Las Vegas is a city built on secrets, and for more than 25 years, Don “Woody” Fieselman was one of the detectives tasked with uncovering them.

From organized crime and outlaw motorcycle gangs to sex trafficking, violent crimes, and high-stakes crisis negotiations, Fieselman spent decades investigating some of the darkest corners of Sin City.

As a former sergeant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, he investigated sex crimes, worked alongside specialized law enforcement units, and helped negotiate situations where lives hung in the balance.

But retirement didn’t last.

In 2024, Fieselman returned to law enforcement, joining LVMPD’s Cold Case Homicide Squad to help investigate murders that have remained unsolved for years, sometimes decades.

In this episode of UNHEARD: True Crime in Their Own Words, host Justin Shepherd sits down with Fieselman to explore the realities of policing Las Vegas, the psychology of criminal investigations, the challenges of getting people to reveal long-buried secrets, and what it takes to pursue justice when the trail has gone cold.

What does it take to get someone to finally tell the truth after decades of silence? And what does a career spent confronting humanity’s darkest secrets teach you about people?

This is UNHEARD. True Crime in Their Own Words.

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Gary DeVercelly Jr. was 18 years old with his entire future mapped out.

He was smart, driven, an athlete, and the kind of kid his parents trusted to make good decisions. When fraternities at Rider University began recruiting him, Gary saw something that could help his future: leadership, connections, and a network that might open doors after college.

His parents asked him about hazing, Gary told them not to worry, that he researched it. Then came Big Little Night.

Pledges were taken into a basement and given bottles of alcohol. They had one hour to finish them. Roughly 15 pledges participated. Two would end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.

Gary would never come home.

As his condition deteriorated, fraternity members put him on a stage with a backpack behind him to keep him positioned on his side. People noticed something was wrong. Eventually, his lips turned blue. He stopped breathing.

By the time help came, his brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long.

But Gary's death is only part of this story.

In this episode of UNHEARD: True Crime in Their Own Words, Gary's parents, Julie and Gary DeVercelly, take us inside what happened before, during, and after the night their 18-year-old son was killed by hazing.

They talk about the warning signs they didn't recognize until afterward, the way hazing slowly escalates, what happened inside the fraternity house, the media's attempt to portray their son as a reckless college kid, the university and fraternity response, and the legal battle that followed.

They also explain what nearly two decades of fighting hazing has taught them about a system they believe continues to protect institutions while families continue to bury their children.

Gary died in 2007.

His parents are still fighting to make sure another family doesn't get the same phone call they did.

https://www.clerycenter.org/

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Jason Abarca was 19 years old when he disappeared in December 2023 after a series of events that ended with him running into the woods near Winchester, Virginia.

Months later, his remains were found.

But for Jason’s parents, Jennifer and Benito Soto, finding their son did not bring the answers they had desperately been searching for. Instead, it left them with even more questions about what happened to Jason after he disappeared and whether his death was properly investigated.

Jennifer and Benito believe their son was murdered.

In this episode of Unheard, they tell Jason’s story in their own words, from the devastating loss their family had already endured, to Jason’s disappearance, the discovery of his remains, and the evidence and circumstances that led them to question the investigation into his death.

This is the story of a family that found their son but is still fighting to find out what happened to him.

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