The True Crime Tapes

Day five of Chad Daybell’s trial focused heavily on financial and travel records prosecutors said helped establish the timeline surrounding the disappearances of JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan and the relationship between Chad and Lori Vallow. Rexburg Police Detective Chuck Kunsaitis walked jurors through bank accounts, Social Security payments, airline records, hotel stays and credit-card activity tied...

Day four of Chad Daybell’s trial focused heavily on the digital trail prosecutors said connected Daybell and Lori Vallow to the beliefs and events surrounding the deaths. FBI tactical specialist Nicole Heideman continued walking jurors through internet searches and electronic records tied to Chad and Lori, including searches for “Ned Schneider,” the name associated with the entity they believed ha...

One of the strangest unresolved episodes surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s death involved an anonymous 4chan user who appeared to announce his death before the news became public. Epstein was officially pronounced dead at NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital at approximately 7:36 a.m. on August 10, 2019, but at 8:16 a.m.—roughly 38 minutes before ABC News reporter Aaron Katersky first reporte...

Newly surfaced records show that Jeffrey Epstein maintained and actively pursued connections with Arab royal circles, particularly in Saudi Arabia, in the years after his 2008 conviction. The documents detail how Epstein received a high-status religious gift from Mecca and positioned himself as someone with access to elite international networks. Among the more revealing details is his attempt to...

Newly surfaced records show that Jeffrey Epstein maintained and actively pursued connections with Arab royal circles, particularly in Saudi Arabia, in the years after his 2008 conviction. The documents detail how Epstein received a high-status religious gift from Mecca and positioned himself as someone with access to elite international networks. Among the more revealing details is his attempt to...

Day four of Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing, held July 9, centered on some of the prosecution’s most consequential evidence yet, including a recorded interview with Robinson’s former roommate and romantic partner, Lance Twiggs. In the interview, Twiggs described Robinson’s behavior after Charlie Kirk was killed and authenticated text exchanges in which Robinson allegedly admitted responsibili...

Day four of Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing, held July 9, centered on some of the prosecution’s most consequential evidence yet, including a recorded interview with Robinson’s former roommate and romantic partner, Lance Twiggs. In the interview, Twiggs described Robinson’s behavior after Charlie Kirk was killed and authenticated text exchanges in which Robinson allegedly admitted responsibili...

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued the U.S. Department of Justice on August 5, 2026, accusing the federal government of obstructing the state’s renewed criminal investigation into alleged abuse, trafficking and other crimes connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. The lawsuit seeks access to unredacted federal investigative files that New Mexico says are necessary to identify victims,...

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued the U.S. Department of Justice on August 5, 2026, accusing the federal government of obstructing the state’s renewed criminal investigation into alleged abuse, trafficking and other crimes connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. The lawsuit seeks access to unredacted federal investigative files that New Mexico says are necessary to identify victims,...

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued the U.S. Department of Justice on August 5, 2026, accusing the federal government of obstructing the state’s renewed criminal investigation into alleged abuse, trafficking and other crimes connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. The lawsuit seeks access to unredacted federal investigative files that New Mexico says are necessary to identify victims,...

Day three of Chad Daybell’s trial on April 15, 2024, focused heavily on his behavior as investigators searched his property and discovered the bodies of JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan. Madison County Chief Deputy Vince Kaaiakamanu authenticated a recorded jail call between Lori Vallow and Daybell from the morning of June 9, 2020, in which Daybell told Lori that police were searching the property and urg...

Rexburg Police Detective Ray Hermosillo testified about how the investigation into Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell evolved from a welfare check for JJ Vallow into a search for two missing children and ultimately a murder investigation. Hermosillo told jurors that when officers first went to Lori’s Rexburg apartment in November 2019, they encountered Chad Daybell and Alex Cox, both of whom gave answer...

Prosecutors opened Chad Daybell’s murder trial by portraying him as the architect of a conspiracy driven by sex, money and power. Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood told jurors that Daybell had gone from a seemingly ordinary religious author and family man to someone who believed he was destined for something greater after meeting Lori Vallow. According to the state, Daybell and Vallow developed a...

Jury selection in Chad Daybell’s capital murder trial began on April 1, 2024, at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, where the case had been moved because of concerns about finding an impartial jury in eastern Idaho. Judge Steven Boyce and attorneys questioned prospective jurors individually about their knowledge of the case, exposure to extensive media coverage, personal connections to the invest...

Jury selection in Chad Daybell’s capital murder trial began on April 1, 2024, at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, where the case had been moved because of concerns about finding an impartial jury in eastern Idaho. Judge Steven Boyce and attorneys questioned prospective jurors individually about their knowledge of the case, exposure to extensive media coverage, personal connections to the invest...

Dylan Rounds was a 19-year-old farmer from Idaho who had spent years working toward the goal of building a farming operation of his own in the remote desert around Lucin, Utah. Born in 2002 and raised around agriculture, Rounds had been described by his family as intensely hardworking, independent and almost singularly focused on farming. In 2019, while still a teenager, he partnered with his gran...

Veteran homicide prosecutor Matt Murphy, who was not involved in the Gilgo Beach investigation, believed Rex Heuermann may have taken deliberate precautions to avoid leaving DNA behind during the killings. Murphy compared the suspected methods to those portrayed by the fictional serial killer Dexter Morgan, theorizing that Heuermann may have worn protective clothing or a gown, used condoms and car...

Day four of Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing, held July 9, centered on some of the prosecution’s most consequential evidence yet, including a recorded interview with Robinson’s former roommate and romantic partner, Lance Twiggs. In the interview, Twiggs described Robinson’s behavior after Charlie Kirk was killed and authenticated text exchanges in which Robinson allegedly admitted responsibili...

A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia, with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie also backing the measure, introduced the Epstein Wall Street Records Act, legislation aimed at forcing federal regulators to examine the financial institutions and executives that maintained ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The bill would require agencies including the Federal Reserve an...

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued the U.S. Department of Justice on August 5, 2026, accusing the federal government of obstructing the state’s renewed criminal investigation into alleged abuse, trafficking and other crimes connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. The lawsuit seeks access to unredacted federal investigative files that New Mexico says are necessary to identify victims,...

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued the U.S. Department of Justice on August 5, 2026, accusing the federal government of obstructing the state’s renewed criminal investigation into alleged abuse, trafficking and other crimes connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. The lawsuit seeks access to unredacted federal investigative files that New Mexico says are necessary to identify victims,...

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued the U.S. Department of Justice on August 5, 2026, accusing the federal government of obstructing the state’s renewed criminal investigation into alleged abuse, trafficking and other crimes connected to Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch. The lawsuit seeks access to unredacted federal investigative files that New Mexico says are necessary to identify victims,...

The FinCEN Files were a massive 2020 investigative project built around more than 2,100 leaked Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs, that banks had filed with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Those reports covered more than $2 trillion in transactions that financial institutions themselves considered suspicious between 1999 and 2017. A SAR is not proof that a crime o...

Six Jeffrey Epstein survivors, identified as Jane Does 1 through 6, filed a putative class-action lawsuit accusing the Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands and several current and former territorial officials of helping create a safe haven for Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. The complaint alleged that Epstein brought women and girls to the Virgin Islands, where they were sexually abused and...

After Bryan Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania in December 2022, he spoke briefly with police before invoking his right to remain silent and requesting an attorney. According to reporting and later court disclosures, he asked whether anyone else had been arrested in connection with the University of Idaho murders, a comment that immediately drew attention because investigators had publicly ide...