The Trials of Frank Carson · Los Angeles Times

A disappearance | 2

May 25, 2021·40 min·3 clips

Kevin Pickett shares the chilling rumor that his missing stepson Corey Kaufman was beaten to death.

The Trials of Frank Carson presents part two of the investigation into the disappearance of Corey Kaufman in California's Central Valley. Kevin Pickett, Kaufman's stepfather, has been marking his calendar day after day with the words No Corey and has posted missing person flyers throughout the area. Pickett meets with Turlock police detective Frank Navarro to report Kaufman missing and explain why he is alarmed: Kaufman, who was addicted to methamphetamine, had never before been gone this long without contact. Navarro asks whether Kaufman used drugs, and Pickett confirms it, noting that Kaufman made his living scavenging scrap metal, including wire stripped from alongside railroad tracks. The detective's questioning covers Kaufman's history and habits, including the fact that his activities as a thief had made him enemies, more than one of whom had expressed a desire to harm him. When Pickett asks directly what the detective thinks happened, he says he believes Kaufman got into something and that somebody hurt him, possibly in connection with a break-in or some kind of theft gone wrong. Pickett describes the rumors circulating in the community: that Corey had been beaten to death. By the end of the segment, Pickett has begun to sense that detective Navarro considers him a potential suspect, a tension that becomes explicit when Pickett asks the detective directly whether he thinks Pickett did it. The episode establishes the central mystery of the case and the early investigative dynamics that will develop across the series.

As heard by us

A missing-person case opens into a theory-led investigation, with local names and dead ends crowding the frame.

Corey Kaufman's disappearance gives the story its first jolt, but the real pull comes from how that missing-person case keeps getting folded into a wider criminal theory.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a missing-person case that keeps widening into a maze of theories.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Trials of Frank Carson