How The Pinellas Sheriff’s Office Boosts Its Rape Stats Without Solving Cases
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office has used a designation, called “exceptionally cleared” to close some cases where it hadn’t identified a suspect, assigned a detective or even confirmed that a crime had occurred.
The Most Fascinating Riot You’ve Never Heard Of
A mob of thousands attempted to storm a theater over a performance of Macbeth, the National Guard had to be called up, 31 people were killed and more than 100 wounded all over the personal jealousies of two vain and insecure actors. This is the story of the Astor Place Opera House Riot of May 10, 1849.
The Deadliest Marksman’s Cold, Brave Stand
Eighty years ago, a freezing Finnish farm boy took aim at the unstoppable Red Army — and became the greatest sharpshooter the world has ever seen. Simo Häyhä compiled, by some accounts, a kill count in excess of 500 by sniper rifle, more than anyone in recorded history.
Gaming The Lottery Seemed As Good A Retirement Plan As Any
A lottery loophole that would eventually make Jerry and Marge millionaires, spark an investigation by a Boston Globe Spotlight reporter, unleash a statewide political scandal and expose more than a few hypocrisies at the heart of America’s favorite form of legalized gambling.
Uncatchable: The Story Of Fugitive George Wright
George Wright, America’s most elusive fugitive, ran for forty years. He ran from the cops after escaping from prison. He ran from the feds after the most brazen hijacking in history. He ran from the authorities on three continents, hiding out and blending in wherever he went.
The Strange & Curious Tale Of The Last True Hermit
For nearly thirty years, a phantom haunted the woods of Central Maine. Unseen and unknown, he lived in secret, creeping into homes in the dead of night and surviving on what he could steal. To the spooked locals, he became a legend—or maybe a myth. They wondered how he could possibly be real.
The North Korean Prisoner Who Escaped With Her Guard
Jeon was one of several guards at Onsong Detention Centre in the far north of North Korea. He and his colleagues kept Kim and a few dozen other inmates under surveillance 24 hours a day whilst they awaited trial. Watch how a prison guard and a prisoner made their break together from one of the world’s most secretive states.
What Really Happened To Malaysia’s Missing Airplane
The mystery surrounding MH370 has been a focus of continued investigation and a source of sometimes feverish public speculation. Judging from the electronic evidence, this was not a controlled attempt at a water landing. The airplane must have fractured instantly into a million pieces.
Jeff Pike, Texas’s Own Tony Soprano
Jeff Pike, the head of the infamous Texas-based Bandidos motorcycle club, went on trial in federal court for racketeering. Prosecutors called him a ruthless killer, the man behind one of the deadliest biker shootouts in American history at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. Pike, however, said he was just a good family man.
One Last Job: The Unlikely Story Behind The Hatton Garden Heist
The Hatton Garden Heist is one of the highest value burglaries ever to have taken place in Britain. The plot reads like a Hollywood movie and involved millions of pounds of diamonds and a group of ageing villains.
By Any Measure, Capital Punishment Is A Failed Policy
Nearly half of everyone sentenced to death since 1976 in the country’s active death penalty jurisdictions are no longer on death row, but not because they were executed. Hundreds have been released from prison; thousands are serving a lesser prison term.
The Making Of A Bedsit Nazi: Who Was The Man Who Killed Jo Cox?
Thomas Mair shot and stabbed the British MP as she made her way to a constituency surgery at the local library in Birstall, West Yorkshire, on 16 June 2016, a week before the EU referendum. He told the two police officers who arrested him that he was a “political activist”.
This Is Catfishing On An Industrial Scale
Hired as customer service reps, these freelancers were instead tasked with luring in the lonely and lovestruck through a network of dating and hookup sites. The niche dating portals funnel users into the system and usually include lengthy terms and conditions.
These Haunting Red Dresses Memorialize Murdered And Missing Indigenous Women
The red dresses each hung, flapping in the wind along the plaza surrounding the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian—35 of them—in different shapes, sizes and shades. They serve as stand-ins for the potentially thousands of native women who go missing or are murdered each year.
How Norway Designed A More Humane Prison
Halden Prison in Norway looks sort of like a fancy dorm room or a hotel — much different than the barbed wire and cramped cells we often associate with prison design. Its look is all part of a plan to create a more humane prison, one where the architecture isn’t part of the punishment.
The Stradivarius Affair
It isn’t every day that a street criminal—a high-school dropout with two felony convictions—is accused of stealing a centuries-old violin worth as much as $6 million. But nothing about the heist of the Lipinski Stradivarius, which galvanized the music world last winter, was normal, or even logical.
The Murder House
A mysterious mansion. A murder-suicide. Paranormal activity. This is the true story of 2475 Glendower Place. Before the Internet, it retained its anonymity, hiding at the foot of Griffith Park, at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains. Now it’s becoming an Amityville horror for the Facebook generation.
The Malaysian Job: How Wall Street Enabled A Global Financial Scandal
The story of possibly the largest fraud in financial history—in which, billions of dollars were diverted from a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad into covert campaign-finance accounts, U.S. political campaigns, Hollywood movies, and the pockets of innumerable other recipients.
When Chinese Industrial Espionage Goes Wrong
Shannon You’s story is about so much more than just Coca-Cola’s other secret recipe. Her get-rich-quick scheme cast new light on how industrial espionage has become a big part of China’s economic growth, and provided fuel to those who accuse the country’s Thousand Talents Program of incentivizing technology theft on an unprecedented scale.
Argentina Police Are Arresting Innocent People Based on Facial Recognition
Though it’s becoming common around the world, live facial recognition — the practice of matching every face in live security footage against a watchlist — remains highly controversial. But that future is already here for the people of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Inside The All-Star Café Baseball Card Heist
A Coen Brothers-esque tale about knuckleheaded kitchen staffers at the All-Star Café, a Hollywood A-lister, the Mona Lisa of baseball cards and a plan that went horribly wrong.