What Happened to Talina Zar

It’s April 2020 and the world is locked down. In Oklahoma, a woman named Talina Zar posts a chilling message on Facebook: she’s sick with COVID and heading to a remote lake, alone — to recover, or to die. Then, she vanishes. As days turn into weeks, strangers online — true crime obsessives with time to kill and nowhere to go — begin digging into her disappearance. What they uncover is something far stranger, and far more disturbing, than they could’ve ever imagined.. In Season Three of What Happened To…, investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsen unravels a mystery born from isolation, obsession, and a pandemic that made everyone feel like a potential suspect.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jess Trevino lived a quiet life of true crime fandom - until she stumbled upon Talina Zar’s cryptic Facebook post. Isolated because of COVID, Jess assembles an online team of amateur sleuths determined to find out where Talina went. As they get wrapped up in the lives of total strangers, the sleuths discover that the question of What Happened to Talina Zar ? has no easy answers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jess and the sleuths connect with people who knew Talina Zar in real life. As the sleuths begin to formulate a picture of who Talina is, and what might have happened to her, they get the sense that not everyone is telling the truth. At the same time, local police begin their own parallel investigation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jess discovers Talina Zar isn’t the missing Oklahoma woman’s real name, and the meaning of the moniker unlocks a door to a fantasy world ripped from the pages of 1970s pulp fiction — a fictional world where men reign and women serve and a real-life subculture where people try to live according to the principles in the books. Talina may have found her people in this fringe BDSM community, but was there something more sinister hiding among the kink? And did it have something to do with her disappearance?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Weeks pass with no sign of Talina. Her friends, as well as the online sleuths and the local sheriff start to uncover strange clues—a burned mattress, a missing persons poster—all casting suspicion on Talina’s roommate, Kore. As the pressure builds, Kore shares her side of the story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talina’s family gets involved in the search from afar. Meanwhile, the non-stop investigation starts to take a toll on Jess. And the police turn up evidence that upends the whole timeline of events.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New evidence is popping up all over town - all over Oklahoma, in fact. The police seem closer than ever to solving the case when a sudden death throws Jess - and the investigation - for a loop.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Uncovering an incident in Wisconsin from 2014 sends Jess chasing a new set of questions. But as COVID stretches into the fall of 2020, the official investigation slows to a standstill…until a momentous discovery.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our season finale, five years have passed since Talina disappeared, but Jess continues to obsess over the details. Meanwhile, Talina’s family searches to define closure as a murder trial remains elusive.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melissa heads to Wisconsin to cover the ricin trial. Jess is there too, determined to come face to face with Kore. We hear powerful firsthand accounts from the victims and key investigators from Oklahoma.  In a stunning moment, Kore's ex-husband takes the stand and reveals a shocking confession.  As the jury prepares to deliver its verdict, the stakes couldn’t be higher. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.