Cold Case Files: The Podcast

After a young girl is murdered in her home while the rest of her family slept, the police investigation zeroes in on the girl's teenage brother. But by focusing so closely on the brother, did investigators miss another suspect?

In Toledo, Ohio in 1980, a woman's body was found in a chapel, covered only by an altar cloth. She had been stabbed 31 times. The woman's name? Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. Somebody had murdered a nun.

It's the late 90's in Houston, Texas and a serial killer is on the loose, having already strangled at least three women to death. His signature? A ligature tied around the neck, and tightened with a tourniquet.

In a big city like Philadelphia, it's easy for an unsolved murder to slip into the cold files and be forgotten. But in this case, one victim's boyfriend was set on doing everything possible to make sure people didn't forget, and that police didn't stop investigating.

After nearly two decades of silence, a man known as the Smoky Mountain Gypsy comes forward with information that could lead police to solve not one, but two different murders, which had never before been connected.

In an ocean-side town in California, a woman is strangled to death in her home and her head is wrapped in duct tape. Police are at a loss for evidence, but there is one eye-witness: the victim's four-year-old son.

In the spring of 1969, Jane Mixer becomes one of several young women murdered around the University of Michigan. Police think there may be a serial killer, but does Jane fit the pattern? And years later, how does the DNA of a 4-year-old end up found on Jane's body?

After a mother hears about allegations that her physically abusive boyfriend has sexually abused her daughter, she goes mysteriously missing for over a decade. A trunk, a storage unit, and a Cold Case detective's dogged determination help solve the mystery.

In 1991, an eight-year-old boy is kidnapped from home while his mother is at church. Police believe the kidnapper is someone close to the family, but rule out all the obvious suspects. Despite years going by, ransom notes, and briefcase full of cash, and the lack of a body keep the mother's hope alive.

In a town most famous for the death of legendary gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok, police try to solve a murder not in the 1880s, but the 1980s. This murder involves a man named David Crockett, another named "Outlaw," a bus full of hippies, and a very large rock.

Police in Columbus, Ohio spend more than a decade hunting a man who terrorized a neighborhood known as Linden. In the process, he became one of the most prolific rapists in U.S. history.

In 1993, Charles Murray, an experienced hunter, went missing on the first day of bow hunting season. His family fears that something terrible had happened were quickly realized. But who was it that found Charles out in the middle of the woods? And why did this hunter become someone else's prey?

This week marks the 71st anniversary of one of the most infamous cold cases in America - the gruesome murder of Los Angeles actress Elizabeth Short, more commonly known as The Black Dahlia. We'll go explore what makes this case so complicated, unpack the prevailing theories, and find out why some people say it will never be solved - while other claim it already is.

On a fall day in 1978, an apartment manager in Reynoldsburg, Ohio takes a call. On the other end of the line is a frantic tenant who says water is pouring out of her ceiling. The super calls a maintenance man who forces his way into the apartment above, to try to find the leak. He makes his way to the bathroom and discovers a young woman in the bathtub, hands bound at the wrists, and strangled.

The bodies of two teenage girls are discovered. One set on fire, the other stuffed in a box and thrown in a lake. Both are Jane Does. Both have been murdered. Eight years later, a third woman comes forward and reveals their identities, and how she escaped from suffering the same fate.

Jack Irwin is a 71-year-old war veteran who lives by himself in San Bernardino, CA. That is until two young women - Marcia Ann Johnson and Judy Gellert - embed themselves into Jack's affairs, and his finances. Jack's neighbors become concerned, and when Jack disappears, they are left asking: Are Marcia and Judy friends, con artists, or worse?

Detectives track a serial killer and predator through the projects of East Harlem, who keeps finding new and creative ways to dispose of bodies, and elude police.

After a pair of attacks on older and middle-aged women, police believe they are on the trail of a sexual predator turned murderer. But when a third victim shows up who doesn't fit the profile, the investigation is forced to take a hard turn.

Bind. Torture. Kill. That was the mantra of one of America's most notorious serial killers. After killing at least seven people in the Wichita, Kansas area during the 1970s, BTK disappeared for nearly three decades. Then in 2004 he re-surfaced, and used the local new to make sure everybody knew it.

A California Highway Patrol officer spots a fire in an olive orchard and pulls off to investigate. He finds a woman's body, shot and set ablaze. It doesn't take police long to develop a theory on who did it, but why, where, how, and who else all remain a mystery.