History Series / ForensicFiles

* AnAesop:
** Don't commit crimes -- no matter how well you think you've covered your tracks, you ''will'' leave something behind that will allow the police to find you.
** Do not scam people. There are [[BullyingADragon dangerous people]] out in the world and scamming them might cost you or a close one's life.
** Don't cheat. Nothing good ever comes out of it. Unfortunately, this is also a double-edged sword; plenty of victims were faithful to their partners, but the partner themselves and/or the other man or woman believed that [[MurderTheHypotenuse murder]] was preferable to a divorce or a breakup.
** Don't lie. Obviously if you do it with the police or other law enforcement, you'll get caught and in some cases, that's a crime itself. Lying in a relationship is part of what drives the domestic murders featured. And a couple of these happened because the wife/girlfriend lied about being pregnant and the male in the relationship didn't want a child complicating things.
** Don't do drugs. They can impair your judgment enough to make a life-destroying mistake. Or you could run in with shady characters who could kill you.
* AlwaysMurder: Alternatingly averted and subverted. The show also covers disasters, assaults, attempted murders, and health crises, as well as cases that were initially investigated as murder, but then found to be accidents, suicides, or natural deaths (to name a few).

''Forensic Files'' ([[IHaveManyNames also known as]] ''Medical Detectives'', ''Mystery Detectives'', ''Murder Detectives'', and ''Cause of Death'') is a crime documentary series that aired from 1996 to 2011 as a DramaticHalfHour.

** "Home Evasion": A woman is shot by an unknown assailant upon returning home from work and all the signs pointed to the husband. Their marriage was on the brink of collapse, both parties' were cheating on each other, he was the beneficiary of her life insurance policy, he would get full custody of their son whom he was close with, and he was the first to find her after she was shot. It turns out she was a victim of one of the most bizarrely random crimes in the show's history: a guy who lived miles away from them was about to be sent to prison for raping his three-month-old daughter, and decided to murder someone at random to avoid being abuse by the other prisoners. Despite searching high and low for a connection between the two, investigators found nothing with the narrator mentioning her husband would've been the victim had he arrived home first. The husband himself even admitted he understood why he was the prime suspect.

[[caption-width-right:350:No Witnesses. No Leads. No Problem.]]''Forensic Files'' ([[IHaveManyNames also known as]] ''Medical Detectives'', ''Mystery Detectives'', ''Murder Detectives'', and ''Cause of Death'') is a crime documentary series that aired from 1996 to 2011. It was narrated for almost its entire run ([[ChannelHop channel hopping]] from Creator/{{TLC}} to Court TV/[=truTV=] to HLN, and even airing on Creator/{{NBC}} as a summer MidseasonReplacement in 2002) by Peter Thomas. As the title implies, the show focuses on forensic investigations, mostly on murders.

** In a more roundabout example, "Dinner and a Movie" is about how the murderer used the real-life movie ''Film/{{Blackout}}'' as an inspiration for covering up [[spoiler:his wife's]] time of death. ''Blackout'' [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory was loosely based on the John List murders]], which the show had previously covered in "The List Murders," though the show doesn't acknowledge this.

[[caption-width-right:350:No Witnesses. No Leads. No Problem.]]''Forensic Files'' ([[IHaveManyNames also known as]] ''Medical Detectives'', ''Mystery Detectives'', ''Murder Detectives'', and ''Cause of Death'') is a crime documentary series that aired from 1996 to 2011. It was narrated for almost its entire run ([[ChannelHop channel hopping]] from Creator/{{TLC}} to Court TV/[=truTV=] to HLN, and even airing on Creator/{{NBC}} as a summer MidseasonReplacement in 2002) by Peter Thomas. As the title implies, the show focuses on forensic investigations, mostly into murders.

** Don't cheat. Nothing good ever comes out of it. Unfortunately, this is also a double-edged sword; plenty of victims were faithful to their partners, but the partner themselves and/or the other man or woman believed that [[MurderTheHypotenuse murder]] was preferable to a divorce or a break-up.

** The case of the episode "Memories" took place in 1979-1980 (although was not solved for nearly twenty years) and when the victim had her previously lost memory jogged by some pictures in a baby magazine. The pictures she were looking at, [[FreezeFrameBonus on closer inspection]], were of actress Kelly Preston and her daughter Ella Blue, who was born in 2000.

** In a more roundabout example, "Dinner and a Movie" is about how the murderer used the real-life movie ''Blackout'' as an inspiration for covering up [[spoiler:his wife's]] time of death. ''Blackout'' [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory was loosely based on the John List murders]], which the show had previously covered in "The List Murders," though the show doesn't acknowledge this.

* ConvenientPhotograph: One episode had detectives realizing that a young woman's fall from a cliff was in fact murder when they reviewed the pictures taken of the outing with her supposed friends and noticed (a) How lethargic she appeared in the pictures from later in the day, and (b) The body language of one of the friends in one of the final pictures taken before she supposedly fell. Analysis revealed that rather than them simply walking along the cliff side, he was actually preparing to shove her over--as well as looking around to make sure no one was watching--and that her dazed appearance was because she'd been drugged so that she wouldn't put up a fight.

** "Killer Fog" focuses on finding who's responsible for the heavy fog that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Interstate_75_fog_disaster caused a 99-car pileup on I-75 in Tennessee.]]

* NoodleImplements: The teaser for later episodes almost always ended with Peter Thomas listing what sound like random, bizarre items that forensic scientists would end up using to crack the case (something like how a shred of paper, half a shoelace, and a dead beetle led police to the killer).

* TraumaSwing: In episodes where a survivor was available for interview, the B-roll tends to include include a shot or two of them using a swingset, no matter how old they are.

* AlwaysMurder: Subverted. On top of the occasional non-murder episode, the show also covers accidents, suicides, natural deaths, and other cases that were initially investigated as murder.

* BluffTheEavesdropper: This happens in "If I Were You" where the suspect was tricked into believing that he had forgot to do something while he was posing as the villain.

* DistantFinale: The reruns on HLN include updates for the episodes when applicable.

* WhereAreTheyNow: Reruns of the older episodes include an update that offers information on the perpetrators--if they've died in prison/been executed/been released, etc.

* AlwaysMurder: Averted and subverted--on top of the occasional non-murder episode, the show also covers accidents, suicides, natural deaths, and other cases that were initially investigated as murder.

** Multiple episodes ("Stick 'em Up" about the murder of Dan Short, "Horse Play" about the murder of Shannon Mohr, "Stranger in the Night" about the murder of Dorothy Donovan, "Water Logged" about the murders of Joan Rogers and her daughters Michelle and Christe) serve as sequels to episodes of ''Series/UnsolvedMysteries'', telling the rest of the story as and after the mystery was solved.
* DistantFinale: Many reruns of the older episodes include updates.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: "Flower Power" and "Catch-22" both involve women being pursued by men they're not interested in and eventually being murdered after rejecting the men's advances one too many times.

** Do not scam people. There are [[DoNotTauntCthulhu dangerous]] [[BullyingADragon people]] out in the world and scamming them might cost you or a close one's life.

* AllForNothing:
** The killer in "Yes, in Deed" murdered his victim so he wouldn't have to pay her $25,000 for her house.[[note]]He had already paid off her mortgages, and just needed to give her the $25,000 dollars to complete the sale.[[/note]] He ended up having to pay it anyway when her surviving relatives sued him for it.
** "Cold-Hearted" involves a woman murdering her second husband for insurance money. After his death, it turns out that he allowed the policy to lapse.
** In “Sunday’s Wake”, the landlord owned an apartment complex that had old and toxic lead-based paint. Rather than spend the couple hundred dollars to have the old paint stripped and replaced with a much safer paint, he forged the signatures of his tenants on the lead disclosure notices. This ended up costing a toddler her life because she was eating the chipped paint. Had he done the proper thing, he wouldn’t have gone to jail for neglectful homicide and the little girl would still be alive.
** "Bagging a Killer" is about a man who killed his daughter so that he could win back his ex-girlfriend as the ex-girlfriend and the daughter didn't get along. Needless to say, the woman didn't want anything to do with a man who would murder his own child and even if she had, he's in prison for the rest of his life, keeping them apart anyway.
** “Death Play” features a teenage girl killing her father because she wanted to go live with her mother, only to learn that her mother and stepfather were moving out of state, forcing her to live with her grandparents in order to finish high school in Texas.
** "Nailed" is about a man who killed a woman he raped so she couldn't testify against him. Not only did he end up still getting convicted of the rape, but he got a very lenient sentence of four years and was even able to return to his respectable job as an accountant after it was over. He ended up getting convicted of the murder and is serving the rest of his life behind bars.
** "Penchant for Poison" tells of a man who ingratiated himself to two wealthy sisters and expected to be remembered in their will. He poisoned both with arsenic in an attempt to speed up his inheritance, only to find out that he had killed them both before they had a chance to amend their will. He later attempted to poison an elderly couple to avoid having to pay the remainder of what he owed from purchasing their business. He only managed to successfully kill the husband, and the wife's hospital visits were ultimately how he got caught.
** "Gold Rush" tells the story of a man who murdered his ex-girlfriend because he heard a rumor that she was pregnant and he was the father and he didn't want to pay child support. An autopsy revealed that the victim wasn't pregnant after all. "The Black Hole" from the revival series has an identical situation.
** "Grave Danger" tells the story of a man and his wife who stole a body from its grave, put it in his car, and set the car on fire to fake his death because he didn't want to go to jail for raping his seven-year-old cousin. Because he was a minor when he committed the crime, his sentence was pretty light; he was sentenced to just 30 days in prison, but he still had to register as a sex offender. Not only was he convicted for the grave robbery, he got a much harsher sentence for the rape than what he was originally going to serve.
** "Missing Pearl" is about a Maine woman who went missing and was assumed by police to have left her husband for another man, but whose family insisted her husband had murdered her. It turned out her husband had beaten her to death during an argument over money and buried her underneath the house. When her body was finally found, the autopsy revealed [[NotTheIllnessThatKilledThem she had terminal cancer and would have lived only a few more months]]. The victim's daughter called this "my mother getting the last laugh."
** The ''Forensic Files II'' episode "Inside Pocket" involves a pair of criminals who killed an insurance agent to get his safe. They couldn't get the safe open, so they stole his wallet, which contained just 300 dollars. They ended up quickly gambling it away.
** The ''Forensic Files II'' episode "The Ink Beads" is about a census worker who attempted to disguise his suicide as a homicide because he had cancer, but his beneficiaries wouldn't receive the insurance if he committed suicide. Not only was it proven he died of suicide thereby voiding the insurance, but it turns out his cancer was in remission.
* AlwaysMurder: Averted and subverted. Aside from featuring a handful of non-murder cases, the episode also covers accidents, suicides, natural causes, or self-defense cases that were initially investigated as murders. One case, "Grave Danger", actually features a grave robbery.
* AlwaysWithYou: Heartbreakingly used in the "Last Will" episode where a teenage girl was kidnapped only days before her high school graduation. Her family received a last will and testament from her telling them that she loved them, that she'd always be with them, that they should not lose their faith in God over what happened and that some good would come out of the aftermath of her murder.
* AmbiguousSituation:
** A handful of times, the police have arrested one person, but been forced to let their presumed partner-in-crime walk free as there isn't enough evidence to say they were involved, despite their strong (and likely correct) suspicions.
** "Time Will Tell" is about a middle-aged killer who lived with a much younger wife and two young children. It turned out that the "wife" was actually his daughter that he kidnapped when she was a teenager and had them pose as a married couple while the two little girls were her biological children. Although some believed that he was [[ParentalIncest the father of the girls]], which the episode itself implies, their true paternity was never determined as the daughter refused to identify the father and none of the investigators made an effort to pursue the matter. As such, it wasn't addressed whatsoever at the man's murder trial.
** In "Gold Rush", the victim was killed by her boyfriend because she refused to get an abortion and he didn't want to support another child. However, her autopsy revealed that she wasn't even pregnant. The interviewees were divided as to whether she honestly believed she was pregnant or was lying the whole time, which is never conclusively resolved. Naturally, the victim's family insisted she actually was pregnant, with one of the physicians commenting that it was possible, however unlikely, that she miscarried at a very early stage of pregnancy and simply didn't know.
** The killer's DNA in "Four on the Floor" was later connected to the murder of the Native American man mentioned earlier in the episode that was suspected to have been a hate crime. Due to the fact this victim was Native American as well, this gives credence to that theory, but it wasn't verified.

* AndYourLittleDogToo: In "Transaction Failed", the killer threatened his victim's cat to get her to divulge her PIN number.

* BaitAndSwitch: The opening of “Postal Mortem” introduces a woman saying goodbye to her colleague and entering her office, suggesting that she’s the episode’s victim, only for the woman to rush out of her office after the building shakes from what the narrator reveals to be an explosion… at which point the camera pans to a DeadHandShot of her colleague.
* BecomingTheMask: A rather tragic case with Tina Biggar in "Deadly Knowledge". She initially went incognito as a call girl for her college thesis. She quickly became a valued employee within the service she worked for and made so much money in her line of work that she quit her job as a waitress since being a call girl was more profitable. Unfortunately, she ended up being killed by one of her clients.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Ruby Morris' family was so screwed up, she could be seen as the WhiteSheep. Her husband was abusive and cheating on her with her own sister. Her dad molested her, which resulted in the birth of two of her kids.
* BilingualBackfire: In "The Music Case", a man suspected of murdering a young girl was being held on a theft charge. In a recorded phone call to his sister-in-law, he told her to pin the murder on his brother. He assumed that the police wouldn't realize what he was saying because he was speaking Spanish, apparently not considering the possibility that they would have a translator on hand.
* BittersweetEnding: By virtue of this being a crime show, most if not all the stories end on a bittersweet note, even if nobody actually died.
* BizarreAndImprobableBallistics: "The Magic Bullet" details an investigation into an incident where a teenager was shot in the head while sitting in the safety zone building at a shooting range. The episode reveals the unlikely chain of events that led to this tragic accident:
-->Outside on the firing range behind the airgun building, Dan Smith, one of the last competitors of the day, steps up to the 15-yard line. This moves him in front of two sets of safety baffles. Using a modified gun, Smith takes aim and squeezes the trigger. In a fraction of a second, another shot is fired during the recoil phase of the original shot. It happens so quickly, the shooter doesn't know it left the gun. The bullet misses the target, high and to the left. Traveling upwards, it passes underneath the last set of protective baffles and just three inches over the [protective] berm. It's speeding at 1,200 feet per second. The bullet blasts through the aluminum siding, goes through a storage room, misses a broom and some pipes by less than an inch, and then breaks through a second wall, entering the airgun range. Then the bullet does something unbelievable. It strikes an ordinary ceiling tile and skids along the tile for seven inches before [[PinballProjectile mysteriously changing direction]], making a 10-degree turn, and begins a downward path. It slows to about 900 feet per second, penetrates a plaster wall, and [[KillTheCutie enters Trey Cooley's head]].
* BlackWidow: Frequently, when investigating someone for the death of their husband or [[TheBluebeard wife]], police will discover that the accused had one or more previous spouses who also died under suspicious circumstances. Sometimes, the killer will be convicted for those deaths too, while other times it's left ambiguous.

* BlownAcrossTheRoom: Both lampshaded and defied in "A Welcome Intrusion". Mark Winger claimed that Roger Harrington was kneeling over his wife Donnah and beating her with a hammer and he shot Harrington to save his wife. When investigators looked at the position of Donnah and Harrington's bodies, they realize that Harrington could not have been kneeling over Donnah when shot unless he was literally lifted into the air by the bullet, which is specifically noted to be physically impossible.
* BluffTheImpostor: In "If I Were You", a woman grew concerned when she couldn't reach her father, despite the fact that he kept sending cards for special occasions. So she left a message for him reminding him of her husband's birthday and the money he'd promised. When she promptly received a card with a check, she knew for certain that something was wrong as it was ''not'' her husband's birthday, nor had he promised any money. It was soon found that her father had been murdered and his killer was continuing to pay his bills and send correspondence to create the illusion that he was alive.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Sarah Johnson from "Disrobed" was this as she rebelled against her parents due to them not wanting her to date a boy they disapproved of: an illegal immigrant and a drug dealer who was three years older. Unfortunately, her love for him outweighed her loyalty to them and she murdered them to stop her father from pressing statutory rape charges. The sentiment was not mutual as he testified against her despite the fact they threatened to press charges if he continued seeing her.
* BrilliantButLazy: The murderer in the ''Forensic Files II'' episode "The Black Hole" was this. He was a spoiled rich kid who had such great knowledge of boats and the sea, that it made him stand out among other suspects, and he even wanted to be a boat captain. Unfortunately, he was content with using his parents' money on alcohol and pot rather than getting educated on his career goals; while he did try to enlist in the navy, he couldn't pass the swim test so he was discharged. Plus the obvious fact he is now spending the rest of his life in prison.
* BungledSuicide:
** Fred Andros from "Three's a Crowd" attempted to commit suicide by gunshot when the police came to arrest him. He failed, ended up [[FacialHorror disfigured]], and was sentenced to 25 years to life.
** Inverted in the ''Forensic Files II'' episode "The Ink Beads" where the census worker succeeded at the actual suicide by hanging himself. However, he failed to make look like a homicide when the investigators were able to determine that the message on his chest was written by the man himself, thus voiding the insurance payout he intended to go to his beneficiaries.
* BystanderSyndrome:
** An unfortunate example in "As Fault" had the victim in the back of a pickup truck, waving her arms frantically. Her friends at one point saw this and simply presumed she was having fun while drunk. In reality, she was kidnapped by a random stranger. Worse, she had decided to walk home from being at the bar with them and shouldn't have been in anyone's truck. Had any of them reacted quicker to this scenario, many speculated she could have been rescued. [[MyGreatestFailure Her friends themselves agreed with this sentiment]].
** Another example in "Traffic Violations" had the victim killed by a cop to hide the fact he used his authority to try to take advantage of her. The driver knew full well she had done nothing to warrant being pulled over, but simply had not acted because he himself was driving on a revoked license.
* CainAndAbel: A couple of episodes have one sibling killing the other, including "Sibling Rivalry" and "Missing in Time".[[note]]The murder in question isn't the primary case of the episode, but it is mentioned as a part of the killer's criminal record.[[/note]]

* CoolOldGuy: Narrator Peter Thomas, who was 72 when the show began and who lived to be in his early 90s.

* DeathByIrony:
** In "Scratching the Surface", a man shot at five men inside a car, killing one and injuring two. When they arrested him, a disgruntled coworker, he lamented that he injured the guys he wanted to kill, while the man he was on good terms with was the one who actually died.
** In "Without a Trace", a man tried to kill his ex-girlfriend by placing a chemical used in animal laboratories in her lemonade. Everyone in her family but her and her parents drank the lemonade and wound up getting sick, with two of the victims dying (an 11-month-old infant and a grown man who had drunk several glasses).
** In "The Cheater", one of Walter Scott's hit songs was called "(Look Out For) The Cheater". His murder case involved just that; he divorced his first wife for another woman, who cheated on him with another man, James Williams, who in turn was cheating on his own wife. Williams would ultimately kill both his own wife and Scott.
** In "A Voice from Beyond", Reyna Marroquín left her husband in her native El Salvador because he was having an affair and had gotten his mistress pregnant. Upon moving to America, Marroquín ended up having an affair with her married boss, got pregnant, and was murdered due to his refusal to accept the pregnancy and her telling his wife about everything.
* DisposableSexWorker: The show holds little sympathy for prostitutes or strippers, especially not those murdered by their own customers. "Deadly Knowledge" in particular stops just short of blaming the victim for moonlighting as an escort as part of her research.

* IncriminatingIndifference: Discussed and defied in the ''Forensic Files II'' episode "Toxic Environment". It's noted that people deal with grief in different ways, and behavior that appears callous to outsiders may simply be the bereaved person's way of dealing with their pain.
* InterruptedByTheEnd: A variant. "Naked Justice" ends with the father of the victim stating that he hopes the murderer "rots in [[PrecisionFStrike hell]]". The credits then abruptly roll.

** In “Breaking News,” about the murder of a young TV news producer, Peter Thomas ominously intones “But something was missing: her young son” just before the episode goes into commercial. After the break, he reveals that the boy was spending the summer with his father.

* RewatchBonus: In "The Alibi", the mother of the victim mentioned the murderer [[spoiler:Ken Register]] by name within the first two minutes of the episode, even though she said he was the "least likely person to have committed the murder".

* ThisIsReality: Donna Pendergast points this out at the end of "Deadly Knowledge" when lecturing the audience on how dangerous the call girl world can be:
-->If Tina [Biggar] was brought into this double life under some kind of illusion that it was going to be like a scene from ''Film/PrettyWoman'' and Creator/RichardGere was going to come rescue her and, you know, bring her wonderful gifts, and she was going to fall into this opulent lifestyle, that that's not the reality of the call girl world. You can meet up with some desperate characters and some very bizarre characters. In this case, unfortunately, the person that she met up with was not Richard Gere; it was Ken [Tranchida]. And where Tina ended up, lying in that field, is more the reality than the movie, I think.
* TransatlanticEquivalent: A handful of episodes have been stories from countries other than the US--Canada, the UK, Australia, and even Switzerland.

* VoiceOfTheLegion: In "Sealed with a Kiss", the person reading parts of the letters aloud early in the episode has a voice like this. They also read it [[CreepyMonotone in a flat tone]] which only serves to put even ''more'' emphasis on the fact that the identity of the person threatening Joanne Chambers is a total mystery.
* WellThisIsNotThatTrope: The prosecutor in "Up in Smoke", a case where the forensics acquit the suspect, initially comes across as a bitter, arrogant jerk, so it's a surprise when he says of the defense's forensics team:
-->"In this business, you have people that, for a certain amount of money, will tell you anything you wanna hear. These experts were not of that ilk."

** In “With Every Breath,” it’s never mentioned whether Merrill Bahe and Florena Woody’s infant son survived the hantavirus that killed his parents.

* WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: In "Muffled Cries" Peter Thomas notes that checking the victim's credit card records for a posthumous transaction was "admittedly... a long shot, since few criminals are that inept." Cut straight to the prosecutor revealing that "sure enough, they were--at least four attempts... one was actually successful."

* AlwaysMurder: Averted--the show doesn't just cover murder cases, but accidents, suicides natural deaths, and other incidents initially suspected to be murder.

* TraumaSwing: In several episodes where a survivor was available for interview, the B-roll includes shots of said survivor using a swingset.

** "Wired for Disaster" doesn't disclose the specifics of the bomb, except to say they indicated a specific motive.

** "Wired For Disaster" doesn't disclose the specifics of the bomb, except to say they indicated a specific motive.

* WhoWouldBeStupidEnough: In "Muffled Cries" Peter Thomas notes that checking the victim's credit card records for a posthumous transaction was "admittedly... a long shot, since few criminals are that inept." Cut straight to the prosecutor revealing that "sure enough, they were--at least four attempts."