The New Detectives

Sometimes the scales of justice are balanced by just a few milligrams of evidence, a couple of fibers, a tooth filling, or a smudge on a piece of tape. The biggest cases are often solved by the smallest clues.

As detectives follow the footsteps of a killer, a double homicide investigation spurs an international manhunt.

George Orwell's concept of Big Brother remains in the realm of fiction. But as technology becomes more a part of our lives, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to make a move without leaving behind an electronic trace.

Hiding a body can be difficult; it's sometimes easier to obscure or disguise the circumstances of the death, turning murder into suicide, or pinning the blame on someone else. The truth is told through subtle clues taken from the crime scene.

No matter how chaotic or how clean a crime scene appears to be, the culprit is bound to leave something telling behind. Occasionally, it's nothing more than a fingerprint or shoe tread. Sometimes that's all that's needed.

Men don't have a monopoly on murder, but it's still extraordinary when women kill. Though female killers are as deadly as males, they choose less violent methods. They're often more cunning, calculating.

For a price, anything's possible. Contract killings arose out of the need to establish the perfect alibi. By hiring someone else to do the dirty work, a person can deflect guilt, at least in theory. Forensics is changing that.

Spurred on by the thrill of the kill, a serial murderer can’t stop on his own. The longer it takes to catch him, the bigger the Body Count.

Most victims are poisoned by someone they trust, done in by a fatal lapse of judgment. But it only takes investigators a whisper of suspicion to detect a taste of poison.

At a murder scene police must wring the full meaning from every available clue. But when the evidence is inadequate, detectives must return to the victim to make their grave discoveries.

Formed in the 1830s to protect settlers against Indian attack, the Rangers became part of the Texas Highway Patrol in 1935. Their role has continued to evolve to keep up with changing times; today it includes sophisticated forensics labs.

Our material world is built on just 113 kinds of atoms. Their combinations can produce a world of good, but in the wrong hands, they’re just bad medicine.

Some of the best clues come from the least likely places. Baffling crimes have been solved and criminals betrayed through evidence provided by insects, beer bottles, and other seemingly meaningless objects.