When Jorge Benvenuto sat down to write a letter to the family of the boy he’d shot to death as a teenager, he had no idea the chain of events that would follow. When he penned his apology alone in a prison cell, he never imagined that it would lead to him hugging the mother of that young man. Nor did he have any inkling about the many ways the letter would reverberate through his own life - and the lives of his family members. The Letter opened a pathway for the parents of Zachary Snarr to push for his release.
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Researched and reported by Amy Donaldson
Written by Amy Donaldson and Andrea Smardon
Production and sound design by Andrea Smardon
Mixing by Trent Sell
Special thanks to Nina Earnest, Becky Bruce, KellieAnn Halvorsen, Ryan Meeks, Ben Kuebrich, Josh Tilton and Dave Cawley.
Main musical score composed by Allison Leyton Brown
With KSL Podcasts Executive Producer Sheryl Worsley
For Lemonada Media, Executive Producers Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs
And Executive Producers Paul Anderson and Nick Panella with WorkHouse Media.
The Letter is produced by KSL Podcasts and Lemonada Media in association with WorkHouse Media.
On a winter morning in 1982, two young fathers were found shot to death in a van parked outside an upscale Utah restaurant. The killer soon confessed, but his story about what happened - and why he chose violence - would create more pain, conflict, and questions for the families left in the wake of the murders.
As the families of the men struggle to rebuild their lives, they face questions they never anticipated. Does everyone deserve a second chance? Who is forgiveness for? And if you can inherit trauma, can you also inherit forgiveness? Through their stories, we discover even the most personal decisions can unintentionally ripple through lives, through generations, even impacting the lives of people we’ve never met.
Produced by KSL Podcasts.