Forensic Files is an American documentary-style series which reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and even outbreaks of illness. The series was broadcast on Court TV, narrated by Peter Thomas, and produced by Medstar Television, in association with Court TV Original Productions. It has broadcast 406 episodes since its debut on TLC in 1996 as Medical Detectives.
| Forensic Files | |
|---|---|
| Season 10 | |
| No. of episodes | 42 |
| Release | |
| Original network | Court TV |
| Original release | April 27, 2005 – March 15, 2006 |
| Season chronology | |
Episodes edit
| No. in series |
No. in season |
Title | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 216 | 1 | "Trial By Fire" | April 27, 2005 | |
| A house erupted in flames on a cold January night, killing one person and injuring another. The survivor blamed a kerosene heater; the evidence at the scene did not support her story, and she was charged with arson and murder. It would take a nationally known fire investigator to determine what happened and who was responsible. | ||||
| 217 | 2 | "Marked For Life" | May 18, 2005 | |
| It was 1957, and California police were searching for a man who had committed several crimes in one night – including murder. They followed thousands of leads but, eventually, the case turned cold. Almost 50 years later, with the help of advances in computer technology and handwriting analysis, investigators proved an old adage: You can run, but you can't hide. | ||||
| 218 | 3 | "Plastic Puzzle" | June 1, 2005 | |
| In 1995, a man riding a bicycle was fatally injured, and police believed he was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. Tiny clues found at the scene created a picture of the vehicle which struck him and led police to its driver. | ||||
| 219 | 4 | "Up In Smoke" | June 29, 2005 | |
| In 1996, when an elderly couple died in a suspicious house fire, their son became the prime suspect. The son insisted he was innocent; he said he tried to extinguish the fire by pouring water on it, but that only made it worse. Investigators turned to forensic science to determine if the fire had been set deliberately or if it was an unfortunate accident. | ||||
| 220 | 5 | "Soiled Plan" | July 6, 2005 | |
| In 1978, police instituted an intense search when the mother of two young children went missing and, less than a day later, they found her body. The evidence was little better than circumstantial, and the crime drifted to the bottom of the cold case files. Twenty years later, advances in technology enabled investigators to see the evidence in a new light and discover it pointed directly to the killer. | ||||
| 221 | 6 | "Headquarters" | July 13, 2005 | |
| In 1993, when hunters reported finding a skull in a Texas canyon, police immediately began an investigation. At the scene, they found bits of clothing, a woman's shoe, some small bones and a strand of hair. An anthropologist determined the victim was a Caucasian woman, and that she'd been stabbed repeatedly. A forensic artist reconstructed her face, and the image was released to media. Eventually, police learned who she was. Now all they had to do was find her killer. | ||||
| 222 | 7 | "One For The Road" | July 20, 2005 | |
| In 2003, a married couple decided to escape the cold of winter with a mini-vacation in Key West. The wife went missing, and police searched every square inch of the island; they found nothing but a pair of sandals which might have belonged to her. Then two important pieces of video surfaced, and investigators began to wonder if they should be searching for a missing person or a killer. | ||||
| 223 | 8 | "Army Of Evidence" | July 27, 2005 | |
| In 1991, a mother of two young children was found dead in her bedroom. It appeared she had killed herself: There were suicide notes near her body, and a pistol was in her hand. Her death was ruled a suicide – but when investigators learned she had almost died in a house fire three years earlier, they decided to take another look at the evidence. | ||||
| 224 | 9 | "Shear Luck" | August 3, 2005 | |
| In 1991, when the wife of a serviceman was brutally murdered in the Philippines, the Air Force Office of Special Investigators swung into action. Clues led to the victim's husband, but he insisted he was innocent. To find out if he was telling the truth, investigators would have to do something unprecedented: Reassemble a 5-1/4 inch computer disk which had been cut to pieces with pinking shears. | ||||
| 225 | 10 | "Tagging A Suspect" | August 10, 2005 | |
| Bombings are difficult to solve, because the perpetrator isn't usually at the scene, and the evidence goes up in smoke. But there are clues if investigators know where to look. In this 1979 case, 45-year-old steel worker Nathan Allen was killed by a bomb in his pickup truck, and pieces of plastic the size of grains of sand held the key to his murder, leading police straight to Nathan’s uncle, Pete McFillin. | ||||
| 226 | 11 | "Strong Impressions" | August 17, 2005 | |
| In 1984, the wife of an Air Force officer was found dead in her bed, with a plastic laundry bag near her face. At first glance, it appeared she'd been doing laundry, fell asleep, rolled onto the bag, and suffocated. But further investigation proved that the scene had been staged. Her death wasn't an accident; it was cold-blooded murder. | ||||
| 227 | 12 | "Cereal Killer" | August 24, 2005 | |
| In 1999, when a fire destroyed most of Bob Wood's home and his 11-year-old son Christopher went missing, police organized the largest search in the history of their small town. First the boy's backpack was discovered five miles from home, and then his body was found 50 miles away. But the killer had been careless, and the evidence he left behind would lead police directly to him. | ||||
| 228 | 13 | "Crash Course" | August 31, 2005 | |
| In 2002, when 41-year-old Debra Hollermann was killed after her husband Steve crashed into an abandoned car on the side of the highway, a highway patrolman was dispatched to what he thought would be a routine traffic accident until he looked in the car. While he had no formal training in forensic science, he had seen hundreds of accidents – but never as much blood as this. He was shocked by the coroner's ruling of accidental death, and then an anonymous phone call exposing Steve Hollermann’s infidelity breathed new life into his investigation. He soon determined that Debra had found evidence of Steve’s affair, demanded a divorce, and Steve killed her in the car by slamming her head against a window and faked the accident to cover it up. Steve Hollermann was convicted of second-degree murder. | ||||
| 229 | 14 | "A Leg Up On Crime" | September 7, 2005 | |
| In 1986, the decomposed body of a young woman was discovered in a Bakersfield irrigation canal. If there was trace evidence, it had been washed away. Another victim was found in that same canal a year later; this time, the perpetrator had been careless. The shoe prints found at the scene would lead police to the most unlikely of killers. | ||||
| 230 | 15 | "Tight-fitting Genes" | September 14, 2005 | |
| In 2002, a behavioral profile is helpful in a murder investigation, but it's not a road map to the killer. One such profile caused the Baton Rouge Police Department to search for the wrong man. They might not have made an arrest had it not been for a DNA picture of the suspect, painted by a molecular biologist. | ||||
| 231 | 16 | "Deadly Valentine" | September 21, 2005 | |
| In 2001, an obstetrician returned home from the hospital and found his wife on the floor of the bathroom. She was covered with blood and not breathing. He tried unsuccessfully to revive her, staining his clothes with her blood in the process, and then he called 911. His version of events was not supported by the blood spatter evidence, and investigators had to determine why. | ||||
| 232 | 17 | "Picture This" | September 28, 2005 | |
| In 1995, a Modesto, California teenager went missing. There was no sign of a struggle in her home and police suspected she'd simply run away until her naked, bruised body was discovered in a ditch 20 miles away. Evidence soon led police to the girl’s stepfather, with evidence suggesting that he killed her during a fight and hid her body for fear of losing his job as a result. | ||||
| 233 | 18 | "Oily In The Morning" | October 5, 2005 | |
| In 1997, when police recovered the submerged car of Nick Howard, an 18-year-old reported missing, they expected to find his body – but it wasn't there. His broken eyeglasses were on the floor of the vehicle and the interior was coated with motor oil. The investigation which followed would uncover an obsession turned deadly, and the motive for murder. Ralph Marcus, a man Nick's mother Patty had once dated in high school, had gained Nick's trust and manipulated him into writing Marcus as the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy. After Nick did so, Marcus killed him and staged the accident to collect the money, an act which earned him a life sentence. | ||||
| 234 | 19 | "Gold Rush" | October 12, 2005 | |
| In 1998, emergency dispatch received a call from a man who said his girlfriend shot and killed herself. Police found the victim in the caller's house, lying in a pool of blood with the gun next to her on the floor. The autopsy revealed that the gunshot wound was not self-inflicted and the evidence found on her body would give police a golden opportunity to catch her killer. | ||||
| 235 | 20 | "Four On The Floor" | October 19, 2005 | |
| In 2000, a Native American woman was brutally killed in the desert of New Mexico, and the crime scene was rich in forensic evidence: tire tracks, shoe impressions and even the murder weapons. The site was less than 10 miles from another crime scene where, two years earlier, a male Native American was beaten and stabbed to death. Police began to wonder: was a serial killer on the loose? | ||||
| 236 | 21 | "Writer's Block" | October 26, 2005 | |
| In 1991, a brilliant young architect became ill and died just before she was to testify in a criminal trial. The autopsy revealed she'd been poisoned with arsenic; it was a slow and painful death, so suicide was unlikely. Investigators had to determine who among her family, friends and business associates had a motive for murder. | ||||
| 237 | 22 | "A Clean Getaway" | November 2, 2005 | |
| In 1992, a 40-year-old employee of a drycleaner was raped and murdered in the store, and investigators thought themselves fortunate to have two eyewitnesses. Their descriptions were similar but not identical, and the prime suspect didn't come close to resembling that person. Police turned to forensic science for the answers they needed, and soon discovered that the phone call reporting the murder had been made by the killer. | ||||
| 238 | 23 | "Prints Among Thieves" | November 9, 2005 | |
| In 1996, the murder of 80-year-old eccentric millionaire Robert Rogers was not entirely unexpected; he flaunted his wealth and cared little for personal security. The evidence at the crime seemed to indicate robbery, but investigators wondered if there was something more. The prime suspect was Robert’s son Donald, whom he’d recently disinherited, but a shoe print found on a piece of broken glass led police to Robert’s new beneficiary; his 31-year-old caretaker and next door neighbor, Sharon Zachary. Robert had discovered Sharon was misappropriating his money for her family’s benefit, and planned to cut her out of his will and reinstate Donald as the sole inheritor. Sharon snuck into the house early in the morning, bludgeoned Robert to death, and faked the robbery, hoping Donald would be blamed. But her shoes gave her away, and a jury wasted no time in convicting Sharon of Robert’s murder, and instead of a prosperous fortune, all she got was life without parole. | ||||
| 239 | 24 | "Unholy Alliance" | November 16, 2005 | |
| In 1999, when a young woman disappeared, police feared she was the latest victim in a string of similar crimes. But the MO wasn't quite right. A pair of bloody gloves, unique tire tracks, and ordinary grass and pine needles provided investigators with some extraordinary clues. | ||||
| 240 | 25 | "Signed, Sealed & Delivered" | November 23, 2005 | |
| R.D. Cheeley and Doug Gustavson were convicted of intentionally shooting and killing 20-year-old Jeffrey Cain in the passenger seat of his friend Rob Chamberlain's moving car, after Chamberlain reportedly cut them off on the highway, and both were given life imprisonment. Their friend, 19-year-old George Kerr, was granted immunity for testifying against them, and the case was closed. Then a bomb exploded in Kerr's family home, instantly killing his father, 44-year-old David, and maiming his stepmother Michelle. Investigators turned to forensic science, hoping to determine if this was an act of revenge and if there was a way to link the two deadly crimes. They soon figured out how Cheeley and Gustavson had planned and orchestrated the bombing in prison. Shockingly, the people who planted the bomb turned out to be Gustavson's siblings, Peggy and Craig, who also wanted revenge as they were sure their brother was innocent. As a result, Cheeley and Gustavson received an additional life term each, while the vengeful brother and sister were each given 22 years in prison for their efforts. | ||||
| 241 | 26 | "Cop Out" | November 30, 2005 | |
| In 2004, 20-year-old homosexual college student Jesse Valencia was found dead, and the evidence suggested he knew his killer. Three hairs and some microscopic cells helped police to unravel a web of lies, and find the motive for murder. However, they were shocked to discover the truth; 28-year-old police officer Stephen Rios had been having an affair with Jesse, who wanted out of their relationship and threatened to tell both the police chief and Rios’s wife about it if Rios didn’t leave him alone. Scared of losing his job and his marriage being destroyed, Rios killed Jesse to keep him quiet. But one of Jesse’s former boyfriends had seen him and Rios together previously, and when he went to give a statement at the police station, he saw Rios there and identified him. Rios was sentenced to life in prison. | ||||
| 242 | 27 | "Summer Obsession" | December 7, 2005 | |
| In 1997, in an affluent suburb of Philadelphia, police were called to the home of Craig and Stefanie Rabinowitz, where Stefanie appeared to have accidentally drowned in the bathtub. The investigation gradually focused on one person, a suspect who had more than a million reasons to want the victim dead. Craig had actually been embezzling money from his job and spending it on exotic dancers, and when he couldn’t pay the money back, he murdered Stefanie for her life insurance. Craig Rabinowitz was sentenced to life in prison for his wife’s murder. | ||||
| 243 | 28 | "Elemental Clue" | December 14, 2005 | |
| In 1997, when two women from the same town were murdered in the same way, police feared a serial killer was on the loose. At first they thought the victims had nothing in common until they found tiny clues linking them to the same man. | ||||
| 244 | 29 | "Moss, Not Grass" | December 21, 2005 | |
| In 1999, a young woman was found dead on a golf course in the Bahamas. The grass on that course was so distinctive, it had evidentiary value. The evidence led police to two suspects. Each blamed the other, and they had to find out who the killer was. | ||||
| 245 | 30 | "Material Witness" | December 28, 2005 | |
| In 1986, a teenager went missing after an evening of horseback riding. Her body was found a month later, three miles from her home. The killer unknowingly left trace evidence behind – tiny but unmistakable clues which pointed to him and him alone. | ||||
| 246 | 31 | "Garden of Evil" | January 4, 2006 | |
| When a popular disc jockey was found murdered in a community garden, police swung into action. A sniffer dog and a blood spatter expert led police to the killer and he'd been much closer than they realized. | ||||
| 247 | 32 | "Sunday School Ambush" | January 11, 2006 | |
| When a woman's husband was gunned down in his own garage by intruders, investigators worked tirelessly to find the assassins. But when they discovered that a wound sustained during the attack by the grieving widow may have been self-inflicted, they turned to science to help them unravel a twisted tale of lust, greed and deception. | ||||
| 248 | 33 | "Penchant for Poison" | January 18, 2006 | |
| The seemingly unrelated deaths of three elderly people (Olgie Nobles and sisters Catherine and Cordelia Norton) in Texas in 1988 proved to be serial murders. The killer, Timothy Scoggin, had been careful – he used arsenic, a poison which had no taste or odor. Fortunately for investigators, it also had a unique chemical signature. | ||||
| 249 | 34 | "Bump in the Night" | January 25, 2006 | |
| The crime scene was awash with blood. The victim had been brutally murdered as he slept in his own bed. There were no foreign fingerprints in his home, but investigators did find a shoe impression in the mud outside physical evidence they hoped would lead them to the killer. | ||||
| 250 | 35 | "Sole Searching" | February 1, 2006 | |
| Now it's not only a fingerprint which can link a killer to a crime; a shoe print can be just as telling. Armed with little else, police hoped the shoe impressions found at a Lansing, Michigan crime scene would put their investigation of Audrey Nichols' murder back on track. | ||||
| 251 | 36 | "Murder on the Menu" | February 8, 2006 | |
| When the head chef of a historic Philadelphia restaurant was found dead, investigators interviewed the usual suspects: family, friends and coworkers. As they sifted through the evidence, police uncovered a chilling tale of debt and deceit. | ||||
| 252 | 37 | "Hot on the Trail" | February 15, 2006 | |
| A serial arsonist was on the loose in Washington, DC. Each of the fires was started with the same type of incendiary device. The perpetrator was very careful and seemed to leave no evidence behind but there were clues in the ashes and it was up to forensic scientists to find them. | ||||
| 253 | 38 | "High 'n Dry" | February 22, 2006 | |
| When Genell Plude was found dead in her bathroom, the scene pointed to suicide. But a coroner's inquest and a unique application of forensic science gave investigators a different explanation for her death. It was a theory which, if true, could turn her husband Doug into the prime suspect. | ||||
| 254 | 39 | "To the Viktor" | March 1, 2006 | |
| After Victor Gunnarsson, once a suspect in the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, is found murdered in North Carolina, investigators on both sides of the Atlantic needed to find out if they were related and, if they were, who or what they had in common. | ||||
| 255 | 40 | "Wired for Disaster" | March 8, 2006 | |
| A 29-year-old woman was killed instantly when a bomb exploded in her home. The device was so powerful that shrapnel was embedded in houses across the street. The bomber had not only knowledge and skill, but also a motive for murder. | ||||
| 256 | 41 | "Wood-be Killer" | March 15, 2006 | |
| A killer tried to incinerate and destroy everything that could link him to his crime. But in doing so, he inadvertently created new forensic evidence, evidence which came to light with a technique never before used in a criminal investigation. | ||||
| 257 | 42 | "Enemy Within" | December 7, 2005 | |
| Kansas City attorney Richard Armitage was brutally murdered in his office in broad daylight. The first prime suspect was Lou Campbell, who had previously threatened Armitage, but he was later cleared. Police turn their suspicions to Armitage's law partner Richard Buchli, who had very little success as a lawyer and was in debt for more than $250,000. | ||||