Summary
Craig Berry writes about contested cases in American crime and religion — the Finders, Franklin, Satanic Panic, Son of Sam, the Process Church — with a single working method: separate what the documents establish from what the narrative inflates. He is the author of the MHEES evidence-classification framework used on every article on this site.
Beats
- Contested cases. Investigations where the popular narrative and the documented record have drifted apart, and the gap is itself the story.
- Evidence classification. Applying the MHEES six-axis rating system to claims in active discourse, so that readers can tell P1 primary documents from P6 analytical constructions at a glance.
- Forensic interviewing and false confessions. The Reid Technique, the Cognitive Interview, Strategic Use of Evidence, and the structural interview.
- New religious movements. Process Church, Order of Nine Angles, and the line between heterodox religion and criminal conduct.
Every factual claim on True Crimes Articles carries an MHEES rating. The methodology page documents the framework: MHEES methodology.
Selected investigations
- The Finders: Declassified Documents vs. Internet Mythology
- Was the CIA Connection to the Finders Proven?
- The Process Church of the Final Judgment
- Mary Ann MacLean: The Woman Who Built Best Friends
- The Franklin Case: What the Evidence Actually Shows
- Son of Sam: The Network Evidence
- Satanic Panic: The Documented Ritual Cases
Method
Primary sources first. Declassified documents, court filings, official reports, contemporaneous journalism, and named witnesses before any secondary synthesis. Every claim that carries evidentiary weight gets an MHEES six-axis rating (Provenance, Reliability, Corroboration, Credibility, Inference Distance, Defeasibility). Claims that sit at D3 or D4 inference distance are named as such and are not permitted to travel under the authority of claims that sit at D1.
Counter-arguments are addressed inside the piece, not after publication. When the documented record undercuts a popular narrative, the piece says so. When the documented record undercuts a skeptical narrative, the piece says that too.
Contact
Tips, records, or corrections: contact True Crimes Articles.