The Prosecutors: In Pursuit of Justice

When 27-year-old David Wahl disappears without a trace from a state park in Oregon, he leaves behind a distraught family and a host of unanswered questions. Months later and 100 miles north, Wahl’s body washes ashore. The death is ruled an accident, until a shocking admission by his girlfriend leads to criminal charges. District Attorney Joshua Marquis takes on one of the nation’s foremost authorities on coerced false confessions in a battle that will either bring justice for a grieving family or freedom for an accused killer.

The disappearance of seven-year-old Amanda Brown from her Florida home sparks a massive search effort by dozens of law enforcement agencies and hundreds of concerned citizens. While the search for the missing girl continues, investigators look into the history of the last man to see her alive, and make a chilling discovery. When an examination of the suspect’s home reveals blood evidence, and DNA analysis confirms it was Amanda’s, murder charges are filed. Her body is never found. Assistant State Attorneys Jay Pruner and Chris Moody will have to prove to the jury not only that a murder has been committed, but also that the man seated before them is the killer.

The community of Dover, Delaware is shocked when human body parts turn up throughout the city. Authorities determine that the remains are all from the same victim, but it will take the best forensic scientists in the country to make a positive identification. State Prosecutor Eugene Hall spearheads a massive effort to find the killer, and to prosecute an unlikely suspect in a case that hinges entirely on circumstantial evidence.

In 1992, gang activity in Chicago is on the rise. With local law enforcement unable to curb the growing drug trade and its resulting violence, a multi-agency task force headed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Safer focuses on one of the city’s most vicious street gangs, the Gangster Disciples. The investigation reveals that one man rules the 35,000-member gang from behind bars. To rid the streets of the Gangster Disciples and the drugs and violence they bring, Safer and his team will have to put an end to the reign of its leader, Larry Hoover.

For many teenagers, their first jobs are at fast-food restaurants. Parents feel that these are safe environments for their children. That image is shattered when seven employees of three different fast-food restaurants in the Nashville, Tennessee area are murdered over a two-month period in 1997. Months of investigation reveal a Texas parolee as the prime suspect after he is thwarted in an attempt to abduct his former restaurant employer. Prosecutors have to piece together the few clues left at the grisly crime scenes to prevent Paul Dennis Reid from killing again.

A community is horrified when seven trick-or-treaters in Pasadena, California are sprayed with gunfire on Halloween night in 1993, leaving three young boys dead. Investigators rely on forensic clues, eyewitness accounts, and street informants to find the killers, three gang members bent on avenging a friend’s death. Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Antony Myers leads the prosecution and paints a picture of that harrowing night; a picture that he hopes will lead the jury to decide that the defendants are guilty of capital murder.

An evening of pick-up basketball in Houston turns tragic when prosecutor Gil Epstein is murdered in a community center parking lot. Investigators depend on anonymous tips and hazy eyewitness accounts to track down a killer. District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal leads a prosecution team whose chances for a conviction are put in jeopardy by a single holdout juror.

When the death rate at a rural Indiana hospital skyrockets, an investigation implicates a nurse, Orville Lynn Majors. State Police are left with a daunting task. In order to conclude that Majors is a serial killer, police first have to first figure out if the deaths were murders and then determine how he killed the patients. A two-year, $1.6 million investigation ends with the arrest of Majors on seven counts of murder. With the statistical evidence that spawned the investigation barred from court, prosecutors Greg Carter and Nina Alexander will have a difficult time convincing the jury of Majors’ guilt, and putting an end to his deadly medicine.

When a mother and her infant daughter disappear from rural Huntsville, Texas, suspicion quickly falls on the woman’s husband. Lacking evidence, authorities cannot make an arrest. With the case growing cold, a teenager hundreds of miles away confesses to the murder of Margaret and Kori Rae Owings. Prosecutor David Weeks builds a capital murder case around the confession, but defense attorneys argue that it was illegally obtained. It will take the United States Supreme Court to decide whether an admitted murderer will go free.

On Memorial Day Weekend 1996, a woman’s body is discovered in a storm drain in Marietta, Ohio. Police eventually identify the woman as college student Sheree Petry and begin to focus the investigation on one suspect, Dennis Rydbom, who had been spurned by the victim. But with little evidence, no arrest can be made. When a second search of Rydbom’s residence turns up Sheree’s personal belongings, he is arrested and charged with her murder. With a completely circumstantial case, prosecutors Ginny Conley and Scott Durig have to prove Dennis Rydbom believed that if he could not have Sheree Petry, then no one else would either.

When firefighters in suburban Indianapolis are called to a house fire, what they find inside shocks the entire community, a respected minister and his wife have been murdered with an ax. An exhaustive investigation leads authorities to a teenage church member and his accomplice. Prosecutors Carole Johnson and Gary Chavers make a deal with the accomplice to testify against his friend, but when the case goes to the jury, confusion over a point of law puts the killer’s possible murder conviction in jeopardy.

A string of rapes spanning two decades goes unsolved in Jacksonville, Florida, until Detective Diana Clarke finds a link among the crimes and discovers that a serial rapist is terrorizing the community. After a suspect is finally arrested, Detective Clarke teams up with Prosecutor Libby Senterfitt to track down the rapist’s victims and convince them to testify. But facing their attacker in open court proves too difficult for some of the terrified women. Unless prosecutors can convince them to testify, it may be impossible to rid Jacksonville’s streets of a dangerous predator.

A robbery and double homicide at a grocery store in Raleigh, North Carolina shocks the community. With little evidence left behind, and no eyewitnesses, the investigation stalls. Then a tip to authorities implicates a store employee in another robbery and leads Prosecutor Evelyn Hill to believe that that employee, and his brother, committed the murders. Using state-of-the-art forensic technology and the testimony of a third brother, Hill hopes to convince a jury of the brothers’ guilt. But the stakes are raised when the defendants attempt to cheat the system, and put themselves back on the streets.

A shoot-out in a church in Northern Virginia leads authorities to the home of an ex-FBI agent out for revenge. When an unwitting accomplice comes forward, investigators begin to understand the scope and complexity of the man’s scheme to get back at his estranged wife. In the ensuing investigation, police uncover numerous packages containing explosives throughout the northern Virginia area. It will be up to Prosecutors James Willett and Paul Ebert to convince a jury that these were not the acts of an undercover agent driven to insanity, but the work of a devious criminal bent on murdering the wife who scorned him.

On the morning of January 23, 1994, a slumber party in Alvin, Texas becomes the scene of a terrible tragedy when 2 1/2-year-old Renee Goode is discovered dead. The mother of the child accuses her estranged husband, but when the medical examiner rules the death undetermined, the investigation draws to a close. The girl’s vigilant mother and grandmother mount an investigation of their own and are soon joined by a detective and Brazoria County Assistant District Attorney Jeri Yenne. It will be up to them to find the cause of the young girl’s death and bring to justice the man responsible, Michael Shane Goode, her own father.

A loving mother disappears without explanation in Arlington, Texas. Investigators suspect foul play but search fruitlessly for any sign of her whereabouts. When investigators discover a link between the woman’s disappearance and another murder nearly two decades earlier, they contact Prosecutor Sandy Gately. It will be up to her to re-open a 16-year-old case and work with limited evidence to bring bring to justice a criminal responsible for multiple murders.

On September 18, 1985, the life of a small-town bank president is shattered when he receives a call from an unknown man who has kidnapped his wife. The kidnapper demands a ransom for her safe return. When local police respond to the home, they find the woman dead, shot seven times. The FBI is called in and an intense investigation ensues. The case is broken when a man comes forward with the murder weapon, leading to two arrests. With the testimony of one of the co-conspirators and a mountain of circumstantial evidence, it would be up to Assistant District Attorneys Sam Ponder and Charlie Strauss to prove that Lesley Lee Gosch was the mastermind of the extortion plot, and a remorseless murderer.