Thursday

Dr. G takes us through the most surprising results of some shocking autopsies.

Bombings are difficult to solve, because the perpetrator isn’t usually at the scene, and the evidence goes up in smoke. But there are clues if investigators know where to look. In this case, pieces of plastic the size of grains of sand held the key to a man’s murder.

The wife of an Air Force officer was found dead in her bed, with a plastic laundry bag near her face. At first glance, it appeared she’d been doing laundry, fell asleep, rolled onto the bag, and suffocated. But further investigation proved that the scene had been staged. Her death wasn’t an accident; it was cold-blooded murder.

When a fire destroyed most of a home and a young boy went missing, police organized the largest search in the history of their small town. First the boy’s backpack was discovered five miles from home, and then his body was found 50 miles away. But the killer had been careless, and the evidence he left behind would lead police directly to him.

A highway patrolman was dispatched to what he thought would be a routine traffic accident… until he looked in the car. While he had no formal training in forensic science, he had seen hundreds of accidents -- but never as much blood as this. He was shocked by the coroner’s ruling of “accidental death,” and then an anonymous phone call breathed new life into his investigation.

A millionaire is found dead, murdered for a stash of buried silver. A young woman dates violent men, only to be killed by her best friend. A decomposed body is found, but the victim’s organs look as if he died the day before. When real crimes are stranger than fiction, forensic science can sort fact from fantasy.

He was a predator, abducting girls and young women from their own front yards in broad daylight. He was a sadist: phoning one victim’s family, taunting them, boosting then dashing their hope, and he wouldn’t stop until we stopped him.

A mother and child are kidnapped… a bystander is murdered. Violence such as this shattered a quiet Texas neighborhood and exposed a drug cartel that flourished where it was least expected.

The body of a prominent Atlanta lawyer was found burned beyond recognition on his Georgia farm. It seemed at first like a tragic accident but detectives uncovered a shocking tale of family greed and betrayal.

In one violent evening, a series of bombs rocks the sleepy california city of fremont. The targets include both the chief and ex-chief of police. But as america’s leading explosive experts sift through the evidence, they discover a plan far more insidious than anyone could have imagined. Can police and forensic scientists stop the fremont bomber before he strikes again?

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.

The wealthy Hall family appears to have it all, until a bitter marital dispute spirals into deadly violence on a Texas highway. Investigators are left to determine whether Bill Hall Jr.’s death was a tragic accident or a deliberate act fuelled by jealousy, anger and obsession.

Keith is known in his small community as a quiet but a highly skilled artisan who takes good care of his mother. When she becomes mysteriously ill and Keith is not heard from for three weeks, all eyes turn to Keith’s girlfriend. As detectives look deeper into the case, and further into Betty’s background, a final, brutal discovery is uncovered.

When a beloved church official is found murdered in a popular public park investigators have few leads. A controversial method also fails to heat up the cold case. Then an old secret reveals a new suspect and leads Lt Joe Kenda down the right trail.

A man who was once accepted into a small Quebec community and commonly referred to as Bill lÕAnglais turns out to be a murderer, whose crimes cover nearly twenty years. When he makes four trips from Barrie, ON to Montreal, QC in the fall of 1999 in an accelerating frenzy of rape and murder, he leaves behind a single fingerprint. Through skillful police work and intense surveillance, the police are able to catch their killer in the process of disposing incriminating evidence.

A young boy is killed and his mother is convicted of the crime. Years later, she is set free by a confession from a most unexpected source.

Following her divorce, a woman buys a new home that needs work and hopes that a handyman can fix it up, she ends up getting more than she bargained for.