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In 2006, Nevada politician Kathy Augustine died mysteriously during a re-election campaign. The medical examiner could neither isolate the cause of death, nor explain the tiny puncture wounds discovered during the autopsy.

In 1999, 9-year-old Valiree Jackson vanished on her way to school near Spokane. Her father, Brad Jackson, reported the disappearance and the entire community started searching for her abductor.

In the early hours of a morning just before Christmas, a college student was abducted from the parking lot of her apartment. Her body was found later that day; she had been sexually assaulted and shot at point-blank range.

A brilliant young architect falls ill and dies just before she is to testify in a criminal trial. The autopsy reveals she'd been poisoned with arsenic. Investigators must determine who had a motive for murder.

The police investigate when a severed leg is discovered among garbage. Conventional means of identifying the victim are impossible, leading investigators to rely on DNA, forensic anthropology and toxicology.

A serial arsonist starts several fires that cause millions of dollars worth of damage and the deaths of three people. He is discovered, partly through the use of forensic hypnosis.

A young woman attends evening church services, then disappears. When her abandoned car is found, the tank is empty and a gas can she kept in her trunk for emergencies is missing.

Two sets of scientists probe a woman's death.

In 1993, young mother Tammy Tatum was sexually assaulted and murdered in her Longmont, Colorado apartment. Police initially suspected her estranged husband, but did not have enough evidence to charge him and the case went cold.

A mother of two young children was found dead in her bedroom. Her death was ruled a suicide — but when investigators learned she had almost died in a house fire three years earlier, they decided to take another look at the evidence.

A young woman suddenly becomes critically ill, eventually leaving her unable to walk. A bone marrow test reveals the cause: arsenic poisoning. Investigators must determine if the poisoning was caused by groundwater contamination or something sinister.

It was a tragic twist of fate. Just days after a woman sold her home and moved to a modest trailer, a fire took both the trailer and her life. But the autopsy proved this was no accident.

The victim had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death on the beach. A pair of men's tennis shoes was discovered near her body. Police were sure that if they found the man who fit the shoes, they would also find the man who committed the crime.

The driver said he couldn't have hit and killed a pedestrian on a Harrisburg street. The Jeep Grand Cherokee he was leasing around that time had been sold months ago to a buyer in another state.

When a college student is reported missing, police believe their investigation will be like countless others. But when they discover blood spatter in her boyfriend's bedroom, they know this case is going to be different.

In 1996, Virginia Beach police arrive at the Makdessi apartment to find the bloodied bodies of Elise Makdessi and Navy sailor Quincy Brown. But was Brown Elise's lover or her assailant?

A 6-year-old girl ran and hid when she saw her grandmother being beaten to death, but the man followed, beat and assaulted her. She said the assailant was her uncle, who was later convicted. She recanted her testimony years later.

Women in a Louisiana city live in fear of a rapist who leaves no clues to his identity. But technology and behavioral science combine to give police a new forensic tool. Police narrow their search to one man: local policeman Randy Comeaux.

Emergency dispatch received a call from a man who said his girlfriend shot and killed herself. The autopsy revealed that the gunshot wound was not self-inflicted, and the evidence on her body would give police a golden opportunity to catch her killer.

A lifelong resident of the tiny town of Lefroy, Tasmania was murdered outside his own home. Robbery appeared to be the motive, but with no suspects, the investigation came to a halt.

In the summer of 1986, Kathleen Lipscomb's body was found on a deserted road outside of San Antonio. Months and years passed, but the crime was never solved. Finally, a private investigator discovered Kathleen's diary.

The investigation into the kidnapping and rape of an 18-year-old Ohio woman is aided when the victim returns hours after the incident occurred. With her help, the police are able to track the assailant to his front door.

In 2005, the body of young mother Summer Baldwin was found in a suitcase in a Texas landfill.

The wife of a respected police officer was murdered in her own home. The crime went unsolved for more than a decade, until a newly formed cold case unit took a fresh look at the evidence.

In 1997, Kelly Eckart's car was found, with her belongings still in it, after she worked a late shift in Franklin, Indiana. Days later, her body was found in an isolated ravine.

A young couple decided to celebrate their first wedding anniversary with a camping trip to Mount Hood. During the trip, the husband was shot and killed. Later, his wife told two different versions of the events which led to his death.

In little more than a month, two women who lived in the same apartment complex were brutally murdered. The similarities of the crime scenes led police to conclude they were dealing with a serial killer who harbored an intense hatred of women.

A woman disappears and her husband becomes the prime suspect — especially after police find a huge bloodstain on the carpet of their bedroom. When they spray the bedroom with Luminol, they discover it was awash with blood spatter.

A woman was brutally murdered in her home and the only witnesses to the crime were the family dogs. An expert in canine behavior was convinced the killer knew both the victim and the animals, and he was determined find out what the dogs had seen.

Police are dispatched to the scene of a shooting and discover the victim's husband is one of their own: a homicide detective who says his wife accidentally shot herself in the head.

It was supposed to be a routine motorcade for the Queen of England. But on the way to Yosemite National Park, a car carrying three Secret Service agents collided with a car driven by a deputy from the local sheriff's office.

In 1995, when off-duty Maine State Trooper Vicky Gardner is attacked by Steven Fortin during a routine stop, it triggers a chain of events which jumpstart a stalled murder case in New Jersey.

The murder of an eccentric millionaire was not entirely unexpected; he flaunted his wealth and cared little for personal security. The evidence at the crime seemed to indicate robbery, but investigators wondered if there was something more.

Digital enhancement of security camera footage shows that what appears to be a casual encounter is actually a forced abduction. When investigators suspect the crimes are not random, they fear a serial killer may be on the loose.

An Alaskan police officer finds a woman's body while on routine patrol of a public park. During the autopsy, the medical examiner preserves the portion of her rib cage which sustained the fatal wound.

After the 1996 murder of Seattle residents Raquel Rivera and Jay Johnson, evidence from the couple's dog eventually ties one of the murderers to the scene.

Edward Honaker was convicted of rape, sodomy and aggravated sexual battery and sentenced to three life terms in prison. He maintained his innocence. After years in prison and writing countless letters, he finally found someone who believed him.

A police officer accused of killing his estranged wife insists she committed suicide. Investigators say it was murder — that it was physically impossible for the woman to have shot herself.

On September 17, 1984, in a suburb of Tucson, Arizona, eight-year-old Vicki Hoskins left home on her pink bicycle to mail a letter for her mother. She never returned, but her slightly damaged bicycle was found nearby.

A suspect's former lover comes forward with a fantastic tale of murder, mutilation and cremation. But there's no way to test the story's validity — until a plant pathologist and a dendrochronologist conduct tests where the cremation supposedly occurred.

Tracey Frame, 35, was convicted of killing David Nixon in April 2002 after he planned to end their relationship.

Survivors of Nazi atrocities recognized Archbishop Trifa, former head of the Romanian Orthodox Church in America, as having directed a bloody attack against Jews during World War II. He was deported in 1984 and died three years later.

Time of death becomes pivotal after a pregnant woman is found murdered in her air-conditioned bedroom. A striking similarity between her death and an HBO movie gives examiners the clues they need to thaw out the alibi of a cold-blooded killer.

In 1991, when the wife of a serviceman was brutally murdered in the Philippines, investigators had to reassemble a tiny computer disk that had been cut to pieces in order to find the killer.

When a woman went missing, friends and family were determined to find her. Their worst fears were confirmed weeks later when her body was discovered.

In 2008, college co-ed Jenna Verhaalen was found dead in her Bryan, Texas apartment. Petechial hemorrhages in her eyes indicated that she was strangled.

The victim was well liked and successful, which made the brutality of the crime even harder to understand.

When convenience store employee Wanda Mason is found dead, investigators find the entire murder has been caught on the store's security camera. But the image of the killer is so degraded it seems impossible to positively identify him.

After shooting his victims in the head, the killer staged the scene, placed the incriminating evidence into a plastic bag and tossed it into the river.

In 1986, Gary Dale Larson was stabbed to death in his Edmond, Oklahoma home. The killer then sexually assaulted Larson's girlfriend, Janet Haynes.

When heart surgeon Darryl Sutorius is found dead in the basement of his upscale Cincinnati home, police assume he committed suicide. Further investigation reveals that his new wife Della has a history of violence and an insatiable desire for money.

Seattle police had no suspects in the violent murder of grunge singer Mia Zapata. More than a decade passed before evidence collected by a prescient medical examiner could be used by forensic scientists to identify the killer.