Season 38

It was May 19, 2012 and a young and determined Canadian was proudly standing on top of the world after an agonizingly slow climb up Mount Everest. Shriya Shah-Klorfine had reached the summit. But in the hours that followed, things would go dreadfully wrong and she would perish, like hundreds before her, high up in Everest's "Death Zone." Since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's first ascent of Everest almost 60 years ago, it has been an irresistible fascination for aspiring mountaineers. Hundreds make the attempt every year, and many don't make it. This year was no exception as hundreds made their way to the summit even as worrying signs pointed to trouble. Among them was Shriya Shah-Klorfine, the cheerful and energetic Torontonian. She had never climbed a mountain before, and despite warnings from her friends, husband, and seasoned Everest sherpas, she was climbing the world's highest peak, determined to succeed.

As the nearly 180-year-old Kingston Penitentiary that has housed some of Canada's most notorious inmates prepares to close its gates for good, Linden MacIntyre weaves together the stories of three of its most famous inmates. "Kingston Pen: Secrets and Lies" is the story of convicts trapped in a cycle of violence, of miscarriages of justice, and psychopaths of incredible charm.

Exclusive new revelations about the troubled F-35 program It could yet prove to be the most expensive defense purchase in Canadian history -- $25 billion and counting. The military promises it's the best fighter jet available, but some critics are saying it's a turkey hatched from a bad idea: a do-it-all plane that might not do anything well-at-all. Was Canada pressured to buy the F-35 fighter jet? Will the jet ever deliver on its promise of being the top gun in the sky? Did the government cover up the true costs to win an election? With secret documents and exclusive interviews with Air Force insiders, Gillian Findlay pieces together the troubling story of the F-35. From Lockheed Martin's first prototype and bungled development process to Canada's decision to buy the fighter jet without an open competition, "Runaway Fighter" raises serious questions about a procurement system seemingly run amok and a jetfighter critics say will never live up to its spin.

Family members say she preyed on the lonely, then married and buried them. Now the so-called Black Widow has been charged with attempted murder after the the suspicious sudden illness of another husband. Linden MacIntyre first spoke to Melissa Friedrich when she was in jail in Florida, and then again on the phone last year after she moved back to Nova Scotia.

Diagnosed with ALS, one woman's public fight to meet death on her own terms. Gloria Taylor was the first Canadian ever to win the right to ask a doctor for help in dying, when and how and where she wished. "The Life and Death of Gloria Taylor" documents her struggle with mortality as she fights publicly to change the law over the course of what would be the last year of her life. Doomed by ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), Gloria Taylor became dependent on medical technology. Her fight for life was futile, and she could only hope for what she called a dignified ending. the fifth estate's Linden MacIntyre first met her more than a year ago as she battled with a disease that has no cure, and had just begun another struggle in British Columbia's Supreme Court to have the right to decide the time and manner of her death. She agreed to let the fifth estate follow her throughout that struggle, the private highs and lows, and the personal indignities throughout the final year of her life.

They have the courage to stand up and speak out when no one else dares, yet the popular perception of whistleblowers is they are doomed to be victims of reprisals. But when the fifth estate caught up with some of its more memorable whistleblowers, we found out their lives can take twists and turns no one ever expected. These cases offer an ironic insight into what was supposed to be a new era of transparency and integrity in Canada. To date, not a single case has been prosecuted under Canada's Public Servant Disclosure Protection Act, and the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner was dismissed in disgrace. It was the late '90s when the fifth estate first caught up with Drs. Shiv Chopra and Margaret Haydon. The two Health Canada scientists had serious concerns about a new synthetic drug that promised to transform dairy farming by increasing milk production in cows.

The journey of three young men born into one world. Six years later, they're trying to escape into another.

Linden MacIntyre reveals for the first time the extraordinary tale of how seven ordinary guys suddenly struck it rich -- to the tune of $12.5 million.

In the trade they call elephants Charismatic Mega Fauna -- huge majestic animals that help the industry draw millions of people each year. The fact is that Zoos and Aquariums are big business, generating more revenue than all professional sports leagues in the U.S. and Canada combined, according to industry insiders. Yet all is not well with the gentle giants in Canadian zoos. A heated controversy has erupted over what to do with zoo elephants when they are ready to retire.

Mark Kelley tells the story of two friends on the adventure of a lifetime in a small plane who crashed into the icy waters of the Canadian North.

Lance Armstrong was an inspiration to millions - he overcame a deadly disease and was hailed as one of the world's greatest athletes - but insiders knew the truth. the fifth estate examines the widespread use and abuse of doping in international cycling and how Lance Armstrong kept this dark secret for years.

Mark Kelley reveals the story of a secret group of online investigators who tracked accused killer Luka Magnotta for almost two years and warned police he was dangerous and had to be stopped.

On January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia set sail onto the Mediterranean with captain Francesco Schettino manning the ship and more than 4000 people on board. But within hours, disaster would strike as the cruise liner crashed into rocks on the coast of Italy. In one of the worst cruise disasters in recent memory, 32 people would die, and the 114,000 tonne vessel would take more than two years to dismantle.

Canadian naval intelligence officer Jeffrey Delisle and his secret life as a Russian Spy. Linden MacIntyre has an exclusive interview, and tells the full story of the biggest security breach in Canadian history.

Nik Zoricic was one of the fastest members of the Canadian ski cross team and had dreams of representing Canada in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. His promising career was tragically cut short when he crashed near the end of a World Cup race high in the Swiss Alps last year, in what course officials termed a freak accident. But as Mark Kelley learns, the first death in ski cross competition history may not have been so unpredictable. In the days leading up to that last race athletes raised alarms warning that the final jump was exceedingly dangerous and that race organizers were pushing the limits and didn't heed the early warning flags.

The true story of how the CIA tracked the world's most wanted terrorist.

The tragic shooting of 20 children and six teachers at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut stunned people on both sides of the border. Somehow it seemed worse than other recent mass shootings - perhaps because of the age of the children, or the popular military-style assault rifle used, the AR-15. Many hoped it would be a chance to find common ground in a nation bitterly divided over gun rights and gun control. Instead, the sales of firearms soared and the National Rifle Association's membership swelled.

They are marked by their ability to kill without passion and without remorse. Some are called psychopaths - a term that evokes nightmare images of murderers and monsters. But the label can also apply to men and women who are successful, intelligent, charismatic, charming and amusing - and so all the more dangerous. This week on the fifth estate, Linden MacIntyre looks at what makes a psychopath through the fifth estate's close encounters with of four of Canada's most frightening criminals.

For Anna Ratté, growing up just outside Prince George, British Columbia was an idyllic childhood. But on August 18, 1997, that family was torn apart when Wendy Ratté suddenly vanished. Days and then months passed, with no word from her mother. Seventeen-year-old Anna Ratté began a long, difficult search for answers. It was years before Anna began to suspect that her father Denis was not telling her everything he knew.

Two years ago, thousands of lives were lost and the landscape of Japan was changed forever by a tsunami that saw more than five million tonnes of debris swallowed up by the ocean. Mark Kelley reports on the Second Wave tsunami headed for Canadian shores, and a remarkable human drama that links our country with Japan.

He's been called a geo-vigilante, an eco-terrorist, or alternatively a visionary who simply wants to save the world. For years, American businessman Russ George has nurtured a controversial idea: to fix global warming by seeding the ocean with iron. Thumbing his nose at U.N. conventions and possibly Canadian law, George teamed up with a Haida village on B.C.'s West Coast and carried out the biggest iron fertilization project to date.

Cynthia Vanier had seemingly hit the big time in business, politics and international intrigue, working with Canada's largest engineering firm, SNC Lavalin, to protect billions of dollars worth of projects in Libya. That work led her to cross paths with one of the world's most notorious family names -- Gadhafi. But as events unfolded, she became a part of a fiasco so complex that she'll likely never fully understand it, nor recover from its impact on her life. On this week's the fifth estate, Linden MacIntyre tells the story of Cynthia Vanier and how she claims she was duped into a risky mission in Libya, and is now spending her days in a shabby prison in southern Mexico fighting allegations of terrorism, human trafficking and criminal conspiracy.

Bob McKeown hosts the fifth estate's sweeping cross-country investigation into Canada's hospitals and what they don't want you to know.