Episode
Cold Case Files: Murder by Moonlight
Overview
Easter Sunday of 1992, the body of missing woman Lisa Ziegert is found in a field. The investigation yields hundreds of leads but no true suspect. After more than two decades on ice, the case is revived when DNA phenotyping puts a face to the killer.
Details
- Series
- Cold Case Files
- Season
- Season 2
- Episode
- Episode 9
- Air date
- 2022-01-08
- Runtime
- 43 min
Episode context
Murder by Moonlight is Episode 9 in Season 2 of Cold Case Files. It aired on 2022-01-08. The runtime is 43 min.
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Episode 8: Ice Cold in Denver
On a bitter morning in 1980, radio intern Helene Pruszynski is found brutalized in a snowy field. After 37 years of fruitless leads, investigators tap into a public genealogy website that leads them across the country to the killer they've been hunting.
Episode 10: Suspicious Minds
Just after the last day of school in 1984, 15-year-old Reesa Trexler is found murdered in her grandparents' home. For decades, a stalled investigation only fuels the town rumor mill, pointing an accusing finger at Reesa's 13-year-old sister, Jodie.
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Episode 7: Love and Hate
Near what's known as the hanging tree, the mutilated body of Timothy Coggins is found in late 1983. The investigation is thwarted and the case freezes for over 30 years, until a newly elected sheriff vows to bring the killers to justice.
Episode 11: A Lesson in Homicide
When a beloved schoolteacher is found murdered in her Neptune, New Jersey apartment in the fall of 2009, suspicion is cast on her soon to be ex-husband. Long after the case goes cold, a detective embarks on a mission to help the man clear his name and track down the real killers.
Episode 6: The Devil in Disguise
23-year-old teacher Irene Garza was a former beauty queen and devout Catholic who vanished the evening before Easter after giving confession. Residents of her close-knit border town did their best to find her, but after a series of false leads, her body was found floating in a drainage canal clearly the victim of a violent sexual predator. At the time, a key witness hinted that a member of the Catholic clergy may have been responsible, but the clue remained buried for 42 years until a former priest comes forward with a damning confession from another man of the cloth that reveals a sinister coverup.
Episode 12: Woman in the Woods
In August 1972, the body of Jody Loomis is found in the woods. 34 years later, the killer's DNA is recovered from Jody's old clothing but it isn't matched until 2018, when genetic genealogy helps point to one suspect--whose guilt must be proven in court.
Episode 5: The Heartland Killer
In the 1980s, a suspected serial killer preyed on women in small towns located on the banks of the Mississippi River until the murders abruptly ceased and went unsolved. In 2006, 26 years later, a cold case detective and producer on the set of "Cold Case Files" unknowingly began to connect the dots that would crack the case while discussing the murder of Deborah Sheppard, a Southern Illinois University student whose death had remained a mystery since 1982.
Episode 13: Eyes of a Killer
On February 2, 2010, two masked gunmen commit a violent robbery and shoot Michael Temple Jr., rendering him a quadriplegic for five years before his death. In this unusual cold case, DNA from a knife is used to create a sketch of the killer.
Episode 4: The School Teacher
Twenty-six years after a schoolteacher's murder, cold-case detectives get a break when a relative of the killer uploads DNA to a public genealogy website.
Episode 14: Dark Angel
13 days after Pam Pitts disappears in 1988 her charred body is found at a popular hangout spot in the Arizona desert. When a second victim is discovered in a mineshaft, detectives suspect the killer may have known them both, but the truth is decades away.
Episode 3: Missing in Altoona
When Sherry Leighty goes missing in 1999, her family is left wondering how a dedicated mother of three could vanish without a trace. A decade later, the cold case heats up when Sherry's sister launches a social media campaign to help solve her sister's mysterious disappearance. An online tip unearths the killer truth and a sinister family secret. Featuring an interview with Shelly Leighty, who never gave up on solving her sister's case, along with rare home video of Sherry and her family.
Episode 15: Friday Night Ghosts
In late 1983, the bodies of five people abducted from a local fast food restaurant are found brutally murdered in an oil field. The main suspect is long believed to be a well-connected local man, until new evidence reveals the true killers.