The BEST episodes of Cold Case Files (1999)
Every episode of Cold Case Files (1999) ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Cold Case Files (1999)!
Unsolved crimes locked away in dusty file cabinets. Time is an ineffectual balm. Painful memories are left to a victim's loved ones. What happens when a killer gets away with murder? Thanks to the efforts of a special breed of modern detective, no one escapes the laws of justice - no matter how old the case.
#2 - Killer on Campus/Bow Hunter
Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/2/2006
Thirty-two years after the killing of University of Michigan law student Jane Mixer, police use DNA found on her pantyhose to finally track down the killer. And psychologists help solve a cold case by suggesting the lead detective take a page from the game of romance, and play hard to get with the killer.
#6 - Blood Money/Precious Doe
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/12/2001
Testimony about the growth of larvae in dead bodies helps convict the man who stabbed a couple to death and strangled their 4-year-old daughter in 1993. And the 2001 murder of a young girl, whose head was cut off, remains unsolved.
#8 - The Black Dahlia
Season 5 - Episode 16 - Aired 9/9/2006
Bill Kurtis examines one of the most infamous cold cases in Los Angeles history -- the 1947 murder of actress Elizabeth Short, who was found nude and cut in half in an empty lot. Though charges have never been filed in the case, theories abound, and Kurtis investigates some of the most prominent ones. He talks to a retired LAPD detective whose 3 year investigation led to the stunning conclusion that his own father committed the murder. Kurtis also probes the theory that the killer was a surgeon named Walter Bayley. Kurtis finally explores the possibility that there may have been a police cover-up in the case to protect the real killer.
Watch Now:Amazon
#9 - The Answer in the Box/Maternal Instinct
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/23/1999
Answer in the Box Alison Parrott was a runner. Not only was she was runner she was a great runner, So much so that she had the local media interested in her, So when she got a call from a photographer to take some pictures of her running she didn't think anything wrong with it. She left to go to her photo session and wasn't seen alive again. The police had a fellow runner as the lead suspect but nothing ever happened with that lead. A cold case detective named Vic Matanovic was going through some files 10 years later and came across the case. When the detective was looking for clues to solve the case the Answer is in the Box. Usually DNA is enough to prove a case but in this case the criminal who lured Alison to her death had a plan to lure the jury to believe in the lie he was about to tell. Maternal Instinct 1981 a brother and sister fell victim to a heartless mother with no regard for life. 3 month old Seth Davis was rushed to the hospital because of insulin poisoning. He was left brain damaged. 5 months later his sister, Tenga Davis, is rushed to the hospital. There she dies of Caffeine poisoning. Even though the autopsy that was turned in by the M.E. stated cause of death was a homicide, the police treated this as an accident. Their mother Mary Beth Davis moves on with her own life by moving to a different state. She starts a new family and forgets all about what happened back in her past. That is until 10 years later when Mary Beth gets a knock on her door by the cold case detectives which brings back her past as the detectives are there to prove a case of murder.
#10 - The Boy and the Monster/Secret in the Cellar
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/8/1999
The Boy and the Monster In Wisconsin in the winter of 1991 a young woman's body was found naked, badly beaten and to make it harder to identify her, her fingertips were cut off. After months of trying to figure out who she was they finally came up with a name. Doris McLeod. After finding out who she was the police find out a lot more about her. She had a troubled past. After being on the streets she ended up connected to a pimp. Only one month of being on the streets she is never seen again. It takes a 3 year old boy to finally tell the police about Doris and the Boy and the Monster. Secret in the Cellar The second part of this episode is about a young woman from South Portland, Maine who was in search of her mother. She contacts the police but they get nowhere. They question Bill Bruns, the missing woman's husband who told the police a story about how Pearl drank and ran off with another man. Elaine Woodward, the missing womans daughter, went to the media for help. An investigator takes the case and with the help of science and man power he finds out what happened to Pearl with the Secret in the Cellar.
#11 - Terror in Telluride/Signature of a Killer
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 2/26/1999
Shoot outside her bedroom, Eva Shoen was shot to death. Living in Telluride, on the mountain side. Eva was married to the son of the billion dollar Shoen family who owned the U-Haul empire. With lacking evidence the case runs cold. Even though the police believe that her death was related to a fued in the family business. Years later the case is solved by a secret that was finally revealed and a recorded conversation is played. DNA also helped the killer to confess to the crime. Signature of a Killer Taylor Courtney was a 20 yr old man who was brutaly murdered in his apartment. The crime scene was bloody and vicious. A single print is found but in 1974 when fingerprint technology was still in its infancy it meant nothing. 20 years would pass before a cold case detective would pick up the case and look at it again. What they found was a match in the system which leads to a friend of Taylor's who had committed this murder because of mistaken suspicions and jealousy.
#13 - Cat and Mouse/Final Fare
Season 2 - Episode 16 - Aired 4/16/2000
A police investigator discovers a letter written 16 years earlier that provides clues to a woman's murder. And a firearms expert supplies the evidence that South Carolina authorities need to put a man on trial in 2002 for a murder committed in 1961. It was the oldest murder case ever tried in the state.
#14 - The Texas Drifter/The Fingerprint File
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/15/1999
Texas Drifter Two women in two separate towns in Texas who where raped. The rapist uses a knife to threaten these women then rapes them and leaves his DNA behind. Back when these happened DNA was not profected yet so having the DNA was useless. Many years later when CODIS was developed which is a database for DNA a match to the rapists DNA was found. It was to a known serial rapist. Fingerprint File It was two days before Christmas a woman if found stabbed to death with the only clue left is a fingerprint left on a pop bottle. The forensic people were able to lift the print but had no success in matching it to anybody. Years later a man still working on cold cases finds a match to the fingerpprint which gives the police a lead to a killer. Rose Among Thorns Juliet Rowe was the victim who got shot in the bedroom of her English Countryside home. She was shot execution style then was shot again in the heart. The killer wanted to make sure that Juliet was dead. After thousands of endless attempts her case remained unsolved. 8 years later a stranger comes into a pub and starts talking to Mr Rowe Juliet's husband. The stranger's name was Keith Rose. He was arrested on kidnapping charges 6 weeks later. Because of his arrest he brings attention to himself to the cold case investigators who then look at him in the "Rose Among Thorns" case.
#15 - Soft Kill/Unsolved
Season 2 - Episode 20 - Aired 5/14/2000
Police run down more than 11,000 leads before coming up with a suspect in the murders of three Virginia girls; and the abduction and strangulation of a California woman continues to baffle investigators more than 11 years after the crime.
#16 - Murder Checks In / Killer in the City
Season 3 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/21/2001
Police hunt for a man who killed three women in three different hotels, not far from one another in Des Moines, Iowa. And police get a killer to confess when they tell him prosecutors will show photos of the gruesome crime scene.
Watch Now:Amazon
#18 - Weepy-Voiced Killer/The Mr. Big Sting
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 4/2/2001
A prostitute who fights off a screwdriver-wielding man helps police track down a serial killer; and undercover agents acting as mobsters conduct an elaborate sting to solve a murder case that had gone cold for years. Then, detectives from three different police departments in Westchester County, New York team up to track down a serial killer.
#19 - A Killer's Skin / Where's Peggy?
Season 5 - Episode 11 - Aired 6/3/2006
Police in Albany, N.Y., get a surprise when a killer they think targets only older women is suspected in the murder of an elderly man. And the contents of a secret storage shed holds the grisly clues to a murder that has gone cold for more than 14 years.
Watch Now:Amazon
#20 - Something Snapped/A Killer's Dream
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/7/2006
On a summer night in 1987 a mother worries and waits for her 19-year-old daughter to come home. But Diana never comes home and she's found raped and strangled near the Hudson River. Investigators suspect her friend, Michael because his alibi is shaky and witnesses place his truck near the crime scene. Trouble is, he passes a polygraph and his DNA is no match. Nevertheless, Michael remains the chief suspect for 17 years, until DNA fingers another man who offers a chilling story of Diana's last breath. Then, a young family's life is shattered when a San Antonio interior design shop becomes a crime scene. In 1983, a young mother is raped and murdered at work. The crime remains unsolved for two decades. Then in 2003 detectives reopen the case pegging their hopes on DNA. But when the evidence turns up missing, detectives worry this case could be over before it starts.
#21 - Cop Killer/Evil Twin
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/1/2001
After 46 years, LA homicide detectives take a Lover's Lane bandit who also gunned down two police officers into custody. Then, DNA testing helps lead police in Florida to a suspected killer, however the killer has an identical twin.
#22 - Operation Jambalaya/Footprints in the Snow
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/1/2000
A New Orleans police officer goes undercover on a Baton Rouge riverboat to gain a confession from one of the ship's maintenance workers who is suspected of murder. And a Wisconsin man, suspected of committing murder using a nunchukus, a weapon consisting of handles connected by a chain, goes on trial nearly 10 years after the victim's body was found on Christmas Eve 1987.
#23 - The Burning Secret/Justice Delayed
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 3/26/1999
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.
#24 - The Original Night Stalker
Season 2 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/28/2000
In the 1980s, a serial killer prowled the posh streets of Orange County. Police were unaware of the serial attacks until 1996, when DNA revealed the killer's secret and they linked four murders to a single DNA profile. Detectives uncovered three more crimes attributed to the man dubbed "The Original Night Stalker" before learning he had an earlier career as a serial rapist! Watch as cold case detectives compare the attacker's DNA with nearly every convicted violent offender in California.
Watch Now:Amazon
#25 - One Night on the Bayou/The Buckeye Misdemeanor
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/12/1999
In Louisiana, in 1994, police find the body of a victim who's throat was slashed and body stabbed. With no evidence the case goes cold for many years until years later when a man is arrested for theft. The man is looking to find a way out of jail and tell the detectives of a tale of a murder, fishing and revenge one night many years ago One Night on the Bayou The second story line in this episode is about two men wielding guns in a motel lobby.The only clues left are a few finger prints. Since there were no other clues the case goes cold and is filed in the Buckeye Misdemeanor file. It would be 20 years before the police would look at that file again. With new technology they restart the search to find a killer.