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Based on the iconic, Emmy-nominated series on A&E, this show explores some of the most difficult-to-solve murders, which stymied investigators and went cold, sometimes for decades. In fact, one-third of all murders in America remain open. But thanks to dogged investigators and breakthroughs in forensic technology, these cases become part of the rare 1% of cold cases that are ever solved. Cold Case Files is narrated by Marisa Pinson.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Cold Case Files traces how patient police work and family persistence can return movement to murder investigations that seemed permanently stalled.
Cold Case Files reconstructs stalled murder investigations through a steady sequence of family testimony, police work, and the evidence that eventually changed a case.
A detective grows a beard to get witnesses talking; you can almost hear the case turn.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A restrained missing-girls case shaped by a fire, a clue, and the people still pressing for answers.
The episode keeps the Welch, Oklahoma fire at the center of the disappearance of Lorea Bible and Ashley Freeman on December 30, 1999, and it does so with a steady eye for human detail.
A barn killing, a wiretap, and a suspect who starts talking about her dogs.
Cold Case Files opens with the killing of 51-year-old Don Spaulding in a barn in Winneboe, North Carolina, and it holds close to the rough details that make the case feel immediate: feed buckets on the floor, straw and mud underfoot, and no brass found where a shot was fired.
Vanessa Gay's survival story lays bare Anthony Sowell's violence and the failures that surrounded it.
Anthony Sowell's crimes are framed through Vanessa Gay's account of drug use, captivity, sexual violence, and the moment he let her walk out of his Imperial Avenue home.
A long-running murder case becomes a story of memory, family grief, and one daughter's refusal to let it disappear.
Cold Case Files: REOPENED: Written In Blood follows Loretta's murder through the eyes of her daughter Heidi, who was four when investigators arrived and later became one of the case's most persistent voices.
A grim Texas cold case told with patience, forensic detail, and a strong sense of place.
Cold Case Files treats the 1983 Texas murders as a careful, almost squarely procedural account of a small-town shock that spread through ordinary routines, football nights, and familiar faces.
A sober cold case that keeps the human cost in view.
Cold Case Files opens in Pensacola, Florida, on New Year's Day 1985 and stays with Tanya McKinley's murder in a careful, unsentimental way. It follows the roadside body near Peacock Drive and Creighton Road, the missing shoes, the bloody blue towel, the signs of battery, and the…
A Portland cold case solved through patience, access, and consequence.
The episode follows the murder of Kim Basil and the long push to get people talking. Michael Gates is the detective assigned to get close to a Portland crime family, and his decision not to shave turns into a quiet practical advantage as his beard grows.
NHPR's Jason Moon investigates the Bear Brook barrel murders and a New Hampshire wrongful-conviction case.
Payne Lindsey's season-long investigation into two disappearances from Nome, Alaska.
CBC's true crime feed tracing Cleo's case into cold cases across its investigative podcast network.
Journalists chase a decades-long trail through a coronial inquest and Rick Bloom's dozens of aliases.
A New York Times reporter reinvestigates Laramie's unsolved 1985 murder of Shelley Wiley.
On September 23, 1983, five KFC employees and visitors in Kilgore, Texas, vanished after closing time, and their bodies were found the next morning in a rural Rusk County oil field.
A 13-year-old girl listens on the phone as her sister is beaten and burned. The call never disconnects.
This episode investigates the 1985 murder of Tanya McKinley in Pensacola, Florida, which remained unsolved for 35 years.
This episode recounts the story of a survivor of serial killer David Parker Ray, known as the Toy Box Killer, and the investigation into his crimes.
Cold Case Files' Reopened: Cold Ashes follows the December 30, 1999 fire at the Freeman house in Welch, Oklahoma, where Danny and Kathy Freeman were later found shot in the head and Ashley Freeman and Luria Bible vanished.
Cold Case Files splits its time between Don Spaulding's 1985 barn shooting in Winneboe, North Carolina, and a Long Beach rape series that only starts to break years later.
A survivor recounts her encounter with serial killer Anthony Sowell, who murdered 11 women in Cleveland.
A daughter recounts her mother's heroic sacrifice during a murder in 1970, leading to a decades-later cold case resolution.
This episode investigates the 1998 murder of 12-year-old Stephanie Crow and the interrogation of her brother Michael.
A woman recounts surviving a violent attack and the murder of her family by her husband, a policeman.
The Prosecutors examine the Isdal Woman, whose charred remains were found near Bergen, Norway, on November 29, 1970.
A survivor recounts the day she was abducted on her eighth birthday, leading to a cold case investigation.
A woman recounts being attacked by a camouflaged man with a knife while hiking in Colorado.
A cold case investigator reopens a decades-old murder using forensic breakthroughs.