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….
A stolen jewel, a Christmas goose, and the galaxy’s most logical half-Vulcan walk into a mystery… and somehow the trail leads straight to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This holiday special unpacks one of Star Trek’s strangest canonical quirks: Spock casually claiming Sherlock Holmes as an “ancestor.” Was he talking about the fictional detective? The real-life…
In 1968, Star Trek tried to save its sinking ratings by casting celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli as a glowing space ghost. A year later, the Zodiac Killer demanded to speak with that same lawyer live on television. This episode traces the bizarre overlap between sci-fi and true crime — from stunt casting, to the Jack…
He once played a child caught between identities on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Years later, Brian Bonsall learned someone had stolen his real one—copying his tattoos, adopting his persona, and using it to prey on women nationwide. This is the story of the impersonation that became a crime spree, and the investigation that finally…
In 2001, Jeri Ryan — then rising to fame as Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager — became the center of one of America’s first cyberstalking convictions. What began as hundreds of explicit and bizarre messages turned into a historic case that tested California’s brand-new cyberstalking laws. This episode of The Prime Detective traces…
Happy Thanksgiving! Instead of a new true crime, strange coincidence or cultural controversy this week, we’re pausing to give thanks to one of the inspirations behind The Prime Detective. This week’s special features an exclusive preview from the daily podcast that inspired the tight, short-form structure of our show: Trek 365! Host Izaak Brown—who was…
How a Montreal murder trial pulled a hit Netflix series into the courtroom. A 24-year-old artist, Romane Bonnier, was murdered in broad daylight near McGill University. Her killer, François Pelletier, didn’t just confess — he wrapped the crime in a bizarre pop-culture narrative, calling himself the “Chief antagonist of the Black Mirror Society” and naming…
