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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!

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

Worst Episodes Summary

"Bodies In The Bay/Cold Hit" is the worst rated episode of "Cold Case Files". It scored N/A/10 based on 0 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 6/11/1999. This episode scored NaN points lower than the second lowest rated, "Daddy Dearest/A Pastor's Wife".

  • Bodies In The Bay/Cold Hit
    NaN/100 votes
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    #1 - Bodies In The Bay/Cold Hit

    Season 1 Episode 25 - Aired 6/11/1999

    A sunset boat ride in Florida leads to death for a vacationing woman and her two daughters, and police investigate a Texas man whose three wives all died in mysterious fashions.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Daddy Dearest/A Pastor's Wife
    NaN/100 votes
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    #2 - Daddy Dearest/A Pastor's Wife

    Season 5 Episode 10 - Aired 5/6/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Left for Dead/On the Case
    NaN/100 votes
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    #3 - Left for Dead/On the Case

    Season 5 Episode 27 - Aired 12/31/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Evidence Kit
    NaN/100 votes
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    #4 - Evidence Kit

    Season 5 Episode 28 - Aired 12/31/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Murder Illustrated/Blood Relations
    5.4/1012 votes
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    #5 - Murder Illustrated/Blood Relations

    Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 3/19/1999

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • A Killer's Skin / Where's Peggy?
    5.8/108 votes
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    #6 - A Killer's Skin / Where's Peggy?

    Season 5 Episode 11 - Aired 6/3/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • A Deadly Affair / The Sting Operation
    5.8/108 votes
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    #7 - A Deadly Affair / The Sting Operation

    Season 5 Episode 18 - Aired 9/30/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Deadly Stroll / Unholy Secret
    6.0/108 votes
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    #8 - The Deadly Stroll / Unholy Secret

    Season 5 Episode 17 - Aired 9/23/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Something Snapped/A Killer's Dream
    6.2/108 votes
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    #9 - Something Snapped/A Killer's Dream

    Season 5 Episode 9 - Aired 4/9/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Taunt / Death in Deadwood
    6.2/109 votes
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    #10 - The Taunt / Death in Deadwood

    Season 5 Episode 14 - Aired 7/29/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • On the Case: Nacole's Killer
    6.3/1013 votes
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    #11 - On the Case: Nacole's Killer

    Season 5 Episode 7 - Aired 3/11/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • William Peter New / Andrea Boyett
    6.3/109 votes
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    #12 - William Peter New / Andrea Boyett

    Season 5 Episode 23 - Aired 11/18/2006

    Included: a man is suspected of killing his wife. Also: the case of a mother who vanished on Christmas Eve in 1995.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Sunday Morning Slasher
    6.4/1016 votes
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    #13 - The Sunday Morning Slasher

    Season 5 Episode 5 - Aired 2/4/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Caught on Tape/A Son Remembers
    6.5/1011 votes
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    #14 - Caught on Tape/A Son Remembers

    Season 5 Episode 6 - Aired 2/18/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Killer on Campus/Bow Hunter
    6.6/1012 votes
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    #15 - Killer on Campus/Bow Hunter

    Season 5 Episode 8 - Aired 4/2/2006

    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: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Vintage Murder/Trouble in Paradise
    6.7/1014 votes
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    #16 - Vintage Murder/Trouble in Paradise

    Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 3/26/2000

    Police doggedly reopen a rape-murder case 25 years after the crime and find enough DNA evidence on the suspect's cigarette butts to bring him to justice. And a confession made to a "Baywatch" TV star helps police solve the three-year-old riddle of a wealthy Newport Beach woman's murder.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • A Confession for Carmen/The Girls
    6.7/1010 votes
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    #17 - A Confession for Carmen/The Girls

    Season 4 Episode 20 - Aired 5/14/2002

    No description available

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Cat and Mouse/Cabbie Killer
    6.8/1017 votes
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    #18 - Cat and Mouse/Cabbie Killer

    Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 4/16/2000

    A police investigator discovers a letter written 16 years earlier that provides clues to a woman's murder. And a firearms expert supplies the evidence that South Carolina authorities need to put a man on trial in 2002 for a murder committed in 1961. It was the oldest murder case ever tried in the state.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Killer's Tattoo
    6.8/1013 votes
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    #19 - The Killer's Tattoo

    Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 2/5/2001

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

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Tortured Truth/Portrait Of A Killer
    6.9/1014 votes
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    #20 - The Tortured Truth/Portrait Of A Killer

    Season 1 Episode 19 - Aired 4/30/1999

    The accidental discovery of a human scalp leads to the conviction of a man for murder 18 years after the killing. And a teenager who likes to kidnap younger boys and break their bones, kills one and tortures another.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Family / The Clue That Stuck
    6.9/1028 votes
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    #21 - The Family / The Clue That Stuck

    Season 4 Episode 18 - Aired 4/30/2002

    No description available

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Terror in Telluride/Signature of a Killer
    7.0/1013 votes
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    #22 - Terror in Telluride/Signature of a Killer

    Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 2/26/1999

    Shoot outside her bedroom, Eva Shoen was shot to death. Living in Telluride, on the mountain side. Eva was married to the son of the billion dollar Shoen family who owned the U-Haul empire. With lacking evidence the case runs cold. Even though the police believe that her death was related to a fued in the family business. Years later the case is solved by a secret that was finally revealed and a recorded conversation is played. DNA also helped the killer to confess to the crime. Signature of a Killer Taylor Courtney was a 20 yr old man who was brutaly murdered in his apartment. The crime scene was bloody and vicious. A single print is found but in 1974 when fingerprint technology was still in its infancy it meant nothing. 20 years would pass before a cold case detective would pick up the case and look at it again. What they found was a match in the system which leads to a friend of Taylor's who had committed this murder because of mistaken suspicions and jealousy.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • The Merry Widow/The Bad Cop
    7.0/1010 votes
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    #23 - The Merry Widow/The Bad Cop

    Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 1/22/2001

    Included: the case of Douglas J. Wright, a former state trooper whose 1993 murder of his wife brought a conviction in 2003. Also: the murder of a Navy seaman. Host: Bill Kurtis.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Finding BTK
    7.0/1038 votes
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    #24 - Finding BTK

    Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 12/15/2005

    The story of the hunt for one of the most notorious serial killers in recent American history--the BTK killer, who terrorized the Wichita, Kansas, area for years. After committing at least seven brutal murders, BTK (for Bind, Torture, Kill) vanished for over 25 years before sending clues of his crimes to the media in 2004. He continued to avoid capture until a forensic computer expert traced a computer disc that led investigators to a surprising suspect--a church president.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A

  • Innocence Stolen/Danger at the Door
    7.0/1015 votes
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    #25 - Innocence Stolen/Danger at the Door

    Season 5 Episode 12 - Aired 7/8/2006

    A district attorney uses a clever technique--a "John Doe indictment"--to give law enforcement officials the time they need to track down the Schoolgirl Rapist from Rochester, N. Y. And prosecutors reluctantly decide not to prosecute their lead suspect in the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl because they have only circumstantial evidence. But 12 years later, the cold case squad reopens the case, hoping DNA evidence will prove the supect's guilt.

    Director: N/A

    Writer: N/A