True Crime Reporter

Imagine getting a video text message from your bank’s manager asking for your password. You recognize her face. You hear her voice. She’s looking right at you. But there’s one problem. It’s not really your bank manager.  It’s a criminal using artificial intelligence to look like her and steal your money. AI has given criminals the power to impersonate almost anyone.  They can clone voices, produce convincing videos, and create elaborate scams that are nearly impossible to distinguish from reality. And now, autonomous AI agents can carry out thousands of actions without a human directing every move. So what happens when criminals unleash these powerful machines on people and businesses My guest is Dr. Charles M. Russo, a national security expert who has worked for the FBI and CIA.  Russo warns that artificial intelligence is creating a dangerous vulnerability. We’re surrendering our ability to think critically and question what we see and hear. And that makes us easier targets. This is another edition of True Crime Reporter®. I’m Robert Riggs. These are stories ripped from my reporter’s notebook. When you can no longer trust your own eyes and ears, how do you protect yourself from criminals who can manufacture reality? That’s the question I put to Charles Russo.

After a nine-hour conversation, an AI Chatbot convinced a 17-year-old girl that she was living in a simulated world.  A world like the one depicted in the 1999 Sci-fi film The Matrix, where a computer programmer discovers that everyday reality is actually a machine-made creation designed to enslave humanity. She questioned whether life was worth living. Dallas therapist Alexandra Tracy counseled the young woman. It is a case of what is unofficially called AI psychosis, and it is not uncommon. This is another edition of True Crime Reporter®. I’m Robert Riggs. These are stories ripped from my reporter’s notebook. Alexandra Tracy joins me to explain what happens when people turn to machines for emotional support.

A predator succeeds by convincing a child that secrecy is the only safe choice. The child may fear losing a phone, a game, a group of friends, or a parent’s trust. That fear is not a side effect of exploitation. It is part of the strategy. I have been digging into FBI reports. In this episode, I examine how sextortion can begin inside an online game, why gifts and private chats matter in context, and how artificial intelligence has made false images another weapon. Most importantly, I explain how parents can make one message unmistakable before a crisis: If something goes wrong, come tell us. You will not be blamed.

An online terror group called 764 seeks a badge of honor by getting teenage girls to live-stream mutilation of their bodies and, worse, killing themselves as its members watched with glee.  FBI investigations report cases in which vulnerable preteen and teenage girls were blackmailed into carving the initials of 764 members into their skin. It is a status symbol called “Blood Content” inside what the FBI calls online domestic terror networks.  The blood trail of suffering starts in Texas. Content note: This episode discusses child exploitation, self-harm, animal cruelty, and suicide. It avoids unnecessary graphic detail while explaining the danger and how families can respond.

Real human connection is becoming harder to recognize in a world increasingly shaped by AI-generated content. Former FBI counterintelligence agent Robin Dreeke returns to the podcast to explore one of the most urgent questions of our time: who or what should we trust? From the rise of AI personalities and artificial empathy to the subtle ways criminals manipulate human behavior, Dreeke explains how the principles he used in the world of spies apply to everyday life. We also discuss the updated edition of his bestselling book, It’s Not All About Me: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone. Dreeke shares practical insights on reading people, spotting manipulation, building authentic relationships, and protecting yourself in a culture where deception is increasingly sophisticated. Whether you are fascinated by criminal behavior, curious about the future of AI, or simply trying to better understand the people around you, this conversation offers deeply personal and timely insights.

This episode is about the standoff with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and the threat of its drone attack to the global economy. And I know what some of you may be wondering. What does Iran have to do with the True Crime Reporter® podcast? My answer is simple. For more than forty years, the Iranian regime has been linked to the killing of Americans, sometimes directly, sometimes through proxies, and often with little lasting consequence. This is not an abstract foreign policy debate for me. During my thirty years in television news, I saw the human cost of that shadow war up close.  I covered the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, where 241 American service members were killed in 1983.  Federal court records have described Hezbollah as the perpetrator and Iran as a source of political, financial, and operational support tied to the attack. I was an embedded reporter during the invasion of Iraq, where American troops faced roadside bombs and armor-piercing explosives supplied or supported by Iranian networks. In more than a dozen attacks, Iran has killed Americans without putting Iranian soldiers in the fight.  It used terror groups, militias, mines, missiles, and now drones.  When a regime uses proxies to kill Americans and destabilize the world, that is not merely geopolitics. It is state-sponsored crime. The world is focused on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow strip of water off Iran’s coast where the global oil supply and American military power now face one of the most dangerous choke points on earth. To help understand what this conflict means now, I turned to retired Army Colonel John Antal, a 30-year veteran soldier, historian, leadership expert, and best-selling author.  Antal is here to help us see the battlefield clearly.

As I watched the daring rescue of the two airmen shot down over Iran in early April of 2026, I found myself thinking of John Bagwell. John’s story is not a true-crime saga you’d expect to hear on this podcast, but it is gripping, timely, and no less dramatic. I learned about his military service when he wore a Purple Heart ribbon to a search engine marketing group meeting here in Dallas many years ago. John had never talked about his time in the Vietnam War, and we were surprised. We learned that in 1968, Bagwell escaped from behind enemy lines during a surprise attack dubbed the Tet Offensive.  He was wounded and alone, moving through deadly, unfamiliar territory while trying to avoid enemy fire and, at times, bullets from his own side. His harrowing fight for survival began at a radio station in Vietnam with a scene that could have been lifted straight from a Hollywood movie. See Vietnam Era Photos of Army Disc Jockey John Bagwell Blasting Out Popular Sixties Rock Music To Troops Popular Songs Among Bagwell’s Listeners In Vietnam We Gotta Get Out Of This Place by The Animals Something’s Happening Here by Buffalo Springfield Hue 1968- A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam is my favorite book about the Tet Offensive by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down

Burned with lit cigarettes. Impaled with a fishhook. Staples fired into his hip. Deadly drugs forced up his nose.  It sounds like a brutal regime’s methods from a torture chamber. But these are the homegrown means of hazing that the Alpha Nu Chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity allegedly used on pledges at the University of Texas at Austin. The sadistic practices detailed in a wrongful death lawsuit raise questions about whether fraternity members derive pleasure from inflicting pain. It allegedly caused 18-year-old Sawyer Updike to end his life under the influence of mind-bending drugs he was forced to take.  If you are sending a son or daughter off to college, you want to hear this story about Brothers of Brutality.  Get The Facts About Hazing On Your College Campus at HazingInfo.org University of Texas at Austin Hazing Report Required by the Federal Stop Campus Hazing Act Sawyer Updike Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Sigma Chi Fraternity

Legendary LAPD Homicide Detective John St. John walked among the dead for nearly a half-century. Known as “JigSaw John,” he pursued monsters that had an insatiable appetite for blood and suffering. Jane Howatt, a suburban housewife and aspiring writer, wanted to trade her tennis racket for something more meaningful. St. John didn’t need company, and he sure didn’t want a young unpublished author in his way.  But something about Howatt’s curiosity—earnest, unspoiled, insistent—broke down his guard. St. John worked the evidence; Howatt worked the story.  The result is “JigSaw and Jane: Thirteen Years of Murder & Mayhem with Badge Number One.”  St.John empathized with crime victims because he was one of them. As a young jailer, a prisoner ambushed him with an iron bar ripped from a bunk. The prisoner savagely beat St. John to the brink of death, leaving him blind in one eye. In another life, JigSaw and Jane would have barely noticed each other in a supermarket aisle.  Instead, they found themselves peering into crime scenes of LA’s most brutal and sensational crimes together. This is their story.

This isn’t the kind of story I usually tell. The police didn’t converge on the scene with sirens blaring and guns drawn. But what happened inside a Dallas apartment complex was just as devastating and just as unforgivable as a cold-blooded murder. In 2015, a silent killer slipped into the home of two young children. Not through malice, but through neglect, greed, and a rusted furnace exhaust pipe no one wanted to fix.  The carbon monoxide gas that leaked out of it took their minds, leaving them permanently brain-damaged, trapped in silence. For nine years, their mother fought a legal battle against apartment owners and their insurance company, which denied everything.  What followed was a story of delay, deception, and courtroom drama that will outrage even the most hardened true crime listener. This episode is a departure from my usual reporting, but it’s one I had to tell.  Because sometimes, the deadliest crimes aren’t committed with a weapon.  They’re committed with indifference. What You Will Learn You’ll hear how teachers and specialists documented the children’s injuries, why the defense experts lost credibility, how faith shaped one lawyer’s closing argument, and how a $51 million verdict created a path toward therapy, education, and long-term support. Legal Resources Mentioned In This Story: Ted B. Lyon Personal Injury Lawyer Science Resources for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Dr. Lindell Weaver Science.org