Forensic Files

For years, a brutal series of rapes and murders of college girls shocked a local campus. Police feared a serial killer was on the loose and they needed to determine what - or who - these women had in common.

A security guard disappeared from his post without a trace; his remains were found a year later in an isolated camp site. More than 10 years would pass before a phone call breathed life into the cold case. A paint smear on the bottom of the victim's boot helped scientists confirm what happened during the last hour of his life.

In a terrible twist of fate, just days after the woman sold her home and moved to a modest trailer a fire claimed both the trailer and her life. But the autopsy proved this was no accident. It was arson and murder. Police had to find out who wanted the woman dead and why.

After shooting his victims in the head, the killer staged the scene, placed the evidence into a plastic bag and tossed it into the river. But instead of floating downstream, it became entangled in overhanging branches. A few days later, when investigators found it, they hoped clues to the killer's identity and the solution to the crime were "in the bag."

A skeleton found in the woods behind a rented home in Wilmington, North Carolina is matched to a missing person using a free photo editing application.

When two women went missing and were later discovered viciously murdered, police wondered if they were victims of a hate crime; the women lived together and were politically active, outspoken advocates of gay rights. However, the motive turned out to be something with which investigators were all too familiar: greed, fueled by obsession.

A witness comes forward to help solve the murder of a South Carolina hairdresser.

Diane and Alan Johnson are shot to death in their Idaho bedroom. The killer's careful efforts to avoid leaving DNA evidence go for naught when forensic scientists take a careful look at the scene.

Fingerprints from a 1969 murder investigation turn up more than 30 years later, and detectives wonder if there could be a match in a modern fingerprint database.

The body of an attractive young woman was found a mile from her abandoned car. Police were extremely concerned when they realized the victim had come to them for protection just two weeks earlier, after a road rage incident. Concern turned to dread when the evidence pointed not to an aggressive driver, but to one of their own police officers.

The body of college co-ed Laura Salmon was found on a Georgia farm, covered with her own denim jeans as well as the jeans of the murderer. Investigators had plenty of suspects but no solid evidence linking any of them to the crime. More than a decade later, sophisticated technology would breathe new life into a case gone cold with the passage of time.

The murderer probably hoped to cover his tracks by staging the crime scene. But police saw through the attempt almost immediately, and they turned to forensic science to discover what really happened that night.

When the only witness to a brutal killing is the family dog, investigators turn to a microscopic analysis of some articles of clothing to find the guilty party.

On Halloween night 2004, Adriane Insogna and Leslie Mazzara were brutally murdered in their Napa, California home. The killer was not seen by their downstairs roommate, but he left his DNA behind in some cigarette butts and a groundbreaking test determined his race and even the color of his eyes and hair. Originally aired as Season 12, Episode 15.

A serial killer is on the loose and police have to find him before he strikes again. Their most promising lead is an unusual one: a bloody fingerprint on the body of one of the victims.

A brutally violent murder, with many suspects and conflicting evidence, but the forensics were clear on one thing: the killer knew his victim. And that alone provided investigators with a head start.

It's usually simple to figure out how a criminal entered the crime scene. But in this case, it was far from clear. It seemed like the killer vanished into thin air and perhaps he really did.

The victim had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death on the beach, just ten yards from the hotel where she was staying. A pair of men's tennis shoes was discovered near her body. Police were sure that if they found the man who fit the shoes, they would also find the man who committed the crime. Originally aired as Season 12, Episode 11.

A Wal-Mart shoe clerk is gunned down in her driveway with a 22-caliber weapon. Police suspect first her husband, then a coworker and spurned would-be lover half her age.

A Michigan State University grad student disappeared and was presumed dead. With the help of a professor of geological sciences, police hoped to get the "dirt" on her killer.

Seattle police had no suspects in the violent murder of a popular rock singer. More than a decade would pass before the evidence collected by an extraordinarily prescient medical examiner could be used by forensic scientists to identify the killer.

Security cameras in a casino tracked a young woman's movements until shortly before she disappeared. She was never seen again, but through the evidence she left behind, she was able to tell investigators what happened to her and who was responsible.

The longest running true crime series in television history, a young girl is found dead, and police quickly arrest the most likely suspect. But when cutting-edge technology from NASA enables a forensic odontologist to prove the wrong man is behind bars, the investigation resumes.