The New Detectives: Case Studies in Forensic Science - Season 2 (1997)

Bugs have roamed the earth for 250 million years, but their intimate association with death is just now coming to life. The kinds of insects on bodies, and their stage of development, can pinpoint time of death and help identify victims.

Forensic sculptors use skulls and clay to create models of victims' faces.

Modern technology is used to convict the killer of a teenage girl, linking a bloody shirt, a broken watch, and blood in the wheel well of the suspect. The second case starts with fragments of a skeleton found buried at a Boy Scout camp. Falsely believed to be Caucasian, the skull proved to be of Mongolian descent; a forensic reconstruction circulated on TV, etc., led to a bizarre story--including a body kept in the freezer before burial. The last case involves a parent abduction and computer "aging" of a child's picture which restored them to the custodial parent, ...

How forensics can find clues even in charred remains.

Finding clues in explosions.

In San Diego a serial killer who strangled 35-40 prostitutes, put them in garbage bags wrapped with tape, and disposed of them in dumpsters was not found until a Canadian lab was able to get prints from a plastic bag 6 years later. A Hollywood cold case file was solved by computerized fingerprint ID (AFIS), convicting a killer over 30 years later! A man in Vermont was skewered to the floor by a ski pole; the murderer had left bloody fingerprints on a door frame and a palm print on the pole, but raising them took an expert. The suspect was convicted--delivered into the...

Handwriting analysis can determine mood, motive, and many other psychological traits.

Flight Data Recorders can hold valuable clues to the last minutes of a doomed aircraft.

What forensics uncovered during the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

How ballistics can help identify cause of death, guns, and killers.