1x1 True Crime

In this episode of Das 1x1 True Crime, Jean-Paul and Lisa explore the Kevin Mitnick case — a cybercrime story without a traditional crime scene, but full of phone lines, log files, false identities, and digital traces. The episode begins with the 1994 intrusion into security expert Tsutomu Shimomura’s systems, a key moment in the hunt that eventually led investigators to Raleigh, North Carolina, where Mitnick was arrested by the FBI in 1995. The discussion follows Mitnick’s early interest in telephone systems, his conflicts with the law, the DEC case, his time as a fugitive, and the role of social engineering in both the investigation and his public image. It also looks at disputed damage claims, media exaggerations, long pretrial detention, his 1999 guilty plea, release in 2000, and later work as a security consultant. A case about technology, trust, fear, and the evolution of digital forensics.

In this episode of one by one True Crime, Jean-Paul and Lisa examine the case of Natascha Kampusch with a careful focus on verified facts, her own later accounts, and the limits of what can be known. Natascha disappeared in Vienna on March 2, 1998, at the age of ten, while on her way to school. More than eight years later, on August 23, 2006, she escaped from a house in Strasshof, where she had been held by Wolfgang Přiklopil. The episode follows the early investigation, the hidden basement room, her escape, and Přiklopil’s suicide on the same day. Because he died before any trial, key evidence was never tested in court. Jean-Paul and Lisa also discuss speculation about possible accomplices, the absence of proven additional involvement, and the intense media attention Natascha faced after her return.

Jean-Paul and Lisa reconstruct the early-morning break-in at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where two men in police uniforms were let inside just after midnight on March 18, 1990. After overpowering the guards and restraining them in the basement security area, the thieves spent about 81 minutes moving through the galleries. They took 13 works and objects, including paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Manet, plus five works by Edgar Degas. The episode separates documented facts from speculation: why these pieces were chosen, whether anyone commissioned the theft, and where the art is today remain unknown. The FBI later said it had identified individuals it believed were involved, with suspected links to organized crime, but no public trial or conviction followed. None of the stolen works has resurfaced, and the empty frames still hang as a stark reminder of an unsolved crime.

In this episode of one by one True Crime, Jean-Paul and Lisa examine the unsolved murder of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, whose body was found in Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. Using the published FBI files and historical records of the Los Angeles Police Department as reference points, they trace what is known: the discovery on South Norton Avenue, the fingerprint identification, her last documented contacts, and the evidence suggesting the location was a dump site rather than the murder scene. The episode also looks at the package of personal belongings sent to the Los Angeles Examiner, the flood of tips and false confessions, and the intense media attention that complicated the investigation. Suspicions surrounding George Hodel are placed in context, without treating later allegations as proof. Above all, the episode asks what remains when a famous case offers no verdict: unanswered questions, investigative limits, and the need to remember Elizabeth Short beyond the name Black Dahlia.