#36: The 1980s Burger King Shooting of Marie Grossman
In 1987, Marie Grossman was the embodiment of the American dream: a trailblazing attorney, a devoted mother, and a woman who had meticulously built a life of stability and purpose. But on a foggy December evening, a routine stop for fast food on her way to her son's wrestling match placed her directly in the path of two men with a loaded revolver and a terrifying history of "asset card" abductions.
This episode explores the intersection of two vastly different lives—a high-achieving professional and a nineteen-year-old former basketball star who believed the rules no longer applied to him. When Richard Thompson stepped between the menu board and Marie’s car, he triggered a sequence of events that would force Marie to make a split-second, life-altering gamble based on a trauma she had buried for decades.
What happens when a victim refuses to follow the script of compliance? How does a community react when a pattern of systemic negligence at a major corporation is finally brought to light? This is a story of incredible resilience, the high cost of corporate indifference, and an unconventional quest for a type of justice that the legal system wasn't designed to provide.
