The WORST episodes of Forensic Files
Every episode of Forensic Files ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Forensic Files!
American reportage-style crime series that zooms in on startling true crimes and, in particular, how these crimes are solved.
#1 - Out of the Ashes
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/21/1999
On a cold December night in 1993, Rose Larner stopped in a convenience store on her way to her boyfriend’s house. She was never seen or heard from again. Rose’s disappearance remained a mystery, until a tiny clue found years later revealed a tragic tale of drugs, romance and revenge. Originally aired as Season 3, Episode 13.
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#2 - Blanket of Evidence
Season 11 - Episode 38 - Aired 4/4/2007
Two women, both murdered in the same state park. Indiana police feared it was the work of a serial killer until the forensic evidence pointed them in two different directions. Originally aired as Season 11, Episode 38.
#3 - Purr-fect Match
Season 7 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/12/2002
A woman vanished from her home on Prince Edward Island. Her abandoned car was found in a field; inside, the windows were spattered with blood. During the search for her body, police found a plastic bag containing a pair of sneakers and a bloody leather jacket. On the jacket were white hairs that investigators discovered had come from a cat. Forensic testing on a cat had never been done before anywhere in the world. This case made history: It was the first time that animal DNA was used to solve a crime.
#4 - Naughty or Nyce
Season 11 - Episode 1 - Aired 7/19/2006
A pharmaceutical tycoon's mail-order bride is found in her SUV in a half-frozen creek. Could a few flecks of sawdust and a shoe print determine whether a death is an accident or a homicide?
#5 - A Shot in the Dark
Season 7 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/7/2002
When a woman is found dead of a gunshot wound, police conclude that she was murdered by her husband. Investigators theorized the couple had argued, and during the ensuing struggle, the husband shot his wife in the back and then staged the scene to make it look like a suicide. Forensic scientists were able to piece together the clues and determine what really happened. In doing so, they proved once again that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
#6 - Sip of Sins
Season 7 - Episode 19 - Aired 2/15/2003
In Wichita Falls, Texas, police had four unsolved murders-- the worst crime spree in the small town's history. For more then a decade, the killer successfully eluded police. But a discarded coffee cup in a trash bin solved the mystery.
#7 - Dessert Served Cold
Season 8 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/1/2003
The Richard Alfredo Case. When a Massachusetts man dropped dead of an apparent heart attack, no one thought foul play was a possibility until police looked into his girlfriend’s odd behavior in the days before his death. Controversy surrounded the case for almost a decade, which pitted competing teams of toxicologists against each other: One claimed the death was due to natural causes, and the other said it was cold-blooded murder.
#8 - Partners in Crime
Season 7 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/18/2003
Was the fire a cover up for a murder? Watch Forensic Files to get the answer.
#9 - Honor Thy Father
Season 8 - Episode 38 - Aired 7/30/2005
A sixteen-year-old girl was killed by her mother and father, in her own home. Her parents said they acted in self-defence, but the forensic evidence indicated otherwise. Definitive proof would come from an unlikely source: a recording made by an FBI electronic surveillance device.
#10 - Sole Searching
Season 10 - Episode 35 - Aired 2/1/2006
Now it's not only a fingerprint which can link a killer to a crime; a shoe print can be just as telling. Armed with little else, police hoped the shoe impressions found at a Lansing, Michigan crime scene would put their investigation of Audrey Nichols' murder back on track.
#11 - A Clean Getaway
Season 10 - Episode 22 - Aired 11/2/2005
An employee of a dry-cleaner was raped and murdered in the store, and investigators thought themselves fortunate to have two eyewitnesses.
#12 - A Touching Recollection
Season 7 - Episode 13 - Aired 3/26/2003
An eighteen-year-old girl is abducted at gunpoint from her home in Jackson, Ohio. Fortunately the victim returns hours later, and police hope the tire impressions and shoe prints at the crime scene will enable them to find the perpetrator. But the victim knew something about forensic science, and she was determined to prove she had been in the assailant’s truck. The clues she left behind, and her recollection of details, led police straight to a career criminal.
#13 - Past Lives
Season 8 - Episode 31 - Aired 11/20/2005
When a car catches fire and swerves off the road. Then it burns completely, there isn't a whole lot left to make identifications with. Lucky for Mr. Rutherford a medic alert and a watch survived the fire and lead forensic anthropologists onto the case.
#14 - 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.
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#15 - Knot for Everyone
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/8/1998
In the mid-1980s, bodies of nude woman were found in remote hill of California. The police got a break when a known prostitute escaped an attacker and was able to identify him and his automobile. The suspect was 50-year-old Roger Kibbe. A criminalist was assigned to review the evidence in the case. Human hair found on one of the victims was similar to several hairs recovered from Kibbe's inner thighs. He was later charged with first-degree murder.
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#16 - Textbook Murder
Season 14 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/31/2010
The victim was brutally murdered. Police learn her fiancé was having affairs with other women, and he becomes the prime suspect... that is until a man comes forward who not only believes he owns the murder weapon, he also knows who used it.
#17 - Window Watcher
Season 13 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/12/2008
The woman's story seemed farfetched: A man wearing only underwear and gloves broke into the house, stabbed her boyfriend to death, and raped and terrorised her for hours afterwards. But the evidence at the scene supported her story, and investigators turned for help to the FBI and their criminal profilers.
#18 - Live Wire
Season 11 - Episode 20 - Aired 11/29/2006
It was a Christmas gift delivered to a Jacksonville, Florida home. There was no card or label identifying the sender, but inside were some clues. A thin piece of wire and some cryptic numbers on a sales receipt held the key to a brutal and senseless murder.
#19 - Penchant for Poison
Season 10 - Episode 33 - Aired 1/18/2006
Three seemingly unrelated deaths proved to be serial murders. The killer had been careful - he used poison which had no taste or odour. Fortunately for investigators, it also had a unique chemical signature.
#20 - A Case of the Flue
Season 11 - Episode 18 - Aired 11/15/2006
It was a case unlike most others. Forensic evidence proved the perpetrator broke out of the crime scene rather than breaking in. No one knew why until some evidence on the victim's hands provided the answer.
#21 - Concrete Alibi
Season 11 - Episode 8 - Aired 9/6/2006
A young woman just landed her first big modeling job. A few hours later she disappeared. The weave pattern on some fabric, the mixture of some concrete and a dog hair were the keys to the mystery.
#22 - A Bite Out of Crime
Season 7 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/5/2002
In 1995, a rapist was on the loose in Visalia, California. Evidence left by one of the victims at the crime scene, and the expertise of a forensic odontologist, put teeth in the prosecution’s case against the alleged perpetrator.
#23 - Body of Evidence
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/24/1999
Karla Brown was the youngest of three girls in the Brown family. After many failed relationships, Karla became engaged to Mark Fair. The couple began moving into their dream home in June 1978. On the morning of June 20, Mark left for work and Karla remained at home. When Mark and a friend returned home that evening, they found Karla dead. The condition of Karla's body told investigators that she was a victim of sexual assault; she had resisted, struggled, and was killed. The Police questioned Paul Main and John Prante, who lived across the street. They were considered low-level suspects. After a second autopsy, they were able to re-examine bite marks. A Computer enhancement gave a better view of the bite marks, and the science of forensic odontology identified John Prante. On July 15, 1983, five years after the murder, Prante was found guilty and sentenced to 75 years in prison.
#24 - 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.
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#25 - Paintball
Season 8 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/30/2003
In 1962, the people of the small town of Hanford, California lost their sense of peace when one of their own, 15 year-old Marlene Miller, was murdered. It would take 24 years and countless retrials before forensic scientists discovered the microscopic evidence that brought the killer to justice. Originally aired as Season 8, Episode 3.