Crime Tracker

A prominent Idaho corporate executive has pleaded guilty to insider trading related to a 2024 corporate acquisition. According to court documents, Michael Smith, 48, of Eagle, Idaho, served as the President and Chief Operating Officer of the unnamed Idaho-based company publicly traded on the NASDAQ since approximately 2022.

The man charged with killing Patrick Shelton, 47, of Custer County, is scheduled to be sentenced in court on Monday afternoon.

A planned Lifetime movie based on the murders of four University of Idaho college students by Bryan Kohberger has been met with a wave of online backlash. The Idaho community and the victims’ families have strongly denounced the film, arguing it exploits their trauma for commercial gain.

“With everything that our family has been through, it’s hard to fathom that people are now making a movie,” wrote the Gancalves family. “This is a nightmare for us. We do not want Kaylee being portrayed in a slasher film. They are not characters, they are REAL people. It’s heartbreaking. It’s embarrassing, and Kaylee would not want this. I wish people would just stop.”

Court records show Jones was a high-volume cocaine distributor in the Treasure Valley area. Investigators say the 34-year-old would travel to Missouri to purchase several kilos of the drug and have it shipped to himself at a residence in Idaho. He would then distribute the cocaine into the community through several mid-level dealers.

Attorney General Raúl Labrador announced today that Garrett Ray Vanni, 38, of Boise, was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for attempting to entice children online.

Vanni’s arrest earlier this year was part of a joint undercover operation targeting individuals who use the internet to entice children, coordinated by the Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

The 38-year-old was taken into custody on February 27, 2025, as a result of a coordinated two-night undercover operation led by the ICAC task force and the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office. The operation involved law enforcement officers posing as underage children to expose adults seeking to sexually abuse children or share child sexual abuse material over the internet.

The Payette County Prosecutor’s Office has officially filed murder charges in the case of Michael Vaughn, the 5-year-old boy who vanished from his Fruitland, Idaho home in 2021.

“We believe we know the individuals involved and are committed to pursuing justice with or without Michael’s recovery,” Duke stated. He credited the charges to the “unyielding tenacity and perseverance” of the Fruitland Police Department, which has not ceased working the case. “They are continuing to search and investigate so they can bring Michael’s body home.”

A Nampa man is now in custody, facing multiple felony charges related to the production and distribution of child pornography.

Tuesday, October 14, investigators with the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Unit, along with officers from multiple local and federal law enforcement agencies, arrested 25-year-old Steven Vasquez of Nampa for alleged sexual exploitation of a child.

Editor’s note: The article discusses sexual assault.
In June 2024, Andrea Weiskircher thought her life was over. 

She was sobbing in a jail cell in Boise thinking about what she had just done. Encouraged by a former Idaho Department of Correction case manager, Weiskircher reluctantly filed complaints against the Idaho prison workers who had sexually abused her. It was the right thing to do. But now she faced another prison sentence and, she feared, retaliation for speaking up.

Editor’s note: The article discusses sexual assault.

In a small courthouse in southeast Idaho, a woman incarcerated at the nearby prison had just finished testifying that a male guard came into the bathroom on her cellblock and kissed her on at least five different occasions. 

Editor’s note: The article discusses sexual assault.

If they hadn’t met in prison, none of it would have happened like this. On the outside, Jamie Hamilton would have been polite to Derek Stettler, maybe have had “a conversation,” she’d later tell an investigator. It probably would have ended there. She would have avoided years of trauma. He might still be alive.

nvestigators have determined the incident originated at a local high school on Thursday, September 25, and escalated after school hours at a city park, according to a BCSO press release.

During the park altercation, one young man presented a gun. Fortunately, the other individuals involved were able to secure the firearm from the individual. Authorities have confirmed that no one was injured in the incident, and the gun was never fired. Following the confrontation, all parties went their separate ways.

A routine traffic stop in Rigby on Monday night led to the discovery of a significant quantity of illegal drugs and the arrest of a 16-year-old male juvenile, according to the Rigby Police Department.

Families of two victims in the Moscow student murders are fighting to prevent the release of graphic images from the crime scene. The two families are appearing in court today to ask a Latah County judge to permanently block the release of certain images from the crime scene, according to Fox News.

A Catholic Priest at Nampa’s St. Paul’s Catholic Church has been arrested and charged with sexual battery of a minor, the Nampa Police Department confirmed Thursday.

45-year-old Robert Mendez Esquivel was arrested on Wednesday and is being held at the Canyon County Jail. He faces one count of sexual battery against a minor between the ages of 16 and 17. Authorities have stated that the alleged incident did not involve a minor from the church or its affiliated school.

In recent days, ISP received multiple reports of individuals receiving suspicious calls from numbers that appeared to be from ISP. In one disturbing incident, a parent answered back-to-back calls from a man claiming to be a medic and insinuated that their child was in distress. He requested the child’s name, and the parents heard the sound of crying in the background. Thankfully, the child was safe at school, but the incident serves as a stark reminder of the manipulative tactics employed by scammers.

“These calls are not coming from the Idaho State Police. This scam is designed to play on the hearts of potential victims and undermines trust in first responders,” Captain Tyler Jussel of the ISP Regional Communications Center said. “By spoofing first responders and dispatch centers, these scammers try to gain credibility in their deception. We want the public to know that ISP will never call in this manner.”

“This sentence removes another predator from our communities and sends a clear message that we will not waver in prosecuting those who exploit children,” said Attorney General Labrador. “Since rebuilding our ICAC Unit, we have eliminated the backlog of more than 1,300 tips and now respond within 24 hours. Idaho parents deserve to know we are working every day to protect their children online.”