The Hidden Third

Nearly 30 years after 15‑year‑old Danielle “Danni” Houchins was murdered in Montana, former LAPD captain Tom Elfmont helped finally bring her family answers. Drawing on more than 25 years running gang and narcotics operations in South Los Angeles, Tom has turned his skills to cold cases and long‑forgotten victims. In this episode, he takes us inside policing during some of the most volatile moment...

In this episode of The Hidden Third, we sit down with Wallo267 to unpack a story that starts in the harshest possible place: prison. Wallo caught his first conviction at just 10 years old. By 17, he was sentenced to adult prison, where he would spend the next 20 years locked away. Sometimes in the same facility as his own brother and stepfather. Instead of letting prison break him, he turned it in...

How do you find people who do not want to be found? In this episode of The Hidden Third, Mariana sits down with skip tracer and private investigator Michelle Gomez – described by Wired as “the world’s best bounty hunter” – to unpack how she tracks down people who have disappeared on purpose, from the fugitive Ryan Eugene Mullen to a fake “Prince of Dubai.” At 4'11" and just over 100 pounds, Michel...

This past January, America’s so‑called “last cannabis prisoner” walked out of federal custody after serving years on a marijuana trafficking conspiracy between California and the East Coast. At 24, he was running a multi‑million‑dollar weed pipeline from Northern California to Maryland, using tractor‑trailers, private planes, and even FedEx franchises as part of the cannabis supply chain. Before h...

Nikki Mammano arrived in Hawaii as a college student and, within months, was running crystal meth in Waikiki. She became known as the Crystal Meth Queen of Waikiki — until it all came crashing down. Today, she’s a PTA mom in New Jersey and the author of Breaking Good, a brutally honest memoir about addiction, trauma, and the long road to healing. In this episode of The Hidden Third, we trace Nikki...

On this episode of The Hidden Third, I interview Lee Harris — a channeler who claims to communicate with 88 intergalactic beings known as “The Z’s.” He reaches over 2 million people each month and leads a global spiritual community built around his teachings on consciousness, aliens, and the future of humanity. I’m a journalist, trained to look for evidence — not claims about non-human intelligenc...

Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Frank Meeink's life runs parallel in many ways to one of the most powerful films ever made about hate in America — American History X. Except his story is real. By 16 he was one of the most notorious skinhead gang leaders on the East Coast. By 17 he had his own cable TV show preaching white supremacy. By 18 he was doing hard time in a...

Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthirdLola Blanc was 12 when a man at an LDS (Mormon) singles dance told her mother he was a prophet receiving direct revelation from God. No compound, no mass following — just a one-on-one system of control that separated Lola from her mom and escalated into coercion and trafficking, all framed as God's will. Lola's mother, Christine Marie,...

Special episode drop! We're excited to share an interview with Mariana on The Jordan Harbinger Show. Mariana talks about her long-running show, Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller, her experiences in the field, and what she's taking on now. We hope you enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Scott Budnick produced some of the biggest films in Hollywood — Old School, The Hangover, War Dogs. Then he visited a juvenile detention center in Los Angeles, and it changed the trajectory of his life. He walked away from Hollywood and started going into juvenile detention centers every week — teaching, listening, showing up for kids...

Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Watch on Spotify. If you’re subscribed to Spotify Premium, you don’t get any Spotify ads on my video. With a limited-time offer, get Huel today with an exclusive offer of 15% off online with the code MARIANA at https://www.huel.com/mariana. New customers only.  Meagan Elizabeth was born into the Two-by-Twos — one of the most secretive...

Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Get 15% off OneSkin with the code MARIANA at http://www.oneskin.co/MARIANA #oneskinpod Amanda Knox was 20 years old when she went to Italy for a study abroad year. Weeks later, her roommate Meredith Kercher was murdered — and Amanda became the story. She was wrongfully convicted, sentenced to 26 years, and imprisoned for four years wh...

Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on my video. Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at http://square.com/go/hiddenthird! #squarepod James Luckey-Lange had one country left to visit in the continental Americas: Venezuela. He'd survived Haiti, Nicaragua, a husky he buried in Patagonia, and the loss of bo...

Join The Hidden Third Patreon! https://patreon.com/TheHiddenThird Shaka Senghor went to prison for murder at 19 and spent seven of his 19 years in solitary confinement. But his imprisonment started long before that. Today, Mariana sits down with Shaka and has an intimate conversation about life’s hidden prisons, the moment in solitary confinement that changed his life, and the work he is passionat...

Jan Broberg was kidnapped at 12 by a family friend who convinced her it was an alien mission. Then kidnapped again at 14. Her story — the basis for Netflix's Abducted in Plain Sight — is one of the most shocking grooming cases ever documented. Today she tells it in her own words, and breaks down the predator tactics that are still happening — from family friends to online platforms like Roblox. Le...

This week on The Hidden Third, Mariana sits down with Coss Marte — a former drug dealer who, at 17, was running what he claims was New York City's first 24/7 drug delivery business, pulling in over $2 million. A betrayal within his own team brought it all crashing down, and he was suddenly facing up to 25 years in prison. Behind bars, a doctor told him he wouldn't survive to 30. What happened next...

Marta Barreto survived years of sexual abuse, addiction, exploitation, and prison. She became a mother, got sober, went back to school, and eventually landed her childhood dream — working on rocket propulsion at Virgin Orbit. In this episode, Marta talks about the psychological grip of trauma and exploitation, the barriers that keep so many victims trapped, and what it really takes to rebuild a li...

Britt Elmore, former undercover narcotics detective, spent years embedded inside the operations most people only see in crime dramas — building cases against dealers, managing informants, and navigating the moral gray zones that define modern drug enforcement. In this episode, he pulls back the curtain on how undercover operations really work: the mechanics of infiltrating criminal networks, the f...

Sonny Von Cleveland survived years of childhood sexual abuse, 18 years in prison, and 19 months in solitary confinement. But it was in that isolation cell where everything changed — through daily conversations with a Muslim mentor in the cell across from his, Sonny found accountability, forgiveness, and a reason to live differently. Today he mentors at-risk youth in juvenile detention centers acro...

Between 4,000 and 6,000 cartel trespass growers take to the woods of California every year. They arrive armed, they stay for months, and they are ready to defend their cash crop at any cost. They divert waterways, deploy pesticides and fertilizers so toxic they were banned by the EPA over a decade ago, and leave behind environmental disasters that may take generations to repair. And they do all of...

Go to http://factormeals.com/hiddenthird50off and use code hiddenthird50off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. What happens when one of the most powerful corporations in the world –  Amazon – decides your family is a threat? Amy Nelson, attorney, mother of four, and founder of The Riveter,  found out the hard way: frozen bank accounts, FBI raids, federal subpoenas, and the full weight o...

Go to http://expressvpn.com/hiddenthird to secure your online data and get up to four extra months. At 14, Christian Picciolini was a lonely kid from an Italian immigrant family in Chicago when he was recruited into the Chicago Area Skinheads — one of America's first neo-Nazi skinhead groups. By 16, he was leading it. He fronted white power punk bands, helped merge his group with the violent Hamme...

On The Hidden Third, we explore the underground worlds and shadowy figures that drive much of the global economy—so today I’m excited to share an excerpt from a new audiobook about one of our culture’s most taboo, most-watched, and least-understood industries: porn. It’s the most watched business in the world. And the least understood. Streamed by millions every day, porn is everywhere. It shapes...

Go to http://selectquote.com/mariana to save more than 50% on term life insurance. Kari Ferrell became known as “The Hipster Grifter” after her cons went viral. In this episode of The Hidden Third, Kari joins me to talk about how her scams worked — from bad checks to stealing from friends and lying about being a cancer survivor — and how things escalated after she moved from Salt Lake City to New...

Eric Balliet spent 25 years with the Department of Homeland Security - first with the CBP and then with ICE - arresting dozens of human traffickers, smugglers, and child predators. He led the wiretap strategy that resulted in the arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán—not once, but twice—and was named Federal Law Enforcement Association's Agent of the Year. In this episode, we dive deep into: - His t...