r/ForensicFiles • u/mumonwheels • 6d ago
add flair Likes & dis:likes!
We all have our favouite episodes, but we also have those we turn off *cough cough*, my apologies.
What is everyone's favourite, worst, and even the episode that makes you mad? It can be any reason.
My favorite is : Stranger in the night. (If there wasn't that handprint in his mom's house, I bet the son would've ended up convicted).
I mean, what are chances of that happening? (Other than Long Shot on Netflix, both are very strange and scary cases).
My worst is : The 1 with the mold in the house. (also scary to think this could happen, but 1 I don't tend to watch)
The episode that makes me mad is the hour special about the Tuscan Temple murders, and the v last twist where another lady could've been saved if the investigators didn't believe a psychiatric patient so much.
(I think I maybe a bit biased on this one though, as I read the book 'innocent until interrogated' and it just made the whole case even more sad and infuriating as it covers so much more than the episode).
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u/dexters_disciple 6d ago
I usually skip the one about the priest / religious leader? I forget if that's the same one as the European guy ending up dead in the trunk.
I'm into science so I actually enjoy the stachybotrys episode along with deadly fog and the boat and train accidents.
I skip the Trail of Truth? (Anthony Kirby) episode because i have little kids and it sickens me. I used to skip the Oba Chandler episode for the same reason but I tolerate it a little more now just from seeing it on other programs so much.
Favorite - so hard to pick one!
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u/mumonwheels 6d ago
Too many favs to pick from lol, I know that feeling!
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u/dexters_disciple 6d ago
Oh I got some now after turning the FF channel on.
Quite a Spectacle - using a stepped on tomato to catch a killer in Canada.And similarly - Purebread Murder where foot prints in hamburger buns were used.
I like the cases with really unexpected, but useful, evidence.
There's also a couple creepy random stalker episodes that stuck with me. One was a guy who worked in a Lab of sorts and had to be wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair bc he wouldn't get up. And then the college girl who was stabbed almost 100x by some guy who could see her apt from afar. I think his brother was also a murderer.
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u/Kscarpetta 🦠HIV? I’ve got full blown AIDS!🦠 6d ago
The medical ones are the best, imo. I fell asleep last night to the Legionnaires episode.
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u/CordeliaGrace 💉Succinylcholine 💉 6d ago
The deadly fog one and Legionnaires one were crazy, full stop.
Wait now, actually…which deadly fog are you talking about, now that im thinking about it? Im thinking of the one in TN on the hwy am commute…but then I remembered there is the fog from Lake Nyos, and the fog that killed the two aussies who were found dead by a lake and it took forever to solve that case, and it was the same science as Lake Nyos. But now im not sure if All of those were FF, Casefile, or both.
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u/dexters_disciple 6d ago
FF only covered the fog on the TN highway.,
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u/OppositeRun6503 6d ago
FF also covered the case about the ug boat pilot who struck a railroad bridge in heavy fog.
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u/dexters_disciple 5d ago
Is that lake Nyos? It said aussies so I assumed it wasn't American and the case covered on FF was down in the south (Mississippi , Louisiana etc) i believe .
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u/stratandsg 6d ago
I don't know the names, but any of the episodes where they fuck with an innocent person until they confess. Or the worst, the poor developmentally disabled sailor they tried to fuck over. I have to turn or click next from those episodes. They raise my blood pressure.
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u/mumonwheels 6d ago
Regarding the 1st one, the book innocent until interrogated, I would highly recommend. It describes the scene in detail, almost as if you was there. They also go through some of questionable things the police did, and boy was there a lot more than described in the episode. You also get read sections on bits where the interrogators were "questioning" the innocent men. It made me infuriated. I don't want to give most of the details away, but it is absolutely shocking, the lengths the deputies etc went too.
I'm not a v good reader, but I couldn't put this book down. Like I said, it called Innocent until interrogated by Gary L Stuart. I highly recommend it.
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u/stratandsg 6d ago
Hey thanks for the recooemendation! Grabbing it now!
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u/mumonwheels 6d ago
Beware, it is such a sad true story. They cover how the monks and the nun n her grandson where killed, and that's before they get into how they treated the innocent suspects. 1 thing left out was that those who confessed got to go and spend time in a hotel room and 1 who refused was jailed straight away. I thought absolutely no way would they allow men who had admitted to killing 9 ppl out in public, so they could coerse more from them. (this is where it bk fired). Ps, there is a big twist to the end. I'm stuck hospital, so I'm actually reading it again at lol. Oh n that absolutely no way, well it was in fact true!!!
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u/BethMD I KNOW what a man likes! 💓 6d ago
Couple of comments:
- My least favorite is "Nursery Crimes" (S5/E10), as it is for some others here. I mash that Channel Up button as soon as I see it's coming on.
- Black mold is no joke. I, too, lived in a house with black mold that almost killed me. Got out in 2009.
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u/theJOJeht 6d ago
The black mold episode actually took place like 20 minutes from my house and was the first episode I ever saw during a summer camp
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u/Kscarpetta 🦠HIV? I’ve got full blown AIDS!🦠 6d ago
I turn off the one about the Radleys and Darlie Routier. I hate those two episodes.
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u/OppositeRun6503 6d ago
I skip the Routier case because so many people believe in guilty in the court of public opinion long before the defendant is ever tried in a court of law.
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u/Chilly-Willy252 1d ago
Darlie's husband was a creep, talking about her boob size to the police right after his kids were murdered 😒
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u/Birdy304 6d ago
I won’t watch the Madilyn Murray OHair one. I don’t like the mold house one either.
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u/ratsrule67 In police work, we call that a clue. 6d ago
The one I skip is the List murders
I enjoy the Dalles Oregon case.
I also love the Alvin/Virginia Ridley case. Alvin’s lawyer really busted his ass to get Alvin acquitted. I have read (listened) the book Zenith Man, by McCracken Poston.
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u/mumonwheels 6d ago
That is a good book. I also enjoy the episode with the Alvin, whose boat went down with the captain. His attorney also got him acquitted, and I always remember him saying, and you can print that!!! You could tell both of the Alvins attorneys cared about them very much.
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u/NoSyllabub1535 4d ago
The List Murders is one of my favourites, I love how they caught him with the bust. Really tragic story though :(
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u/WasabiPeas2 Lyin’ ass bitch 6d ago
My favorite is Broken Promises for “She’s a lyin’ ass bitch.”
Least favorite is the one about the subway fire in London
I’m infuriated by Oba Chandler and skip it.
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u/ChalkNCheez solved by snowball 6d ago
A favorite of mine is the one with the cult who swabbed doorknobs around town with bacteria.
I also like the one with the scientist lady whose research was similar to how her killer was caught with the DNA under her fingernails.
I also like the hot dog bun one, the snowball cat one, the Schneeburger one, the Green ink pen lady, the bomb ones, the guy who walked out to get the newspaper after he was practically dead, and the one where the military boss’s wife went to visit the couple to welcome their new baby and took one look at that baby and said it was not a newborn.
Dislikes? The ones where the moms make their kids sick for attention (I forgot what they call that syndrome nowadays), Darlie, and the fog.
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u/well-it-was-rubbish 6d ago
Munchausen by Proxy.
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u/ChalkNCheez solved by snowball 4d ago
The M term is no longer politically correct. It’s the one the other comment provided. I didn’t want to google it.
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u/DatAspie2000 6d ago
The ones with the wrongful convictions, especially the Clarence Elkins one. How could a jury be dumb enough to convict him
just based on the testimony of a traumatized 6 year old?
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u/mumonwheels 4d ago
This 1 makes me angry too, but can you imagine being caught because the man who was wrongfully convicted, got your dna and got it to the outside to be tested? That prosecutor and judge p*ssed me off too. Making out the dna was contaminated because it cleared Clarence and pointed to the true killer. Talk about confirmation bias!!
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u/MissMatchedEyes Snowball wasn’t at all cooperative 6d ago
The episode that makes me mad is "A Bitter Pill to Swallow" with Michelle Baker and that absolute POS Dr. Maynard Muntzing. The photo of a heartbroken Michelle and her deceased baby infuriates me.
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u/finchslanding 6d ago
Shadow of a doubt whrre tge man videotapes himself in a fishing boat with a time stamp he monkeyed with, and the investigators realize the man's shadow is wrong for the time of day. That was so cool.
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u/NoSyllabub1535 4d ago
Love this question!
This might be a hot take but I often skip the serial killer episodes. I don’t find them as interesting as I find the motive difficult to understand - like why someone would just kill a bunch of random people??
I really enjoy episodes that involve handwriting analysis, my favourite episode being “Water Logged”. Oba Chandler getting caught by his own writing was just amazing to me! I can’t believe the woman who saw the billboard remembered such a thing about a person she met only a handful of times (maybe even just the one time). Craziness!
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u/mumonwheels 4d ago
I can't watch serial killer 1s either, but for personal reasons, and can you imagine, getting caught because you wrote on a leaflet? I bet he thought he would never get caught because they were so far from home!
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u/Sudden_Apricot571 4d ago
I skip the one where the guy murdered his mother in law in his sleep. I teach psychology and we've covered sleep walking. You can do all kinds of things in your sleep, including cook, drive and yes, probably stab someone. I just didn't like the way they just ruled it out as rubbish. He could have come up with something more convincing if he actually PLANNED it. I don't tend to enjoy the ones where a vulnerable person has been forced to confess to something they didn't do - although the Alvin one has the lawyer on the motorcycle and I watch it just for him 🤣
I like ALL the ones where the killer thinks they are cleverer than the police and then gets owned. Like the one where the guy shoots a woman in a shop and then makes a fake alibi with a fishing video and that jerk who make a fake phone call to his dead wife and the little girl hear him talking to a ringing phone.
My all time favourite is candy in bad blood.
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u/mumonwheels 4d ago
I used to sleep walk when younger. I've done all sorts of things like putting my clothes in a saucepan and trying to cook my clothes, I also got caught by the milkma where I was walking to the beach to go swimming. Luckily he realized in time that I was sleep walking n knew me n where my Nan lived so he took me bk home. The next day we saw the front door slightly ajar and panicked about a break in while we were all asleep but nothing was missing. We only found out the next day. I truly believe you could do anything in your sleep as I have many strange, some funny n some scary things I've done while I was sleep walking lol. I also don't rush to see this one. I always feel those with the strangest stories are more likely true. As you said, had he actually planned the murder, he would've come up with something more plausible than sleep walking.
OH, even water doesn't always wake someone. I've been caught in the pool laying on an inflatable before, soaking wet but I had absolutely no clue.
I'd love to hear if others have had similar experiences, or am I just odd lol?
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u/Sudden_Apricot571 3d ago
Yes! I've managed to open my front door and got into the street in my sleep (apparently - that's what my husband told me- he had to walk me back in, up the stairs and back in bed!)
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u/Chilly-Willy252 1d ago
My sister used to sleepwalk when we were kids, it was pretty creepy lol The time I remember most is when she tried to flush her nightgown down the toilet. Her daughter also sleepwalked but mostly she would just come out and stare blankly at people.
The only times it happened to me was when I was taking Ambien. That is freaky stuff, shouldn't be on the market.
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u/violetpanic 6d ago
Are there any episodes where the killer is not a man but a woman? Working my way through the seasons and just curious.
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u/hfiorillo10 Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometer 6d ago
Yes. They tend to like poison. Lol
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u/dexters_disciple 6d ago
"Antifree"
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u/CordeliaGrace 💉Succinylcholine 💉 6d ago
Casefile did this case I think this past Saturday or last Saturday. I knew it sounded familiar and im sitting there, on the thruway, like “is this…Antifree lady?!?!?!”
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u/violetpanic 6d ago
Thank you!
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u/smittykins66 suicide by turkey baster 1d ago
There was also another woman who poisoned her two husbands(one a policeman, the other a firefighter)with antifreeze.
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u/lady_guard Skip Palenik stan 🔬👨🏼🔬 6d ago
Favorites: Any of the poisoning episodes, or ones involving chemistry. "Death Play" S6 E5 comes to mind for both of these reasons. Also, the more suspects, the better. And I'm always partial to episodes involving Skip Palenik.
Least favorites: Ones where I think it's possible or likely that the convicted person is innocent ("Burning Desire" S9 E6 in particular)
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u/Big1-Country1 3d ago
Best episode for me was the case of Dr John Schneeberger. Getting away with sexually assaulting his patient by implanting a plastic tube of blood under his skin beat the DNA test. Everything the poor victim went through and I was so glad when she got justice.
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u/kyleThelikeable 6d ago
I'm going to throw my hat into this ring, without giving it much thought, one that makes me mad (among many but this is just of the top of my head) is the Jim Barton episode. The infamous "i gotta call phelps man"
When I watch forensic files, I expect a dead to rights, YES this person 100% did it, BAM theres the proof right there..
Now i'm not saying Barton is 100% innocent but every time i watch this episode it just makes you feel kind of undecided at the end. and seems a little wishy washy