True Crime Reporter

A 77-page report by a special committee of the Texas House of Representatives concluded that no one was able to stop the gunman from carrying out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, in part because of “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” by nearly everyone involved who was in a position of power. 376  law enforcement officers descended on the school in a chaotic,...

25-year-old Anna Moriah Wilson , known as “Mo” was an up-and-coming professional cyclist in gravel racing. Friends described her as a beacon and light and energy. But another cyclist, Kailin Armstrong allegedly snuffed out that light in a hail of gunfire. Shockwaves from the grievance killing spread from Austin, Texas where the murder occurred to news media around the world. It is a true-crime sto...

Many of you have asked how Robert became an investigative reporter.  After all, most of the stories you hear on this podcast come from my reporter’s notebook. Riggs’ career path has zigged and zagged since I received a degree in Architecture and Construction from Texas A&M University. Upon graduation, he headed off to Capitol Hill. In this episode, my cohost, former prosecutor Bill Johns...

Katherine Schweit headed up the FBI’s active shooter program, where she authored the bureau’s landmark research about mass shootings and how to respond best to save lives. In the wake of the massacre of children and their teachers in Uvalde, Texas , school safety weighs heavily on the minds of teachers and students’ families.  In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, investigative reporter Ro...

For many years, Texas had a law and order image.  Politicians campaigned for office about getting tough on crime. A gubernatorial candidate’s TV ads featured actors wearing black and white overalls swinging sledgehammers in the prison yard. His voice-over pledged to teach youthful criminals “the joy of busing rocks.” Texas ran a revolving-door prison system.   Lawmakers passed tougher laws but ref...

Matt Baker, the charismatic Baptist minister who almost got away with murdering his wife is among our most popular episodes. On his way to the pulpit in Waco, Texas, Baker molested numerous young women. An investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, revealed that church leaders covered up sexual assaults by hundreds of pastors like Matt Bakers for t...

Can you imagine yourself falling in love with a serial killer or murderer to the point you will give up your family, career, and even your life for them? A veteran Alabama jail officer, Vicky White, did just that in April of 2022 when she staged a getaway with a capital murder suspect. The 56-year-old White had an unblemished record.  She was on her last day of work before retirement. Her col...

In this vintage photo 1993, Peabody Award-Winning Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs stands on a guard tower overlooking Texas Death Row. Poking up behind him to the right of the large spotlight is the steeple of the prison, the chapel, where seven condemned prisoners made their daring break for freedom five years later.  29-year Martin Gurule, a cold-blooded killer from Corpus Christi in South T...

Frivolous lawsuits filed by convicted criminals flooded the federal court system in Texas. A prison inmate who regarded himself as the “ Perry Mason ” of the Texas prison sued for millions of dollars because his Thanksgiving Turkey was served cold. Another sued because his Rice Krispies Cereal did not Snap, Crackle, or Pop as advertised. FOLLOW the True Crime Reporter® Podcast   S...

Sheriff Parnell McNamara promised his constituents in McLennan County, Texas around Waco that he would actively pursue cold cases. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara & Reporter Robert Riggs McNamara was elected for a third four-year term in January 2021. He has made good on his campaign pledge to open up long-forgotten homicide cases. Because as McNamara sees it, no one should get away w...

Cold case investigator Paul Holes played a major role in ending a decades-long reign of terror by The Golden State Killer. First known as The East Area Rapist, a masked psychological sadist assaulted 50 women in Northern California between 1976 and 1979. He progressed from burglaries to vicious sexual assaults in the middle of the night to bludgeoning his victims to death. Along the way, he called...

Doug Feldman’s resume gave no clue that a mass killer was lurking inside him. He graduated from a prestigious university, was a financial wizard, and was the funniest man in the room at social functions. Everything appeared to be going his way. But beneath Feldman’s calm exterior, a volcano was swelling inside him. First, there were tremors. Then, a deadly eruption against random strangers....

Gun-wielding gang members from Houston burst into a rural bank located a hundred miles north of Houston. The high school-age teenagers graduated from burglaries and drive-by shootings to cold-blooded murders that day. They left behind the bullet-riddled body of an 82-year-old woman who was tending her family’s graves. They robbed a bank and shot up the small town while making their getaway. They p...

It was called the “Ride Murder.” The bullet-riddled body of an unidentified seaman from the Port of Houston , Texas, was found dumped in a ditch a few miles away. HELP US FIND THIS MAN’S FAMILY Two men and a woman used a “ honey pot ” trap to lure the seaman into their car to rob him. It was one of the most sensational murder trials ever brought in East Texas. School children par...

Before Columbine. Before Sandy Hook. Before Virginia Tech.  There was the Sniper in the Tower at the University of Texas. America’s first mass murder and school shooting unfolded on live television in Austin, Texas, more than a half-century ago. Since then, the question has lingered, “Why did he do it?” Gary Lavergne, the author of A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders , addresse...

Kenneth McDuff “The Broomstick Killer” Retired CBS News Anchor Bob Schieffer was the first reporter to interview Kenneth McDuff and cover his crimes in 1966.  Fort Worth Star-Telegram police beat reporter Bob Schieffer; appeared in “The Anatomy of a Newspaper” article dated 01/12/1964 Back then, Schieffer was the police beat reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ....

We usually take our fans inside the crime scene tape of real-life crimes. But in this episode, we are testing out a fictional Texas Ranger superhero named Creed True, inspired by real-life cases. The Texas Ranger became a superhero in pop culture long before Spider-Man and fellow characters from Marvel Comics captured our collective imaginations.  Think about how “Who was that masked ma...

Texas kicked off festivities on Texas Independence Day , to commemorate the 2023 Bicentennial of the Texas Rangers. As the Rangers approach their 200th year of service, their legend is embodied in the following quote. When Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald was sent to Dallas in the 1890s to prevent a scheduled prizefight, McDonald was greeted at the train station by the city’s anxious mayor...

The Bonnie and Clyde gang rode roughshod over the Central United States during the Depression in the 1930s until Texas Ranger Frank Hamer came out of retirement and ended their deadly robbery spree in an ambush. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker aka Bonnie and Clyde It’s one of many cases that contributes to the worldwide reputation of the Texas Rangers. In order to get a concise and accurate account...

Fort Worth Cold Case detectives solved the murder of 17-year-old Carla Walker after it had gone cold for nearly five decades. They analyzed old evidence using genetic genealogy and new DNA extraction technology pioneered by Othram , a forensic genealogy lab in the Woodlands, a suburb of Houston.  17-Year Old Carla Walker Abducted in August of 1974 Othram matched the DNA to a test submitted to a ge...

This is a story about two botched murder attempts by hired hitmen. And what happened when 65-year-old Joyce Sturdivant took matters into her own hands? One of the most common forms of homicide is when one half of a couple kills the other. Women are usually the victims of this form of homicide. Only one percent of male victims are killed by a partner. Joyce Sturdivant 76-years old – TDCJ Inma...

The men and women of the Texas Highway Patrol work alone, often at night, on remote stretches of highway. They drive distinctive black and white cruisers and SUVs with bright gold emblems in the shape of Texas on the side doors. Help might be a hundred miles away if a traffic stop turns bad. For example, in 2021, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Chad Walker was killed in an ambush. Walker...

Former NYPD Detective Randy Jurgensen walked a beat in Harlem all the way into Hollywood’s greatest crime dramas of all time. He is known as the cop who killed Sonny Corleone in The Godfather . Gene Hackman pats down NYPD Detective Randy Jurgensen to learn proper police procedures to use in the filming of The French Connection His walk of fame started when William Friedkin , the director of The Fr...

When you hear about violent crime, do you think to yourself, “it would never happen to me?” When 29-year-old Colleen Reed went to a self-service car wash in Austin, Texas, none of her family or friends thought it would be the last time they saw her.  Reed never imagined that serial killer Kenneth McDuff was stalking her.  McDuff is featured in the first season of T rue Crime Reporter® ....

After listening to our episodes about serial killer Kenneth McDuff, you have no doubt that McDuff is what FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood described as a textbook psychopath. But it’s not only criminals that are psychopaths. CEOs of major corporations, politicians, and entertainers score high on the checklist of psychopathic behavior. Think about your work colleagues or social circle.   Is you...