Adam Janos is a New York City-based writer and reporter. In addition to his work for A&E's Real Crime blog, he has reported for The Wall Street Journal and The Budapest Times, amongst others.
Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years in a windowless basement. When she finally emerged in 2008, the story of his sadism shocked the world. Read about this shocking case.
In today's world, homicide detectives are expected to be jacks-of-all-trades: equally adept at chasing outlaws and identifying DNA evidence at the scene of the crime. But, in an overwhelmingly male-dominated field, Frances Glessner Lee, a Midwestern woman without a high school diploma, made contributions throughout the 1930s and 40s that earned her the moniker 'The Mother of Forensic Science.'
Sex trafficking is big business. Globally, it generates tens of billions of dollars in profit every year. Here in the United States, it ensnares hundreds of thousands of victims. And while the stereotypical image of a trafficking victim is a foreign national, many of the exploited are underage American girls.
By the time Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison, his accusers numbered in the hundreds—mostly athletes training and competing under the auspices of USA Gymnastics.
For years, her name was treated as a shorthand joke: Lorena Bobbitt, the angry, crazy wife, a 22-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant who had cut off her husband John Wayne Bobbitt's penis with a kitchen knife while he slept in their Northern Virginia home. The June 1993 incident served as international tabloid fodder for months.
Rickey Ray Rector always had a troubled mind—as an adolescent, he fought regularly with peers, and by 17, he was a career criminal. But over the course of four days, his disturbing behavior reached its peak when Ray shot five people with a .38-caliber pistol.
We speak with Christopher Kuvlesky, an agent with the Investigative Services Branch (ISB) of the National Park System about what it's like investigating violent crimes within our vast national parks.
One in nine men experience severe physical violence at the hands of intimate partners. And when they do, their survival is uniquely challenging.