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September is in the books, so today's issue collects the five most read stories from the last month. We will be back on Monday with a fresh selection!
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The Atlantic
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Jennifer Senior
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Much has been written in the 25 years since the terror attacks in New York, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, PA. This story from Jennifer Senior, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 is one I regularly come back to read, along with Tom Junod’s incredible The Falling Man. Bobby McIlvaine dies on September 11, 2001, leaving behind a desk full of his musings and diaries that would ultimately drive a wedge between his parents and his girlfriend Jen. Senior, whose brother was Bobby's roommate, spent months with the McIlvaines, who had spent two decades grieving in opposite directions. His mother, Helen, buried her sorrow, while Bob Sr. built a 9/11 conspiracy research room. Jen, kept his final diary and cut off the family for years before finally handing it over. I won’t spoil the ending because there is no way to summarize this story, but I hope you take some time to read it when you have the time.
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SFGate
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Kevin Kunze and Sam Anderson
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Vadim Kruglov, a 37-year-old Russian immigrant attending his first Burning Man, was found stabbed in the neck in a tent on the outskirts of Black Rock City on August 30, 2025, the first homicide in the event's history. The timing made it close to unsolvable. Nearly all of the 70,000 attendees were watching the effigy burn in the center of the playa, and within hours the entire temporary city packed up and drove out through the gates, killer included, taking the crime scene with it. Sam Anderson and Kevin Kunze interviewed more than 80 people to reconstruct Kruglov's nine days there. He improvised a popular art piece after a shipment fell through, had a brief romance, and also spent stretches convinced someone was after him, refusing tea he thought was poisoned and begging friends to track him with AirTags. He spent most of his last day in the event's field hospital and was killed under four hours after leaving it.
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Toronto Life
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Katherine Laidlaw
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If you watch much Dateline, this may not be a new story for you. More than 12 years ago, law professor Dan Markel was shot twice in the head in his Tallahassee driveway, two years after his wife, Wendi Adelson, left him and took their two sons. Wendi’s mother, Donna, spent those years pushing to relocate the boys to Miami, floating schemes that included paying Dan $1 million or threatening to baptize the children. When a judge blocked the move, Donna’s son Charlie arranged a hit through his girlfriend, paying $100,000 and putting her on the family business payroll. Investigators traced a rented green Prius, then phone records, then paychecks signed by Donna. Five people were convicted, ending with Donna in September 2025.
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James Arthur Ray charged 54 people nearly $10,000 each for six days at a New Age retreat outside Sedona in October 2009. He had appeared in The Secret and on Oprah, and his company was pulling in more than $9 million a year. Annette McGivney reconstructs the last afternoon of that retreat. Ray told the group beforehand that they would feel as if they were going to die, that vomiting and fainting were normal, and that nobody could leave except between rounds. He asked staff to heat 100 rocks, where other groups at the same site used about 30. Eight rounds and two hours later, Kirby Brown and James Shore were dead and 19 others went to hospitals. Liz Neuman died a week later. Deputies found Ray in his cabin eating a sandwich with his bags already packed.
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The Atlantic
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Joshua Partlow
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On the morning of July 16, Joseph Charles Henrichsen approached two Forest Service biologists surveying frogs at Gumboot Lake, California, holding an AR-15-style rifle. He zip-tied their wrists and marched them to his camping trailer, where his 23-year-old son Phoenix was staying. He drove one biologist to their truck and radioed a Forest Service dispatcher, demanding an FBI investigator be sent so they could "talk things through." More than 50 FBI agents, local SWAT teams, and a hostage-rescue team flown in from Virginia surrounded the campsite. Henrichsen negotiated with an FBI agent for roughly nine hours, telling him to come unarmed. Just after 1 a.m., both biologists walked free unharmed. Ninety minutes later, after agents set off flash-bangs, Phoenix and then Charles surrendered. Both were later charged with kidnapping federal employees, a charge carrying the possibility of life in prison, and pleaded not guilty.
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