Canary: The Washington Post Investigates · The Washington Post

Chapter 2: "A secret that she couldn't tell"

October 1, 2020·29 min·2 clips

A canary in a coal mine is fragile and dies first -- and that's what this podcast's title means.

A warning opens the chapter. Amy Britton follows a tip from Carol Griffin about Judge Truman Morrison and starts tracing a long-buried allegation of sexual assault. Carol’s account moves backward through family ties, an old recommendation letter, and a shared vacation in Virginia that makes it clear how closely the Griffins and the Morrisons knew one another. By the end, the story has grown from a single email into something wider: fear, silence, and the moment another woman’s accusation gives Carol the push to speak. The episode stays close to the reporting process. It begins with a cautious phone call and keeps circling back to what was said, what was remembered, and what could actually be checked. What follows is a careful reconstruction of Carol Griffin’s relationship with Truman Morrison. Amy Britton shows how an ordinary tip after publication turned into a much more serious lead. Carol reaches out after the earlier story about Lauren Clark, the D.C. hairstylist who said she was sexually assaulted and then handed out flyers naming her attacker. Amy looks into the email and finds a possible connection that does not make sense at first, because Carol seems to be an Alabama bakery owner with no obvious link to the Washington case. She calls Carol the next day. Carol sounds anxious, unsettled, uneasy. Amy tells her they do not have to talk if she does not want to, and that restraint shapes what comes next. Carol says Judge Truman Morrison sexually assaulted her when she was a teenage girl. She also says that assault was only the start of his inappropriate sexual behavior. The story then steps back to show how the families knew each other. Truman had written Carol a high school recommendation letter, and that letter becomes part of the record Amy is trying to sort through. That background matters because it explains how Carol and Truman moved in the same social world long before the allegation came forward. About a year after that letter, the two families planned a shared vacation in Virginia. Carol was 16, and Truman was 32. He was a lawyer in the D.C. Public Defender’s Office, and he was traveling with his wife. The families met at a farmhouse near Marion, about halfway between Birmingham and Washington, D.C. The house belonged to the Morrison family. Carol remembers the house as beautiful and the drive as difficult. The family spent time swimming at a local lake. She says Truman spent a lot of time with her there. He taught her a breaststroke, and other family members noticed how much time she was spending with the adults. Carol also remembers a remark from her mother that stayed with her for years. The chapter holds onto that memory while staying careful about what can be established from the reporting. Amy keeps returning to the people, places, and records that make the timeline clear. The result is a chapter about how private harm can hide inside ordinary family closeness. It also shows how one woman’s decision to speak can make another realize she was not alone. Carol had been frozen for decades. Lauren Clark’s earlier accusation becomes the alarm that helps Carol begin telling her own story. The chapter ends with that shift from silence to speech. It is not neat, but it matters.

As heard by us

A careful chapter that turns one tip into a deeper, more troubling pattern.

The chapter takes a single follow-up email and opens it into a steady account of how Carol Griffin's allegation sends Amy Britton back through years of connection, family history, and the uneasy silence around Judge Truman Morrison.

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Why you'd press play

You want the moment one email opens a much older story.

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