Episodes

There's a crime trend sweeping the United States of flash mob thieves charging into department stores to make off with armfuls of loot. Gangs rush inside affluent suburban neighborhoods in night to break into cars. This episode of the True Crime Reporter® podcast responds to those of you asking me what they should do amid a growing wave of violence in urban America and overseas. A U.S. businesswoman recently told me she is afraid to work alone in a big city. I contacted Kevin Estela, the Directo...

Investigative Reporter Stephen Michaud, among the nation’s best, spent six years unraveling how an iconic ranch was taken from a dying Texas Cowboy. It's a sprawling Texas ranch near the border with Mexico where the biggest producing gas well in the United States was struck in 2004. The ranch and its mineral assets have amassed a 750 Million dollar fortune. But, the cowboy who once owned it and his relatives never saw a penny. According to my guest, it’s a case of elder abuse like none other. He...

Doug Noll says murderers are not born, they're bred. Today kids revert to what they see around them...violence. Doug Noll founded the Prison of Peace Project. Noll teaches hardcore inmates how to de-escalate an angry, emotional person in 90 seconds or less. It’s a skill that we can all benefit from learning in this era of violence. Hello, this is Robert Riggs taking you inside the crime scene tape in this episode of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast. Besides telling interesting crime stories, it ...

A violent war for control of illicit drugs and weapons leaves a deadly trail of bullets and blood across highways in the U.S. Southwest. It started eight years ago in a hail of gunfire between the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang and the Cossacks at the Twin Peaks Restaurant in Waco, Texas. The violence escalated starting in May of 2023, leaving dead bodies on an interstate highway in Texas, at a biker bar in Oklahoma City, and at a once peaceful bike rally in New Mexico. There's no sign of tempe...

Road rage violence shatters records on US Highways. Experts say a perfect storm of post-pandemic anger and violent criminals out of jail due to liberal bail practices has set off a wave of deadly road rage shootings. Capt Greg Fremin (Ret'd) Houston Police Department Retired Houston Police Captain Greg Fremin tracks the growing carnage at Sam Houston State’s College of Criminal Justice located in Huntsville, Texas. The numbers have run off the highway as stressed-out, violent drivers turn their ...

Former NCIS Special Agent Joe Kennedy established the first federal cold case homicide unit. Starting in 1986 with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), Kennedy investigated crimes involving sailors and marines worldwide. In this episode of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast, I take you inside the crime scene tape to hear about cold cases from a legendary agency member popularized by Hollywood. Although he is retired from NCIS, Joe Kennedy lends his cold case experience to small law enf...

If you are a fan of the NCIS television drama, you are in for a treat. My guest is homicide investigator Joe Kennedy, a former Special Agent for the real-life NCIS. NCIS Special Agent Joe Kennedy Teaching Police In The Philippines Homicide Investigation In this episode of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast, I lift the crime scene tape for Joe Kennedy to take you inside the anatomy of murder cases. He's written a book titled Solving Cold Cases: Investigation Techniques and Protocol. This is the fir...

The high school baseball player hung a homemade motivational sign on the wall of his bedroom. It read Brandon Puffer will be a Major League Baseball player. Indeed, Puffer made it to what ballplayers call “The Show.” Only to fall from the Bullpen to the State Penitentiary in Texas. Brandon Puffer was a pitcher on the Boston Red Sox baseball team when they broke a century-old curse and won the World Series in 2004. But four years later, a Texas jury sentenced Puffer to five years in prison. He su...

Steve January, the Chief Deputy of the McLennan County Sheriff in Waco, Texas, was a lawman cut from denim of the old west. Hundreds of officers recently paid their last respects to January, whose life was not cut short by a bullet from his many face-offs with killers but by cancer. I’m Robert Riggs with a story about an officer who fought many a round seeking justice inside the crime scene tape. L to R Robert Riggs & Chief Deputy Steve January Hold "Yellowstone" Hoodie Worn By Nicole Sheridan S...

God forbid if I ever was murdered, I would want Johnny Bonds on the case. His name sounds like a film noir detective. Johnny Bonds is the stuff true crime legends are made of. In 1972, he became the youngest officer ever assigned to the elite homicide division in Houston, Texas. He had a sixth sense of how to approach people or investigations. He relentlessly hunted down killers and challenged powerful politicians who got in the way of justice. Bonds became known as “The Cop Who Wouldn’t Quit” f...

Before, there was Osama bin Laden. Before, there was Timothy McVeigh. There was Ted Kaczynski. The UNABOMBER. FBI codename for “UNiversity and Airline BOMBER.” For sixteen years, Jamie Gehring grew up next door to Ted Kaczynski. She never had a clue that the man who appeared to be a harmless hermit was one of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th Century. Hello. I’m investigative reporter Robert Riggs here to ask you a chilling question from inside the crime scene tape. Do any of us real...

This is the third episode in my series about how new DNA technology solves previously unsolvable cold cases. It’s called FGG -- Forensic Genetic Genealogy. I’m investigative reporter Robert Riggs taking you inside the crime scene case into how the first use of forensic genetic genealogy in Dallas County, Texas, caught a serial rapist responsible for over 50 victims. 76-year-old David Thomas Hawkins - Serial Rapist - Serving Life Sentence - Michael Maximum Security Prison - Texas 75-year-old Davi...

The Golden State Killer got away with 12 murders, 50 rapes, and more than 100 burglaries for over forty years before being caught. DNA evidence from his crime scenes never matched DNA samples in the FBI’s CODIS databases because he had never been arrested for murder or rape. Eventually, investigators uploaded the profile to genealogy sites and identified a relative on the killer’s family tree. It led to the conviction of James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer. I’m investigative repo...

Sitting across the desk from a DNA profiler, she told me that I was leaving a trail of cells in her office that would lead back to me, especially if I committed a crime there. The rapid advancement of science and technology makes DNA evidence a powerful investigative tool for catching killers and rapists, solving cold cases, identifying missing persons, and clearing the innocent. I’m investigative reporter Robert Riggs here to take you inside the crime scene tape to look at how DNA plays a centr...

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were two of the most notorious outlaws in American history, forever linked to the public consciousness. They were young, daring, and dangerous, and they captured the imagination of a country struggling through the Great Depression. But behind the legend lay the harsh reality of their lives, a story of poverty, violence, and desperation. They met in Dallas, Texas, and were immediately drawn to each other. Together, Bonnie and Clyde embarked on a crime spree that wou...

Texas Death Row Inmates Called Them The “Macs.” Kenneth McDuff and Jerry McFadden. Two violent psychopaths hated and feared by fellow death row inmates. Two killers with a lust for randomly abducting, raping, and murdering young people. Suzanne Harrison Gena Turner Bryan Boone Two killers whose victims would still be alive if Texas had kept them behind bars. In this episode, investigative reporter Robert Riggs takes listeners inside the crime scene tape of one of Texas' most brutal killers. Jerr...

Jerry “Animal” McFadden Pastor Wayne Whiteside says, “there are people that seem to be hell-bent on being held bound.” Whiteside knows of what he preaches after ministering to prison inmates for thirty-nine years. He spent the last 24 years talking with death row inmates in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. Whiteside says he has looked evil in the eye and seen nothing but empty souls. He has come face to face with the worst of the worst of serial killers who inflicted un...

Jerry and Dava Truett lived well beyond their means in the small central Texas town of Kosse. They owned a lake house and a speed boat. They drove a pair of expensive pickup trucks and numerous recreational vehicles. Townfolk thought they were receiving oil and gas money from their farmland or had an inheritance. How Did They Live Such An Extravagant Lifestyle On Small-Town Wages? The small community of 500 people confronted the cold-blooded truth about the couple's lifestyle when 52-year-old Mi...

Chris Hansen, the journalist who created the televised series To Catch A Predator, warns that the problem of adults preying on children for sex is growing at an alarming rate. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reported that during the peak of the pandemic, inappropriate contacts between adults and children, predatory contacts, as well as the transmission of inappropriate material between adults and children shot up nearly 900%. Indicative of the problem is the case of th...

The previous episode showed how homicide detectives solved 50-year-old cold cases. They analyzed old evidence using new DNA extraction technology pioneered by Othram, a forensic genealogy lab in Texas. Othram provided new leads by finding relatives of suspects on genealogy databases. As revolutionary as that seems, it was just a few years ago that the FBI pioneered the use of mitochondrial DNA in a Texas murder case. Mitochondrial DNA is handed down from mother to child, so it can only tell you ...

14-year-old Stephanie Anne Isaacson left her father’s apartment in North Las Vegas on June 1, 1989. She walked through an empty sandlot, her usual shortcut, to the Eldorado High School. The ninth grader never attended her 7:30 AM class at Eldorado High School. Later that evening, officers found her body under a piece of discarded carpet in a sandlot that Isaacson used to take a shortcut to school. Stephanie was the victim of a blitz attack. Her black shirt was pulled up, and her jeans pulled dow...

As I stood in the LA office of the FBI’s bank robbery coordinator, veteran FBI Agent Bill Rehder pointed to a wall plastered with bank surveillance photos. 33-year veteran FBI Agent Bill Rehder Ran The FBI Bank Robbery Squad In Los Angeles Rehder ticked off the nicknames of a rogue’s gallery of serial bank robbers. The baby bandits, the big nose bandit, the big ears bandit, the skunk bandit, the ponytail bandit, the grandpa bandit. Hello, I’m Robert Riggs with a story from inside the crime scene...

Don Bentley’s career zigzagged from flying an Army helicopter gunship on combat missions in Afghanistan to working counterintelligence for the FBI, to now writing suspense-filled novels based on the knowledge of his previous careers. In my last episode, former FBI agent Don Bentley took us inside the training of Special Agents at the elite FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. After the FBI, Bentley launched a successful writing career. He intimately knows the subject that he writes fiction about. ...

There’s a bank in Quantico, Virginia, that gets robbed every day. And I am going to take you there. Hello. I’m Robert Riggs. In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, former FBI Agent Don Bentley takes us inside the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. New Special Agents start their career there in an intensive 20-week long training program. Realistic training scenarios unfold in a mock town called Hogan’s Alley named after a comic strip from the 1890s. Town House In Hogan's Alley That Is The Site ...