Crime Scene: True crime stories and investigations

Movies and television shows have been lying to us about criminal justice. Historical criminologist Fritz Umbach details the five top criminal justice misconceptions. From drugs to court to jail, there's a lot we think we know, that we actually don't. Listen to the latest Crime Scene podcast, written, hosted and edited by Jordan Fenster, to learn more.

The connection between animal cruelty and murder is now a commonly accepted fact. The FBI began tracking animal cruelty cases in 2016, but that might never had happened if not for one tiny dog, a shih tzu named Polo, and his devoted, doting owner.

What is the cost of a life spent in law enforcement? Not the salary and benefits, but the physical and mental toll being a cop takes on members of the force. That question is harder to answer than you might think. suicide and PTSD rates are difficult if not impossible to track, but one academic has spent decades looking at the relationships between police work, PTSD and the health of officers. This is the latest Crime Scene podcast.

Three cops, all friends, and all survivors of devastating injuries. But it's not the physical pain but the emotional challenges they have to overcome. On this episode of Crime Scene we talk to three former police officers, all of whom have dealt with on-the-job injury and life after the force.

In 1979, Albert Fentress abducted, abused, mutilated, murdered and then ate parts of an 18-year-old boy. But before he did all that he wrote a movie script. In the latest episode of Crime Scene, we look at how fantasy becomes murder, through the lens of a cannibal middle school teacher.

A quick update on last week's episode - I asked developmental psychologist Sasha Reid to talk a bit about why there are so few female serial killers, at least when compared to the number of men. She gives us her professional opinion.

Could you create a serial killer? Or, perhaps more importantly, could you "fix" a potential serial killer before he becomes the monster? In this episode of Crime Scene, Sasha Reid, an etiologist examining the details of serial killers' lives, attempts to share the recipe for a serial killer, the bits and pieces that go into making the monsters we fear the most.

In this short update, we hear how former NYPD homicide detective Jim Davis got Sunset Bay Jr. to confess to the rape and murder of Roberta Fort. If you'd like to read the transcript, sign up for the Crime Scene newsletter at lohud.us/crimescene or head over to lohud.com and search for the word "transcript."

In 1975, the body of Roberta Fort was found in a pool of blood. Follow along with the original lead detective on the case as he walks through the investigatory process. These were the days before DNA. Seven years later, the killer went to trial. This is Crime Scene, the award-winning true crime podcast.

We want to believe that all murders are created equal. We'd like to think that, in 2017, the response to one tragedy will be the same as the response to another, regardless of race, creed or economic status. But the truth, according to Dr. Delores Jones-Brown at least, is that our society values some victims more than others, and treats perpetrators differently. Here is a rare mid-month update to the last episode of Crime Scene, in which we look a bit at the sociology behind serial murder, at least as it applies to race.

In the latest episode of Crime Scene, we try to untangle preconceived ideas around serial murder, using the science of statistics to delve into the hard data. This episode we talk with former professor Mike Aamodt and with Vernon Geberth, a former lieutenant commander and commanding officer of Bronx homicide with the NYPD. He’s now a consulting criminologist who has, quite literally, written the textbook on serial murders.

Police still don't know the identity of Robert Shulman's second victim, found mutilated behind a Yonkers pizza place 25 years ago. In this episode, Crime Scene talks with veteran homicide detective Vernon Geberth, called "Mr. Murder," about how sexual serial killers like Shulman operate, and with Det. John Geiss, whose job it is to identify the woman who has become known as the "Yonkers Jane Doe."

The story of how Belton Lee Brims murdered two people is how this story begins. His capture — and later re-capture — has become the stuff of local lore.

State Police have released the 1987 transcript of a call to authorities in New Mexico detailing the location of a dead body on Interstate 95. This is an update to a recent episode of the Crime Scene podcast examined a case in which less than nothing is known, not even the victim's gender.