3 of 5: Lessons

James Fairbanks spent his career helping at-risk children. But their stories took a devastating toll on him. In 2020, Fairbanks said he witnessed a registered sex offender - Mattieo Condoluci - scouting out his next victim. Fairbanks vowed on the spot he wouldn’t allow another child to be abused. Taking justice into his own hands, Fairbanks confronted Condoluci, shooting him four times, and killing him. However, Condoluci's daughter praised Fairbanks for killing the man she said repeatedly raped her.

In the 1970s, San Francisco’s gay community was being terrorized. An unlikely hero emerged - Rev. Raymond Broshears. Determined to protect his flock, the gun-toting, controversial gay priest brought vigilante justice to San Francisco’s streets.

Marvin Heemeyer was nearing his breaking point after a decade-long battle with his local zoning commission. He believed they were conspiring against him. Heemeyer demanded justice, and in an effort to secure the justice he believed he deserved, he turned to an armored bulldozer and terrorized his local community.

Two years ago, Kyle MacLachlan, the star of Twin Peaks, called investigative journalist Joshua Davis with a strange story. Kyle had heard a rumor that Pablo Escobar did a deal in the early 1980s with a remote, coastal Southern town of 300 people. In exchange for vast wealth and limitless cocaine, Escobar would be allowed to land planes and ships in the area. Over the last 24 months, Josh and Kyle investigated the rumor, journeying to Varnamtown to knock on doors and find out what really happens when a firehose of money and cocaine is turned on a small, tight knit community. Listen to and follow Varnamtown at Apple Podcasts now! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/varnamtown/id1725195343

Host Allie Conti joins Hannah Smith (The Opportunist) in conversation about the making of Vigilante, season one.   If you have recommendations for people we should profile in futures seasons of Vigilante, please leave them in a review in Apple Podcasts.

What really happened to Laura Miller?

"Got to do whatever works, dear."

Marla recovers a memory.

"I set his ass up."

A famous search-and-rescuer invites a journalist to Texas, where not everything is as it seems.