Behind the Badge
Gina Osborn is a retired FBI agent and a veteran of the U.S. Army, where she served as a counter-intelligence special agent.
Tracy Miller is a career prosecutor who has overseen more than 80 jury trials and started a successful gang prevention program.
Who better than Osborn and Miller to host a true crime podcast?
As the title — Behind the Crime Scene — suggests, the podcast pulls back the curtain on prosecutions and investigations and provides a law enforcement perspective on some of highest-profile crimes in history.
Gina Osborn, left, and Tracy Miller, retired FBI special agent and prosecutor, respectively, talk about their new podcast, Behind the Crime Scene.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
Not only do the hosts bring on guests who were directly involved in the investigations and prosecutions, they lend their own experience to the discussions.
“The guests we have on really have one thing in common,” said Osborn, whose resume includes investigating Asian organized crime in Little Saigon and supervising counterterrorism operations in Southeast Asia. “They have been impacted by one particular case that they want to share with us.”
Law enforcement professionals typically do not like talking about themselves, Miller said.
But Miller and Osborn are trusted because of their own extensive experiences investigating and prosecuting high-profile crimes, she said.
Retired FBI Special Agent Gina Osborn is shown on Tracy Miller’s laptop as the two record their new podcast, Behind the Crime Scene. The two are recording separately from each of their homes during the pandemic.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
“We are getting stories that no one has gotten before,” said Miller, who serves as a motivational speaker along with her duties as a prosecutor. “We understand our guests differently than anybody else does.”
For example, when Behind the Crime Scene hosted Bill Hodgeman, the lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder case, Hodgeman provided details about the case that have never been revealed.
Miller, incidentally, began her career as a law clerk for Simpson case prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden and was herself involved in the case.
While many saw the Simpson case as involving a famous athlete, it was really about trauma and domestic violence, Miller said, and the interview with Hodgeman prompted Miller to open up about her own life.
Prosecutor Tracy Miller gets ready to record a Behind the Crime Scene episode from her home.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
“I have suffered trauma from being a prosecutor,” Miller said. “I have had death threats. I’ve had to put kids on the stand. I’ve had to do juvenile sexual assault cases and see the pain from both the victims and some of the law enforcement officers and some of my colleagues and this helps me tell that story. I think the thing that is unique about Gina and I is because of our personal experiences we know what to ask.”
On another episode, Miller and Osborn hosted former U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker, who oversaw the investigation of the San Bernardino terrorist attack on Dec. 2, 2015, which at the time was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Another episode centers around the prosecution of a gang member who killed a California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer in Fullerton on July 13, 1996.
Tracy Miller, left, and Gina Osborn, prosecutor and retired FBI special agent, respectively, host the podcast Behind the Crime Scene.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
CHP Officer Don Burt was 25 and on the job for only 15 months when he pulled over a man for a routine traffic stop in which the driver gave a false name of a person who had a suspended driver’s license.
When he searched the trunk, Burt found counterfeit travelers checks and forged payroll checks.
The suspect, Hung Mai, then pulled out a 9mm handgun and shot Burt six times.
Burt was lying on the ground when Mai shot him execution style in the head, stole Burt’s patrol car, and fled.
Mai was arrested days later in Houston.
Gina Osborn, left, and Tracy Miller, retired FBI special agent and prosecutor, respectively, talk about their podcast.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
The prosecution was complex and included death threats made to the deputy district attorney and witnesses. Marc Greenberg was the federal prosecutor (Assistant United States Attorney) on the case.
Though they have both worked in Orange County for more than 20 years, Osborn and Miller did not know each other until being introduced by former Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, who was a friend of both of them.
They hit it off almost immediately. They both have self-proclaimed type-A personalities.
Doing a podcast together was a no brainer. The pair has no shortage of ideas for future episodes.
“That is really the easy part for us because so many personal friends and colleagues have stories that have not been told before,” Miller said.
To hear Behind the Crime Scene podcasts, visit behindthecrimescene.com.
Prosecutor Tracy Miller gets ready to record her podcast from her home.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge
