Crimes of the Times
Episodes
Featuring: Rebuilding L.A.
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Please enjoy this specially featured episode of LA Times Studio's Rebuilding LA. What’s next for L.A. in the wake of its recent wildfires? In “Reb...
“The Trials of Frank Carson” Update
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Attorney Frank Carson spent decades defending the accused in California's Central Valley. He made powerful enemies among law enforcement. When they pu...
Killer with a Badge: How the LAPD Missed a Murderer in its Ranks
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1986, 29-year-old Sherri Rasmussen was just starting her married life when she was brutally murdered in her Van Nuys home. The LAPD called it a “...
Death on the Set of the Twilight Zone Movie
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When a helicopter crash killed actor Vic Morrow and two children on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie, the filmmakers called it an unforeseeable acc...
Satanic Panic: A Death in the Manson Tunnel
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the summer solstice in 1990, a UCLA student with an interest in the occult was stabbed to death in a railway tunnel in the San Fernando Valley. Rum...
Tinker, Tailor, Stoner, Spy
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When 21-year old college dropout Christopher Boyce got a job as a clerk at the TRW Defense and Space Systems complex in Redondo Beach, he was given ac...
I Killed John Belushi
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When comic John Belushi died of a speedball overdose at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont, it wasn’t clear there had been a crime—until the National E...
The Other Side of the Door: The Case Against Lee Baca
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
James Sexton endures weeks of solitary confinement in federal prison, as prosecutors finally gear up to take Lee Baca to trial. Baca’s lawyers claim...
The Generals: Power, Deception and a Cover-Up that Goes to the Top
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The feds interview Baca’s flinty #2 man and heir apparent, Paul Tanaka, who professes ignorance about who gave the order to hide Anthony Brown. In 2...
Inside Man: A Jailer Turns Informant
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
James Sexton thinks Operation Pandora’s Box is behind him. When he reports a superior officer for misconduct, he is branded a snitch and treated as ...
Gunning Up: L.A. County’s Top Cop Versus the Feds
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Lee Baca took over the LA County Sheriff’s Department in 1998, he inherited a scandal-plagued agency. He built a reputation as a progressive re...
The Ghost: An Inmate Disappears in L.A. County Jail
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After an inmate sucker-punches James Sexton, he defies the jail’s unwritten rules by failing to exact violent retribution, and finds himself ostraci...
The Dungeon: Inside Men’s Central Jail
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A young FBI agent named Leah Marx arrives in Los Angeles and receives a tip in 2010 about brutal conditions at Men’s Central Jail downtown. Such com...
Introducing Pandora's Box: The Fall of L.A.'s Sheriff
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pandora’s Box: The Fall of L.A.’s Sheriff is a six-part podcast exploring the crisis that toppled one of the country’s most prominent lawmen, Le...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 8 Bonus
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special feature bonus episode, our host Christopher Goffard is joined by his editor, Steve Clow to discuss the aftermath of the case.
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 8
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this featured episode, The fates of Frank Carson and his co-defendants are decided, and jurors explain their reasoning. An interview with the stat...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 7 Bonus
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special feature bonus episode, our host Christopher Goffard is joined by his editor, Steve Clow, to examine the evidence against Carson and hi...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 7
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this specially featured episode, defense attorneys offer alternate theories to explain Korey Kauffman’s death, and the trial becomes an endurance...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 6 Bonus
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this specially featured bonus episode, our host Christopher Goffard is joined by his editor, Steve Clow, to discuss the implications of Frank Car...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 6
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-feature episode, Frank Carson hits rock bottom, and offers his co-defendants a way out. During the marathon preliminary hearing, the ...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 5 Bonus
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-feature bonus episode, our host Christopher Goffard is joined by his editor, Steve Clow, to discuss how detectives zeroed in on Frank ...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 5
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this specially featured episode, a series of wiretaps lead to criminal charges against Frank Carson’s wife and stepdaughter, an art student.
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 4 Bonus
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-feature bonus episode, our editor Steve Clow and our host Christopher Goffard discuss how three California Highway Patrol officers ...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 4
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-feature episode, Frank Carson and his co-defendants are accused of a complicated murder conspiracy after a three-year investigation. A...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 3 Bonus
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-release bonus episode, our host Christopher Goffard talks with false-confession expert Richard Leo, who questions the credibility of t...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 3
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special featured episode, the discovery of Korey Kauffman’s remains gives the investigation new impetus, and a man named Robert Woody offers...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Bonus Episode 2
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-released bonus episode, our host Christopher Goffard is joined by his editor, Steve Clow, to talk about how authorities linked the d...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Bonus Episode 1
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-release bonus episode, our host Christopher Goffard is joined by his editor, Steve Clow, to discuss the origins of The Trials of F...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 2
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special-release episode, investigators confront a defiant Frank Carson about the disappearance of a scrap-metal thief with a reputation for ...
Featuring: The Trials of Frank Carson, Episode 1
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Season 2 of Crimes of the Times, host Christopher Goffard revisits one of the longest and most bizarre murder trials in U.S. history.This special p...
Featuring: Man in the Window
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Please enjoy a special feature of the first episode of L.A. Times Studios production, Man in the Window. In this episode, Phantom in the Fog, investig...
Featuring: Detective Trapp
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Please enjoy a special feature of my show, Detective Trapp’s first episode, All the Missing. In this episode, Detective Julissa Trapp fights her way...
Featuring: Dirty John
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Please enjoy a special featured episode of my show Dirty John. In this episode, Debra Newell, an interior designer in Southern California, meets John ...
The Arsonist in the Crowd
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John Orr was a renowned fire investigator who was also a prolific arsonist, and whose thinly veiled novel helped to convict him. In this episode we he...
The Execution of Barbara Graham
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The case of Barbara Graham, known in the 1950s as “Bloody Babs” after the murder of a Burbank widow. Former prosecutor Marcia Clark joins us to re...
The Cult, The Lawyer, and the Snake
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Synanon, the drug rehabilitation group once known as “the miracle on the beach,” and the rattlesnake attack on the crusading Los Ange...
The Final Word on Manson: Part 2
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Former Manson prosecutor Stephen Kay recounts the strange story of Ronald Hughes, the “hippie lawyer” who enraged the cult leader and vanished mys...
The Final Word on Manson: Part 1
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The last living prosecutor of Charles Manson gives an inside account of the trial and the cult leader’s deadly vision. Stephen Kay recalls the case ...
The Black Dahlia
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Black Dahlia mystery: Wild theories, enduring myths and a long-overlooked suspect.New episodes every Tuesday.To read more about these cases, visit...
Patty Hearst
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The kidnapped heiress who became an “urban guerrilla” and embraced her captors.New episodes every Tuesday.To read more about these cases, visit Cr...
The Pentagon Papers Trial
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Smuggled out of a Santa Monica safe, the top-secret documents that changed American history.New episodes every Tuesday.To read more about these cases,...
George Franklin
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A childhood memory sent her father to prison for murder. Was it real?New episodes every Tuesday.To read more about these cases, visit Crimes of the Ti...
McMartin Preschool
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wild claims of mass child molestation rocked an L.A. beach town. Truth was the first casualty.New episodes every Tuesday.To read more about these case...
John DeLorean
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A maverick from Detroit, John DeLorean built the “car of the future.” Then came the briefcase full of cocaine.New episodes every Tuesday.To read m...
Rebecca Schaeffer
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A young actress, an obsessed stalker and a Hollywood murder that changed America.New episodes every Tuesday. To read more about these cases, visit Cr...
Introducing: Crimes of the Times
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
L.A. Times reporter Christopher Goffard of “Dirty John” is back with another riveting podcast from L.A. Times Studios. In “Crimes of the Times,”...
Bonus Episode: Inside the TV Series "Dirty John" Part 3
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the last of three special episodes, Alexandra Cunningham, showrunner of the new Bravo series "Dirty John," offers insight into how she approached t...
Bonus Episode: Inside the TV Series "Dirty John" Part 2
19 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the second of three special episodes, Connie Britton (“Friday Night Lights,” “Nashville”) talks about playing Debra Newell in the new Bravo...
Bonus Episode: Inside the TV Series "Dirty John" Part 1
14 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of three special episodes about the making of the Bravo limited series "Dirty John," Christopher Goffard talks with actor Eric Bana about...
Dirty John: Live at The Theatre at Ace Hotel
16 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the months since “Dirty John” was released, more of John Meehan’s victims have told their stories. Carolina Miranda from the LA Times intervi...
Terra
08 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jacquelyn and Terra Newell suspect that John has been watching them. When Jacquelyn tells her mother that he is in town, her mother believes she is mi...
Escape
07 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 5: John finds a lawyer and plots to unleash a blizzard of lawsuits against his enemies, with the aim of proving to Debra that he is the victim...
Forgiveness
05 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Debra is in hiding, living out of hotels and disguising herself with a wig. Debra fears she will meet the fate of her sister Cindi, who was killed by ...
Filthy
04 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Debra grapples with the question, “Who did I marry?” The story of John’s mysterious past unfolds through the eyes of his sisters, his law-school...
Newlyweds
02 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
After an intruder appears in John and Debra’s livingroom, John insists that they install security cameras. Debra begins to wonder whether he is spyi...
The Real Thing
02 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Debra Newell, an interior designer in Southern California, meets John Meehan on an over-50 dating site. His profile looks exciting: Anesthesiologist, ...
Introducing Dirty John
11 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A true story about seduction, deception, forgiveness, denial, and ultimately, survival. Reported and hosted by Christopher Goffard from the L.A. Times...