Episodes

  • The Khmer Rouge Misdirect

    The Khmer Rouge Misdirect
    Oct 10 2025

    In 1996, Oscar-winning actor and Khmer rouge survivor Haing S. Ngor was gunned down outside his home in Los Angeles. His murder gave rise to a conspiracy theory - that the Khmer Rouge sent assassins to silence their most famous critic. This episode dismantles that myth - and examines how it stopped the right questions from being asked. ⚠️ Contains descriptions of Khmer Rouge torture and violence.
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    25 mins
  • The Crime Scene

    The Crime Scene
    Oct 3 2025

    Episode Two - Season Two

    The Crime Scene

    Patricia Nunan visits Ngor’s home, in LA’s Chinatown - where Oscar-winning actor and Khmer Rouge survivor Haing Ngor was murdered in 1996.

    With Innocence Center lawyer Mike Semanchik and friend Doug Niven, she retraces the crime and questions the state’s narrative.
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    33 mins
  • Season Two - Intro

    Season Two - Intro
    Oct 3 2025

    Haing S. Ngor survived the Khmer Rouge, only to be shot dead outside his Los Angeles home. His raw performance in the 1984 film, “The Killing Fields,” won him an Academy Award and brought international attention to Cambodia’s genocidal Khmer Rouge period.

    At the time of his murder, Ngor lived between worlds: Hollywood and post-war Cambodia. He was admired, but also resented.

    Who Killed Haing Ngor explores his extraordinary life, and investigates the leads the LAPD missed or ignored.
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    9 mins
  • Who Killed Haing Ngor - Season Two - Trailer

    Who Killed Haing Ngor - Season Two - Trailer
    May 19 2024
    A look ahead at Season Two of "Who Killed Haing Ngor" - currently being investigated. Stay tuned for a release date!
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    3 mins
  • Art Imitates Life - Then Changes It

    Art Imitates Life - Then Changes It
    Aug 1 2023
    Art, it’s been widely said, imitates life. But there are also moments when it changes it. The impact of “The Killing Fields” was so profound, that some credit it with helping launch Cambodia’s peace plan, ending decades of civil war. This is the second episode of a two-parter, in which I talk with journalist Jon Swain and photographer Roland Neveu. Along with Ngor, they share the distinction of having been the only people on the set of “The Killing Fields” who were also in Phnom Penh in 1975.
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    18 mins
  • It’s Always the Fixer...

    It’s Always the Fixer...
    Jul 26 2023
    The first of two episodes covering my conversations with Jon Swain, of the Sunday Times, and photographer Roland Neveu. We take a look a closer look at Dith Pran, a so-called "fixer" for New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose courage and heroism is what "The Killing Fields" is about. Both Swain and Neveu covered the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and went on to be involved in the film, “The Killing Fields.” We'll hear about that in the next episode.
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    20 mins
  • Trauma Talking

    Trauma Talking
    Jul 5 2023
    This week I’m talking with Dorothy Chow, the producer of the “Death in Cambodia” podcast. In it, she interviews her father, Robert Chau about his experience as a teenager escaping the Khmer Rouge. That’s relatively rare. Many survivors are reluctant to talk about their unresolved trauma. That trauma - and the intergenerational trauma they’ve handed down to their children - are linked to the conspiracy theories surrounding the murder of Dr. Haing Ngor. But Dorothy Chow is a co-founder of Khmer Courageous Conversations - a new initiative to break the culture of silence and to loosen grip the Khmer Rouge still have on survivors, even decades later.
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    19 mins
  • Finding Comrade Duch - Part II

    Finding Comrade Duch - Part II
    Jun 26 2023
    here’s an enduring conspiracy theory about the murder of Haing Ngor. Many believe that the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot had him killed. That suggests that Pol Pot’s power stretched from the jungles of Cambodia to the streets of Los Angeles. The person probably most responsible for fueling that conspiracy? It was Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch.He the top executioner for the Khmer Rouge. That Pol Pot killed Haing Ngor is an idea I find wildly implausible, and so does Nic Dunlop, the Irish photographer who found Comrade Duch. This is the second part of our conversation.
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    19 mins