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Stories about kids, guns and how to stop the violence. Precious Lives, created by 371 Productions, is a 2-year, 100-part weekly radio series about gun violence and young people in the Milwaukee area. The series applies a public health lens to each story to help listeners understand the full scope of the problem: who are the victims and the shooters; how are the weapons obtained; and what can we change about the environment that contributes to violence in Milwaukee?

#101 Precious Lives: A Search for Answers

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Ashley Fogl and Amanda Legler - Laylah’s mother and godmother - speak with Precious Lives. ";

This is the final episode of Precious Lives. And for this final story, we thought we’d return to the first family we met - the family of Laylah Petersen.

Two years ago, we interviewed Ashley Fogl and Amanda Legler.

Start From The Beginning: #001 Precious Lives: How Do You Measure the Loss of a Five-Year-Old Girl?

Milwaukee has come to know Laylah as the 5-year-old girl who was shot and killed while sitting on her grandfather’s lap.

To Ashley, Laylah was a daughter; to Amanda, a goddaughter.

In the two years since losing Laylah, they have been left with lots of questions. Mostly, why? Why did this happen?

Our final episode of Precious Lives returns to those questions. We learn from three Milwaukee Police Department detectives - Rose Marie Galindo, Kathy Spano and Erik Villareal - how they managed to untangle a web of close social relationships and sort through confusing details to get answers for the family.

This is a story of shoe-leather detective work, a family trying to cope and a city still in the grips of gun violence.

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