PODCAST · history
True Crime Reporter
by Robert Riggs
Follow Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs into the darkest corners of the criminal mind.
Episodes
-
Stranger Danger in Your Child’s Online Game
A predator succeeds by convincing a child that secrecy is the only safe choice. The child may fear losing a phone, a game, a group of friends, or a parent’s trust. That fear is not a side effect of exploitation. It is part of the strategy. I have been digging into FBI reports. In this episode, I...
-
The Sadistic 764 Online Blood Cult Blackmails Girls Into Self-Mutilation
An online terror group called 764 seeks a badge of honor by getting teenage girls to live-stream mutilation of their bodies and, worse, killing themselves as its members watched with glee. FBI investigations report cases in which vulnerable preteen and teenage girls were blackmailed into carving...
-
Can We Still Trust What Sounds Human? Former FBI Spy Catcher Robin Dreeke on AI Manipulation
Real human connection is becoming harder to recognize in a world increasingly shaped by AI-generated content. Former FBI counterintelligence agent Robin Dreeke returns to the podcast to explore one of the most urgent questions of our time: who or what should we trust? From the rise of AI...
-
Game of Drones – Iran’s Threat Choking The World’s Oil Lifeline
This episode is about the standoff with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and the threat of its drone attack to the global economy. And I know what some of you may be wondering. What does Iran have to do with the True Crime Reporter® podcast? My answer is simple. For more than forty years, the Iranian...
-
Armed Forces Radio DJ Wounded And Hunted Behind Enemy Lines In Vietnam
As I watched the daring rescue of the two airmen shot down over Iran in early April of 2026, I found myself thinking of John Bagwell. John’s story is not a true-crime saga you’d expect to hear on this podcast, but it is gripping, timely, and no less dramatic. I learned about his military service...
-
Brotherhood of Brutality Unchecked Fraternity Hazing
Burned with lit cigarettes. Impaled with a fishhook. Staples fired into his hip. Deadly drugs forced up his nose. It sounds like a brutal regime’s methods from a torture chamber. But these are the homegrown means of hazing that the Alpha Nu Chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity allegedly used on...
-
JigSaw & Jane 13 Years of Murder & Mayhem with Badge Number One
Legendary LAPD Homicide Detective John St. John walked among the dead for nearly a half-century. Known as “JigSaw John,” he pursued monsters that had an insatiable appetite for blood and suffering. Jane Howatt, a suburban housewife and aspiring writer, wanted to trade her tennis racket for...
-
Carbon Monoxide Poisoned Two Children’s Brains After Their Landlord Ignored the Danger
This isn’t the kind of story I usually tell. The police didn’t converge on the scene with sirens blaring and guns drawn. But what happened inside a Dallas apartment complex was just as devastating and just as unforgivable as a cold-blooded murder. In 2015, a silent killer slipped into the home of...
-
Don’t Make It Easy for a Violent Predator to Choose You
Most predators don’t pounce—they pick. They observe. They wait. And they choose the person who looks the easiest to catch. In this episode, you’ll learn how to make sure you’re not the one they choose. From FBI profilers to a former producer for CBS 48 Hours, I’ll walk you through the red flags...
-
Women Who Talk To The Dead
The Story of 200 Forgotten Murder Victims They were daughters. Mothers. Sisters. Strangers. Their lives ended violently—and their names were lost to time. For more than half a century, Detroit’s forgotten dead lay buried beneath weeds and silence—unidentified murder victims dumped into paupers’...
-
Widow Offers One Million Dollars To Crack Cold Case Murder Mystery
Unsolved Murder of Jim Grimes Haunts Quiet Tennessee Town A bold reward offers ONE MILLION DOLLARS to solve a cold case murder mystery. Since the $25 million bounty on Osama bin Laden, few rewards have reached this level—yet a grieving widow in rural Tennessee is offering $1 million of her own...
-
The Rock: Alcatraz’s Chilling True Crime Legacy
Alcatraz shut its cell doors more than 60 years ago, but its grip on the American imagination hasn’t loosened. Each year, nearly a million and a half tourists ride the ferry across San Francisco Bay, through cold, choppy waters, to walk the crumbling corridors of the most infamous prison in U.S....
-
The Click That Opens The Door To Cyber Hell
You Just Thought Your Home Was Safe You lock your doors at night. You check on your kids. But what if the real threat is already inside—hiding in your phone, your smart TV, or your child's video game chat? In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, former federal probation officer Art Bowker takes…
more -
Why Do Women Love True Crime?
A Former 48 Hours Producer Reveals the Psychology and Power Behind the Genre When the curtain drops on everyday life, true crime shows like this podcast and especially those on television expose the darkest side of humanity. Television relentlessly chases the latest trending crimes on police...
-
This Is Not The Godfather – It’s the Brutal Truth About the Mob
The Godfather. Goodfellas. The Sopranos. Hollywood entertained us with polished fiction—honor among thieves, loyalty bound by blood, men of principle wrapped in tailored suits. But the real mob? It was darker. Colder. Predatory. The smile came first. The knife came after. This is the true story…
more -
CIA Mafia Spies Plot To Kill Castro Hidden From JFK Probe
Mobsters Hit Tony Soprano Style Before They Can Testify The JFK assassination files recently released by President Trump shed more light on the secret plot by the CIA to use Mafia gangsters to kill Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Investigative reporter Thomas Maier, the author of Mafia Spies, his…
more -
The James Bondesque Mafia Spies Plot To Kill Castro With A Poison Cigar
The story sounds like something straight out of a spy thriller. A plot by America’s most feared criminal syndicate and its most secretive intelligence agency to assassinate a foreign leader using poison cigars and other James Bond-inspired schemes. But this isn’t fiction. This is the true story…
more -
How To Read People To Protect Yourself From Crime Part 2
In this episode, we continue our deep dive with retired FBI Special Agent Robin Dreeke—a man whose job wasn’t just catching spies but recruiting them. Dreeke led the FBI’s elite Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, where he mastered the art of predicting human behavior. He turned...
-
How To Size People Up Like An FBI Behavioral Analyst
Whether walking through a dimly lit parking lot, meeting someone new, or even evaluating the behavior of people close to you, the ability to read people and size them up could mean the difference between safety and danger. This episode teaches you how to think like an FBI Behavioral Analyst.…
more -
A Terrifying New Scam Bringing Fraudsters to Your Home
Scammers don’t just lurk online—they may be coming straight to your front door. For centuries, con artists have refined their craft, using deception and misdirection to separate victims from their money. But today’s fraudsters have more sophisticated tools than ever before. The worst part? You...
-
The Devil In My Friend. The Family Man. The Stone Cold Killer.
How well do we truly know our friends? Can we discern when they are lying, or even worse, when they might be hiding a deadly secret? In this episode, I delve into the unsettling story of Fred Roehler, who seemed to embody the perfect father and husband in the idyllic setting of Malibu…
more -
The $30 Billion Secret The Government Doesn’t Want You To Know
This true crime story is not about a heist pulled off by a notorious bank robber or a cunning scam artist—but an audacious act of bureaucratic theft that spans generations. It’s an audacious act of bureaucratic theft that spans generations. Picture this: over $30 billion in matured U.S. savings...
-
Baby Face Nelson: The Boy Who Became America’s Most Ruthless Killer
In the blood-soaked pantheon of Depression-era gangsters, one killer stood apart - not for his height, but for his face. Witnesses consistently described him as looking like "an angel," with bright blue eyes and features so youthful that bank tellers often mistook him for a teenage messenger boy....
-
Sextortion Is Why Social Media Scares Me For The Safety Of Our Children
We used to fear sexual predators stalking our neighborhoods, ready to snatch our children off the streets. We called it “Stranger Danger”. But “Stranger Danger” has moved online with Sextortion schemes on the social media platforms and gaming apps our children use daily. Organized crime rings now...
-
Getting Away with Murder: Learning from Dateline and Other True Crime Shows
Mike Cox’s name is synonymous with Texas crime reporting. Cox spent decades covering grisly crimes, working as a police beat reporter and later as the Chief of Media Relations for the Texas Department of Public Safety and authoring books about the Texas Rangers. His latest book, Getting Away with...
-
Blood And Ink On The Police Beat Covering Serial Killer Henry Lee Lucas
True Crime Reporter® presents a story that straddles the line between horror and history. Mike Cox, a veteran police beat reporter and former chief of media relations for the Texas Department of Public Safety, spent his life documenting murder cases and bringing clarity to chaos. From unraveling...
-
A Funeral Home Murder Mystery: Joe Pulizzi’s Bold Leap into Crime Writing
Joe Pulizzi, the Godfather of Content Marketing, takes an audacious leap into crime fiction, delivering a story that is as mesmerizing as it is chilling. Set within the haunting confines of a funeral home, "The Will To Die" unravels a dark and twisted narrative brimming with suspense, secrets…
more -
11 Days of Terror: The Deadly Texas Prison Hostage Crisis That Gripped The Nation
Chaos erupted inside the impenetrable Walls Unit prison in Huntsville during the scorching Texas summer of July 1974. Frederico “Fred” Gomez Carrasco, a notorious drug lord often compared to Pablo Escobar of today, orchestrated a takeover that would become the longest prison siege in U.S.…
more -
John Dillinger: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Enemy Number One
John Dillinger was the most famous outlaw of the 1930s—a charming yet elusive bank robber who captured the public's imagination and fueled an entire genre of crime melodramas during the darkest days of the Great Depression. His daring escapades, including multiple jailbreaks and bank heists,...
-
The Postman Cometh: A Deadly Delivery That Went Tick, Tick, Tick In Small-Town Texas
The arrival of a mysterious box at a government office in a small Texas town shattered its quiet morning routine. Suddenly, the peaceful atmosphere turned to chaos as panicked men and women ran screaming from the building into the street. They were the targets of a sinister plot designed to kill...
-
Blood Pacts and Breaking Bad: The Rise and Fall of the Devil Lovers
In the shadow of Texas' heartland, a clandestine cult flourished under the guise of dark rituals and methamphetamine production. Known as the Devil Lovers, this group of middle-aged men and women from prominent Waco families engaged in sinister ceremonies, pledging allegiance to their enigmatic...
-
True Crime Meets Fiction: Exploring Serial Killer Psychology with David Bethel
Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs dives into the mind of a serial killer with author John David Bethel as we explore his latest novel “Mapping The Night.” Bethel's books stand out for their profound basis in real-life cases. His fiction and nonfiction offer a unique lens through which to…
more -
A Case Of Pure Evil Haunts Dallas FBI Agent
Genaro “Geno” Ruiz Camacho's drug empire thrived on violence. In the late 1980s in Dallas, he ruled with an iron fist and displayed an almost unimaginable cruelty towards those who crossed his path. This story is about violence, revenge, and an unrelenting pursuit of justice led by FBI Special...
-
Better Be On Your Best Behavior When Police Wear Body Cameras
If Minneapolis police officers had been wearing body cameras, would it have prevented the excessive force that led to the murder of 46-year-old George Floyd? Dr. Jennifer Matthews says Body-Worn Cameras are reshaping Police-Citizen Interactions, and she believes that it could have made a...
-
Beneath the Charm: Unveiling The Black Widow Part 3
Sandra Bridewell has fallen from grace in Dallas Society. Shunned by neighbors and most friends in the posh Highland Park community that is home to oil and real estate barons. In Parts 1 & 2 Beneath the Charm: Unveiling The Black Widow we reveal Bridewell's connection to three mysterious shooting...
-
Beneath the Charm: Unveiling The Texas Black Widow Part 2
Dallas Socialite Sandra Bridewell cultivated an image of elegance and vulnerability. In part one of our series, Beneath the Charm: Unveiling The Black Widow, Sandra Bridewell’s first husband’s life tragically ends with his alleged suicide. Was the promising young dentist driven to shoot himself…
more -
Beneath the Charm: Unveiling The Texas Black Widow Part 1
Amidst the sprawling cityscape of Dallas, where power and prosperity intersect with secrets and lies, Sandra Bridewell's story unravels. Bridewell was a beautiful, alluring socialite in the affluent enclave of Highland Park when Dallas was the world’s most popular TV show and the Dallas Cowboys...
-
The Secret Service Files: Cracking New York’s Counterfeit Underworld
In the shadowy underworld of early 20th-century New York City, a nefarious counterfeiting operation run by cunning Sicilian criminals thrived—until William Flynn and the U.S. Secret Service set their sights on bringing the ring to justice. At the heart of the story is the classic clash between…
more -
The Bulldog Detective: The Untold Story of America’s First Top Cop
Through the mist of forgotten histories, the figure of William J. Flynn beckons, offering a glimpse into a life that, though eclipsed by time, remains a testament to human endeavor and spirit. In the early 20th century, Flynn, known as the “Bulldog Detective,” was one of the most famous…
more -
Searching For Patty Hearst: Militant Marxist or Brain Washed?
The mystery of Patty Hearst's transformation from a college student born into privilege to a Marxist militant wielding an M-1 carbine in a bank robbery remains as compelling as ever on the 50th anniversary of her kidnapping. The abduction of William Randolph Heart’s granddaughter captured…
more -
Unmasking Evil: Face-to-Face with the Son of Sam
David Berkowitz, known as the “Son of Sam,” terrorized New York City for a year in the late 1970s with a series of random murders and cryptic taunts to police and the press. Ever since then, the question of why he did it and if Berkowitz had accomplices from a Satan-worshipping cult has produced...
-
The Axe Falls: The Shocking Execution of the Teenage Queen
I opened my reporter's notebook to the historical case called the "Nine Days Queen." It's a tragic story from 16th-century England about Lady Jane Grey. Her life, a fleeting moment in the annals of English royalty, ended abruptly with her execution at just 16 years old. I take you to London's...
-
The Bank Robber, The Fugitive, The Pilot, and The Mena Arkansas Conspiracy.
This story shrouded in mystery, involves a Texas prison escapee that could be ripped straight from a spy novel. Bank robber and suspected drug smuggler Charles J. Woods of Dallas made a daring escape from a Texas prison and subsequently disappeared into the realm of the Mena Arkansas Conspiracy.…
more -
Why A Serial Killer’s Cell Phone Threats from Death Row Haunt Us Today
I delve into the shadowy underworld of contraband communication, where prisoners wielding illegal cell phones orchestrate a web of threats and criminal enterprises from behind bars. My story revolves around the chilling case of Richard Tabler, a serial killer on Texas Death Row. Tabler's…
more -
A Texas Prison Warden’s Tips On How To Stay Safe From Criminal Minds
In the vast, rugged terrain of Texas, where the stories of outlaws and the law are etched into the very soil, we find a beacon of knowledge in an unexpected place: the walls of a maximum-security prison. My guest, David Stacks guest is a seasoned Texas prison warden, a guardian of society's most...
-
Hard Time In Hell Among Texas Most Dangerous Prisoners
In this episode, I’m going to take you behind the high walls and razor wire into the dark corners of the largest prison system in the world. David Stacks, a former Texas prison warden with 30 years of frontline experience, provides an unfiltered look at life behind bars. Today, Stacks is the...
-
Echoes of Evil: Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff 25 Years Later.
This episode marks a somber milestone. The 25th anniversary of the execution of Kenneth Allen McDuff – a name that chills the soul of the men and women in law enforcement who hunted him down – and the families of his victims. McDuff, infamously dubbed the 'Broomstick Killer,' was a figure of...
-
The John Dillinger Enigma: Did The FBI Really Kill Public Enemy #1?
PDuring the Great Depression, Newsreels about John Dillinger, the first gangster declared Public Enemy #1, drew cheers from movie audiences across America and hisses when pictures of J. Edgar…
-
Crisis-Proof Your Life: Fieldcraft Survival on Personal Safety & Preparedness
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…
more -
No Justice for A Texas Cowboy: A $750 Million Elder Abuse Tragedy
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...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Follow Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs into the darkest corners of the criminal mind.
HOSTED BY
Robert Riggs
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does True Crime Reporter have?
True Crime Reporter currently has 131 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is True Crime Reporter about?
Follow Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs into the darkest corners of the criminal mind.
How often does True Crime Reporter release new episodes?
True Crime Reporter publishes regularly with 131 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to True Crime Reporter?
You can listen to True Crime Reporter on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts True Crime Reporter?
True Crime Reporter is created and hosted by Robert Riggs.
URL copied to clipboard!