Luigi Mangione’s shifting defense strategy. A victim’s lover takes the stand. Plus, Keith Morrison's new podcast.

And this month I'm grabbing a Hugo Spritz with former reality star, Lauren Conrad.

“Here at The Drink, we love learning about someone's journey to the top, and Lauren and I”

we go back to the very beginning of her extraordinary story.

We talk about why she always saw reality TV as temporary for her.

The scrutiny she faced in the public eye, and why she says she'll never watch Laguna Beach again. I hope you'll join us for the drink, listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. I really love the star today app. They care about how I feel.

It's the staff on the app. It's the connections you make. Without good mental and physical help, you have nothing. That tells me how to cook to keep myself healthy. I look at my having a like while I'm not a 7,000 staff today.

The star today meets you where you are, download the star today, wellness app now on your Apple Android device, terms apply, see app for details. Okay, let's jump in. You're listening into the date line story meeting. There's finally been a nuanced.

Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news. Other great footage of the couple, and these lavish parties they attended. The defendant is anxious to talk. Did he poison the Brussels Browns? Welcome to Date Line True Crime Weekly.

I'm Andrea Canning.

It's June 25th and here's what's on our docket.

In San Diego County, California, prosecutors argue a wife's affair drove her husband to hexes and murder. Her lover takes the stand.

“He was messaging Maya that basically his life is screwed up, his world is screwed up,”

he's screwed up, everything is ruined. In Date Line Roundup, former Bardstown Kentucky police officer Nick Houtk enters a plea to a perjury charge, less than a year after his brother Brooks was convicted of killing crystal Rogers. And the notorious missing child case of Aeton Pates gets a ruling from the nation's highest

court. The Supreme Court essentially reversed the reversal. Plus, Keith Morrison is here to talk about his own new podcast series, Five Miles From Home. Compounding issue of what teenagers can sometimes do to each other for no apparent reason.

It was just something I couldn't get out of my mind. But before all that, Luigi Mangione's defense team switched up its strategy and then switched it again. Luigi Mangione recently appeared in a New York City courthouse for what was to be a routine pretrial hearing ahead of his state murder trial.

“Mangione is accused of gunning down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson back in December”

of 2024. It turned out, though, that that routine hearing revealed some major news. The judge overseeing the case announced that Mangione planned to use a psychiatric defense, asserting that he was emotionally disturbed at the time of the shooting. Then, 24 hours later, Mangione's attorneys withdrew the psychiatric defense.

It was a headspinning couple of days and here to help us make sense of it all is NBC News legal analyst and defense attorney Danny Sevalos and Dateline producer Mike Narty. Mike and Danny, thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks, Andrea.

Alright, so Mike, you produced the recent Dateline episode on the case with Lester. Give us a quick reminder about what happened in those early morning hours on December 4th, 2024. United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead outside the Hilton hotel in mid- to town Manhattan.

Well, he was on his way there for the company's annual investors conference. A days-long manhunt came to an end when the manager at a McDonald's in Altuna, Pennsylvania, called authorities to report that some of the customers there thought a man resembling the alleged gunman was eating breakfast. There, police took 28-year-old Luigi Mangione into custody and he was eventually charged

in connection to Brian's murder. Okay, so Mangione has entered a not guilty plea for all the charges against him, including federal stocking charges and state murder charges. Danny, before last week's hearing, we had some hints about where his defense strategy was going.

Yes, we did, and I would say the highlight has been their motion to suppress evidence.

These motions are virtually never granted, and yet they got some items suppressed and kept

out of evidence. Even though they lost on some of their other motions, so their strategy so far appears to have been trying to keep as much evidence out as you can as we approach trial. Yeah, they kind of failed when the judge ruled that a gun found in Mangione's backpack as well as some of his writings could be seen by the jury.

So Mike, take us into the hearing that took place last Wednesday.

He had his head down, he was in handcuffs and as the hearing got underway, the judge overseeing the state case made a stunning announcement. He was unsealing a notice from Mangione's defense team that they would be using the affirmative psychiatric defense and emotional disturbance at the time of the killing. I guess they filed this back in September of 2025, but it had been sealed from the public.

What does it even mean the psychiatric defense in a case like this? This particular psychiatric defense extreme emotional distress or disturbance or EED as I'll call it.

All it would do is lower the level of the crime to first degree manslaughter versus second

degree murder, and that of course would reduce the prison time that he would be exposed to.

“One of the keys to EED is you have to admit that you committed the killing.”

So you would have to admit to the killing and then hope against hope that you can establish this distress and the best you'll get out of it is a reduction in your penalty. What would Mangione's defense team have to prove to be able to prove this? So under the jury instructions, essentially you'd have to prove three things. First he must actually be extremely emotionally disturbed.

It's got to be so extreme that it resulted in a loss of self-control. The second is that there has to be an explanation for this extreme emotional disturbance that is reasonable.

And then third, the defendant has to show that he was under the influence of that extreme

emotional disturbance when he committed the homicide. Not now, not during his perp walk, not in his writings in any manifesto, but at the time of the killing. Okay, so maybe Mike can help us out here.

“Mike, did you find anything in your reporting with Lester that would give us any insight”

into Mangione's state of mind and why he may have been emotionally disturbed at the time of the killing? Most of the people we spoke to. In fact, all of the people we spoke to describe Mangione as a normal young man. And he certainly did not come across as being obsessed with the healthcare industry.

We even looked into this back ailment that he had suffered from.

There was speculation that maybe the injury is what inspired the killing or maybe would

have caused this disturbance, but we found no evidence of that. In fact, Lester spoke with a yoga instructor in Honolulu who had taught yoga classes to Luigi. And he told us that Mangione certainly didn't come across as someone who was in debilitating pain. We also spoke with a professional soccer player who met Mangione at a bar in Bangkok.

And he told us that they did discuss America's healthcare system. But he said Mangione was not particularly angry or resentful. Mike, you reported that there was a time when Mangione was off the map. Friends and family couldn't account for his whereabouts.

“Is there the thought that that could have been where things changed for Luigi Mangione?”

Certainly, certainly. And like you said, we just don't know what he was doing. We don't know what his mental or physical state might have been because he stopped posting online. His family seemed to be out of contact as well because we understand he missed a good

friend's wedding. And we know that his mom filed that missing person's report in November just before the murder. Mike, you read through all the the writings inside his backpack. Right.

What stood out to you? You know, he, he does write directly about the healthcare industry in these writings. In a letter addressed to the feds, he writes, these parasites simply had it coming. The US has the number one most expansive healthcare system in the world. Yet we rank roughly number 42 in life expectancy.

United is the fifth largest company in the US by market cap. And he goes on to say, it has grown and grown, but it has our life expectancy. No. Danny, when it comes to a potential psychiatric defense, how do writings like this fit into that if at all?

These writings are certainly interesting and they could help the defense. But unless it can be shown that it was close to the time of the shooting, it may not be relevant. In fact, more relevant to me is what we mentioned about him going off the grid. Is it so much closer to the time of the shooting?

That's the kind of thing I would think would be even more helpful to the defense. As we mentioned, the defense withdrew this psychiatric defense the next day. What happened? Originally, I suspected that it was possible that Manjioni himself was changing his mind or engaging in less-minute decisions.

this notice to hedge their bets, which is something you do as a defendant.

You want to keep every option open. And then when the court said, well, going forward, we're going to have to release all this information.

“I think what happened was the defense thought it's not worth it because the benefit of this”

extreme emotional disturbance defense, it's really only a reduction in punishment. It's not really a defense. So what is next for Luigi Manjioni's defense? Do we have any idea? Their defense at this point is the same as any other defense.

They're a waiting trial preparing, putting together the evidence they plan to contradict or fight and maybe some of their own evidence.

The emotional disturbance defense technically, it's something the defense could revisit.

But I would be surprised if they did, even though it's not evidence, the mere fact that federal and state prosecutors are now aware that on some level Manjioni was considering admitting to the killing is going to be problematic. It's not something they're going to introduce as evidence, but it's something that certainly galvanizes both the federal and state prosecutors to probably feel convinced they have

the right guy. All right. Thank you, Danny, and Mike both of you for being here and bringing us your unique insight into this latest development. Thank you.

Thank you. Coming up, bombshell testimony from a missing woman's lover. As prosecutors try to prove she was murdered by her husband. Honey, did you invite the Minions over?

“Well, you know how we talked about getting Wi-Fi from Exfinity?”

Yeah. I ordered it this morning was online in minutes, then they showed up. So they just came over to use the Wi-Fi? For what? Get online in minutes with same-day Wi-Fi from Exfinity plus lock in your price for

five years, and see Minions and Monsters only in theaters, Exfinity, imagine that, restrictions apply not available in all areas learn more at xfinity.com/sameday Wi-Fi. Such an ordinary thing, to walk home from high school. Her name was Mithika Stanzo, just 16. We didn't have far to go, seemed perfectly safe until it wasn't what happened to Micky.

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is five miles from home, and all new podcasts from daydly. Listen to all episodes of five miles from home now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Willie guys to here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with the one and only Keith Richards to talk about the Rolling Stones, New Album, Foreign Tongues, and his memories of more than 60 years

with Mick Jagger and the Stones. You can get our conversation now for free, wherever you download your podcasts. Over the last six weeks in San Diego County, California, prosecutors have laid out their case against former Navy optician, Larry Milliette. They say that in 2021, Larry killed his wife Maya and hid her body.

A crime they say he committed after first hiring a spellcaster to put a hex on her.

Prosecutors argue Larry killed his wife because she wanted a divorce and was having an affair with the married co-worker. On Monday, prosecutors called to the stand their most anticipated witness. The man Maya was having the affair with, Jamie Laird. Here to bring us the latest is NBC 7 investigative reporter Alexis Rivas.

Hey Alexis, welcome back to the podcast. Hi, thanks so much for having me. So before we talk about the latest testimony, remind us Alexis what authorities are alleging happened. So for years now, prosecutors have said that Larry Milliette killed his wife Maya five years

ago because she disappeared from their home, right? The last footage of Maya is walking into her house and there's no known video of Maya ever leaving. They say he killed her and then found a way to get rid of her body in a way that no one has ever been able to find.

So Alexis, the prosecution says Maya was in love with her co-worker, a man named Jamie Laird, who has really been at the center of all of this. What do we know about him?

“We didn't know very much, honestly, and that's why everyone was waiting to hear him take”

the stand. The room got hacked, I mean, with a very short amount of time, a lot of people were trying to get in and were turned away at the courtroom doors. Everyone just wanted to hear from him for so long, and now we're learning a lot more about kind of how this affair really began and just how close Maya and Jamie were and how often

they talked up until and including the day she was lasting alive. What did Jamie say about his relationship with Maya? So let's take it back to the beginning, he started working at the same place as Maya

About six months later, he said Maya started texting him and soon after that, this relationship gets physical and it stays a highly physical relationship for about a year. Jamie said that they met up in cars at hotels and very early on, they were caught. They both got called into their boss's office, they both basically agreed that they were going to deny this for a while, they lied to their boss to co-workers.

And this is on a naval base, right?

“I think it's important to note, Maya was his supervisor, supervisor.”

So this is a kind of relationship that could have been problematic for both of them, had it come to light in the office. Alexis, the fact that Maya and Jamie were confiding in each other and this feels like it got pretty deep emotionally as well, why was that important for the prosecution's case? Well they had these kind of codenames for their spouses and they had all this kind of behavior

that they did to try to keep their affairs secret. Part of that, Maya's codename for Larry was V as in V for a Voldemort.

And Jamie also testified that in general he was really worried about Maya, he had never seen

someone so desperate and so controlling and trying to save the marriage, he was referring to Larry, he knew Larry, would also control when Maya could drive. Larry would drive her to work and drive her home. And one thing that was really important is Jamie told jurors that Maya had told him that she wanted to divorce Larry after this trip to Big Bear for her daughter's birthday.

Yes, she had all these plants, she was telling people she wants to have this birthday party and that she wants to follow for divorce. And that trip to Big Bear obviously never happened because Maya disappeared. Jamie also read a letter to the jury that he wrote to Maya. Yes, that was the part that I'd say was probably the visibly hardest part for Jamie to testify

to he struggled reading that letter. This is when Maya got another job at a different office. So he sends this kind of goodbye letter, he calls her beautiful, he's also saying he wants to get this tattoo that she got on her wrist. Maya had got a tattoo of a bracelet, Jamie got her.

Jamie seemed to be very forthcoming in court with a lot of personal information.

“Here's the thing that I think was kind of one of the bigger wow moments of his testimony.”

We had learned from Maya's friend. She said, "Yes, we had the affair, but we ended it months ago." Well, Jamie's testimony contradicted that, it didn't end months before Maya vanished. In fact, they were still seeing each other talking to each other the week Maya vanished. Jamie testified two days before Maya vanished that Larry had called Jamie's wife and told

her about the affair. So Jamie's telling Maya through messages, he's essentially freaking out. That his wife can't find out about this. They're trying to get their story straight. He says they agree basically to kind of give each other some space.

He's going to focus on his baby, Maya's going to focus on a divorce. And then the day Maya's last seen alive, that afternoon, she's texting Jamie and saying, "You know, I brought up divorce with my eldest child, it went pretty well." The defense wanted to use Jamie as possibly what like a red herring in this to create reasonable doubt or an alternate theory.

But before the trial, the judge said that they couldn't suggest that anyone other than Larry could have been responsible for Maya's death. That is tough for the defense than to try to point to her lover as a possible suspect in this. Even ask what his ally was, they couldn't even really go very far in terms of why he deleted

so many messages between him and Maya or why he never replied to Maya the day that she

vanished. The defense, of course, was able to cross-examine Jamie and they asked him about his behavior after Maya disappeared. They were still kind of trying to point the finger at him without crossing the line. Yes, it's such a delicate balance, right?

But they had to show him his interview with police like a dozen times because he couldn't remember certain things. He changed his story so often and the defense argued it. Even the police were pretty aware that this man was lying to them. A lot.

Jamie's ex-wife is also on the witness list. Do you think we will hear from her?

“The prosecution promised the jury we would and you have to think that we will.”

Jamie told friends that his wife, now ex-wife, would kill him if she found out about the affair. Now, you can take that literally or you can take it as people just say things like that, you know, she'll kill me. But, you know, it was brought up in trial.

Some of the last things he said to Maya in general. He's freaking out. You can see Jamie unraveling. Larry calls his wife his wife is crying on the couch.

He was messaging Maya that basically his life is screwed up.

What else can we expect to hear this week?

“I think for the prosecution, they're wrapping up.”

It's week six now. We know we need to hear from the ex-wife and we probably just need to hear from a few more people in Maya's life. And then the big thing is what happened to her is still a mystery, right? So I suspect some of that is still to come in the show.

Thank you so much for joining us this week, Alexis. Thank you. Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup, a major decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the murder case of six-year-old Aton Pates. And we go back to the Crystal Rogers case in Bardstown, Kentucky, where a former police

officer appears in court on a purgeary charge. Plus, a special appearance from my friend Keith Morrison, who has a preview of his all-new podcast, Five Miles From Home. Welcome back.

“Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline Field Producer, Alex Lorey.”

Alex, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me.

First up, we are headed to Bardstown, Kentucky, for the latest in the case of Crystal

Rogers. She is the mother of five, who vanished back in 2015 over the 4th of July weekend. It has been more than a decade, and Alex, there are still new developments happening. It seems all the time. Right, Andrea, as you know, this has been a long road to justice for Crystal's family.

Crystal disappeared from her home almost 11 years ago. Her car was found on the side of the highway, but Crystal hasn't been seen since. Crystal's dad, Tommy Ballard, was murdered a year and a half later in a case that still hasn't been solved. In 2023, Crystal's former boyfriend, Brooks Halk, was arrested for murder, and in 2025,

he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing Crystal. And then earlier this month, Brooks' brother, former Bardstown police officer, Nick Halk, was charged with perjury. Remind us of the details surrounding Nick's perjury charge.

Sure, so Crystal's family has always believed Brooks had helped from his family in Crystal's

appearance, and Brooks's trial prosecutors continually called his brother Nick and their mother Rosemary, undided co-conspirators. Now, prosecutors say Nick made false statements under oath, though there hasn't been any confirmation from the police about what those statements were and how, if at all, they relate to Crystal's case.

Alex last week, Nick appeared in court for his arrangement, and there were some bizarre moments, including Nick coming to court without his lawyer. Here's the judge talking to him about that. So they did go on assigning him a public defender for the hearing. Here's Nick talking to the judge again this time about the charges against him.

The public defender, Alex, entered a not guilty plea on Nick's behalf.

“What did the judge say about Nick's original attorney, the one who wasn't in court?”

The judge said that he needed Nick's attorney to be present going forward, and instructed him to retain an attorney by the next hearing on July 2nd. Crystal's mother, Sherry, she has been such a big part of this case every step of the way, did she have any response to the arrangement? Yes, so according to NBC affiliate, WL EX18, Sherry Ballard was present at the hearing.

She said afterwards that she's been pushing for perjury charges, and is hopeful that the truth will emerge about her daughter's death. Okay, we will keep you posted on that one. Next, we have an update out of Utah. Involving the case of murdered right-wing activist, Charlie Kirk, Charlie was shot and killed

last September while speaking at a debate on the campus of Utah Valley University. The defense team for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk is trying to get the death penalty taken off the table, Alex. So 23-year-old Tyler Robinson is charged with felony, aggravated murder, along with several other crimes connected to the murder, and prosecutors have made it clear that they aim to

seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted. He has yet to enter a plea, but at a hearing earlier this month his defense team asked the judge to remove the possibility of the death penalty because of statements the prosecution made to the media. What were those statements?

The comments centered around a preliminary ballistic report regarding whether or not able it fragments from Kirk's body matched Robinson's rifle. The report was inconclusive in one of the prosecutors on the case spoke to several media outlets about it. That prosecutor Christopher Ballard testified earlier this month that there was a lot of misinformation

out there about the ballistic report, and he was just responding to the media inquiries. But Robinson's defense says the comments violated a pretrial publicity order from the judge, and that potential jurors might have been prejudiced as a result.

That brings us to a pretrial hearing that happened on Monday.

“What did the judge have to say about the defense's death penalty request?”

The judge delayed making a decision and said he's weighing holding the prosecution in contempt for the comments to the media. He delayed the contempt ruling until Friday leaving the death penalty question up in the air. For our final story, we are going to the nation's capital where there's been a major Supreme

Court ruling in the case of Aton Pates. The six-year-old boy who went missing from New York City in 1979. Yeah. Aton Pates disappeared on his way to the bus stop on May 25, 1979.

He was one of the first missing children to appear on milk curtains, and the anniversary

of his disappearance became national missing children's day. So I actually covered this case that went unsolved for decades when there were new developments back in 2012. A man named Pedro Hernandez, who worked at a convenient store near Aton's bus stop, confessed to killing the boy.

Right. So after a mistrial in 2015, Hernandez was eventually convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 25 years to life. But Hernandez has said he was going through a period of mental illness when he confessed to the crime.

“And listeners might remember that last year, Hernandez's conviction was overturned by a federal”

appeals court after his defense argued that the judge in his trial gave a prejudicial answer to a question from jurors about his confession. The case made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justice is issued a ruling on the appeal on Monday, Alex.

What's the news? The Supreme Court essentially reversed the reversal. They said the federal appeals court exceeded its authority and overturning the conviction in state court. So Hernandez, who's now 64 years old, will not get a new trial and will continue to

serve out his sentence in prison. For our final story this week, we are joined by a very special guest, Keith Morrison, to talk about his new podcast series, Five Miles From Home. It is about the disappearance of 16-year-old Michaela Castanzo, a popular high school track star from a small desert town in Nevada.

It has obsession, jealousy, high school drama, and a riveting jailhouse interview. Thank you for coming on to talk about your latest podcast. Thank you for having me on, Andrew. I am already hooked.

“I've listened to the first episode and then part of the second episode and it is as”

always all your podcasts are extremely riveting.

And this one, Keith, you have been following since 2013 when Dateline first covered Michaela's case or Mickey as everyone liked to call her. And that was in the TV episode under the desert sky. Let true you back to this story all these years later. This story is always fascinated me and it's a dark story.

It's Shakespearean. I kept thinking about Shakespeare tragedies as I was working on this story before and it's what drew me back to do the podcast. It's a story where something happened and you're not sure exactly what for a long time and you're not sure who did what and you're not sure who is going to take the blame

for what happened. It's one of those. But even the setting of it is interesting. You paint such a vivid picture of West Wind over Nevada. It has five casinos.

I had to look up the giant grinning cowboy because of the way you described it. It doesn't disappoint when you look at pictures. And then as you head toward the outskirts of town of Wind over, there's just desert for miles. Exactly.

It's an outpost at the edge of Nevada. As casino towns go, it's pretty cool. I liked West Wind over. And the people involved in this particular tale are just lovely people. You know, that made it both harder and more compelling to do.

And you could just tell how much they loved Mickey. Sure. And how special she was. This was a girl who wanted to be a writer. She spent time tutoring.

And she was a runner. She did everything well. And was pretty and was popular in the whole nine yards. But she had a friend who wasn't really a boyfriend. He was a buddy with whom she'd grown up in the same proximity, Cody, and Mickey.

For a minute or two, when they were 12 or 13, they thought, well, we could be boyfriend and girlfriend. But of course, that didn't lie. He went on to become a six foot six dude who planted during the Marines when he got out of high school.

And he fell in love, fell hard for a fellow high school student named Tony. And they were in a thought grade 11, I guess. And by the end of grade 12, he was living with Tony Frodo and her family. And they were planning to get married. And that's when things happened.

We're going to touch on a little more of that. Not too much of a spoiler because this is day line. But sadly, we learn pretty quickly in the podcast that Mickey has been murdered and buried

Her sister Christina told you what it was like hearing the news from a detective that Mickey 's body had been found. Let's take a listen to that. It's hard to hear. We have found a body.

So we called off the search because she's the only one in Elco County that's missing.

“And I guess out of hope, I says, well, can you see her?”

And he says, no, we can only see a small square inch of flesh. I says, well, then you don't know a term. And he says, you're right, Christina, she's the only one missing. So we're pretty sure it's her. You go on this emotional journey, Keith, with the family.

It starts out as every parent's worst nightmare, sorry for the cliche, but it is where you have a high school student or a child. And suddenly they're not responding to calls or texts, no one has seen them. She was last in school. She was an unusual girl who would call the report where she wasn't what she was doing

every 15 minutes.

And she was always in touch with family, who is a very close family.

And when she didn't phone, they knew after a matter of half an hour and an hour. Something bad must have happened. And the whole town was out because she kind of became the, you know, the West Windover sweetheart. And they were just determined to hoping they might find her alive, but suspecting they

wouldn't. And sure enough, they didn't. Yeah, the why is really just hard to fathom because she's 16. She's a good girl. She's trying to make something of herself and someone would kill her at that age.

I've been fascinated in a scary way by these stories over the years. The first one that I encountered was a story. It became a television program. What ran on one of the streaming services a couple of years ago, but we did a piece on a years and years ago, in Victoria, British Columbia, called Under the Bridge.

I saw it. I saw the show. And it was a bunch of teenagers who, for reasons, nobody could fathom, killed one of their classmates. It's a strangest thing.

And I wondered whether this was one of those kind of incidents, but it was a little more than that. It was a little more Shakespearean. It was a little more the personal drama that the personal tragedies of these three people.

Keith, the last episode of the podcast just came out and we want to share a snippet of the finale. You sat down with Cody's then fiancé Tony Frato. Let's take a listen. I was too much in fear.

I was scared, terrified, even if I tried to get away, drove off, he would still come and find us and there would be ten times worse. Why would it kill you?

“The only thing that I can even think that I would be next was because I was a witness.”

That was one of the stranger interviews I've done at a long time. You know, the bars so high I feel like Keith for these podcasts, they're all so good. This one had kind of bugged me for a long time. The compounding issue of what teenagers can sometimes do to each other for no apparent reason.

It was an amazing story to me, subtle in many ways, but it was just something I couldn't

get out of my mind. Keith, thank you for being here. The series is called Five Miles From Home and all episodes are available to binge now wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you, Keith.

Appreciate you, Andrea. And thank you very much for this. That is it for this episode of "Date Line True Crime Weekly," to get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to "Date Line Premium." And coming up this Friday on "Date Line," Lester has a special report on the devastating

Texas floods that rip through Camp Mystic Less Summer, leaving a wake of death and destruction. Lester has interviews with victims, families, and with survivors, including a camp counselor who saved everyone in her cabin. They had said to me, "This is crazy, this is crazy, I don't know what to do."

“I remember thinking in my mind, "You don't know what to do?”

I have 16 little girls behind me, and I'm just as afraid as they are." Watch, after the flood, Friday at 109 Central on "Date Line," on NBC. "Date Line True Crime Weekly," is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, Keanu Reed, and Rebecca Glazer. Our associate producers are "Ellerie Gladstone, Roth, and Arya Young."

Our senior producer is Allison Orr. Veronica Mosaica is our digital producer. Rick Quan is our sound designer, original music by Jesse McGinty. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of "Date Line." Bye, everyone.

I'm Craig Melvich. Cheers, cheers, cheers.

I've always been a glass half-full kind of guy, and now I'm talking to some people who look

at the world that way too.

their stories, their funny, and my candy.

“So I hope you'll join me each week, and who knows?”

You might just come away with your own glass half-full.

Search Glass Half-full with Craig Melvich from today.

On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.