The Gilded Rage

Hi Gilded Rage listeners -

We heard from J’s attorney since the series launched, and there are a few things we want to clarify.

In Episode 1, we read part of an email Penny sent us in early 2024. In it, she described what she believed was a pattern of assaults by J spanning 40 years. That was Penny’s belief, not a finding of ours. J denies that. In our investigation to date, we haven’t found any first hand accounts of allegations against him after college. We’ve added a line to Episode 1 to make that cle...

Sherri's parents won't let her death go quietly. They sue J. for wrongful death, but getting answers under oath proves harder than they imagined. Lauren and Aliza go back to where J. grew up: a wealthy Rhode Island family, a summer house steps from the Dunes Club, and an elite prep school where senior yearbook quotes takes on a disturbing new meaning. Former classmates begin sharing stories they've kept to themselves for four decades.

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In October 1985, a park worker outside Boulder, Colo., spots what he thinks is a mannequin in a ditch under a bridge. It's 18-year-old CU Boulder freshman Sherri Clark, who had just celebrated her birthday and was last seen leaving a sorority party with J. Hours later, J. is arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder. His account of what happened that night keeps shifting depending on who he's talking to. But within days, the case takes a turn no one expected, and Sherri's family is left with more questions than answers.

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Five years to the day after Andrew Savitz dies outside his Brookline home, his ex-wife Penny McGee goes on trial for involuntary manslaughter. Facing up to 20 years in prison, Penny finds herself at the center of a case that explodes far beyond the courtroom. With devastating testimony from her own daughter, private text messages, and a harrowing 911 call, a complicated portrait emerges of a marriage long fractured by power struggles, resentment, love, and mutual dependence. While the trial continues, Penny’s driven to seek justice for the man she believes is a serial predator– with a dark past about to e...

Kim Smith knew Sherri from high school and from their sorority. She also knew J., and she had her own horrifying story about him. The day after Sherri was found, Kim told law enforcement what she says happened to her. She wasn't the only one who came forward. So what did investigators do with that information? Forty years later, the former Boulder County sheriff sits down with Lauren and Aliza and sees some of the evidence in his own case for the first time.

🔍 All episodes and bonus content live on Patreon now! 🔍

Penny McGee has sent some version of her letter to about 25 strangers — Christine Blasey Ford, Lady Gaga and anyone else who might listen. Lauren Malloy is the one who answers. Inside a famous Newport, R.I.mansion, Penny lays out the harrowing night she claims she was raped by “J.,” a member of the same exclusive beach club. Four decades later, J. buys a house a mile down the road from Penny and it triggers trauma she had tried to bury for decades. She walks into the Narragansett police station to report a rape that happened before some of the de...

The Gilded Rage starts with an email from Penelope “Penny” McGee, who says she was sexually assaulted as a teenager in 1981 by an entitled man who has never been held accountable. What starts as one woman’s search for justice unfolds into a sprawling investigation—through police reports, court records, and firsthand testimony—revealing a disturbing pattern of allegations surrounding the same man, missed warnings, and an investigation riddled with inconsistencies. And host Lauren Malloy and producer Aliza Rosen find something even more sinister: the same man was implicated in the mysterious 1985 death of Sherri Clark, an 18-year old freshman at...