Michael Epstein on the Marine Who Told His Lawyers He Forgot

Michael Epstein on the Marine Who Told His Lawyers He Forgot

Michael Epstein has spent twenty years inside one case. It started with a film about a Marine Reserve unit out of Columbus, Ohio that also served in Haditha, Iraq. What he found took him from Frank Wuterich, the staff sergeant charged with 18 counts of murder who told his lawyers for years he couldn’t remember what happened, into a government cover-up: an innocent Marine charged as the fall guy, immunity given to Marines investigators believed were guilty, eyewitness testimony withheld from the government’s own team.

Epstein couldn’t find a distributor when he first brought the film to Tribeca. He didn’t stop. Fault Line: Haditha is the result, a 13-episode investigative podcast with a companion documentary film for every episode, now airing on iHeartPodcasts. Last year, working with the BBC, Epstein brought two decades of forensic evidence and testimony back to Safa, the sole surviving witness of House 2, and gave her the truth the U.S. government had withheld from her for decades.

On this Beyond the Mic Short Cut, Michael Epstein talks with Sean Dillon about the day he first walked into House 2 with a camera, teaching screenwriting at SVA while carrying this story for two decades, his mentor Bill Moyers, his daughter’s own reporting career, and the promise he made himself the day this all started.

Fault Line: Haditha is out now wherever you find podcasts, with companion films on YouTube.

Beyond the Mic with Sean Dillon is the conversation series where actors, artists, authors, and more go deeper than a traditional interview. They go “Beyond the Mic”.