Heroes Behind Headlines

Former Head of Detectives of the Compton Police Department turned award-winning writer, Frederick Reynolds tells the story behind his gripping new non-fiction book Saint Bloodbath, about a series of brutal murders that took place in a homeless encampment in Long Beach, California in 2008. Joining Fred are Detective Mark McGuire (LBPD) and Captain Martin Rodriguez (LASD) who both played key roles in solving the unusual, complicated case involving the murky culture of the marginalized, the Nuthood Watts drug gang, multiple police jurisdictions, and a single human hand discovered by a woman riding her horse in the desert 100 miles from the scene of the crimes. 

Self-described working class writer and factory worker Frank Bill speaks candidly about the personal stories that inform his searing new novel Back to the Dirt, and the psychological and physical devastation that has ripped through his home turf of southern Indiana. Inspired in part by the story of his father, a Marine who served in Vietnam as an infantryman and mine sweeper, and pictures Frank, as a boy, found in father’s closet. Frank Bill provides us with visceral evidence of the problems afflicting our Heartland in a raw, compassionate and hard-hitting story that harkens back to 1960s Danang.


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

On December 5, 2005, Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Israel “DT” Del Toro’s life changed in a flash of light when the Humvee he was riding in ran over an IED in southeastern Afghanistan. The resulting explosion and fire burned over 80% his body.  Doctors gave him only a 15% percent chance to survive. What they didn’t count on were the promises he had made to his wife, son and father, his courage and the remarkable strength of his heart, mind and soul.


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

Shot down over Formosa and facing a firing squad, Sgt. John Shott – radio operator and rear gunner of a B-25 Mitchell bomber – spent the remainder of World War II starving in a Japanese POW camp. Today we’re deeply honored as he tells his inspiring story.


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

When today’s guest Christopher Fulton inherited the Cartier watch President Kennedy wore the day he was assassinated, little did he know that he was holding the single most compelling piece of evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone and the fatal shoot was fired from in front of the limo. What happened to Christopher next is chilling. 


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

Our guests today are Bronze Star-recipient Maj. Fred Galvin and author Sal Manna, authors of A Few Bad Men – the incredible true story of an elite team of US Marines set up to take the fall for alleged Afghanistan war crimes they did not commit, and their leader (Major Galvin) who fought for the redemption of his men.


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

Today’s guest, former Hollywood Homicide detective Steve Hodel, has solved over 300 cases in his career. He had retired with many honors when his father died and he was confronted with his most difficult and most emotionally challenging case ever. He discovered that his father George Hodel had been one of the most terrifying, prolific and diabolical serial killers to ever live. Perhaps George Hodel’s most notorious victim was Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, whose nude, surgically bisected body was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles on the morning of January 15th, 1947.  Warning: Explicit crime scene description.


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

Charlene Hummert had been strangled to death using a dog collar when her body was found in her SUV in the parking lot of a grocery store on March 21st 2004. The murderer planted a series of handwritten letters, pretending to be Charlene’s non-existent stalker, in an attempt to draw police attention away from himself. However, due to the expert testimony of a forensic linguist, the jury needed less than an hour to deliberate and convict Charlene’s own husband, Brian, of her gruesome murder. HBH is honored to welcome leading forensic linguistics expert Dr. Robert Leonard.

Dr. Leonard has trained counter intelligence agents for the FBI and other US agencies, as well as for the UK and Canada - even helping out at Disneyland London. His testimony has been pivotal in high-profile cases across the world from California to France, including the notorious and still-unresolved case of JonBenet Ramsey. 

Not only does Dr. Leonard have extensive knowledge of over a dozen languages - before his career in academia he opened for Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, as a founding member of well-known rock band She Na Na.

We thank Dr. Robert Leonard for joining us and thank you, as always, for listening to Heroes Behind Headlines.

On the 26th of December 1944, Lt. John Fox commanded a mere 70 Americans - all of whom were black - against a massive German assault. The mountaintop village of Sommocolonia, along Italy’s northern most border, stood between the Germans and the strategic port of Livorno, 40 miles south. If successful, they would have choked off supplies to the Allied forces. In Lt. John Fox’s first and only battle, his heroism stopped that from happening. 

John repeatedly called for defensive artillery fire to slow the enemy advance, closer and closer to his own position. The artillery, fired by John’s men of the US Army’s legendary and segregated 92nd Infantry Division, also known as the Buffalo Soldiers,  killed over 100 German Soldiers and held the rest off long enough to turn the tide of the battle. 

Prior to serving in the Army - because he was an African American - John had to transfer from Ohio State to Wilberforce University, just to be allowed into ROTC training. 

In 1996 John was one of seven African Americans
posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the US Military’s Highest Decoration, by President Bill Clinton.

Thank you to the family of Lt. John Fox and thank you for listening to Heroes Behind Headlines.

A retired Green Beret simply could not lose another soldier in the Global War on Terror. He called together a group of Special Forces veterans from the Army, Navy and CIA to join him in one last mission. As the US withdrew after 20 years in Afghanistan and the Taliban seized control, their friend, an American-trained Afghan commando, had to be saved. However, that would be just the beginning of their remarkable evacuation efforts. It is our sincere honor to welcome US Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann.

Amidst the total chaos of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, what began as a mission to save their friend Nazam, grew into something far greater. Operating from their own basements and garages in the US, Scott and his team first called their mission Operation Harriet, after Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Then - after using ‘Pineapple’ as a vital code word - it became Task Force Pineapple, and is now well known as Operation Pineapple Express. 

By any name, Scott and his amazing group helped more than 500 Afghans escape their collapsing country. They worked tirelessly, until the horrific suicide bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport August 26, 2021.

We give our highest recommendation to Scott’s book ‘Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan’.

As always, thank you for listening to Heroes Behind Headlines.