Heroes Behind Headlines

Building a career in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was no easy feat: Danny Smith overcame different hurdles and became a detective, going on to solve some grisly cases, including the murders of an immigrant mother by her daughter, and a Native American man burned alive by skinheads. 

Danny describes how the mental toll of his relentless and challenging work forced him to finally end a career he loved.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

In 1963, Dorothy Kilgallen was on top of the world, famous as a groundbreaking female journalist, with a nationally syndicated column and a panelist on the popular TV show, "What's My Line?" She was also an acquaintance of JFK and when he was killed, she never bought the official story. One of the only reporters to further investigate the assassination, her biographer Mark Shaw walks us through how she was able to interview Jack Ruby and collect various information at odds with the Warren Report, only to die under baffling circumstances a mere two years after the President.




Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

When 18-year-old Steve Smith was sent to Oak Ridge Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario, Canada in the 1960s, (misdiagnosed due to an ill-timed LSD trip) he didn't expect the inmates to be running the asylum, or to be part of a control group in a government-sponsored experiment to try to control psychopaths and turn normal people, like Steve, into controlled psychopaths, with the aim of unleashing them on society. The inmates endured cruel and ingenious methods of torture and various drugs, including LSD. Amazingly, Steve survived to tell the tale and filed the lawsuit that prevailed twenty years later and has led to other class action lawsuits against the Canadian government. 




Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

On 11 September 1970, 16 U.S. soldiers and 110 Montagnards from Hatchet Company B were sent deep into the Laotian jungle in support of a CIA team, during the Vietnam War. Over the next four days, they were continually attacked by overwhelming numbers of NVA. If it wasn’t for the air support of helicopter pilots like Barry Pencek, they wouldn’t have escaped alive. Twenty years in a special report CNN characterized this mission as a vicious attack on civilians resulting in a scandal that was later disproved, and resulted in the team medic’s Mike Rose  receiving a Medal of Honor. Barry gives us a blow-by-blow account of the battle and resulting controversy.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

The amazing life of undercover agent Frederick L. Gleffe is a nonstop series of adventures inside three of our nation's law enforcement agencies.  His sometimes surreal, always perilous cases include breaking up a black market arms ring at a Special Forces armory and running an ongoing ‘sting’ during the Miami “Cocaine Wars” in the 80s, selling everything from high-tech weapons to rare animals. 

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

WW2 humble hero, Laurence "Sparky" Rector, was just a GI in the infantry when he was drafted as an 18-year-old. He ended up crossing Europe as "cannon fodder," including as part of Patton's army, participating in the battle of Anzio, and encountering the Siegfried Line. His unit was also the first to enter and liberate Dachau Concentration Camp. Decades later, his story feels like it happened yesterday. 

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

The Battle of Gettysburg is a pivotal event in the history of our country, but not broadly understood.

Attorney-turned-historian Allen R. Thompson digs into a Civil War controversy: How the decision-making of Generals Lee and Longstreet on July 2nd, 1863, resulted in the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg – and ultimately the loss of the war. In his book, In the Shadow of the Round Tops, Thompson compares eyewitness accounts to narratives formed after the war and shows how political and personal agendas have influenced the telling of history. 

His deep research helps restore the reputation of General James Longstreet, Lee's second-in-command, who many historians have blamed for the Confederate defeat. 

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

In 1970, only ten percent of doctors were women. Living in Oklahoma, Cynthia Mackey was a young woman and mother who dreamt of becoming a doctor. Her first husband wouldn't let her go to school and then was killed flying cocaine for Pablo Escobar. Her second husband didn't approve either. Finally, as a single mom, she decided to finish medical school in Grenada. She was close to achieving her dream, when a communist revolution swept the island, and she was accused of being a CIA agent.  Dr. Mackey's story reminds us of the obstacles women have had to overcome and the unusual barriers they had to break through in order to realize their dreams.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Investigative journalist Bill Conroy shares his experiences covering the Mexican drug trade and the infamous Juarez Cartel. From his gripping book "Dispatches from the House of Death," Bill describes the site of numerous drug-related executions, and the flawed response of U.S. law enforcement agencies charged with combatting organized crime from over the border.



Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Today, Vincent Vargas is an actor, producer and writer, best known for his role in the hit TV series Mayans M.C. But several years ago Vincent Vargas was patrolling our southern border as a proud member of U.S. Border Patrol – one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. The grandson of an undocumented immigrant himself, Vince discusses the myriad challenges agents face as they deal with coyotes, people in distress, drug dealers, and heaps of criticism. The main problem, according to Vince, is misunderstanding. In this episode and in his new book Borderline: Defending the Homefront, he helps shed light on the realities that both Border Patrol agents and those seeking entry to the US face every day. 

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com