Crime Writers On...

An intelligence analyst and a cunning assassin play a sexy game of cat and mouse. We’ll do a classic rewind to our June 8, 2018 review of BBC America’s “Killing Eve” starring Emmy winners Sandra Oh and Jody Comer. For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon . Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com. This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio . Click to find out mo...

As he nears the end of his life, an aging hitman makes a confession to podcast host Marc Smerling. In 1978, he traveled to Rome to help the Italian mafia assassinate Pope John Paul I to cover up wrongdoings by the Vatican bank. Anthony Raimondi says he got into organized crime because his father was a ruthless mob enforcer. Instead of going to prison for killing a rival, he was recruited into a se...

Who’s ready for a “number two”? America’s favorite true crime teenagers return to investigate who is the Turd Burglar. We’ll go back to Oct 7, 2018 for a classic rewind to our review of the Peabody Award-winning comedy series “American Vandal" season 2. For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon . Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com. This show was recorded in The Caitlin Roge...

Their parents think they need tough love to get off drugs or improve their behavior. That’s how many adolescents wind up in a facility for so-called troubled teens. Billed as schools or camps, staff members often use violence to maintain discipline or mete out punishment. For decades, these programs resulted in physical and sexual abuse, deaths, long-lasting trauma, and few consequences for staff...

Was a cold war rock song actually a piece of CIA propaganda? We’ll rewind the cassette to our May 25, 2020 review of "Wind of Change " from Spotify, Pineapple Street, and Crooked Media, with host Patrick Radden Keefe. For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon . Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com. This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio . Click to find ou...

In 2009, after her release from the LA County Sheriff’s Department on a minor arrest, Mitrice Richardson walked into the night and vanished. Her naked, mummified body was discovered months later in a remote Malibu Canyon creek bed. Authorities said the cause and manner of her death were undetermined. Mitrice’s family accused the department of botching the investigation, mishandling her remains, an...

A therapist discovers the mysterious clinic where she works is treating war vets by erasing their memories. We’ll go back to our Dec 30, 2016 review of Gimlet’s “Homecoming” starring Catherine Keener and Oscar Isaac. For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon . Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com. This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio . Click to find out...

In 2011, more than a dozen high school girls in Le Roy, New York began displaying Tourette-like twitches and tics. Health officials could not find a physical or environmental cause for the symptoms, and believed the teens were suffering from conversion disorder. But some rejected the implication their illness was all in their heads, insisting a medical cause was to blame. Was Le Roy High School th...

It was a water park focused on crazy rides and little concern for safety...and Rebecca has the scars to prove it. We’ll return to our Sept 21, 2020 review of “Class Action Park.” For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon . Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com. This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio . Click to find out more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWiz...

While conducting a routine firearms background check, a federal agent hears a rumor about Thomas Gibison that dated back to high school. He’d bragged that he and a friend shot a Black man to earn a skinhead spider web tattoo. Investigators get accomplice Craig Peterson to confirm 15 years earlier they killed a random pedestrian in Philadelphia. But with no name, date, or open case to work from, th...

A pair of FBI agents teams with a researcher to interview the most dangerous serial killers to create a new investigative tool: criminal profiling. We’ll revisit our Oct 27, 2017 review of Netflix’s “Mindhunter” For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon . Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com. This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio . Click to find out more...

In 1989, 23-year-old Kevin Hughes was killed when he was ambushed by a gunman along Nashville’s famous Music Row. Hughes had been troubled that the country music record chart he worked for was accepting money under the table to manipulate the rankings of up-and-coming artists. Hughes’s opposition to the dirty practice put him in the crosshairs of powerful independent music promoters who paid for c...

After seeing a report about facilitated communication, a student of professor Anna Stubblefield asked if she could help his disabled brother. With support for his arm and hand, Derrick Johnson could type on a small keyboard. With Stubblefield’s assistance, the nonverbal man could express a wide range of thought, feelings, and academic promise. Over time, the pair fell in love and started a sexual...

In 1982, restaurant manager Michael Moore shot accountant Jordan Rasmussen, then laundry van driver Buddy Booth who discovered the body. Though he escaped the firing squad, Moore sought advice from the sentencing board on how he might someday win his release from prison. The murders left gaping holes in the lives of the victims’ families, but when they learned Moore was an exemplary prisoner who w...

As California’s gay community began flourishing in the 1970s, a conservative politician pushed through a statewide ballot question: should gay and lesbian teachers be banned from California schools? State Senator John Briggs told voters children were at risk of molestation and indoctrination in the classroom. Though their political influence was small, queer activists began to mobilize against a g...

In May 2021, Belize police superintendent Henry Jammott was shot in the head with his own service weapon. Investigators arrested socialite Jasmine Hartin, who claimed the gun accidentally fired while Jammott was teaching her to handle it. Many in Belize assumed Hartin would get special consideration because her common-law husband was the son of British billionaire Lord Michael Ashcroft. Instead, H...

In 2019, authorities in California searched the sea for Scottish tourist Kim Avis, who was last seen going for a swim. BBC journalist Myles Bonnar remembered Avis as an eccentric street vendor from his hometown. But American police believed Avis faked his disappearance to avoid criminal prosecution for sexual assault back in Scotland. An international manhunt failed to turn up the fugitive. But a...

For fifty years, George Coulam has owned the Texas Renaissance Faire, which he runs with an iron fist. Seeking to fill his remaining years with romance, the 86-year-old is considering selling the faire. His earnest general manager Jeff Baldwin believes “King George” will someday pass the reigns to him. For reasons unclear, the mercurial owner sours on his loyal employee, forcing him to share respo...

In 2015, the gentlemanly world of professional curling was rocked by a new breakthrough. A team debuted the Hardline broom, one whose brushes were incredibly effective at guiding the gliding rock across the ice to the target with astonishing precision. Opponents bristled, claiming the Hardline broom provided an unfair advantage. Then a competing manufacturer unveiled an even better broom, one that...

Workers discover a young woman has overdosed in a hotel room filled with drugs and a video camera, but the police never take any action against the older man who was with her. After getting a tip, LA Times investigative reporter Paul Pringle learns the man is Doctor Carmen Puliafito, the dean of USC’s medical school, who’s been living a secret life of hard drugs and coercive sex with the victim. P...

What do some of the most prominent Indigenous celebrities, politicians, and cultural leaders have in common? They’re not actually affiliated with the tribes they claim to have ties with. More and more so-called “pretendians” are being unmasked, accused of fabricating their native heritage. Some fake their ancestry to accumulate power, reshape their public image, or obtain benefits meant for Indige...

Writer Rebecca Godfrey returns to her parents’ home in Vancouver to develop a book about local teens in a foster home. One of the troubled girls she focuses on is soon connected to the disappearance of her frenemy, Reena Virk, last seen fleeing a group of teens who chased her from a party. When Reena’s body is discovered, Rebecca inserts herself in the teens’ world to find the real story for her b...

Two decades ago, reporter Tonya Mosley got an unexpected phone call from a man claiming to be her nephew by a half-sister she never knew about. Antonio Wiley said his mom vanished in Detroit in the 1980s when he was just 14-years-old. When Anita Wiley’s body was identified in 2020, Tonya and Antonio teamed up to retrace her life and examine why she died. The journey changed the way the journalist...

Behind the scenes, years before Robert Durst’s hot mic murder confession made it to air, investigators in the Susan Berman case had been reviewing evidence uncovered by the producers of “The Jinx.” And as America grew transfixed with the 2015 TV series, the man connected to three high-profile crimes felt the heat. Once the millionaire fugitive was captured, prosecutors began building their legal c...

How did America law enforcement get to its present state of near-unaccountability? An examination of its history shows policing has its origins in running slave patrols, displacing indigenous tribes, and coercing organized labor. Once used as a tool by the powerful to maintain social order and protect their personal property, modern police have become a power unto themselves. With the help of “tou...