In 1985, two bodies were found in a blue barrel in the woods of Allenstown, New Hampshire, in Bear Brook State Park.

[4] In 2015, Jason Moon began reporting on the murders after it was announced that authorities were using new forensic techniques to try to identify the bodies.

[5] Moon wrote a six and a half minute script for a news report on the murders, which later expanded into episodes one through three of the podcast at the suggestion of digital director Rebecca Lavoie.

[5] In 2017, Moon and the editorial team for New Hampshire Public Radio began turning his reporting work into the podcast.

[8] In May 2019, Moon and Quimby went on an East Coast tour, visiting Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New Jersey; Brooklyn, and Boston.

[13] Police focused on Sharon's husband Ken and his coworkers, Anthony Pfaaf and Jason Carroll.

[14] All three were charged with capital murder, but a court ruled the state's death penalty unconstitutional.

After the podcast, Carroll hired the New England Innocence Project to challenge his conviction a second time.

[8] After a break in the case, popularity increased, and by March 2020, the podcast had been downloaded more than 12 million times.