Passenger Seat

On March 13, 2012, Jennifer Hurst was walking her dog through the meadow of her front yard in rural Ohio. As dusk settled, she thought she could make out deer moving toward her in the darkness. Then a figure stepped forward: “This is a gun. Do what I say or I will kill you.” What followed was a twelve-hour kidnapping at gunpoint that led Jennifer through a gauntlet of banks, convenience stores, an...

Nathan Taylor burst onto Jennifer’s front yard at dusk cut up by thorns and wielding a pistol. How’d he end up there—and can his backstory help to make sense of this tragedy?  I travel to Grafton Correctional Institution in northern Ohio to meet Nathan, where I take the pulse on how Nathan’s life has unfolded through thirteen years of incarceration. He turns out to be remarkably candid in these in...

The twelve-hour abduction odyssey continues through the fluorescent aisles of Walmart, a bleak apartment complex—where Jennifer comes face-to-face with Nathan’s mom—and a final reckoning at Cleveland Browns Stadium. But the most baffling turn in Jennifer’s story happens in a courtroom, where she does the unthinkable: she thanks her kidnapper. In the series finale, we follow the final stops of the...