The call to the sheriff's office came on Nov. 18, 2010, just before noon. The townhouse, deputies learned, had belonged to a woman named Kathryn Norris, and the 1987 silver Chevy Nova was registered to her, too. She had used a normal amount of electricity in July 2009 and much less in August and none after that. She had paid her mortgage in August and then stopped. Her head was on the floor and her feet were on the seat. The corpse, deputies wrote in their report, was wearing a dress.

Billy Joe Frazier was born on Jan. 12, 1944, in Laurel Bay, S.C., the youngest of 12 children. His father, Rubin, and his mother, Dolly, worked in the fields, and the youngster known as Billy Boy dropped out of school at 13. He dreamed of becoming a boxing champion, throwing his first punches at burlap sacks he stuffed with moss and leaves, pretending to be Joe Louis or Ezzard Charles or Archie Moore.

What undercover investigators saw inside a factory farm.

To his friends and family, Ross Ulbricht was a compassionate, warm soul known for random acts of kindness. To the F.B.I., he was Dread Pirate Roberts, the mastermind behind the Silk Road who was willing to order hits to protect his black market operation.

Fred Wilpon, the owner of the hapless New York Mets, had more than $500 million tied up with Bernie Madoff when the Ponzi scheme was exposed. Now he may be forced to sell his beloved ballclub.

They were an ordinary pair of small-time criminals in the UK. Then they figured out how to blow up an ATM.

The story of The Anarchist Cookbook and why its creator, William Powell, regrets writing the book.

In the bayou south of New Orleans, a program called the Nurse-Family Partnership tries to reverse the life chances for babies born into extreme poverty. Sometimes, it actually succeeds.

A Pynchon conference in Lublin, Poland may say more about the men (yes, only men) who attend Thomas Pynchon conferences than the works of the reclusive author.

Yes, 311 helped solve the mysterious case of the maple syrup smell. But with the data from more than 100 million calls, it’s primed to explain far more.

Twenty-seven-year-old Mike Will Made It and the rise of the super-producer.

Half a century ago, an American commando vanished in the jungles of Laos. In 2008, he reappeared in Vietnam, reportedly alive and well. But nothing was what it seemed.

Almost 90 years ago, a young anthropologist was murdered in the field. The case still speaks volumes about sexual assault and how we explain it away.

In the poorest congressional district in the country, where thousands of people are arrested each year, one former cop with a complicated past made high-profile cases fall apart by insisting that the ends justified his means.

Twenty years after the world first heard about Christopher McCandless, fans of Into the Wild continue to risk their lives to reach the bus where he died.

A young man returns home from the army and gets a surprising offer from his emotionally distant father: Join the family business and help mom & pop pull off a string of daring cross-country heists. No one expects the betrayals coming.

At a high-profile Libertarian conference, everyone agrees government should be smaller, but what should replace it is much more contested.

This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

A segregated housing development washed away in a flood can still explain why Portland, Oregon, is such a “white” city.

For most people who participate in clinical trials, being a guinea pig is just a way to make a quick buck. For others, it’s a career.

Pat Gallant-Charette is 68. She’s on a quest to beat marathon swimming’s globe-spanning challenge.

One writer travels to “La Serenissima” and finds that time is no match for Venice’s magic.

“He has hit rock bottom, and he just hasn’t accepted it yet.” Basketball’s iconoclast is a broke recluse at 37.

“It took me 32 years to come out. This is what happened when I did.”

“What people need to know is we’re not protesting churches. We’re protesting this church.”