Downfall
The undoing of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who resigned in January amidst multiple swirling scandals.
The undoing of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who resigned in January amidst multiple swirling scandals.
Celeste Fremon Los Angeles Mar 2014 15min Permalink
An undercover cop targets an autistic teen as a drug dealer.
Sabrina Rubin Erdely Rolling Stone Feb 2014 25min Permalink
A triple homicide, the alleged involvement of a Boston Marathon bombing suspect, and those caught up in the FBI’s ongoing investigation.
Susan Zalkind Boston Magazine Feb 2014 30min Permalink
In 1995, Ramirez allegedly raped Patricia Esparza. He was tortured and killed weeks later. Now she’s charged with his murder. Is she responsible?
Emily Bazelon Slate Feb 2014 40min Permalink
After eight women are murdered in Louisiana, what was initially thought to be the work of a serial killer becomes something much more troubling.
Ethan Brown Medium Jan 2014 30min Permalink
On then-agent, now-congressman Michael Grimm and what happens when an F.B.I. informant turns out to be a con man.
Evan Ratliff New Yorker May 2011 30min Permalink
To his friends and family, Ross Ulbricht was a compassionate, warm soul known for random acts of kindness. To the F.B.I., he was Dread Pirate Roberts, the mastermind behind the Silk Road who was willing to order hits to protect his black market operation.
David Segal New York Times Jan 2014 20min Permalink
What happened when 21-year-old Taiwan Smart became the target of both police and a reality TV show.
Terrence McCoy Miami New Times Jan 2014 20min Permalink
Seventeen-year-old Israel Arenas Durán disappeared after being arrested near his home in Nuevo León. He is one of more than 25,000 who have gone missing in Mexico since 2006.
Nik Steinberg Foreign Policy Jan 2014 20min Permalink
The rise of automatic number plate recognition and its real-world consequences.
James Bridle Matter Dec 2013 Permalink
The search for a disgraced ex-LAPD officer bent on killing his former colleagues and their families.
Christopher Goffard, Joel Rubin, Kurt Streeter The Los Angeles Times Dec 2013 25min Permalink
Manson at 79: in poor health and walking with a cane, obsessed with Vincent Bugliosi, willing to talk at length with a reporter for the first time in years, and visited every weekend by a 25-year-old woman he calls Star.
Erik Hedegaard Rolling Stone Nov 2013 40min Permalink
They advertise murder for hire but work for the government. Inside the world of America’s fake hit men.
Jeanne Marie Laskas GQ Nov 2013 20min Permalink
A Hells Angel informant’s path from destruction to redemption and back, and a family’s trouble with witness protection.
Vince Grzegorek Cleveland Scene Oct 2013 20min Permalink
On the online mug shot industry, which posts mug shots of anyone arrested (regardless of conviction) and charges $30 to $400 to have the photo removed.
David Segal New York Times Oct 2013 10min Permalink
On the fall of Ross William Ulbricht, the alleged creator of The Silk Road, a hidden black market website where users could buy and sell drugs, guns and, according to the FBI, the services of a hit man.
Nate Anderson, Cyrus Farivar Ars Technica Oct 2013 15min Permalink
How a series of lies and an incompetent lawyer led to a Florida woman’s wrongful conviction.
Terrence McCoy New Times Broward-Palm Beach Sep 2013 20min Permalink
A 55-year-old cold case ends with a conviction. But was justice really served?
Playing outside after dinner, best friends Kathy and Maria meet a man calling himself “Johnny.” Kathy runs home to grab mittens; upon her return, her 7-year-old friend and the stranger are nowhere to be found.
The story of Jack McCullough, once known as John Tessier, a man who once lived near Kathy and Maria and has a troubling history of abusing women.
Police zero in on McCullough after a deathbed confession.
Half a century after her friend was abducted, Kathy identifies the man who took Maria.
Jack McCullough is convicted of Maria’s kidnapping and murder, but questions are raised about the evidence (or lack thereof) presented at trial.
Ann O'Neill CNN Aug 2013 20min Permalink
How New York City built its own CIA.
Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman New York Aug 2013 20min Permalink
A case of mistaken identity and the incarceration of an innocent man.
Benjamin Weiser New York Times Magazine Aug 2000 30min Permalink
Unpacking a false confession 20 years later.
Marc Bookman The Atlantic Aug 2013 25min Permalink
“The government calls it “Operation Open Market,” a four-year investigation resulting, so far, in four federal grand jury indictments against 55 defendants in 10 countries, facing a cumulative millennium of prison time. What many of those alleged scammers, carders, thieves, and racketeers have in common is one simple mistake: They bought their high-quality fake IDs from a sophisticated driver’s license counterfeiting factory secretly established, owned, and operated by the United States Secret Service.”
Kevin Poulson Wired Jul 2013 15min Permalink
The mysterious life and death of Dow B. Hover, the man who ran New York’s electric chair.
Jennifer Gonnerman Village Voice Jan 2005 15min Permalink
Best Article Crime Science World
The hunt for a secretive network of British men obsessed with accumulating and cataloguing the eggs of rare birds.
Julian Rubinstein New Yorker Jul 2013 30min Permalink
On the militarization of America’s police forces.
Radley Balko Salon Jul 2013 Permalink