The Last Days of August: Episode Six

April 11, 2019·32 min·3 clips

Shazia attempted suicide with Tylenol PM and vodka while Kevin was never home and sent paramedics.

Shazia begins as someone almost out of reach. The host explains how Lina followed the trail from a stolen Los Angeles STD clinic list to Chicago, then to a family clue in old footage. Real names, family details, and old industry material all end up mattering. By the time Shazia is sitting with the host in an ale house in Loyola, the episode has made the search feel as tense as the interview itself. Then Kevin comes back into the center of the story. The issue is not just what happened between them. It is who controlled work, movement, money, and everyday choices. Shazia describes the no list, saying Kevin told her which people in the industry to avoid and that she trusted him enough to go along with it. Another account frames some limits as practical, partly because her history made driving a concern. The episode does not force those accounts to match. That gap is where the story sits. One version sounds like care and logistics. Shazia's version keeps circling control, dependence, and a life getting smaller. She talks plainly about loneliness, losing confidence, lashing out, and not being blameless. The softest detail is the dog. After a terrible fight, Kevin took her to Long Beach for a Pomeranian, and she says she would go through it again for her. Then the closing detail pulls the room tight: Southern California Edison reports two short outages at Kevin's address that night, totaling only twenty-one minutes.

As heard by us

A patient reckoning with coercion, isolation, and the small facts that keep a hard story honest.

An ale house meeting in Loyola, a leaked trove of names, and a six month search give the hour its frame. The piece is at its best when it follows that retrieval of Shazia Sahari, known here as Amna, from records that were never built to protect her.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want a difficult story built from interviews and painstaking fact-checking.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Last Days of August