This is exactly right.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator whose work some of America's most complicated cases

and solve them.

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.

Some are solved and some are cold, very cold. This is buried bones.

Music Hey, Paul. Hey, Kate. How are you?

I'm doing well. We are getting into a really big, big, big case that has about 2,000 FBI files in it, which is a big case, a lot of reviewing.

And you said you're pretty good at skimming through those sorts of files. So is that just practice or do you have method?

Because I have thousands of things in research?

I have to skim through, so give me some tips.

Well, you know, this is understanding how case files are typically constructed.

You know, from the beginning of the case where you have the initial report coming in and that's typically taken by patrol.

And depending on how old the case, often those

were handwritten reports. And then investigations gets pulled in that night, and now you have

the investigative supplements, you have crime scenes, you have autopsy, you have, you know,

and many agencies do a poor job at actually organizing their documents.

However, law enforcement, even though it's not standardized, you know, 14,000 different agencies,

you know, they use different forms, but generally forms for property records, you know,

property lists, forms related to electronic communications

...