The Debrief

The Debrief is joined by reporter Tim Pulliam, who took part in the new documentary series Squatters: Get Out of My House, to unpack why this has become one of America's most maddening and dangerous problems. Tim explains how complete strangers manage to occupy someone else's home, why they become so difficult to remove once they're in, and how the law can end up working against the very people who own the property. Along the way he shares some of the most jaw-dropping cases he reported on, including one that sent a fraudster to prison for 20 years, in a conversation that will make you look at your own front door a little differently.

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The Debrief is joined by Danielle and James Styron, co-authors of The Mile High Club: Confessions of a Private Jet Flight Attendant. For most of us, flying private is a world glimpsed only in films and on social media, but behind the luxury sits a crew managing extraordinary demands, enormous egos and situations most people would struggle to believe. Danielle spent seven years in those crews, and she pulls back the curtain on the wildest requests, the most difficult moments, and the surprisingly kind clients who restored her faith. Danielle and James open up about the pressure to stay silent, to tolerate almost anything, and what all of it taught them about human nature when money strips away the usual limits and consequences.

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The Debrief is joined by Guido De Wilde, fresh off an extraordinary journey across Europe. Over 25 days, Guido and 14 other riders cycled 3,333 kilometres from Barcelona to Paris, climbing more than 54,000 metres along the way, all in support of the Al Jalila Foundation’s cancer research and patient care programmes. Guido takes the team inside what a day on the road really looked like, and how tough this challenge was on his body. He also goes into the deeply personal side to this challenge: a stage 4 colon cancer survivor himself, Guido reflects on what cycling gave him when so much felt out of his control.

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The Debrief is joined by Dr. Christine Marie, cult psychology expert and author, who did something almost no one would dare: she went undercover inside a dangerous cult to help bring down its leader. Christine reveals how she worked her way into the FLDS group led by Sam Bateman, winning the trust of its members under the cover of filming a documentary. She breaks down the psychological control tactics Bateman used to hold his followers in his grip, and how she quietly gathered the evidence and confessions that would eventually condemn him. It all builds to the tense, high-stakes day the FBI finally moved in, and Christine takes the team right into the heart of it.

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The Debrief is joined by Russ Matthews and Idee Matthews Montijo to tell the extraordinary story of how they found the Pan Am Clipper Endeavor aircraft, 74 years after it crashed and sank off the coast of Puerto Rico. Russ and Idee trace the years of painstaking archival detective work that led them to the site, and the moment they finally found the wreck. They detail the unforgettable legacy left by this tragedy that reshaped air travel forever. The safety briefing every passenger hears before takeoff exists in part because of what happened that Friday in 1952, which means every person who has ever flown has been touched by this plane, and almost none of them know it.

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The Debrief is joined by Edna Cowell Martin, cousin of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, and Megan Atkinson, who helped her tell her story in print. Edna takes the team back to a childhood spent alongside a boy nobody suspected, and answers the question that has followed her for decades: were there ever glimpses of what lay beneath? She describes what it was like to remain close to him while the murders were happening, how the family absorbed the news when the truth finally broke, and what passed between them in their final exchanges before he escaped prison for the second time. Megan explains how the writing process forced Edna to revisit trauma she had buried for years, and what it revealed about the toll it had taken on her whole life. It leaves one unsettling question hanging over the whole conversation: if someone close to you was living a double life, would you really see it?

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The Debrief is joined by Professor of Aerospace Engineering Dr. Adeel Khalid, to unpack the technology that recently found two lost hikers in a matter of hours, a search that could have taken human teams days. Dr. Khalid explains exactly what he has been building, and what one of these drones is actually seeing when it sweeps over a forest below. The team uncovers the accuracy difference between these machines and old school rescue tech like helicopters or dogs. They also find out how long these machines can stay airborne, and just how much ground they can cover on a single flight. Then the conversation lifts off into the future: what these life-saving systems will look like five to ten years from now, and how many more people they might bring home.

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The Debrief is joined by CeCe Moore, the pioneering genetic genealogist who helped turn a hobbyist's tool into one of the most powerful weapons in modern policing. CeCe explains what those consumer DNA tests are really telling you, how far back your family tree can genuinely be traced, and why some parts of the world are far better represented in the databases than others. The conversation digs into the hurdles of unpicking someone's ancestry, and how the same technology that reunites adoptees with birth parents is now cracking cold cases that sat untouched for decades. Then comes the harder question: where does personal privacy end and the pursuit of justice begin, when a distant cousin's spit sample can put a killer in handcuffs? CeCe also looks ahead to where AI takes this next, and reflects on how a career spent inside other people's DNA has reshaped the way she thinks about family, identity and truth itself.

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The Debrief is joined by Dr. Steven Hassan, one of the world's leading experts on cults, mind control and undue influence, and a man who knows the subject from the inside. Recruited as a young college student, Steven spent years inside a high-control group before getting out and dedicating his life to understanding how it happened. He explains exactly how skilled recruiters operate, the small steps that pull a person in long before they realise it, and why the people most vulnerable are almost never who you would expect. The conversation turns to the long road back, what it takes to rebuild a life, relationships, and learn to trust your own thoughts again. And with the internet doing the recruiting now, Steven has a warning about how much easier it has become - especially for the younger generation to disappear into one of these groups.

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The Debrief is joined by independent cold-case investigator Alex Baber, who believes he may have unmasked the man behind two of America’s most infamous unsolved crimes: the Black Dahlia murder and the Zodiac Killer. Alex makes the extraordinary claim that both were the work of the same man, and explains how he ended up chasing two cases that have haunted investigators for decades. Using AI, historical records, handwriting analysis and a fresh crack at one of the Zodiac’s shortest and most mysterious codes, he lays out how he arrived at his suspect. Alex even reveals the chilling moment he approached the son of the man he believes did it.

Correction: This episode includes a misstatement that Alex Baber was hired by Elizabeth Short’s sister. 

Mr Baber would like to clarify that he was not hired by anyone to investigate these cases. 

He briefly spoke with Elizabeth Short’s sister, and that is the extent of his connection to the family.

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