Forensic Files

When eleven-month-old Chad Shelton was admitted to the hospital, his His liver function was abnormal, his platelet count was dangerously low, and there was unexplained bleeding from his gums, nose and eyelids. Eventually, Chad went into a coma, and died. When other people in the house began to get ill as well, investigators and scientists must frantically search for a cause.

In 1996 a woman named Stephanie Brown was driving some friends home to a foreign part of town. She took a wrong turn on Interstate 5 to get home and was later found dead in a flooded irrigation ditch.

In 1987, a human skull and some bones were discovered at a Boy Scout Camp near Farmington, Missouri. A facial reconstruction aided the investigators in this case. Once the victim was identified as Bun Chee Nyhuis, her husband Richard H. Nyhuis, was no longer just a person of interest.

A mysterious illness with the same symptoms as Mad Cow Disease causes the unexpected deaths of several young people in England. Medical investigators rush to find the cause of the illness.

On December 16, 1989 Judge Bob Vance was killed when he opened up a package that contained a pipe bomb. Two days later an Attorney lost part of his arm when he opened a similar package. The police found two unopened packages that contained similar pipe bombs. The FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit provided a psychological profile of the bomber. The profile matched that of Walter Leroy Moody, who was convicted of a similar bombing in 1972. A store clerk identified Moody as the individual who purchased four pounds of gunpowder and one thousand CCI primers. Walter Leroy Moody was convicted, and sentenced to seven life sentences.

In January 1987, Robert and Paula Sims moved to Alton, Illinois. There she gave birth to her son, Randy and daughter, Heather. Six weeks after Heather's birth, a masked individual reportedly broke into their home and kidnapped their daughter, Heather. The police learned that this wasn't the first time that the Sim's had a baby kidnapped.

Stephen Scher and Martin Dillon went skeet shooting in rural Pennsylvania on a beautiful Spring day in 1976. Martin was shot dead that day, and Scher maintained a freak accident had cost his friend his life. It would take more than 20 years for the truth to be revealed, and for the jury to rule on who was responsible for the death of Martin Dillon.

When four month old Ryan Stallings died under suspicious circumstances, his mother was arrested, charged, and ultimately convicted of his murder. But months later the verdict would be questioned when new evidence emerged from a startling source - his newborn brother.

In 1992, Laura Houghteling disappeared from her Bethesda home and was never seen again. Five days later, police discovered a bloody pillow and pillowcase lying in the woods near Laura's house. Laura's bedroom was then searched and forensic science was used to direct them a to prime suspect.

On Friday, June 22, 1984, a couple set off for a camping trip but got lost and fell asleep at a scenic overlook in rural Virginia. They awoke to a person tapping on their car window; they both got out of the car to find out this man had a gun. He ordered the boyfriend to run to the woods and drove off with his girlfriend. The man repeatedly raped and sodomised the young woman and threatened to kill her. Instead, he let her go. When she arrived back to her car, she met her boyfriend who was there with the cops. The young lady positively identified Edward Honaker as the man who raped her. Honaker was given three life sentences, but new DNA testing might provide new information about the rapist.

On September 17, 1984 nine-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson left on her pink bicycle to run an errand for her mother. She never returned home. Vicki's bike was found abandoned later that afternoon on a nearby street, slightly damaged, but there was no sign of her.

When a two-year-old boy was rushed to the hospital suffering from brain seizures and breathing difficulties, doctors could not find the cause of his illness. Then the boy's sister provided an important clue, and raised the possibility of a syndrome of which few had ever heard, a syndrome that would need both medical investigators, and legal authorities.

December 7, 1993, was the last time anyone saw 18 year old Rose Larner, alive or dead. Her boyfriend, John Ortiz-Kehoe, and her childhood friend, Billy Brown, told police they saw her early on December 7, but they had no idea where she went after they last saw her.