Cold Case Files shows how timing, persistence and high-tech police work combine to catch people who have slipped through the cracks for decades.
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Cast:Bill Kurtis , Dave Reichert , Kathy Mills , Melvyn Foster , Bob Keppel , Randy Mullinax , Beverly Himick , Mary Hong , Tommy LeNoir , Marvin Casey , Kevin Green , Melvin Gantman , Jackie Bissonnette , Wayne Allen , Charles Hayes , Barb Boudro , Joan Matrisciano Fiertner , Dorothy Farrar
Looks at how law enforcers stick with cases for many years, using fresh evidence to win convictions or to free prisoners wrongfully jailed. This episode focuses on the unsolved murder of Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane, we meet a Dallas criminologist who uses a state-of-the-art fingerprinting matching to catch a rapist, also watch Phoenix Police solve a 20 year old murder of a missing Navajo girl, and talk to Barry Scheck, who was on O.J. Simpson's defense team, about DNA, and an Illinois rape case.
Two different crimes with two different solutions in ending Cold Case files. One involves help from a person the other relies on science and footwork to get the case solved.
In this episode we travel to very different places where horrific crimes were committed. One takes place in a small town in Texas, the other takes place in an English Countryside. All three crimes run cold but later are solved due to hard work, science and loose lips.
A heartless mother and an innocent girl are the focus of this episode. Their only connecting threat is that both cases take 10 years to solve.
See how new technologies and dedicated professionals are turning the tide on investigations long thought to have stalled.
George Morgan, a prison inmate, recalls an incident over thirty years earlier that resulted in his sister Michell's death. John McRae, a killer who started very young is tracked for fifty years before being caught.
Light is shed on the murder of a convicted child molester, Lester B. Hansen, in the bayou when a thief is arrested years later. Over twenty years passes before police find any leads in a motel robbery that led to murder.
"The Mark of Cain": Jim McCutcheon, a Florida landowner and business owner, hires James Drysdale whom he met at church. When McCutcheon disappears in 1994, Drysdale takes over; he is suspected of foul play, especially when his criminal record is discovered. He runs and is found in Tennessee four years later. Though they had no body, officers brought Drysdale back to Florida; they hoped he would confess and reveal the grave. Comparison is made with the Biblical story of Cain and Abel and its consequences. "Death on the Freeway": George Arthur, a sheriff's deputy who was killed on the freeway, is at first thought to be a drunk driver but the autopsy reveals he was shot. Street gangs are suspected. Fourteen years later, a DNA profile is obtained from a blood sample taken from the street. Arthur's wife points the detectives to a suspect they should look at, a man who had stalked her, a fellow officer. Obtaining a warrant, LA detectives converge on his house in Spokane, Washington to get a saliva sample. Bingo! BUT an arrest warrant will require a blood sample, and the suspect is on the lam. A TV crew makes a gruesome discovery in the woods behind his home.
The murder of a loving wife and mother goes unsolved for years until a recorded conversation gives detectives the break they need. Over twenty years after the death of a young man, fingerprint evidence leads detectives to the killer.
Two fires in two years held near fire investigators' conferences lead investigators to suspect that one of their own is an arsonist. An elderly man is accused of the murder of his wife until a lost clue helps investigators find the killer.
Years after the death of a prostitute, a cop finds the clues that lead to a serial killer who is pretending to be a cop. Six years after a woman is murdered in her home, detectives use DNA testing on resurfaced evidence to find her killer.
Nine years after police had to release the teenage suspect in a woman's murder due to lack of evidence, they find a new lead in the case. Twenty years after a young woman is murdered while babysitting her nephew, police are able to find DNA evidence that points to her killer.
A rapist is captured seven years after the crime, but when he is released on a technicality his victim, Jeri Elster, is determined to fight back. Fifteen years after a fire claimed the lives of a father and son, detectives interview the grown surviving son and learn a tragic tale of a mother who burned her family.
One case remains unsolved. One takes the police to the killer but would not lead to an arrest. Some cold cases are just not able to be solved others take a long time to solve. Its the hardship on the family left behind that suffer when a case goes cold.
A case has gone cold for 6 years. In the bottom of a river some divers make a gruesome discovery. Detectives work to solve the mystery of the skeleton found in the car. A dead dog holds a clue to his master's murder...in the DNA.
A serial killer of four women, Faryion Wardrip, is brought to justice in Wichita Falls, Texas after a DNA sample is found on a coffee cup.
One will take 10 years and one will take 17 years to solve but they do get solved. Dedication, science, luck, and even hypnosis is used to make sure justice is done for the dead.
What appears to be one thing in a case can surely change with time. As in the case of Christian. Also we find that we can find clues in the most unlikely places.
Sometimes killers trip themselves up in leading the police to catch them and convict them as who they really are, Cold Case Killers. In this case James Hicks was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Coming face to face with one of his victims' brothers was the unfortunate demise for Hicks.
The saying goes "Loose lips sink ships" Well that especially applies in this situation. No matter how hard some try their past seems to always catch up with them. You can't get rid of evidence but you can't get rid of your past.
In this episode there are two cases that involve researchers in solving crimes. The difference between the two cases are one research is alive and well he other ends up dead.
In Arizona, the body of a California woman is discovered in a freezer three years after her disappearance. In Chicago, the skeleton of an infant girl is found in an ally between two homes.
Secrets have a way of coming out no matter how old they are. And follow the trail of blood. A motto most enforcement people go by.
A gut feeling and a saved piece of paper help solve this crime. A husband takes a wedding vow taken all too seriously...more than once.
A New Orleans police officer goes undercover on a Baton Rouge riverboat casino to gain a confession from one of the ship's maintenance workers suspected of killing Marilyn Allen. A Mauston, Wisconsin man, suspected of committing the murder of Tommy Bolchen using a nunchakus, goes on trial nearly 10 years after the victim's body was found.
1992--For three months, the St. Louis metro area is seized by a string of rapes. The victims each report the same scenario to detectives at the St. Louis Metro Police Dept.: a man with his face covered breaks into their home under the guise of a burglary. With weapon in hand, the man rapes them. When finished, he tells them to bathe themselves and keep quiet or he will return to kill them. This is the Modus Operandi of what has become known as the South Side Rapist. Police believe it is the work of one man, a serial predator of women. A Task Force is established in efforts to catch the offender, but with few leads to follow up on, the cases go cold. In 1995, Det. Mark Kennedy begins working on the South Side Rapist case full-time. With the help of partner Det. Randy Sassenger, the two begin their investigation by going back into police archives and researching rapes and attempted sexual assaults. What they find is an arsenal of cases dating back to 1984--each illustrating an identical MO to that of the South Side Rapist cases of 1992. With the help of DNA criminalist Mary Beth Karr, the detectives are able to link some 29 cases to a single man dubbed in 1992 as the South Side Rapist. With only a DNA profile, the nameless man escapes from justice undetected. A fluke audit of a license plate number in 1998 leads detectives to a burglary suspect Dennis Rabbitt, who later through DNA analysis is identified as the SSR.
A killer's bite marks and a jailhouse snitch lead to a murder conviction in a case gone cold for eight years, and Bill Kurtis joins a group of super sleuths trying to solve the slaying of 18-year-old Jamie Weiss, found dead in her bathtub in 1996.
In early October 1992, in the mountains of western Virginia, hunters stumbled upon a dead body, badly decomposed and under a pile of trash. Animals have nibbled on the arms, and a shovel is still standing upright in the ground nearby. The hunters panic and leave, but eventually call police, and the Henry County Sheriff's Department comes to the scene. Some of the remaining skin is removed from a fingertip and taken to the Virginia State Crime Lab in Roanoke. At the lab, a fingerprint is made and entered into the AFIS system. They quickly get a hit -- Jerry McClendon, a sailor from Virginia Beach. Checking out McClendon's house, it looks like someone has moved out, and detectives soon discover that the pillowcase in Virginia Beach matches a sheet found with the body in the woods of western Virginia. The medical examiner now issues a belated autopsy report: Jerry McClendon died of asphyxiation. He concludes that the body had been dead about two weeks before the hunters found it. They find a very high level of a drug chemical in McClendon's system. Circumstantial evidence is pointing strongly to former roommates, David DeShazio and Roxanna Latham, now living in Henry County, VA. Detectives also discover several ATM withdrawals from Jerry's checking account, about two weeks before his remains were found. Working with a bank employee, they cue up surveillance videotape taken at the time of the ATM withdrawals; it's David and Roxanna on the tape.
TICKET TO NOWHERE: A 13-year-old girl's mother is murdered and 20 years later she helps bring the killer to justice; THE PAPER ROUTE: and a dogged policeman gets to the bottom of the brutal murder of a 63-year-old newspaper delivery woman.
In 1985, Enrique Elizarbe, a recent immigrant from Peru trying to find a better life, was robbed and beaten to death in the warehouse where he works in northern Virginia. Prince William County detectives talk to a co-worker, Rowland Wheeler, who says he came back from a lunch break, found Elizarbe barely conscious, and tried to render aid. But Wheeler's stories don't make sense, and the detectives suspect Wheeler is not a Good Samaritan but a killer. Forensic teams sweep the warehouse and find evidence implicating Wheeler, including muddy footprints, blood splatter, and a bloody crowbar. The case, however, is somewhat circumstantial and prosecutors decide not to press charges. The case goes cold. In the late 1990s, Prince William County detective Dave Watson is reviewing some of his old unsolved homicides and decides to re-open the Elizarbe case. He wants to re-test some of the forensic evidence, using newer, more sensitive scientific techniques. Three new microscopic tests of the crowbar, the footprints, and boots taken from Rowland Wheeler present a strong case that he was the killer. With modern technology, scientists can find traces of blood on Wheeler's boots, and show with scientific certainty that the footprints were his. As prosecutors gear up for trial, they get a bonus: while waiting in county jail for his trial, Wheeler tells two cellmates precisely how he killed Enrique Elizarbe in 1985. The two accounts are independent, and convincing in their detail.
A woman's fall from a cliff in the Grand Canyon leads police to uncover a series of grisly murders, and investigators smoke out a killer when they find crucial DNA evidence on his cigarette butts.
A mother's worst nightmare: Did I leave my child "In the Care of a Killer"? It was 1990 in Concordia, Missouri; three-year-old Billy dies at the babysitter's after a reported fall down the stairs; it is judged to be an accidental death. When a second child dies in her care 8 years later, the first death is re-examined--including exhuming Billy's body and a second autopsy. The second segment is set in Claremore, Oklahoma. A missing person report in 1986 gets nowhere; his abandoned car is in a parking lot; locals remember his flashing a wad of cash in a bar and leaving with Kent HIll. Though suspicious, police have no body UNTIL 4 months later when a woman hires a team of divers to try to find an antique car her brother had pushed into a lake before going off to war. The jean-clad bones they find are buried as a John Doe; seven years later an estranged girlfriend of Hill's provides a scenario, and the bones are exhumed, identified by DNA, and Frank Ross' killer is brought to justice.
LADY IN THE BOX: The murder of an Ohio woman in 1974 is solved more than 20 years later after police get a crucial clue--the woman's husband was seen building a coffin-shaped box about the time the woman disappeared.
CRIMES OF THE KKK: Klan leader Sam Bowers goes on trial for ordering the murder of an African-American store owner, Vernon Dahmer, 32 years prior, and investigators reopen the unsolved case of an African-American truck driver who was forced to leap to his death from a bridge by Klan members.
After a 20 year unsolved murder spree, drifter Joseph Donald Ture is convicted of killing at least six females. Includes a recent interview with Ture, still professing his innocence, and explores what led to the case solution in 1998.
October 23, 1983, Gertrude McCabe is found brutally murdered in her home. At first investigation, detectives pursue the case as an attempted robbery gone bad. A second glance at the crime scene shows that the scene was staged - this was not a robber gone bad, but a vicious murder of an elderly woman. Detectives comb the crime scene but lack the information to identify a suspect for the murder and the case grows cold. Uneasy about the solving of her aunt's death, Jane Alexander begins a mission to bring attention to her aunt's unsolved murder. Alexander contacts San Jose Police Detectives and urge them to look at the file and try to solve the case that has been eluding them for years, all the while, a suspect is making himself visible. That suspect, as an intensive investigation would later prove, was Alexander's then boyfriend Tom O'Donnell. The motive: money. This is something that devastates Jane, a woman, who had entrusted not only herself, but her money to O'Donnell. In 1992, San Jose Police Investigators garner enough evidence to bring charges of murder against O'Donnell. The devastated Jane tries to rebuild her life by attending advocate groups. In 1994, two years before O'Donnell will be tried and convicted for murdering Gertrude McCabe, Alexander begins her own victim's advocate group Citizens Against Homicide with partner Jan Miller.
In 1973 in the small town of Owosso, Michigan, 20-year-old Dawn Magyar is abducted from a grocery store parking lot. Six weeks later, a farmboy is checking maple syrup pails in a forest near Owosso and stumbles upon a body, later identified as Magyar. She's been shot three times, once in the back and twice in the head. Police say she's been raped, and semen is recovered. Michigan State Police pick up the case, but they have no strong leads, and the case goes cold. Two years later, another local boy is swimming in a river near Owosso when he steps on the barrel of a revolver. Police compare the gun to the slugs pulled from Dawn Magyar's body and conclude it's the likely murder weapon. They trace the gun to the last known owner, one Robert Shaw who bought it at a pawn shop in Yuma, Arizona. Police have no other information on Robert Shaw, and in the days before computers, he is nearly impossible to track. The case once again goes cold. In 1994, Michigan State Police review all cold cases where DNA can be developed. The Magyar rape kit is sent to a DNA lab, and a profile is developed. Several suspects are compared to the profile, but the DNA exonerates all of them. In 1998, MSP detective Mark Pendergraff decides that the revolver found in the river is their best lead. He begins with the last known owner of the gun, Robert Shaw. There are thousands of Robert Shaws living in the United States, so Pendergraff must narrow down the list somehow.
PERFECT MURDER: It takes nine years and the work of cutting-edge forensic toxicologists to solve the murder of a medical examiner's wife. DEATH OF THE INNOCENTS: Then, a determined Alabama sheriff reopens the case of the deaths of two babies, hoping to get their mother to confess.
May 15, 1995. 10 year old Cassie Kemp and her brother Eric are picked up after school by their stepfather, John Veysey. When they get home, Cassie races for the door of their Galena, IL home. As she walks into the kitchen, she sees her mother, Patricia Veysey, dead on the floor. An autopsy determines Patricia died of a heart defect. After John Veysey collects insurance money, Gerald and Betty DeBruyne, Patricia's parents, become suspicious that her death wasn't an accident and that Veysey may have caused it. But since they have no proof, the grieving parents have no where to turn. That is until January 14, 1998 2:17 a.m. It's a cold January night in the small northwest Chicago suburb of Cary when Deserie Beetle and her young son are rescued after being trapped in their burning home. John T. Veysey tells police and firefighters his harrowing tale of how he escaped the fire but couldn't rescue his wife and son. But within hours of the fire, the fire and police departments in Cary get phone calls from Jerry and Betty DeBruyne and others telling them that this is not John Veysey's first fire and that investigators should take a closer look at his past. Sgt. Ron Delelio takes up the scent and finds Veysey at the heart of a number of suspicious fires and even a death. Here is the history of what he finds. December 12, 1991 - A house fire guts John Veysey's gray raised ranch home perched atop a hill in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin.
"Cat and Mouse": A young woman's body is found near her car which had rolled and then burned. Because she had been in a bar recently, it was ruled an accident. Years later a probation officer feels an offender is dangerous and checks his file; he finds a letter to the sentencing judge from an ex-wife, Barbara Miller, which provides clues to the murder of Alma Nappier. He is able to trace an eyewitness to clinch the case. "Final Fare": John Orner, a Checker Cab driver's body is found face down by the side of the road, a bullet in the back of his skull. Because it fragments, it cannot conclusively be linked to the suspect's, Edward Freiburger, gun (purchased the same day as the murder). FORTY years pass before anyone is convicted of this murder.
"The Good Samaritan " refers to a helpful neighbor, Horst Eppenbach, who is shot and killed by the rapist of his neighbor when he comes to check on her. The only clue? A semen sample with no suspect. This 1989 case in New York goes cold until another reported rape in 2001 in Colorado produces a matching sample. NY detectives must travel to Junction City, KS and two little towns in Colorado to catch a killer. In the second segment, a "Gun Shy" woman in Santa Clara, California, is shot in what her husband calls an accident. Thanks to a victim support group, a persistent brother and a detective's study of crime photos which allows reconstruction of the incident, justice is done after more than a dozen years.
"A Map to Murder": A newspaper story about a murdered prostitute prompts a perpetrator's letter, including a map to another body. Police get the home address where the map was downloaded and find evidence of torture and murder in the basement.
Part 1: Chula Vista,CA. In 1995, a prostitute is shot. By 2006, DNA and fingerprints involve two sailor "johns". Part 2: KC,MO has 900 cold cases, but their Crime Lab uses DNA and AFIS to aid the Cold Case unit clear them.
A quarter of a century after the murders of two nurses, Doreen Moorby and Helen Ferguson, Canadian police suspect that a former Toronto cop committed the crimes. A blow to the head of a garbage collector in San Jose leaves strange markings, and decades later a detective, with help from forensic science, matches the markings to the etchings of a vintage bar sign. California police hope that DNA will help them track down the man who stabbed and killed a woman as she sat in her parked car in front of a supermarket in 1985.
A mother is suspected in the murders of two of her daughters, when her third daughter finally convinces police to reopen two cold cases.
A murderer's saliva, found on envelopes that he sealed, helps seal his doom 37 years after his first killing. And Colorado police crack a cold case 24 years later when they take a DNA sample from the victim's son that proves that his father murdered his mother.
After 46 years, LA homicide detectives take a Lover's Lane bandit who also gunned down two police officers into custody. Then, DNA testing helps lead police in Florida to a suspected killer, however the killer has an identical twin. Who is the real killer?
With access to the SFPD's work, including saliva samples taken from letters the Zodiac Killer sent, we reevaluate the case of the serial killer who began terrorizing California in the late 1960s--one of the first to send clues to the media.
On June10, 1975, Leslee Larson is hiking through Wolf Creek, Montana with her husband, Dennis Larson. A short two hours later, Dennis Larson is asking for help from other Montana locals, claiming that his wife has fallen into the creek. A search for Leslee Larson's body ensues, but the search goes unrewarded. Investigators that respond to the scene write the fall of Leslee Larson into Wolf Creek off as an accident, and the investigation is deemed closed. Those close to Leslee, including her mother, think the fall into the creek is peculiar because of Leslee's fear of water. Eyebrows are also raised when Larson cashes in on a double indemnity life insurance policy he owned on Leslee's life. Without a body, the case cannot be pursued and becomes nothing more than a Montana mystery. It's been 12 years since Leslee Larson accidentally fell from Wolf Creek while hiking with her husband Dennis. For 12 years, the family of Leslee Larson has looked tirelessly for her body, but she still has not been found. As for Dennis Larson, he has remarried and then divorced and now has recently moved to Maine where he places a lonely hearts ad looking for new love. In three weeks, Dennis marries a young woman named Kathy Frost. Ten days after their marriage, the newlyweds head to Acadia National Park to celebrate their nuptials. While hiking on the steep Otter Cliffs, Kathy falls and rescue rangers recover her body where she is transferred to the hospital.
The Merry Widow" describes how a woman arranges the murder of her husband to obtain insurance money. "The Bad Cop" covers an attempt by a former state trooper to disguise a murder as a suicide.
"Daddy Knows Best": In 1980 in Boone County, Kentucky, Marlene Major is reported missing by a boyfriend-NOT her husband Bill. A skull with the teeth knocked out is found, suspected to be hers. Bill Major was arrested in Rhode Island for sexually molesting his own children. A conversation with his father triggers a successful investigation after nearly two decades. DNA identified the skull to tie the case up. "Dawn of the Dead": A gas station robbery gone bad in San Jose, California on April 3, 1980, leaves, Steven Paul, an attendant dead; a coworker is suspected, Eighteen years later, an inmate at the Fresno County Jail (hoping to get leniency) provides detailed information that restarts the investigation. A converted Christian in the penitentiary gives crucial info to close the book on the case in 2001.
The murder of John Dobbs, a 73-year-old man, leads police on a long chase for a man who's suspected of identity theft and bears a rose tattoo with the name "Phyllis". When caught, he ultimately agrees to a life sentence on the condition that he can watch the Minnesota Vikings in the Super Bowl on prison TV.
In this special edition of Cold Case Files, we journey into the investigation of the biggest serial murder case in US history. We'll take an intimate look at the 20 year hunt for the Green River Killer. From the discovery of the first body, through the eventual arrest, one man lead the investigation - Dave Reichert.
A woman calls police to say that her fiancée killed a California woman in 1993; the 1988 murder of actress Myra Davis.
Testimony about larvae growth helps convict the man who murdered a family. The murder of a young girl remains unsolved. A police officer goes undercover on a riverboat to gain a confession. A man goes on trial after the victim's body is found.
The cold case of a Texas woman's murder is solved when the killer's plan to kill another woman and stuff her into a duffel bag goes awry; and an intrepid reporter doing a story on unsolved homicides helps crack a case of murder that had been ruled an accidental death.
After 23 years, investigators finally track down the killers of an Atlanta policeman when the ex-wife of one of the killers phones in a tip; and a mother keeps the skeletal remains of the 3-year-old daughter she killed in a footlocker.
Minneapolis police search for a murderer who calls 911 and leaves weepy-voiced confessions.
The testimony of three prison inmates helps convict a man who viciously killed a woman out for a bike ride nearly two decades prior; and a self-admitted sex addict who strangled his cat is a suspect in the 30-year-old murder of a neighbor.
Police suspect brothers J.R. and Coco Duvall beat two Michigan hunters to death, Brian Ognjan and David Tyll, both 27 years old. Then chopped up the bodies, and fed them to pigs near Mio Michigan. A serial rapist, who holds a mini-flashlight in his mouth to blind victims, is nabbed when he drops it during an attack and police develop a DNA profile from his saliva.
A rape-robbery in Lookingglass, Oregon was solved when one of the perps bragged about his involvement, but his partner disappeared--for 23 years! Four retired lawmen (nicknamed the "Cold Case Cowboys") trace a rendezvous with murder with the help of a convict. In the second segment, the police have a suspect: a jealous coworker with a motive, blood evidence in his home, but still cannot make a case until further DNA technology develops a few years later.
"Murder Checks In": Three raped women's bodies, starting with Patricia Lange, are found in Iowa hotels. Police realize they must find a serial killer. An excessive number of seminal stains on bedspreads slows the ID by DNA; since there was no forced entry, they look for men who might have had passkeys. "Killer in the City": A 64-year-old woman, Rosemary Pascente, living in the Bronx was stabbed 39 times. There are no fingerprints or fluids from the killer in the apartment, but blood is found in the hall. The CODIS database helps officers zero in on a felon who confesses, but unsuccessfully claims that he acted in self-defense.
A scheme to bribe a country music magazine to manipulate the charts leads to murder in Nashville and a 13-year hunt for the killer. A murderer's plan to hide his gun and ammunition is foiled.
An eerie note left on a grave helps solve a 12-year-old case of murder, and an exhaustive questioning of a mother helps police unravel the mysterious deaths of three of her children.
Police play a wild hunch that pays off in the capture of a serial rapist. And after 26 years, investigators finally solve the murder of a 6-year-old girl who had been forced to take a cold-water bath as punishment for painting her nails with pink polish without permission.
A phone-sting operation produces a big surprise and helps police nab the killers of a San Diego, David Stevens, man several years after the case went cold. And a California district attorney uses an unprecedented legal strategy--a "John Doe" warrant--in the 6-year-old hunt for a rapist.
Nineteen-year-old college student Regina Marie Reynolds is a student at Morrisville State College in New York. Around 5 PM, she is driving with her boyfriend Robert MacDonald and asks to be dropped off on Route 20, in front of the Arizona Diner parking lot. She plans to hitchhike the 5 miles west back to campus to have dinner with friends, while MacDonald plans to continue on to his home. When Regina misses classes on Friday, then the following Monday, her friends become concerned. She is a conscientious student and unlikely to skip out on school. Her roommate, Catherine Dixon, goes to campus security to report her friend missing. Campus security, in turn, files a missing persons report with the New York State Police. (Regina's mother, Barbara Smith, also happens to work for the New York State Police.) As soon as the missing persons case is opened, friends and colleagues of Regina Reynolds' are questioned. Detective Eugene Rifenberg of the New York State Police helps work the missing persons case. Some people say they saw a girl who looks like Regina get into a blue and white Volkswagen van the night of her disappearance. Some witnesses describe three white men who were possibly talking to someone who looked like Regina. Missing person fliers are posted all over the community. We have copies of the missing persons flier.
Forensic evidence solves the 1978 murder of a beauty queen; Fingerprints and a killer's addictive habit solves a decades-old double-homicide case.
Looks at how law enforcers stick with cases for many years, after they've gone cold, using fresh evidence to win convictions or to free prisoners who were wrongfully jailed.
A Miami undercover operation nabs the man who beat four black prostitutes, doused their bodies with gasoline, and set them aflame. Vida Hicks was the first victim. And DNA helps solve the cold case of a man who posed as a fisherman to get a 6-year-old girl's attention, then raped and killed her.
Police suspect a gay man murdered a woman because she became too friendly with his boy friend. And a man goes on a monstrous crime spree, abducting five women over 15 years and forcing each to spend months and even years as his sex slave.
The conviction of a man found guilty of sexually assaulting and stabbing an Ohio woman to death is overturned because his Miranda rights were violated when he was arrested. And police spend 13 years looking for the killer of a Houston security guard who was shot 11 times when he tried to stop a car theft.
In 1979, Dianna Green was struck while in her apartment bedroom. She received a blow to head and, as a result, she suffered the loss of her ability to speak and communicate. Dianna's husband Kevin, is charged.
Valarie Jensen explains that she and her ex-husband adopted baby Francine from their friends, the Meegans. Months later, a mother decides she wants her baby back, and if not that, then more money. When the Jensens refuse to hand over more cash, Lillian Meegan demands her child returned. Valerie Jensen unwillingly hands over the baby. It is the last time she will see the child. It is not however the last time she will hear her. James Meegan calls Valerie frustrated that he could not console the baby. Valerie hears the child crying in the background. It is the last time she ever hears the baby. Police then confront the Meegans. Valerie Meegan claims Francine was stolen out of their car and has been missing for years. James Meegan is tight-lipped about the entire affair. Las Vegas police decide to release the couple, but not without a watchful eye. In the middle of the night police catch the couple trying to skip town. Police have enough to hold James Meegan, but not nearly enough to support a conviction. Cold case detectives then decide to reach out the public. There they find friends of the Meegans pointing fingers at James Meegan. One such friend is a man named Marcell Peet. Peet claims James Meegan confessed shaking his baby to death in a moment of frustration. The Meegans are charged with murder and abuse. An Arizona resident reads about Meegan case and connects it to Yavapai's Baby Jane Doe.
"The Bitemark": In 1989. a 13-year-old, Justin Wiles, is missing in the Tulsa area, thought to be a runaway. When a dismembered body is found in Lake Bixhoma, he is ID'd because of surgical scars. The case will not be solved for more than a decade. A forensic odontologist links a bite mark on a suspect's arm with the victim's exhumed body to secure a conviction. "Justice for Eglena": A naked body is discovered at the site of a church-sponsored fiesta at Seguin, Texas. An officer finds her clothing in a nearby storm drain, but traces of blood must wait a decade for DNA analysis to link victim and perpetrator. The Texas Rangers live up to their reputation in this cold case, the first they have been assigned.
When three young women and a baby go missing, police fear a serial killer is at work in Kansas. When ties are found to an embezzler paroled from Missouri, surveillance begins. Links to sadomasochism, forgery and finally theft of sex toys provide probable cause for a search warrant of his properties and storage facilities. The finds astound authorities in both Kansas and Missouri, and shock a teen "niece" in Illinois.
"The Monster": Police are convinced they have caught the rapist/murderer of an elderly woman, even after DNA evidence is exculpatory. They keep him in custody until an identical incident occurs. Later, the culprit is caught in the act of attacking a teen and brought to justice on several cases shown to have the same DNA. "A Cousin's Promise": Twenty-one years after her cousin's death, Cheryl Cowans prods Reynoldsburg, Ohio to reopen the case. Once again, DNA appears to link the victim and murderer, but legal maneuvering puts him in prison for only five years.
"A Brother's Burden": Dilemma--as a cop, which brother do I believe? A wired conversation settles the question. A wife long suspected of involvement in her husband's murder is ensnared at last in North Carolina. "The Midnight Attacker" in California is thought to be two men because of the varied MO. After one suspect is dismissed because of DNA, the 18 attacks are proved to be one rapist, and the rapes continue. Eighty-one DNA samples are excluded. Nearly six years pass before the attacker is caught.
The Last Frontier, New Mexico is far removed from the bright city lights. It's also the place where 72 year-old Bruce Stark has decided to retire. On September 11, 1996, Bruce Stark goes missing and his friends, Bob Nelson and Ken Hamel are unable to locate the retiree.After four days of searching through the wilderness of The Last Frontier, Bob Nelson is just about fresh out of places to look for his missing friend Bruce. As a last ditch effort, Bob decides to check in Bruce's well, just 200 feet from his trailer home. After removing planks of wood covering the well, Bob takes a peek in and finds Bruce lying at the bottom of the well submerged in water.New Mexico State Police take up the hunt for Bruce's killer. They begin their search at the Eagle Guest Ranch Restaurant, a major hub and meeting spot for residents of The Last Frontier. Investigators are able to determine that just days before Bruce disappeared, waitresses witnessed Bruce dining with two unknown males. Composite photos are generated but no one can identify the anonymous faces. Then, Bruce Stark's son Johnny Ray alerts investigators that five of his father's guns are missing from the home. Using the serial numbers of the missing guns, investigators crosscheck them in the NCIC database with hopes of tracing the weapon.
A new fingerprint identification system known as I-AFIS helps Texas detectives track down a killer after three years of searching. And a Georgia investigator gets to the bottom of a 16-year-old murder case when he discovers where the victim's body had been hidden -- in the bottom of a well.
In August of 1994 9-year-old Dianna Rebollar is found raped and strangled to death in an empty Houston parking lot. Det. Bob King of the Houston PD takes note of the tourniquet left around the young victim's neck and, thinking it might be one killer's signature, shares photos of the deadly device with other investigators. Back at the station, King learns of a similar attack two years earlier in which 21-year-old Maria del Carmen Estrada was sexually assaulted, strangled with a tourniquet and dumped in a Dairy Queen drive-thru.Though forensic evidence is collected, both cases remain unsolved for another year when Barbara Magana at Houston's Channel 2 News contacts the Harris County Sheriff's Office and tells them about a call she received on the tip line. Turns out Magana may have taken a call from a serial killer who told her that in a field just beyond Houston's city limits a woman's dead body awaits investigators. Det. Roger Wedgeworth and his team head out to the field, and follow a foul odor to the body of severely decomposed woman that lies in the grass with a tourniquet tightly cinching her neck. This scene immediately calls to mind the cases detectives at the PD have been working, so investigators from the sheriff's office contact the city PD and a City-County Task Force is established to track down the tourniquet killer. Every lead is pursued, but after six months of hard work the team has nothing to show for its efforts.
A look at the case of James Allen Selby, a serial rapist who eluded police for years while attacking 11 women in five states - Oklahoma, Nevada, California, Arizona, and Colorado.
A detective vows not to shave until he solves the murder of a young Oregon woman. It takes three years and a string of Mexican Mafia informants to crack the case and allow the dedicated detective to shave his beard. And in a California case, investigators track down a killer with the help of DNA found on the duct tape used to wrap the murder victim's head.
After running DNA tests on more than 50 suspects, Ohio police finally get a good a lead on a serial rapist suspected of attacking at least 14 women. And a cigarette butt found at a murder scene helps investigators to smoke out the killer, Robert N. Patton Jr., 29 years later.
A forensic scientist's painstaking examination of a rape kit helps solve the 15-year-old murder of a teenage girl Carmen Berrocal. And when California investigators probe the murder of a 71-year-old man Jack Irwin, they get help from a surprising source - a top suspect's former therapist.
In the summer of 1974, 11-year-old John Wilson does a cannonball into the local swimming pool in Prairie Village, Kansas. He lands on his sister Lizabeth, 13, who starts running home to tell Mom and Dad what John has done. John also races home, trying to beat Lizabeth to the house. He takes a lead on his sister, passes the local high school and continues homeward. John wins the race, but by 10 p.m., Lizabeth is still a no-show. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson become concerned and call 9-1-1 to file a missing persons report. Police canvas the neighborhood, but still no sign of Lizabeth. When police go to the nearby high school, they discover that the only person working at the school around the time of Lizabeth's disappearance was a janitor named John Henry Horton. After talking with the other custodians, police learn that Horton clocked out at 8 p.m. and didn't clock back in until much later than normal. When Horton returned to the school, he claimed car trouble and had scratches on his body, which he claimed he got from working on his car. Police are suspicious of Horton and pay him a visit. When they pop the trunk of his car, they find a bottle of chloroform and a butcher knife. Horton says he stole the chloroform to get high and the knife was a present for his wife. Detectives don't buy his story, and the FBI gets involved in the investigation. Investigators then talk with Beth Reichmeier, 15, who encountered Horton the same day Lizabeth went missing.
On April 15, 1979, 41-year-old Harriet Simmons finishes her night shift at the bar, jumps in her car and heads to Nashville for a weekend road trip. She tells her seven children that she will call the next morning when she arrives. The call never comes. The children call police and report her missing. Harriet's family searches the route the mother took and find her car abandoned at a rest stop. Nothing of evidentiary value is gained from the car and there is no sign of Harriet Simmons. Eleven months later, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office is called when skeletal remains are discovered near the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Asheville, NC. Simmons' missing person case becomes a murder investigation when dental records confirm the remains belong to Harriet Simmons. An examination of the bones reveals the mother died of multiple stab wounds. With no strong leads, the case goes cold. Meanwhile another crime unfolds. On August 25, 1979, 21-year-old Betty Sue McConnell is found on the banks of the French Broad River bleeding to death from stab wounds. Her car is found submerged in the river a few miles upstream. The car is pulled out of the river and searched but no valuable evidence is found.At autopsy it is determined that McConnell died of stab wounds to the chest. The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation work the case, but fail to develop any suspects. The case falls cold, and stays that way for two decades.
The brutal stabbing murder of a Florida woman, Corey Parker, is solved when police find crucial DNA evidence in spit left on a pavement. And a man is put away for rape and murder when his footprint matches the footprint he left at the crime scene 18 years before.
After a woman's disappearance the Los Angeles police get an anonymous call to investigate a suspect; an eyelash is a clue in the death of Kiva Bible stabbed many times.
Chad Choice, an 8-year-old boy, is kidnapped from his home in Tyler, Texas. Two ransom notes follow but no one shows up for the money. Chad's parents receive a package containing his skull! Five years later, various bones are sent to jail inmates with demands to keep quiet or else. Can one of them find leniency by revealing Chad's burial place?
The story of the hunt for one of the most notorious serial killers in recent American history--the BTK killer, who terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area for years. After committing at least seven brutal murders, BTK (for Bind, Torture, Kill) vanished for over 25 years before sending clues of his crimes to the media in 2004. He continued to avoid capture until a forensic computer expert traced a computer disc that led investigators to a surprising suspect--a church president.
One of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history, dubbed "The Green River Killer," confessed to murdering 71 women in the Seattle area. Dave Reichert had reopened the case after being elected sheriff and succeeded in solving the case (thanks to scientific advances). To escape the death penalty, Gary Ridgway also agreed to reveal burial places of many victims not known to police. Bill Kurtis accompanies search teams which include Ridgway.
A deacon suspected of having an affair is found shot to death in Tijuana, Mex; a woman claims she was assaulted by the man that killed her husband.
It's a quiet Sunday in Edmonton, Alberta on September 6, 1992. Corrine "Punky" Gustavson and her 5-year-old friend Lindsey are playing in the backyard of their townhouse complex when a man approaches them. He grabs 6-year-old Punky and drives off with her in his car. Lindsey tells her mother that a man took Corrine and the police are called. Constables from the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) arrive and they interview Lindsey and Punky's father, Ray Gustavson. Ray says he was watching the girls and stepped away for a moment. Soon after, his neighbor told him Punky was missing. Lindsey isn't able to provide a good description of the perpetrator and nobody else seems to have seen the man. Cst. Dave Bittman surveys the yard notices a patch of mud with a shoe print that looks like a sporting cleat. Bittman sketches the print. Soon after police begin a door-to-door search. Local media quickly picks up the story, and volunteers join in on a citywide search for a missing girl. Two days later, a truck driver finds Corrine's body face down in the mud of a trucking yard just outside of Edmonton. Investigators believe the young girl was raped and murdered elsewhere and then dumped at the site. At autopsy the medical examiner determines the six-year old was most likely smothered to death. The only evidence he gleans from the body is a single pubic hair. In 1992, however, analysts are able to do little with the hair. Part 2; Robert Wigley is suspected in the death of Camilla Randall.
The story of Coral Eugene Watts, perhaps the U.S.'s most prolific serial killer.
A video tape made at an ATM machine helps police in Louisville, KY, to nab a man suspected of raping 13 women. And a DA investigator in Georgia helps crack a murder case that his father, a police chief, first worked on 30 years before.
This special edition of Cold Case Files offers an inside look, rarely seen, at an active cold case investigation. We follow Det. Vince Velazquez of Atlanta and Capt. Russell Popham of East Point, Ga., as they work to solve the 1995 rape and murder of 14-year-old Nacole Smith, one of Atlanta's most notorious unsolved crimes.
This story is about the murder of a college student Jane Mixer in Ann Arbor Michigan. The murder took place in 1969.
On a summer night in 1987 a mother worries and waits for her 19-year-old daughter to come home. But Diana never comes home and she's found raped and strangled near the Hudson River. Investigators suspect her friend, Michael because his alibi is shaky and witnesses place his truck near the crime scene. Trouble is, he passes a polygraph and his DNA is no match.
The day after Thanksgiving in 1994, 38-year-old Luz Mucino and her teenage daughters Edith and Gabriela are reported missing by a friend. And since Luz Mucino and her daughters were undocumented aliens, detectives cannot locate any family members who might be able to provide information. On May 15, 1999, 38-year-old Patty Jo Pulley is reported missing by her husband.
A Killer's Skin/Where's Peggy?: Police track down a killer who preys on older women, while a protective mother disappears after learning her daughter has been assaulted. (S1, ep 4)
DNA evidence is the key to solving 2 cold cases: a NY serial rapist of girls and young women, as well as a CA 9-year-old girl who was grabbed at her front door, mutilated and murdered.
A 14-year-old boy is charged with the murder of his sister, but his public defender believes the police coerced the boy's confession and that the real killer is still on the loose. And two deteriorated medical examiner's slides, made in a murder investigation 16 years earlier, give police the evidence they need to reopen the cold case and bring the lead suspect to trial.
The Taunt/Death in Deadwood: Detectives look at the cold case of two women who were raped in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1995, and a murder in Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1982. (S1, ep 7)
Our cameras follow Detective Manny Reyes as he investigates the 1990 murder of a Fort Worth, Texas woman. Reyes talks to the woman's two sons, who believe that her husband, Bobby, was the murderer.
Bill Kurtis reviews the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, popularly known as the "Black Dahlia" because of her black bouffant hairstyle. Her dismembered body was found near a sidewalk in L.A., and is the oldest unsolved case in LAPD files. Several suspects are named, including the father of a retired cop, who has written several books on the subject.
Deadly Stroll/Unholy Secret: Police go undercover to catch a man they suspect of killing three prostitutes. Meanwhile, a letter opener links a priest to the murder of a nun. (S1, ep 8)
Deadly Affair/The Sting Operation: Police investigate when a Kansas banker is beaten to death in his bed. Meanwhile, an Arkansas murder case is reopened. (S1, ep 9)
NCIS/Exhuming the Truth: A sailor's disappearance is reinvestigated and DNA gathered from a cigarette butt helps detectives unravel a 20-year-old murder case. (S1, ep 10)
Cross Country Connection/Eyes at the Window: New DNA evidence helps to solve the 1988 murder of a California woman, and a cold case murder in Illinois suddenly heats up. (S1, ep 11)
Abandoned Houses/A Son's Memory: Two young girls are raped, murdered and dumped in an abandoned house. Also, a 26-year-old mother of three disappears on Christmas Eve. (S1, ep 12)
A Knock at the Door/Shattered: A 25-year-old woman is killed in a hotel room in 1978 and a young woman is shot dead during a jewellery store robbery in 1980. (S1, ep 13)
A Deadly Pattern/Desperate Housewife: A look at two chilling cold cases. A woman is found murdered in her mobile home, while in Oregon a man is shot dead. (S1, ep 14)
Murder He Wrote/Caught By The Past: A look at cold cases involving the slaying of a Detroit cab company owner and a woman who was found murdered in her bedroom. (S1, ep 15)
A Californian detective tracks down a prostitute's killer with the help of a key piece of evidence. While two persistent cold case detectives wait many years for science and technology to evolve, so they can use the DNA results to investigate the 1990 murder of a woman and the death of a man killed in a car crash in 1988.
Michael Johnson was convicted of the senseless killing of Jeff Wetterman, 11 years earlier. While being interviewed in his last days, cameras capture how Michael's family fights to save him from being executed, and the rising tension leading up to the execution date. In a shocking twist, the story ends in a way no one could have foreseen.
Students of the University of Cincinnati and Texas Tech University Innocence Project take on the cases of jailed murderers who claim they're innocent. With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access, viewers watch as the students visit the inmates, track down key witnesses, and seek DNA testing that could prove their clients' innocence. While their focus is on the cases of Texas death row inmate, Anthony Graves, and mentally ill Ohio inmate Glen Tinney, who plead guilty but now professes his innocence.
The Chicago Police Department launches the Women's DNA initiative to fund the testing of backlogged rape evidence kits and help rape victims find justice. Meanwhile in Sacramento County, California, the deputy district attorney hunts for the killer of a man who was brutally stabbed to death in his home 16 years earlier, using a new grant for DNA testing.
In 1991 nine-year-old Laura Arroyo disappears from her apartment after answering a knock on the door. Her body is found shortly afterward, having been beaten and stabbed to death. A sperm sample is found on her, but technology hasn't advanced to the point where it can be traced to a suspect. Twelve years later a cold-case unit, using the latest technology, tests the sample, and the results point police to one particular individual they had previously questioned.
Police in Woonsocket, RI, investigate the disappearances of at least three street prostitutes. When their bodies are found it is determined that they have been murdered, and the authorities realize they may have a serial killer on their hands.
