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© 2025 Behind the Investigation with Atlanta News First
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Atlanta News First has the largest team of investigative reporters in the city. Now, in this series of podcasts, we take you behind the scenes of our most recent investigations.
128 Episodes
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The state’s highest court will soon decide whether a man convicted of killing his infant son more than 20 years ago will get a new trial.The case involves the controversial medical diagnosis, shaken baby syndrome. In 2003, a Gwinnett County jury convicted Danyel Smith of murdering his two-month-old son, Chandler. The state’s medical examiner ruled the boy’s death a homicide, caused by blunt force trauma. Prosecutors told the jury it was a “shaken baby” case.In April 2024, Smith pleaded ...
Loris Sinanian is a deacon at St. Francis of Assisi’s in north Georgia’s town of Blairsville. At age 93, he still leads mass, but these days, he needs his faith more than ever.A few months ago, Sinanian lost his wife, Peggy. Just before that, he lost his life savings to an internet scam.“Somehow, they got into my computer,” Sinanian said. “When they got into my computer, they also got into my bank account.”In October 2023, Sinanian said he he received a call from a man who claimed to be “an o...
When Patricia Miele’s family moved her into Greenwood Place Assisted Living and Memory Care in Marietta this past October, they trusted the 89-year-old was in good hands, adding the facility came highly recommended.Miele moved from Connecticut to Georgia years ago to be closer to her family and two grandchildren. The former schoolteacher and devout Catholic lived by her routines, which involved prayer and meals. She didn’t even have a television in her room.“Pat was a voracious reader a...
Eminent domain, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is defined as the right of a government or its agent to appropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation. In Georgia, the process starts by first condemning the site.Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/12/04/railroaded-georgia-family-farm-fights-land-seizure-claims-eminent-domain-abuse/
For the past 30 years, Georgia State University has run a program for experienced teachers to learn a curriculum called Reading Recovery, which is intended to help children learn how to read.Reading Recovery is one-on-one instruction in the classroom for the lowest performing students in first grade struggling to read. School districts in Georgia and across the country used its teaching methods for decades.Once hailed as one of the most effective intervention models, a study published in the ...
One of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers claims it was tricked into using a group of chemicals it did not know was harmful to people and the environment.The allegations are part of a pending lawsuit filed by Mohawk Industries, based in Dalton, Georgia, against 3M and other chemical manufacturers.The lawsuit claims the chemical companies “concealed and misrepresented material information regarding the environmental and health risks of PFAS chemicals” when it sold “treatment products” to...
With a single sentence, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has ended a nationwide program that had seized untold millions in cash from airline passengers without arrests.“I am directing that the DEA suspend conducting consensual encounters,” wrote Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a Nov. 12, 2024, directive to the Drug Enforcement Administration.The directive was an immediate response to a report from the Justice Department Inspector General that was set in motion by Atlanta News First...
A metro Atlanta daycare was behind on her bills due to delays in payments from Georgia agencies; insulin deserts are plaguing Georgia communities; and an Atlanta Falcons superfan was arrested after an Atlanta News First investigation.These are some of our award-winning team of journalists' most popular reports from 2024.
A fake landlord tries to evict an Atlanta family from their home; an Atlanta couple is furious with Amazon over a rushed delivery that caused thousands of dollars in damages to their home; scammers are using AI-generated images of military personnel to them into their romance scams; and a Georgia town is accused of using their police department to ticket drivers for the city's profits. Relive all of these riveting reports from 2024 from the award-winning team of Atlanta News First ...
Atlanta's top consumer reporter Harry Samler has been helping our community's residents solve their problems for more than 20 years. In this year-end special, he recaps some of his top reports from 2024, including a metro Atlanta daycare owner almost having to close because of past due payments from the government; an unlicensed contractor in over his head; a $300,000 water bill; mystery parking violations; how a man wound up with TWO car payments; and an oversized tax bill.
Zenobia Willis was on the verge of bankruptcy.Willis is a small business owner who runs a transport service for disabled adults, seniors and dialysis patients. She said the state agency she works with, the Northeast Georgia Regional Commission (NEGRC), owed her $61,000. Willis said the state-funded agency had not paid her since July.“There is no reason why it should take three months to get paid,” Willis said. “You cannot run a business, especially a transportation business, without money.”NE...
Daydrianna Hefner is a Cherokee County, Georgia, mother of two who had a history of substance abuse, evident by a string of mugshots from years ago.Hefner’s addiction led to prison and intervention from the Georgia Department of Human Services Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS), which placed her two kids in foster care in October 2021.While behind bars, Hefner decided to get sober. “I needed to get arrested to have that long clear frame of mind,” she said, and today cites her sob...
Since state lawmakers approved a measure allowing cities to install school zone speed protection cameras about five years ago, the number of cameras have exploded, from 39 permits for cameras approved in 2019 to 290 last year. Public records uncovered by Atlanta News First Investigates reveal the cameras have generated more than $112 million in revenue for Georgia municipalities.Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/11/07/atlanta-drivers-getting-refunds-following-tra...
Thieves are targeting airport parking lots, stealing mostly high-end sports cars and pick-up trucks, some of which are later used in other crimes.Car thefts from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport have more than tripled since last year, according to statistics released by the Atlanta Police Department. Through October 2024, 301 cars were stolen, compared with 95 for all of last year.“You see so many really nice cars at the airport, people just don’t park there thinking that thei...
One of the most recognizable Atlanta Falcons superfans was arrested during the Falcons’ game Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium only hours after interviewing with Atlanta News First Investigates denying allegations she misused any money NFL fans gave to her for tailgates and events.Carolyn Freeman, who calls herself the “Atlanta Falcons BirdLady,” was arrested on one felony count of theft by deception.The arrest warrant, issued on Oct. 30, 2024, states that Freeman obtained $14,000 dollars to or...
When Bill Haynes studied music in college, he told his mother he didn’t see himself as a teacher. After volunteering just one day at a Kentucky elementary school, he changed his mind.Haynes taught music in public schools for more than 30 years, the majority of that time in Georgia and at Atlanta’s E. Rivers Elementary.Haynes’ life full of music came to sudden stop eight days before Christmas 2016 when police found him dead inside a Sandy Springs storage facility. He was 53.Police say Justin P...
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich held two north Georgia townhalls recently discuss the impact of PFAS - also known as “forever chemicals” - in the state’s drinking water supplies.A continuing series of Atlanta News First investigations has reported on the levels of the chemicals in several north Georgia drinking water supplies, including Rome and Calhoun.Read the full story here: https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/09/20/erin-brockovich-holding-georgia-townhalls-contaminated-drinking-...
Two former South Georgia police officers claim they were pressured to write traffic citations to generate revenue to bolster their city’s budgets.John Masters and Zack Watson, who worked for the Poulan, Georgia, police department about two years ago, said they felt compelled to speak out after Atlanta News First Investigates published a series of investigations the past year which uncovered multiple South Georgia cities relying on significant portions of their municipal budgets from fines and...
A South Georgia city has lost its ability to write speeding tickets for nearly six months after a state investigation uncovered it altered tickets to hide how much the city collected from citations.According to a letter by the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety (DPS), the agency suspended the speed detection device permits for the city of Lenox for 180 days this past July. The state’s investigation found the city “consistently altered” tickets that “had the effect of excl...
FBI Atlanta is seeing a substantial increase in computer cookie thefts. Atlanta News First Investigates talks with Joe Zadik, FBI supervisory special agent, on how you can take more steps to protect your online personal information from thieves.
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