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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!

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...

Seasons5

  1. Background image for Mommie Dearest
    8.6/10(36 votes)

    #1 - Mommie Dearest

    S2:E24

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

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  2. Background image for The Original Night Stalker
    8.2/10(28 votes)

    #2 - The Original Night Stalker

    S2:E22

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  3. Background image for Lady in the Box
    8.1/10(19 votes)

    #3 - Lady in the Box

    S2:E9

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  4. Background image for The Widow and the Wolf/Unicorns and Alligators
    8.1/10(20 votes)

    #4 - The Widow and the Wolf/Unicorns and Alligators

    S2:E12

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  5. Background image for Ticket to Nowhere/The Paper Route
    7.9/10(20 votes)

    #5 - Ticket to Nowhere/The Paper Route

    S2:E5

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  6. Background image for Pride and the Fall/The Nail File
    7.9/10(20 votes)

    #6 - Pride and the Fall/The Nail File

    S2:E7

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Cold Case Files

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  8. Background image for The South Side Rapist
    7.8/10(19 votes)

    #7 - The South Side Rapist

    S2:E2

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  9. Background image for Murder On The Menu
    7.8/10(24 votes)

    #8 - Murder On The Menu

    S2:E11

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  10. Background image for The Unluckiest Man/The Deadly Triangle
    7.8/10(16 votes)

    #9 - The Unluckiest Man/The Deadly Triangle

    S2:E15

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  11. Background image for Soft Kill/Unsolved
    7.8/10(22 votes)

    #10 - Soft Kill/Unsolved

    S2:E20

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  12. Background image for The Bedroom Basher
    7.8/10(17 votes)

    #11 - The Bedroom Basher

    S4:E8

    No description available

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  13. Background image for Obsession: Dave Reichert and the Green River Killer
    7.8/10(25 votes)

    #12 - Obsession: Dave Reichert and the Green River Killer

    S5:E2

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  14. Background image for The Interrogation/The Slide
    7.8/10(11 votes)

    #13 - The Interrogation/The Slide

    S5:E13

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  15. Background image for Sex, Lies and Murder
    7.7/10(43 votes)

    #14 - Sex, Lies and Murder

    S4:E11

    No description available

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  16. Background image for Mark of a Killer/Dead Ends
    7.6/10(17 votes)

    #15 - Mark of a Killer/Dead Ends

    S2:E3

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  17. Background image for In the Care of a Killer/Deadly Lies
    7.6/10(19 votes)

    #16 - In the Care of a Killer/Deadly Lies

    S2:E8

    The suspicious death of 2-year-old Billy Blankenship is solved when police force his babysitter to re-enact the circumstances of his death. Then, a murder case is solved when the dead man's body is accidentally found by divers searching underwater for an antique car.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  18. Background image for Crimes of the KKK
    7.6/10(21 votes)

    #17 - Crimes of the KKK

    S2:E10

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  19. Background image for NCIS / Exhuming the Truth
    7.6/10(14 votes)

    #18 - NCIS / Exhuming the Truth

    S5:E19

    After U.S. Navy sailor Andrew Muns disappears in 1968, the Navy claims that Muns went AWOL from his ship. But his sister works tirelessly for over 30 years to prove that Muns was really killed. And DNA surreptitiously gathered from a cigarette butt helps detectives to unravel a 20-year-old case of rape and murder.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  20. Background image for The Baiting Game/The Killer's Tattoo
    7.5/10(22 votes)

    #19 - The Baiting Game/The Killer's Tattoo

    S2:E4

    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.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  21. Background image for Traces of Murder/The Bathtub Killer
    7.5/10(20 votes)

    #20 - Traces of Murder/The Bathtub Killer

    S2:E6

    A killer helps convict himself when he boasts about his crime to prison cellmates; and New Hampshire investigators probing the murder of a pregnant woman found raped, strangled, and dumped into her bathtub, get a new lead when they discover a similar case in Florida.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  22. Background image for A Map To Murder/Life on the Run
    7.5/10(22 votes)

    #21 - A Map To Murder/Life on the Run

    S2:E19

    After a long manhunt, cops finally close in on a serial killer with the help of the Internet and information supplied by a subsidiary of Microsoft. And a drug trafficker jumps bail, goes into the bike shop business, and helps pioneer the sport of mountain biking while he's on the lam.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  23. Background image for A Child Remembers
    7.5/10(14 votes)

    #22 - A Child Remembers

    S5:E15

    Our cameras follow Detective Manny Reyes as he investigates the 1990 murder of a Fort Worth, Texas woman. Reyes talks to the woman's two sons, who believe that her husband, Bobby, was the murderer. We then watch as one of the husband's relatives tells Reyes that Bobby has confessed the crime to him. To make the case even stronger, Reyes collects physical evidence that connects him to the crime. Finally, Reyes meets Bobby for a dramatic interrogation. Will he crack and admit the crime--or will he hang tough and deny it all?

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  24. Background image for The Good Samaritan/Gun Shy
    7.4/10(19 votes)

    #23 - The Good Samaritan/Gun Shy

    S2:E18

    New DNA technology and the national DNA databank help police hunt down a rapist-killer 11 years after he committed his crimes, and a detective's painstaking recreation of a woman's shooting death proves it wasn't an accident.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  25. Background image for A Sealed Fate/Deadly Divorce
    7.4/10(17 votes)

    #24 - A Sealed Fate/Deadly Divorce

    S2:E25

    A murderer's saliva, found on envelopes that he sealed, helps seal his doom 37 years after his first killing. And Colorado police crack a cold case 24 years later when they take a DNA sample from the victim's son that proves that his father murdered his mother.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  26. Background image for A Knock at the Door / Shattered
    7.4/10(23 votes)

    #25 - A Knock at the Door / Shattered

    S5:E22

    The killing of a woman in a Virginia hotel room goes unsolved for a quarter of a century before investigators are finally able to zero in on the likely killer. And, when a 25-year -old women is shot to death during a jewelry store robbery in 1980, investigators collect fingerprints and blood from the crime scene. There are few leads and the case goes cold until 1999, when detectives test the blood evidence and develop a DNA profile. For two years more, that profile sits without a match, until 2001 when a convicted burglar is entered into the DNA databank.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

Best Episodes Summary

"Mommie Dearest" is the best rated episode of "Cold Case Files". It scored 8.6/10 based on 36 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 6/11/2000. This episode scored 0.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Original Night Stalker".