Serial Killers Unmasked: Groundbreaking Forensic Techniques Solve Cold Cases and Bring Justice in 2025

# "Case Files: Criminal Currents" - Detective Emily Carter Explores Recent Serial Killer Cases and Forensic Breakthroughs

Join Detective Emily Carter in this riveting podcast episode where she examines high-profile serial killer cases, forensic breakthroughs, and the evolution of criminal justice. From William Lewis Reece's death penalty confirmation to cold cases solved by student investigators, Emily provides expert analysis on modern crime investigation techniques.

Discover how law enforcement is adapting to 21st-century challenges, debunking viral crime myths, and bringing closure to decades-old mysteries. Learn about the psychological profiles behind notorious criminals like "Doomsday Mom" Lori Daybell and the "Cross Country Killer" Glen Edward Rogers.

This episode offers unique insights into evidence collection, interrogation tactics, and cross-jurisdictional cooperation from an active detective's perspective. Perfect for true crime enthusiasts, forensic science students, and anyone fascinated by how justice eventually catches up to even the most elusive criminals.

#TrueCrime #ForensicScience #SerialKillerCases #CriminalJustice #ColdCaseSolved #DetectiveStories #TrueCrimePodcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am Detective Emily Carter, though my friends on the
Squad and my listeners know me as m It is Sunday,
July twenty seventh, twenty twenty five, and this is Case Files,
Criminal Currents, the show where I get to pull up
my favorite mug, scroll the latest case notes, and take
you along for the ride through the wild world of

(00:21):
serial crime and unsolved mysteries. If you have ever stayed
up late reading notorious case studies or wondered how forensic
science cracks I possible puzzles, today's episode is tailor made
for you. There's been no shortage of headlines this summer
about serial killers, new breakthroughs in old cases, and the
long arm of justice chasing down the last ghosts of

(00:42):
past horrors. Trust me, as a rookie cop who still
feels the academy adrenaline in her veins, watching these cases
unfold hits different. I have spent so many hours buried
in textbooks learning about criminal profiling, evidence law, the Stockholm cases,
the Tyson prison break, the science of blood spatter analysis,
and that rare genese qua that separates the legendary investigators

(01:06):
from the ones you never read about again. And here
we are with the real world handing us new chapters
every single month. Before I join the force, I always
imagine these stories happened in black and white, you know
the drill, A grainy photo from the seventies, headlines shouting
panic as killer rooms, a montage of shaking hands, yellow tape,

(01:28):
burnt out detectives shuffling fielders across metal desks. But these
cases keep rolling in fresh and in full color. The
headlines are digital, the prosecutor's live stream press conferences, and
the killers, for all the modern tech, sometimes look just
like the men and women who haunted those old mugshots
in my criminology books. In this episode, we are going

(01:51):
to run through the latest updates in serial killer stories,
from convictions and court battles, to forensic breakthroughs, social media,
urban legends, and how student sleuths are stepping into the fray.
I ill break down what makes each case tick, share
some rookie perspective from my own training, and dig into

(02:12):
what these true crime stories can teach us about the tactics, psychology,
and persistence needed to chase monsters in the modern day.
Get comfortable, listen up, and let us dive into the
darkest corners of twenty first century crime. Let us start
right at the top with a story every single police
department in the country has been watching, all eyes on Oklahoma.

(02:36):
It is about William Lewis Reese, a name that has
haunted the states of Texas and Oklahoma since the late nineties.
If you are my kind of true crime junkie, you
know that sometimes justice moves about as quickly as dial
up Internet. But this month we have seen a rare
and long awaited milestone. The death penalty for Reese was
just upheld by an Oklahoma appellate court. Let us unpack

(02:59):
this racis first made headlines in July nineteen ninety seven,
back when Denham on Denham was the look and nobody
thought twice about a lone truck parked on a rural highway.
According to court documents, he kidnapped a sixteen year old
and a seventeen year old girl from a cafe in
Peril in Texas. He took them to his apartment in Houston.
They survived, but shockingly, nobody knew the full truth of

(03:21):
what Reese was capable of until much later. Just a
few weeks later, Reese crossed paths with twenty year old
Kelly Cox at a convenience store in Texas. There are
never good endings to these encounters. He killed her in
the parking lot and buried her body in a rice
field in Bresoria County. Her disappearance would haunt investigators for years.
It was not until Reese himself confessed in twenty sixteen

(03:42):
that they found out what happened to Cox and could
finally bring her home in a way, to her family
and to justice. Nine days after Cox vanished, Reese was
on the hunt again. This time the victim was nineteen
year old Tiffany Johnston. She was at the Sunshine car
wash in Bethany, Oklahoma, just another ordinary day. Reese lamed,

(04:02):
He sprayed her with water, They argued, and in a
blank he attacked, dragged her into his horse trailer, assaulted her,
and then killed her after she tried heroically to fight back,
even hitting him with a horseshoe. The aftermath was a
textbook example of how many predators operate. They fly under
the radar, They are chameleons, and victims like Tiffany, people

(04:24):
who should have been safe, were let down by both
luck and circumstance. In August that same year, Rhese continued
his rampage, this time in clear Lake, Texas, he encountered
seventeen year old Jessica Kane again by happenstance. According to
the court record, she dinged his truck with her car
door outside of a restaurant, Benegan's, and after a brief argument,

(04:45):
followed him out of the parking lot. That was the
last time anyone saw her alive. He killed her on
the side of the road and buried her body on
property near a Houston gas line. Jessica Kaine's case, like
the others, would remain unsolved for a chillingly long time.
What blows my mind, and something they do not always
tell you in the text books, is how close many

(05:06):
of these killers come to getting caught every step of
the way. Receive's final known crime before formal charges was
a separate kidnapping in Webster, Texas, in May of nineteen
ninety eight, the case that finally landed him behind bars,
but it took years and more murders to build a
full case that stuck. Here is where it gets technical

(05:28):
and interesting. In June two thousand twenty one, after a
marathon seventeen day jury trial, Rhese was found guilty of
Johnston's murder in Oklahoma and sentenced to death. Fast forward
to this summer, with the appellate court affirming that very sentence.
In Texas, he has three separate life sentences for the
murders of Cox, Cain, and a third victim, Laura Smither.

(05:52):
The whole multi state saga is an example of how
serial crimes demand dogged cross jurisdiction co operation. It is
never as simple as law and order would make it seem. Warrants,
evidence sharing, chain of custody. All the things my supervisors
drilled into me matter even more when the cases see