Forensic Files

FBI psychological profiling and DNA evidence identify Timothy Wilson Spencer who raped and strangled five young women in Virginia. The U.S. criminal justice system's first use of DNA profiling in a serial murder case frees an innocent man after he spent two years in prison, and convicts a real killer.

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 determine the cause and likely vector of this deadly disease.

Ten bodies had been found between the months of May and November 1984 in Florida. The police discovered several similarities among these cases. On November 3, 1984, the perpetrator abducted a 17-year-old female named Lisa McVey, but then released her. McVey went to the police with information that eventually led to the arrest of Bobbie Joe Long.

The flu-like symptoms of a mother and her children proved to be indicative of something much more serious: thallium poisoning. Investigators had to find the source of the poison. When the mother died, the needed to determine if the exposure was accidental or if they also needed to find a killer.

An infant was rushed to a Cleveland emergency room with serious breathing problems. The baby's lungs were bleeding. Within months, there were more than 30 cases -- an incidence more than a thousand times higher than anywhere else in the world. Doctors had never seen anything like it, and searched frantically for the cause and a cure.

Two people in Seattle, Washington died after taking an over-the-counter pain reliever; lab analysis of the pills showed they were tainted with a lethal concentration of cyanide. The investigation which followed led police to a suspect with a motive for murder and a callous disregard for others.

When eleven-month-old Chad Shelton was admitted to the hospital, his liver function was abnormal, his platelet count was dangerously low and there was unexplained bleeding. Eventually, Chad went into a coma and died. When other people in the house began to get ill as well, investigators and scientists must frantically search for a cause.

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.

Stephen Scher and Martin Dillon went skeet shooting in rural Pennsylvania on a beautiful Spring day in 1976. Martin was shot dead that day, and Scher maintained a freak accident had cost his friend his life. It would take more than 20 years for the truth to be revealed, and for the jury to rule on who was responsible for the death of Martin Dillon.

When four month old Ryan Stallings died under suspicious circumstances, his mother was arrested, charged and ultimately convicted of his murder. But months later the verdict would be questioned when new evidence emerged from a startling source -- his newborn brother.

When a two-year-old boy was rushed to the hospital suffering from brain seizures and breathing difficulties, doctors could not find the cause of his illness. Then the boy's sister provided an important clue and raised the possibility of a syndrome of which few had ever heard, a syndrome that would need both medical investigators and legal authorities.

On a windy Kansas night in October, 1995, a mysterious fire swept through the home of a prominent doctor. Two of her family members made it out alive; two did not. In the debris, investigators found evidence which told them much more than how the fire started.

Sometime during a neighborhood Christmas party, five-year-old Melissa Brannen disappeared. No one saw where she went or noticed anything unusual. Investigators turned to forensic science to help them see what the witnesses missed. The young girl was never seen again but fiber analysis led police to a suspect nonetheless.

The doctors at the hospital couldn't determine the cause of Bobby Curley's hallucinations and intense pain. At first, they treated it as a neurological disorder called Guillen-Barre Syndrome. But Bobby's condition deteriorated. Something he was being given in the hospital wasn't curing him, it was poisoning him.

Who was the sexual offender who murdered two adolescent boys in Nebraska? The key to stopping him would be the unique composition of the "junk rope" he used to tie his victims. Omaha police and the FBI used rope analysis, psychological profiling, forensic odontology and hypnosis to bring a 116-day manhunt to a close.

Janice Johnson was found dead at the foot of her basement stairs. Police in Nova Scotia had to unravel the circumstances surrounding Janice's death and answer the question: Was it an accident or murder? Different authorities ruled both ways, and it takes years - and an astonishingly unique recreation of the death - before justice is finally done.

In 1996, more than a dozen children in Seattle, Washington, were fighting for their lives. Each one of them had contracted a serious illness, and no one knew what it was. When one of the children died, investigators knew the clock was ticking and they needed to isolate the cause and find the cure before time ran out.

Young Navajos on a reservation in the Southwest were dying at an alarming rate. CDC officials had never seen anything like it; the mysterious illness had claimed the lives of more than 20 people. The tribe's medicine men provided investigators with a critical clue which would lead halfway around the world to a most unlikely killer.