Subjects: Physical Science

Glamorous Las Vegas, Nevada is famous for wealth, lady luck and second chances. But when homicide detectives discover the charred remains of a prominent business man, Sin City reveals a darker side. With a long list of suspects and millions of dollars on the line, investigators are suddenly thrust into a dangerous world of high stakes deception fueled by passion, greed and revenge. A murder mystery where nothing is as it seems and anyone is capable of anything, only forensic science can expose the truth and catch the killer.

A series of bombings and bank robberies have left the usually serene city of Spokane, Washington reeling. Claiming responsibility for the reign of terror, is a deadly, almost invisible sect called the Phineas Priests who seem to strike at will. The phantom cell, driven by a perverted code of hate is considered be the most radical and dangerous in the entire white supremacist movement. Although the gunmen are masked and leave few clues, an FBI forensic photo analysis team, working with high quality bank surveillance footage, slowly starts to get a clearer picture of the assailants. The question is, can they find them before they strike again?

In small-town Bartow, Florida four bodies are found slaughtered in a factory. It’s the largest mass murder in county history. Each victim is somehow connected to the factory and the family business — and each victim seems to have been executed by a professional assassin. When investigators finally zero in on a prime suspect, they are foiled by his picture-perfect alibi – security footage showing him 500 miles from the scene of the crime. With no hard evidence in sight – and with the bloodthirsty killer still on the loose – investigators turn to video forensic analysis, complex timeline reconstruction, and a most unexpected 3-year-old fingerprint.

On September 29, 1990, the body of twenty-two year old college student, Linda Yalem, is discovered off a bike path in a suburb of Buffalo, New York. Yalem has been raped and strangled with a garrote. DNA evidence recovered from her body allows police to link the crime to six other recent rapes in the Buffalo area. But other than DNA evidence police have little to go on; the murderer remains at large. Over the next sixteen years, attacks slow but do not stop. There is another rape and two more murders. Then advances in DNA technology and clues culled from unsolved rape cases lead police to the unlikely killer and rapist. He’s Buffalo suburbanite, Altemio Sanchez. Sanchez is a pillar of the community: married, with two children, and active in church and Little League.

A double homicide in Hudson, Wisconsin leaves a small town reeling and two young detectives with little to go on. The victims are upright citizens, shot execution style, with no apparent motive. In Agatha Christie-like fashion, a tantalizing array of suspects emerge but after two years, there are still no arrests. Richard Walter, the famed criminal profiler, becomes intrigued by the cold case and narrows the suspect list down until only one man is left standing. And no one can believe who that person is. A combination of expert crime scene analysis, computer forensics and the perpetrator’s own pathological urge to talk… the bereaved families finally see justice served.

Summer, 2001 and Southern Louisiana is held in the terrifying grip of a serial killer whose initial ‘hot zone’ is the Louisiana State University area of Baton Rouge. The number of victims is growing and all are attractive, successful young women — women whose mainstream, “low risk” lifestyle should never put them on the radar of a killer. But this is the hardest kind of serial killer to catch — impulsive, always changing his M.O. An unprecedented coalition of state and federal police agencies, including the FBI, will join forces to solve this disturbing, yet fascinating case. State of the art forensic science, particularly case-making DNA analysis, will turn the tables on this killer and finally put a face to the monster that haunts Southern Louisiana.

April, 1992. An elderly couple is found dead in the trunk of their car at their home in upscale Toronto. The investigation eventually leads authorities to the couple’s vacation home one hour north of the city. Police soon learn of the “House Hermit”- a mysterious intruder breaking into area cottages and camping in them. He becomes the prime suspect in the murders, but though police finally identify him they cannot find him anywhere. That’s because he’s moved 3,000 miles away to Vancouver, where he abducts and assaults three women before finally being caught red handed,tstrangling one of his victims.

For 23 days in October, 2002 a sniper terrorizes the Washington DC area, shooting thirteen people and killing ten. The victims are ordinary people doing routine activities. Nothing links them; they are chosen at random. Police mount one of the largest investigations in American history to catch a ruthless and elusive killer. In the end, their most productive clue comes from the sniper himself, who calls a police tip line and brags about a previous shooting in Alabama. Authorities are able to recover a single fingerprint from that crime, which eventually leads them to not one, but two killers, including a seventeen year old boy.

A retired fireman on a morning bike ride notices a burning bundle in a farmer’s field…and recognizes the smell of burning human flesh. Investigators at the scene find an unrecognizable body, a distinctive lighter, 2 pairs of latex gloves and the box they came in, paper towels and torn scraps of an office memo. State of the art forensics, dogged police work, and some extraordinary turns of events lead police to the murder scene – the medical room of a ball bearings factory, and the arrest of a former Armenian mafia thug turned English family man for the brutal murder of his cruel ex-boss.

The 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia are rocked by a massive pipe bomb explosion. A woman is killed and hundreds injured. Subsequent bombs at an abortion clinic and a gay bar show a similar M.O., and increasing refinement. Police have no clue who is behind the bombings until they receive a letter signed by ‘The Army of God’, an anti-abortion, anti-gay, white supremacist group. When another abortion clinic is bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, a witness sees a suspicious man leaving the scene and gets his license number. Police are soon on the trail of Christian extremist Eric Rudolph, but it will take a five year manhunt through the rugged terrain of the Natahala National Forest before they can catch America’s Most Wanted criminal.