Explainers
Browse plain-language explainers of evidence, criminal law, forensic science, and the court process.
Also in the library: the Resources & Guides · the Glossary · the free Stay Safe guide · how forensic genetic genealogy works · the Court Calendar.
Latest reporting
24 articles
Why Arizona and the FBI Are Both Involved in the Nancy Guthrie Case
How Arizona kidnapping law, federal jurisdiction, venue, and FBI involvement could apply in the Nancy Guthrie case—and what remains legally unconfirmed.
Read explainerNancy Guthrie Ransom Notes: What They Reveal—and What They Do Not Prove
A fact-versus-claim analysis of the Nancy Guthrie ransom communications, official FBI evidence, and the risks of online speculation.
Read explainerTupac Shakur Murder Trial Explained: Why Keffe D Can Be Charged Without Being the Shooter
Why prosecutors can charge Duane “Keffe D” Davis in Tupac Shakur’s murder even if they do not allege that he fired the fatal shots.
Read explainer'Not Criminally Responsible' Does Not Mean Walking Free: What the Verdict Actually Triggers in Massachusetts
A not-guilty-by-reason-of-mental-illness verdict in Massachusetts triggers commitment proceedings, not release. Here is the actual law, step by step.
Read explainerWhat a Racial Justice Act Violation Means in the Dominguez Retrial
What a Racial Justice Act violation actually means in the Carlos Reales Dominguez retrial — the law, the judge's third finding, the curative remedy, and what happens next.
Read explainerWhose consent travels across borders
Forensic genetic genealogy can restore a name from a cousin’s DNA. Understand the cross-border consent question — and why a match is a lead, not proof.
Read explainerWhat Actually Happens on Day One of a High-Profile Trial
What happens when the Lindsay Clancy trial begins July 20: voir dire, alternate jurors, private questioning, and what day one will not include.
Read explainerHung Jury vs. Mistrial: What Happens When a Jury Can't Decide
What happens during jury deliberations, how a hung jury can cause a mistrial, when a retrial is allowed, and why deliberation length does not predict a verdict.
Read explainerHow Washington State Courts Work: The Hernandez Melgar Case Explained
A guide to Washington's parallel court systems — state Superior Court and federal district court — using the Snohomish County murder trial of Nestor Hernandez Melgar as the real-world example.
Read explainerWhat 'Inconclusive Ballistics' Actually Means in a Criminal Case
An inconclusive ballistics result does not automatically prove guilt, innocence, or conspiracy. Here is what damaged bullet evidence can — and cannot — show in court.
Read explainerWhat Cold Cases Actually Teach Us: 5 Forensic Realities No Documentary Gets Right
Justice doesn't always arrive in a flash. Sometimes it gathers dust in a folder for twenty years. Five forensic realities from the Cassian Creed case files.
Read explainerHow a Family Tree Catches Killers
Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) explained plainly: the five-step method that identified the Golden State Killer, Rachel Morin's killer, and Bryan Kohberger — what it can do, what it can't, and why a lead is never proof.
Read explainerCan Someone Be Convicted of Murder Without a Body?
Yes — and they often are. 'No body, no crime' is a myth. How prosecutors prove a murder when the victim is never found, and what corpus delicti actually means.
Read explainerDoes Criminal Profiling Actually Work? What the Science Says
Criminal profiling is a true-crime staple — but does it actually catch killers? What the FBI's behavioral analysis does, what peer-reviewed research found about its accuracy, and why a profile can never name a suspect.
Read explainerHow Are Missing People Actually Found? The Science of the Search
The same math that found a sunken nuclear submarine and the black boxes of Air France 447 is used to find missing people — alongside lost-person-behavior data from 145,000 searches, grave-detection science, and the database that reunites the missing with the unidentified.
Read explainerFinding the Remains: How Investigators Use Timelines, Cell Pings, and Geography
When a victim's body is hidden, the search becomes a problem of time and space — rebuilt from the last-known timeline, cell-site data, vehicle movement, and geographic probability. How those methods work, and why some searches, like Harmony Montgomery's, remain agonizingly unfinished.
Read explainerHow Investigators Weigh Evidence: The Hidden Logic of Solving a Crime
There's a quiet logic underneath every solved case — how a clue 'nudges' the odds, why one amazing piece of evidence still isn't enough, and why the same reasoning that catches the guilty is what protects the innocent. No math degree required.
Read explainerMeet A.I. AL: The Forensic Mind That Refuses to Name the Wrong Person
Most true crime asks 'whodunit.' Our forensic method asks a harder question first — 'how sure are we allowed to be?' Meet A.I. AL: a transparent, rigorous way of reasoning about cases, built on one unbreakable rule.
Read explainerReading the Crime Scene: What Forensics Can Reveal — and What It Can't
A crime scene is a record of what happened, if you know how to read it. The science that reconstructs events from physical evidence — from Locard's exchange principle to DNA — and the honest line between the methods that hold up and the ones that have put innocent people in prison.
Read explainerThe Warning Signs That Are Real: A Safety System Built on Forensic Science
True crime, studied honestly, reveals patterns that are visible before the worst happens. Here are the danger signs the research actually validates — intimate-partner lethality, coercive control, strangulation, stalking and warning behaviors — and exactly what to do about each one.
Read explainerLinkage Blindness: Why Some Murders Go Unsolved
Linkage blindness is why related murders go unconnected across jurisdictions and stay cold for years. How it works — and how public data is finally catching what humans miss.
Read explainerWhat Is Coercive Control? The Signs, Examples, and What to Do
Coercive control is a pattern of domination that traps a partner through isolation, monitoring, and fear. Learn the signs, real examples, and safe next steps.
Read explainerWhy Do Innocent People Confess to Crimes They Didn't Commit?
Why innocent people confess: coercion, exhaustion, false-evidence ploys, and why juveniles are most at risk — explained with the research.
Read explainerFirst-Degree, Second-Degree, Manslaughter: What's the Difference?
First- vs second-degree murder vs manslaughter, explained simply: premeditation, malice aforethought, heat of passion, and criminal negligence.
Read explainerNo articles matched that search. Try a person’s name, location, case, or evidence type.