Cold Case Files is documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 television series on the cable channel A&E Network

A&E Network

The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...

 hosted by Bill Kurtis

Bill Kurtis

Bill Kurtis is an American television journalist, producer, narrator, and news anchor. He is also the current host of A&E crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files...

 that documents the investigation

Criminal procedure

Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated criminal law.-Basic rights:Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the...

 of various long-unsolved murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

s (referred to as "cold cases" in detectives' parlance) through the use of modern forensic science (especially recent advances in DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 techniques), and criminal psychology

Criminal psychology

Criminal psychology is the study of the wills, thoughts, intentions and reactions of criminals. It is related to the field of criminal anthropology. The study goes deeply into what makes someone commit crime, but also the reactions after the crime, on the run or in court...

, in addition to recent breakthroughs in the case(s) involving previously silent witnesses.

Overview

According to A&E, the show has been widely praised by law enforcement agencies

Law enforcement agency

In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...

 and its investigative reports are commonly used in the training of detectives.

Cold Case Files first aired as a sub-series of another A&E crime documentary program, Investigative Reports, also hosted by Bill Kurtis

Bill Kurtis

Bill Kurtis is an American television journalist, producer, narrator, and news anchor. He is also the current host of A&E crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files...

, which ran from 1991–2004. Reruns of the series currently air on broadcast syndication in the United States, usually in lower-profile time slots, and on many RTV

Retro Television Network

The Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...

 stations.

Episode list

1. Pilot Episode (featuring Cold Case #1: Murder of Felicia Prechtl by Karl Chamberlain; Cold Case #2: My Brother The Killer; Cold Case #3: The Bob Crane
   Bob Crane
   Robert Edward "Bob" Crane was an American actor and disc jockey, best known for his performance as Colonel Robert E...
   
    Murder; and Cold Case #4: Case Resolved)
2. The Boy and the Monster/Secret in the Cellar
3. The Texas Drifter/The Fingerprint File/A Rose Among Thorns
4. The Answer in the Box/Maternal Instinct
5. The Hunter Homicides/The Skulls Of Stanley Park
6. Through Eyes of a Child/The Killer Next Door - "Through Eyes of a Child" told the story of solving the murder of Michelle Morgan, a 4-year-old child abuse
   Child abuse
   Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
   
    victim who was murdered by her stepmother in 1961.
7. One Night on the Bayou/The Buckeye Misdemeanor
8. The Mark of Cain
   The Mark of Cain
   The Mark of Cain is a hard rock/alternative metal band from Adelaide, South Australia. Their style has been likened to that of Helmet and Rollins Band, yet this band predates both of those groups and was influenced by the early work of Joy Division and US hardcore...
   
   /Death on The Freeway
9. Terror in Telluride/Signature of a Killer
10. Diary Of A Serial Arsonist/The Lost Clue
11. Killer on the Strip/The Doll Murder
12. Murder Illustrated/Blood Relations
13. The Burning Secret/Justice Delayed
14. Reconstructing Murder/Fire Flicks
15. The Missing Informant/Man's Best Friend
    Man's best friend
    "Man's best friend" is a catchphrase for tame dogs, generally referring to the category as a whole. The popularization of the term is said to have occurred in a courtroom speech by George Graham Vest in Warrensburg, Missouri in 1870 who said, "The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can...
    
    
16. Killer in the County
17. Presumed Dead/The Tow Truck Killer
18. Portrait Of A Killer/The Tortured Truth - "Portrait of a Killer" told about how NecroSearch, a volunteer team of victim advocates with technical investigation skills, successfully investigated the disappearance of photographer Michelle Wallace, age 25, who had been reported missing from Gunnison, Colorado
    Gunnison, Colorado
    The historic City of Gunnison, a Home Rule Municipality, is the county seat and the most populous city of Gunnison County, Colorado, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,854. It was named in honor of John W...
    
    , in 1974.
19. Vanished
    Vanished
    Vanished is an American serial drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox. The series premiered on August 21, 2006 on Fox and its last episode aired on November 10, 2006. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, the series begins with the sudden disappearance of the wife of a Georgia senator, which is...
    
    
20. The Missing and the Dead
21. Silent Witness
    Silent Witness
    Silent Witness is a BBC crime thriller series focusing on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes. First broadcast in February 1996, the series is still airing to the present day, with a fifteenth series expected to air in January 2012. The series was...
    
    /Innocence Lost
    Innocence Lost
    Innocence Lost is the second novel in the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series by Karen Miller.-Plot introduction:...
    
    
22. Frozen in Time
    Frozen in Time
    Frozen in Time is the 2005 comeback album by American death metal band Obituary. It was the band's first album in eight years since 1997's Back from the Dead....
    
    /Little Girl Lost
23. Family Secret
    Family secret
    A family secret is a secret kept within a family. Most families have secrets, but the kind and importance vary. Family secrets can be shared by the whole family, but some family members or kept by an individual member of the family. The secret can relate to taboo topics,rule violations or just...
    
    /Blood Trail
24. Bodies In The Bay (Copyrights by Author Mason Ramsey) /Till Death Do Us Part
25. Operation Jambalaya/Footprints in the Snow
26. The South Side Rapist
27. Mark of a Killer/Dead Ends
28. The Baiting Game
29. Ticket to Nowhere/The Paper Route
30. Traces of Murder/The Bathtub Killer
31. Pride and the Fall/The Nail File
32. In the Care of a Killer/Deadly Lies
33. Lady in the Box (John Smith)
34. Crimes of the KKK
35. Murder On The Menu
36. The Widow and the Wolf/Unicorns and Alligators
37. Vintage Murder/Trouble in Paradise
38. /Death of Innocents
39. The Unluckiest Man/The Deadly Triangle
40. Cat and Mouse/Cabbie Killer
41. The Cuff Link/Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    "Graveyard Shift" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the October 1970 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift...
    
    
42. The Good Samaritan/Gun Shy
43. A Map To Murder/Life on the Run
44. Soft Kill/Unsolved
45. License to Kill/The Tell-Tale Mark/The Super
46. The Original Night Stalker
    Original Night Stalker
    The Original Night Stalker is the moniker for an unidentified serial killer and rapist who murdered at least ten people in Southern California from 1979 through 1986 and sexually assaulted at least fifty in Northern California from June 1976 to July 1979...
    
    
47. Cold Hit/Silent Kill
    Silent Kill
    "Silent Kill" is the fifth episode of the first season of the TNT science fiction drama Falling Skies, which originally aired July 10, 2011.The episode was written by Joe Weisberg and directed by Fred Toye....
    
    
48. Mommy Rules - Murder of Suesan and Sheila Knorr
49. A Sealed Fate/Deadly Divorce
50. Cop Killer/Evil Twin
    Evil twin
    The evil twin is an antagonist found in many different fictional genres. They are physical copies of protagonists, but with radically inverted moralities. In filmed entertainment, they can have obvious physical differences with the protagonist—such as facial hair, eyepatches, scars or distinctive...
    
    
51. The Zodiac Killer
52. The Accidental Killer/Little Sister Lost
53. The Merry Widow/The Bad Cop
54. Daddy Knows Best/Dawn of the Dead
55. The Killer's Tattoo
56. The Green River Killer
57. A Hitchhike to Murder/Never Forgotten
58. The DNA Link/The Secret Slide
59. Death Before I Do/Hollywood Homicide
60. Blood Money/Precious Doe
    Precious Doe
    Precious Doe was a pseudonym assigned to an unidentified female corpse discovered on April 28, 2001, in Kansas City, Missouri. The girl had been murdered and decapitated . The body was naked and the head was wrapped in a trash bag and dumped nearby...
    
    
61. Unholy Bible/A Daughter's Justice
62. Officer Down/Secret Twin
63. Weepy-Voiced Killer/The Mr. Big Sting
64. Blood on the Badge/Bump in the Night
65. The Lady Killer/A Husband's Secret
66. Mistaken for a Killer/A Woman Scorned
67. The Missing Hunters/The Flashlight Rapist
68. Cowboys on the Case/Office Politics
69. The Flaming Gorge Falls/Caught in the Mail
70. Murder Checks In / Killer in the City
71. The Shopping Cart Killer
72. The Hit makers/Favor For A Friend
73. Lil Miss
    Lil Miss
    "The Lil Miss murder" is the name given to the murder case of Lisa Marie Kimmell , who disappeared while on a trip home from Colorado to Billings, Montana...
    
     /Skeletons In The Closet
74. Innocent Prey/The Punishment
75. Love Triangle
    Love triangle
    A love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...
    
    /2nd Story Rapist
76. The Calling Card/Carol's Diary
77. Beauty Queen Killer
    Christopher Wilder
    Christopher Bernard Wilder was a serial killer who abducted and raped at least ten women and killed at least eight of them during a spree across the United States in early 1984...
    
    /The Fingerprint
78. Friend of the Family/Remains of Murder
79. Under a Spell/Justice for Lisa
80. A Man Scorned/The Dungeon
81. A Killer Named Korn/The Night Watchman
82. The Bedroom Basher
83. Baby for Sale/The Barrel
84. The Bitemark/Justice for Eglena
85. Sex, Lies and Murder
86. The Monster/A Cousin's Promise
87. A Brother's Burden/The Midnight Attacker
88. The Well/The Deadly Ex
89. Déjà Vu/Secret In The Well
90. The Tourniquet/Burning Desire
91. Manhunt
92. The Family / The Clue That Stuck
93. Man in the Shadows/The Hitchhiker
94. A Confession for Carmen/The Girls
95. A Sister Lost/Rumors of Murder
96. Smoky Mountain Mystery / A Drop of Blood
97. Rear Window / The Peeper
98. The Closers/Caught by an Eyelash
99. Obsession: Dave Reichert and the Green River Killer
100. Kidnapped
101. On the Case: Nacole's Killer
102. Caught on Tape/A Son Remembers
103. Snatched/A Detective's Promise
104. Finding BTK
105. Death Of A Deacon/A Wife's Mission
106. The Sunday Morning Slasher
107. Killer on Campus/The Bow Hunter
108. Something Snapped/A Killer's Dream
109. Daddy Dearest
     Daddy Dearest
     Daddy Dearest was an American television sitcom that aired on Fox, on Sunday nights from September 5, 1993 to November 7, 1993.-Synopsis:...
     
     /A Pastor's Wife
110. A Killer's Skin / Where's Peggy?
111. The Interrogation/The Slide
112. A Deadly Affair/The Sting Operation
113. Innocence Stolen/Danger at the Door
114. On the Case: A Child Remembers
115. The Deadly Stroll/Unholy Secret
116. The Black Dahlia
     Black Dahlia
     "The Black Dahlia" was a nickname given to Elizabeth Short is an American woman and the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder. She acquired the moniker posthumously by newspapers in the habit of nicknaming crimes they found particularly colorful...
     
     : The 1947 murder of actress Elizabeth Short
117. Seattle, WA: Long Walk Home
     Long Walk Home
     "Long Walk Home" is a 2006 song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen. It first appeared on his Sessions Band Tour of that year, in folk guise in the European leg of the tour in London for one performance only. Reworked with different and shorter lyrics, it was recorded by Springsteen and the...
     
     
118. The Taunt/Death in Deadwood
119. NCIS
     NCIS (TV series)
     NCIS, formerly known as NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is an American police procedural drama television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S...
     
     /Exhuming the Truth
120. Cross Country Connection/Eyes at the Window
121. Abandoned Houses/A Son's Memory
122. A Knock at the Door/Shattered
123. A Deadly Pattern/A Desperate Housewife
124. Murder He Wrote/Caught By the Past
125. Evidence Kit
126. Left for Dead/On the Case

Awards/Nominations

Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

: Outstanding Nonfiction Series (2004 & 2005)
Michael Harvey

Michael Harvey

Michael Harvey, Jr, aka MC Harvey, is an English musical artist and non-League footballer.-Biography:...

(executive producer

Executive producer

An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...

)
Laura Fleury (executive producer)
Tania Lindsay (supervising producer)
Michael West (supervising producer)
Mary Frances O'Conner (producer)
Bill Kurtis