Forensic Files

No Witnesses. No Leads. No Problem.

Forensic Files (also known as Medical Detectives, Mystery Detectives, Murder Detectives, and Cause of Death) is a crime documentary series that aired from 1996 to 2011 as a Dramatic Half-Hour.

It was narrated for almost its entire run (channel hopping from TLC to Court TV/truTV to HLN, and even airing on NBC as a summer Midseason Replacement in 2002) by Peter Thomas. As the title implies, the show focuses on forensic investigations, mostly on murders.

On October 1, 2019, a revival of the show titled Forensic Files II was announced, which premiered on February 23, 2020.

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Forensic Files includes examples of:

• Adaptation Distillation: You're only getting the important details the show was given at the time of its airing. Additional details about the victims, cases, and the killers often require an internet search.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: Several murderers consider life imprisonment to be this. One killer was angry that he didn't get the death penalty, and another who was on death row got tired of waiting for his execution, and tried to commit suicide.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • The case of the episode "Memories" took place in 1979-1980 (although was not solved for nearly twenty years) and when the victim had her previously lost memory jogged by some pictures in a baby magazine. The pictures she was looking at, on closer inspection, were of actress Kelly Preston and her daughter Ella Blue, who was born in 2000.
  • The case documented in "Photo Finish" took place in 1995, yet the vehicle that Linda Sobek is shown modeling with is a Lexus RX, which was still in the design stage at the time and wasn't sold in the U.S. until 1998.
• Animal Reaction Shot: Invoked in "Disrobed" with a shot of a horse raising its head being paired with the sound of a gunshot.
• Artistic License – Law: One interviewee from "Unmasked" expressed shock Chad Price didn't get the death penalty; none of the crimes he was convicted of (kidnapping, rape, robbery) carry a death penalty.
• Asshole Victim: The murder victims in "Over and Out", "The Gambler", and "Going For Broke" are this because they antagonized their killers in one way or another.
• Bait-and-Switch: The opening of "Postal Mortem" introduces a woman saying goodbye to her colleague and entering her office, suggesting that she’s the episode’s victim, only for the woman to rush out of her office after the building shakes from what the narrator reveals to be an explosion... at which point the camera pans to a Dead-Hand Shot of her colleague.
• Black Widow: Several episodes involve the murderer falling into this category.
• *Bleep*-dammit!: In "Grave Danger", when Clay Daniels' mother-in-law calls him an asshole, the "hole" part is bleeped out while "ass" is left uncensored.
• Bluff the Imposter: This happens in "If I Were You" where the suspect was tricked into believing that he had forgotten to do something while he was posing as the victim.
• Call-Back:
  • "Dressed to Kill" contains one for the episode "Beaten by a Hair". It shows the key evidence Hadden Clark left behind that led to the conviction of the first murder that he committed.
  • "The Music Case" had a little girl in Minnesota murdered in her home and authorities initially believed that the murderer from "Tooth or Consequences" killed her as well. Turns out, someone else committed the crime.
  • In a more roundabout example, "Dinner and a Movie" is about how the murderer used the real-life movie Blackout as an inspiration for covering up his wife's time of death. Blackout was loosely based on the John List murders, which the show had previously covered in "The List Murders," though the show doesn't acknowledge this.
• Character Shilling: Several investigators and friends of the victim in "Matter of Time" go out of their way to stress how smart the killer Paul Curry was.
• Content Warnings: When the series still aired on Court TV, several of the more gruesome/horrifying episodes ("Root of All Evil", "Where the Blood Drops", "Pure Evil", "Treads and Threads", etc.) had a warning before it aired. These have been removed from almost all of the HLN airings.
• Convenient Photograph: "The Financial Downfall" had detectives realizing that a young woman's fall from a cliff was in fact murder when they reviewed the pictures taken of the outing with her supposed friends and noticed (a) How lethargic she appeared in the pictures from later in the day, and (b) The body language of one of the friends in one of the final pictures taken before she supposedly fell. Analysis revealed that rather than them simply walking along the cliffside, he was actually preparing to shove her over—as well as looking around to make sure no one was watching—and that her dazed appearance was because she'd been drugged so that she wouldn't put up a fight.
• Cool Old Guy: Narrator Peter Thomas, a man who had been doing voiceover work for 61 years at the time and sounded every second of it. Even before his time, he had served in World War II, fighting in the Battle of Normandy and Battle of the Bulge, and received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
• Corpse Temperature Tampering: "Dinner and a Show" focused on Ed Sherman's murder of his pregnant wife Ellen on 3 August 1985 in Connecticut. Inspired by the movie Blackout (1985), Sherman killed his wife and used an air conditioner to try to slow decomposition of her remains in an attempt to establish an alibi.
• Crossover:
  • "The List Murders" shows how America's Most Wanted was able to accurately provide an aged-up bust of John List after nearly two decades that was able to lead to his identification and arrest. John Walsh even appears as one of the people being interviewed.
  • Multiple episodes ("Stick 'em Up" about the murder of Dan Short, "Horse Play" about the murder of Shannon Mohr, "Stranger in the Night" about the murder of Dorothy Donovan, "Water Logged" about the murders of Joan Rogers and her daughters Michelle and Christie) serve as sequels to episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, telling the rest of the story as and after the mystery was solved.
• Distant Finale: The reruns on HLN include updates for the older episodes when applicable.
• Double-Meaning Title: The Forensic Files II episode "Church Lady" refers to both the victim (who worked there) and the killer (a parishioner).
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Some of the early episodes included topics like "Legionnaires' Disease" and "Fatal Fungus". Medical mysteries that didn't involve intentional poisoning would become a rare occurrence. In addition, the dramatization footage was shot in black-and-white.
  • The early episodes contain uncensored crime scene and autopsy photos. Later episodes would censor these photos.
• Fanservice: The series wasn't above this if it fit the context of the episode. Examples include showing bikini-clad women on beaches if the story took place in a resort area, and pole-dancing reenactments if the case centered around an exotic dancer. One particularly notable example is "Window Watcher," which repeatedly showcases a reenactment of a woman showering and getting dressed throughout the episode.
• Fiery Cover-Up: Occasionally attempted and usually failed. For starters, the fire itself is determined to have been deliberately set, thus revealing that an even bigger crime has taken place.
• Foreshadowing: An establishing shot in "The Alibi" emphasizes the straight-lacedness of the area with a "Jesus is the Way" sign on a tree. In the upper right corner of the frame is a pair of street signs reading Pee Dee and Register, the name of the murderer.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Most of the episodes focus on murder cases or other crimes, such as arson. However, once in a while, there is an episode that focuses on neither, such as:
• Glitter Litter: "All That Glitters Is Gold" details a case where traces of glitter are used to prove the victim was in a suspect's car after she was murdered.
• Hate Sink: The series features a lot of despicable criminals, ranging from a man who murdered his own daughter because she didn't get along with his girlfriend to a pair of brothers breaking into the house of a gay couple for the sole purpose of killing them while they sleep.
• Hollywood Silencer: In "If I Were You", when the killer shoots his victim with a silenced pistol, the classic "fwip" sound is used.
• Honor-Related Abuse: "Honor Thy Father" tells the story of Tina Isa, the victim of an honor killing, and even explains what honor killings are.
• Hope Spot: One episode goes to a commercial break asking if the missing person was still alive. This question is answered immediately after the show returns; the victim's remains were found in a ravine.
• Insurance-Motivated Murder: A lot of the murder cases covered on the show usually had this as the motive for why the crime was committed.
• Jack the Ripoff: "Sign of the Zodiac" focuses on solving the case of a self-proclaimed "Zodiac" serial killer that terrorized New York and wrote letters, claiming they will kill 12 people with 12 different astrological signs at night. The investigators recalled about 20 years ago, an unidentified "Zodiac" serial killer terrorized San Francisco with the same method, and determined that they were dealing with a copycat. Interestingly, the copycat claimed to be the real Zodiac Killer that was active in California in the 1960s, but when his identity was revealed, it turned out he was way too young to have committed the California murders.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • The bomber in “Postal Mortem” killed a man that was close to discovering that he was selling fake documents and sent another bomb to his business partner to serve as a distraction, leading to the death of the latter’s wife. When handling another bomb, it goes off in is car, causing him to lose two fingertips and a kneecap. This is what eventually led to his capture.
  • The killer in "Punch Line" beat his victim to death, and one of her teeth cut his hand while being punched in the face. The cut gets infected, and he has to go the hospital while claiming it was an injury from a dumpster. The doctor treating his hand realizes the origin of the injury, leading to the man's arrest.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The opening trailer for "Runaway Love" notes that the victim's ex-husband and daughter were missing, implying that the ex may have murdered her and kidnapped their daughter. In the actual show, it's quickly revealed that the reason they couldn't find the ex-husband was because he'd been away on a business trip and was surprised to find police at his home.
  • In "Breaking News," about the murder of a young TV news producer, Peter Thomas ominously intones "But something was missing: her young son" just before the episode goes into commercial. After the break, he reveals that the boy was spending the summer with his father.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Ronald Shaw, the victim of "No Safe Place," hired two young men to work on his house at the request of their grandfather, who was building a new home for Shaw and his wife. The boys' thank you was shooting Shaw dead in a robbery and coming within a hair of executing his wife, only leaving her alive when she told them she was pregnant.
  • The third victim of the triple homicide in "Fate Date" was Kenneth Maxwell, a bystander who called 911 to report the killer's attempt at a Fiery Cover-Up and was shot dead while on the line with a first responder.
  • Kevin Rice, the murder victim in "Key Evidence," was murdered trying to stop two young men from breaking into a parked car.
• Noodle Implements: The teaser for later episodes almost always ended with Peter Thomas listing what sounded like random, bizarre items that forensic scientists would end up using to crack the case (something like how a shred of paper, half a shoelace, and a dead beetle led police to the killer).
• Product Placement: Played with: the show doesn't censor name-brands when they appear in crime scene pictures, but doesn't draw attention to them either.
• Pun-Based Title: Most of the episode titles have some sort of double meaning or play on words. Some of the more groan-inducing ones include: "Sim-ilar Circumstances", "Pure Bread Murder", and "Sworded Scheme".
• Red Herring: Quite a few initial suspects have turned out to be innocent, despite admittedly odd or suspicious behavior.
  • "Home Evasion": A woman is shot by an unknown assailant upon returning home from work and all the signs pointed to the husband. Their marriage was on the brink of collapse, had separated two days prior, both parties were cheating on each other even before the separation, he was the beneficiary of her life insurance policy, he would get full custody of their son whom he was close with, and he was the first to find her after she was shot. It turns out she was a victim of one of the most bizarrely random crimes in the show's history: a guy who lived miles away from them was about to be sent to prison for raping his three-month-old daughter, and decided to murder someone at random under the belief that a murder conviction would save him from the abuse that pedophiles frequently suffer from other prisoners. Despite searching high and low for a connection between the two, investigators found nothing with the narrator mentioning her husband would've been the victim had he arrived home first. The husband himself even admitted he understood why he was the prime suspect.
  • "Knots" from Forensic Files II: A young woman is killed in her apartment and most of the episode is spent focusing on her ex-convict friend whom she rejected just prior to the murder. Decades later, the DNA is put into CODIS and it turns up a match, the apartment manager who was briefly mentioned offhand.
• Retraux:
  • In "Revenge", some of the dramatization footage was shot in black-and-white (much like the earlier episodes) and was made to resemble the pre-Season 7 episodes.
  • Inverted with the HLN and CNN reruns of the earlier episodes, which have been edited to resemble the newer episodes.
• Revisiting the Cold Case: Several episodes are re-enactments of crimes that went cold decades ago.
• Self-Defense Ruse: Attempted multiple times, and of course, failed. One gentleman spent weeks creating a supposed campaign of harassment by a neighbor that culminated in his wife nearly being killed by a Car Bomb meant for him and the neighbor coming over to his house to try to kill him once and for all. The police soon discovered the plan and determined that he had planted the bomb that almost killed his wife and invited the neighbor over in order to frame him.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: "Man's Best Friend" has a couple lose their child to a dog attack, be wrongfully convicted of it, being acquitted years later, then divorcing because the time in prison changed them.
• Spiteful Suicide:
  • Some of the criminals in the show, like Ari Squire, do this to avoid being caught by the police, much to the chagrin of their victims' loved ones.
  • "Within Arm's Reach" is about a wife taking her own life in a way that looks like murder to get back at her husband for cheating on her. What makes this uniquely bizarre is there's evidence she herself had cheated beforehand.
• Spoiler Title:
  • One episode has Jenna Verhaalen's murder linked to three possible suspects: her boyfriend, a fellow neighbor, and a maintenance man working in her apartment. However, the episode's title is "Low Maintenance", practically giving away which of the three suspects was actually involved in the murder.
  • One episode focuses on a man who died from poisoning, and suspicion fell on one of his coworkers because that same type of poison was found in his workplace. However, the episode in question is entitled "Til Death Do We Part", which kind of gives away that the real murderer was the man's wife.
  • One episode mentions the disappearance of a wife and infant son. The episode seems to toy with the possibility that her husband was the culprit, but given that the episode's title is "A Woman Scorned", the viewer is likely waiting for the narrator to start talking about the husband's ex-girlfriend.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Many of the cases documented on the show involve people being killed by toxic substances slipped into their food or drinks.
• Taught by Television: Some episodes, such as "All Butt Certain" and "Grave Danger", are about situations where either a victim, witness, suspect, family member, friend, acquaintance, or even a member of law enforcement used some technique that learned from watching a TV series or movie to either solve the case or commit a crime.
• Theme Naming: Most of the episode titles relate to a clue that leads to the arrest of a suspect.
• Trauma Swing: In episodes where a survivor was available for interview, the B-roll tends to include a shot or two of them using a swingset, no matter how old they are.
• The Un-Reveal: For obvious reasons, some episodes do not reveal the name of a certain element or method that was crucial in committing the murder. For example:
  • In "Bitter Poison" where the suspect tampered with some Coca-Cola bottles, which were used to poison his neighbors.
  • In "Death Play" where a young woman killed her father by poisoning him with a substance found in her high school chemistry class.
  • In "Cats, Flies and Snapshots" where a man killed his estranged wife after purchasing a book on how to commit a murder and get away with it.
  • "Wired for Disaster" doesn't disclose the specific combination of explosives used in the bomb, except to say it was strong enough to indicate a motive in and of itself.
• Urban Legends: Meta-example. There is a persistent rumor that the series was revived in 2016 for a 15th season and began airing new episodes. In actuality, the series did in fact end in 2011. HLN contributed to the confusion by advertising "all-new" episodes, when in fact they were just episodes that hadn't aired on the channel. HLN would then, with full intents and purposes, prove the rumor true and indeed revive the series in 2020.
• Villain Cred: Some of the suspects in the show will confess to their crimes in order to obtain this. This includes the New York Zodiac Killer after he was arrested for shooting his sister, and another one who decides to become a mass murderer so he won't go to jail for molesting his own infant daughter.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • "Waste Mis-Management" never clarifies who the body mistaken for Glenda Fuch was, or even how she died.
  • In "Insulated Evidence", it's never stated who the anonymous tipster was that alerted cops to murderer Joe Luna.
  • In "With Every Breath," it's never mentioned whether Merrill Bahe and Florena Woody's infant son survived the hantavirus that killed his parents.
• Where Are They Now: Reruns of the older episodes featured on HLN include an update that offers information on the perpetrators—if they've died in prison/been executed/been released, etc.

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