Jim Rathmann
35 episodes listed below
True crime by the case file.
The True Crime Report with Jim Rathmann follows criminal cases through timelines, testimony, investigative choices, and courtroom outcomes. Its strongest episodes slow down the evidence chain, then ask what a verdict, arrest, or institutional failure actually means.
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The True Crime Report with Jim Rathmann is built for cases that need a timeline. It does not lean on mystery for long. A typical episode starts with the basic facts, names the case, then returns to the evidence piece by piece until the larger claim is clear. That gives the show a prosecutorial feel, even when the subject is a cold case, a disputed trial, or a conversation with someone personally affected. The Sarah Geer episode shows the format at its cleanest: a young girl leaves a friend’s house in 1982, the case goes cold, and later DNA work helps move it toward a guilty verdict. The point is not just that technology changed the case. The point is that persistence, fresh review, local police work, a private investigator, and outside resources can matter after decades of silence. The Melanie Curtin coverage is more argumentative. It tracks charges, new evidence, witness credibility, jury selection, and the meaning of a not-guilty verdict through direct conversation with Ricky Short. Those episodes are blunt about doubt, procedure, and what jurors actually heard. The Ted Bundy episode works differently, using Tricia Griffith’s knowledge and personal connection to discuss victim identification, opportunity, and the possibility of undiscovered cases. The Joe Exotic trial episode narrows the lens to what happened in court rather than the surrounding spectacle. The Harvard morgue conversation with Dr. Jack Porter is slower and more personal, moving from institutional misconduct to the grief attached to Rhea’s body donation. The show also brings in law enforcement perspective, including Sheriff Jason Ard on major arrests, leadership, and public scrutiny. Its style is not sleek. It repeats, clarifies, interrupts itself, and circles back. That roughness is part of the product. The show sounds like someone talking through a case file with the recorder running, trying to make the chain of events hard to miss. It suits listeners who prefer evidence, courtroom texture, and firm conclusions over atmospheric true crime storytelling.
Made for: For true crime listeners who want chronology, evidence, courtroom detail, and direct judgment more than mood or dramatization. It especially suits people interested in cold cases, disputed verdicts, and how investigations are built.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by putting guests close to the record beside detailed case narration: a juror, a sheriff, a web sleuth, and a victim’s husband all shape recent episodes. It treats procedure as the story.
Welcome to The True Crime Report with Jim Rathmann—where Bronze Star recipient, 82nd Airborne Division Captain, and former Secret Service agent Jim Rathmann takes a deep dive into some of the most complex and controversial true cases in America. A veteran of the police force and an experienced homicide investigator, Jim brings the same relentless dedication to his investigations that he did while serving as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and as a decorated LSU athlete.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Jim Rathmann makes investigative turning points and courtroom decisions legible through detailed case briefings and conversations with people close to the process.
Jim Rathmann works from the pressure points where an investigation becomes a prosecution, or where an old case changes after years of stalled evidence.
Jury-room doubt meets DNA-trail patience when you want the reasoning behind a verdict, not just the headline.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A careful look at how one Bundy case was reopened and closed decades later.
Jim Rathmann and Tricia Griffith frame Ted Bundy's recent link to another murder as a doorway into a broader, familiar pattern: women on ordinary errands, and a killer banking on chance and control.
A cold-case DNA break gives the case the procedural clarity true-crime listeners often want.
This episode traces a Sonoma County cold case from the 1982 disappearance of 13-year-old Sarah Gear to the trial that ended in a guilty verdict.
A juror explains why repeated denials and specific memory details changed his view of the case.
Ricky's account keeps its attention on why a witness's repeated "I can't recall" answers changed his view of the case. The detail about being told to lie still with her face covered, along with the memory tied to red hairspray and "roll tide," gives the discussion its weight.
A blunt retrial update that tracks the case timeline, the witnesses, and its long shadow.
This episode gives a blunt update on Melanie Curtin, with Jim Rathmann laying out the path to trial on March 9 and circling back to her 2020 arrest, along with the earlier Denny Perkins and Cynthia Perkins scandal that he says shaped public attention.
A Livingston Parish sheriff reflects on a rape arrest, public criticism, and deputy morale.
Jim Rathman's conversation with Sheriff Jason Ard follows a Livingston Parish rape case that led to a quick arrest and to the frustration of having sheriff's-office decisions questioned in public.
Power, money, faith, and hidden systems.
Ashley Flowers and Britt Prawat revisit unsolved murders and cold cases as new evidence surfaces.
Two friends narrate true crime cases, listener stories, and archived live-tour shows.
Multi-part true crime narration, from BTK's Wichita letters to Australian cold-case disappearances.
ABC Audio's Theranos fraud series that also introduces its other true-crime podcasts.
Jim Rathman brings back Tricia Griffith from Web Sleuths.
Jim Rathmann centers the show on the 40-plus-year Sonoma County cold case of 13-year-old Sarah Gear.
Ricky walks through why the verdict began to make sense to him.
Host Jim Rathman interviews jury foreman Ricky Short about the Melanie Curtin trial and the not guilty verdict.
Jim Rathman discusses the real story behind Joe Exotic's trial and invites listener questions for an upcoming interview with Joe from prison.
Jim Rathmann opens with the March 9 retrial date.
The host welcomes Sheriff Jason Ard of the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office and opens with years of shared history, saying he knew Ard when he was a road patrol deputy and later worked in the special response team and detective division while Ard was his special response team commander and chief of operations.
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Jim Rathman discusses the federal indictment of Tony Christopher Long, a California teenager and 764 member, on charges including animal crushing and child exploitation.
Jim Rathman introduces the topic of the 764 online cult targeting children, discusses a case from Vernon, Connecticut, and previews an interview with Detective Thomas VanTasel.
Jim Rathman discusses the Melanie Curtin case, involving sex crimes and children, and clarifies her role as a victim rather than a perpetrator.