Forensic Files

The search for a missing exotic dancer led police to an isolated 75-acre site where someone had been shot and cremated, thus destroying all evidence... almost; piece of a foot provided enough DNA for a genetic profile and positive ID.

A quiet waitress who hasn't been to work in two days vanishes without a trace; police suspect a date gone wrong.

Fifteen years later, DNA technology leads to justice for a murdered woman and her savagely beaten 4-year-old daughter.

A week after a couple disappears from the beach, police get a mysterious lead from a robbery.

When evidence shows a woman's rape and murder, police must find the killer as well as the victim.

The brutal murder of a state park employee over $2,000 rattles her co-workers and tourists while leaving police to sift through hundreds of leads.

After a woman is found dead at a yacht club in California in an apparent case of love gone wrong, investigators discover her home life was as dramatic as films made in nearby Hollywood.

The gunman opened fire as the family of four entered their home, killing two and wounding the others. He'd pulled open a few drawers to make it look like a robbery, but the scene was clearly staged.

On May 12, 1994, Crystal Perry was viciously murdered in her home in Bridgton, Maine. Michael Hutchinson, 32, was found guilty of murder.

In 2007, Brian and Beverly Mauck were found dead in their Graham, Washington, home. Using a bloody palm print and shoe prints, investigators focused their attention on Daniel Tavares, who had previously been inking a tattoo on Brian's back.

After a prominent Arizona surgeon is found stabbed to death outside his office, investigators uncover an unlikely suspect with deep pockets and an even deeper hatred for the doctor.

A wildfire in a secluded parking lot leads police to discover a dreadful homicide, with the suspect's image caught by security cameras.

Florida authorities rely on DNA evidence to try to nail the killer of a woman who was abducted from her late-night job at a convenience store, raped and strangled.

The assistant manager of the restaurant had been stabbed to death; police knew why he'd been killed: $8,000 was missing from the safe. As to who was responsible, his family and friends couldn't even imagine who'd want to hurt him.

Investigators face a growing list of suspects after a beautiful flight attendant is brutally murdered in her own home.

Weeks after a student vanishes, the body of an unknown female is found in the ashes of a fire 700 miles away; an alert policeman realizes the crimes could be connected.

Two women who lived in the same apartment complex were brutally murdered; the similarities of the crime scenes led police to believe they were dealing with a serial killer who hated women, and they had to find him before he struck again.

Teenager is found half-naked with her throat slit; a single foreign hair found on her thumb may finger the killer.

A bullet-riddled car, a missing driver, and no witnesses, an ambush or a random attack; the clue was something so tiny, it was measured in millionths of a meter.

By cutting a strand of a murdered man's hair into sections, forensics reveal a record of his last six months alive, and find he was frequently ingesting huge amounts of arsenic.

Police are able to create a composite sketch of a man burnt beyond recognition. But tracking the killer is more challenging.

A woman is stabbed a hundred times and her body positioned in a suggestive manner. This could be a hate crime against women.

There was no apparent reason for the young, healthy college student to be dead; but when the medical examiner found the tiniest of clues during the autopsy, investigators were able to unravel the mystery of betrayal and revenge.

Detectives search for the bombers of two churches in Illinois, hoping that the materials used in the remnants of the handmade bombs will offer the clues to catch the culprits.