A Star Trek superfan rescues an iconic shuttlecraft from ruin — then gives it away. But his next legendary acquisition, a Wicked Witch hat from The Wizard of Oz, leads somewhere far more complicated: the courtroom. When fandom, collecting, and big money collide, things get messy fast. Credits: This episode of “The Prime Detective” was…
How Star Trek turns nothing into news When a man was arrested in Clearwater, Florida for lewd conduct at a bus stop, it should have been a forgettable local story. Instead, it made national headlines—in the Miami Herald, the New York Post, even Fox News. Why? Because he told police his name was “James Tiberius…
A fatal trust, a hidden life, and a case that shook a fandom. Thomas Krider, known as TJ Greene, was a tour guide at the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, New York, where fans from around the world can walk through meticulously recreated Enterprise sets. An Elvis tribute artist with a warm…
“Why did you kill him?” “No reason. I didn’t like the way he looked at me.” It’s the kind of confession that stops an interrogation cold. No jealousy. No rage. No self-defense. Just violence that refuses to explain itself. And when the investigator demands answers, searching for logic where none exists, the senselessness begins to…
Four mysterious letters appear at the bottom of a ransom note left at the scene of one of America’s most infamous unsolved murders: S.B.T.C. Nobody knows what they mean. Religious symbolism? A military reference? Or, as JonBenét’s father himself once suggested, could they stand for “Star Based Technical Command”. This week on The Prime Detective,…
In February 2009, a would-be robber walked into a Colorado Springs 7-Eleven wielding a bat’leth, a Klingon sword from Star Trek: The Next Generation. No injuries. No arrests. Just a surreal police report, a question about why this weapon, and what it may have meant to the person holding it. Credits:This episode of “The Prime…
What happens when a story about saving humanity becomes an instruction manual for destroying it? In Japan, a cult found its answers in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. Credits:This episode of “The Prime Detective” was produced and hosted by Grayson Thagard. Music for “The Prime Detective” is composed by Ben Wise: https://benwise.bandcamp.com/ Website and publishing support thanks…
On Star Trek: Voyager, and now on Starfleet Academy, Robert Picardo’s portrayal of the Emergency Medical Hologram, or EMH, embodied ethics, compassion, and the hope that technology at its best could serve humans facing their worst. But in 2014, the actor behind the character found his name caught up in something far less utopian: A…
Content note: Suicide In March of 1997, the Hale-Bopp comet lit up the night sky — the brightest comet visible in decades. For most of us, it was a wonder of nature. But for one small group in California, it was a signal: a way to reach what their wide-eyed leader called the Next Level….
This week: A special preview episode from Let’s Talk About Treks, a weekly Star Trek podcast hosted by the enigmatic Earl Grey and jaQ` Darino (aka David Moody). Their tagline is “an episodic review of today’s visions of the future,” and most weeks, they’re doing exactly that — breaking down new episodes of Star Trek…
