Forensic Files — Season 5

For more than a decade, women in a small Louisiana city lived in fear of a rapist who becomes so experienced, he leaves no clues to his identity. But computer technology and behavioral science combine to give police a new forensic tool: geographical profiling. Police narrow their search to one man, local policeman Randy Comeaux.

New evidence points to a different killer in the case of a dentist's murdered wife.

When Joann Katrinak is found dead with her infant son Alex next to her, the obvious suspect is the husband and father of the victims. But some insects found on the bodies reveal a vital clue, as does a blonde hair found on the victims which shares a commonality with the brunette hair of the husband's former love interest.

A decomposed body is found stuffed in a barrel -- but the body had been placed in the barrel 30 years earlier. One of the few clues was an address book found along with the body, however, years of moisture had washed away the ink. Scientists desperately searched for a way to reveal the information written on the pages of the address book.

When a Seattle policeman's house goes up in flames, fire experts suspect arson - possibly committed by someone with a vendetta against the officer. One month later, in an ironic twist, the officer whose home was torched, arrests a low-level drug dealer, who confesses to the arson! But when the suspect vanishes, investigators start to question the authenticity of the so-called confession.

Dianna Green is brutally attacked in her own home and her unborn child is killed. After coming out of her coma and regaining her memory, she identifies her husband as the perpetrator.

A mother and her two young daughters are found brutally murdered and sexually violated. The crime scene has no shortage of evidence, but investigators cannot find a conclusive link to their prime suspect. To solve the puzzle, an FBI analyst designs a unique experiment, in which pubic hairs found at the scene are used to establish not only that the perpetrator was in the home, but that he was there when the crime was committed.

The murder of two young girls and abduction of a store clerk may all be linked to one man. Unusual orange carpet fibers found on the scene are the key to aid the police in solving the crime and bringing to justice the killer.

The autopsy played an important role in a murder investigation fof the suspicious 1997 death of Georgia resident Virginia Ridley. Police charged her mentally-unstable husband Alan with murder, but a medical examiner discovered that she died of other causes.

A police investigation of a pediatrician, after the mysterious death of one of her patients, leads them to a Texas hospital where the pediatric mortality rate was higher than at any hospital in the country. The common link was nurse Genene Jones.

When the decomposed body of a young girl is discovered, police have no clues to her identity. But days earlier, a stabbing victim told them she thought she might have witnessed a murder. Police think the cases might be related, and to prove it, turn to bug larvae found on the body and a surprise piece of evidence: a tiny wad of chewing gum found near the victim's body.

Police suspect Dr. Boyle in the disappearance of his wife Noreen after he signs mortgage papers for a new house with a woman pretending to be his spouse. Using the recollections of their twelve year-old son regarding what he heard the night his mother went missing, investigators discover Noreen's body in the basement of Dr. Boyle's new house.

The story of Archbishop Valerian D. Trifa, former head of the Romanian Orthodox Church in America, is related. Following World War II, Trifa emigrated from Romania to the U.S. In 1957, survivors of Nazi atrocities recognized him.

When Russ Stager, a popular gym teacher, is found dead of what appears to be an accidental gunshot wound, his family becomes suspicious. They think his wife may have planned his murder. When police find that her previous husband died in questionable circumstances, they re-examine the crime scene and uncover evidence that the death was no accident.

In this international case of extortion, murder, and stolen identities, a Canadian financier assumes the name of a co-worker as part of a money-laundering scheme. The man later turns up dead in an ocean with an anchor tied around his torso. The only clues to his real identity are a Rolex watch and a maple leaf tattoo. Neither item is as helpful to cracking the case as the 10 lb. anchor to which he was tied.

When heart surgeon Darryl Sutorius is found dead in the basement of his upscale Cincinnati home, police assume he committed suicide. Friends and family indicate that the man suffered prolonged bouts of depression.

What does a prosecutor do when he has evidence linking a habitual drunk driver to a hit-and-run in which a child is killed, and he needs to make the crash clear to jurors? In this case, he combines the talents of an accident reconstruction expert with a video specialist to create graphic demonstration of the moment of impact. This was the first case in which video in the courtroom withstood an appeal, and helped make video testimony viable in other cases.

When convenience store employee Wanda Mason is found dead, having been shot at point blank range, investigators find the entire murder has been caught on the store's videotape security camera.

The investigation into a missing college coed leads police to discover that, unbeknownst to her friends, she lived a bizarre double life, attending school by day and working as a call-girl by night. When her body is found, investigators gather evidence that implicates her killer.