Forensic Files

A young mother is murdered after years of domestic abuse. There are clues at the scene: bloody footprints and DNA from the victim's rape kit. But the evidence that will conclusively tie the killer to the crime is on a freshly-baked hamburger bun.

Threatening emails, a missing person and an abandoned truck lead police to a home where they believe a murder was committed. The evidence is overwhelming and investigators are sure they have the killer. What they don't have is the body of the victim.

As she left choir practice, the woman was gunned down in the church parking lot. Her husband became the prime suspect - particularly when police learned he found out just a month earlier that his wife had been cheating on him for three years.

The truck fell off of the hydraulic jack, crushed the man working beneath it, and sparked a fire or so it seemed. Investigators turned to forensic science to determine if they were dealing with a tragic accident or a carefully orchestrated murder. Originally aired as Season 14, Episode 5.

When their trailer catches fire, the young husband heroically rescues his wife and infant son. A month later, his wife is beaten to death in a bedroom of his parents' home. The cut window screen points to an intruder, but the lack of supporting evidence compels investigators to look beyond the obvious.

The victim was brutally murdered. Police learn her fiancé was having affairs with other women, and he becomes the prime suspect... that is until a man comes forward who not only believes he owns the murder weapon, he also knows who used it.

When a teenaged girl goes missing, no one knows if she ran away or if she was the victim of foul play. Everyone's worst fears are confirmed when a body is found at the bottom of an isolated ravine. Police scour the crime scene, hoping to find enough evidence to identify the killer.

The bodies of three women were found floating in Tampa Bay. The water washed away any evidence, but police hoped a handwritten note found in the victims' car would lead to the killer - so they posted huge copies of the note on five highway billboards.

Four young adults are brutally murdered in an affluent Texas neighborhood, and the crime scene yields little evidence. The next-door neighbors see two young people dressed in black walking nearby, and their descriptions are used to create composite drawings that become a key element in solving the crime.

In 2008, college co-ed Jenna Verhaalen was found dead in her Texas apartment and petechial hemorrhages in her eyes indicated that she was strangled. Jenna's boyfriend, a neighbor and the apartment maintenance man are all suspected, but it takes DNA evidence to identify the true murderer.

In 2003, Rebecca Barney and her soon-to-be ex-husband were found shot and killed in their Tulsa, Oklahoma home, which had been set on fire. After the fire was put out, the eyewitness was also found shot dead in his car. Only the computer had been taken from the Barney home and with it, seemingly, the tools to identify the killer.

In 2003, Kathy Lorick was killed on a Concord, California jogging trail in the middle of the day while talking to her husband on her cell phone. The evidence from Kathy's cell phone records and search dogs lead nowhere. Nine days later, a witness tells police about a chance encounter and cigarette butts that contain the killer's DNA.

A Colorado real estate developer was found shot to death at home by his wife who then became the number one suspect. Police have a load of evidence against her, but it is circumstantial. The case will turn on a .25 caliber bullet fired twenty years ago from the now-missing murder weapon.

The body of a young mother was found in a suitcase in a Texas landfill. The suitcase leads investigators to Rosendo Rodriguez who had an overwhelming amount of forensic evidence against him. But upon an extensive search of the same landfill, Rogers' decomposing body was also found in a suitcase.

In 2004, nursing student Tamika Huston went missing from her Spartanburg, South Carolina home. A tip guides investigators to her car where they find an unknown house key that could help solve the case.

A funeral director was found shot to death in his Texas home. His son became the prime suspect, particularly after it was discovered that the crime was committed with his gun. But he had an alibi for the time of the murder. Later, detectives find a mask near the crime scene and DNA evidence that could help solve the mystery.

In 1993, Tammy Tatum was found sexually assaulted and murdered in her Colorado apartment. Police suspected her estranged husband but did not have enough evidence to charge him and the case went cold. Three years later, another young woman was raped and police believed the cases may be related, but the DNA collected gives no clear answers.