True Crime Reporter

By Robert RiggsTrue Crime Government History

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per episode

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True Crime Reporter episodes

July 04, 2022 The Watergate Scandal — A Tale Of Bribery And International Intrigue
Many of you have asked how Robert became an investigative reporter. After all, most of the stories you hear on this podcast come from my reporter’s notebook.
Riggs' career path has zigged and zagged since I received a degree in Architecture and Construction from Texas A&M University. Upon graduation, he headed off to Capitol Hill.
In this episode, my cohost, former prosecutor Bill Johnston, takes me back to the Watergate scandal 50 years ago.
Bill has never heard some of these stories, and in later episodes, Riggs will interview him about his high-profile criminal cases.
Riggs shares a muck-raking tale of bribery and international intrigue.
1 hr 11 min
June 24, 2022 Stop The Killing – How To End The Mass Shooting Crisis
Katherine Schweit headed up the FBI’s active shooter program, where she authored the bureau’s landmark research about mass shootings and how to respond best to save lives.
In the wake of the massacre of children and their teachers in Uvalde, Texas, school safety weighs heavily on the minds of teachers and students’ families.
In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, investigative reporter Robert Riggs and Schweit discuss why the number of mass shootings is spiking to the point that some parents are afraid to send their children to school.
Riggs is no stranger to this tragic subject.
In October of 1991, he covered the mass shooting at a crowded Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas.
A lone gunman crashed his pickup truck through the front door of the restaurant. He proceeded to murder 23 people with two semi-automatic pistols before killing himself when confronted by police.
It was the mother of all mass killings in America, marking the start of an epidemic.
In September of 1999, Riggs covered the mass shooting at the Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth and produced a profile of the mass killer with the assistance of retired profilers from the FBI.
Riggs covered so many “critical incidents” in his reporting career that he was asked to serve on a study panel hosted by the Critical Incident Analysis Group at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 2000. The public university was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819.
The panel was assembled to study Threats To Symbols Of American Democracy.
It included the FBI case agent for the Columbine shootings and its high school principal.
The report prophetically predicted the future targets of the 9-11 hijackers. Unfortunately, the report apparently fell on deaf ears at the top echelon of national security.
When it comes to mass killings, Riggs has been there. He looked mass killer Doug Feldman in the eye during an hour-long interview on Texas Death Row. The episode is Interview With The Mass Killer Known As The Terminator. None of it made the slightest bit of sense to Riggs. Feldman warned Riggs at the beginning that his motives would not make sense to anybody but himself.
The shootings are only getting worse. Especially when children are slaughtered.
Katherine Schweit
No one understands this epidemic better than Katharine Schweit, who spent 20 years with the FBI as a Special Agent Executive and U.S. prosecutor.
In the years after the massacre of 20 school children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in New Town, Connecticut in December of 2012, the FBI spent more than 30 million dollars teaching police how to persistently pursue efforts to neutralize a shooter even if only one officer is present.
Yet, police in Uvalde, Texas, waited 78 minutes before confronting the gunman at Robb Elementary School. The Texas Department of Public Safety Director called it the “wrong decision, period.”
The murders reflect a disturbing pattern. Six of the nine deadliest mass shootings in the United States since 2018 were committed by men who were 21 or younger.
Who is doing this? Why are they doing it? Can we tell when it will happen? How can we intervene?
Do our children need to go to school in fortresses?
Katharine Schweit answers some of those questions in her book Stop The Killing – How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis.
SHOW LINKS
Katherine Schweit | Stop the Killing
FBI Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the U.S. 2000-2013
Active Shooter Resources
Katherine Schweit | Stop the Killing Podcast
1 hr 2 min
June 21, 2022 Stop The Killing - Former FBI Agent Katherine Schweit On Mass Shootings
Katherine Schweit headed up the FBI’s active shooter program where she authored the bureau’s landmark research about mass shootings and how to best respond to save lives.
In the wake of the massacre of children and their teachers in Uvalde, Texas, school safety weighs heavily on the minds of teachers and students’ families.
In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, investigative reporter Robert Riggs and Schweit discuss why the number of mass shootings is spiking to the point that some parents are afraid to send their children to school.
Riggs is no stranger to this tragic subject.
In October of 1991, he covered the mass shooting at a crowded Luby’s Cafeteria in Kileen, Texas.
A lone gunman crashed his pickup truck through the front door of the restaurant. He proceeded to murder 23 people with two semi-automatic pistols before killing himself when confronted by police.
It was the mother of all mass killings in America, marking the start of an epidemic.
In September of 1999, Riggs covered the mass shooting at the Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth and produced a profile of the mass killer with the assistance of retired profilers from the FBI.
Riggs covered so many “critical incidents” in his reporting career that he was asked to serve on a study panel hosted by the Critical Incident Analysis Group at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 2000. The public university was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819.
The panel was assembled to study Threats To Symbols Of American Democracy.
It included the FBI case agent for the Columbine shootings and its high school principal.
The report prophetically predicted the future targets of the 9-11 hijackers. Unfortunately, the report apparently fell on deaf ears at the top echelon of national security.
When it comes to mass killings, Riggs has been there. He looked mass killer Doug Feldman in the eye during an hour-long interview on Texas Death Row. It’s the episode titled Interview With The Mass Killer Known As The Terminator. None of it made the slightest bit of sense to Riggs. Feldman warned Riggs at the beginning that his motives would not make sense to anybody but himself.
The shootings are only getting worse. Especially when children are slaughtered.
No one understands this epidemic better than Katharine Schweit who spent 20 years with the FBI as a Special Agent Executive and as a U.S. prosecutor.
In the years after the massacre of 20 school children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in New Town, Connecticut in December of 2012, the FBI spent more than 30 million dollars teaching police how to persistently pursue efforts to neutralize a shooter even if only one officer is present.
Yet, police in Uvalde, Texas waited 78 minutes before confronting the gunman at Robb Elementary School. The Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety called it the “wrong decision, period.”
The murders reflect a disturbing pattern. Six of the nine deadliest mass shootings in the United States since 2018 were committed by men who were 21 or younger.
Who is doing this? Why are they doing it? Can we tell when it is going to happen? How do we intervene?
Do our children need to go to school in fortresses?
Katharine Schweit answers some of those questions in her book, Stop The Killing – How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis.
Here’s their conversation.
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.
True Crime Reporter® is a @2022 copyrighted and trade-marked production by True Crime Reporter®, LLC, in Dallas, Texas.
The True Crime Reporter® features stories about serial killers, mass murderers, murder mystery, homicides, cold cases, prisons, criminals, serial rapists, child abduction, kidnapping, bank robbery, and violent crime.
SHOW LINKS
Katherine Schweit | Stop the Killing
FBI Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the U.S. 2000-2013
Active Shooter Resources
Katherine Schweit | Stop the Killing Podcast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
57 min
June 14, 2022 She Butchered Her Sons and Took A Nap. A Case of Freed To Kill.
For many years Texas had a law and order image.
Politicians campaigned for office about getting tough on crime.
A gubernatorial candidate’s TV ads featured actors wearing black and white overalls swinging sledgehammers in the prison yard. His voice-over pledged to teach youthful criminals “the joy of busing rocks.”
In fact, Texas ran a revolving door prison system.
Lawmakers passed tougher laws but refused to spend money to build prisons to hold more convicted criminals.
The public did not know about this until I exposed how serial killer Kenneth McDuff was released on parole with hundreds more violent offenders.
You can learn more about McDuff by listening to our recent episode titled The Broomstick Killer or you can watch our Freed To Kill streaming television documentary on Fox Nation.
The episode you are about to hear illustrates how Texas turned loose monsters. And I mean monsters.
I warn you it is a graphic story about a mother who dismembered her two boys and later walked out of that revolving door.
This episode is another example of how the stories on the True Crime Reporter® Podcast are stranger than fiction.
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.
True Crime Reporter® is a @2022 copyrighted and trade-marked production by True Crime Reporter®, LLC, in Dallas, Texas.
The True Crime Reporter® features stories about serial killers, mass murderers, murder mystery, homicides, cold cases, prisons, criminals, serial rapists, child abduction, kidnapping, bank robbery, and violent crime.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
41 min
June 13, 2022 She Butchered Her Sons And Took A Nap. She Was Freed To Kill.
For many years, Texas had a law and order image.
Politicians campaigned for office about getting tough on crime.
A gubernatorial candidate’s TV ads featured actors wearing black and white overalls swinging sledgehammers in the prison yard. His voice-over pledged to teach youthful criminals “the joy of busing rocks.”
Texas ran a revolving-door prison system.
Lawmakers passed tougher laws but refused to spend money to build prisons to hold more convicted criminals.
The public did not know about this until I exposed how serial killer Kenneth McDuff was released on parole with hundreds more violent offenders.
You can learn more about McDuff by listening to our recent episode titled The Broomstick Killer or watching our Freed To Kill streaming television documentary on Fox Nation.
The episode you are about to hear illustrates how Texas turned loose monsters. And I mean monsters.
I warn you it is a graphic story about a mother who dismembered her two boys and later walked out of that revolving door.
46 min
June 06, 2022 Cold War Secrets: A Cyanide Murder Mystery Involving the FBI and CIA
Was it a case of cloak and dagger among spies? Or was it a plain old case of murder driven by lust and the desire for money?
It is a mystery that lives on 50 years after a popular Czech professor vanished from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Was he a double or triple agent who crossed his masters in a Cold War game of spy vs. spy?
Is he living out his years on a tropical island, or do his remains lie at the bottom of an abandoned gold mine?
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eileen Welsome provides long-awaited answers to a baffling case that caused a falling out between the FBI and the CIA.
Investigative reporter Robert Riggs interviews Welsome about a mysterious case of deadly cyanide murders as revealed in her book, Cold War Secrets.
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50 min
May 30, 2022 Rev Matt Baker – The Sinister Minister Who Almost Got Away With Murder
Matt Baker, the charismatic Baptist minister who almost got away with murdering his wife is among our most popular episodes.
On his way to the pulpit in Waco, Texas, Baker molested numerous young women.
An investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, revealed that church leaders covered up sexual assaults by hundreds of pastors like Matt Bakers for twenty years.
A seven-month investigation conducted by Guidepost Solutions released in May of 2022 found that sex-abusing pastors were often passed along to other churches with no notice or warnings.
Two top officials of the Southern Baptist Convention kept their private list of abusive pastors for ten years. And the list of 703 abusers may soon become public.
We expect Matt Baker to be on that list.
Former U.S. prosecutor Bill Johnston, the cohost of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast, unraveled a trail of sex abuse complaints about Matt Baker during his murder investigation.
Johnston and investigative reporter Robert Riggs update their original episode, The Minister Who Almost Got Away With Murder, published on October 18th, 2021.
Johnston reveals how his murder investigation discovered that Matt Baker’slong history of sexual abuse allegations had been swept under the rug for years.
Riggs discusses the mindset of sexual predators based on his experience of reporting from inside the Texas prison system.
Link to Investigation of Sexual Abuse Allegations At Southern Baptist Convention
49 min
May 30, 2022 Rev Matt Baker - The Sinister Minister Who Murdered His Wife
Matt Baker, the charismatic Baptist minister who almost got away with murdering his wife is among our most popular episodes.
On his way to the pulpit in Waco, Texas, Baker molested young women.
An investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, revealed that sexual assaults by hundreds of pastors like Matt Bakers were covered up by church leaders for twenty years.
A seven-month investigation conducted by Guidepost Solutions released in May of 2022 found that sex abusing pastors were often passed along to other churches with no notice or warnings.
Two top officials of the Southern Baptist Convention kept their own private list of abusive pastors for ten years. And the list of 703 abusers may soon become public.
We expect Matt Baker to be on that list.
Former U.S. prosecutor Bill Johnston, the cohost of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast, unraveled a trail of sex abuse complaints about Matt Baker during his murder investigation.
Johnston and investigative reporter Robert Riggs update their original episode titled, The Minister Who Almost Got Away With Murder, published on October 18th of 2021.
Johnston reveals how his murder investigation discovered that Matt Baker’slong history of sexual abuse allegations had been swept under the rug for years.
Riggs discusses the mindset of sexual predators based on his experience of reporting from inside the Texas prison system.
Link To Southern Baptist Conference Investigation of Sexual Abuse Allegations
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.
True Crime Reporter® is a @2022 copyrighted and trade-marked production by True Crime Reporter®, LLC, in Dallas, Texas.
The True Crime Reporter® features stories about serial killers, mass murderers, murder mystery, homicides, cold cases, prisons, criminals, serial rapists, child abduction, kidnapping, bank robbery, and violent crime.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
44 min
May 23, 2022 Jail House Romances: Why Do Women Fall In Love With Serial Killers?
Can you imagine yourself falling in love with a serial killer or murderer to the point you will give up your family, career, and even your life for them?
A veteran Alabama jail officer, Vicky White, did just that in April of 2022 when she staged a getaway with a capital murder suspect.
The 56-year-old White had an unblemished record. She was on her last day of work before retirement. Her colleagues had just voted her Corrections Employee of the Year for a fifth time before she went on the run.
At first, the Lauderdale County Sheriff in Florence, Alabama, thought White had been kidnapped when she disappeared with a 36-year-old Casey White, no relation.
56-year-old Vicky White
But White had been involved in a two-year-long jailhouse romance with a career violent criminal named Casey White, no relation to her.
He certainly didn’t have fashion model looks.
Casey White, a 300-pound, muscular, burr-headed 6 foot 9, heavily tattooed inmate, was already serving a 75-year prison sentence for murder and other charges from a terrifying rampage.
Confederate Flag Tatoo Signifies Casey White's Membership In Racist Prison Gang
He had a large image of a Confederate flag tattooed on his back with the words Southern Pride connected by a chain to the image of a pit bulldog.
It signified his membership in a white racist prison gang called the Southern Brotherhood, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
The tattooed sleeve covering his right arm featured large SS symbols favored by neo-Nazi gangs
Casey White was awaiting trial for stabbing 58-year-old Connie Ridgeway to death in her apartment. It had been a cold case for five years until White suddenly confessed in a letter to investigators.
He later pleaded not guilty because of mental disease and was awaiting trial in the Lauderdale County Jail. But was his confession a ploy to get back to the jail to see Vicky White, its supervisor?
According to the convicted felon's mother, Casey White called the jailer his wife, and she visited his son and grandson and even gave them Christmas presents.
Vicky White gave a phony cover story when she took the capital murder suspect out of jail, claiming it was for a mental health examination.
A week earlier, she sold her house for 95 thousand dollars, far below market value, sold her car, and applied for retirement. She also bought an AR-15 rifle, a shotgun, men’s clothes, and sex toys.
Vicky White had been making dry runs to escape the jail with Casey White handcuffed and wearing a jail-issued jumpsuit in the backseat of her patrol car.
The couple’s getaway came to a deadly end in Indiana when U.S. Marshals rammed their Cadillac during a high-speed chase.
Marshals pulled Vicky White out of the wreckage, still gripping the handgun that she used to kill herself.
So what could she have possibly seen in a violent felon to throw her life away?
Investigative reporter Robert Riggs searches for answers in this episode of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast.
He interviews John Moriarty, the former Texas Department of Criminal Justice Inspector General.
You may recall from our earlier episodes about serial killer Kenneth McDuff that Moriarty was an undercover prison investigator who played a significant role in catching McDuff.
The tough-talking transplanted Irish cop from New York also tricked McDuff into revealing the location of the body of one of his victims before he was executed.
Moriarty is also featured in the opening of the promo about our five-part documentary news series about McDuff titled Freed To Kill on Fox Nation Streaming.
The stories of women and men falling in love with killers may sound like pulp fiction, but it is all too common inside jails and prisons.
38 min
May 23, 2022 The Greatest Escape From Texas Death Row Since Bonnie & Clyde
In this vintage photo 1993, Peabody Award-Winning Investigative Reporter Robert Riggs stands on a guard tower overlooking Texas Death Row.
Poking up behind him to the right of the large spotlight is the steeple of the prison, the chapel, where seven condemned prisoners made their daring break for freedom five years later.
29-year Martin Gurule, a cold-blooded killer from Corpus Christi in South Texas, made it over the prison’s fence on a foggy Thanksgiving night under a hail of rifle fire from guard towers.
The last time condemned killers had broken out of prison in Texas was in 1934, when two members of the notorious Bonnie and Clyde gang made a daring escape.
Prison guards were killed by machine gunfire.
That set off a manhunt led by legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hammer that ended in the deadly ambush of Bonnie and Clyde.
Sixty-four years later, hundreds of officers scoured thousands of acres around the Ellis Prison Unit near Huntsville, Texas, looking for Martin Gurule.
Robert Riggs was there until the very end.
In this episode of the True Crime Reporter® Podcast, Riggs dusts off an old reporter’s notebook about this sensational escape from Texas Death Row.
Click Here To See The List Of Crimes That Constitute Capital Murder in Texas
29 min