Cold Case Files - Season 1

Death of actor Bob Crane; fingerprint matching; police solve the murder of a missing young woman; DNA and an Illinois rape case.

From Wisconsin to Maine, go inside cold case units and watch as police use computer enhanced photographs, ground penetrating radar, forensic science and tough police interrogation to crack some of the oldest crimes in the books.

In England, Juliet Rowe, a quiet community member and wife of a local grocery man, was gunned down in her kitchen. Ten years later her killer is arrested. The answer to unraveling this mystery brought English detectives overseas. In rural Texas, using a DNA data bank called CODIS, cold case detectives were able to catch a sexual serial stalker who preyed on young girls. In Griffin, Georgia, 36 year-old Beverly Eller is found brutally murdered Christmas Eve morning. Nine years later police get a hit on a fingerprint found at the murder scene.

Police solve the killing of an 11-year-old track star 10 years later when they obtain the DNA evidence they need in a cigarette butt dropped by the suspect. Also, a mother is convicted of killing her 5-year-old daughter 13 years after the crime.

DNA tests identify a skull of a 14-year-old boy who went missing 6 years earlier. When a second skull is found, investigators fear they have a serial killer in the area. In Florida, detectives trace a gun used in a 4-year-old murder.

In Missouri, a part-time missionary is convicted, 38 years later, of killing her 5-year-old stepdaughter, and the skeleton of a Michigan boy, dead for 10 years, leads police to a serial killer.

Alligators feasting on a human corpse help police to crack a murder investigation. Phoenix police discover that a preacher is the culprit in a 20-year-old murder.

A man in Florida is reported missing and his roommate is the main suspect. Then, at first it looks like L.A.P.D. Sgt. George Arthur died in a car crash. But two days later, four bullets are found in his skull.

A tipster's phone call helps solve the murder of the heir to the U-Haul company fortune, and a grisly murder case is solved two decades later with the use of new fingerprint technology.

A highly-regarded California arson investigator is suspected of setting a series of fires, and a man is convicted of raping and murdering his 68-year-old neighbor and stealing her Coke bottle and rare coin collections.

In Palm Beach, a determined cop solves the murder of prostitute Lucy Pate five years later. In 1989, Susan Doll was found beaten, raped, and strangled. Investigators extracted DNA from a semen stain, but had no suspect to match it against - until 1995.

A woman tracks down the man who raped her 7 years earlier, only to find out that the statute of limitations on rape is 6 years; and a detective keeps a murder investigation going for 16 years to proves a woman killed her husband in a satanic rite.

Rapes plague the Linden area of Columbus, Ohio; a hitchhiker's corpse is found in the California redwoods.

In Wisconsin, advances in forensic clay modeling help investigators identify a murder victim whose skin was stripped from her head, neck, and legs. And in California, police track down two boys who enjoy satanic rituals and setting fires.

A killer of four goes free until a detective finds key evidence on a coffee cup.

DNA evidence helps crack the case of a white supremacist who strangled his girlfriend and put her body in a refrigerator. Hypnosis helps solve the murder of a deputy sheriff.

Police solve a murder when divers find a skeleton in a car at the bottom of a river. A dead dog's DNA helps crack open a six-year-old case.

The accidental discovery of a human scalp leads to the conviction of a man for murder 18 years after the killing. And a teenager who likes to kidnap younger boys and break their bones, kills one and tortures another.

A serial killer keeps law enforcement working on his cases for over 20 years.

When a passing motorist spots a fire along a country road in South Carolina and calls it in, police arrive to discover the badly burned and battered remains of a woman, her skull smashed in to ninety-seven fragments.

A scientist's murder is solved using the technology she was developing at the time of her death; criminal profiling helps to nab a child-rapist.

Using a hair dryer to thaw a frozen corpse, detectives get to the bottom of a grisly murder. The discovery of a child's skeleton in a Chicago garden puts police on the trail of an oddball family.

A boat ride leads to death; a mail order bride is found dead after threatening to leave her husband.