Tell Me What You Did

Tell Me What You Did (2025) is a mystery thriller by New York Times best-selling author Carter Wilson. The novel centers on Poe Webb, host of the popular true podcast Tell Me What You Did. Poe is keeping a secret from everyone in her life; After witnessing her mother’s murder at 13, she tracked down and killed the man she believed responsible, Leopold Hutchins. When a stranger calls in to Poe’s podcast claiming to be Hutchins, Poe is thrust into a dangerous cat-and-mouse game that threatens to expose her darkest secrets to the world. Wilson explores the ethics of the true crime genre, the weight of keeping secrets, and the blurred lines between predator and prey.

Wilson is the author of several popular crime and mystery novels. His 2015 novel The Comfort of Black placed on the USA Today bestseller list. He is the recipient of multiple Colorado Book Awards.

This guide refers to the 2025 Poisoned Press e-book edition.

Content Warning: This text contains cursing and discussions of physical violence (including violence against children and sexually motivated violence), emotional abuse, substance abuse, animal cruelty, and death.

Plot Summary

Poe Webb is a 30-year-old woman living in an isolated farmhouse in Burlington, Vermont with her dog Bailey. Poe is the host of the wildly popular true-crime podcast Tell Me What You Did. Poe allows listeners to call in and confess to past crimes on-air. Afterward, if she believes they have been truthful, she will conduct a brief interview. Tell Me What You Did is recorded and produced by Kip Nguyen, Poe’s boyfriend. The two have a loving relationship, but their connection has recently been destabilized by Kip’s sense that Poe is keeping secrets from him. One day, a man going by Ian Hindley calls into Tell Me What You Did, claiming to be the man who killed Poe’s mother. Poe believes this is impossible because she killed Leopold Hutchins seven years ago.

The narrative alternates between Poe’s first-person narration and a transcript of a live-streamed conversation between Hindley and Poe. Gradually, Poe reveals the events surrounding her murder of Hutchins. Poe grew up as an only child in Manchester, New Hampshire. She enjoyed a loving relationship with her parents, who doted on her. As Poe went through puberty and distanced herself from her parents, their marriage suffered. When Poe was 13, her mother Margaret began having an affair with a man going by the name of Leopold Hutchins. Poe discovered the affair when she found a message from Hutchins referencing a tryst scheduled for the following day. Poe resolved to catch her mother and Hutchins in the act, hoping to drive Margaret back to her husband.

The next day, Poe’s mother sent her to spend time with a friend. Poe secretly left the friend’s house early and returned home. She snuck up to her parents’ bedroom, where she heard her mother and Hutchins having sex. As she prepared to open the door and confront her mother, Margaret began screaming. Poe opened the door just in time to witness Hutchins stabbing Margaret to death. After killing her mother, Hutchins restrained Poe, threatening to hunt her down if she told anyone what she had seen. He set the house on fire and allowed Poe to escape. Poe has never told anyone what she witnessed, not even her father.

After Margaret’s death, Poe’s father grew catatonic with grief. Unable to stand being around him, she moved to New York for college. Afterward, she lived in the city for several years, formulating a plan to track down and kill Leopold Hutchins. Poe created a fake dating profile using her mother’s pictures. Within days, a man named Leonard Avery contacted her. Poe met up with Avery. After seeing him, she decided that he was Leopold Hutchins. Poe arranged a second date at her apartment, where she administered a near-fatal dose of rat poison before suffocating him to death with a pillow. Poe disposed of Hutchins’ body on the shore of Lake Assunpink in New Jersey.

For years, Poe has felt no guilt about the murder, but Hindley’s claim that he is Hutchins leads her to wonder if she killed an innocent man. Hindley begins a cat-and-mouse game, stalking Poe and engaging in escalating instances of harassment. He demands that she host him on a special, live-streamed episode of Tell Me What You Did. Poe agrees to the episode, and Hindley confesses on-air to murdering her mother 17 years ago, revealing information only the murderer would know. Before ending the call, Hindley demands that Poe will host another live stream on Halloween night. This time, she will be making a confession.

As Halloween approaches, Poe tries to uncover more information about Hindley. She begins to doubt whether the man she killed in New York was really him. Suspecting that Hindley will reveal her past, Poe proactively confesses to both her father and Kip. Hindley threatens her life multiple times, but Poe hesitates to go to the police, afraid of dredging up her own crime. As she continues to research Hindley, she asks her listeners for assistance. Hindley escalates to breaking and entering, which prompts Poe to finally involve the police.

On Halloween night, Poe discovers that Hindley has kidnapped Kip. Using Kip as leverage, he forces her to do the second live stream, promising to turn himself in to authorities if Poe complies. This time Hindley interviews Poe. Poe confesses to the details of the murder she committed. She says that she does not regret it and would do it again if needed. After finishing her confession, Poe tells Hindley that she still does not believe he is Hutchins. Hindley threatens to prove himself by murdering Kip in the same way in which he murdered Poe’s mother. He holds Kip up in front of the camera and stabs him in the stomach before going offline.

Using clues from the live stream, Poe pieces together that Hindley is filming from the empty house closest to hers. She grabs a hatchet and confronts Hindley, who has Kip restrained and is holding a gun. Hindley finally divulges his identity. He is John Worbly, the brother of Leonardo Worbly, who once went by Leopold Hutchins. Leonardo was the man who killed Poe’s mother. He was a serial killer of women who only stopped because Poe killed him. Hindley has spent the last 20 years in jail for a murder that his brother committed. Upon release, he resolved to take revenge on Poe for killing his brother.

Hindley demands that either Kip or Poe kill the other with a knife. He threatens to kill the family of the person who hesitates, but each refuses to harm the other. As Poe plans her attack on Hindley, her father bursts through the door with a baseball bat. He incapacitates Hindley, but before he can strike the killing blow, Poe stops him, offering to do it herself. She sends Kip and her father out of the room before shooting Hindley in the head with his own gun.

The narrative resumes seven months later, with Poe serving the first month of a 14-month sentence in prison. She recalls her trial, where she successfully pleaded self-defense. Poe voluntarily confessed to the murder of Leonardo Worbly on the stand and accepted a plea deal in exchange for leading prosecutors to his body. She continues to run her podcast successfully out of prison, interviewing her fellow inmates. Kip survived Hindley’s assault, and he and Poe are still together. Upon her release, Poe plans to join a victims’ advocacy group and move on with her life.