Advertise on podcast: True Crime Reporter

After a nine-hour conversation, an AI Chatbot convinced a 17-year-old girl that she was living in a simulated world.  A world like the one depicted in the 1999 Sci-fi film The Matrix, where a computer programmer discovers that everyday reality is actually a machine-made creation designed to enslave humanity. She questioned whether life was worth living. Dallas therapist Alexandra Tracy counseled the young woman. It is a case of what is unofficially called AI psychosis, and it is not uncommon. This is another edition of True Crime Reporter®. I’m Robert Riggs. These are stories ripped from my reporter’s notebook. Alexandra Tracy joins me to explain what happens when people turn to machines for emotional support.

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 examine how sextortion can begin inside an online game, why gifts and private chats matter in context, and how artificial intelligence has made false images another weapon. Most importantly, I explain how parents can make one message unmistakable before a crisis: If something goes wrong, come tell us. You will not be blamed.

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 the initials of 764 members into their skin. It is a status symbol called “Blood Content” inside what the FBI calls online domestic terror networks.  The blood trail of suffering starts in Texas. Content note: This episode discusses child exploitation, self-harm, animal cruelty, and suicide. It avoids unnecessary graphic detail while explaining the danger and how families can respond.

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, Dreeke explains how the principles he used in the world of spies apply to everyday life. We also discuss the updated edition of his bestselling book, It’s Not All About Me: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone. Dreeke shares practical insights on reading people, spotting manipulation, building authentic relationships, and protecting yourself in a culture where deception is increasingly sophisticated. Whether you are fascinated by criminal behavior, curious about the future of AI, or simply trying to better understand the people around you, this conversation offers deeply personal and timely insights.

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 through proxies, and often with little lasting consequence. This is not an abstract foreign policy debate for me. During my thirty years in television news, I saw the human cost of that shadow war up close.  I covered the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, where 241 American service members were killed in 1983.  Federal court records have described Hezbollah as the perpetrator and Iran as a source of political, financial, and operational support tied to the attack. I was an embedded reporter during the invasion of Iraq, where American troops faced roadside bombs and armor-piercing explosives supplied or supported by Iranian networks. In more than a dozen attacks, Iran has killed Americans without putting Iranian soldiers in the fight.  It used terror groups, militias, mines, missiles, and now drones.  When a regime uses proxies to kill Americans and destabilize the world, that is not merely geopolitics. It is state-sponsored crime. The world is focused on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow strip of water off Iran’s coast where the global oil supply and American military power now face one of the most dangerous choke points on earth. To help understand what this conflict means now, I turned to retired Army Colonel John Antal, a 30-year veteran soldier, historian, leadership expert, and best-selling author.  Antal is here to help us see the battlefield clearly.

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 when he wore a Purple Heart ribbon to a search engine marketing group meeting here in Dallas many years ago. John had never talked about his time in the Vietnam War, and we were surprised. We learned that in 1968, Bagwell escaped from behind enemy lines during a surprise attack dubbed the Tet Offensive.  He was wounded and alone, moving through deadly, unfamiliar territory while trying to avoid enemy fire and, at times, bullets from his own side. His harrowing fight for survival began at a radio station in Vietnam with a scene that could have been lifted straight from a Hollywood movie. See Vietnam Era Photos of Army Disc Jockey John Bagwell Blasting Out Popular Sixties Rock Music To Troops Popular Songs Among Bagwell’s Listeners In Vietnam We Gotta Get Out Of This Place by The Animals Something’s Happening Here by Buffalo Springfield Hue 1968- A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam is my favorite book about the Tet Offensive by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down

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 wrongful death lawsuit raise questions about whether fraternity members derive pleasure from inflicting pain. It allegedly caused 18-year-old Sawyer Updike to end his life under the influence of mind-bending drugs he was forced to take.  If you are sending a son or daughter off to college, you want to hear this story about Brothers of Brutality.  Get The Facts About Hazing On Your College Campus at HazingInfo.org University of Texas at Austin Hazing Report Required by the Federal Stop Campus Hazing Act Sawyer Updike Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Sigma Chi Fraternity

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. St. John didn’t need company, and he sure didn’t want a young unpublished author in his way.  But something about Howatt’s curiosity—earnest, unspoiled, insistent—broke down his guard. St. John worked the evidence; Howatt worked the story.  The result is “JigSaw and Jane: Thirteen Years of Murder & Mayhem with Badge Number One.”  St.John empathized with crime victims because he was one of them. As a young jailer, a prisoner ambushed him with an iron bar ripped from a bunk. The prisoner savagely beat St. John to the brink of death, leaving him blind in one eye. In another life, JigSaw and Jane would have barely noticed each other in a supermarket aisle.  Instead, they found themselves peering into crime scenes of LA’s most brutal and sensational crimes together. This is their story.

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 furnace exhaust pipe no one wanted to fix.  The carbon monoxide gas that leaked out of it took their minds, leaving them permanently brain-damaged, trapped in silence. For nine years, their mother fought a legal battle against apartment owners and their insurance company, which denied everything.  What followed was a story of delay, deception, and courtroom drama that will outrage even the most hardened true crime listener. This episode is a departure from my usual reporting, but it’s one I had to tell.  Because sometimes, the deadliest crimes aren’t committed with a weapon.  They’re committed with indifference. What You Will Learn You’ll hear how teachers and specialists documented the children’s injuries, why the defense experts lost credibility, how faith shaped one lawyer’s closing argument, and how a $51 million verdict created a path toward therapy, education, and long-term support. Legal Resources Mentioned In This Story: Ted B. Lyon Personal Injury Lawyer Science Resources for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Dr. Lindell Weaver Science.org

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. It’s about awareness. And once you know what to look for, you’ll make it very difficult to be chosen. Because survival starts before the crime ever happens. Links: Robin Dreeke — Stop Pause Observe Katherine Schweit Tase Bailey Claire St Amant

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' graves, sometimes stacked in vaults three-deep, known only by numbers in crumbling cemetery logs. No names. No justice. No answers. This is the remarkable five-year journey of a team of relentless female investigators who pledged to identify more than 200 victims of Detroit’s outstanding murder cases. Led by Detroit Police Detective Shannon Jones and FBI Special Agent Leslie Larsen, this group of dedicated women—detectives, agents, forensic anthropologists, and scientists—literally dug through the past to bring closure to families and justice to the murdered. Their quest became known as Operation UNITED, the largest coordinated exhumation of cold case murder victims in FBI history. Katherine Schweit tells the story of this unprecedented, five-year mission in her book, Women Who Talk to the Dead. Schweit is a former FBI Special Agent Executive, Chicago prosecutor, and journalist. She wrote the FBI’s seminal report on mass shooters and is a recognized expert in crisis response and workplace violence. If you or someone you know is searching for a missing loved one, there’s a tool that can help. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs.

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 money to find her husband’s killer. A single shotgun blast shattered the life of a beloved husband, father, and grandfather. Sixty-three-year-old Jim Grimes was ambushed while tending animals on his peaceful property on April 19, 2021. No witnesses. No forensic evidence. Just shadows and silence. Who knew Jim's routine? Who knew their way around the property at night? Who lay in wait? And who’s finally ready to talk? This is a true crime story of grief, grit, and the relentless pursuit of justice. Link To Previous Cold Case Episodes With Joe Kennedy Part 1: NCIS From Evidence to Arrest: Analyzing Murder Cases Step by Step Part 2: NCIS Confidential: Solving Real-Life Cold Cases To Catch Killers

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 outlaws, Notorious gangsters such as Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, and Robert “Birdman” Stroud were inmates here, cementing Alcatraz’s image as the end of the line for incorrigible criminal offenders. I’ve included a link in the show notes to their “rap sheets” from the Warden’s records. During its 29 years as a federal prison, Alcatraz gained a fearsome reputation for strict discipline and inescapable walls. Now, President Donald Trump says he wants to reopen and expand Alcatraz as a high-security federal prison. In this episode, I take a hard look at the history of The Rock—how it earned its reputation as escape-proof, the men it held, the myth it became, and why, even in ruins, it still casts a long shadow over American justice. The Warden's "Rap Sheets" for Alcatraz's infamous convicts.

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 us into the digital battlefield unfolding inside your home. Bowker’s book Surviving a Cyberattack: Securing Social Media and Protecting Your Home warns how predators groom teenagers with flattery, how romance scammers bleed retirees dry, and how artificial intelligence is being weaponized to impersonate loved ones. Bowker and his coauthor Todd Shipley call themselves “The Cyber Safety Guys”.  This is the story about how cybercriminals not only bleed their victims but leave them emotionally devastated, isolated, and too ashamed to ask for help.  FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center - (IC3.gov)

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 blotters and court dockets. Claire St. Amant pursued those stories in the cutthroat world of prime-time television as a producer for CBS 48 Hours. She also produced segments for 60 Minutes. She’s written a memoir about her experiences, Killer Story: The Truth Behind True Crime Televison. Television executives have known for decades that the audience is overwhelmingly female.  We’re talking 70-80 percent, sometimes more. Mothers and daughters. Best friends.  Women of all ages coming together for what amounts to a girls’ night out… centered on murder. You may want to go back and listen to my episode with Journalist Mike Cox. He wrote a satire, Getting Away With Murder, Learning From Dateline and Other True Crime Shows.  So what’s going on here? Why are women so drawn to true crime? Claire St Amant, now a fellow true crime podcaster, shares her insights.