalist Jonathan Milne started slugging back an expensive, vivid green AG1 shake every morning to get in shape for his 50th birthday, he knew what the company’s chief science officer said – that the green powder product would ma
Chris Ashenden and Jonathan Milne are both Kiwi blokes in their late 40s. Chris has an unrelenting personal ambition – it’s served him well. The business leader’s quest wasn’t for the Holy Grail, it was for a holy green drink.
Our final episode in this season coincides with world headlines about a man facing execution for the same diagnosis that imprisoned Zita. Shaken baby syndrome is being called “junk science” in the US, but it has upended the life Zita had hoped for in
Things really start to wind up when Melanie and Bonnie have a major breakthrough and track down a UK paediatric pathologist who was at forefront of overturning murder charges in a high profile London case. She throws a whole new light on our case and
Zita continues to maintain her innocence as the courtroom drama concludes with the judge delivering a sentence Zita is totally unprepared for. In jail, she is put in an isolation wing after inmates call her a baby killer.
Did some of Baby K’s fractures occur while on 24 hour watch in the hospital? What about the traumatic birth? “Doctors sometimes can and do get it wrong”…all this and more in the final address of Zita’s lawyer.
The NZ police investigation ramps up and, with their child taken, the couple have their house bugged, their phones tapped and just as they think it can’t get any worse…it does.
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Melanie and Bonnie meet the young couple at the centre of this case and they begin to unravel the complex cascade of events that led to a young mother being accused, convicted and jailed for two and a half years - and the daunting fight that lies ahe
What happens when the dream country, New Zealand, becomes a living hell? The Boy in the Water creator, multi-award-winning journalist Melanie Reid, is in the middle of another story when she receives an email that causes her to drop everything and ge
On the final day of the coronial inquest into the death of three-year-old Lachie Jones, his mother has a statement read out in court, Lachie’s father addresses the Coroner and throws more shade on the police investigations - and the lawyers play thei
Jonathan appears via videolink from his new home in Australia to respond to allegations he threw his little brother Lachie in the pond, and the young man at the centre of the Facebook messages gets riled up during cross examination.
Things get heated in court when the young woman at the centre of the messages that allege Lachie’s brother threw him in the pond testifies at the inquest - and she fires back at attempts to question her motive and undermine her evidence.
A doctor from Starship Children’s Hospital is questioned on all the big mysteries in the case including that Lachie was found face up, had no water in his lungs and had no external injuries.
You can see an image of a cross section of the pond on our
As the line-up of experts continues, we go on a crash course on the inner workings of the Gore sewerage ponds, and we hear yet another opinion on whether Lachie could have made it all the way out there by himself.
In today’s episode, The Depot, three months after giving evidence in the first phase of the inquest, Michelle Officer presents a new sworn statement that changes her account of her movements at the depot that afternoon, but a contractor who works fro
Robin Bates, lawyer for the police, goes into full Crown prosecutor mode, as he tries to dent the findings, methodology and conclusion in former forensic detective Karen Smith’s report.
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In today’s episode, Staged As An Accident, Karen Smith details timelines, distances, witness statements and the 111 call, and explains how she reached her conclusion that Lachie’s death was staged to look like an accident.
Karen Smith lays out the system failures, biases and exactly what went wrong with the investigation into Lachie’s death - and questions why the NZ police are so obstinate in this case.
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A forensic pathologist and a retired forensic detective, both Americans, give evidence in the Invercargill courtroom and fiercely defend their views – one emphatic Lachie drowned, the other who says his death was staged.
Dr Martin Sage, the man who says he could have and should have done the forensic autopsy on Lachie, takes the stand. He gives a rare window into the reality of forensic autopsies and we find out what he believes may or may not have happened to Lachie
Melanie Reid and her team make their way south for the second phase of the inquest, and on the first day a police dog expert is asked that if Lachie walked out to the ponds, why did the police dog not pick up his scent until 30 metres out?
US-based Andrea Zaferes, who has investigated thousands of ‘body found in water’ cases, tells Melanie Reid what stacks up and what doesn’t when investigating suspected drownings.
You can also watch a short video of Andrea explaining the positions b
On the last day of phase one of the inquest, Detective Inspector Stu Harvey is cross examined about witness statements that weren’t taken, the reliability of eyewitness identifications, and any lessons he gleaned from the reinvestigation. Coroner Ho
The final witness to appear for this first phase of the inquest is the man who was in charge of the reinvestigation into Lachie’s death, Detective Inspector Stu Harvey.
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The pathologist who conducted the post mortem on Lachie tells the inquest they didn’t even have the right equipment to do pediatric autopsies in Southland.
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A former police officer who worked under Senior Sergeant Cynthia Fairley refutes her assertion that he was in charge of the investigation into Lachie’s death.
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The first of the police officers scheduled to appear at the inquest takes to the witness stand, and we begin to hear about the confusion over who was in charge of the investigation into Lachie's death.
The sighting of a mysterious shirtless man, what one of Lachie's preschool teachers remembers about him, and the two paramedics who worked on the little boy's lifeless body all feature in this collection of shorter witness testimonies.
You could have heard a pin drop in courtroom four when a new witness was asked why he thought something he saw could relate to the death of Lachie Jones.
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Kimberley Rogers, who says she was friends with Michelle Officer for 17 years, tells the inquest Michelle kept changing her story about Lachie running away.
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Lachie's other brother tells the inquest about his family relationships, and his movements on January 29, 2019. You can also click here to see photos of the gate and fence to the sewage oxidation ponds on our Instagram.
Emotional scenes play out in the Invercargill courthouse on day one of the coronial inquest, when Lachie’s mother is cross examined by Paul Jones’ lawyer.
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From Melanie Reid Investigates comes the brand new season of The Boy in the Water. Listen as we follow the coronial inquest into the death of three-and-a-half year old Lachlan Jones, whose lifeless body was found face up in a sewage oxidation pond in