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The Worst Episodes of Cold Case Files

Every episode of Cold Case Files ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Cold Case Files!

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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 crimes, reveal new twists and startling revelations, relying on breakthroughs

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  1. #1 Worst Episode
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    Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 27 - Innocence Files
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S5:E27

    Students of the University of Cincinnati and Texas Tech University Innocence Project take on the cases of jailed murderers who claim they're innocent. With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access, viewers watch as the students visit the inmates, track down key witnesses, and seek DNA testing that could prove their clients' innocence. While their focus is on the cases of Texas death row inmate, Anthony Graves, and mentally ill Ohio inmate Glen Tinney, who plead guilty but now professes his innocence.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 12 - Murder Illustrated/Blood Relations
    4.9/10(15 votes)

    S1:E12

    Nine years after police had to release the teenage suspect in a woman's murder due to lack of evidence, they find a new lead in the case. Twenty years after a young woman is murdered while babysitting her nephew, police are able to find DNA evidence that points to her killer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 11 - A Killer's Skin / Where's Peggy?
    5.8/10(8 votes)

    S5:E11

    Police in Albany, N.Y., get a surprise when a killer they think targets only older women is suspected in the murder of an elderly man. And the contents of a secret storage shed holds the grisly clues to a murder that has gone cold for more than 14 years.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 18 - A Deadly Affair / The Sting Operation
    5.8/10(9 votes)

    S5:E18

    After 19 years, Kansas detectives reopen the case of a banker found beaten to death in his bed--and the chief suspect is his cheating wife. And a man with a guilty conscience helps Arkansas police to crack a cold case of murder when he tells them that his ex-wife knows who the killer is.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 17 - The Deadly Stroll / Unholy Secret
    6.0/10(9 votes)

    S5:E17

    In Rhode Island, policewomen go undercover in as street walkers to nab the man suspected of murdering three prostitutes. And a dagger-shaped letter opener is the key piece of evidence that links a priest to the grisly 1980 murder of a nun in Toledo, Ohio.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 25 - Left for Dead / On the Case
    6.0/10(8 votes)

    S5:E25

    A detective in California tracks down a prostitute's killer with the help of a key piece of evidence--fingerprints lifted off two beer bottles found at the murder scene. And two persistent cold case detectives in Kansas City, Mo., use DNA analyses to investigate the 1990 murder of a woman and the death of a man killed in a car crash in 1988.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  7. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 14 - The Taunt / Death in Deadwood
    6.1/10(10 votes)

    S5:E14

    A serial rapist seals his own fate when he sends a taunting letter to police, who use the DNA extracted from the saliva in the envelope's seal to track him down. And when a man is found dead in South Dakota, his head bashed in by a 50-pound rock, investigators go on a 20-year search for the killers--a man and woman who were part of a free-loving hippie group and are known only by the names "Outlaw" and "Inlaw."

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 24 - Murder He Wrote / Caught By the Past
    6.1/10(10 votes)

    S5:E24

    Guns found dumped in a pond outside of Atlantic City, N.J., help police to solve the 15-year-old murder of Detroit cab company owner. And the rape and murder of an Atlanta TV station receptionist goes cold for 20 years before the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) links a man with three prior burglary convictions to the crime.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 9 - The DNA Link/The Secret Slide
    6.2/10(9 votes)

    S3:E9

    Detectives from three different departments in Westchester County, NY team up to track down a serial killer; and a man known as the Bus Stop Rapist becomes the lead suspect decades after a woman is found murdered under a hotel bed in the case.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 10 - Daddy Dearest/A Pastor's Wife
    6.3/10(9 votes)

    S5:E10

    Nine years after the murders of a mother and her teenage daughters, a wiretapped conversation between the suspected killer and his sister helps police to crack the case. And the baffling murder of a Virginia woman is solved when human bones are discovered by a geologist working in North Carolina.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 23 - A Deadly Pattern / A Desperate Housewife
    6.3/10(9 votes)

    S5:E23

    When a woman is found murdered in her mobile home, police make two shocking discoveries--her husband may not only have been the killer, but he may have also killed his first wife 31 years before. And after an Oregon man is shot dead, the case takes an unusual twist when one of the investigating detectives has an affair with the chief suspect--the dead man's wife.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 15 - Blood on the Badge/Bump in the Night
    6.4/10(11 votes)

    S3:E15

    A woman who takes down the license plate number of a car that had been following her helps police solve the murder of another young woman.; a phone call gives police the lead they need to solve a 30-year-old crime.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 28 - Evidence Kit
    6.4/10(9 votes)

    S5:E28

    The Chicago Police Department launches the Women's DNA initiative to fund the testing of backlogged rape evidence kits and help rape victims find justice. Meanwhile in Sacramento County, California, the deputy district attorney hunts for the killer of a man who was brutally stabbed to death in his home 16 years earlier, using a new grant for DNA testing.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 8 - A Hitchhike to Murder/Never Forgotten
    6.5/10(12 votes)

    S3:E8

    Police must wait nearly 30 years before advances in DNA technology give them the chance to convict the killer of a young hitchhiker, and Philadelphia police wage a 16-year hunt for the man who raped and killed a 10-year-old girl.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 7 - On the Case: Nacole's Killer
    6.5/10(14 votes)

    S5:E7

    This special edition of Cold Case Files offers an inside look, rarely seen, at an active cold case investigation. We follow Det. Vince Velazquez of Atlanta and Capt. Russell Popham of East Point, Ga., as they work to solve the 1995 rape and murder of 14-year-old Nacole Smith, one of Atlanta's most notorious unsolved crimes. We see Velazquez and Popham hit the streets to question people who might recognize the man in their composite sketch, and obtain DNA samples from potential suspects. "It's almost like the carrot's dangling in front of us, but we just can't catch it," Velazquez says of his painstaking, frustrating search for the killer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 16 - The Lady Killer/A Husband's Secret
    6.6/10(17 votes)

    S3:E16

    The testimony of three prison inmates helps convict a man who viciously killed a woman out for a bike ride nearly two decades prior; and a self-admitted sex addict who strangled his cat is a suspect in the 30-year-old murder of a neighbor.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 17 - Mistaken for a Killer/A Woman Scorned
    6.6/10(11 votes)

    S3:E17

    DNA technology that take place over 20 years help police to finally identify the man who brutally stabbed two women to death; and an anonymous caller leads police to the killer of a 13-year-old girl who was shot dead and left in the woods.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 18 - The Missing Hunters/The Flashlight Rapist
    6.6/10(20 votes)

    S3:E18

    Police suspect brothers J.R. and Coco Duvall beat two Michigan hunters to death, chopped up the bodies, and fed them to pigs; and a serial rapist, who holds a mini-flashlight in his mouth to blind victims, is nabbed when he drops it during an attack.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 23 - The Hit makers/Favor For A Friend
    6.6/10(13 votes)

    S3:E23

    A scheme to bribe a country music magazine to manipulate the charts leads to murder in Nashville and a 13-year hunt for the killer; and a murderer's plan to hide his gun is foiled when the man who buried the evidence for him spills the beans to cops.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 9 - Something Snapped/A Killer's Dream
    6.6/10(10 votes)

    S5:E9

    On a summer night in 1987 a mother worries and waits for her 19-year-old daughter to come home. But Diana never comes home and she's found raped and strangled near the Hudson River. Investigators suspect her friend, Michael because his alibi is shaky and witnesses place his truck near the crime scene. Trouble is, he passes a polygraph and his DNA is no match. Nevertheless, Michael remains the chief suspect for 17 years, until DNA fingers another man who offers a chilling story of Diana's last breath. Then, a young family's life is shattered when a San Antonio interior design shop becomes a crime scene. In 1983, a young mother is raped and murdered at work. The crime remains unsolved for two decades. Then in 2003 detectives reopen the case pegging their hopes on DNA. But when the evidence turns up missing, detectives worry this case could be over before it starts.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 21 - Murder Checks In / Killer in the City
    6.7/10(7 votes)

    S3:E21

    Police hunt for a man who killed three women in three different hotels, not far from one another in Des Moines, Iowa. And police get a killer to confess when they tell him prosecutors will show photos of the gruesome crime scene.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 5 - The Sunday Morning Slasher
    6.7/10(18 votes)

    S5:E5

    Law enforcement officials fear they may have to release a serial killer from prison until a 24-year-old murder case gives them a chance to lock him up for good.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 6 - Caught on Tape/A Son Remembers
    6.7/10(12 votes)

    S5:E6

    A video tape made at an ATM machine helps police in Louisville, KY, to nab a man suspected of raping 13 women. And a DA investigator in Georgia helps crack a murder case that his father, a police chief, first worked on 30 years before.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 8 - Killer on Campus/Bow Hunter
    6.7/10(14 votes)

    S5:E8

    Thirty-two years after the killing of University of Michigan law student Jane Mixer, police use DNA found on her pantyhose to finally track down the killer. And psychologists help solve a cold case by suggesting the lead detective take a page from the game of romance, and play hard to get with the killer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 6 - The Killer's Tattoo
    6.8/10(16 votes)

    S3:E6

    The search for a killer with a distinctive tattoo is recalled. Host: Bill Kurtis.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Worst Episodes Summary

"Innocence Files" is the worst rated episode of "Cold Case Files". It scored /10 based on 0 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 9/18/2007. This episode scored 4.9 points lower than the second lowest rated, "Murder Illustrated/Blood Relations".