Odessa High School students know her as “Betty,” a ghost that haunts the auditorium at night.  But few know much about the real Betty, whose 1961 murder was “the most sensational crime in West Texas in its day.”

The personal and professional troubles of a Detroit waitress.

On how a childhood spent in New York City’s tenements led a 15-year-old boy to be convicted of murder.

Bill Conradt, a well-known prosecutor, never arrived at the house in Murphy, Texas, where police and a crew from NBC’s To Catch a Predator were waiting. So the crew, along with a SWAT team, went to Conradt.

In an excerpt from the author's debut novel, LAPD officers search an affluent couple's home.

Searching for the world’s most prolific bank robber.

Alan Young has been running the same scam for years: posing as a member of The Temptations and smooth-talking his way into luxury hotel rooms and prostitutes. Despite his clear charm, he admits he has “no skills other than being a con man.”

How $100 million in diamonds, gold, and jewelry disappeared from Antwerp Diamond Center’s super-secure vault.

A father tries to bond with his transgender child.

A man tries to unveil a lover's potential mystery.

On the motivations and techniques of a prolific book thief who “built a vast collection of rare works, most of which he will never read and no one will ever see.”

Music editor Yaroslav Pastukhov drew young journalists and artists into a transnational cocaine-smuggling ring.

In April 2016, eight family members were slain in their homes in Ohio. Nine months later, the killer or killers are still on the loose, and the town has all but forgotten the crimes.

He was supposed to be the Dallas Cowboys’ star running back. Instead, Joseph Randle is in prison.

Isaiah Wall wants to get his life on track. But first, he’s gotta buy drugs for the police.

After two people are found dead in Yellowstone National Park, a team of investigators tracks down the unlikely culprit: a grizzly bear.

For 60 years, the weekly Evening Whirl attacked the drug lords, whoring preachers, and hypocritical bourgeoisie of St. Louis’ black community, sometimes in rhyming Iambic couplets.

A sociologist embeds with a gang in Chicago.

The perilous existence of confidential informants.

A detective, a mysterious murder, an unexpected confrontation.

On London’s new squad of “super-recognizers.”

Violence convulses the city of Chicago after dark. Reporting on it leaves its own scars.

On the mysterious death of a high school basketball star in Dallas.

It’s legal to buy poppy seeds in America and it’s legal to plant them—unless you’re familiar with the simple process of turning them into opium, that is. Then having poppies in your garden is a felony.

A murder case in Los Angeles, cold since the late ’80s, heats up thanks to breakthroughs in forensic science and leads detectives to “one of the unlikeliest murder suspects in the city’s history.”