The chief suspect chronicled in my upcoming book The Berman Murders has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his conviction on charges that he crossed state lines with intent to molest underage girls in Cambodia. In the petition filed in February 2024, Michael Pepe, now 70, doesn’t deny the
When Troy Driver was an accessory to the shotgun murder of 19-year-old Paul Rodriguez in April 1997, Matt Kendall was a special agent with the Mendocino County Major Crimes Task Force. Rodriguez was wearing all black and sporting a necklace and diamond ring when he was ambushed in the driveway
Sang is in prison now and will be for many years. This is how she got there. When Michael Pepe, chief suspect in the Berman murders, moved to Cambodia, Sang Chi Chhouern aka “Sang” or “Basang” helped him procure the children who became his sex slaves. Sang, who is of
This is what it feels like when a judge rules in your favor. I went to court because being an immersive true-crime journalist involves digging for every scrap of information – even if doing so means fighting city hall. Background: When 41-year-old construction supervisor Troy Driver was arrested in Nevada
When Brad Pope, a sergeant in the sheriff’s office in Lyon County, Nevada, was running for election against his boss, he allegedly used a fake Facebook profile to leak confidential case information. After receiving a tip, I uncovered the facts about the criminal investigation by serving a Public Records Act
Even now, four years later, it’s painful to think about Rhonita Miller, then 30, and her infant twins, being gunned down in cold blood by cartel killers near her home in Sonora, a state in Mexico that borders the U.S. Rhonita was in many ways a typical American mom. She
Decades before Troy Driver abducted, raped, and murdered teenager Naomi Irion in the Nevada desert, he and some friends lured a drug dealer named Paul Rodriguez up this driveway, deep in the woods of northern California. Near a clearing where a horse trailer was stored, a car had been parked
During the search for Karlie Gusé in 2018, I encountered then-Sgt. Seth Clark from the Mono County Sheriff’s Office (now Lt. Clark). Given that Karlie hadn’t surfaced yet, two theories seemed most plausible. One was that she walked deep into the desert, hunkered down, and perished. The second theory was