The Hidden Third

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Amanda Knox was 20 years old when she went to Italy for a study abroad year. Weeks later, her roommate Meredith Kercher was murdered — and Amanda became the story. She was wrongfully convicted, sentenced to 26 years, and imprisoned for four years while the global media treated her guilt as a foregone conclusion. After one of the most high-profile exonerations in modern legal history, Amanda Knox is now a New York Times bestselling author, journalist, criminal justice reform advocate, and host of the wrongful conviction podcast Hard Knox. In this episode of The Hidden Third, Mariana van Zeller gets the real story — false confessions, media trials, the psychology of innocence, and what it actually takes to reclaim your life when the whole world got it wrong.
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James Luckey-Lange had one country left to visit in the continental Americas: Venezuela. He'd survived Haiti, Nicaragua, a husky he buried in Patagonia, and the loss of both his parents — including his mother, the late Q Lazzarus, the singer behind "Goodbye Horses" from The Silence of the Lambs. He crossed into Venezuela on the back of a motorcycle taxi from Brazil on December 7th. He was detained the next day. What followed was more than a month of beatings, starvation, a sham trial, and solitary confinement in Rodeo I — one of the most notorious prisons in the world — where he scraped the alphabet onto a wall to teach his cellmate to read, and carved the names of fellow prisoners into a bar of soap he smuggled out in his underwear. His release came only after the U.S. military captured Maduro — news he learned six days late, through prison whispers and an unexpected serving of chocolate cake. In this episode of The Hidden Third, Mariana van Zeller sits down with James to hear the full story — and find out what he's doing with that soap.
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Shaka Senghor went to prison for murder at 19 and spent seven of his 19 years in solitary confinement. But his imprisonment started long before that. Today, Mariana sits down with Shaka and has an intimate conversation about life’s hidden prisons, the moment in solitary confinement that changed his life, and the work he is passionate about now - speaking to young kids who grew up like him. Oprah Winfrey called her conversation with him one of the best conversations of her life. I understand why. Judge for yourself.
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Jan Broberg was kidnapped at 12 by a family friend who convinced her it was an alien mission. Then kidnapped again at 14. Her story — the basis for Netflix's Abducted in Plain Sight — is one of the most shocking grooming cases ever documented. Today she tells it in her own words, and breaks down the predator tactics that are still happening — from family friends to online platforms like Roblox.
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This week on The Hidden Third, Mariana sits down with Coss Marte — a former drug dealer who, at 17, was running what he claims was New York City's first 24/7 drug delivery business, pulling in over $2 million. A betrayal within his own team brought it all crashing down, and he was suddenly facing up to 25 years in prison. Behind bars, a doctor told him he wouldn't survive to 30. What happened next changed everything. Coss lost 70 pounds, built a workout program with fellow inmates, and wrote the business plan for ConBody — a gym empire built on second chances. Then came the ultimate full-circle moment: he's back to selling drugs — this time legally. His cannabis dispensary ConBud now operates multiple locations across NYC, including one on the very corner of the Lower East Side where he once dealt illegally. From drug kingpin to CEO, this is one of the most remarkable reinvention stories you'll ever hear.
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