Dark Arenas

Have you ever thought about whose job it is to track international fugitives, hunt child abductors, conduct espionage, or pull human remains from concealed mass graves? Everyday thousands of good and decent people work in these Dark Arenas. They’ve chosen professions that grapple with the grotesque, deal with the deviant, and dodge the dangerous.In this audiochuck original series you will hear first-hand accounts of what it's like to investigate the darkest crimes and most violent criminals in society. Host Delia D’Ambra has traveled across the United States to collect one-on-one interviews with crime scene experts, FBI agents, forensic interviewers, medical examiners, DEA agents, a former CIA Director, ATF special agents, and more. Each week she works to understand how these professionals’ jobs affect them, and most importantly, why they keep at itday after day.

Working for the United States Secret Service means you're called to take a bullet if need be...but most people probably don't how much planning goes into ensuring that doesn't happen. On this episode of Dark Arenas, Delia speaks with a retired presidential bodyguard and limo driver who knows first-hand what security from all angles requires. 

When a child disappears, every second counts. Communication between law enforcement agencies, the public and the child's family has to happen. A special agent from the FBI's Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team explains the Dark Arena of trying to find a missing child...and bring them home, either dead or alive.

Recreating a person's identity from nothing but bones is no easy task. In this episode, Delia learns the science and vision behind the work of a forensic sketch artist and sculptor tasked with giving faces and names to the dead, missing and unidentified.

Carry a gun. Kick down a door. Repeat. Sounds like a script ripped right from a television show, but U.S. Marshal Chief Deputy Manny Puri explains that the reality facing fugitive task force teams is darker than anyone can imagine. Marshals aim to shield the public from mayhem by knocking on a criminal's door before he or she can do any more damage to society.

Every day children are abused both physically and sexually. Every day they have to tell someone about what happened to or is still happening to them. So, whose job is it to  interview that child and learn the dark details of their outcry? We're finding out in this episode of Dark Arenas.

Former United States Attorney David DeVillers sits down with Delia to talk about what it takes to go toe-to-toe with organized crime syndicates and terrorist organizations at home and overseas. The dark world of breaking up criminal enterprises takes guts and a knowledge of federal law that many people cannot imagine.

Who is the real Jason Bourne? Is Jack Ryan real? In this episode we sit down with former director of the CIA, Porter Goss, to take a closer look at the darker side of international espionage.

The war on drugs is real and intense every day for agents who work for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. In this episode, Delia speaks with a DEA Special Agent who investigates and attempts to unmask the dark characters pushing poison into, out of and across America.

Most people watch a TV show and think they know what a forensic pathologist does...but they couldn't be more wrong. In this episode, Delia sits down one on one with a forensic pathologist whose job takes him beyond his lab and white coat and to the crime scenes of mass shootings and murder.

In an era where you can order pretty much anything off of the internet, federal ATF agents working to foil bombings and mass shootings have to keep up with the times. In this episode we sit down with special agents to discuss the Dark Arena of bomb making, arson, and explosives.

Delia learns about a valuable tool the ATF uses to track down and combat the illegal firearms market. A special agent and his partner reveal how human intelligence can't compare to canine savvy.

Some federal agents' nine-to-five job is reviewing thousands of images and videos of child sex abuse material. Their meticulous work in this Dark Arena exposes details hidden within the images that help track and catch predators. In this episode, Delia talks one-on-one with the FBI agent whose best tool against child sex predators is the predator.

Dive deep into the Dark Arena of dissecting death. In this episode nationally-consulted forensic anthropologist Dr. Heather Walsh-Haney sits down to talk about the bodies, burials, and bloodshed many people have no idea are happening in their backyards.

Rich Kolko has seen it all. Everything from investigating terrorist attacks, to busting up gang networks, working missing persons cases, to unearthing mountains of financial fraud. In this episode, we're sitting down with the former FBI supervisory special agent to better understand the Dark Arenas hiding in the quiet neighborhoods of America.

Recreating the scene of a homicide takes patience, a skilled mind, and a stomach for the gruesome job. Piecing together the puzzle of how someone's demise occurred is the Dark Arena Delia is taking us into in this episode.

Dark Downeast digs into the decades-old and modern day cases that prickle the history of Vacationland and beyond – the unsolved homicides, undetermined deaths, unexplained disappearances and other dark stories of New England.Investigative journalist and storyteller Kylie Low gets straight to the story with a mix of narrated episodes and documentary style production featuring interviews with surviving family and friends and insight on the investigations from detectives and sources who know these cases best.This is heart-centered, ethical true crime, bringing light to stories you’re not hearing on other podcasts. It is Dark Downeast's mission to honor the legacy of the humans at the heart of each story and bring new attention to the cases still awaiting justice.View source material, photos, and learn more at darkdowneast.com. Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. 

In the early morning hours of December 14th, 2010, Anthony “Tony” Carleo will walk into the Bellagio Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip adorned in a full motorcycle jumpsuit, gloves and helmet and pull a pistol, robbing a high stakes craps table of 1.5 million dollars in casino chips. This is the wild, “only in Vegas” true story of the guy who robbed the house, returned to the house and began living in it, like a king, for free.