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Forensic Files
1996 · TV series · documentary · 23 min episodes · 14 seasons
Real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world are solved by experts using scientific laboratory analysis which helps them find previously undetectable evidence. Brilliant scientific work helps convict the guilty and free the innocent.
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13 comments on Hacker News
I'm a bit of a Forensic Files nerd, so I worked on a little side project a while back to pull the transcripts from several episodes, use entity recognition to categorize people, places, things, etc, and load them into a Neo4j database (via Cypher queries). It turns out there's something called the POLE data model[1] that can be used by law enforcement to help solve crimes. You load all the details into a graph database and evaluate the relationships to aid in solving crimes. I suppose you could argue a criminal investigation is essentially graph traversal.
[1] https://neo4j.com/blog/government/graph-technology-pole-position-law-enforcement/
Edit: typo
Fingerprinting, fire foresenics, hair analysis, every kind of sniffing dog (except corpse/person). If you want to have a good time sometime, look up all the various branches of criminal "science" and find out how many have any substantial backing in real science, then go watch an episode of CSI or Forensic Files and count how much of what's discussed with such grandiosity is utter bullshit.
Looks like someone has uploaded some episodes of Forensic Files, as well as other crime-related shows, to YouTube.
Forensic Files, on the Headline News Network - though they seem to have given up on the 'News' part of their programming recently, shows crime reenactments with narration and comments from people related to the episode's incident in question.
Reminds me of the Maury Travis case. Documented in the Forensic Files episode "X Marks the Spot". "Shear Luck" is another memorable episode about a suspect who cut up a floppy disk containing evidence.
Edit: Just remembered another episode called "Ticker Tape", which is of a similar theme.
Even though I have an appreciation for some true crime content, I've come to really loathe most of it. Long ago, I was obsessed with Forensic Files, Unsolved Mysteries, etc. This was of course back before true crime podcasts and Netflix documentaries. I also got interested in forensics, criminal psychology, and helping to try and identify and locate decedents/missing people. My heart genuinely goes out to victims. But witnessing from afar the worst aspects of humanity eventually took a toll on me. That combined with the absolute state of the news media convinced me to quit consuming that stuff all together. I truly think it should be microdosed only, if at all.
What makes me loathe it now is I can see the psychological impact it has on others. I won't name names, but I've known a fair share of women who got into the new wave of true crime content and have significantly skewed views on men as a result. Women should be well aware of what a man is capable of and what to do to mitigate risk, but true crime content can create this picture that more men are criminally capable than is actually the case. Simultaneously, entirely from the women I know who watch true crime, I hear views suggesting that the common man is too weak or incompetent to intervene and stop bad men, which is also not representative. I'm only being vague here because if any of these people happen to read my comments, they'll know I'm talking about them, but others won't know.
Some may disagree with my perspective, but it's my honest impression. I've seen women in my life who are family members and colleagues get into true crime content and notice their views shift as a result. If it's said that porn can damage the views that men have of women, surely it's not such a large leap to believe that watching women get victimized over and over again by a small minority can impact one's views on men without even realizing it.
When there are violent struggles, it's not actually that uncommon for bite marks to be present on victim or assistant.
*Source - I've seen lots of episodes of Forensic Files.
I agree. Though slightly off topic, Forensic Files was pretty biased. The educational aspect mostly makes up for it, but they make forensic science appear way more rock solid than it was back at the time. Many of the crimes featured were solved because the perpetrator was so incompetent. But every episode had to end with something along the lines of "this would have been the perfect crime if not for the science!"
Would be nice to have a show like that again with a similar format but eased back on the law enforcement propaganda.
> I’m bored of Netflix. They have simply gone the assembly line direction instead of the direction of art, at least for some big niches. For example, every True Crime docuseries on Netflix is the same crap.
My benchmark for this genre is Forensic Files. I have yet to find another one that is this concise and informative.
I'm a big fan of a show called "Forensic Files", which is like a real-life CSI where each episode is a documentary and only takes 20 minutes (I highly recommend).
In addition to the the usual passion killings and random murders, there is the occasional criminal that thinks they are way smarter than everyone else and doubles or triples down even as the noose is tightening, because they 100% believe they are geniuses and will get away with it.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVVL_U4BTGs
In this episode a member of Mensa, who enjoyed staging murder mystery dinner parties for his Mensa friends, poisoned his neighbor over loud music and barking dogs, and thought he was such a criminal mastermind that he could talk his way out of it. These people have mental disorders.
There is still a set of people that like their local news a lot. Or don't want to figure out the piecemeal way to get access to their cooking show, some current ABC/NBC/CBS show, BBC America, old episodes of Forensic Files, etc, from X different places. Though I agree, I do see it dying out.
Well, if that ever happens in your future, I'm sure your comment will be used as evidence against you in court :)
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd definitely recommend you don't "take the law into your own hands." I've seen more than enough episodes of Forensic Files to know that very intelligent people can play back an attack and put it together no matter how counterintuitive it seems.
A friend recently moved into a new apartment. She only got 4 channels, one of which almost exclusively shows American Greed and Forensic Files. I've been pleasantly surprised by how interesting the show is! It's particularly interesting when you see episodes that happened within a couple hours of wherever you live.