Killer Cases

When Ohio State senior Reagan Tokes fails to respond to messages from her parents, they fear the worst. Their nightmare becomes a reality when a 911 caller reports the discovery of a female body in the local park, shot execution style. Knowing a brutal killer is on the loose, detectives race to solve the crime.

In Florida in 2015, Amanda Colley was starting her life over after a contentious divorce and an ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband, James. The 36-year-old mother of two was excited about a new love interest, Lamar Douberly. Then, one summer night, she returned to a ransacked house. Lamar and two girlfriends arrived to join her as police were called. Then, gunshots rang out; glass shattered. After more shots, Amanda and her friend Lindy, a mother of three, were both dead and Rachel was injured. The gunman took off. James Colley was arrested 600 miles away and brought back to Florida to stand trial for double murder, with both Lamar and Rachel giving dramatic firsthand testimony.

In the spring of 1993, two newspaper carriers driving down a rural road spotted what they thought was a doll but which turned out to be, in fact, a newborn baby's body. The coroner would determine that the baby had been born alive; but his origin was a mystery. The community called the baby Geauga's Child, after the name of the county; they made clothes for his funeral and paid for his burial. Despite dozens of leads and even a hidden camera placed at the cemetery in hopes that the child's mother would show up, no arrests were made for 25 years. Then, with modern DNA and familial genealogy techniques, the cold case was solved, identifying the boy's mother as the now middle-aged Gail Eastwood-Ritchey. Years before, as a young unmarried woman, she had delivered the baby, stillborn, and placed his body in a trash bag in a wooded area. After a four-day trial, Eastwood-Richey was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years.

An heir to the Halliburton oil dynasty fortune, Jill Halliburton Su was found by her son Justin dead in the bathtub at her upscale home in a Florida gated community in 2014. The security cameras weren't working, a glass door had been shattered, and at least one room of the house had been ransacked. Police quickly focused on Justin as the prime suspect, grilling him intensely for hours. But despite the dramatic interrogation room sessions, the son never admitted guilt. A few days later, when crime scene DNA forensic tests were finally processed, Justin was cleared; and investigators were after a new suspect.

Ten days after NBA player Lorenzen Wright went missing, the player's body was found in a swamp, shot 11 times. Police search for clues to identify who killed the basketball star.

A camper gathering firewood in Arizona's scenic Sunset Crater National Park was shocked to discover the body of a young woman in a traditional long dress, wearing black dress shoes. Her Mennonite family and friends were stunned--she had no known enemies and was a beloved, studious young woman, who loved books. How did she end up dead so far from home?

The quiet community of Crestview, Florida was shaken following the vicious murder of beautiful 33-year-old nurse Melissa Howard, described as a caring angel, found with her throat slashed in her own living room.

When 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts went missing during her regular evening jog, her disappearance was headline news. Police had few clues until a local resident shared his garage surveillance camera, which had captured a brief glimpse of Mollie running down the street and later a black car driving by. Following the lead, police moved quickly to arrest undocumented immigrant Cristhian Bahena Rivera who worked at a nearby dairy farm and charged him with murder. Under intense questioning, Rivera appeared to confess, although his story had strange gaps. But when it came time for trial, he pled not guilty, and his lawyers mounted a vigorous defense--accusing police of badgering him into a confession, casting suspicion on Mollie's boyfriend and presenting alternate theories of the crime.

Popular South Carolina University college senior Samantha Josephson was the pride and joy of her family as she prepared to head off to Drexel Law School with a full scholarship. So, it was unusual when Samantha went missing after a night of socializing at the Five Points bar area in Columbia. Tragically her body was found 24 hours later, with more than a hundred stab wounds. When surveillance footage showed her getting into an Uber in Five Points, police put out an all-points bulletin, and quickly arrested Uber driver Nathaniel Rowlands during a routine traffic stop of a lookalike vehicle. But the case was far from over, as Rowlands claimed someone had stolen his car and he was not the driver in the grainy surveillance photo.

25-year-old Ashley Biggs, a single mom and pizza delivery driver, was murdered on a late-night run for Dominos. Police arrested her former boyfriend Chad Cobb. For eight years, Cobb refused to tell police who had helped him lure Ashley to her death, protecting his then-wife, Erica Stefanko. But once he learned that Erica had become romantically involved with his best friend and that she was allegedly abusing his daughter, Cobb revealed Erica's role in the murder, and she was now facing a criminal charge for murder. Erica's defense lawyer argued it was a case of revenge, with no forensic evidence to tie her to the scene. But in a surprising twist, Chad produced damning new evidence to back up his story.

The Amatos were a close-knit, middle-class family with three professional sons, who enjoyed Florida Gators football games together. So, it was a shock when Margaret and Chad Amato and their youngest son Cody were found dead, shot execution-style in their suburban Seminole Florida home. Suspicion quickly turned to middle son Grant, a trained nurse, who had quarreled with his family over money he had stolen from them to pay for the attention of a Bulgarian sex model on a pay-per-view website.

Todd Mullis claimed his wife fell on a four-pronged corn rake and died; investigators found more than four holes in Amy Mullis' body; they knew her death was no accident.

High school senior Skylar Richardson told no one of her pregnancy. However, when a newborn's body was found buried in the family's backyard, Skylar was charged with murder.

An investigation into the murder of "Dee Dee" Blanchard found face down in the bedroom of her house just outside Springfield, Missouri.

When the body of former policewoman Taylor Wright was discovered buried on a remote Pensacola farm, detectives had a lineup of suspects to investigate including her ex-husband, her new girlfriend and her best friend.

When Richard Smith failed to show up for work, police discovered the murdered bodies of Smith, his mother and brother in their home. Sheriff's deputies told the media they were investigating possible ritual links to the "Wiccan" religion and the timing of the killings with the "blue moon sky."