True Crime Reporter

By Robert RiggsTrue Crime Government History

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Typical duration
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per episode

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True Crime Reporter episodes

October 26, 2021 Inside The Police Beat Covering Texas Worst Serial Killer
Serial killer Kenneth McDuff fixated on the female reporters who covered his capital murder trial.
After a Texas jury sentenced McDuff to death by lethal injection, he sent off a letter to one of the reporters.
Rebecca Rodriguez Reporting Live For CBS 11 News in 2000
The letter written behind bars sickened reporter Rebecca Rodriguez
She had covered the abduction of Colleen Reed, a petite 29-year-old accountant, from an Austin, Texas, self-service car wash shortly after Christmas in 1991.
Colleen Reed
The accountant was one of the dozens of young women who had mysteriously disappeared up and down interstate 35 through the heart of Texas.
Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff
McDuff was a sadistic, sexual serial killer. His biggest pleasure came from inflicting pain on his victims and controlling their moment of death.
Alva Hank Worley Accomplice of Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff
A grisly confession by McDuff’s accomplice detailed a chamber of horrors in explicit detail of how he tortured his victims.
Rodriguez could hardly process this horrible story when McDuff’s mother called her in February of 1993.
The phone call followed her son being sentenced to die by lethal injection in the Texas Death Chamber for the capital murder of Melissa Northrup.
Addy McDuff claimed her son was innocent and pleaded with Rodriguez to tell his story.
But Addy was known as a manipulative, crass creature who was the stereotypical mother of a serial killer.
The residents of Rosebud, a small town in Central Texas, knew Addy as the “pistol-packing mama”.
Her son had ridden roughshod over its residents for years.
When a school bus driver scolded Kenneth for bullying fellow students, Addy threatened him with her pistol.
In this episode how McDuff’s case has haunted reporters and law officers for thirty years.
46 min
October 19, 2021 The Minister Who Almost Got Away With Murder
Husbands who murder their wives often go to great lengths to concoct stories about their disappearance or sudden death.
They may give tearful appeals for help on television newscasts.
They typically think that they are smarter than the police and can get away with murder.
But there are no perfect crimes.
Murderers often slip up when they try to make the crime scene look like what they’ve seen on television shows.
Eagle-eyed investigators can see right through it.
This episode goes inside two cases from the career of former federal prosecutor Bill Johnston.
In the first case, a charismatic Baptist preacher in Waco initially fools the police into believing that his wife committed suicide.
1 hr 5 min
October 15, 2021 Don’t Fence Me In — No Texas Prison Could Hold Dennis Wayne Hope
Willie Nelson sings about riding in the wide-open spaces with lyrics titled “Don’t Fence Me In”.
“Don’t Fence Me In” was the ballad of Texas inmate Dennis Wayne Hope.
Hope bragged that there wasn’t a prison in Texas that could hold him.
The convicted armed robber even imitated the prisoner played by Paul Newman in Hollywood’s Cool Hank Luke.
Hope purchased a Jaguar for his girlfriend with money stolen during robberies in Dallas, Texas.
While on the run, Hope sent imprisoned convicts letters about life on the outside.
Hope impersonated armored car guards with fake ID cards and uniforms. He picked up tens of thousands of dollars in cash deposits.
During one getaway, Hope calmly strolled past a police officer parked in a patrol car at the entrance to the grocery store he had just robbed.
During a television interview with investigative reporter Robert Riggs, Hope demonstrated how he could use the plastic refill of a ballpoint pen to unlock handcuffs.
This episode, “Don’t Fence Me In,” chronicles Hope’s prison escapes and the fugitive hunters who get on this trail.
49 min
October 14, 2021 Don't Fence Me In - Why No Texas Prison Could Hold This Inmate
Willie Nelson sings about riding in the wide-open spaces with lyrics titled “Don’t Fence Me In”.
“Don’t Fence Me In” was the ballad of Texas inmate Dennis Wayne Hope.
Hope bragged that there wasn’t a prison in the state of Texas that could hold him.
The convicted armed robber went as far as to imitate the prisoner played by Paul Newman in Hollywood’s Cool Hank Luke.
During a television interview with investigative reporter Robert Riggs, Hope demonstrated how he could use the plastic refill of a ballpoint pen to unlock handcuffs.
This episode called “Don’t Fence Me In” chronicles Hope’s prison escapes and the fugitive hunters who get on this trail.
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47 min
March 10, 2021 A Sordid Tale Of Bribery And International Intrigue: The Backstory Of The True Crime Reporter | E3
As we work on future episodes about notorious prison breaks in Texas and violent crazy cults, I want to share an episode originally produced for our sister podcast Justice Facts.

My cohost is Bill Johnston who is featured in Season 1 of my True Crime Reporter™ podcast called Free to Kill.

Johnston then a federal prosecutor launched the manhunt for serial killer Kenneth McDuff.

If you have not listened to the 17-episode series, I strongly recommend that you subscribe to Season 1 - Episode 1 to hear about the worst serial killer in Texas history.

Many listeners have asked how I got into investigative reporting.

I started as an investigator in Congress for the Joint Committee Defense Production under Chairman Wright Patman.

Patman who represented the First Congressional District of Texas started the first investigation into the Watergate Scandal.

In 2021, President Biden invoked The Defense Production Act to expedite the production of medical materials need to make COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and personal protective equipment.

When I served as Chief Investigator of the Defense Production Committee we launched an inquiry to allegations of bribery and improper entertainment of Defense Department and Military Service personnel by Defense Contractors.

P.S. We want to become your favorite True Crime Podcast.

In order to do so, we need your review on Apple.

Please join our True Crime Fan newsletter to get updates on upcoming episodes and crime stories not on our podcast.

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Podcast Credits:
True Crime Reporter* is a trademarked and copyrighted production.

Hosted and Written by Robert Riggs

Executive Producer: Elizabeth Arnold

Associate Producer: Seiler Burr

Social Media Producer: Grace Woodward

Audio Production by Matt Stoker

Original Music by Blair King

Original Music by James Richard

Publicity by Tim Livingston PR

Photography by Igor Kraguljac

Television Production and Distribution by Max Montoya Big Media TV
1 hr 10 min
January 04, 2021 Inside The Minds Of America’s 2 Worst Serial Killers: Kenneth McDuff & Ted Bundy Episode 17 Season 1
Kenneth Allen McDuff ranks among the most heartless and sadistic serial killers in American history.
But what creates the McDuff’s and Ted Bundy’s of this world?
Two former FBI profilers, who were among the founders of the Behavioral Science Unit based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, gave me invaluable insight.
I met profilers John Douglas and Roy Hazelwood after they had retired from the bureau. At that time, they were not widely known outside of law enforcement circles.
Today, the Netflix crime drama Mindhunter is loosely based on John Douglas’s role in pioneering profiling at the FBI.
His fellow profiler Roy Hazelwood became the world’s leading expert on the strangest, most dangerous of all aberrant offenders, the sexual criminal.
Hazelwood is now deceased. He coauthored landmark books about the minds of sexual predators with Stephen Michaud.
Michaud is a friend and fellow investigative reporter who used to be based here in Dallas.
Stephen Michaud is the expert on Ted Bundy.
He tape-recorded 150 hours of audio with the serial killer when Bundy was imprisoned in a Florida State Prison. In 1983, Michaud and another giant of investigative reporting, Hugh Aynesworth wrote the book, The Only Living Witness; The True Story of Serial Killer Ted Bundy.
In 2019, NetFlix premiered a four-episode docuseries based on Michaud’s tapes titled Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.
Michaud and I discuss what goes on inside the minds of serial killers.
1 hr 24 min
December 29, 2020 “Freed To Kill” These Wounds Don’t Heal. The Living Hurt Forever by Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff Episode 16 Season 1
Colleen Reed
You are about to hear how the murder of Colleen Reed on December 29th, 1991, by serial killer Kenneth McDuff impacted the life of her then-ten-year-old niece.
Ms. Reed was abducted from an Austin car wash shortly after Christmas by McDuff and his accomplice, Alva Hank Worley.
You can hear Worley's confession about the grizzly details of the young accountant's brutal murder in episode 6.
At the time of this recording in December 2020, Ms. Reed’s niece had spent 29 years suffering from guilt.
It is a story that none of us who worked on the case were aware of until now.
Bill Johnston, the federal prosecutor who launched the manhunt for McDuff, and I talk with Ms. Reed’s niece to give you insight into how the trauma of violent crime affects the victim’s families forever.
We also explain why society should lock up violent offenders and throw away the key.
47 min
December 21, 2020 “Freed To Kill” Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff Is Six Feet Under But What Mysteries Remain? Episode 15 Season 1
The scandalous release of serial killer Kenneth McDuff and corruption inside the parole system triggered the passage of numerous legislative reforms dubbed “The McDuff Law.”
But mysteries remain.
How many violent inmates bought their way out of prison and were free to kill again?
How many women did McDuff abduct and murder?
McDuff always liked to have an accomplice to witness his evil acts.
Did other accomplices get away with murder?
Investigators sit down with investigative reporter Robert Riggs to discuss their theories.
29 min
December 14, 2020 “Freed To Kill” Dead Man Walking Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff Enters The Texas Death Chamber Episode 14 Season 1
Investigative reporter Robert Riggs traced serial killer Kenneth McDuff’s footsteps from Texas’ Death Row to its Death Chamber at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas.
The day before McDuff's execution, the prison system gave Riggs and his camera crew access to the Texas death chamber.
Riggs fills in precise details about how the lethal injection was administered down to McDuff’s last words.
It's a step-by-step account that most people have never heard before.
McDuff’s body went unclaimed by family members, and his home community protested any attempt to bury him there.
Riggs follows McDuff’s pine box coffin to its burial in an anonymous grave in the prison cemetery.
28 min
December 07, 2020 “Freed To Kill” How A Throbbing Toothache Made Serial Killer Kenneth McDuff Talk Episode 13 Season 1
Serial killer Kenneth McDuff held back on revealing where he buried Colleen Reed's body.
McDuff and his accomplice Hank Worley abducted Ms. Reed from an Austin car wash in 1991.
Seven years have passed, and the clock is ticking down toward McDuff's execution for her murder and that of Melissa Northrup.
Prison investigator John Moriarty, federal prosecutor Bill Johnston, and U.S. Marshal Mike McNamara spent hours on Texas death row trying to get McDuff to reveal the location of his victims' bodies.
The big break comes when Moriarty hears McDuff complaining about a painful toothache.
20 min