The F.B.I. Files

- Season 1

(1998)

FBI agents investigate the nationally publicized kidnapping of a 12 year old girl from her own home. Despite a massive effort, detailed in this program, evidence at the crime scene is simply insufficient to point to a suspect. It took a fortuitous discovery two months later to lead police to the culprit.

The investigation into the rape and murder of 23-year old Robin Bishop on a Californian highway in January 1982. Highway patrolman George Michael Gwaltney is the prime suspect, but the prosecution's case is heavily reliant on circumstantial evidence.

After five outdoors men are randomly shot and killed in Ohio over a 3-year period, the FBI joins the investigation. Their Behavioral Science Unit puts out a psychological profile of the killer, leading agents to 42-year-old Thomas Dillon.

Anchorage police and FBI agents build an irrefutable forensic case against pedophile Kirby Anthony who brutally raped and murdered Nancy Newman and her two children in a homicidal rage. The preponderance of evidence proves to be a challenge in itself sorting out which items are relevant to the crime and which are incidental.

For two couples on vacation, an island paradise turns to hell when one couple murders the other. Eleven years after the murder, a drifter sailing the high seas to escape a drug charge is convicted of the crime.

The FBI investigates the nationally known case of the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia Mississippi amid the tension of the civil right movement.

Over many years the FBI investigates and finally penetrates the five New York crime families. Special attention is given to Vincent Gigante who feigned mental illness to avoid prosecution and then incarceration.

South Florida Police investigating a serial killing spree in 1984 gather a wealth of trace evidence that clearly links the victims and is a virtual fingerprint of the killer. But the evidence doesn't point to a suspect until a match identifies another, extremely observant victim that the killer did not murder.

FBI agents hunt self styled mountain man Claude Dallas in the wilds of Idaho. A man who felt rules did not apply to him frequently ran afoul of the law without great consequence. But when he killed two game wardens the FBI launched a full scale man hunt. Then again when he escaped from prison.

Antisocial misfit The F.B.I. Files: The Unabomber (1998) maimed and murdered people with mail bombs for two decades. Not until his infamous manifesto was published in the newspaper did his brother suspect he was the Unabomber and turn him in.

Trace evidence convinces police and FBI agents that pedophile Caleb Hughes abducted and murdered missing five year old Melissa Brannen. But unless they can find her remains they cannot make a case for murder.

The FBI investigates the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center. Discovery of the vehicle identification number of the truck quickly leads investigators to Mohammad Salameh who rented the truck. Investigations of Salameh leads to Nidal Ayyad. Ayyad's records provide evidence of a larger conspiracy including plans for further attacks. The international man hunt for the remaining conspirators resulted in convictions of all the terrorists in less than three years.

This program follows the team of FBI agents charged with investigating the Gambino family. Their focus turns to John Gotti after the murder of his boss, the head of the family, Paul Castellano. Years of surveillance and information from informants finally enables the FBI to obtain recordings of Gotti talking candidly about his criminal enterprise and the murders he had ordered.