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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!

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There are over 100,000 cold cases in America, and only about 1% are ever solved. With recent advancements in technology and the methods used to solve these cases, as well as the unwavering dedication of

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 8 - A Family Secret
    8.0/10(120 votes)

    #1 - A Family Secret

    S1:E8

    Ten years after a 17-year-old girl is found strangled in the woods in small-town Kentucky, detectives uncover a terrible family secret.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 5 - The Smoking Gun
    8.0/10(17 votes)

    #2 - The Smoking Gun

    S4:E5

    A 2007 cold case resurfaces when a detective reopens the investigation into the brutal killing of Audrey Giannotti, 20, in rural Pennsylvania. Uncovering hidden secrets, he races against time to bring justice to a family desperate for answers.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 8 - Evil in Huntington Beach
    8.0/10(15 votes)

    #3 - Evil in Huntington Beach

    S4:E8

    When the body of a woman turns up in a field in Huntington Beach, CA in 1968, police simultaneously seek a killer and the identity of the victim herself. It takes 52 years for detectives to solve this dual mystery and expose a vicious predator.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 4 - Sweethearts, Silenced
    7.8/10(141 votes)

    #4 - Sweethearts, Silenced

    S1:E4

    A killer authors a book about his con-man past that becomes the key to solving a 29-year-old cold case of two high school sweethearts--and three other cold case murders--leading police to believe he could be the Zodiac Killer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 6 - Viciously Murdered
    7.8/10(16 votes)

    #5 - Viciously Murdered

    S4:E6

    When Susan Schwarz is found shot to death in her apartment in 1979, police suspect a robbery gone wrong. Thirty-two years pass before a witness reveals a much darker motive that breaks the case wide open and leads to Susan's killer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 9 - Who Killed My Father
    7.8/10(15 votes)

    #6 - Who Killed My Father

    S4:E9

    When 34-year-old Freddie Farah is gunned down in his Florida grocery store, police urgently seek his killer. Decades later, Farah's son will have a chance encounter with a cold case detective which brings the case back to life and exposes a killer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Cold Case Files

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  7. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 3 - She Never Came Home
    7.7/10(152 votes)

    #7 - She Never Came Home

    S1:E3

    The case of a gruesome stabbing death of a bullied teenager remains unsolved for 27 years.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 1 - Little Girl Lost
    7.6/10(199 votes)

    #8 - Little Girl Lost

    S1:E1

    Halloween in a small town is cancelled indefinitely when a young girl is kidnapped and killed on her way home from a costume party.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 4 - A Bullet to the Heart
    7.6/10(15 votes)

    #9 - A Bullet to the Heart

    S4:E4

    When night manager Rodney Castlin is gunned down in the lobby of his hotel three weeks before Christmas, detectives scour Georgia for his killer. Two decades pass before an informant's shocking testimony breaks the case wide open.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 11 - Blood Red Snow
    7.6/10(14 votes)

    #10 - Blood Red Snow

    S4:E11

    In 2002, Chris Green, 19, is found beaten to death in a ditch in Michigan. The case remains cold for nearly a decade until investigators uncover a suspect whose incriminating statements blow the case wide open.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 2 - Killings on Christmas Eve
    7.5/10(151 votes)

    #11 - Killings on Christmas Eve

    S1:E2

    The death of an elderly couple, Edward "Ed" and Wilhelmina "Minnie" Maurin Ed in Washington state on Christmas Eve 1985.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 7 - Circle of Friends
    7.5/10(116 votes)

    #12 - Circle of Friends

    S1:E7

    When 18-year-old Shannon Siders' body is found in the woods, everyone in the small town of Newaygo, Michigan, becomes a suspect--but no one is convicted of the crime.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 2 - Death of a Baseball Mom
    7.5/10(19 votes)

    #13 - Death of a Baseball Mom

    S4:E2

    When beloved mother and sister Janora Stevens is found brutally stabbed in her Tulsa, OK, home, her family is bitterly divided and increasingly suspicious of each other. The case chills until a trail of tell-tale fibers leads cops to her killer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 7 - Sooner State Nightmare
    7.4/10(15 votes)

    #14 - Sooner State Nightmare

    S4:E7

    A massive search unfolds in Chandler, OK, when two women and a child go missing from a Walmart parking lot in 1992. It will take 23 years and a tip from an unlikely source to piece together a heinous plot of misdirection and murder.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 10 - A Killer Confession
    7.4/10(18 votes)

    #15 - A Killer Confession

    S4:E10

    The quiet town of Redding, CA, is rocked by the disappearance of Frank McAlister, a teen with a recent cash windfall who leaves only a blood-stained car behind. 25 years will pass before someone makes a stunning on-air confession.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 12 - Damn His Soul to Hell
    7.4/10(13 votes)

    #16 - Damn His Soul to Hell

    S4:E12

    The 1964 murder of 9-year-old Marise Chiverella leaves the town of Hazelton, PA, in fear; an intense manhunt yields numerous suspects but no killer. Five decades pass before a student moonlighting as a genetic genealogist reignites the case.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 5 - The Night Shift
    7.3/10(124 votes)

    #17 - The Night Shift

    S1:E5

    College student Brad Perry shows up to work his graveyard shift at the gas station and is never seen alive again.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 10 - A Killer Slips Away
    7.3/10(105 votes)

    #18 - A Killer Slips Away

    S1:E10

    Two decades after a close-knit family's loving aunt is stabbed in her home, detectives return to the crime scene and discover a pivotal clue hidden in plain view.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Cold Case Files Season 2 Episode 1 - The Voice in the Lake
    7.3/10(82 votes)

    #19 - The Voice in the Lake

    S2:E1

    When 31-year-old real estate appraiser Mike Williams mysteriously vanishes while duck hunting in the Florida swamps in December of 2000, authorities suspect he accidentally drowned. For sixteen years Mike’s disappearance remains a mystery. The case heats up when police receive a distress call from the victim’s wife in 2016. Featuring interviews with detectives and the victim’s mother as well as rare footage of the crime scene and recorded audio confessions with the accused, the episode explores how the disappearance unfolded into a sinister plot to cash in on millions of dollars of life insurance.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 6 - Taken in Tacoma
    7.3/10(37 votes)

    #20 - Taken in Tacoma

    S3:E6

    When 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian is abducted and murdered in August of 1986, residents of Tacoma panic. This is the second young girl killed in five months. Convinced a predator is loose, police embark on a 32-year inquiry.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 6 - Officer Down
    7.2/10(122 votes)

    #21 - Officer Down

    S1:E6

    The longest running cold case of a law enforcement officer in the United States was the murder of Sheriff's Lt. Joe Clark.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Cold Case Files Season 2 Episode 6 - The Devil in Disguise
    7.2/10(61 votes)

    #22 - The Devil in Disguise

    S2:E6

    23-year-old teacher Irene Garza was a former beauty queen and devout Catholic who vanished the evening before Easter after giving confession. Residents of her close-knit border town did their best to find her, but after a series of false leads, her body was found floating in a drainage canal clearly the victim of a violent sexual predator. At the time, a key witness hinted that a member of the Catholic clergy may have been responsible, but the clue remained buried for 42 years until a former priest comes forward with a damning confession from another man of the cloth that reveals a sinister coverup.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Cold Case Files Season 2 Episode 7 - Love and Hate
    7.2/10(58 votes)

    #23 - Love and Hate

    S2:E7

    Near what's known as the hanging tree, the mutilated body of Timothy Coggins is found in late 1983. The investigation is thwarted and the case freezes for over 30 years, until a newly elected sheriff vows to bring the killers to justice.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Cold Case Files Season 2 Episode 8 - Ice Cold in Denver
    7.2/10(57 votes)

    #24 - Ice Cold in Denver

    S2:E8

    On a bitter morning in 1980, radio intern Helene Pruszynski is found brutalized in a snowy field. After 37 years of fruitless leads, investigators tap into a public genealogy website that leads them across the country to the killer they've been hunting.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Cold Case Files Season 2 Episode 11 - A Lesson in Homicide
    7.2/10(49 votes)

    #25 - A Lesson in Homicide

    S2:E11

    When a beloved schoolteacher is found murdered in her Neptune, New Jersey apartment in the fall of 2009, suspicion is cast on her soon to be ex-husband. Long after the case goes cold, a detective embarks on a mission to help the man clear his name and track down the real killers.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Best Episodes Summary

"A Family Secret" is the best rated episode of "Cold Case Files". It scored 8/10 based on 120 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 6/15/2017. This episode scored 0.0 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Smoking Gun".