Forensic Files

A cunning serial rapist who leaves no decisive evidence forces investigators to rely on geographical profiling in their search for an identity; DNA from a cigarette butt may provide the final piece of evidence needed to catch the suspect.

When the wife of a high-profile dentist is found dead, police are unsure who killed her and injured her husband. Some fibers and a study of the weather patterns on the night of the murder break the case open and identify the killer. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 2.

Insects and a single strand of hair uncover an additional suspect in the killing of a young mother and her baby in Lehigh Valley, Pa.

A decomposed body is found in a barrel, and a dilapidated address book may hold the answer, but investigators must find a way to read the pages because the passage of 30 years has turned them blank.

In this classic episode of Forensic Files, the longest running true crime series in television history, a Seattle policeman's home is destroyed by an arsonist. One month later, the officer arrests a low-level drug dealer, who confesses to the arson. But when the suspect vanishes, investigators begin to question the authenticity of his confession. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 5.

A woman identifies her husband as her attacker, but questions arise 16 years later regarding her recollections.

A mother and her two young daughters are found brutally murdered. The crime scene yielded a good deal of evidence, but no conclusive link to the prime suspect. To solve the puzzle, an FBI analyst designs a unique experiment. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 7.

A young girl is found dead, the victim of an apparent sex-killer. Authorities are intrigued by unusual orange fibers embedded in clothing found near the victim. Months pass and the case goes cold, until a van turns up with what appear to be the same orange fibers. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 8.

The autopsy played an important role in a murder investigation fof the suspicious 1997 death of Georgia resident Virginia Ridley. Police charged her mentally-unstable husband Alan with murder, but a medical examiner discovered that she died of other causes. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 9.

With children dying at an alarming rate at a Texas hospital, authorities narrow down their probe to one nurse, but the murder weapon remains elusive.

When the decomposed body of a young girl is discovered, police have no clues to her identity. But days earlier, a stabbing victim told them she thought she might have witnessed a murder. Police think the cases might be related, and to prove it, they turn to an unusual piece of evidence: a tiny wad of chewing gum found near the victim's body. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 11.

Police suspect Dr. Boyle in the disappearance of his wife Noreen after he signs mortgage papers for a new house with a woman pretending to be his spouse. Using the recollections of their twelve year-old son regarding what he heard the night his mother went missing, investigators discover Noreen's body in the basement of Dr. Boyle's new house. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 12.

Some of the refugees who sought asylum in the United States after World War II lied about the atrocities in which they'd participated. Years later, when a high-ranking religious figure was suspected of war crimes, there seemed to be no way to prove his guilt or innocence... Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 13.

When Russ Stager, a popular gym teacher, is found dead of what appears to be an accidental gunshot wound, his family becomes suspicious. They think his wife may have planned his murder. When police find that her previous husband died in questionable circumstances, they re-examine the crime scene and uncover evidence that the death was no accident. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 16.

A Canadian financier assumed the name of a co-worker as part of a money-laundering scheme. The man turned up dead in the ocean, with an anchor tied around his torso. Police hoped to identify him with a tattoo and the watch he was wearing. But it would be the ten-pound anchor which enabled them to crack the case. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 15.

When heart surgeon Darryl Sutorius is found dead in the basement of his upscale Cincinnati home, police assume he committed suicide. Further investigation reveals that his new wife, Della, has a history of violence and an insatiable desire for money.

When a prosecutor discovers evidence linking a habitual drunk driver to a hit-and-run in which a child is killed, he combines the talents of an accident reconstruction expert with a video specialist. This case was the first in which video in the courtroom withstood an appeal, and helped make "video testimony" viable in other cases. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 17.

When convenience store employee Wanda Mason is found dead, investigators find that the entire murder has been caught on the store's security camera. But the image of the killer is so degraded that it seems impossible to positively identify him.

The investigation into a missing college coed leads police to discover that, unbeknownst to her friends, she lived a bizarre double life, attending school by day and working as a call-girl by night. When her body is found, investigators gather evidence that implicates her killer. Originally aired as Season 5, Episode 14.