Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they earn the label crime of the century.

But the stories that made headlines in decades past aren't necessarily remembered today.

I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author.

And in each episode of this show, I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today,

but was huge when it happened. This is crimes of the centuries. As soon as he walked inside the crime scene on an independent stay in

1954, County coroner Samuel Gerber knew what he was dealing with. The victim was a young pregnant wife, viciously

beaten in her bedroom on the second floor of her upscale suburban home. The

brutality of it was overwhelming. The poor woman's head and face were covered with deep crescent-shaped cuts.

In the bedroom, it looked like someone had walked in with a bucket full of paint and splashed it all around.

Yet the other rooms of the house looked stilted, staged.

A doctor's valise stood on its end, its content spilled onto the floor a bit too perfectly.

Drawers in the living room were neatly stacked rather than ransacked, like you would expect

from an intruder.

And then there was the husband with this bizarre story about an intruder with

bushy hair who managed to knock him unconscious twice.

Come on now.

It was the husband, obviously. And that man was no stranger to Gerber who didn't

doubt for a second that the guy was capable of murder. With all this in mind, Gerber was appalled at how sloppy the police

work had been at the crime scene, how pally the local police were with a

prime suspect. Here was a guy undoubtedly guilty of murder and yet the

investigators on scene seemed to be looking in other directions. What a waste of

time. Gerber's set out to put an end to that.

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