180. Two Cold Cases Police Thought Would Never Be Solved (And How They Were Cracked This Year)

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They call it the golden age of DNA testing, and this year, two cases that police thought would never be solved finally cracked open. But the answers were nothing anyone expected.

August 1990, Houston. A white Honda Civic sits abandoned at the end of a cul-de-sac on the city's edge. The keys are in the ignition, a woman's purse is on the floorboard, and blood is smeared down both doors. What detectives find in the woods beyond that car would become known as the Lovers' Lane murders, and the case would go cold for over three decades, broken only by a DNA hit decades later.

November 1991, Placer County, California. A devoted young mother vanishes mid-morning while cleaning her sister's house, leaving her infant daughter crying in a high chair and her purse the only thing missing. There's no sign of struggle. No witnesses. Just a single cigarette butt on the walkway. When her body is finally found weeks later, the medical examiner makes a discovery more chilling than the murder itself.

Two cases. Two killers who were never once on police's radar. And two breakthroughs driven by DNA technology that didn't exist when the crimes were committed. 

CW:  sexual assault, murder, kidnapping, brief references to violence against a child, and suicide.

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