Thursday

Ohio v. Stanley Ford. Firefighters made a desperate effort to save a young family from a blazing fire, but rescuers were too late. Police declared the fire was no accident and began an arson investigation, which included another unexplained fire a few blocks away that killed a beloved elderly couple. Detectives found their first clue in surveillance footage from neighborhood security cameras — a hooded figure, dressed in white, with no face visible — seen dousing both homes with lighter fluid, igniting the flames and running away. Who was the mystery man?

The world’s top criminal investigators, forensic scientists and behavioral analysts go behind the scenes of some of their most challenging serial murder cases to reveal the cutting edge forensic science, technology, behavioral psychology and investigative techniques involved in tracking down a serial killer. The detection and apprehension of the gainesville ripper, who brutally attacked and murdered five college students in florida, provides the core narrative against which the unique forensic and investigative details of four other cases are compared and contrasted.

After a night of drinking, 45-year-old Ana Trujillo bludgeons her on-again-off-again lover Stefan Andersson to death with a blue suede stiletto shoe.

Former Deputy Sheriff of Colbert, Georgia, Tracy Fortson shoots her boyfriend Douglas Benton as he sleeps, then abandons his body in a cement-filled trough in the woods.

Angela Craig repeatedly falls mysteriously ill before dying in hospital. Detectives soon suspect her husband, dentist James Craig, has been poisoning her. Secret affairs, suspicious internet searches and an alleged murder plot transform the case into a national true-crime sensation.

When Erin Chorney disappears with a trace suspicion falls on the last person to have seen her, her ex-boyfriend Michael Bridges. After investigator searches come up empty handed, they orchestrate an elaborate Mr. Big sting operation to woo Bridges into

The elderly owners of a beloved local grocery are brutally attacked and left for dead. Working with little beyond a vague witness description, Lt. Joe Kenda leads a state-wide manhunt to catch a pair of cold-blooded killers before they disappear for good.

For three weeks in May of 1994, a brutal killer had a nation on edge. A bloody spree of rapes, kidnappings, and murders resulted in the deaths of six Oklahoma residents, including a local radio personality and an elderly widower. Gary Alan Walker, an emotionally disturbed ex-convict, was eventually captured and executed for these crimes.

In 1995, 8-year-old Maria Piceno of Lemoore, California, is abducted near her home. When her body is recovered, the search for a missing girl turns into a hunt for a vicious killer. Could one woman's searing memories be the key to a shocking truth?