Hush

The Zuber family continues to tend to a memorial every day for their daughter, just a few hundred feet from their front door. On the other side of their home is the cemetery where Sarah is buried. For the past six years, all they’ve wanted are answers about what happened to their daughter so they live a life that doesn’t feel stuck. The parties of a true crime story - the police, the community, the media - have mostly failed to deliver those answers. We sit down with the Zubers for a final interview to lay out the facts of this case, and seek some accountability from the people who have let this family down.

When Jennifer Massey became mayor of Columbia County’s largest town, she moved from being one of the leading critics of people in power to now being a person in power. But that move was not simple. Now, Massey is the one facing the tough questions. A bombshell report on the local police leads some community members to raise questions about Massey’s intentions when she took up Sarah Zuber’s cause.

If the three parties that tell a true crime story – the police, the community and the media – are failing to find answers for what happened to Sarah Zuber, can robust journalism find out what really happened to Sarah Zuber? The Hush team takes a look at the top suspect to find out how much is fact and how much is simple speculation. OPB also uncovers a dizzying array of mistakes from the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office that may have undermined the investigation from nearly the first day.

If the third group that tells a true crime story is the media, Columbia County is lacking in this department. The local newspaper is on its last legs and closes after more than 140 years of operation. Facebook and TikTok take over as the primary news sources in the county. We discover how this new type of media is working to take on – and reinforce – a culture of secrecy after a new scandal rocks Columbia County.

Typically, true crime stories tell tales of women killed by the men in their lives. And in the early days of the Zuber investigation, close attention was paid to the two men in Sarah Zuber’s life: her father, Randy, and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Vishal Christian. The Hush team looks at the ways police focused on these two men, and the resulting damage to the Sarah Zuber investigation and the community.