Episode
Cold Case Files: Presumed Dead/The Tow Truck Killer
Overview
One will take 10 years and one will take 17 years to solve but they do get solved. Dedication, science, luck, and even hypnosis is used to make sure justice is done for the dead.
Details
- Series
- Cold Case Files
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 16
- Air date
- 1999-04-23
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
Presumed Dead/The Tow Truck Killer is Episode 16 in Season 1 of Cold Case Files. It aired on 1999-04-23. The runtime is 60 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 15: Killer in the County
A serial killer of four women, Faryion Wardrip, is brought to justice in Wichita Falls, Texas after a DNA sample is found on a coffee cup.
Episode 17: The Missing Informant/Man's Best Friend
Police solve a murder when divers find a skeleton in a car at the bottom of a river, and a dead dog's DNA helps crack open a 6-year-old case.
More episodes from this season
Episode 14: Reconstructing Murder/Fire Flicks
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.
Episode 18: The Tortured Truth/Portrait Of A Killer
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.
Episode 13: The Burning Secret/Justice Delayed
A rapist is captured seven years after the crime, but when he is released on a technicality his victim is determined to fight back. Fifteen years after a fire claimed the lives of a father and son, detectives interview the grown surviving son and learn a tragic tale of a mother who burned her family.
Episode 19: Vanished
The story of serial killer James Rodney Hicks, who left a trail of bodies and kept police, prosecutors, and the FBI quite busy working on his cases for over 20 years. Hicks murdered his wife, his children's babysitter, and a girlfriend.
Episode 12: Murder Illustrated/Blood Relations
Nine years after police had to release the teenage suspect in a woman's murder due to lack of evidence, they find a new lead in the case. Twenty years after a young woman is murdered while babysitting her nephew, police are able to find DNA evidence that points to her killer.
Episode 20: The Missing and the Dead
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 97 fragments. After a forensic anthropologist at the University of South Carolina painstakingly pieces the bones back together, investigators use the skull to solve the murder.
Episode 11: Killer on the Strip/The Doll Murder
In the beautiful byways of West Palm Beach, along the canals a woman was fond dead in the canal. After some research they found that the woman was a prostitute. Even with all the evidence and DNA collected at the scene The detecives still had nothing to go on so the case went cold. Four yeas would pass before her case got looked at again. One of the Cold Case detective's who was reviewing some cases where crimes were committed in the area in which he worked his beat. With some new perspective on the case he finds signs that this womans killer has all the signs of a serial attacker and a kille. His trickery is to pose as a police officer to the local prostitutes and lures them into hidden places where he has privacy and assults them and rapes them. And at least 1 case he murders them.
Doll Murder
A woman from For Collins, Colorado thought she was safe in her own home, but one night in 1989 that myth was shattered. She was found murdered in her own home. The only things that were missing from her home were all her underwear. Semen and fingerprints were collected bt since there was no testing of DNA back then the case went cold. It would be 6 years when across town the womans underwear was found in a furnace. With this new discovery the case was re-opened to be looked at to finally settle the case
Episode 21: Silent Witness/Innocence Lost
The murder of scientist Helena Greenwood, who was helping to develop DNA forensic technology when she died, is solved 12 years later with the help of DNA evidence. And a Los Angeles County prosecutor uses criminal profiling to nab the notorious South Bay Rapist, who abducted and raped six young girls.
Episode 10: Diary Of A Serial Arsonist/The Lost Clue
Every 2 years, a group of fire investigators meet for a conference. While attending the conference in 1987 in Fresno, California, 3 suspicious fires break out near the conference. They were in 3 different fabric stores nearby each other. The only clue being left behind is one latent pint.
Two years later when the conference is held again in Monterey, California another group of fires break out. The firefighters at the conference begin to think that it's one of themselves. With fingerprinting in it's more advanced stage they were able to tie the arsons to one of the investigators. While searching through his things they find a manscript called DIARY OF A SERIAL ARSONIST which contained not only information on arson but instructions on murder.
In the second story line an elderly woman from San Antonio, Texas lay in her room naked from the waist down with her throat slashed. In the next room was her 80 year old husband who had just suffered his 3rd stroke. But there was no evidence to charge him. With pressure from a Texas Ranger the case is re-looked at where in they find the LOST CLUE in solving the case.
Episode 22: Frozen in Time/Little Girl Lost
Using a hair dryer to thaw a frozen corpse, detectives get to the bottom of a grisly murder. And the discovery of a child's skeleton in a Chicago garden puts police on the trail of an "oddball" family.