Cold Cases

In the mid-1980s Los Angeles is in the midst of a serial killer boom. But that’s not all. A serial arsonist has been setting blazes across the area, leading to millions of dollars in damage and the deaths of four people. Most of the fires started in bins of pillows, cushion stuffing, or bedding — lending the “Pillow Pyro” moniker to the slippery culprit.

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In the spring of 1971, a killer begins kidnapping young Black girls off the streets in Washington, D.C. He strangles them, leaves their bodies on the sides of busy roads, then ropes victims’ families and the police into a grim game of cat-and-mouse. Just when it seems he’s gone for good, he returns.

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Thirty years ago, an outgoing college student vanished in the middle of the night off a freeway in Newport Beach, California. Her car was found abandoned, a tire popped, and the battery dead. For a while, a 30-foot-long banner hung from the top of a nearby building, posing one question: Have you seen Denise Huber?

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You might think a confession, a conviction, even an execution might spell the end of a case. Not always. John Wayne Gacy spent six years murdering dozens of boys and young men, burying their remains under his house. By the time investigators recovered their corpses, they were unrecognizable — anonymous sons, slaughtered by a serial killer. Two men worked for decades to give them back their names.

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After SMU student Angela Samota is brutally murdered in her own home, police tap her best friend to elicit a confession from their prime suspect. But ultimately, Angela’s case runs cold. Twenty years later, Sheila Wysocki proves her role isn’t over yet, going to extraordinary lengths to reopen her friend’s file. The question is: After so much time has passed, is there anything left to uncover?

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Just a mile off Interstate 45 in League City, Texas, an abandoned oil field holds the weight of a community’s grief. This is where the remains of four young women were found over the course of seven years. Today we follow the disappearance of 16-year-old Laura Miller to its gruesome end, and trace her father’s crusade to catch an elusive killer.

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When the leads dry up, the trail goes cold, and you’re left without answers… How do you find justice? Every week, revisit a crime that went unsolved for decades. Some weeks, forensic breakthroughs close the case for good. Others, we’ll still be left searching for the truth. Cold Cases is a Spotify Original from Parcast. New episodes Mondays. 

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