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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 1 Episode 25 - Bodies In The Bay/Cold Hit
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #1 - Bodies In The Bay/Cold Hit

    S1:E25

    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:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 27 - Left for Dead/On the Case
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #2 - Left for Dead/On the Case

    S5:E27

    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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  3. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 28 - Evidence Kit
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #3 - Evidence Kit

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

    #4 - Murder Illustrated/Blood Relations

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

    #5 - A Killer's Skin / Where's Peggy?

    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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  6. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 18 - A Deadly Affair / The Sting Operation
    5.8/10(8 votes)

    #6 - A Deadly Affair / The Sting Operation

    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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  7. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 15 - Blood on the Badge/Bump in the Night
    6.0/10(9 votes)

    #7 - Blood on the Badge/Bump in the Night

    S3:E15

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 10 - Daddy Dearest/A Pastor's Wife
    6.0/10(8 votes)

    #8 - Daddy Dearest/A Pastor's Wife

    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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  9. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 17 - The Deadly Stroll / Unholy Secret
    6.0/10(8 votes)

    #9 - The Deadly Stroll / Unholy Secret

    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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  10. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 9 - Something Snapped/A Killer's Dream
    6.2/10(8 votes)

    #10 - Something Snapped/A Killer's Dream

    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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  11. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 14 - The Taunt / Death in Deadwood
    6.2/10(9 votes)

    #11 - The Taunt / Death in Deadwood

    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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  12. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 7 - On the Case: Nacole's Killer
    6.3/10(13 votes)

    #12 - On the Case: Nacole's Killer

    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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  13. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 23 - William Peter New / Andrea Boyett
    6.3/10(9 votes)

    #13 - William Peter New / Andrea Boyett

    S5:E23

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

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 20 - A Confession for Carmen/The Girls
    6.4/10(10 votes)

    #14 - A Confession for Carmen/The Girls

    S4:E20

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 5 - The Sunday Morning Slasher
    6.5/10(16 votes)

    #15 - The Sunday Morning Slasher

    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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  16. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 6 - Caught on Tape/A Son Remembers
    6.5/10(11 votes)

    #16 - Caught on Tape/A Son Remembers

    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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  17. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 4 - The Merry Widow/The Bad Cop
    6.6/10(11 votes)

    #17 - The Merry Widow/The Bad Cop

    S3:E4

    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:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Cold Case Files Season 5 Episode 8 - Killer on Campus/Bow Hunter
    6.6/10(12 votes)

    #18 - Killer on Campus/Bow Hunter

    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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  19. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 9 - Terror in Telluride/Signature of a Killer
    6.7/10(13 votes)

    #19 - Terror in Telluride/Signature of a Killer

    S1:E9

    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:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 19 - The Tortured Truth/Portrait Of A Killer
    6.7/10(14 votes)

    #20 - The Tortured Truth/Portrait Of A Killer

    S1:E19

    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:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Cold Case Files Season 2 Episode 13 - Vintage Murder/Trouble in Paradise
    6.7/10(15 votes)

    #21 - Vintage Murder/Trouble in Paradise

    S2:E13

    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:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Cold Case Files Season 2 Episode 16 - Cat and Mouse/Cabbie Killer
    6.7/10(18 votes)

    #22 - Cat and Mouse/Cabbie Killer

    S2:E16

    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:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Cold Case Files Season 3 Episode 6 - The Killer's Tattoo
    6.7/10(14 votes)

    #23 - The Killer's Tattoo

    S3:E6

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

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Cold Case Files Season 1 Episode 22 - Silent Witness/Innocence Lost
    6.8/10(17 votes)

    #24 - Silent Witness/Innocence Lost

    S1:E22

    The murder of scientist Helena Greenwood, who was helping to develop DNA forensic technology when she died, is solved 12 years later with the help of DNA evidence. And a Los Angeles County prosecutor uses criminal profiling to nab the notorious South Bay Rapist, who abducted and raped six young girls.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Cold Case Files Season 4 Episode 1 - Love Triangle/2nd Story Rapist
    6.8/10(17 votes)

    #25 - Love Triangle/2nd Story Rapist

    S4:E1

    No description available

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Worst Episodes Summary

"Bodies In The Bay/Cold Hit" 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 6/11/1999. This episode scored 0.0 points lower than the second lowest rated, "Left for Dead/On the Case".