Motives & Murders: Cracking the Case

- Season 5

(2014)

When a work crew uncovers a woman's skull on a stretch of Florida highway, investigators try to determine who she is and find her killer. But it will take a bizarre discovery over a thousand miles away before the grizzly truth is finally revealed.

Single mom Donna Kitowski decides to bake cookies late at night and heads to her local Las Vegas supermarket. But she never comes home. And before long, the local TV news is reporting that a woman's near-lifeless body has been found in the desert.

When Cathy Lamb is brutally murdered in her Palm Beach, Florida home, the only witnesses are her three blood-soaked dogs. The gruesome scene baffles detectives. And with no suspects and no murder weapon, they have only their suspicions to go on.

Twelve-year-old Polly Klaas and two friends are having a sleepover and playing board games, when a man brandishing a knife appears at the door, ties them up, nabs Polly, and then disappears into the night.

In an Indiana college town, a 19-year-old journalism student is raped and murdered in her own bed. The case becomes the latest of several unsolved homicides in the area. And it will take years - and yet another murder - before the sinister truth emerges.

Investigators believe a serial robber, rapist, and murderer is terrorizing cities up and down the west coast. And as the death toll rises, police jurisdictions in three states join the hunt for the 'I-5 Killer.'

A hard-working single mom is murdered in a Michigan town where violent crime rates are nearly four times the national average. And while a TV celebrity leads a major media campaign, the search is on for a mysterious man known only as 'B'.

The residents of Kilgore, Texas are reeling from the execution-style slaying of five people abducted from a fast-food restaurant. But it will take several decades and major advances in DNA technology before the perpetrators can be brought to justice.

Country singer Melissa Haferman has just recorded her first CD in Nashville when her lifeless body is found in a vacant lot near the Louisville, Kentucky bus depot. And it will take four years and a macabre discovery before police close in on her killer.

A 20-year-old woman is gunned down in a Maryland suburb and the random crime is a mystery from the start. With few leads and virtually no evidence, the case goes cold. And it will take 25 years before investigators finally close in on the killer.

The severely mutilated body of 17-year-old Shauna Card is discovered in her Orlando, Florida home. And though it takes years to crack the case, detectives eventually unravel a grizzly tale and find a killer closer to home than anyone expected.

Authorities in Washington are stunned when a mother of three dies from cyanide poisoning. And the resulting murder investigation eventually reveals a pattern of tampered boxes and blister packs, more deaths, and a reptilian story of greed and betrayal.

A popular college student is brutally stabbed to death during her first-ever night shift at a convenience store in Great Falls, Montana. And it will take a decade before an informant comes forward with a story that leads the cops to her killer.