Forensic Files

A series featuring detailed accounts on how notable crimes and diseases were solved through forensic science.

A Connecticut flight attendant goes missing and is never seen again. Police suspect her husband is guilty of murder and they prove it, even though they never find the woman's body.

Sitting in the apparently safe lobby of his father's gun club, a teenage boy is mysteriously shot dead. Ballistics, laser technology, scale models and forensic animation reveal the bullet's amazing but tragic path, and who was responsible.

A woman mysteriously disappears, and police detect blood on her bedroom carpet. Testing with the chemical Luminol reveals a room awash in blood spatter. DNA testing confirms the victim's identity. Can police find her body - and the killer?

British detectives worked with a pioneering scientist to solve crimes of sexual assault and serial murder. This 1986 case marked the first time DNA was used as evidence in a court of law.

Early one morning in a deserted area outside of Phoenix, a motorcyclist discovered the body of a young woman. She had been beaten, bound, strangled and possibly raped. The nearby plants would tell investigators more about the killer than any other single piece of evidence.

Shortly after Thanksgiving in 1987, an intruder broke into a residence in Arlington, Virginia. That crime launched a new era in police investigations: DNA evidence and psychological profiling helped catch a serial killer and free an innocent man.

Philadelphia, the birthplace of the United States, played host to millions of tourists and hundreds of gatherings as America celebrated its 200th year of independence. History was made that summer of 1976 - not because of the bicentennial, but because of the mysterious death of 34 people at an American Legion convention. The groundbreaking investigation by the CDC had to explain why dozens inside a hotel - and some who just walked by outside - all got sick.

On the night of May 22, 1992, Betty Wilson returned home after a meeting. She walked up the stairs to the bedroom and discovered her husband, lying in a pool of blood. Jack Wilson had obviously been murdered... but how? And by whom? Even the experts couldn't agree.

Eleven children in an elementary school in Phoenix contracted childhood leukemia; nine of them died. And in Guilford, Connecticut, five people were diagnosed with brain tumors on a street where there were only nine homes. Two towns, two cancer clusters, two mysteries. The investigation answered some questions, but raised many more.

Between 1985 and 1988, 18 people were choked, molested and left for dead in the remote desert mountains of California. The only witnesses were the insects - and they also proved to play an important role in solving the crimes and bringing the killer to justice.

In 1985, 121 people in South Dakota and Minnesota were struck with a mysterious illness. There had been only one outbreak like it, and when it happened then, no one could figure out why. This time, disease detectives would use scientific tools to unravel a mystery centered on the technique of a butcher.

For 18 years, a man who murdered his entire family successfully eluded the FBI. This episode describes how investigators used both art and forensic science to catch the killer, John List.

In 1991 after a weekend earning wilderness merit badges, a boy scout ended up with slight fever and diarrhea, sending him to the hospital. His kidneys started shutting down and his diarrhea turned into hemorrhaging, leaving doctors puzzled.

In 1984, a serial killer was on the loose in Florida. Eight women had been found dead. At each crime scene, investigators found tiny red fibers, fibers they hoped would lead them to the killer.

Eileen and Derrick Severs disappeared from their home in the small village of Hambleton in Great Britain, and police found evidence which suggested foul play. Careful analysis of a soil sample would tell investigators not only what happened to the couple, but who was responsible for the dirty deed.

In the single, most deadly automobile accident in American history, almost a hundred vehicles collided, twelve people died, and over fifty people were injured. It happened along a three mile stretch of highway long known for dense, thick fog. Investigators set out to determine if the fog was a natural phenomenon, or the result of something else.

While Earl Morris was vacationing in California, he learned his wife had disappeared from their home in Arizona. The search for Ruby Morris involved dozens of investigators and scientists, even the U.S. Coast Guard. The investigation uncovered surprising family secrets and followed a trail from the deserts of Arizona to a mysterious vanishing, burning boat.

The flu-like symptoms of a mother and her children proved to be indicative something much more serious: thallium poisoning. Investigators had to find the source of the poison and when the mother died, to determine if the exposure was accidental, or if they also needed to find a killer.

In a quiet village in Great Britain, a farmer came upon a chilling sight. Impaled on his fence post was a severed lamb's head along with a note which read, "You next." Soon, a car-bomb maimed the farmer's wife. Then a neighbor is found dead, and the farmer is found bleeding from knife wounds. Investigators must decipher a very bloody scene to sort out the crimes.

An infant was rushed to a Cleveland emergency room with serious breathing problems. The baby's lungs were bleeding, an extremely rare life-threatening condition. Within months, there were more than 30 cases - an incidence more than a thousand times higher than anywhere else in the world. Doctors had never seen anything like it, and searched frantically for the cause and a cure.

Shortly after daybreak in Vancouver, British Columbia, a fire was set in a dumpster. No one saw the arsonist, and the fire burned for hours in a deserted parking lot. But there was more than garbage in the container, and it would take sophisticated science to find the evidence in the ashes.

Two people in Seattle, Washington died after taking an over-the-counter pain reliever; lab analysis of the pills showed they were tainted with a lethal concentration of cyanide. The investigation which followed led police to a suspect with a motive for murder and a callous disregard for others.

For more than a year, angry, hateful letters were sent to a first grade school teacher in a small town in Pennsylvania. When scientists analyzed the letters, they found evidence that the sender knew a lot about the victim - more, in fact, than anyone could possibly have imagined. DNA analysis would eventually help seal the perpetrator's fate.

On October 15, 1985, two bomb explosions rocked Salt Lake City and resulted in two deaths. A third explosion occurred the next day; this time, the victim was injured but survived. As the investigation progressed, police came to believe the survivor was more than an innocent by-stander. When they turned to forensic science for help, they uncovered an almost unbelievable story of forgery, fraud and murder.