
Forensic Files
A man who had committed crimes including murder was not caught. Almost 50 years later, advances in technology and handwriting analysis uncovered the criminal.

A man who had committed crimes including murder was not caught. Almost 50 years later, advances in technology and handwriting analysis uncovered the criminal.

A suspect's former lover comes forward with a tale of murder, mutilation and cremation, but there's no way to test the story's validity until a plant pathologist and a dendrochronologist conduct tests where the cremation supposedly occurred.

When a popular teacher is found dead of what appears to be an accidental gunshot wound, his family is suspicious. A tape recorded by the victim before his death provides clues to what happened.

It's usually easy to determine how a criminal entered the crime scene. But in this case, it was far from clear. It looked like the killer vanished into thin air...and perhaps he had.

In the case of the Center City Rapist and the murder of Shannon Schieber, Philadelphia authorities use an anonymous letter and geographic profiling to hone in on a suspect.

Scott Dunn was missing and when the police sprayed his bedroom with Luminol, a scene of horrific violence emerged. Now investigators faced a daunting task.

A young woman suddenly becomes critically ill, eventually leaving her unable to walk. A bone marrow test reveals the cause: arsenic poisoning. Investigators must determine if the poisoning was caused by groundwater contamination or something more sinister.

The decomposed body of a young woman was discovered in a Bakersfield irrigation canal. If there was trace evidence, it had been washed away.

When a wealthy socialite died after falling down the stairs, witness accounts contradicted evidence. Investigators employed a physicist and an expert in accident reconstruction.

In 1992, Laura Houghteling disappeared from her Bethesda home and was never seen again. Laura's bedroom was searched and forensic science was used to direct them a to prime suspect.

After a street fight takes the life of a national wrestling champion, police must determine if he was killed in cold blood or in self-defense.

In the 1980s, a trio of unsolved murders occurred in Wichita Falls, Texas. Later, a fourth murder from the same time period provided the police with far more than they realized.

Police led an intense search and relied on forensics when the mother of two young children went missing.

In 1991, Dorothy Donovan was murdered in her Dover, Delaware home and police are skeptical when her son Charles Holden stated that she was murdered by a hitchhiker he had picked up.

The body of an attractive young woman was found a mile from her abandoned car. Police were especially concerned when they realized the victim had come to them for protection just two weeks earlier.

There was no clear reason for a young, healthy college student to be dead. But when the coroner discovered a tiny clue during the autopsy, investigators were able to uncover a mystery.

Kathy Lorick was murdered on a Concord, California jogging trail while talking to her husband on her phone.

After shooting his victims in the head, the killer staged the scene, placed the incriminating evidence into a plastic bag and tossed it into the river.

The murder of a millionaire indicated robbery, but investigators wondered if there was something more.

With no forensic evidence inside a murder scene, investigators were baffled. But they suspected that the victim's dog had witnessed the crime.