identification case

The Imposter is a 2012 documentary film about French con artist Frédéric Bourdin, who impersonated missing Texas boy Nicholas Barclay. Available on Apple TV, Amazon, and more.

Long Shot is a Netflix documentary about Juan Catalan, a Los Angeles man wrongly arrested for murder in 2003 and exonerated by unaired Curb Your Enthusiasm footage.

¿Dónde está Marta? is a Netflix documentary series about the 2009 disappearance of 17-year-old Marta del Castillo in Seville, Spain — a case that gripped the entire country.

The Case of: Caylee Anthony is a documentary special examining the 2008 death of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony in Florida and the acquittal of her mother, Casey Anthony.

The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker is a Netflix documentary about Caleb 'Kai' McGillvary, the viral internet hero who was convicted of murdering New Jersey attorney Joseph Galfy in 2013.

Who Killed Jill Dando? is a Netflix documentary series about the 1999 shooting murder of beloved BBC presenter Jill Dando outside her London home — a case that remains unsolved.

Burden of Proof is an HBO documentary series investigating the 1987 disappearance of 15-year-old Jennifer Lynn Pandos from Williamsburg, Virginia, streaming on Max.

They Called Him Mostly Harmless is a 2024 Max documentary about the death and identification of an unnamed hiker found in Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida, later identified as Vance John Rodriguez.

The Marta del Castillo case is a Spanish homicide in which 17-year-old Marta del Castillo disappeared in Seville on January 24, 2009. Her ex-boyfriend was convicted of murder, but her body was never recovered.

Nicholas Barclay disappeared in San Antonio, Texas, in 1994 at age 13. Three years later, French impostor Frédéric Bourdin posed as the missing teen before being exposed and convicted of fraud.

The Sean Suiter case is a disputed 2017 death investigation in which a Baltimore homicide detective was found shot in the head in a vacant West Baltimore lot one day before a federal grand jury appearance.

The Caleb McGillvary case is a New Jersey murder in which viral internet figure 'Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker' beat 73-year-old attorney Joseph Galfy Jr. to death in May 2013.

On the night of June 11, 1962, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay. Sixty years later, no confirmed evidence has emerged to prove whether they drowned in the cold Pacific waters or survived to live free.

In February 1957, Philadelphia police discovered the brutalized body of a young child abandoned in a cardboard box on a roadside. For 65 years, the victim remained unidentified—until advanced genetic genealogy techniques finally revealed his name: Joseph Augustus Zarelli.

Brandon Victor Swanson, a 19-year-old from Marshall, Minnesota, vanished in the early hours of May 14, 2008, shortly after his car went into a ditch. Speaking to his parents by phone and claiming he was near the town of Lynd, Brandon exclaimed "Oh, shit!" and went silent approximately 47 minutes into the call—and was never seen again.

On Australia Day 1966, Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont—aged 9, 7, and 4—left their home in Adelaide to swim at Glenelg Beach. They were never seen again. Nearly six decades later, the disappearance remains one of Australia's most haunting cold cases.

On May 11, 2011, six-year-old Timmothy James Pitzen was withdrawn from his Illinois school by his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, who claimed a family emergency. Three days later, Amy was found dead from suicide with a note stating the boy was safe but would never be found. More than a decade on, Timmothy remains missing.

The 1999 rape and murder of 16-year-old Marianne Vaatstra in rural Friesland remained unsolved for over a decade until Dutch investigators employed an unprecedented mass DNA screening of thousands of local men, ultimately leading to the 2012 arrest and conviction of Jasper Steringa.

On February 9, 2004, 21-year-old Maura Murray crashed her car on Route 112 near Woodsville, New Hampshire. When police arrived minutes later, she was gone—and despite two decades of investigation, no trace of her has ever been found.

Pedro Alonso López, a Colombian serial killer known as the Monster of the Andes, murdered at least 110 confirmed victims—mostly young girls aged 8 to 13—across Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Arrested in 1980 and convicted in 1983, López was released from prison in 1998 and disappeared in 1999, his current whereabouts unknown.