Missing the Message

What if you were sent a message, but you never received it? Or, put another way—what if the most important message of your life was sent to you, but it never reached you? It’s hard for us in the digital age of email and text message to imagine a message not being received. With our smartphones, we can even see if a person received our messages. But about 80 years ago, it was a different world, communication-wise.

In 1949, a man named John Currier was convicted of murder, even though he maintained his innocence. He was…