Retsgenetisk Institut

Bloodline Detectives is a documentary series hosted by Nancy Grace that revisits unsolved cold cases — murders spanning decades — solved through genetic genealogy and familial DNA searching.

The New Detectives is a docudrama series (1996–2005) covering 118 real criminal cases solved through forensic science, streaming free on Tubi, Pluto TV, and The Roku Channel.

In October 1997, a Dutch couple was found shot dead in a German forest. A year later, the nightmare repeated itself. After 21 unsolved years, DNA screening finally led to an unremarkable village laborer.

Norbert Pöhlke, a German police officer and dog handler in Baden-Württemberg, killed eight people in the Stuttgart/Ludwigsburg region and carried out a series of bank robberies before taking his own life during the investigation.

When 10-year-old Ursula Herrmann vanished from her family's garden in Bavaria in 1981, no one could find her. Three years later, she was discovered dead in a homemade underground prison in the woods. It wasn't until 2008 that pioneering voice analysis led to the conviction of her neighbor.

In 1995, 17-year-old Birgitte Tengs was found raped and brutally murdered on the Norwegian island of Karmøy. Nearly three decades later, advances in DNA technology promised answers—but instead exposed systemic flaws in how genetic evidence is interpreted by courts.

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.

Albert DeSalvo confessed in 1965 to being the Boston Strangler, responsible for at least 11 murders across the Boston area between June 1962 and January 1964. Yet he was never charged with any of those killings, and his confession never reached a courtroom—a legal peculiarity that would haunt the case for generations.

In January 2009, Bob Chappell disappeared from his yacht in Tasmania, Australia. His de facto partner, Susan Neill-Fraser, was convicted of his murder in 2010 despite the absence of a body, witnesses, weapon, or confession. Now, with an appeal based on fresh evidence pending, the case has become the subject of intense scrutiny.