True Dat

The recent (and heavily redacted) Epstein files have left us all asking questions. This week, Xia and Na'im attempt to make sense of not just Epstein's suspicious death, but also of those once in his circle, who died by suicide. Follow Xia: https://www.instagram.com/xia_land/?hl=en https://x.com/Xia_Land Follow Na'im: https://www.instagram.com/naim__ali/?hl=en https://x.com/Naim__Ali Want more Tru...

Imagine raking in millions of dollars while you're in high school. In the 80s, that's what Alpo Martinez was up to in Harlem. Martinez was a charismatic, intelligent young man who was simply trying to escape poverty. And what started off as a petty criminal career evolved into something more as he was groomed to sell drugs. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a kingpin and ruthless murdere...

From the outside, the List family had it all - the house, the cars, the nice neighborhood. But behind the facade of riches was something much more sinister. John List, the family patriarch, lost his job and when he couldn't keep up with all the expenses, decided to end it all for everyone... except himself. In 1971, he carefully planned to murder his family and managed to elude law enforcement for...

Just a year after 9/11, the U.S. experienced a whole new wave of domestic terror with the D.C. sniper attacks. Na'im and Xia recap the horrific events from their own perspectives, sharing how the attacks impacted their lives directly. It was John Allen Muhammad and his young protege Lee Boyd Malvo who were responsible, and they were eventually caught after claiming 17 victims, and wounding 10 othe...

In honor of Skankfest X being held in New Orleans, Na'im and Xia cover a lesser-known case from the area, 'The Storyville Slayer'. In the 90s, After several victims were found dumped in the city's canal system, law enforcement started to suspect a lone serial killer. However, two surviving witness accounts suggest that there could have been more than one perp. Just when cops thought they were clos...

We're joined by horror/crime aficionado and GaS Digital legend Zac Amico this week to talk about The Black Dahlia. Although this case has been unsolved for almost 80 years, the mystery of Elizabeth Short's murder has been ingrained in American culture. A poor girl from Massachusetts who moved to Hollywood with big dreams, Elizabeth hoped to find love and stardom, but often struggled to make ends m...

True Dat returns this week with special guest Dru Montana (comedian/other half of the 'Durag & the Deertag' podcast) to cover... The Zodiac Killer! This is probably the most infamous cold case in American history - not only are there multiple suspects and theories, but some of the puzzling ciphers the Zodiac left behind still remain unsolved. That is until this year, when an amateur sleuth cla...

Na'im takes the wheel in this episode that's all about Diddy. With his trial last summer, along with the new documentary produced by 50 Cent, Diddy has been exposed as a truly diabolical man. Since his come up in the 90s, he's been on a quest for power and control, and has shown time and time again that he's willing to destroy anything or anyone who gets in his way. The worst part is, he's got a s...

When former NFL linebacker Antonio Armstrong and his wife Dawn were found shot in their beds in the summer of 2016, cops looked no further than their son AJ and arrested him immediately. The evidence against him however was debunked by his strong legal defense team, leaving a hung jury in his first two trials. He wasn't convicted until his third trial, and is now serving a life sentence with the p...

Though never officially convicted, Wayne Williams has been the prime suspect in the Atlanta Child Murders. He's already serving a life sentence for two other homicides, and these adult victims were killed in the same exact manner as the nearly 30 other children in the area, all of which occurred in the span of only two years. Williams claims he is innocent and was wrongly framed, but the circumsta...

Dennis Rader was a family man; active in his local church and community in Wichita. Over the years, his rigidity, odd behavior, and nasty temper caused suspicion among neighbors. And they were right, something was up. But it wasn't until Rader branded himself as 'BTK' (Bind, Torture, Kill) in a pathetic effort to get attention for his disturbing, sexually-motivated murders, that Rader fully commit...

Aileen Wuornos is the exception to the 'traditional' serial killer. Not only was she a woman, but her targets were also middle aged white men, something you don't typically see. Aileen's MO was mostly financial and self-proclaimed self-defense, but once you know her tragic backstory, you understand the rage that motivated her. While on trial, Aileen was dubbed 'The Damsel of Death', but later medi...

This year, during museum hours, robbers entered the Louvre and in 7 minutes, left with $100M worth of crown jewels. The heist shocked the world because of how brazen it was - the thieves blended in plain sight, descended out of a window down a construction ladder, and fled on motorcycles. With heightened security and DNA, it's not likely someone could get away with such a crime these days. That be...

One of our fav comedians, Brendan Sagalow (AKA Sagdaddy), joins Na'im and Xia in the studio this week! They discuss the Murdaughs - a family that was once a big fish in a little pond. A prominent law dynasty spanning four generations in South Carolina, the Murdaughs quickly fell from grace after patriarch Alex was tied to a series of deaths and financial scandals in their community. Na'im, Xia, an...

This week on a very special episode of True Dat, we have legendary comedian Jim Norton in the house! He, Xia, and Na'im discuss Aleister Crowley - an English occultist who earned the reputation of being 'the wickedest man in the world' in the early 20th century. Although Crowley was never convicted of a specific crime, his bisexuality, prolific drug use, and ties to the occult were enough to send...

Ed Gein is very much abuzz right now due to the recent Netflix show about him, but even after watching 'Monster: The Ed Gein Story', his true character remains a mystery. What we do know is that Gein was an emotionally stunted man with schizophrenia who believed he could resurrect his mother from the dead by making a skin suit out of corpses. But when detectives uncovered his house of horrors, the...

Sexual misconduct in schools is nothing new, and while the majority of perps are male, there seems to be a growing number of female teachers who have been making headlines for similar offenses. Perhaps the most well-recognized case that exemplifies this trend is that of Mary Kay Letourneau, who groomed and eventually married her 12 year old student, but there have been several, more recent example...

In an attempt to 'blur the lines between fiction and reality', amateur filmmaker Mark Twitchell acted out his fantasy by pretending to be the TV character Dexter Morgan. Only instead of taking out a 'bad guy' under the guise of vigilantism and getting away with it because it's a TV show, Twitchell lured an unsuspecting victim into a rented garage, murdered him in cold blood, and got caught. Luckil...

The case JonBenét Ramsey is considered by many to be the biggest unsolved murder in contemporary American history. In the 90s, her face was on the cover of every tabloid on the supermarket checkout line. The public, demanding justice, blamed the Ramsey parents for her death and subsequently dragged the family through the mud. There are a few theories on who hurt JonBenét that continue to circulate...

Carl Panzram may not be the most famous criminal in US history, but once you learn about him, it's impossible to forget his name. Born in Minnesota in 1891 and executed in Kansas in 1930, Panzram managed to commit just about every crime in the book in his short 39 years on earth. And he didn't let borders stop him - he committed heinous acts abroad in both Europe and Africa as well. Carl claimed t...

Three days after the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 2024, the bodies of Clayton McGeeney, Ricky Johnson, and David Harrington were found frozen in the backyard of their friend Joran Willis' house. While their deaths were certainly suspicious, there was no evidence of foul play - though the internet was ripe with theories at the time. It wasn't until the toxicology report revealed that th...

The retrial and acquittal of Karen Read has been a media sensation, mostly because this was one of a few cases in recent history in which the defendant's innocence was glaringly obvious. And although Read is now a free woman (save for a minor DUI charge), there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the death of her boyfriend, John O'Keefe. What happened that night at 34 Fairview Road in...

Episode 13 of True Dat features a special guest, comedian LeMaire Lee!! The trio covers the unbelievable story of Delimar Vera, a girl who was kidnapped from her burning home at just 10 days old by a distant relative and raised under a different name. While authorities concluded that the baby succumbed to the fire, her birth mother knew in her heart that something was wrong, and never stopped sear...

Episode 12 of True Dat covers Nicholas Samudio AKA "Smush" - a Chicago-based gang member with Down's Syndrome, accused of gunning down 2 people in 2023. Na'im and Xia discuss whether or not someone with Smush's mental capacity should be held responsible for their actions, and how gang culture can prey on the most vulnerable people. Plus, stick around for 'Florida or Fiction' and 'Last Words'! Foll...

Back in the day, if you were a young man who wanted to make a quick buck in Philly, word on the street was that you could go see 'Fast Eddie' AKA Ed Savitz. Savitz was a successful business man and well-known child predator who operated for decades in West Philadelphia, relatively unscathed. By the time he was caught, 'Fast Eddie' had developed a highly detailed system of abuse, evidenced by the t...