True Crime Blog
When someone creates a Facebook profile using your name and photograph, and they begin trying to friend all your friends, you have not been hacked. Rather, someone is pretending to be you. They’ve created a fake profile in your likeness with the intent of defrauding your friends. Public Service Announcement I have written this because…
What better way to return from a sabbatical than to bring you the latest news about what’s been going on with me, and throw in a few book reviews for good measure? The Latest News First, my apologies for ghosting you. There have been some struggles in my personal life this past year, and it…
Daryl “Deedub” Knight and I have shared many adventures over the years: hunting and fishing trips, rodeos and roundups, and more than a few mad dashes to Vegas back in the day. But the most memorable trip for me was the one we call the Great Cowboy Road Trip of 2016, and just wait until…
After the Badge by Danny R. Smith was first published in Mystery Readers Journal: The Journal of Mystery Readers International (Volume 37, Number 4 – Winter 2021). Unsolved murders can haunt those who’ve been tasked with solving them. Though I retired from L.A. Sheriff’s Homicide seventeen years ago, many of my unsolved cases trouble…
Imagine a Roadrunner cartoon with the sound of tires squealing, a “meep-meep,” and the fleeting view of the famed chaparral ground cock hauling ass down a dirt road away from you. That was me fleeing California in 2004.
Very few people are killed by strangers while at home with their families or even enjoying an evening out with friends. But when you stay out all night—or into the wee hours—you increase the odds of becoming a victim of violence. The older I get, the more I have come to appreciate that.
Bad Dreams go with the territory of being a cop. Over the years, my dreaming of pursuits, foot chases, and shootouts with malfunctioning weapons and bulletproof bad guys have subsided, but it doesn’t take much to reawaken the demons. A good cop movie can do it, and so can a session of telling war stories…
When it was first suggested to me that I should write my own story, I was against the idea of it. Who was I to write a memoir? I’m nothing special—no rock star (though at one time I aspired to be one), super athlete, or war hero. Yes, I have had the opportunity to do…
It’s been seventeen years since I fled L.A. for the rural life I easily embraced, having been a cowboy at heart my whole life anyway. And during these last (nearly) two decades, I’ve found myself having many “ah-hah” moments with some of the old adages and proverbs I’ve heard all my life. Since my mom…
Travolta answered the door and my partner said, “Hey John, how’s it going?” The Stars We were standing outside his mobile trailer dressing room, TRAVOLTA and a star on the door. It was one of two trailers with stars that had been parked outside Men’s Central Jail for at least a week. The other had…