[MUSIC]
This is the Le Mundo de Portes lead play by Play Voice, Luis Omar Tapia.
“Wondering who you should root for at FIFA World Cup 2026 and hosted my new favorite footballista”
where I will introduce you to soccer's brightest starts and the classes they are championing. Rosalda made me the player that I am today because that's where home is that's where family is. Get ready for FIFA World Cup 2026. Listen to my new favorite footballista on Amazon Music. Hi, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the NBC News podcast The Drink. And this month I'm having Mojito's with comedian Eric Andre.
Was I a little bit worried he might prank me? Absolutely, but he promised he'd behave. Mostly did. Here at The Drink we are all about the journey and Eric's journey to success is anything but typical. We talk about his childhood, his brief run in music and the decade he spent hustling in New York City before his hit TV show changed everything. It's a conversation peppered with humor but also a real look at the path behind his larger than
life persona. We hope you'll join us for the drink, listen and follow wherever you get your podcast. Hey, good morning. It's the start of another workday for the date line team. They present pretty hard in this interrogation. Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news.
And there's always been a question of whether she would get some sort of new deals.
It's a super high profile keys. I hope her gets involved. Welcome to Date Line True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's July 9th and here's what's on our docket. In Pennsylvania, prosecutors connect a woman accused of murdering her parents to a cult-like group called "The Zizians." They see themselves as people who can essentially save the world. In Date Line Roundup, a judge puts the attorneys on both sides of the Karen Reed
wrongful death suit on blast. And the US Coast Guard releases dramatic new video from its investigation into a woman who went missing in the Bahamas. Plus NBC News chief consumer investigative correspondent Vicky Wynn will be here to tell us about AI-powered scams on social media
“and how to avoid becoming the next victim. In this era, remember that seeing is no longer believing.”
But before all that, we're heading back to San Diego County, where we're on verdict watch at the murder trial of Navy Optician Larry Milliette. For seven weeks, jurors at the San Diego County Courthouse have listened to sensational testimony about infidelity, spellcasters, and poison. Prosecutors have called on 66 witnesses to build their case against Larry Milliette. A man they say was so consumed by his wife Maya's desire to end their
marriage that he murdered her and then dumped her body, somewhere it's never been found.
From day one of the trial, the defense is pointed to the lack of physical evidence that a murder even took place. But when it came time to present their case, the defense called just three witnesses, offering their own, surprising theory about what could have happened to Maya the night she disappeared. Then on Wednesday, the jury finally got the case and started deliberating. Here to take us inside the final days of the trial is NBC7 investigative reporter Alexis Revis,
welcome back Alexis. Hi Andrea, always great to be here. Yes, we love having you on the podcast. I mean, it's almost like this trial felt like it just went on and on and on and on. It's been a long trial. I will say we were all gearing up for a three month long trial and we're shocked, watching the defense sum up their entire case in three hours. Who did they call as witnesses to make their case? So they just called three witnesses. They started with two K9 officers. They said
“that their dog didn't detect Maya's body inside of the military house. And I think that really”
underscores a major point for this defense. There's no crime scene. No, there is no blood's better nothing. No proof that homicide even happened. The defense did not stop at planting seeds of
reasonable doubt. Their third witness was a private investigator who came up with a theory about where
Maya may have gone that night. Tell us about that. This guy is really interesting. He's considered a pretty top-notch private investigator here in our legal community. And his main point was to refute one of the biggest, maybe more incriminating pieces of evidence from the prosecution that hey, the last video we have of Maya alive, she's walking into her house. And none of these surveillance cameras from any of her neighbors ever got her leaving her house. Well, he finds a way to essentially
get in and out of the house without being caught on any of the cameras. He suggested for that to happen. You could pop over the fence and there's a drainage ditch. That ditch runs kind of right behind their backyard all the way to a hiking trail. It's pretty popular here. And that trail also
Leads into kind of a neighboring suburb.
wanted people to really believe that that's what happened. That's different, you know, it's a reasonable doubtcase. It just needs just enough. Yeah, absolutely. He's not trying to prove, you know, or say what happened. He's just trying to say, here's another possibility. Alexis, how did the prosecution handle this private investigator on cross examination? Well, he had to speak about how he
“never tried doing this at night. And it would have had to happen at night. I think that stuck in a”
lot of people's minds, at least in the gallery. I overheard Maya's family talking about that same thing. When he had his chance to do this, it wasn't until a couple years after Maya had initially disappeared. So there might have been some changes. There could have been some new trees, some new things, some new angles on these cameras, and that just wasn't true the night. Maya was lost scene. Larry, no surprise, decided not to testify. Well, I guess in this case, maybe
maybe I could backtrack that since he does talk a lot and he did a lot of interviews with you, including a phone call, you got during the trial. So normally I would say murder defendants don't testify. It's a surprise if they do, but maybe not in this case. You're not, and don't really I would agree with you. And yeah, in this case I have to say I was surprised. And he's been saying for years, but especially in just like the weeks before the trial, how much he was looking for
at the telling his side of the story. You know, he's not in his own words. He was not going to take the stand. I could tell you people gasped. Wow. In the courthouse when that happened. Yeah. Well, before they got to closings, the attorneys had a sidebar with the judge. This sidebar seemed
“like it's going to be important in this final stage of the trial. They argued about the charges,”
the jury should consider on the verdict form. What charges are we talking about? From the get go,
prosecutors have wanted first degree murder. But before the jury got their instructions, we found out
from the judge, they're going to include everything from first degree murder, second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter to involuntary manslaughter. That is a huge array of selections. I mean, involuntary manslaughter is only two years in a state prison. He's already got more time served than that. So that's definitely a victory for the defense closing arguments began on Tuesday. What was the atmosphere like in court? You know, this has been a very emotional trial for a lot of people.
Yeah. I mean, we had hundreds of people out here that hiked trails for months looking for my as body. So there's a lot of people that were just heavily invested in this case. And we expected a lot of them to turn out they did. The entire left side of the courtroom was the color green, which is Maya's favorite color. So there's no mistake in the amount of support that we saw in the courtroom there. And it got a little emotional. There were definitely times that even prosecutor
Christie bulls was like gulping. You know, it's hard to know if it's a motion there, but she covered her voice. Maya's family and friends started crying as well. And it was clear by the end of the day, even though Larry didn't cry, he asked for a box of tissues. And when he stood up, his face was red. Wow. And he did not nod at his family like he usually does. Wow. And in the prosecutor, Christie bulls really sort of went for those heartstrings talking about Maya as a mom missing
her kids birthdays. That can really weigh on a juror when they're faced with something like that. Yeah, that was a huge part of the closing that Maya was human. She talked about the fact that yeah, we know she lied, right? She had this affair. She was a flawed person, but she was a human being, a human that sadly is probably no longer alive. And they really wanted to remind the story that
“she was a mom. And that's so important to this case, not just because of, you know, maybe her character”
and wanting that to carry some weight in deliberations. But because again, there's no body.
We have to really make it clear that this is someone who never, ever, ever would want to leave
her children. And in their words, it was unfathomable to think that she would. Yeah. And also the prosecutor reminded jerseys about Maya's own words that she wrote in her journal. She was afraid of Larry. She told her her therapist. She was afraid of Larry and others. And that's really important. Yeah, as she said, there's a theme here of this control and this fear of violence regarding Larry. Yeah, and as outlandish as the spellcasters, you know, Larry trying to cast spells on Maya seems,
the prosecution said there was something deeper to it. And it was part of that coercive control you're talking about of Maya. And it gave us a really rare look at something. The inner workings of his mind. He's saying, you know, and all of these vulnerable moments exactly what he wants. That he wants her to be submissive, that he wants Maya to obey, that he wants Maya to stay in a bed
and never leave a bed. It got very dark. And it got in, they would argue, state of my
evidence that he was willing to pay a stranger to hurt his wife. And arguably, so the biggest hurdle for the prosecution is this lack of physical evidence. But the prosecutor pushed back on that and said, and basically it was, you know, use your common sense. She really wanted the sure to remember. They don't need a body and they don't need to know how. They just need to believe Larry did it.
The defense went next with their closings.
put Larry away. Yeah, she said you basically only heard all of this evidence within a framework where
“Larry is a murderer. If you were to move that framework, and you just take a look at a man who was”
as heartbroken because his wife is having an affair. He suspects that and she's telling him she's not. And she even went in to say, you're not going to like me saying this, but Larry was a abuse, too. She basically is arguing Larry was gaslit by Maya who was telling him she wasn't having an affair when he was. Maya was kind of making him crazy. And if you think about that and the shame that a company's that, all of his actions could easily be explained by all of these other things
going on in his life. Yeah, the defense said there's no playbook for heartbreak. The case now is in the hands of the jurors. This is such a hard jury to read. You know, they don't react very often. They haven't for the last two months, but we know that they get along. I mean, one of the days they asked if they could have permission to play tennis together. So this is a group of jurors? Yeah, what? Yeah, the judge said sure as long as you don't talk about the case. Okay. So it's San Diego.
Yes, so we really just, yeah, we'll have to wait and see. Thank you Alexis. We will wait and see what the jury decides. Thank you for having me. Coming up, a double murder in Pennsylvania with
“possible ties to a cult-like group of AI-obsessed vegans. Honey, did you invite the minions over?”
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xfinity.com/sameday Wi-Fi. Hey guys, Willie guys, Teer, reminding you to check out the Sunday sit-down podcast on this week's episode. I get together with Tony and Grammy winner and Academy Award nominee Leslie Odom Jr. as he returns to the role that made him famous as Aaron Burr in Hamilton 10 years after the original run. You can get our conversation now for free,
“wherever you download your podcasts. Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school.”
My name was Mickey Castanzo, just 16. She didn't have far to go, seemed perfectly safe until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey? 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. On New Year's Eve, 2022, 69-year-old Rita and 71-year-old Richard Psycho were
fatally shot in their bedroom in a wealthy suburb of Philadelphia. Now, three years later,
prosecutors have finally charged someone with their murders. They're 33-year-old daughter.
Today, Michelle Zico, who has been linked with a cult-like group, was officially charged with killing her parents inside their home. At a recent press conference, prosecutors said they believe she didn't work alone and raised questions about her ties to a group known as the Zizians, who had been connected to several other violent deaths across the country. NBC News investigative reporter Rich Shapiro has been trying to piece it all together,
and is here today to bring us the latest. Rich, thanks for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Okay, so Rich, give us some background on the Zico family to start. Sure thing. They lived in a nice home about 30 miles west of Philly in a town called Chester Heights. Rita and Richard adopted Michelle as a baby, and Michelle was a bright and high-achieving student in college, but Michelle had been a strange for her parents leaving up to their death.
And on the day they were killed, which was Michelle's 30th birthday, Rita texted her daughter,
hoping to repair the rift between them. That message was never answered. What do prosecutors say
happened to Rita and Richard? The couple was found shot to death in an upstairs bedroom on January 2nd, 2023. But police think they were actually killed a few days before on New Year's Eve. An autopsy report revealed that Rita had a gunshot wound in the back of her head, and Richard had been shot in his temple. According to investigators, there were two nine millimeter shell casings left behind at the scene.
So where did they go from there? And what made them start to suspect that the Zico's own daughter might have been involved in this? Yeah, they tracked down surveillance footage from the night of the
Murder, and in it you can hear someone say mom, according to investigators.
only daughter. Investigators went to visit Michelle at her home in northern Vermont.
“She confirmed to them that she owned a nine millimeter gun that type used for the murders,”
and investigators later linked her to the purchase of ammunition that matched the casings found at the murder scene. Michelle has denied any involvement in the crime. Did she provide a solid alibi to investigators as to where she'd been on the day of the murders? Michelle told investigators she was in Vermont on the day her parents were killed, and that she hadn't spoken to them since January 2022. Okay, so they went to interview Michelle again about a week after this.
And this time she's at a Pennsylvania hotel where she was staying for her parents funeral,
and it sounds like a wild interaction took place, Rich. Yes, it was a strange sequence of events. So police arrived with a search warrant and found her with two other people at the hotel.
“The investigators took her to their state police barracks for questioning, but she refused to”
cooperate and left. The police had seized her car, so they told her to wait in the lobby of the police barracks so they could return the vehicle to her. But according to the affidavit, she just fled, leaving behind her car and get this $40,000 in cash that was inside of it. That is a lot of money. That was January 2023. Michelle, as you said, fled and was missing for over two years, police had no idea where she was until February of 2025. That's correct.
And Michelle surfaced in rural Maryland in 2025 after a man called local police to say three people were on his property without his permission. Police arrived to find Michelle and two other people. They were arrested on trespassing and weapons charges, pleaded not guilty and have been in custody in Maryland since then. Why are we just seeing murder charges now in connection to her parent's deaths? So at a press conference, the prosecutor, Delaware County District Attorney
Tanner Rouse said that it took time together evidence and build a case. He talked about digital clues investigators had peace together, including some text messages, Michelle allegedly sent after the killings. He also referenced a note, investigators say she wrote on her phone, listing all the ways they quote, "Eft up the murder." This included, not getting rid of the showcases that were found to be seen. This included, not getting rid of the ammunition to play the
recovery from her from on home and match the showcases found to be seen. It goes on and on and on. Something else the DA said, Rich, in his presser, that he does not believe Michelle acted alone. That's right. He said that a car can be seen on surveillance camera footage arriving at her parent's home on the day of the murders. And that two people got out of the car and entered the house. Prosecutors believe one of the individuals was Michelle, but couldn't clearly identify
either person solely from that footage. Although prosecutors have not identified this possible co-conspirator at the press conference, the DA did mention a group that Michelle's ICO has ties to,
called the "Zizians." And in fact, this isn't the first time we've talked about this group
on the podcast. Who are these "Zizians"? The "Zizians" have been described by various news outlets and prosecutors as a cult-like group headed by someone named Jack LaSoda, who identifies as a woman and calls herself "Ziz." Now the group originated in Berkeley, California. Its members are very high IQ individuals, most of whom are vegans, who share an obsession about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Many of the members are trans women. And they see themselves as people
who can essentially save the world. Some of them have lived off the grid in California and elsewhere. Rich Prosecutors say Michelle had ties to the "Zizians," but is there anything else connecting the "Zizians" to the "Zikos" deaths? So the Delaware County DA said in his press conference that Michelle was in contact with a member of the "Zizians" both right before and after her parents
“murders on New Year's Eve 2022. But that's not all. Remember there were two other people in”
the Pennsylvania hotel when police went to talk to Michelle about the murders. One of them was "Ziz," the leader of the "Zizians." That doesn't mean "Ziz" had anything to do with the "Zikos" murders,
It does suggest Michelle was very close to the group.
bought the guns used by two other "Zizians" in a shootout with Border Patrol agents in Vermont
“in January 2025. In that case, Agent David Mailing was killed during the shootout along with one of the”
"Zizians." The surviving "Zizian" is facing two federal weapons charges. And it should be clear that Michelle has not been charged in connection to that case. And there's one more case out of California that has been connected to the "Zizians." Rich, what's that one all about? Yeah, and this one
is also pretty wild and ultimately tragic. In 2022, members of the group were accused of assaulting
an elderly man whose name is Curtis Lind. He owned the property where Ziz was living at the time and prosecutors alleged group members attacked him with a samurai sword and actually impaled him. He survived that attack, but lost an eye. Now the alleged attackers were set to go to trial in the spring of 2025. But in January of that year, Curtis Lind was fatally stabbed. Police arrested a group
“member named Maximilian Snyder and charged him with murder. Snyder pleaded not guilty to the murder”
charge and is awaiting trial. Is there any sense by law enforcement or prosecutors that these alleged murders have anything to do with the Zizians ideology if they're trying to stop
or save the world from artificial intelligence? Yeah, that's a tough one. When it comes to the
murders of Michelle's parents, prosecutors alleged at something to do with the fraught family dynamic between Michelle and her parents. When it comes to the other deaths, nobody is saying they're a part of any program by the Zizians to kill anyone. What is next for the Zizians and also for Michelle's ICO? Michelle is still in jail in Maryland awaiting trial and trespassing and weapons charges as his Ziz, the group leader who was arrested with her. Michelle has still yet to be
“reigned on the murder charges and it sounds like the Delaware County DA is continuing to work on”
identifying the other person they think was involved in her parents' deaths and whether or not that person is a Zizian remains to be seen. Rich, good job entangling. All of this for us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Up next, it's time for Date Line Roundup. We're inside the courtroom for an emergency hearing in the Karen Reed wrongful death suit and we've got the latest on the trial of the Colorado Man accused of murdering his wife with animal
tranquilizers. Plus, AI-powered scams are flooding social media. Vicky Wind shares how to protect yourself and your wallet. July means your halfway through the year, but there's still time to reach your 2026 wellness goals with half off and annual subscription to the start today app. Hi, everyone. I'm Joy Bauer, the today shows nutrition expert and is part of the start today family. We offer easy to follow meal and fitness plans and we support you with simple, realistic
tools that keep you inspired to reach your goals. Go to today.com/start and download now
because it's never too late to start today. Subscription automatically renews each year at 6599
plus taxes and fees until canceled. Offerents July 31, 2026, prices subject to change. Visit today.com/start for full offer terms and details Welcome back. Joining me for this week's roundup is date line supervising digital producer Veronica Mosaica. Hey Veronica, thanks for being here. So we are starting off in Massachusetts with an update in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against Karen Reed. As our listeners know Reed was acquitted last summer for the murder of her
police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe. Not long after that, O'Keefe's family filed that lawsuit against her, which she is fighting. Here is the big development. The Plymouth Superior Court Judge presiding over the case recently ordered an emergency hearing. Veronica, tell us what is this emergency hearing about? So last Wednesday, Judge Mark Gilday demanded attorneys in the case for both the state and the defense gathered for an in-person hearing. 18 attorneys in total were present,
including Reed's celebrity defense attorney Alan Jackson, who flew in from California to be there. Karen Reed was also there and the judge made it clear that this was no ordinary hearing setting a very serious tone right off the bat. I find the quiet salinity of the courtroom is a good reminder of the dignity by which courts are supposed to function. The judge went on to say that someone had leaked, quote, sensitive and private medical information from confidential
Court filings to a third party, which had then been posted on social media.
what was leaked? So the judge did not share details, but did good clues as to when the information
was leaked, and it lines up with a deposition. Former Massachusetts state trooper Michael Proctor had been scheduled to give in early June, but Proctor requested to delay it. Did any of the attorneys say that they had leaked the information? Did they come forward? No, they all denied being involved, but in this emergency hearing the judge warned them. Do not succumb to the attraction of seeking to influence this case through social media. Be what a trial lawyer should be.
“One that tries their case in the courtroom. Did the attorneys have anything to say for themselves?”
They didn't really get a chance to say anything before any of the attorneys could ask any questions or make any statements. The judge immediately filed out of the courtroom when he was done speaking, and Alan Jackson asked the court clerk if he could talk to the judge in chambers and was then denied. Wow. Okay. We'll see what happens there. Next up, there was some news in a case that took me to the Bahamas earlier this year. The disappearance of a Michigan woman by the name of Lynette
Hooker. Her husband Brian told authorities back in April that she fell off a dinghy they were using to get back to their sailboat. And apparently it was rough waters that night in the abococie. As we've talked about before, Lynette's family has raised questions about Brian's story. He has
denied having anything to do with Lynette's disappearance. She's never been found, but there is an
ongoing US Coast Guard investigation into what might have happened to her. So Veronica, what did we learn this week? So this week, the US Coast Guard released video of the moment their team seized the couple's 45 foot-long sailboat called The Soulmate. This happened in the water's off of Florida's East Coast a month after Lynette vanished. As The Soulmate was making its way back to the US. The video is pretty dramatic and you can hear the Coast Guard's sirens blaring as
“they approached the soulmate. And they find two men on board. How many people on board?”
Okay, any weapons on board? Okay, do not reach to them. You see a Coast Guard officer into the boat with what looks like a semi-automatic rightful. So right now the boat's been seized. Okay, so who were they? They were boat movers who told the Coast Guard that they were hired by Brian Hooker to sail the boat from the Bahamas to Fernadina Beach in Florida. We know that Brian returned to the United States a little over a week after Lynette went missing. That's
what his attorney told us. Remind us where things stand right now in the investigation into her disappearance. Veronica, I know the Coast Guard is not saying a whole lot but we are getting some hints here and there. Right. So the Coast Guard announced that their search for Lynette in the Bahamas had concluded their law enforcement arm, the Coast Guard investigative services, is continuing their
investigation into what happened to her. Finally Veronica, we've got a scheduling update for very
more few, the Colorado dad who has been charged with murdering his wife Suzanne. Prosecutors say he used animal tranquilizers to kill her. Before we get to the latest, remind us about this complicated case. Sure, so on Mother's Day 2020, 49-year-old Suzanne Murphy went missing from her Colorado home. A year later, her husband Barry was charged with her murder, even though her body had not been found. Barry maintained his innocence and just days before his murder trial was scheduled to begin,
the charges against him were dropped. Fast forward to 2023, Suzanne's remains were found and an autopsy revealed that she had animal tranquilizers in her system. According to his indictment, Barry Murphy was the only private citizen in that county in Colorado to have access to those drugs. He was charged again with her murder, pleaded not guilty and has been out on bail awaiting trial. And that trial was expected to get underway this October, but a recent motion by the defense
shook that up. Yeah, it did. The defense requested a continuance, essentially a delay in the schedule trial date due to what they said was "a mountain of discovery" that they are still sifting through. Apparently, they're going through over 40 hours of video evidence ranging from body camera footage to interviews Barry gave in the early days of the investigation. Suzanne's family said that they objected to any further delays. It has been six years since Suzanne
“disappeared. And remember, Suzanne and Barry's two daughters stand behind their father, who they believe”
is innocent. So everyone was back in court Monday, did the judge make her ruling on this continuance request? Yes, so the judge apologized to Suzanne's family, but did grant the delay.
The new trial date is now July 19, 2027, and said we can expect the trial to ...
All right, thank you for these updates, Veronica. Of course, thanks for having me.
“You may have spent the July 4th weekend scrolling through social media looking for”
summer sales and deals, and using social media to shop actually has a name. It's called
social commerce, and it has become a multi-billion dollar business in recent years.
It's also become a prime stocking ground for scammers. According to a new gallop survey about 15 million Americans were scammed out of money last year, and 12% of those scams involved AI from fake online stores to fake social media profiles, artificial intelligence is making scams more sophisticated and harder to spot than ever. But it's not just consumers who can end up as victims. My next guest, NBC News chief consumer investigative correspondent Vicki
Wynn, is here to tell us the story of a deep fake that was so convincing, a luxury watch dealer ended up behind bars. It's like a fever dream to be honest with you. I was like, what the hell is going on? Wow, Vicki, welcome to the show. It sounds fascinating. It's okay to be with Andrea. You too. And let's start with this case. Tell us what happened. This is a bonkers case earlier this year, 25-year-old Tyler McCorsky, who millions of people actually know online as vukum. He's a
luxury watch dealer. He was on his way to the airport for a family vacation, her first trip ever to the Bahamas, when right as he was boarding police arrested him on a felony warrant out of Florida. According to court documents, a 65-year-old man believed that he had purchased a $6,000
luxury watch from Tyler through Facebook. He wired the money, but that watch never arrived.
So investigators initially believed Tyler was responsible, even though Tyler says he's actually
“never even sold watches through Facebook. So how did they figure out that they had the wrong person?”
So Tyler spent three days in jail while investigators continued looking into this case, and he told me that once officers explained why he was being arrested, he immediately started putting the pieces together. I was like, that was probably one of the scamming accounts using my name. Investigators eventually discovered someone else had created fake social media accounts using Tyler's name, his photos, his videos. They were basically impersonating him and scamming buyers.
So authorities finally figured out it wasn't Tyler who was the scammer. He himself was actually a victim of an elaborate identity theft scheme, and that warrant was vacated and the charges were dropped. Well, I'm very happy for Tyler that they figured this out, but he told you that this was not an isolated incident that he's been dealing with fake accounts for a while now. Absolutely Andrea. He says that scammers have been impersonating him for years,
and he said that Facebook was one of the biggest problem platforms for him with fake accounts using his name and videos to target buyers. He says that he is constantly reporting those accounts. What is Facebook doing to prevent this from happening? Yeah, when we started looking into this, we reached out to Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook. They told us they have continued to invest in technology that is aimed at preventing situations like this from happening,
but Tyler told us it really just feels like a game of whack-a-mole because new fake accounts keep appearing. Yeah. And as technology and AI continues to advance, you'd have to think that these scams are going to be harder and harder to detect. I mean, with all the tools that they have to make them more convincing. Absolutely. AI now can clone voices. It can generate very convincing messages.
It can create fake customer conversations and even produce videos that look legitimate and authentic. What are some warning signs that consumers should look out for before sending money online? First thing is just to slow down, take a bit pause, really investigate that account because scammers are relying on you making a rash decision. You know, it's a time-limited offer. This sale is going to disappear. So you've got to just act now. So don't fall for that fake
urgency that they're creating. Try to look for the verified social media account.
Never click on links that are sent to you in a message. Look for the official website. And if you're
not sure, maybe it's a retailer you haven't dealt with before. Enter the name of that retailer into a Google search and add the word scam and see what kind of articles and comments come up. And for expensive purchases, you want to ask for additional verification like a live video call
“in this era Andrea. Remember that seeing is no longer believing. I think it's so”
important. We just have to be extra cautious, extra skeptical because AI content is so convincing these days.
Vicki, you always have the best advice.
that we're now dealing with because it's always something, right? It's always something
“unfortunately, but that's what we're here for Andrea. Thank you. Thank you.”
That's it for this episode of Date Line True Crime Weekly. To get add-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Date Line Premium. Coming up this Friday, Blaine's got an all-new
“episode about a woman who vanished from her Kentucky home, but not before leaving behind clues that”
ultimately led investigators to her killer. "You're a me! Yes, you're a monster!"
Watch the bluegrass mystery this Friday at 109 Central. Thanks for listening.
“Date Line True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Keanu Reeve.”
Our associate producers are Eleary Gladstone Krawth and Arya Young. Our senior producer is Liz Brown Kuroloff. Production and fact-checking help by Yana Johnson, Veronica Mosaica is our digital producer, Rick Juan is our sound designer, original music by Jessie McGinty. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Date Line.
I'm Craig Melve. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half-volt kind of guy. And now,
I'm talking to some people who look at the world that we too. So really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their trials, challenges, 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-volt. Search Glass Half-volt with Craig Melve from today. On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
