After Reading Catch the Devil

Pamela Colloff’s reported narrative is disturbing not only because one practiced liar caused immense harm, but because institutions repeatedly found his stories useful. This companion does not replace the original book or reproduce it. It offers a thematic conversation about credibility, incentives, wrongful conviction, capital punishment, journalism, and moral attention. The central question is larger than one villain: what happens when a system rewards a convenient story more than a difficult truth?