0713 | Houston

February 17, 2026·46 min·4 clips

Serial killer Israel Keys explains exactly how to use fire to cover up murder.

Houston sits under suspicion. The host returns to Jordan's theory about Nick Simon, then slows down and looks at the police work around it. He does not force the case. A fired Houston Police Department sergeant, seven punished colleagues, and an internal investigation into weak homicide follow-up set the scene. The field notes do a lot of work here. Detectives did more fieldwork, but some notes went in late and some never went in at all. Then the scale gets harder to ignore. From October 2014 through 2024, another investigation found 264,000 cases suspended under an SL code tied to staffing shortages. The detail feels especially bad because the code had officially been retired in 2021, yet the department was still using it as late as February 2024. The host pulls back before the theory gets ahead of itself. Nick's death could have been a real accident, and Keyes never said he was involved. That caution matters. Keyes told the FBI he had more to say about Texas, but he never explained what he meant. The timing is still awkward. Three or four murders after Samantha Koenig may sound like too much, especially without a confession. Still, the numbers sit there. A late Keyes comment about much higher case counts keeps the possibility alive because the show treats throwaway numbers as clues worth testing. No clean answer lands. What remains is a careful argument about bad records, vague remarks, and how easy it is to confuse institutional failure with proof.

As heard by us

A careful Houston chapter that treats uncertainty as part of the evidence.

This chapter stays with the Houston thread of the Keyes story and keeps the focus where it belongs: on police handling, old field notes, and the nagging possibility that an apparent accident fits a larger pattern. That restraint works.

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Why you'd press play

Follow the Houston thread if you want the case logic, not the shortcut.

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