Josh Baker, the journalist behind the BBC podcast I'm Not a Monster, is releasing a third series investigating the disappearance of American journalist Austin Tice, who vanished in Syria in 2012 and may now be the second-longest detained journalist in the world. Baker explains that what began as a missing-person inquiry evolved into a sprawling story of espionage and Syrian state repression, gaining new urgency now that the Assad regime has fallen and its detention facilities have become accessible. The investigation matters both as a potential breakthrough in a long-unsolved case and as a window into the wider machinery of disappearance and torture under Assad's rule.

Baker, now 37, traces the podcast series back to a 2015 car-bomb attack in Mosul that broke his back while he was directing a documentary embedded with Iraqi forces; a contact who learned of his injury later showed him footage of an American boy being forced to build a suicide bomb, sparking the search that became the show's first series. A related lead, from a Dutch former Islamic State member he met via social media, led to the second series on Shamima Begum. Baker says the Tice investigation has drawn an unprecedented volume of leaks "from every direction," reflecting how thoroughly the story intersects with intelligence agencies and the aftermath of Syria's 14-year civil war.