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The Best Episodes of Cold Case Files

Every episode of Cold Case Files ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Cold Case Files!

Explore compelling cases that have gone cold for years, chronicling the journeys of the detectives who reopened them. The detectives relive the events of the...
Genres:CrimeMysteryDocumentary
Network:A&E

Best Episodes Summary

"Mommie Dearest" is the best rated episode of "Cold Case Files". It scored 8.6/10 based on 35 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 6/11/2000. This episode scored 0.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Original Night Stalker".

  • Mommie Dearest
    8.6/1035 votes
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    #1 - Mommie Dearest

    Season 2 Episode 24 - Aired 6/11/2000

    A mother is suspected in the murders of two of her daughters, when her third daughter finally convinces police to reopen two cold cases.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Original Night Stalker
    8.2/1027 votes
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    #2 - The Original Night Stalker

    Season 2 Episode 22 - Aired 5/28/2000

    In the 1980s, a serial killer prowled the posh streets of Orange County. Police were unaware of the serial attacks until 1996, when DNA revealed the killer's secret and they linked four murders to a single DNA profile. Detectives uncovered three more crimes attributed to the man dubbed "The Original Night Stalker" before learning he had an earlier career as a serial rapist! Watch as cold case detectives compare the attacker's DNA with nearly every convicted violent offender in California.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Lady in the Box
    8.1/1019 votes
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    #3 - Lady in the Box

    Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 2/26/2000

    The murder of an Ohio woman in 1974 is solved more than 20 years later after police get a crucial clue--the woman's husband was seen building a coffin-shaped box about the time the woman disappeared.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Widow and the Wolf/Unicorns and Alligators
    8.1/1019 votes
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    #4 - The Widow and the Wolf/Unicorns and Alligators

    Season 2 Episode 12 - Aired 3/19/2000

    After the murder of her aunt goes cold, a woman helps launch Citizens Against Homicide, an advocate group that brings awareness to cases that have gone unsolved. And police solve a young girl's rape and murder when the car where her body was discovered acts like a refrigerator, preserving half of her body and allowing authorities to recover incriminating DNA from semen in her body.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Hunter Homicides / Skulls in Stanley Park
    8.0/1016 votes
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    #5 - The Hunter Homicides / Skulls in Stanley Park

    Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 1/29/1999

    DNA tests identify a skull of a 14-year-old boy who went missing 6 years earlier. When a second skull is found, investigators fear they have a serial killer in the area. In Florida, detectives trace a gun used in a 4-year-old murder.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Through the Eyes of a Child / Killer Next Door
    8.0/1030 votes
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    #6 - Through the Eyes of a Child / Killer Next Door

    Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 2/6/1999

    In Missouri, a part-time missionary is convicted, 38 years later, of killing her 5-year-old stepdaughter, and the skeleton of a Michigan boy, dead for 10 years, leads police to a serial killer.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Ticket to Nowhere/The Paper Route
    8.0/1019 votes
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    #7 - Ticket to Nowhere/The Paper Route

    Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 1/29/2000

    A 13-year-old girl's mother is murdered and 20 years later she helps bring the killer to justice; and a dogged policeman gets to the bottom of the brutal murder of a 63-year-old newspaper delivery woman.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Boy and the Monster/Secret in the Cellar
    7.9/1029 votes
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    #8 - The Boy and the Monster/Secret in the Cellar

    Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 1/8/1999

    The Boy and the Monster In Wisconsin in the winter of 1991 a young woman's body was found naked, badly beaten and to make it harder to identify her, her fingertips were cut off. After months of trying to figure out who she was they finally came up with a name. Doris McLeod. After finding out who she was the police find out a lot more about her. She had a troubled past. After being on the streets she ended up connected to a pimp. Only one month of being on the streets she is never seen again. It takes a 3 year old boy to finally tell the police about Doris and the Boy and the Monster. Secret in the Cellar The second part of this episode is about a young woman from South Portland, Maine who was in search of her mother. She contacts the police but they get nowhere. They question Bill Bruns, the missing woman's husband who told the police a story about how Pearl drank and ran off with another man. Elaine Woodward, the missing womans daughter, went to the media for help. An investigator takes the case and with the help of science and man power he finds out what happened to Pearl with the Secret in the Cellar.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Pride and the Fall/The Nail File
    7.9/1019 votes
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    #9 - Pride and the Fall/The Nail File

    Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 2/12/2000

    A woman's fall from a cliff in the Grand Canyon leads police to uncover a series of grisly murders, and investigators smoke out a killer when they find crucial DNA evidence on his cigarette butts.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Hour 1 - Cold Case Files
    7.8/1015 votes
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    #10 - Hour 1 - Cold Case Files

    Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 1/1/1999

    In the first case in this episode Felicia Prechtl is found raped and murdered in Dallas, Texas/ The only thing the killer left behind was a fingerprint which was smudged. The fingerprint was left on a piece of duct tape that the killer used to tie up Felicia. It would take many years before Felicia would get justice. It would take the work of a dedicated detective to runs the prints through the system and find not only a match to the print but also finds the killer. And he wants to confess. The second story in this episode is about a little girl, Surrette Clark, who lived in the Arizona desert. She disappeared with nobody to even recognize that she was gone. After Surrette went missing at the age of 3 it would take more then 20 years to solve this mystery. Her parents took off across the Canadian border right after her disappearance. Finally a woman comes forward to tell of the families secret. With this information cold case detectives find out about a story of child abuse and how deadly some people will go to hide them. The third story in this episode is about a known man. One who has passed through our live via television either from watching the show or somebody talking about it. Its Bob Crane. Best known for his role on Hogan's Heroes as Colonel Hogan. Crane was strangled and beaten to death in his own bed in 1978. The story goes that Bob and a friend of his had a fight one night. With the small evidence that the police did have the police suspected his friend of his murder but could not prove it. It would be 12 years before anybody takes a second look at this case. On the second try police do find the evidence they need but will it be enough? In the fourth installment to this episode is about Ronnie Bullock. He was a man who had served 10 years of his sentence for raping an 11 year old girl. Through the entire time of his imprisionment he stayed stedfast to his claim of innocence. It would not be until DNA was founded that someone would listen to him and prove him innocent.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Reconstructing Murder/Fire Flicks
    7.8/1020 votes
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    #11 - Reconstructing Murder/Fire Flicks

    Season 1 Episode 15 - Aired 4/9/1999

    In Wisconsin, advances in forensic clay modeling help investigators identify a murder victim whose skin was stripped from her head, neck, and legs. And in California, police track down two boys who enjoy satanic rituals and setting fires.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Vanished
    7.8/1018 votes
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    #12 - Vanished

    Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 5/7/1999

    The story of serial killer James Rodney Hicks, who left a trail of bodies and kept police, prosecutors, and the FBI quite busy working on his cases for over 20 years. Hicks murdered his wife, his children's babysitter, and a girlfriend.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The South Side Rapist
    7.8/1018 votes
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    #13 - The South Side Rapist

    Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 1/8/2000

    A series of brutal rapes in St. Louis goes unsolved for many years until a fluke audit of a license plate number leads police to the culprit.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Murder On The Menu
    7.8/1023 votes
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    #14 - Murder On The Menu

    Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 3/12/2000

    A boy's toy Batmobile car provides an important clue for detectives struggling to make a case against a serial killer who stalks and kills waitresses.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Unluckiest Man/The Deadly Triangle
    7.8/1015 votes
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    #15 - The Unluckiest Man/The Deadly Triangle

    Season 2 Episode 15 - Aired 4/9/2000

    Fire investigator Jack Malooly helps crack the case of an arsonist and killer who set a series of fires to collect insurance money; and a prison inmate tells a homicide detective that he can't help him with his current murder investigation, but knows plenty about another murder that took place in California 15 years earlier.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Soft Kill/Unsolved
    7.8/1021 votes
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    #16 - Soft Kill/Unsolved

    Season 2 Episode 20 - Aired 5/14/2000

    Police run down more than 11,000 leads before coming up with a suspect in the murders of three Virginia girls; and the abduction and strangulation of a California woman continues to baffle investigators more than 11 years after the crime.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Bedroom Basher
    7.8/1017 votes
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    #17 - The Bedroom Basher

    Season 4 Episode 8 - Aired 2/19/2002

    No description available

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Obsession: Dave Reichert and the Green River Killer
    7.8/1025 votes
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    #18 - Obsession: Dave Reichert and the Green River Killer

    Season 5 Episode 2 - Aired 12/15/2005

    In this special 100th edition of Cold Case Files, we look at the biggest serial murder case in U.S. history - the 20-year hunt for the Green River Killer. Dave Reichert, the detective who made finding the killer his obsession, walks us through the case. He tells vivid, sometimes harrowing stories about the murders, saying, "You never forget the sight of a 16-year-old body lying on her back on the riverbank with ligature around her neck." Reichert headed up two Green River task forces until forensic DNA technology helped crack the case and brought him face to face with the killer thought to be responsible for 48 deaths.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Interrogation/The Slide
    7.8/1011 votes
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    #19 - The Interrogation/The Slide

    Season 5 Episode 13 - Aired 7/15/2006

    A 14-year-old boy is charged with the murder of his sister, but his public defender believes the police coerced the boy's confession and that the real killer is still on the loose. And two deteriorated medical examiner's slides, made in a murder investigation 16 years earlier, give police the evidence they need to reopen the cold case and bring the lead suspect to trial.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Man in the Shadows/The Hitchhiker
    7.7/1023 votes
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    #20 - Man in the Shadows/The Hitchhiker

    Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 4/2/1999

    No description available

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Mark of a Killer/Dead Ends
    7.7/1016 votes
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    #21 - Mark of a Killer/Dead Ends

    Season 2 Episode 3 - Aired 1/15/2000

    A killer's bite marks and a jailhouse snitch lead to a murder conviction in a case gone cold for eight years, and Bill Kurtis joins a group of super sleuths trying to solve the slaying of 18-year-old Jamie Weiss, found dead in her bathtub in 1996.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Crimes of the KKK
    7.7/1020 votes
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    #22 - Crimes of the KKK

    Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 3/5/2000

    Klan leader Sam Bowers goes on trial for ordering the murder of an African-American storeowner 32 years prior, and investigators reopen the unsolved case of an African-American truck driver who was forced to leap to his death from a bridge by Klan members.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Sex, Lies and Murder
    7.7/1041 votes
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    #23 - Sex, Lies and Murder

    Season 4 Episode 11 - Aired 3/12/2002

    No description available

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Missing Informant/Man's Best Friend
    7.6/1020 votes
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    #24 - The Missing Informant/Man's Best Friend

    Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 4/30/1999

    Police solve a murder when divers find a skeleton in a car at the bottom of a river, and a dead dog's DNA helps crack open a 6-year-old case.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Baiting Game/The Killer's Tattoo
    7.6/1021 votes
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    #25 - The Baiting Game/The Killer's Tattoo

    Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 1/22/2000

    Investigators in Virginia, probing the murder case of a sailor, seek the help of a forensic anthropologist from the "body farm" in the Great Smoky Mountains. Dr. William Bass became an expert on the human body's rate of decay by watching bodies rot at his plot at the University of Tennessee and keeping tables of weather data.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A