By Robert Riggs 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 personalities and artificial empathy to the subtle ways criminals manipulate human behavior,…
by Robert Riggs 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 regime has been linked to the killing of Americans, sometimes directly, sometimes…
By Robert Riggs Armed Forces Radio Spc John Bagwell Evades Capture During The 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam – Recreation 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…
By Robert Riggs 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 pledges at the University of Texas at Austin. The sadistic practices detailed in a…
By Robert Riggs LAPD Homicide Detective John St. John aka “JigSaw John” Badge #1 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 something more meaningful.…
by Robert Riggs 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 two young children. Not through malice, but through neglect, greed, and a rusted…
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 predators look for and how to shut them down before they ever get a chance. This isn’t about paranoia.…
The Story of 200 Forgotten Murder Victims By Robert Riggs 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’ graves, sometimes stacked in vaults three-deep, known only by numbers in crumbling…
Unsolved Murder of Jim Grimes Haunts Quiet Tennessee Town By Robert Riggs 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 money to find her husband’s killer. A single shotgun blast shattered the life of a…
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. history. Visitors today frequently cite the desire to see the cellblocks that once confined legendary…