Kathryn Miles is the author of “Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders.” The book, published by Algonquin, officially goes on sale on May 3. 

“Trailed” is about the 1996 murders of Lolly Winans and Julie Williams. The two young women had entered Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park to go on a week-long backcountry camping trip. When they didn’t return, park rangers began searching and found a scene of horror at the women’s campsite. 

The murders were never solved. Then, in 2016, on the 20th anniversary of the case, the FBI announced they wanted to reinvestigate. That’s when Miles thought she had a magazine story on her hands. 

“As soon as I started working with the FBI on this case, as soon as I was able to access some of the case files from the court case, it was very obvious to me that this case was much more complicated,” Miles said. “That’s when I realized that we weren’t talking about a 5,000-word piece here. We were talking about a 100,000-word piece.”

This is the second time Miles has been on the podcast. She was a guest on Episode 46 in September 2016, discussing her Boston Globe story about a woman got lost and died while hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Miles is the author of five books, including “Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake” and “Super Storm: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy.”

Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Outside, the Boston Globe, Politico, and more. She’s been anthologized by “Best American Essays” and “Best American Sports Writing.”

Episode 106: Kathryn Miles

Ben Montgomery is the author of “The Man Who Walked Backward: An American Dreamer’s Search For Meaning in the Great Depression.” The book was published by Little, Brown Spark in September, and tells the story of a man named Plennie Wingo, who in 1931, attempted to walk around the world, backward.

This is the third time Montgomery has been on the podcast. He was the guest on Episode 21, when he talked about his first book, “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail.” That book went on to become a New York Times Bestseller.

He was also one of five guests on Episode 45, which was focused on the work of the late Michael Brick, which was contained in the book, “Everyone Leaves Behind a Name.” The other guests on that show were Wright Thompson, Michael Kruse, Tony Rehagen, and Thomas Lake. 

Montgomery created the website gangrey.com, which was the namesake for this podcast. For years, he was one of the top enterprise reporters at the Tampa Bay Times, where he wrote about everything from the last spectacle lynching in Florida to why cops shoot at suspects. 

He left the Tampa Bay Times in October 2017 to focus on writing “The Man Who Walked Backward.” Now, he finds himself teaching student journalists at the University of Montana as the T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Visiting Professor. 

Montgomery’s latest book is his third. His second book was titled The Leper Spy: The Story of an Unlikely Hero of World War II. 


He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting in 2010 for his series of stories on the decades of abuse at a Florida reform school for boys. He won the Dart Award and Casey Medal for the same series.

Episode 67: Ben Montgomery

Gangrey: The Podcast focuses on narrative journalism and the reporters who write it.

Episode 106: Kathryn Miles

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