Jerry Langton is a veteran investigative journalist and bestselling author, writing primarily about outlaw motorcycle gangs and organized crime.
Former Harris County Sheriff's Department Deputy Joseph Kent McGowen was sentenced in 2002, to 20 years, his second conviction—for murdering Susan Diane White, in her home, August 25, 1992.
In 2021, after almost 20 years—Kent McGowen was released.
A bestselling book and documntary, depicting McGowen as a killer had been widely seen by the public.
In 2025 McGowen contacted Langton—he wanted to set the record straight and have Langton tell his story.. Langton was very skeptical but decided to conduct his own investigation—and what he discovered—was a man wrongfully convicted of murder.
Author Jerry Langton joins me to discuss his new book, Reasonable Doubts: How Rumor and Innuendo Convicted Deputy Kent McGowen of Murder. 

Texas Deputy Kent McGowen shot and killed Susan White after she pulled a gun on him.It seemed like an open-and-shut case of an officer acting in self-defense. But before his first court date, the Houston region was inundated with rumor, innuendo and speculation about the case. Many believed those fabrications and half-truths to be fact. And an unsubstantiated-but-persistent story of how McGowen allegedly set up White as a murder victim because they had a relationship, or that she refused to have one, sealed his fate. McGowen was found guilty, Twice.
He's already done his almost 20 years in prison, with this case worth examining for all the incredible ways criminal courts can be manipulated by media, fast-talking lawyers and dubious witnesses. REASONABLE DOUBTS: How Rumor and Innuendo Convicted Deputy Kent McGowen of Murder—Deputy Kent McGowen

The District Attorney began his opening statement with, "If you don't know what hell is like, you're about to find out." In 1979, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris went on a rape and killing rampage. The pliers, screwdrivers, hammers, sledgehammers, and ice picks they used on their victims became their calling card and moniker: The Toolbox Killers. They were soon apprehended and convicted for their atrocities, but for decades, refused to reveal the location of their victims' bodies. More than two decades later, criminologist Laura Brand had the opportunity to interview this sadistic pair as they sat behind bars, probing the depths of their depravity right up to the days of their deaths. Over this relentless six-year period, Bittaker finally gave Brand what he had withheld from law enforcement and families alike: the precise locations of two victims' remains. Brand's investigation tore open sealed police reports, court transcripts, and witness accounts, and unearthed brutal and shocking new findings: undisclosed victims, forgotten evidence, and chilling new insights that resurrected this nightmare in unimaginable ways. God's Not Here, Only Devils is told through a powerful blend of narratives: the voices of Bittaker himself, his victims, traumatized witnesses, the tenacious lead detective, and the hardened District Attorney.. A visceral retelling of the horrors that unfolded and the legacy of terror the Toolbox Killers left behind.
GOD'S NOT HERE, ONLY DEVILS: Revelations From The Toolbox Killers—Laura Brand

Truth is supposed to be a journalist’s north star. But during the 2010s, the fourth estate lost its way, abandoning reporting for straight-up activism.
In Crimes of Omission, seasoned investigative journalist Rob Rosen will reveal the full story of the high-profile cases of law enforcement violence that rocked the world.
Through dozens of exclusive interviews, this book transports readers inside the nation’s most influential newsrooms at those crucial moments when the people we trust to inform us chose instead to mislead and inflame.
Crimes of omission aren’t about what is reported—they’re about what’s left out. Discover the disastrous decisions that ripped a nation apart and shattered the credibility of a once noble profession—and prepare to question everything you thought was true. CRIMES OF OMISSION: Distorted Justice—The Media's War on Truth—Rob Rosen

Why do certain women become icons of evil? This book offers the first comparative, non-sensationalist account of five of the most reviled women in the modern Anglophone world: Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Aileen Wuornos, Karla Homolka, and Karla Faye Tucker. 
It examines their lives, crimes, and cultural reception in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada, asking how violence committed by women is understood, judged, and remembered. 
Going beyond moral outrage or tabloid headlines, the book explores how concepts of “evil” are shaped by history, belief systems, and social context. Through historical and ethical reflections, it offers a deeper, more critical engagement with female violence and considers how society should respond to those who commit acts of unimaginable harm. FIVE EVIL WOMEN: Hindley, West, Wournos, Homolka, Tucker—Joanna Bourke

A True Crime Mystery Four Decades in the Making.
On the cold night of January 27, 1976, twenty-two-year-old college student Kyle Clinkscales vanished after leaving his bartending shift at the Moose Club in LaGrange, Georgia. His disappearance baffled investigators and devastated his parents, John and Louise, who spent decades chasing rumors, suspects, and false leads in one of the South’s most haunting cold cases.
For years, Kyle’s story became a staple in true crime circles, a case that blended small-town secrets, whispers of foul play, and the agony of parents who refused to give up. Then, in 2021, a shocking discovery was made: Kyle’s car submerged in an Alabama creek, with his remains inside. Suddenly, the case once thought frozen in time was thrust back into the spotlight.
Was Kyle’s tragic end the result of an accident? Or was it a carefully staged cover-up, concealing a brutal murder that eluded justice for nearly half a century? With modern forensic analysis and renewed investigative efforts, this chilling mystery raises more questions than answers.
Delve deep inside the twists and turns of Kyle Clinkscales’s disappearance and discovery―exploring law enforcement missteps, local rumors, and the enduring fight of a family unwilling to surrender hope. More than just a Southern true crime story, Kyle’s case helped inspire legislative reform for families of the missing, proving that even decades-old mysteries can change lives. Author James B Longshore details the forty-plus-year ordeal. THE DEATH OF KYLE CLINKSCALES—James B. Longshore and Sheriff Donny Turner

One Man. One Mission. Justice. In the Hunt for the Gilgo Beach Serial Killer.
Rodney K. Harrison’s life could have gone the way of the drug dealers he grew up with in South Jamaica, Queens. Instead, a twist of fate and relentless drive led him to become the NYPD’s highest-ranking uniformed officer and, later, Police Commissioner of Suffolk County on Long Island—where he engineered the arrest of the elusive Gilgo Beach serial killer.
Harrison survived a false arrest as a teenager and later dodged bullets as an undercover in Brooklyn. He calmed the fallout of Eric Garner’s chokehold death on Staten Island, worked shoulder-to-shoulder with outspoken community leaders in Harlem, brought Jam Master Jay's killers to justice, removed bricks from the 9/11 Twin Towers, dealt with looters during the pandemic on the streets of New York—and always advocated for every victim.
This real-life Blue Bloods true crime story chronicles the triumphs, controversies, politics, and dangers that define modern policing in America’s largest city.
Harrison shares these true crime stories:
The harrowing night his undercover partner was shot on the street.
An insider’s view of the investigations that shaped headlines—from Jam Master Jay to his career-defining case, putting the Gilgo Beach serial killer (he called him "the Devil that walks among us") behind bars, and the personal sacrifices and moral dilemmas behind the badge.
More than a cop’s story—a rare, unfiltered look at crime, justice, and resilience in New York. Now a crime commentator on CBS and corporate security consultant,
THE COMMISSIONER: From Street Cop To Top Cop in the NYPD, and the Inside Story of the Hunt for the Long Beach Serial Killer—Rodney K. Harrison

They hunted together. They killed together. And for years, no one stopped them.
For years, Gerald and Charlene Gallego traveled the highways of California and Nevada, searching for their next victims.
They didn’t look like killers. He was quiet, calculating, and obsessed with control. She was young, vulnerable—and willing to do whatever it took to survive.
Together, they abducted, tortured, and murdered young women, leaving behind a trail of fear that stretched across state lines.
But behind the headlines was something even more disturbing.
Charlene wasn’t just a witness. She was part of it. And Gerald wasn’t just a predator. He was building something far darker—a life fueled by domination, manipulation, and violence.
As investigators closed in, the truth began to unravel: A pattern of calculated abductions. A partnership built on fear and dependency. A series of crimes that went unchecked for far too long.
Stolen Lives: The Gallego Murders takes you inside the interrogation rooms, the courtroom, and the minds of two people bound together by something far more dangerous than love.
This is a story of survival. Of manipulation. And the moment the killing finally stopped.
A chilling true story of control, survival, and the deadly bond between two killers. STOLEN LIVES: The Gallego Murders—A Shocking True Crime Story—Rod Kackley

The infamy of Miami's cocaine wars of the 1970's and 80's is forever etched into the darkest chapters of U.S. history, and Lt. Raul Diaz was on the frontlines for all of it. The decorated and controversial law enforcement figure identified the shifting tide in the Magic City when law enforcement lost their grip on crime as a new breed of criminal flooded South Florida to ply their billion-dollar trade.
In a deadly exclamation mark, Colombian cocaine godmother Griselda Blanco and her assassins swept through the city with a bloody and ruthless ambition that left countless dead bodies along the way. Lt. Diaz organized and spearheaded the multi-agency task force CENTAC-26 to combat Blanco and the cartels.
Raul came to the US at age thirteen accompanied by only his younger brother and overcame insurmountable odds after finally finding law enforcement as his calling. He never did things the traditional way, and that wasn’t a popular position in the regulated world of police work.
His successes came at a costly price, both professionally and personally, putting him in the crosshairs of those with an axe to grind, shockingly on both sides of law enforcement. The man profiled in books, documentaries, and the Netflix series Griselda is here to share the story previously told by others—now, finally told by the one man who knows the truth behind every kilo, kidnapping, and corpse. KILLING THE LIEUTENANT: Fighting Miami's Cocaine Wars, Hunting Griselda Blanco, and My Fight To Stay Alive—Lt. Raul J. Diaz and Sean Oliver

An immersive account of a seemingly loving father's transformation into a "family annihilator."
In March 2023, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering his wife and younger son at Moselle, their home in South Carolina’s Lowcountry. By then, the story had become headline news across the country, with its revelations of corruption in high places, massive fraud, opioid abuse, fake suicides, suspicious accidents, and the generational recklessness of the wealthy legal dynasty at its center. Having covered the case for The New Yorker, where his article became the magazine’s most read story of the year, the acclaimed novelist James Lasdun brings his long-standing interest in the darker drives of the human psyche to an investigation into the serial embezzlements, fatal boat crash, and other events leading up to the slaughter at Moselle. “Justice may have been served,” Lasdun writes in the preface to The Family Man, "but the human element of the story didn’t seem to add up."
Having traveled extensively in the Lowcountry, Lasdun draws on original interviews (including with Murdaugh’s notorious "Cousin Eddie"), transcripts of phone calls Murdaugh made from prison, the literature of criminal psychology, and the murder trial itself. Deeply researched, sharply written, and with the page-turning intensity of a Southern gothic novel, The Family Man constructs a masterful portrait of Murdaugh and the mind-boggling crimes that wreaked havoc on his community. THE FAMILY MAN: Blood and Betrayal in the House of Murdaugh—James Lasdun

Was there more than one killer? Had the crime scene been cleaned and sanitized before the police arrived? Was furniture staged to throw off detectives? In one of the most extraordinary true crime stories ever published, Broken Plea questions what really happened in the house on King Road—and the results of that investigation will astound you.
In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, four lives were lost in a brutal crime in Moscow, Idaho—and a nation demanded answers. When a suspect accepted a plea bargain, the story seemed settled. Justice, many believed, had been served.
Broken Plea challenges that assumption.Drawing on court records, investigative timelines, witness statements, and apparently overlooked inconsistencies, this meticulously researched exposé examines how a rush to judgment may have shaped one of the most closely watched murder cases in recent memory.
As the official narrative hardened, critical leads went unexplored, contradictory evidence was minimized, and alternative explanations faded from view. This book does not claim certainty where none exists. Instead, it asks the questions that were never fully pursued: What happens when pressure to close a case outweighs the search for truth? What evidence may have been sidelined, and why? And what are the consequences when a plea doesn’t end scrutiny but invites it? Clear-eyed, unsparing, and deeply unsettling, Broken Plea reopens the case—and invites people to look again at what justice demands when the truth remains unresolved. BROKEN PLEA: The Explosive Search for Truth Behind the Idaho Murders-Chris Whitcomb