True Crime Reporter

By Robert RiggsTrue Crime Government History

Favorites
249
Followers
Typical duration
27 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

True Crime Reporter episodes

November 01, 2022 How A Single Hair Caught A Killer
The previous episode showed how homicide detectives solved 50-year-old cold cases.
They analyzed old evidence using new DNA extraction technology pioneered by Othram, a forensic genealogy lab in Texas.
Othram provided new leads by finding relatives of suspects on genealogy databases.
As revolutionary as that seems, it was just a few years ago that the FBI pioneered the use of mitochondrial DNA in a Texas murder case.
Mitochondrial DNA is handed down from mother to child, so it can only tell you about your maternal ancestors.
In a landmark case, former U.S. prosecutor Bill Johnston used the mitochondrial DNA from a single hair to send a killer to prison for the rest of his life.
Here’s the backstory of how he did it.
38 min
October 27, 2022 Murderers Can Run, But They Can’t Hide From Their Forensic DNA Genealogy
14-year-old Stephanie Anne Isaacson left her father’s apartment in North Las Vegas on June 1, 1989.
She walked through an empty sandlot, her usual shortcut, to the Eldorado High School.
The ninth grader never attended her 7:30 AM class at Eldorado High School.
Later that evening, officers found her body under a piece of discarded carpet in a sandlot that Isaacson used to take a shortcut to school.
Stephanie was the victim of a blitz attack. Her black shirt was pulled up, and her jeans pulled down. Her shoes and other belongings were missing.
The freshman with shoulder-length brown hair who had last been pictured with a wide grin in her prom picture had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned, and strangled to death.
Investigators had little to go on besides a tiny drop of semen found on the dead girl's shirt.
They made numerous attempts to test the evidence but could not identify the killer.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police investigators never gave up.
In late 2021, they submitted a DNA sample of a mere 15 human cells to Othram, a forensic genealogy lab in the Woodlands, a suburb of Houston.
DNA Analyst at Othram Examines Bone From An Unidentified Crime Victim
Othram’s DNA extraction technology found a relative of the alleged killer in a genealogy database that law enforcement has the consent to search.
Forensic genealogy led Las Vegas detectives to Darren Marchand, who had never been listed among suspects.
Darren Marchand
But Marchand had committed suicide at the age of 29, six years after the murder.
Issacson’s 32-year case represents the tip of the iceberg of a silent mass disaster–a quarter million cold cases languishing across the United States.
But as we say in Texas, there is a new sheriff in town: a DNA lab built to solve cold cases.Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs takes listeners of the True Crime Reporter® podcast inside Othram’s facility near Houston to find out how its trailblazing technology solves cases once thought to be unsolvable.
Link to the episode about how Othram helped solve the 47-year-old murder of Carla Walker
Robert Riggs
14-year Stephanie Anne Isaacson left her father’s apartment in North Las Vegas early on the morning of June 1, 1989.
She walked through an empty sandlot, her usual shortcut, to the Eldorado High School.
The ninth grader never made it to her 7:30 AM class. Her choir teacher noticed Stephanie missing during lunch, but her absence was not reported.
When she didn’t return home by 4:30 that afternoon, her father, a Staff Sergeant at nearby Ellis Air Force Base, called the police.
He and his friends saddled up horses at the base’s stable and started to search the small desert area that Stephanie regularly cut through to school.
Four hours later, they found his daughter’s school books and keys strewn along a trail.
Investigators launched a helicopter and a ground search.
Later that evening, officers found a zigzag path where she had been dragged to foilage.
A police dog picked up the scent of her body under an orange piece of discarded carpet.
Stephanie was the victim of a blitz attack. Her black shirt was pulled up, and her jeans pulled down. Her shoes and other belongings were missing.
The freshman with shoulder-length brown hair who had last been pictured with a wide grin in her prom picture had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned, and strangled to death.
Investigators had little to go on besides a tiny drop of semen found on the dead girl's shirt.
They made numerous attempts to test the evidence and, in 2007, obtained the
DNA profile of the likely killer.
Police uploaded it into the FBI database called CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System.
CODIS, which became operational in 1999, contains the profiles of individuals convicted of certain crimes.
However, if an offender has not been convicted in recent years, it’s unlikely that their DNA is cataloged in the system.
Issacson’s killer had never been convicted, and her murder remained a cold case for 32 years.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police investigators never gave up.
In late 2021, they submitted a DNA sample of a mere 15 human cells to Othram, a forensic genealogy lab located in the Woodlands, a suburb of Houston.
In contrast, a full DNA profile for CODIS contains 20 core markers–or points on the human genome required for an exact match.
Othram’s DNA extraction technology can detect hundreds of thousands of markers to identify distant genetic family relationships.
In the case of Stephanie Issacson, they found a relative of the alleged killer in a genealogy database that law enforcement has the consent to search.
Forensic genetic genealogy led Las Vegas detectives to Darren Marchand, who had never been listed among suspects.
But Marchand had committed suicide at the age of 29, six years after the murder.
Kristen Mittelman, the Chief Development Officer of Othram, says the Issacson case is the tip of the iceberg of a silent mass disaster. Little attention or money is being focused on solving an estimated quarter of a million cold cases in the United States. “You know, it has really struck me after all these years that a lot of people have gotten away with murder, and multiple murders. It really is a scandal. It's shameful when you look at it.”
Othram’s lab is nestled in a gleaming 25,000-foot office building on a serene campus north of Houston. DNA analysts work inside glass-walled sterile environments. It’s not unusual to see human skulls and bones resting on lab tables. Outside the labs, some of the company's 50 employees peer into computer screens studying gene sequencing. A classroom is often filled with Texas Rangers and detectives from across the country who receive training in forensic genealogy.
David Mittelman, Othram’s founder, built the facility from the ground up to specialize in solving cold cases. The lab utilizes the world’s most powerful DNA sequencing technology. David and Kristen met at the Baylor College of Medicine, where they studied gene therapy. David earned a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics, and Kristen a Ph.D. in genetics and biophysics.
The privately held company has received $18 million in funding from the Gigafund, a venture fund known for its large investments in companies like SpaceX.
Announcements that Othram helped crack another cold case have become weekly events.
Fort Worth Cold Case detectives solved the abduction, rape, and murder of 17-year-old Carla Walker after it had gone cold for nearly five decades.
Othram matched DNA from Walker’s clothing to a relative of the killer profiled on a genealogy database.
Cold case investigators Jeff Bennett and Leah Wagner identified 78-year-old Glen McCurley, who was listed among the original suspects.
McCurley pleaded guilty after two days of testimony in his capital murder trial in August 2021.
Kristen Mittelman says it was the first time genetic genealogy evidence had ever made it to a courtroom. “I see that often people commit these horrible crimes and then live a very normal life in the middle of our society. Carla Walker's murderer lived a mile away from the crime scene and had a wife and children. I’ve noticed this in these cases.”
Othram has received federal grants to help clear a backlog of cold cases. A test to identify a perpetrator cost upwards of seven thousand dollars, and five thousand to identify the remains of a body.
Las Vegas philanthropist Justin Woo donated money for the testing in the Stepanie Isaccson case.
It helped police connect the DNA of Darren Marchand to her murder. At the time, he was the married father of a two-year-old daughter with a son on the way, Three years earlier, the then 20-year-old Las Vegas man had been arrested for the strangulation murder of a 24-year-old woman.
But the case was dismissed because of a lack of evidence. He died by suicide in 1995.
At the time of Issason’s murder, Marchand was awaiting sentencing for open and gross lewdness for exposing himself to five women. Two months after the murder, he was discharged from probation.
In the wake of the Carla Walker case, Detective Jeff Bennett created the FWPD Cold Case Support Group, a nonprofit foundation to accept tax-deductible donations to help solve Fort Worth’s backlog of 1,000 cold cases.
Mittelman stresses that Othram’s forensic genealogy findings only provide a new lead in cold cases. She praises investigators she has worked with for their dogged persistence. “These cases do not play out like a television police drama. The detectives have thought about this case every single day. It's become part of who they are, part of their families, part of their lives, part of their dialect. The families of these victims have become part of their life.”
Robert Riggs is a Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter and creator of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast. He is the Executive Producer of Freed To Kill, the chilling documentary about serial killer Kenneth McDuff featured on Fox Nation.
37 min
October 27, 2022 Murderers Can Run But They Can’t Hide From Their Forensic DNA Genealogy
14-year Stephanie Anne Isaacson left her father’s apartment in North Las Vegas on the early morning of June 1, 1989.
She walked through an empty sandlot, her usual shortcut, to the Eldorado High School.
The ninth grader never made it to her 7:30 AM class at Eldorado High School.
Later that evening, officers found her body under a piece of discarded carpet in a sandlot that Isaacson used to take a shortcut to school.
Stephanie was the victim of a blitz attack. Her black shirt was pulled up, and her jeans pulled down. Her shoes and other belongings were missing.

The freshman with shoulder-length brown hair who had last been pictured with a wide grin in her prom picture had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned, and strangled to death.
Investigators had little to go on besides a tiny drop of semen found on the dead girl's shirt.
They made numerous attempts to test the evidence but could not identify the killer.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police investigators never gave up.
In late 2021, they submitted a DNA sample of a mere 15 human cells to Othram, a forensic genealogy lab located in the Woodlands, a suburb of Houston.
Othram’s DNA extraction technology found a relative of the alleged killer in a genealogy database that law enforcement has the consent to search.
Forensic genealogy led Las Vegas detectives to Darren Marchand, who had never been listed among suspects.
But Marchand had committed suicide at the age of 29, six years after the murder.
Issacson’s 32-year case represents the tip of the iceberg of a silent mass disaster–a quarter million cold cases languishing across the United States.
But as we say in Texas, there is a new sheriff in town in the form of a DNA lab built to solve cold cases.
Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs takes listeners of the True Crime Reporter® podcast inside Othram’s facility near Houston to find out how its trailblazing technology solves cases once thought to be unsolvable.
Link To Carla Walker Podcast:
https://www.truecrimereporter.com/episodes/cold-case-justice-how-detective-jeff-bennett-used-genetic-genealogy-to-solve-a-murder/
We want to become your favorite true crime podcast. Please leave a review wherever you listen.
Join our true crime community and follow us here.
The True Crime Reporter® podcast features stories about serial killers, mass murderers, murder mysteries, homicides, cold cases, prisons, violent criminals, serial rapists, child abductors, child molesters, kidnappers, bank robbers, cyber criminals, and assorted violent criminals.
True Crime Reporter® is a @2022 copyrighted and trade-marked production by True Crime Reporter®, LLC, in Dallas, Texas.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
34 min
September 20, 2022 Heat2: The Hollywood Shootout In Which Life Imitates Art
As I stood in the LA office of the FBI’s bank robbery coordinator,
veteran FBI Agent Bill Rehder pointed to a wall plastered with bank surveillance photos.
33-year veteran FBI Agent Bill Rehder Ran The FBI Bank Robbery Squad In Los Angeles
Rehder ticked off the nicknames of a rogue’s gallery of serial bank robbers.
The baby bandits, the big nose bandit, the big ears bandit, the skunk bandit, the ponytail bandit, the grandpa bandit.
Hello, I’m Robert Riggs with a story from inside the crime scene tape at what was the bank robbery capital of the world in the 1980s and 90s. Los Angeles, California.
I met Bill Rehder in 1997 while doing a series of stories about the upsurge in violent bank robberies across the United States.
Bank tellers were being shot, and customers were taken hostage. California’s takeover bank robbery epidemic was spreading across the nation.
Rehder, who spent most of his 33 years with the FBI on the bank robbery squad, dispatched agents to the scenes of robberies. Twenty-eight in one day alone.
After he retired, Rehder wrote a book about his favorite cases titled Where the Money Is: True Tales From the Bank Robbery Capital of the World.
He also provided technical advice for Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie Catch Me If You Can. Rehder advised how actor Tom Hanks should dress and talk like an FBI agent did in the 1960s and 70s. And what a bullpen looked like back in those days when button-down FBI agents worked together in an open office at their desks.
Rehder assigned wanted bank robbers colorful nicknames based on their appearance, clothing, MO, or unusual habits.
For example, the Spiderman Bandit didn’t scale walls. Rather, spider web-like tattoos on his forearms earned him the nickname.
The colorful and quirky nicknames helped generate more news coverage and tips by creating a picture in people’s minds.
Rehder told me that the tradition of assigning memorable nicknames dated back to Jack The Ripper, who killed and mutilated prostitutes in late 19th Century London.
As Rehder and I scanned the wall, he stopped dead on a surveillance photo of two bank robbers clad head to toe in black body armor and armed with assault rifles.
Rehder dubbed the pair “The Hi Incident Bandits.” A few months earlier, they had shot up two banks in the San Fernando Valley.
With an ominous foreshadowing, Rehder told me they were not just dressed for a bank robbery but for a confrontation.
Indeed a month later, the two heavily armed gunmen dubbed “The Hi Incident Bandits” by Rehder shot it out with police after robbing a bank in North Hollywood.
The running gun battle lasted 44 minutes. The pair were armed with thousands of rounds of ammunition and fully automatic assault rifles.
Wounded officers lay bleeding, pinned down. Armed with 9mm pistols and 38 caliber revolvers, the police were no match.
An order crackled across police radio transmissions to shoot for the head as officers realized their rounds were bouncing off the robber's body armor.
In the end, both robbers were killed, and twelve police officers and eight bystanders were wounded.
It was a case of life imitating art.
Two years earlier, the movie Heat featured a similar paramilitary-style robbery and shootout in LA.
Written and directed by Michael Mann, Heat is a classic American crime film. It pits Al Pacino as an LAPD detective against Robert De Niro, who plays a career thief and the gang's leader.
Mann has teamed up with award-winning author Meg Gardiner to write a suspenseful novel titled Heat 2.
It tells the character's back story in the years before and after the iconic movie.
Meg Gardiner is my guest on this episode of True Crime Reporter®.
She is a New York Times bestselling author of sixteen thrillers. Her previous novel, The Dark Corners of the Night, features FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix, which is in development by Amazon Studios for a television series.
49 min
September 13, 2022 From Gunship Pilot – To FBI Agent – To NYT’s Best Selling Author Don Bentley
Don Bentley’s career zigzagged from flying an Army helicopter gunship on combat missions in Afghanistan to working counterintelligence for the FBI, to now writing suspense-filled novels based on the knowledge of his previous careers.
In my last episode, former FBI agent Don Bentley took us inside the training of Special Agents at the elite FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
After the FBI, Bentley launched a successful writing career. He intimately knows the subject that he writes fiction about.
Don Bentley is the New York Times bestselling author of the Matt Drake series spinning out potboilers about terrorism and intelligence operations.
He has also written two Tom Clancy Jack Ryan, Jr. novels…the latest on bookshelves everywhere is Zero Hour.
In this second episode, we discuss Bentley’s transition to writing and our individual association with the late Tom Clancy.
Clancy, a legendary author, was known for his precise descriptions of everything he wrote about in his best-selling novels about spycraft and military weapon systems.
Clancy turned his books into video games and spellbinding movies starting with Hunt For Red October.
Here’s my interview with veteran decorated Army helicopter pilot, former FBI agent, and author Don Bentley.
https://youtu.be/QinO-HRifzo
34 min
September 13, 2022 From Gunship Pilot - To FBI Agent - To NYT's Best Selling Author Don Bentley
Don Bentley’s career zigzagged from flying an Army helicopter gunship on combat missions in Afghanistan to working counterintelligence for the FBI, to now writing suspense-filled novels based on the knowledge of his previous careers.
In my last episode, former FBI agent Don Bentley took us inside the training of Special Agents at the elite FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
After the FBI, Bentley launched a successful writing career. He intimately knows the subject that he writes fiction about.
Don Bentley is the New York Times bestselling author of the Matt Drake series spinning out potboilers about terrorism and intelligence operations.
He has also written two Tom Clancy Jack Ryan, Jr. novels…the latest on bookshelves everywhere is Zero Hour.
In this second episode, we discuss Bentley’s transition to writing and our individual association with the late Tom Clancy.
Clancy, a legendary author, was known for his precise descriptions of everything he wrote about in his best-selling novels about spycraft and military weapon systems.
Clancy turned his books into video games and spellbinding movies starting with Hunt For Red October.
Here’s my interview with veteran decorated Army helicopter pilot, former FBI agent, and author Don Bentley.
Link To Rober Riggs Story About The Attack Submarine Dallas
https://youtu.be/QinO-HRifzo
We want to become your favorite true crime podcast. Please leave a review wherever you listen.
Join our true crime community and follow us here.
The True Crime Reporter® podcast features stories about serial killers, mass murderers, murder mysteries, homicides, cold cases, prisons, violent criminals, serial rapists, child abductors, child molesters, kidnappers, bank robbers, cybercriminals, and assorted violent criminals.
True Crime Reporter® is a @2022 copyrighted and trade-marked production by True Crime Reporter®, LLC, in Dallas, Texas.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
31 min
September 07, 2022 This Bank Gets Robbed Every Day – Former FBI Agent Don Bentley
There’s a bank in Quantico, Virginia, that gets robbed every day.
And I am going to take you there.
Hello. I’m Robert Riggs.
In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, former FBI Agent Don Bentley takes us inside the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
New Special Agents start their career there in an intensive 20-week long training program.
Realistic training scenarios unfold in a mock town called Hogan’s Alley named after a comic strip from the 1890s.
Town House In Hogan's Alley That Is The Site Of Many Mock Shootouts At The FBI Academy In Quantico, Virginia
I’ve reported there many times on stories ranging from bank robberies to weapons of mass destruction.
I’ve posted links to those stories in the show notes.
FBI Academy
The 10-acre training facility contains a bank, post office, hotel, laundromat, barbershop, theater, homes, and everything you would find in a real urban setting.
It’s like a Hollywood set that features actors playing armed criminals.
In an homage to the deadly shootout with John Dillinger, there is a mock Biograph Theater where three FBI agents ended the gangster’s reign as “Public Enemy Number One.”
My guest, Don Bentley, went through all of that training, and he was well suited for it.
Before the FBI, Bentley served in the U.S. Army as a pilot for ten years and flew an AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship.
Bentley received the Bronze Star and Air Medal with V device for Valor.
He commanded a Quick Reaction Force in support of Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan.
The story of that mission can be heard on Episode 56 of Jack Carr’s podcast, Danger Close.
Carr, as you may know, is a former Navy SEAL and now a New York Times best-selling author of The Terminal List.
The Terminal List starring Chris Pratt, is an acclaimed series on Amazon Prime.
Don Bentley is also a New York Times bestselling author of the Matt Drake series spinning out potboilers about terrorism and intelligence operations.
In this episode, we discuss the focus of the FBI since 9/11.
Here’s my interview with Don Bentley.
Links to Robert's TV stories at the FBI Academy:
https://bit.ly/RobertRiggsReportsFromFBIAcademyOnWMD
https://bit.ly/RobertRiggsReportsFromFBIAcademyOnProfileOfAPsychopath
38 min
September 06, 2022 This Bank Gets Robbed Every Day - Former FBI Agent Don Bentley
There’s a bank in Quantico, Virginia that gets robbed every day.
And I am going to take you there.
Hello. I’m Robert Riggs.
In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, former FBI Agent Don Bentley takes us inside the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
New Special Agents start their career there in an intensive 20-week long training program.
Realistic training scenarios unfold in a mock town called Hogan’s Alley named after a comic strip from the 1890s.
I’ve reported there many times on stories ranging from bank robberies to weapons of mass destruction.
I’ve posted links to those stories in the show notes.
The 10-acre training facility contains a bank, post office, hotel, laundromat, barbershop, theater, homes, and everything you would find in a real urban setting.
It’s like a Hollywood set that features actors playing armed criminals.
In an homage to the deadly shootout with John Dillinger, there is a mock Biograph Theater where three FBI agents ended the gangster’s reign as “Public Enemy Number One.”
My guest, Don Bentley went through all of that training and he was well suited for it.
Before the FBI, Bentley served in the U.S. Army as a pilot for ten years and flew an AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship.
Bentley received the Bronze Star and Air Medal with V device for Valor.
He commanded a Quick Reaction Force in support of Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan.
The story of that mission can be heard on Episode 56 of Jack Carr’s podcast, Danger Close.
Carr as you may know is a former Navy SEAL and now a New York Times best selling author of The Terminal List.
The Terminal List starring Chris Pratt is an acclaimed series on Amazon Prime.
Don Bentley is also a New York Times bestselling author of the Matt Drake series spinning out potboilers about terrorism and intelligence operations.
In this episode, we discuss the focus of the FBI since 9/11.
Here’s my interview with Don Bentley.
Links to Robert's TV stories at the FBI Academy:
https://bit.ly/RobertRiggsReportsFromFBIAcademyOnWMD
https://bit.ly/RobertRiggsReportsFromFBIAcademyOnProfileOfAPsychopath
We want to become your favorite true crime podcast. Please leave a review wherever you listen.
Join our true crime community and follow us here.
The True Crime Reporter® podcast features stories about serial killers, mass murderers, murder mysteries, homicides, cold cases, prisons, violent criminals, serial rapists, child abductors, child molesters, kidnappers, bank robbers, cyber criminals, and assorted violent criminals.
True Crime Reporter® is a @2022 copyrighted and trade-marked production by True Crime Reporter®, LLC, in Dallas, Texas.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
35 min
August 25, 2022 When First Responders Need Help This Is Why They Call SWAT
In the previous episode, Inside Story Of The Deadliest Attack On Police Officers Since 9/11, the negotiator for the Dallas SWAT team revealed the inside story about the mass killer who ambushed Dallas officers during a Black Lives Matter protest five years ago.
Members of our True Crime Community have asked to learn more about the purpose of SWAT teams.
SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. It’s a highly trained elite unit selected from rank and file officers who apply.
In the True Crime Reporter™ podcast episode published on July 18, 2022, about the Uvalde School Shooting, Police Waited To Subdue Killer While Uvalde School Children Lay Dying you heard how a SWAT team from the U.S. Border Patrol finally stepped in and ended the mass shooting.
SWAT teams grew out of the mass shooting at the University of Texas Tower in Austin a half-century ago.
In 96 minutes, Charles Whitman, an architectural engineering student cut down nearly 50 people with 150 rifle shots from the 30th-floor observation deck on August 1, 1966.
From his perch, three hundred feet above the campus, he methodically picked off victims as far as five blocks away.
Police were outgunned and did not have protective gear to make a quick assault.
You can learn more about the incident and how it influenced policing in our March 28, 2022 episode titled, A Sniper In The Tower--Why Did He Do It?
We interviewed Gary Lavergne, the author of A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders.
Here are links to black and white film footage from the shooting and a video of Gary Lavergne following the sniper’s trail to the top of the UT Tower.
If SWAT teams had existed back then, that’s who would have responded.
We asked retired Dallas Police Lt. Bob Owens to explain the role of SWAT teams. Owens is a 40-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department.
Here is his interview with Robert Riggs.
We want to become your favorite true crime podcast. Please leave a review wherever you listen.
Join our true crime community and follow us here.
The True Crime Reporter® podcast features stories about serial killers, mass murderers, murder mysteries, homicides, cold cases, prisons, violent criminals, serial rapists, child abductors, child molesters, kidnappers, bank robbers, cyber criminals, and assorted violent criminals.
True Crime Reporter® is a @2022 copyrighted and trade-marked production by True Crime Reporter®, LLC, in Dallas, Texas.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
32 min
August 22, 2022 When First Responders Need Help This Is Why They Call SWAT
In the previous episode, Inside Story Of The Deadliest Attack On Police Officers Since 9/11, the negotiator for the Dallas SWAT team revealed the inside story about the mass killer who ambushed Dallas officers during a Black Lives Matter protest five years ago.
Members of our True Crime Community have asked to learn more about the purpose of SWAT teams.
SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. It’s a highly trained elite unit selected from rank-and-file officers who apply.
In the True Crime Reporter™ podcast episode published on July 18, 2022, about the Uvalde School Shooting, Police Waited To Subdue Killer While Uvalde School Children Lay Dying, you heard how a SWAT team from the U.S. Border Patrol finally stepped in and ended the mass shooting.
SWAT teams grew out of the mass shooting at the University of Texas Tower in Austin a half-century ago.
In 96 minutes, Charles Whitman, an architectural engineering student, cut down nearly 50 people with 150 rifle shots from the 30th-floor observation deck on August 1, 1966.
From his perch, three hundred feet above the campus, he methodically picked off victims as far as five blocks away.
Police were outgunned and did not have protective gear to make a quick assault.
You can learn more about the incident and how it influenced policing in our March 28, 2022, episode titled, A Sniper In The Tower--Why Did He Do It?
L to R Reporter Robert Riggs and Gary Lavergne Author of Sniper In The Tower
We interviewed Gary Lavergne, the author of A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders.
Here are links to the shooting's black and white film footage and a video of Gary Lavergne following the sniper’s trail to the top of the UT Tower.
If SWAT teams had existed back then, that’s who would have responded.
Pictured in Center: Lt. Bob Owens Dallas Police Department SWAT
We asked retired Dallas Police Lt. Bob Owens to explain the role of SWAT teams. Owens is a 40-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department.
35 min