Advertise on podcast: What Happened in Nashville

Lisette Johnson survived what almost no one does: her husband shot her, then killed himself. Murder-suicides happen every week in America, and they usually disappear after a local headline — with the perpetrator dead, there's no trial, no unfolding story. Except, Lisette lived, and what she told Melissa Jeltsen has shaped how she's covered these cases ever since. When a murder-suicide made national news this spring — Virginia's former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax killed his wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, then himself — Melissa thought of Lisette. In this first episode of What Happened to Her, Lisette shares her story. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline at thehotline.org or call them at 800.799.SAFE for free, confidential support 24 hours a day. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For four seasons, investigative reporter Melissa Jeltsen has told the stories of women whose lives — and deaths — were shaped by the failures of the systems meant to protect them. Now she's widening her lens, with new episodes every week. In What Happened to Her, Melissa takes on the stories that won't let her go. Women whose deaths were too quickly ruled suicides. Women no one believed. Cases everyone else called closed. Some weeks, a mystery unfolds across multiple episodes. In others, Melissa sits down with fellow investigative journalists and podcast hosts to go behind the scenes on the cases — and the women — they just couldn't shake. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As new chapters unfold, experts examine whether the law can truly recognize the harm caused when fertility care fails. Former CRH patients are left to reckon with the lives they’re living — and how far some have diverged from what they once imagined. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two former employees describe what they saw as the clinic unraveled. Their stories, and a look into public records, help piece together how CRH fell apart. Plus court documents reveal Dr. Vasquez’s version of events. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Months after the shutdown, patients finally hope to reclaim their embryos. But as auditors begin comparing records to what’s actually in storage, they uncover widespread inconsistencies — raising new fears about what may have happened inside the clinic. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the fallout widens, patients uncover troubling new information about who was providing their care. Their discoveries trigger a wave of questions — and draw the attention of both state regulators and criminal investigators. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Word spreads that the fertility clinic has shut down without warning. As desperate patients band together, they realize their plans to get pregnant are now on hold. What will happen with the embryos stored inside the now shuttered clinic?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sydney McDowell walks into her Nashville fertility clinic expecting a routine appointment. Instead, devastating news sends her scrambling to get her embryos out before they’re trapped inside. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What Happened in Nashville is a deeply reported investigation into the sudden collapse of a Tennessee fertility clinic, and the patients caught in the fallout. When the Center for Reproductive Health shut down without warning, people lost access to their embryos, their treatments were abruptly cut off, and many were left scrambling to recover money, medical records, and time they couldn’t afford to lose. Through intimate conversations with the patients who lived through it, host Melissa Jeltsen reveals the emotional and physical toll of the clinic’s abrupt closure. But the story reaches far beyond a single clinic. The series exposes the cracks in a fertility industry built on hope, high price tags and minimal oversight. What Happened in Nashville isn’t just the story of one tragedy — it’s a warning about a system where families have everything at stake and far too little protection. Listen here or on the iHeartRadio app. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New evidence is popping up all over town - all over Oklahoma, in fact. The police seem closer than ever to solving the case when a sudden death throws Jess - and the investigation - for a loop. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talina’s family gets involved in the search from afar. Meanwhile, the non-stop investigation starts to take a toll on Jess. And the police turn up evidence that upends the whole timeline of events. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Weeks pass with no sign of Talina. Her friends, as well as the online sleuths and the local sheriff start to uncover strange clues—a burned mattress, a missing persons poster—all casting suspicion on Talina’s roommate, Kore. As the pressure builds, Kore shares her side of the story. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jess discovers Talina Zar isn’t the missing Oklahoma woman’s real name, and the meaning of the moniker unlocks a door to a fantasy world ripped from the pages of 1970s pulp fiction — a fictional world where men reign and women serve and a real-life subculture where people try to live according to the principles in the books. Talina may have found her people in this fringe BDSM community, but was there something more sinister hiding among the kink? And did it have something to do with her disappearance? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jess and the sleuths connect with people who knew Talina Zar in real life. As the sleuths begin to formulate a picture of who Talina is, and what might have happened to her, they get the sense that not everyone is telling the truth. At the same time, local police begin their own parallel investigation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jess Trevino lived a quiet life of true crime fandom - until she stumbled upon Talina Zar’s cryptic Facebook post. Isolated because of COVID, Jess assembles an online team of amateur sleuths determined to find out where Talina went. As they get wrapped up in the lives of total strangers, the sleuths discover that the question of What Happened to Talina Zar ? has no easy answers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.