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The narrative opens with technical metaphor about restoring an antique clock, then shifts to John B. McLemore contacting the radio show after reporting two alarming events: a sexual-abuse allegation tied to a county officer and the murder of Dylan Nichols, allegedly covered up by a prominent family. 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McLemore say happened in Shittown?","Question",{"text":108,"@type":109},"He reports a sexual-abuse allegation involving a county police officer and the murder of Dylan Nichols, with claims that it was covered up by a prominent family.","Answer",{"name":111,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":112},"Why does the transcript mention fixing an antique clock?",{"text":113,"@type":109},"It uses clock restoration to explain how investigators rely on incomplete evidence and subtle “witness marks” when records and diagrams are missing.",{"name":115,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does Brian Reed connect John’s message to the investigation?",{"text":117,"@type":109},"Reed discusses receiving John’s email with details and a link to a news report, which supports the possibility of broader corruption and motivates further conversation.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":78,"og:type":120,"og:title":59,"og:site_name":91,"og:description":61},"article",{"robots":122,"canonical":78},"index,follow",{"doc_id":124,"site_id":56},163828,1788147779,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":127},{"doc_id":124,"user_id":128,"nickname":88,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":9,"category_id":50,"category_name":51,"doc_title":59,"doc_description":61,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":73,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":9,"is_downloadable":9,"audit_status":9,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":57,"site_id":56,"html_lang":57,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":61,"update_tm":125,"read_time":140},1099514068365,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/10000253d8d9f28188e?_k=1776742907772140068","Chapter I Transcript\nSARAH KOENIG:\nChapter I.\nBRIAN REED:\nWhen an antique clock breaks, a clock that's been telling time for 200 or 300 years, fixing it can be a real puzzle. An old clock like that was handmade by someone. It might tick away the time with a pendulum, with a spring, with a pulley system. It might have bells that are supposed to strike the hour, or a bird that's meant to pop out and cuckoo at you. There can be hundreds of tiny, individual pieces, each of which needs to interact with the others precisely.\nTo make the job even trickier, you often can't tell what's been done to a clock over hundreds of years. Maybe there's damage that was never fixed, or fixed badly. Sometimes, entire portions of the original clockwork are missing, but you can't know for sure because there are rarely diagrams of what the clock's supposed to look like. A clock that old doesn't come with a manual.\nSo instead, the few people left in the world who know how to do this kind of thing rely on what are often called witness marks to guide their way. A witness mark could be a small dent, a hole that once held a screw. These are actual impressions, and outlines, and discolorations left inside the clock of pieces that might have once been there. They're clues to what was in the clockmaker's mind when he first created the thing.\nI'm told fixing an old clock can be maddening. You're constantly wondering if you've just spent hours going down a path that will likely take you nowhere, and all you've got are these vague witness marks, which might not even mean what you think they mean. So at every moment along the way, you have to decide if you're wasting your time or not.\nAnyway, I only learned about all this because years ago an antique clock restorer contacted me, John B. McLemore, and asked me to help him solve a murder.\nJOHN B. McLEMORE:\nSomething's happened. Something has absolutely happened in this town. There's just too much little crap for something not to have happened. And I'm about had enough of Shittown and the things that goes on.\nBRIAN REED:\nFrom Serial and This American Life, I'm Brian Reed. This is Shittown. \"John B McLemore lives in Shittown, Alabama.\" That's the subject line that catches my eye one day in late 2012, while I'm reading through emails that have come into our radio show, This American Life. The email's from John B McLemore. \"Shittown\" is capitalized. \"I am an old time listener who just recently rediscovered your show,\" John writes. \"I live in a crummy little shittown in Alabama, called Woodstock. I would like to tell your producers of two events that have happened here recently. I would hope you have the facilities to investigate.\"\nOne of the events, John writes, involves a local police officer with the County Sheriff's Department. John's heard that a woman has been saying this officer sexually abused her. The guy's still on the force. So that's one. The other event is a murder of a guy in his early 20s named Dylan Nichols. The murderer, John says, is a son of a prominent local family. His name is Kabrahm Burt. The Burts are millionaires. They own lots of land in the area, as well as a large timber operation, with lumber yards and saw mills all over, one of which is right near John's. It's called K3 Lumber.\nJohn says it seems the Burt Family has effectively made this event disappear, except that Kabrahm is now going around town bragging about it, quote, \"Bragging about how it only took 30 seconds of kicking this boy, Dylan Nichols, in the head for him to become a paraplegic, and only a few more days for him to die.\" \"We really need people like you to come down to this pathetic little Baptist shittown and blow it off the map,\" John writes. \"I would like to talk to you by phone if possible. This is just too much to type.\"\n[DIALING]\nJOHN B. McLEMORE:\nHello. Hello?\nBRIAN REED:\nJohn?\nJOHN B. McLEMORE:\nHello?\nBRIAN REED:\nHi, it's Brian.\nJOHN B. McLEMORE:\nHey.\nBRIAN REED:\nHere we are. This is happening.\nJOHN B. McLEMORE:\nThat","cbCaidmYvJgKg8FX","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidmYvJgKg8FX","docx",238868,116,"English","# Chapter I Transcript\n## Antique clock restoration as metaphor\n## John’s email: abuse allegation and murder\n## First phone call and context in Shittown","[{\"question\":\"What events does John B. McLemore say happened in Shittown?\",\"answer\":\"He reports a sexual-abuse allegation involving a county police officer and the murder of Dylan Nichols, with claims that it was covered up by a prominent family.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the transcript mention fixing an antique clock?\",\"answer\":\"It uses clock restoration to explain how investigators rely on incomplete evidence and subtle “witness marks” when records and diagrams are missing.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Brian Reed connect John’s message to the investigation?\",\"answer\":\"Reed discusses receiving John’s email with details and a link to a news report, which supports the possibility of broader corruption and motivates further conversation.\"}]","Chapter I Transcript - Shittown | DOCX",41]