Crime Time Office Hours
This is a podcast that cuts through the noise to make crime and justice clear, one issue at a time. I’m Kevin Buckler, PhD in Criminal Justice, and a professor at a four-year public university. I plan to bring you sharp, unfiltered conversations and content about the issues shaping our legal system, our communities, and the academic world.
Crime Time Office Hours
S 1 E 4 Houston Serial Killer Panic: The Real Cultural Anxieties
In this final episode of our four-part series on the Houston serial-killer panic of 2025, we look beyond the rumors in the bayou to examine the deeper forces shaping the city’s fear. We unpack why “targeted” violence still feels threatening in urban space, how clearance rates and investigative delays cloud public understanding, and why trust in institutions fractures when answers are slow or uncertain. We also explore the real impact of strained policing, forensic backlogs, and overburdened social systems—and how these pressures shape the experiences of citizens, grieving families, and frontline professionals. Finally, Dr. Heather Goltz joins us to ground the discussion in the human side of fear, uncertainty, and the systems people must navigate when tragedy strikes.
YouL know, there's this particular narrative in media often, you know, whether it's, you know, the big screen or the little screen, that a crime is committed. There are identifiable suspects, or the or law enforcement comes to identify suspects within a given time frame. And that there's a very linear, sometimes a little circular, but more or less linear way that this case unfolds. And then an arrest is made and justice is served. When it comes to more of the reality of what can happen, the reality is there can be days and weeks and months and even years of wondering and waiting and watching and hoping. You know, I don't mind self-disclosing that my family has been waiting and watching and hoping and wondering for a break in a case that happened back in fall of 1997. It's a very long time to be a family that is still hoping that a witness will come forward. Or perhaps there's some technological break or, you know, something that happens, a miracle, almost a Deus Ex Machina that will happen by which we can find out what really happened.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Houston is a city defined by movement, people, industry, water. Our bayous wind through neighborhoods and history alike, shaping the landscape and the stories we tell. But lately, something else has been flowing beneath the conversation. Fear, suspicion, a lurking sense that danger may be closer than we think. Since the summer of 2025, dozens of bodies have been recovered from Houston's waterways. And while officials say there is no evidence of a serial killer at work, many residents remain unconvinced.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Online theories spread faster than lab results. Distrust rises quicker than answers, and suddenly the question isn't just what's happening in the bayou, but what's happening in our beliefs about the systems meant to protect us.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In this episode, we're peeling back the layers of panic. Not to sensationalize, but to understand what's really driving it. Because the truth might be more complicated and more unsettling than just a single predator in the shadows.
Kevin Buckler (Host):First, we'll explore why even when violence is tied to relationships and disputes, in urban space it feels like a threat to everyone. Then we'll break down what a solved murder actually means and why the public often hears reassurance, but instead feels only uncertainty.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Next, we'll look at how missteps in forensic work, delayed investigations, and rulings of undetermined leave grieving families with more questions than comfort, and explain how that fuels suspicion.
Kevin Buckler (Host):We will then reveal the pressure points inside policing, forensic science, and social services that make answers slower to come and trust even harder to earn.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Finally, Crime Time Office Hours will talk with Dr. Heather Goltz to better understand how all these issues affect people. The citizen who lives in urban space and navigates all of its uncertainties. The family member of a deceased who dies under questionable circumstances yet fights to get the police to give the case some attention. And the police officer, the homicide detective, the forensic pathologist, and the social worker in times of increased demand and decreased resources.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This isn't a story about monsters lurking in the dark. It's about the real social and cultural anxieties at work. It's a story about what rises when faith in the system sinks. It's a story about fear and where we direct it when the facts feel incomplete. What we fear most isn't always what's most likely, and what's most likely isn't always what we talk about. When attention becomes misdirection, fear takes the wrong target, and the real problems go unaddressed.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This is Crime Time Office Hour. Let's get started. This segment is called the Proximity Paradox, Why Targeted Violence Still Terrifies Cities. Before we talk about serial killers or bayou rumors, we need to talk about something far more ordinary and far more unsettling. The everyday violence that shapes life in a big city. Our cultural imagination has trained us to fear the stranger in the shadows. But if we want to make sense of the current panic, we have to put that image aside, because in Houston, like in most major urban centers, fear doesn't come from the unknown, it comes from the familiar.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The real patterns of urban homicide in urban America tell a clear story. One about violence that unfolds in shared urban space and amongst people who know one another.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Because here's the reality. Most murders in cities are not the work of strangers stalking the streets or predators hiding in the shadows.
Kevin Buckler (Host):They're rooted in relationships, in conflict, in retaliation, in desperation. In urban space, homicide overwhelmingly emerges from interpersonal dispute, fights that spiral, arguments that turn deadly, moments of anger that cross the line into irreversible tragedy.
Kevin Buckler (Host):A large share also involves gang-related or group motivated violence. Not the Hollywood version of organized crime, but neighborhood dynamics, turf protection, and cycles of retaliation, where one violent act triggers another. Victims and perpetrators often know one another, or at least they know of each other long before the violent offense occurs.
Kevin Buckler (Host):These are not chaotic crimes, but patterned ones. They follow social networks. They follow disputes. They follow proximity.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The FBI's supplementary homicide data consistently shows that among homicides where circumstances are known, upwards 70% arise from disputes or gang activity. In some cities, as many as 75% of killings each year are directly tied to ongoing interpersonal conflict. Most shootings are not random. They are tit-for-tat cycles where a single violent incident can spark weeks or months of revenge behavior.
Kevin Buckler (Host):These findings challenge the serial killer myth at its core. In most urban homicides, the killer and the victim know each other or they know of each other through social networks, street crews, or unresolved conflict. Fear of the unknown predator may dominate headlines and TikTok posts, but the actual danger in city after city lies in the fights that don't end, the grudges that escalate, and the interpersonal conflict that turns fatal.
Kevin Buckler (Host):It is also true that in a big city, violence doesn't happen in some distant elsewhere, it happens where people live. That's the paradox of urban life. When millions of people occupy a concentrated space, everyday interactions create friction. And even when most homicides grow out of relationships, disputes, personal grudges, neighborhood conflicts, fear doesn't stay confined to those people who are involved.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Police will often say these cases are targeted. But in a dense city, that sentence doesn't always land as a reassurance. Because targeted violence still happens right next door. You can see the crime tape on your walk to work, hear gunshots through the wall, pass candlelight memorials on the corner where you wait for the bus.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In such an environment, every killing becomes a reminder that safety is actually negotiable, that stability depends on thousands of strangers all respecting invisible boundaries. The message isn't I'm safe because this isn't random. The message becomes if conflict erupts close to me, anything could happen.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And what happens when a death falls outside that expected pattern? When bodies appear in the bayou with no clear explanation? The psychological shift is immediate. Someone unknown, someone unpredictable, someone who could target anyone.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In a city already managing everyday violence, the very idea of a roaming predator feels like a breach of the social contract, a threat unbound by motive, relationship, or geography. That's the nightmare version of urban danger, that you can avoid trouble, avoid risk, avoid the wrong people, and still become a victim.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's how a handful of cases, even unconnected ones, can fuel a panic far larger than the facts themselves. Because urban fear is not logical, it's spatial. It's rooted in the closeness of strangers, the thin walls, the crowded streets, the feeling that danger isn't somewhere out there, but all around you, just waiting for a reason.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When tension meets uncertainty in a major city, fear doesn't stay quiet, it spreads.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This segment is called “Distrust as Default — Why We Don’t Believe the Officials Anymore.” The Houston Panic isn't just about crime, it's about confidence. It's about a public that has learned over generations to treat every official message not as information, but as spin. Before we talk about the bayou, we need to talk about the erosion underneath of it: trust.
Kevin Buckler (Host):If there is one theme that cuts through the 2025 Houston panic, it’s this. The more officials insist there is no serial killer, the more some people become convinced that there must be.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That reaction isn't irrational, it's cultural. It's rooted in a long history of American distrust of government, police, and other civic institutions. And if we want to understand why bodies in the bayou became a narrative about a serial killer, we have to know why, for many people, official reassurance doesn't calm fear. It intensifies it.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When we talk about trust in government, we're not just describing a vague feeling. There are measurable components that shape whether people believe institutions are working for them. A recent 2021 Deloitte report called Improving Trust in State and Local Government suggests that trust hinges on two major dimensions. First, competence. Can government actually get things done? And second, positive intent. Does government care about me and act fairly?
Kevin Buckler (Host):But upon deeper digging, the report outlines four specific signals that shape how citizens judge the government. Capability means agencies perform and solve real problems. Reliability means they do it consistently, not sporadically.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The humanity signal explores whether the government genuinely cares for its constituents' experience and well-being by demonstrating empathy, kindness, and fairness. Lastly, transparency is about openness, sharing data and letting citizens see what is really going on.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The report suggests that when any of these signals falter, especially in enforcement or service delivery roles, trust drops sharply. When this happens, official reassurances about investigations or public safety often fall flat, and they are replaced by suspicion.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Americans did not wake up one morning and decide to stop trusting its institutions. This has been building for decades. The potential reasons are varied. At the federal level, Watergate, COINTELPRO, the response to the crack epidemic, political polarization, at the local and state levels, wrongful convictions and DNA exonerations, police violence, at every level, sex scandals, corruption related to public funds. Each scandal chipped away at the belief that government agencies operate transparently or competently.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The Pew Research Center released a 2024 report titled Public Trust in Government, 1958-2024. It documented that public confidence in the federal government has declined dramatically over the last six decades. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, roughly 70-75% of Americans said they trusted the government in Washington to do what is right, just about always or most of the time. By 2024, that figure had fallen dramatically to 22%. This drop reflects a profound shift in how citizens view their institutions. It signals an era where skepticism has become the default stance toward government.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Although representing only one year, one snapshot in time, a 2023 Gallup news release titled Americans Trust Local Government Most, Congress Least reflects the notion that distance affects trust levels. 32% had a great or fair amount of trust in the federal legislative branch. The number was 41% for the federal executive branch, 49% for the federal judicial branch, but 59% for the state government, and 67% for local government.
Kevin Buckler (Host):At first glance, these numbers appear hopeful for Houston's trust in local government. But while Houston's government is local, it is also urban and perhaps distant. When we talk about trust in government, geography matters — a lot.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Urban governments provide more services, manage bigger budgets, and deliver complex infrastructure. Regardless, city residents tend to trust their local institutions less. Why? Because life in a large city means frequent contact with bureaucracy, lines at city offices, automated systems, rules that are layers deep. It means confronting visible challenges every day, crime, homelessness, aging roads, strained transit systems, and maybe most crucially, it means feeling far removed from the people making decisions. Residents feel that in a city of millions, who really represents you?
Kevin Buckler (Host):By contrast, rural communities, even with fewer resources, often show higher trust in their local governments. These places are smaller, more personal. Residents are more likely to recognize their mayor at the grocery store. Government feels culturally familiar, not distant or disengaged. Public officials aren't anonymous figures on a podium. They are neighbors.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So when the mayor and the police chief in Houston says we have no evidence of a serial killer, some people don't hear reassurance. They hear cover up. When the medical examiner explains that most cases are undetermined because decomposition makes conclusions difficult, some people hear incompetence, or worse, intentional concealment.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And this isn't necessarily about the facts of any one case. It's about the stories we tell ourselves about institutions in decline.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Because while the serial killer mythology may be amplified, even sensationalized, the anxieties driving the rumor. Are very real. People feel unheard, they feel unprotected, they see bodies pulled from waterways and wonder whether anyone in power truly cares.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The distrust didn't appear out of nowhere. It was earned slowly, through decades of strained institutions and unmet expectations. So when fear enters the story, it fills the gaps where trust should be. The serial killer becomes the symbol, the monster we can name. But the deeper worry is about the systems meant to keep us safe. Yes, the myth is exaggerated. But the conditions that allow the myth to become persuasive? Oh no, those are very, very real. This segment is titled When Cleared Isn't Closure, The Clearance Rate Illusion. We're used to hearing big claims about crime being cleared or resolved. But behind those reassuring words is a complicated system of definitions that most people never see. And those definitions shape everything from public perception to political talking points.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Before we go any further, I want to pause and define a term you'll hear a lot when we talk about violent crime the homicide clearance rate.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Back in episode three of this series, Dr. Elizabeth Gilmore made an important point. Law enforcement focuses on cases they determine are criminal homicide. So throughout this episode, I will say criminal homicide clearance rate.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Now here's the key thing. A cleared case does not necessarily mean a conviction. It doesn't even guarantee an arrest. Clearance means the police consider the case resolved because they believe they know who did it.
Kevin Buckler (Host):You'll sometimes hear about an official clearance rate. This is the clearance rate as defined by FBI rules. For example, you may hear 50%. That number as a clearance rate represents the share of criminal homicide cases that police consider solved because they know who committed the crime. Most often, that means a suspect has been arrested and the case is handed off to prosecutors. But under federal reporting rules, a case may also be cleared if the suspect dies, leaves the country, or can't be arrested for some other reason. They call this clearance by exceptional means. If the police think they've identified who did it, the case can be considered cleared.
Kevin Buckler (Host):It is not a perfect metric, but right now it's the most widely used measure we have for how well criminal homicide investigations are going across the country.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And here's the troubling part. Nationally, those numbers have been moving in the wrong direction. A 2018 study published in Police Quarterly by Thomas L. Scott and colleagues analyzed homicide clearance rates in 92 large US cities from 1981 to 2013. They found that in 60% of those cities, clearance rates declined over that period.
Kevin Buckler (Host):A recent report from the R Street Institute makes the trend clear. In general, America is solving fewer criminal homicides. Decades ago, in the mid-1960s, the national homicide clearance rate exceeded ninety percent. Today it has fallen to just over fifty percent. This is a collapse that the report calls a public safety failure with far reaching consequences for victims, communities, and long-term legitimacy of policing.
Kevin Buckler (Host):To understand why so many Houstonians feel anxious when they hear about bodies being recovered from the bayou system, we must zoom out for a moment. Trust in criminal homicide investigations here hasn't always been rock solid, and the numbers help explain why. According to data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Houston Police Department's criminal homicide clearance rate has bounced around over the past several years. These numbers are taken directly from the Texas Department of Public Safety website and report data based on FBI definitions. Those aren't crisis level numbers, but they're also not confidence inspiring. They tell a story of fluctuation, of a system that solves some cases but struggles with others.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Those numbers I just mentioned are the official ones, what departments report to the FBI. But here's the twist. Police agencies often calculate their own internal clearance rates. And depending on how they count, those internal numbers can look a lot higher than the federal ones. A police department can and often does report about cases being administratively cleared or internally cleared. Now remember, the FBI does not recognize that category in its official reporting. The FBI only uses two official types of case closure, arrest clearances and exceptional clearances. But departments can still use the term administratively cleared or internally cleared in press releases or on public dashboards.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This begs the question, what does administratively or internally cleared actually mean? Typically a case is administratively or internally closed when detectives believe they've chased down every lead, interviewed every available witness, reviewed evidence, and ultimately hit a wall. This happens when all possible leads have been exhausted, and there's nothing more investigators feel that they can do in the moment.
Kevin Buckler (Host):To be clear, for the FBI, criminal homicide clearance rate equals arrest clearance plus exceptional means clearance. But for many departments, they prefer criminal homicide clearance rate equals arrest clearance plus exceptional means clearance plus administrative or internal clearance. This broader definition is preferred by departments because it gives the appearance that the department is maximally effective at solving cases.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Here is the important part to remember about administrative or internal clearance. These cases are not solved. They aren't counted in federal clearance statistics. So, when a department announces that a homicide has been cleared but doesn't specify how, the public may assume justice was done. In reality, an administratively or internally cleared case can mean the exact opposite: an open wound in the file cabinet, waiting for the day when a new clue potentially breaks it loose.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This gap between how the FBI defines a clearance and how police departments talk about clearance isn't just technical. It can have real consequences. Because when a department paints a picture of success, of being exceptional at solving murders, but the public's lived experience doesn't match that picture, trust will start to crack. And once legitimacy cracks, everything that comes after sounds like spin.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And Houston has been here before.
Kevin Buckler (Host):A Houston Chronicle article published on November 19, 2020, carried the headline, Houston's rate of unsolved murders is soaring. Experts say the police department is to blame. The piece laid out the problem very plainly. It reported that Houston's homicide clearance rate had plunged from 89% in 2011 to about 49% by mid-2020. An internal audit found cases sitting untouched for months. Veteran investigators were leaving. New detectives were stepping into roles with very little training. Backlogs grew. Overtime budgets shrank. And experts told The Chronicle that poor management, turnover, and investigative delays were all dragging those numbers down. For families waiting on answers, those slowdowns weren't just administrative, they were devastating.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But here is the part that may and should raise eyebrows. That audit never actually defined what the Houston Police Department means by clearance. The word appears eleven times in the report, but the criteria behind it never explained. Not once. It's simply assumed. A kind of institutional black box. And when people don't know what goes into the box, they're a lot less likely to trust what comes out of it.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The Houston Chronicle did a follow-up article in December 2024 with the headline How Houston Police's Homicide Team Boosted I Case Clearance to the Highest Rate in Years. It reported that Houston Police have engineered one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the country. The article, published on December 10th, 2024, reported that with upgraded technology, more staffing, and strong partnerships with communities, the Houston Police Department is now clearing close to 87% of its criminal homicide cases.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But, to borrow a line from famed sports commentator Lee Corso, not so fast, my friend. A careful listener will note that the 87% figure for 2024 in the news article is quite different from the official 60% on the Texas DPS website. As I mentioned before, the DPS website puts the official FBI-defined Houston PD criminal homicide clearance rate at 60%. What exactly explains this 27% point difference between the Texas DPS statistics and the HPD and Houston Chronicle numbers?
Kevin Buckler (Host):All that Crime Time Office Hours knows is that the article used some very careful language. It is a language that the casual reader may miss. Let me read directly from the article, which features the investigative approach of the two detectives: "Their success has helped drive a banner year for the Houston Police Department's Homicide Division, just a few years removed from when the internal clearance rate fell to just 49%. As of early December, the division maintained a clearance rate of almost 87% according to internal data."
Kevin Buckler (Host):You have to read and listen closely. The operative word is internal, that comes just before the phrase clearance rate.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And the Houston Chronicle News article doesn't really discuss how their 87% reported clearance for criminal homicide was calculated. Rather, they provide vague language and props to the Houston Police Department's homicide unit. Here's what the article says: "Not every department publicly discloses clearance rates, which are calculated based on the number of homicides in proportion to how often a suspect for each case has been charged or identified. But among those that share data with other big city agencies, Houston may well leave the nation with its homicide clearance rate. Chicago Police Department, for instance, had a clearance rate around 53%, which was an increase from 2023's rate of 49%, records show."
Kevin Buckler (Host):What appears clear is that the 87% figure must be from an internal administrative approach to calculating clearance, one that the FBI does not use.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But let me be absolutely clear about something. Crime time office hours isn't here to deny that the Houston Police Department made fundamental changes or that those changes helped detectives work cases more efficiently. And we're not even questioning whether HPD's internal process for closing cases improved.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The point is this: when you step away from the internal numbers and look at the official FBI defined clearance rate, the one that reflects whether cases are actually solved, the HPD homicide unit gains are modest. We're talking about roughly a 4% point increase between 2020 and 2024, not the 38% point spike that some headlines suggest.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This is an illustration of how official and public wires get crossed. When officials say we're clearing more cases, they may be referring to administrative closures, cases that are essentially paused, not solved. But when the public hears cleared, they think justice, accountability, and closure for families. And if they later see much lower numbers from federal or state reporting, it feels like a bait and switch. Or if they have insider information about an unresolved case, hearing inflated numbers may cause them to look at the numbers side-eyed.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This administratively created ambiguity doesn't just muddy statistics, it erodes confidence.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Because at the end of the day, clearance rates aren't just numbers in a news article.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Nor are they simply a public relations tool for the police department.
Kevin Buckler (Host):They are a measurement of whether people believe that if something terrible happens, the system will show up for them and get it right.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And when trust is already fragile, even a well-intentioned message can sound like spin. Even a legitimate explanation can feel like a cover-up. When officials tell the public there is no serial killer, many people don't doubt the facts, they're doubting the institution delivering them.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The serial killer mythology may be blown out of proportion, a cultural exaggeration fueled by decades of media fascination.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But the anxiety underneath it? No, that's real.
Kevin Buckler (Host):People fear being forgotten. They fear that violence will go unanswered. They fear a justice system that knows how to organizationally classify death to imply effectiveness, but not how to deliver peace.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And when bodies are pulled from the bayou and answers feel murky, those fears rush to the surface, outpacing evidence, outpacing reality, filling the gaps where trust should reside. That's how a rumor becomes a crisis. Not because monsters lurk in the shadows, but because the audience no longer trusts the narrator. This segment is called “Murky Waters, Murky Answers: When the Bayou Isn’t the Only Thing Clouded.” If clearance rates raise questions, the next layer raises something deeper, doubt. It's important to understand that Houston's forensic system hasn't always inspired confidence. Long before this bayou panic began, Houston had already seen what happens when the systems built to uncover truth end up creating confusion instead.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But before jumping into this, let's pause for a moment to talk about something that most Houstonians don't think about until a tragedy happens. The two forensic agencies that operate in our region. They sound similar, but they're often confused. But they have different histories and very different responsibilities, and that difference matters.
Kevin Buckler (Host):First, the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. This is the oldest of the two. Its roots go back to 1957. Harris County became the first in Texas to adopt a formal medical examiner system. Over the decades, that office grew. Grew from a place that handled autopsies into a full forensic institution. In 2010, the county renamed it the Institute of Forensic Sciences to reflect that expanded role. In 2017, it moved to a state-of-the-art building in the Texas Medical Center. Today, HCIFS has two major functions. It investigates deaths and performs autopsies, and it runs a forensics lab that analyzes evidence for dozens of law enforcement agencies around the region.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Now, compare that with the Houston Forensic Science Center, HFSC. It's newer. It was founded in 2012 in direct response to a very public breakdown in the old Houston Police Department crime lab. Wrongful convictions, backlogs, and major missteps in evidence handling. After years of planning, the HFSC took over Houston's forensics work in 2014 as an independent organization, separate from the police. The idea was simple, keep the science separate from the detectives and the courtroom. Today, HFSC handles DNA testing, ballistics, toxicology, crime scene work, basically everything except autopsies.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So here's the bottom line. If somebody dies in the city of Houston, the body goes to HCIFS. But if Houston police need DNA, drug testing, or firearm analysis, that evidence goes to HFSC. Two institutions, two histories, two different lanes of responsibility.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In this segment, when I mention autopsy reports, missing bodies or stacked bodies, I am referring to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, HCIFS. But when I mention issues with evidence processing, I mean the Houston Forensic Science Center, HFSC. You may wonder why I'm putting these two together. Because this segment's topic is murky science and why we are skeptical of the science.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Now, you might be thinking: “Sure. Clearance rates are complicated. The forensics, the people whose job it is to literally speak for the dead."
Kevin Buckler (Host):Well, that's where Houston's history gets a little messy.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Public confidence in the medical examiner's office has taken some real hits over the years. One case that still lingers in public memory is that the morgue literally lost the body of a 27-day old baby who died just before Christmas in 2002. The Houston Chronicle reported that staff had no explanation for how the body was misplaced, leaving the grieving family devastated and demanding answers.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And that wasn't just some isolated issue. During the same period, the office had already been criticized for body stacking. This means storing bodies on top of one another on a metal tray. And for even accidentally cremating the wrong person.
Kevin Buckler (Host):County leaders eventually ordered a full review after a second body went missing. This time, an adult was mistakenly sent to the funeral home instead of being held for autopsy. The remains later had to be brought back to the morgue.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And while these cases go back years, problems haven't disappeared entirely. In 2011, one pathologist became the subject of an internal investigation. She was recorded making comments on a homicide case that unnamed law enforcement officials viewed as biased and unprofessional. This sparked concerns about impartiality inside the very institution responsible for objective truth.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In recent years, the Houston Forensic Science Center, the agency responsible for crime scene processing, DNA analysis, toxicology, and ballistics, has struggled under mounting pressure. Staffing shortages, heavy caseloads, and serious operational challenges have fueled public concern.
Kevin Buckler (Host):One example in April 2023, the Houston Chronicle reported that drug evidence backlogs had grown severe. Hundreds of cases were stalling while substances sat untested. The lab had more than 1,900 drug test requests that were pending. 1,500 of them already 30 days old, with only five full-time trained analysts available. In response, Harris County prosecutors changed policy, requiring police to wait for lab results before filing most low-level drug charges.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That wasn't the only red flag.
Kevin Buckler (Host):A December 2022 chronicle investigation revealed that four forensic analysts were fired or resigned. Leadership discovered they were simultaneously running a private forensic consulting business on the side. This was a clear conflict of interest that violated state standards and internal policy. Those departures wiped out ten percent of the lab's forensic staff overnight. It raised questions about oversight, staffing availability, staffing stability, and whether past cases might eventually need review.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Recently, in the case of Kenneth Cutting Jr., there were errors discovered in the autopsy for a young man whose body was found in a Houston area bayou. Here is a segment from KHOU News.
News Reporter:A family is demanding Houston police reopen their investigation into the death of a young man found in a Houston bayou. The medical examiner's office admits errors were made in Kenneth Cutting Jr's autopsy report. Matt Doherty has been following this story since the young man disappeared, and shows us why the family believes it's time to take another look.
Lauren Freeman:The doctor that did his autopsy says, "Oh, that was a mistake. It was for the body that I did after that, but it was accidentally put in his medical report." I said, Say that again? And he goes, he repeated himself, and I said, Okay.
News Reporter:Lauren Freeman is still in shock as she discusses the call she received from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. The autopsy in question was for her cousin, Kenneth Cutting Jr. The 22-year-old went missing after a night in downtown in June of 2024. Three days later, his body was found in Buffalo Bayou. This is the part of Buffalo Bayou where Kenneth's body was found just east of downtown. The Houston Police Department says it decided to close the case after they say no foul play was involved. The medical examiner's office performed an autopsy, and they say his cause of death is undetermined. And it makes you question everything about the report, right?
Lauren Freeman:Oh yeah. I mean, 100%. I mean, how do you how do you believe in anything that they said?
News Reporter:In the report, Freeman says she found major discrepancies, most significantly medical hardware found in the neck of the body that was examined. Kenneth Cutting's family says he never had any surgeries. Last week, Freeman says she was told that information about Cutting's neck was actually from a different autopsy on a different body. Yet it ended up in Kenneth's autopsy report. Freeman says she's found other things that make no sense.
Lauren Freeman:I'm furious. I am livid. I don't know how a mistake of this nature happens.
News Reporter:In response to our questions, HCIFS sent us this statement: "This was a clerical error that had no impact on the findings or the cause and manner of death. The error occurred during the report editing process after the postmortem exam was already completed. The pathological findings and conclusions in the report are correct and supported by the forensic pathologist's notes, x-rays, and over 50 photographs taken during autopsy. The forensic pathologist communicated the error to the family in an effort to maintain transparency. But Lauren Freeman worries what other mistakes may have been made without any answers to how cutting may have died. The cause of death, like many of the people found in Houston's bayous, was never determined.
Lauren Freeman:Did the police even have the right information to investigate it correctly? The case needs to be reopened.
Kevin Buckler (Host):These stories, backlogs, turnover, conflicts of interest, errors in an autopsy report, these land right in the middle of an already sensitive conversation about bodies in the bayou and what the medical examiner can and cannot determine.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When the institutions responsible for uncovering the truth stumble, even once, the public remembers.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And when unsettling cases emerge, cases with no clear answers, cases where decomposition makes the facts harder to see, uncertainty isn't just a forensic outcome, it becomes a social wound.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Because if the bayou is murky and the science feels murky too, where exactly does that leave trust?
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's why, for many Houstonians, no evidence of a serial killer doesn't resolve the fear. It intensifies it. When the system struggles with backlogs, loses trained experts, or takes weeks to test a bag of evidence, reassurance feels like a promise the machinery isn't quite equipped to guarantee.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The point of this segment isn't about accusing the Houston Forensic Center of failure. It's about recognizing that the public fear doesn't just emerge from crime itself. It emerges when confidence in the systems meant to solve crime feels fragile.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When uncertainty meets distrust, the imagination fills in the gaps.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And lately, it's filling it in with a familiar cultural figure, the serial killer. This segment is called Kenneth Cutting Jr. Lost in the Water, Lost in the System. Sometimes the story of a city's fear isn't born of rumor. It's born from real people, real cases, real families, and in Houston one of those families belongs to Kenneth Cutting Jr. His death in twenty twenty three didn't just break hearts, it shook confidence. It raised questions that still hover over every new body found in a bayou.
Kevin Buckler (Host):To really understand how trust gets shaken, let's talk about one case that has haunted Houston's recent memory, the death of Kenneth Cutting Jr.
Kevin Buckler (Host):His family didn't just lose a son and a brother, they lost clarity, they lost answers.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In September 2023, Kenneth's body was pulled from one of Houston's bayous, a part of the same system that is now tied to rumors of a serial killer. His family immediately demanded a proper investigation, but instead of getting answers, they encountered silence, delays, and shifting explanations.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Kenneth's cousin and father were interviewed by Brian Enton. Here is a summary of what they told him. The day Kenneth went missing, he was at Pete's dueling piano bar in Houston. In the early morning hours, at around 2 AM, Kenneth's dad got a text message from Kenneth's roommate. It said that Kenneth had gotten drunk and went berserk at I 10 and Waco. Kenneth's dad called the son's phone five times and each call went to voicemail.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Later in the day, Kenneth's father went to the house where his son lived with two roommates. The roommates told the same story. Kenneth got drunk. The roommates struggled to get him in the car. They did, but Kenneth fought them, got out of the car, and ran off. While Kenneth's dad talked to the two roommates, he noticed that they had packed Kenneth's belongings into trash bags. Kenneth's dad left the home and went to the police station to file a report. The officer who took the report mentioned to him that there were cameras all over Houston. Three to four days later, Kenneth's dad got the call that Kenneth's body had been discovered in a bayou.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Camera footage from Pete's dueling piano bar showed Kenneth speaking to a bouncer and using the bouncer's phone to make a call. The bouncer's phone records showed that Kenneth was calling his own phone to locate it. Cameras also showed a negative exchange between Kenneth and someone that involved cursing.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Kenneth's dad and cousin point to an inconsistency in Kenneth's roommates' accounts. They said they were returning home when they let Kenneth out of the car. Home was west on I-10, but the roommates say Kenneth got out of the car east on I-10. The roommates' story is that they got lost. Kenneth's father and cousin consider it strange that the roommates would leave Kenneth in that area since it has a reputation of being a dangerous one in Houston. They also note how it is odd that the roommates packed Kenneth's belongings into a trash bag that soon without knowing what had happened to him.
Kevin Buckler (Host):They also have concerns about the police investigation and the medical examiner's report. Kenneth's dad talked about how the police did not investigate until after receiving the medical examiner's report, nearly eight months after his death. By this time, the Department of Transportation camera footage, according to Kenneth's father, was no longer available. Kenneth's body was also found in the bayou one mile upstream from where the roommates say they left him.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Kenneth's father and cousin also note incorrect information in the autopsy report. According to them, Kenneth's height and weight are listed wrong. Additionally, the report referenced hardware in Kenneth's neck from a surgery, but Kenneth never had a surgery. They take issue with the undetermined conclusion from the medical examiner's report.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In a large urban city like Houston, the majority of homicides, at least 70%, grow out of some kind of conflict. Disputes between people who know one another, fights that escalate, retaliation that turns deadly. These are targeted acts, not random predation. And in Kenneth's case, there was a dispute.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Criminal homicide detectives rely heavily on information that surfaces early, a known crime scene, accessible witnesses, camera footage that is still stored on a server. Cases like those are more likely to make it into the official clearance statistics we hear about from police. They are the cases that look solvable.
Kevin Buckler (Host):This is more content directly from the earlier news article on the 87% figure reported by the Houston Police Department and the Chronicle. I am reading directly from the section of the article with the heading The Rhythms of an Investigation: "There is no single trick to a successful homicide investigation, according to the detectives. Rather, it is the sum total of everything that happens in the first hours after the division gets a call that add up to a success or failure. That includes canvassing the scene of security video or other physical clues that might help identify a suspect, taking ample time with witnesses, and relying on their goodwill to speak openly and honestly. They like to make it to the scene as quickly as possible because there's so much that's only available for a short time. Physical blood and DNA evidence, security camera video, etc. The two take their time looking over a scene, with at least some dedicated to talking with victims and those who might have seen what happened. The pace changes as partners take on responsibility for a homicide investigation. One tip of the trade is that the duo will often visit all the homes surrounding the scene the day after a homicide, seeking any video and hoping someone might have information, even if they don't realize it, perhaps someone heard a sound, or saw someone out of the ordinary."
Kevin Buckler (Host):In this article, the journalists and the detectives describe the best case scenario a situation leading to an immediate call. There is a scene to canvas. People to talk to, cameras with video evidence.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But then there's what we saw with Kenneth's case. No one knows where Kenneth died. There is no scene to explore. No witnesses to interview other than the two people who admit to arguing with him.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Kenneth's case doesn't enter the numerator and denominator in the clearance calculation. And if it does, it's likely to be administratively or internally closed.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Then came the errors in basic autopsy detail.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Together, these are the seeds of concern and of discontent. If parts of Kenneth's story sound familiar, they should. We've seen a version of this movie before from a different major U.S. city.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In 2013, a young woman named Elisa Lam disappeared from the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Her case went viral, not because investigators immediately suspected foul play, but because basic facts just did not add up. Her recovered body was found in a rooftop water tank weeks later. By then, most physical evidence was gone, decomposition was advanced, and key investigative information had already slipped through the cracks.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But here's the important part. The public didn't lose trust because of conspiracy theories. They lost trust because the official record had errors.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In Elisa Lam's case, her autopsy report incorrectly listed her death date. Her name was misspelled on official documents. There were contradictions across investigative paperwork. And at one point the coroner stated that the cause of death was accidental, only to later revise the findings and add conditions, not because new evidence was discovered, but because the paperwork wasn't complete. Even the release of security footage from the hotel was mishandled and heavily edited, which made the public feel like information was being hidden.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Now fast forward to Kenneth's case. His family points to errors that feel eerily similar, his height and weight listed incorrectly in the medical examiner's report, references to surgical hardware that he never had, a ruling of undetermined that came months after the fact when critical investigation time was already lost. These aren't just clerical mistakes, they become symbols of doubt.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When a system can't get the basic biographical information about a victim correct, the public will ask a fair question. If they missed this, what else did they miss?
Kevin Buckler (Host):And just like Elisa Lam, Kenneth's case reveals how uncertainty in a water related death complicates everything. The scene disappears, the timeline blurs, the narrative becomes fragmented. And in that void, the imagination does what institutions failed to do. It attempts to resolve the case.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's the thread that connects Elisa Lam and Kenneth Cutting Jr. Not a serial killer, not a conspiracy, but the same fragile point of failure. When the paperwork doesn't match the truth, the public assumes the truth is somewhere else entirely.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And we shouldn't pretend that there is no reason for unease in this case. The reason is grounded in decades of forensic experience. Consider the work of Andrea Zaferes, a leading death investigations expert whose career has focused in large part on aquatic cases.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Zaferes has spent years training police, medical examiners, rescue divers, and forensic teams to properly investigate water-related cases, from bathtubs and pools to rivers, lakes, and submerged vehicles. These are all potentially complex death investigations.
Kevin Buckler (Host):She is co-author with Walter Hendrick of the Comprehensive Guide, Aquatic Death and Homicidal Drowning Investigation. This work walks through the many ways drowning or immersion deaths can be misclassified if investigators aren't adequately trained.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Her work underscores a hard truth. When a body surfaces in water, in a bayou, a river, a reservoir, that doesn't automatically mean suicide or accident. Water doesn't make death simple, it makes it complicated. Submerged remains move, evidence washes off or degrades, witnesses disappear, scenes vanish, and unless the recovery and investigation follows strict protocols, even a homicide can end up classified as undetermined or accidental.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's why Kenneth's case, where there was no known scene, no preserved evidence trail, no confident autopsy, and where basic details like height, weight, and surgical history are reportedly wrong, rings alarm bells. It isn't just about one missing piece of evidence. It's about whether the system had the capacity, training, and awareness to treat a water recovery as a serious investigation from the start.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And that's the unsettling core of this series. When the mechanisms designed to deliver truth, law enforcement, the medical examiner, the forensic lab, are overburdened, under resourced, or underprepared for aquatic complexity, no evidence of foul play can become kind of an institutional silence. Not because there's nothing to find, but because we don't always know what to look for.
Kevin Buckler (Host):For the families left behind, undetermined, doesn't mean closure. It isn't an ending. It's a pause.
Kevin Buckler (Host):A life is over, but the questions remain very much alive.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Kenneth's family refused to let the story stop there. They pushed. They challenged the narrative that Kenneth stumbled into the bayou. They questioned why no investigation was launched until months later, why potential evidence was allowed to disappear, why the burden of answers seemed to shift onto them.
Kevin Buckler (Host):They didn't believe it was just nature. They believed there was intent, that something or someone caused this.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And they're not alone.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When grieving families hear officials say we have no evidence of foul play, they often feel no one is looking hard enough.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's the emotional cost of uncertainty.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In a city where bodies surface in waterways more often than most people realize, a homicide division's decision to no longer pursue the case, a medical examiner's ruling of undetermined, these outcomes force families into a role they never asked for detective, advocate, archivist of every text message and memory.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And while one family fights for answers, others are watching. Other families internalize that frustration.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That doubt spreads.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's how a single tragedy becomes a signal, a symbol, a rallying point for fear, suspicion, and the belief that something darker is unfolding beneath the surface of the city.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Because if the system can't or won't explain what happened to Kenneth Cutting Jr., then who will? This segment is called Stressed Systems Fractured Trust, Overworked, Understaffed, and Under Scrutiny. Here is the uncomfortable truth at the center of the Houston panic. Fear thrives in the space where capacity collapses. Investigations slow. Evidence waits. Families are left hanging, and suddenly every gap in the process becomes a place for suspicion to grow. This isn't just a story about crime. It's a story about workload, burnout, and systems pushed past their limits.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When people ask why wasn't this investigated faster? Or how did the evidence get delayed? There is a truth sitting right beneath the surface of the fear. Houston, like many major American cities, is operating with social systems stretched to their limits.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Let's start with policing.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Officers aren't just responding to crime, they're responding to mental health crisis, substance abuse emergency, homelessness, domestic calls, missing persons, traffic fatalities. Every hour they're moving from one crisis to the next. It's triage, constant triage, and that's happening while homicide investigators are carrying high caseloads that are not optimal for solving cases quickly and effectively.
Kevin Buckler (Host):At the state level, the Texas Department of Public Safety has been operating with hundreds of vacant commissioned officer positions year after year. A recent Legislative Budget Board Workforce report shows DPS ended FY 2024 with more than 500 commissioned vacancies statewide. Another analysis in late 2024 estimated that DPS was short roughly 1,500 officers across Texas, with many troopers working significant overtime to cover basic responsibilities.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Zoom in on Houston and the picture doesn't get any easier. HPD has about 5,200 sworn officers and roughly 880 civilian staff serving a city of around 2.3 million people. These are numbers that, according to department leaders, have stayed flat for years despite population growth. Local coverage in late 2024 described a staffing crisis tying longer response times and delayed investigations to understaffing and relatively low pay compared with surrounding agencies. By 2025, Houston was facing more than 1,200 police officer vacancies, and federal agencies like ICE were actively recruiting HPD officers with $50,000 signing bonuses, a level of competition the city simply can't match. On top of that, nearly 20% of HPD's already reduced civilian workforce has been offered retirement payouts to close budget gaps, raising concerns that officers will be pulled off the street to do more administrative work.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Now shift to forensic science, the people doing the scientific work behind the scenes. We've already talked about Houston's backlog, staffing shortages, and analysts who are burning out. These labs are being asked to do more testing with more sophisticated methods, faster than ever, but without the personnel and funding that rapid growth demands. Every delay in a DNA test means a case stays open longer. Every open case is another family waiting for closure.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In 2023, the Houston Forensic Science Center reported an evidence request backlog of about 4,000. This includes roughly 1,600 seized drug cases. This is driven by high turnover and increasing caseloads. A separate statewide review of crime labs defined backlog as evidence that sits more than 30 days without full analysis. This review found Houston's backlog was large but not unique. Many Texas labs faced delays equal to or worse than Houston's. This underscores how forensic capacity has struggled to keep pace with demand.
Kevin Buckler (Host):And then zoom out one more layer, the social workers, the front lines of crisis prevention, the ones trying to keep families stable, keep youth connected, and prevent vulnerable people from slipping into the cracks where victimization happens. Most social work agencies are understaffed and overcapacity. Workers are covering caseloads that would make most people collapse. Their burnout isn't just personal, it's structural. When support systems fail, risk rises.
Kevin Buckler (Host):A 2024 Texas Social Work Workforce study found a 27% unmet demand for social workers statewide, projecting that gap will grow to 36% by 2036 if nothing changes. Another analysis noted that 97% of Texas counties, including Harris County, where Houston is located, are designated mental health professional shortage areas, meaning there simply aren't enough clinicians for the needs on the ground. A recent Rice Kinder Institute brief on Harris County puts it bluntly: one of the biggest barriers to care is a basic workforce shortage in mental health and related services.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So when Houstonians look at bodies in the bayou, slow answers from the lab, and a police department that's trying to do more with less, their anxiety isn't coming out of nowhere. The fear of a serial killer may be exaggerated, but the sense that the system is running at or beyond its limits is firmly rooted in the data. So joining Crimetime Office Hours is Dr. Heather Golds. She is so well qualified that we're going to play a little bit of a round of alphabet soup, so bear with me. Heather has a PhD in health education from Texas AM University. Her Master of Social Work and Master of Education are from the University of Houston. Heather also has a Master's of Public Health from Texas AM University. Her undergraduate degree is in biology from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. She also has extensive sex therapy training from the University of Michigan. You will notice that I did not include dates for Heather's degrees. This is because we graduated high school the same year, and I don't want to date her or me. Heather is with us to help us better understand how all the issues we've discussed impact people. The citizen who lives in urban space and navigates all of its uncertainties, the family member of a deceased who dies under questionable circumstances, yet fights to get the police to give the case some attention. And the police officer, the homicide detective, the forensic pathologist, and the social worker in times of increased demand and decreased resources. So thank you very much for being with me today, Heather.
Heather Goltz (Guest):Thanks for having me over.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Yeah, so let's uh let's jump into this. Sometimes living in a city can be a daunting experience and a scary experience for a lot of people. Can you talk a little bit about how the uncertainties of urban life sort of impact people's psychology and daily activities?
Heather Goltz (Guest):Sure. I mean, you know, you have to kind of think about all of us in a way as, you know, walking nervous systems. You know, we are all taking in all kinds of sensory data at all times, even when we're asleep. And our brains, or at least the oldest, most ancient part of our brain, is not so developed that it's it doesn't hearken back, it doesn't, you know, kind of go back to the earliest of cave person days. Uh, we aren't that far removed, at least when it comes to our involuntary nervous system, our core reactions to sensory data, we aren't that much removed from our earliest hominid ancestors. And so when you think about life in an urban environment, life in a city, a big city in particular, and when you think about life in Houston, you know, the fourth largest city in America, you know, undoubtedly an international city, ports, shipping, trade, industry, you know, we've got millions upon millions of people or nervous systems, you know, walking around and interacting. And here's the thing, you know, we like to think of ourselves as and and our our identities as just our our frontal cortex, our executive functioning, our conscious thought. But there's the other part of us that's really at work even more so than our very conscious thought, our executive functioning, and that's our autonomic nervous system. And if you think about that, uh uh the autonomic nervous system is really divided into two parts. There's the sympathetic nervous system, and it's kind of like that gas pedal. So when you take in data that says, I'm about to be robbed, or I'm about to get into a wreck. You know, you've got that that whole, you know, the four F's, you know, you've got the fight, the flight, the freeze, the fond. Well, the sympathetic nervous system is definitely doing the fight, flight, and freeze part of that. And so it's it's the gas pedal. You know, our heart rates are going up, our blood pressure is going up, our pupils are dilated. The other part of the autonomic nervous system is the parasympathetic nervous system. And that's really the gas pedal. That's what tells us, oh, okay, I can relax. So your blood pressure goes down, your heart rate, you know, starts to decrease, and you start going back to more of a baseline level before you perceive that there was a threat. So we are constantly moving through this active, engaged civic life and just taking it all in. And so we're at, you know, we're very much reacting on multiple levels to what we're experiencing.
Kevin Buckler (Host):e Right. And what we're experiencing, I think, in many respects is a level of uncertainty. Living in an urban space with a whole lot of people and a whole lot of potential interactions with people that you don't necessarily know probably does create some of the stressors and the strains that you're talking about. It's it's a massive sort of social contract we have with one another to, you know, guarantee that we will all behave accordingly. And that guarantee doesn't always come to fruition.
Heather Goltz (Guest):It absolutely doesn't always. And you know, here's the thing. When we are navigating our lives and we are interacting at that more micro level, that the individual or small groups or families, right? Or with our neighbors, you know, that social contract, you know, often it does hold up, you know, but say that isn't your experience. Or say you grow up in an area where the, you know, the social contract is breaking down, you know, there's losses of jobs due to layoffs or industry relocating, you know, maybe taxes are high, but wages are low and people aren't able to upkeep their property. Um, you know, then you're really walking to a situation where your environment is signaling it now, it may not be a lion waiting for you in the bush, right? Um, but it could very well signal to you at all times, okay, broken sidewalks, no parks, high crime. You can still be on high alert at all times.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Right. Regardless of probably realities in terms of likelihood of victimization.
Heather Goltz (Guest):Absolutely. Um, you know, uh when I talk to clients, I always use this phrase. What is the data showing you? What evidence do you have that something that you believe to be true is true? Well, here's the thing: not only are we taking things in with all of our senses as we're living our daily lives, then we've got what in public health we call cues to action. And media is really great for cues to action. And that can be cues to action as in relax, you know, you know, vis-a-vis the parasympathetic nervous nervous system. Or it could be like fire, like the the sympathetic nervous system. And so the five o'clock news, the pop-ups with your local newspaper, you know, on your phone, or you know, the the hard copy of the newspaper in your yard, or, you know, just um minding your own business, scrolling online and a pop-up with uh, you know, from Google, or your favorite newspaper or journal or blog comes up, and then it's off to the raises again in terms of how is your nervous system being, in this case, overstimulated.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Yeah, very good point. And I'm gett guessing some of this also, you mentioned media, but this idea of um vicariously getting stories from other people and sometimes exaggeration, sometimes reality, but sometimes exaggerated as well, can probably trigger these processes.
Heather Goltz (Guest):P Uh Absolutely. I mean, and if you think about it, we form, and and human beings are really, really good at this. We form opinions, we make meaning of things within a fraction of a second of getting some type of sensory data, or even looking at nonverbals, um, while we're talking with people or interacting with people. And that is both hearkening back to our own individual experiences. Perhaps that's familial experiences or even cultural experiences that are passed down within cultures or within families. So we've uh we're always functioning at multiple levels. There's there's there's us in the here and now, and then there's whatever we've learned from our significant others, our loved ones, family, our cultures, et cetera, our own experiences. And then again, there's that very real, very active part of our nervous system that is really categorizing things as threat, non-threats behind the scenes that's happening. And again, whether you're talking about a threat that is very real or that you perceive could be real, you know, often, you know, we're going to respond in very, very predictable ways, depending on our own experiences or those around us, or even just the cues that we have gotten uh in terms of social norms on how we should behave in situations.
Kevin Buckler (Host):You know, one of the things that has been going on with this serial killer panic in Houston, and I try to consistently make that point throughout this podcast, is we're putting a whole lot of potential bodies into one bucket. Is it a serial killer or not reduces it down to the question is one person or a group of people sort of responsible for all these all these bodies? But that's not necessarily the reality of what we're sort of looking at. When you think about police investigations, one of the things that we know is you're they're more likely to solve a homicide and declare something a homicide if they have an immediate known crime scene. But when you're talking about taking bodies out of a bayou, my guess is some of these are natural causes where that involve homeless population. Bodies end up in the bayou, others may be suicides, but others could very well be homicides that we don't really know are homicides. Which leads me to the next topic that I want to talk to you a little bit about. There's a few cases out there where people are, for very good reason, claiming, yeah, this undetermined determination that you have made in terms of the medical examiner or the decision of police to not continue to pursue a case as an open investigation, is allowing a homicide to be swept under the rug. And perhaps they have a legitimate beef, perhaps they don't. But there are some circumstances there that make those cases uh quite questionable. So I want to just talk broadly, not necessarily about any particular case, but broadly about when you are going through something like that as a family member of someone who is now deceased, whose body was pulled out of a bayou, and you are battling with the system, so to speak, in terms of trying to get things looked at. Can you talk us through how that impacts the individual and their reactions and sort of the lived experiences of that?
Heather Goltz (Guest):Sure. You know, that's a a great question. I'll back up a little bit by saying if you've if you're from a family or a neighborhood or a friend group that it's never experienced something like that, awesome. And I hope you never do. I seriously hope you don't. It is a very different experience when you or someone you know in your family, someone you know well in your friend group or so on, or perhaps your neighborhood has experienced something like a kidnapping or an unsolved murder, or, you know, something like that, where there's a, you know, a tremendous amount of uncertainty that that happens there. When we go back and think about media and cues to action, you know, there's this particular narrative in media often, you know, whether it's you know, the the big screen or the little screen, that a crime is committed. There are identifiable suspects or the or law enforcement comes to identify suspects within a given time frame.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Yes.
Heather Goltz (Guest):And that there's a very linear, sometimes a little circular, but more or less linear way that this case unfolds, and then an arrest is made and justice is served. Right. But when it comes to more of the reality of what can happen, um the reality is there can be days and weeks and months and even years of wondering and waiting and watching and hoping. You know, I don't mind self-disclosing that my family has been waiting and watching and hoping and wondering for a break in a case that happened back in fall of 1997.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Oh, wow, that's a long time ago.
Heather Goltz (Guest):It's a very long time uh to be a family that is still hoping that a witness will come forward. Or perhaps there's some technological break, or you know, something that happens, a miracle, almost a deus ex machina, that will happen by which we can find out what really happened.
Kevin Buckler (Host):I'm guessing that that doesn't go away. It may it may be less powerful in certain points of a year, or but it I'm guessing it doesn't go away, that wonder, that uncertainty.
Heather Goltz (Guest):You're absolutely right. Uh you know, time eases the constant pain of things, but it doesn't cure it. Right. I wish it did. You know, because think about it, every every holiday, every birthday, every meaningful milestone without that person is is quite triggering. And um, you know, individually and collectively, and particularly for the parents. Right. And, you know, the the and then as as time goes on and more people pass on, you know, it just it it doesn't actually ease the pain. It can actually intensify it. It's just not a it's not just not as constant. And that's the thing, right? Um, you know, I wish, I mean, we'd all be very wealthy if we had straightforward guides to how to approach these types of situations. You know, and I I want to, you know, one of the things that I think as a family member of a homicide victim, an unsolved murder case, you know, we spent a lot of time very angry, especially in the earliest days and weeks and months and even the first few years. Very angry, angry that it happened, angry that there are no breaks. Um, I will say, even angry at law enforcement for not matching this expectation, this norm that's been set out in like the first 48. Now I'm not calling you guys out. I love your show, but you know, the timer on the screen, you know, you kind of come to believe that there'll be a resolution very quickly. And it and the longer it goes, the less likely the case will be solved, and uh less likely that you'll and your family or your friends or loved ones will have closure. Right. And we didn't, you know, we didn't think about in our pain, in our grief, we didn't think about the other side of the table, the other side of that very unfortunate coin, which is that our law enforcement uh were as perplexed and as upset and you know as just confounded that this could happen and that it could go on so long and still be an unsolved case. I won't go into the specifics, but over time we did very much develop empathy uh for the folks in law enforcement because you know, it's got it's got to be a particular kind of I'm not one that curse, but hell to find yourself in, you know, you you know, to be someone who is dedicated to the purpose of protecting and serving. And yet the very professional or even personal core beliefs and values you have about that, you weren't able to protect and serve. And worse yet, you haven't been able to solve the case and bring about some form of justice. Right. And, you know, I really um uh you know, I and my family really do empathize with law enforcement after all this time. You know, there's a phrase that's ...
Kevin Buckler (Host):Was there like a moment that anger sort of shifted to a more empathetic understanding with regard to law enforcement? Sorry to interrupt.
Heather Goltz (Guest):No, no, it's okay. I think it it came just very gradually. And I think it really when when we began to see like the looks on folks' faces when, you know, accusations of you know failure and not doing their jobs and missing something, you know, um, because it was a pretty high-profile case, um, and the circumstances were very unusual and unique. I won't go into it, but what I will say is when you look at officers and detectives and you begin to see that, wow, you know, they're they're very human and they really want to to make this happen. They really want to know what happened, who did it, you know, how because think about it, we're haunted by the ghost of one case, right? Our case. Yeah, right? And they necessarily have to function at multiple levels. They're not just concerned about, and I don't mean unfeeling or uncaring, but I mean to say their concern as law enforcement is not just the safety of one person or one family, but the public. And so at some point coming to the realization that not only are they conc they not only were they concerned that perhaps this case was never going to be solved, but what might that mean for the safety of the general public? This was a very vicious killing.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Right.
Heather Goltz (Guest):So for them to have to live with the idea that the people who perpetrated this crime could still be out and about. That's got to weigh on you. And I think that that was over time the beginning of our, you know, more empathy with with law enforcement on that. You know, we experienced the trauma of this this murder, and they also experienced this trauma, even if it was from a different vantage point.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Thank you for that and for the for the personal story.
Heather Goltz (Guest):Sure.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Very illustrative of what we're talking about. Continuing with this line of discussion about law enforcement, when you think about the current controversy in Houston, there's this underlying sentiment that law enforcement and forensic pathologists aren't doing everything that they can do to address these cases as they come up. I was very interested to learn when I was doing some background work for this podcast, just the incredible strain that I knew about policing, because it's in my discipline. But then when you start getting into looking at the numbers in terms of reduction in staff with regard to forensic pathologists, when you think about social workers in terms of providing services, just incredibly understaffed. So can you walk me through how these things, beyond what we've been talking about with law enforcement, impact social service providers like police, like forensic pathologists, like social workers, in terms of being very much overworked, caseloads are high, you know, demand is high for their services, but additional resources are often not very much forthcoming.
Heather Goltz (Guest):Yeah. And thank you, because I think it's really important, and you're probably the first person to actually talk about the social services aspect of law enforcement, but it's very much present. And when we talk about the stresses and strains of being a social service provider, a first responder, right? You know, when I was talking about, you know, that particular um trauma, we s we've started kind of talking about this concept of moral injury. And with moral injury, it's really This um it's caused when we've got this conflict that happens between our deeply held, our most deepest held of moral beliefs and values, and something that happens that violates that, either because we did something to violate our own moral values and beliefs, or perhaps we failed to do something and that was the cause of the violation, uh, or maybe we witnessed something that was a violation. But this moral injury question is something that we're finding, especially in social services, especially in law enforcement, is leading to burnout. You know, there are always going to be the daily stressors and strains of the job. Right. It's the nature of what we do in helping professions. And I include law enforcement and for other force responders, social workers, and so on, in that. But the difference between those kind of day-to-day stressors that are just part of the job and burnout is that burnout is a process that happens over time. It's those, it's that death by a thousand cuts, if you will, the cumulative stressors and strains, the moral injuries that occur that basically cause us to um become less effective and more withdrawn from our roles as as of as helpers uh and as first responders. And so when we talk about burnout uh and moral injury, this is it it's a very challenging um phenomenon that is happening because it's it the way we train the the personal values and beliefs and characteristics that bring us into helping professions can be the very traits that prevent us from getting help when we begin to experience burnout.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's a very good point. Some of the work that I've been involved in with interviewing people who have to deal with very difficult cases have led myself and a colleague to conclude that when you talk to a lot of people, they will say, you know, yeah, I'm experiencing all these things. But when you turn the page to asking them about getting help, seeing someone in terms of their own mental help, they often talk about it in terms of the other. The other I I want those services to be widely available to my colleagues who may need those things, but I'm okay. So can you talk a little bit about the gap between I'm okay and others, right?
Heather Goltz (Guest):Right. Um, you know, interestingly enough, and I don't think that we do this enough, we don't routinely assess helpers, first responders, and so on for burnout. You know, there's a a great tool, Maslac's Burnout Inventory. And the reason that I like this questionnaire, and there are others, but I like this questionnaire because it doesn't just talk about intrapersonal, so interior emotions and feelings and stress and strain. It also goes further and looks at how those stressors or strains and the potential burnout is impacting one's relationships and interactions with others. So for instance, there's a almost a depersonalization that can happen. And, you know, we we may pride ourselves in compartmentalization, which can help us do our job. But when we begin to emotionally withdraw and we begin to lose empathy and sympathy, when we begin to view others as more machine parts or objects, or become more insensitive to other people, that is actually a part of burnout as well. Every bit is if, you know, we're feeling fatigued and we can't seem to rest enough or we're feeling emotionally drained, or those aspects, that depersonalization is actually burnout as well. And that can actually be very dangerous among helping professionals and first responders.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Yeah, and I can imagine where if you're dealing with a professional in one of these professions who is experiencing burnout, that burnout in terms of their behavioral cues, their attitude, can perhaps come across to the member, uh a member of the general public as being uncaring, as being uninterested in their in their professions and things like that, right?
Heather Goltz (Guest):Absolutely. Um you can absolutely arrive at a place where you are so crispy-fried, if you will.
Kevin Buckler (Host):I like that. I'm gonna use that term.
Heather Goltz (Guest):Crispy fine. Okay. That um, you know, you just you're unable to connect in a in a very meaningful way with uh victims or families of victims or loved ones, and and even vice versa. You could be come so um so triggered and so burnt out trying to do the legwork, trying to ask yourself the what ifs and how could this happen, and you know, trying to hold on and pursue a case that you can, and and I think I alluded to this where you're not necessarily able to, you know, emotionally, empathically relate to others, even if you might be on the same team dedicated to the purpose of solving a case. Right.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Well, Heather, I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm sure that the listeners will really enjoy this conversation, so thank you very much.
Heather Goltz (Guest):Thank you.
Kevin Buckler (Host):If you learned something or laughed, even nervously, go ahead and give that like button some love. Believe me, it's a lot easier than my course exams and writing assignments. I am Kevin Buckler, your host, and I hope you return for additional episodes of Crime Time Office Hours, the podcast where we cut through the noise to make crime and justice clear one issue at a time.