Catching Killers - Episode Guide

DNA testing was originally used only to determine paternity, until a brutal murder in England changed everything.

One crime baffled a small Argentina town; the other held the entire state of California hostage. The thread that links these two cases occurring 100 years apart: both murderers were done in by their own hand. Specifically, by their fingerprints. Witness the breakthrough moment in 1892 when fingerprinting was first used to track down a child killer and see how the evolving science helped thwart a coldblooded serial killer a century later.

How do you catch a killer? Sometimes, the evidence is hidden in the victim's bones. Discover how forensic anthropology solved the case of the Killer Clown and shut down the Sausage King of Chicago.

Two grisly murder cases, years apart, appear to have little in common at first glance. A California family found brutally murdered in 2003 and two dismembered bodies discovered in Scotland in 1935. Upon closer investigation, they share the same silent witness: insects. Examine these two landmark cases where forensic entomology helped convict a killer.

A rash of unexplained deaths at a Northport, New York hospital in the 1990s and the suspicious death of a wealthy businessman in the 1840s have one thing in common: poison. These sensational cases, 150 years apart, are landmark moments in the history of forensic toxicology. Join our investigation as scientists, detectives and criminal historians trace the poisonous compounds and indispensable tools of crime fighting.

Revisit two criminal cases where ballistic evidence played a key role in determining the fate of its suspects. First, Charles Stielow, a man sentenced to death for a 1915 murder, is absolved thanks to a pioneering investigation. Then, after a harrowing 22-day span in 2002, detectives in Washington D.C. finally crack the case of a sniper, relying on bullets taken from the victims' bodies.

Go back to one of the biggest turning points in fire investigation: a 1990 Jacksonville, Florida fire that left a family dead and the only adult survivor accused of murder.

We track two investigations, decades apart, detailing how cyber sleuthing was first used to snare a West German hacker in 1986, and how, years later, technical advances helped the Boston Police capture the Craigslist Killer.

They've been called the "voodoo police" by some detectives, but criminal profilers are often the law's only hope of putting killers behind bars. See how these specialized agents bring felons to justice by gathering evidence, studying motives, and getting inside some very troubled minds. Then witness two landmark cases: the hunt for the Mad Bomber of New York, when profiling got its trial run, and a 1982 investigation in which traditional methods failed, but psychological insights brought down one of the deadliest serial killers in history.

Join two investigations and see how the ever-evolving forensic science of bloodstain pattern analysis helped investigators solve both the 1954 murder of the wife of a prominent doctor and the death of a Las Vegas playboy 40 years later.

Sherlock Holmes made the analysis of trace evidence famous, but French scientist Edmond Locard made it a movement. Discover how his bold theories on using microscopic evidence to solve crimes helped crack a high profile 1912 murder case.

When a death looks suspicious, forensic pathologists take a closer look. By thoroughly examining a corpse, they can determine the cause of death and whether or not a crime has taken place. See how this forensic science first gained notoriety 100 years ago in England, when a pathologist, though autopsies and wildly unconventional research methods, linked one man to two suspicious honeymoon deaths.

The son of Charles Lindbergh, America's favorite aviator, is kidnapped and murdered in 1932. The crime grips the nation and baffles police. It also catches the attention of a mild mannered wood expert from Wisconsin whose expertise will blow the case wide open and establish the science of forensic botany. Discover how a simple slat of wood helped catch the man who killed "The Eaglet."