In 2014, twelve-year-olds Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser stabbed their friend Payton Leutner nineteen times in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Their motive: proving their loyalty to Slender Man, a fictional monster born on an internet creepypasta forum.

In 1993, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘Ship in a Bottle’ asked what happens when a holodeck simulation becomes self-aware and Professor Moriarty walks out of the program.

In the Season 1 finale of The Prime Detective, we connect those two moments and finally find the word for what we’ve been tracking all along.

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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast.

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson.

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective

Special thanks:
Izaak Brown: Trek 365
Open Pike Night
Crusher Convo
Captain Goodwill: Trekkin Up North
Battlestage Theatrica
My Figure Universe – Boosting the Signal podcast

OK Boomer: What are creepypasta?

The Link Between Quantico, Hannibal Lecter, and Deep Space Nine

Trace the evolution of criminal profiling from its gritty origins in the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit to its transformation into a definitive pop-culture trope.

This episode explores the thin line between reality and fiction, connecting the revolutionary work of John Douglas and Robert Ressler to the haunting Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Field of Fire.” By analyzing the parallels between Hannibal Lecter, Ezri Dax, and the real-world tragedy of the Columbine High School shooting, the story examines the seductive power—and the documented limitations—of the profiler narrative. It is a journey through the psychological maps used to understand monsters, highlighting how profiling can contextualize the horrors of the past while remaining a deeply imperfect tool for predicting the violence of the future.

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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast.

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson.

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective

In Oshawa, Ontario, everyone knew Ken Chopee as “the Star Wars guy.” A lifelong collector of memorabilia, comics, and film artifacts, his identity was built around a galaxy far, far away — until his life came to a violent end in January 2023.

In this episode of The Prime Detective, we examine the real-life killing of Ken Chopee, the man behind the nickname, and the events that led to his death inside a micro-housing unit. Drawing on reporting from The Globe and Mail and Oshawa This Week, this story explores addiction, loss, and the fragile line between fandom and identity.

But this isn’t just a true crime story.

It’s about what we collect.
What those collections say about us.
And what happens to them — and to us — when we’re gone.

Credits:

The killing of Oshawa’s ‘Star Wars guy’ has residents wondering what’s happened to their city by Marcus Gee (The Globe and Mail)

‘Live with this regret’: Man sentenced in fentanyl killing of Star Wars memorabilia collector by Jeremy Grimaldi (Oshawa This Week via DurhamRegion.com)

‘RIP, Ken’: Friends post tributes to Ken Chopee, victim of Oshawa murder by Jeff Mitchell (Oshawa This Week via DurhamRegion.com)

“The Prime Detective” is 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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective

Jack the Ripper is history’s most famous unsolved murder case. Five victims. Ten weeks. Zero arrests. But in the 1967 Star Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold,” written by Psycho novelist Robert Bloch, the crew of the Enterprise finally closes the case — and the answer is terrifying.

This week on The Prime Detective, we follow Jack the Ripper from the fog of Whitechapel to the pleasure planet of Argelius II, where the Enterprise crew discovers the Ripper isn’t human, isn’t dead, and never stopped killing.

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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast.

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson.

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective

What does Isaac Asimov’s Second Foundation have to do with one of the most notorious cults in American history? More than you’d think.

Keith Raniere — the self-styled “Vanguard” behind NXIVM — didn’t just build a self-help empire. He built it on a twisted reading of science fiction, casting himself as the hero of his own dystopian story. From Asimov’s Foundation series to Star Wars to Battlestar Galactica, sci-fi’s biggest ideas about destiny, control, and transcendence became tools for manipulation, branding, and abuse.

In this episode, we trace how NXIVM recruited actors from Smallville and Battlestar Galactica, how Keith Raniere’s racketeering and sex trafficking conviction unraveled his empire, and why science fiction — which warns us about mind control — became the blueprint for it.

Featuring references to Sarah Edmondson’s memoir Scarred, HBO’s The Vow, and the 2019 federal trial of Keith Raniere.

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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast.

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson.

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective

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 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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast.

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson.

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective

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 Kirk.”

In this episode, we explore how cultural symbols—from Star Trek captains to shark attacks to self-driving cars—warp our sense of what’s newsworthy. It’s not about the event itself. It’s about the shorthand. The clickbait. The story that writes itself.

Sometimes a headline is just a headline. And sometimes, fiction matters more than fact.

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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast.

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson.

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective

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 smile and generous spirit, TJ helped visitors experience Star Trek’s vision of the future up close.

But in April 2024, TJ disappeared after telling his wife he was helping an old friend move furniture. Four days later, Ronald Rayher walked into a police station with a confession: There was a body in his basement.

What emerged in court was a story no one expected. Claims of secret role-play, homemade chloroform, and a fatal encounter that divided a community. Was this a tragic accident between consenting adults, or reckless manslaughter?

This is the story of TJ Greene, the trial that shocked upstate New York, and the question at its center: Where does consent end and criminal responsibility begin?

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 to David Moody, Producer: “Let’s Talk About Treks” The Podcast.

Original artwork for “The Prime Detective” by Julie Hendrickson.

Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/theprimedetective