Cold Case Files: Dead West

8.0

2025•43m

In the ruggedness of the American West, death is always a shadow over the shoulder: a grizzly bear encounter, an avalanche, or a bite from a rattlesnake can change everything in an instant; and those are just the natural threats. If one wants to get away with murder, the mountain ranges of the West may be the perfect place to do it. Peering into the dusty files found in the back country sheriff's offices and highlighting the cases that were deemed unsolvable because the crime scene was too rugged, too remote, or the victim assumed too hard to find; despite the odds in this landscape, justice prevails.

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Seasons

6 Episodes • Premiered 2025

1. Mystery in Cuero

When Pam Shelly, 31, is found in her Cuero, Texas bathroom with a fatal gunshot wound to the head, her death is initially ruled a suicide. Yet a tenacious investigator's instincts and his suspicion of foul play eventually cracks the case wide open.

2. Thou Shalt Not Kill

When a Christian ranch hand, Dan Lavigne, 52, is shot dead on his porch in Montana, 2002, deputies find no shortage of suspects. What follows is an 8-year quest for justice that stretches across three states before police finally unmask Dan's killer.

3. Rocky Mountain Murder

In the shadow of the Rockies, Carolyn Jansen, 43, is found dead, stuffed into a duct-taped container. Detectives have two suspects but no clear way to tell who the killer is. Forensics, and a fearless DA, will finally reveal Carolyn's murderer.

4. Murder in the City of Saints

When beloved matriarch Sherry Black, 64, is murdered in her rare-books store in Salt Lake City, investigators suspect theft as the motive. The case goes cold until her daughter teams with a wily investigator to bring Sherry's killer to justice.

5. Lovers, Lies and Canyon Murder

In 1987 Carol Murphy, 28, is found by hikers slain in a wooded area of Lefthand Canyon, Colorado. Police uncover a turbulent love life and plenty of suspects in this Western enclave. It will take 20 years and a new technology to finally solve her murder.

6. The Death of Lavender Doe

When a mystery woman's burning body is found in an oil field in 2006, the rural community of Kilgore and a determined Texas lawman show why you don't mess with the Lone Star State. It takes 13 years to ID this Lavender Doe and nab her callous killer.