Discussion with Adrian Walker and Evan Allen
March 7, 2024
The Chuck Stuart case sat closed for 35 years. That was until Boston Globe associate editor and columnist Adrian Walker and investigative reporter Evan Allen reopened it. The pair spoke to Brandeis Journalism students and other members of the campus community during a March 7 forum, as part of Professor Neil Swidey’s Reinventing Journalism class. Walker, Allen, and a team of colleagues produced a nine-part written narrative series and ten-episode podcast. Allen was the lead writer for the narrative, and Walker narrated the podcast. Their reporting exposed where the press went wrong and how the media landscape has changed.
In 1989, Chuck Stuart and his pregnant wife, Carol DiMaiti Stuart, were driving home from a birthing class when they were shot in their car. Carol would later succumb to her wounds, as would their child. When Chuck told the police that a Black man shot them, Boston Police unleashed a torrent of racial profiling and violent raids throughout Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood. Eventually, Chuck’s younger brother Matthew, whose help Chuck had enlisted, went to the police to report that Chuck had orchestrated the hit on his wife. Walker, Allen,and their colleagues discovered that more than 30 people knew of Chuck’s involvement shortly after the shooting, but they had all stayed quiet.
Walker and Allen rigorously reported the story, knocking on doors throughout Mission Hill and working for several years on interviews with law enforcement officials. The final project, Allen said, contained only about 5 percent of the material they had amassed during their reporting. The Globe team’s work also led to a three-part HBO documentary called Murder in Boston. Allen and Walker discussed with the students the challenges of cross-organization news collaborations. Notably, the HBO filmmaker paid fees to one key source who appeared in the documentary, even though the Globe newsroom has a policy against paying sources for their participation in journalistic work. The Globe podcast was transparent about this ethical issue.
With the podcast, especially, the Globe team hoped to give the people of Mission Hill a voice. “Mission Hill was a missing piece,” Walker said, “a neglected piece that we really focused on talking about.”
--LULU OHM