The BEST episodes of Forensic Files season 1
Every episode of Forensic Files season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Forensic Files season 1!
American reportage-style crime series that zooms in on startling true crimes and, in particular, how these crimes are solved.
#1 - The Footpath Murders
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/23/1996
The first case to use DNA evidence is detailed. In 1983 Leicester, England, police were stymied by a rape/murder of a 15-year-old girl; three years later, faced with a similar crime, they turned to Dr. Alec Jeffreys, a molecular biologist with a revolutionary approach to solving the case.
#2 - The List Murders
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/12/1996
For 18 years, a man who murdered his entire family successfully eluded the FBI. This episode describes how investigators used art and forensic science to catch a killer.
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#3 - The Magic Bullet
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/17/1996
At the Dallas 'Pistol & Revolver' club in 1991, Trey Cooley, a young spectator, was watching a shooting competition, seated behind an air gun range. He was struck and killed by a stray bullet. See how ballistics, lasers, and forensic animation solve the riddle of the "magic bullet".
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#4 - The Disappearance of Helle Crafts
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/21/1996
The case of missing stewardess Helle Craft is recounted. Although her body was never recovered, police used forensic evidence to charge her husband with murder. It became the first murder conviction without a body in Connecticut.
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#5 - Deadly Neighborhoods
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/21/1996
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.
#6 - Southside Strangler
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/31/1996
Shortly after Thanksgiving in 1987, an intruder broke into the Tucker residence in Arlington Virginia. It might have been just another statistic, but the crime committed that night launched a new era in police investigations. This is how DNA evidence and psychological profiling helped catch a serial killer and set an innocent man free.
#7 - Raw Terror
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/19/1996
The E-Coli bacteria live in our meat supply, in our milk and in water. When food is properly prepared and stored, E-Coli is harmless. But in the absence of these simple precautions, E-Coli can have deadly consequences. Raw Terror tells the story of Damion Heersink, an eleven-year-old boy who almost died after eating an improperly cooked hamburger teeming with E-Coli, and the people who saved his life.
#8 - Insect Clues
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/28/1996
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. Originally aired as Season 1, Episode 10.
#9 - Outbreak
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/5/1996
Alarmingly high levels of thyroid hormones pump through the systems of South Dakota residents. Investigators study one large family whose 12-year-old son did not get sick. The tip-off: he's a vegetarian. It seems that when drug companies started manufacturing synthetic thyroid hormones, they stopped buying thyroid tissue from butchers who did not trim these parts, but rather sold them as 'extra lean beef.' The outcome: the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture bans meat plants from using meat in or near the gullet for beef and pork products. Originally aired as Season 1, Episode 11.
#10 - Planted Evidence
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/24/1996
Single mother Denise Johnson is found dead in a deserted area outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Local investigators ask a molecular geneticist to pick out a tree in a 'lineup' when unidentified seed pods are found in suspect Mark Bogan's truck. The judge rules into evidence DNA profiles linking the pods to a tree near where the body was found. This is the first U.S. case where plant DNA was used to convict a criminal.
#11 - Legionnaires' Disease
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/7/1996
Legionnaires' disease is one of the most famous medical detective stories, especially irritating for its missteps and frustrations. When 180 Legionnaires contract pneumonia-like symptoms after a Philadelphia Convention and 29 of them die, doctors and scientists are mystified. The determination of one scientist helps to pinpoint the cause and likely vector of this deadly disease.
#12 - The House That Roared
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/10/1996
Caren Campano disappears and the explanation of her husband Chris doesn't hold up. Police find a large stain on the Campano's bedroom carpet. They perform an eerie chemical test that reveals a room spattered with blood which, when cleaned off, could not be seen by the naked eye. Complex 'reverse paternity' tests of Caren's relatives match her blood type to the blood on the carpet. The evidence convicts Chris Campano of murder, even though the body wasn't found until a year later.
#13 - The Wilson Murder
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/14/1996
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. Originally aired as Season 1, Episode 8.