In 1998, an unthinkable crime rocked farm community Portageville, Missouri. Sherri Scherer and her 12 year old daughter Megan were shot and killed, and Megan was sexually assaulted, in their own home in a 41 minute window of time. A massive investigation into one of the state’s most heinous crimes ensued. And soon, with the discovery of more and more crimes, the investigation would burgeon into a multi-state investigative effort to catch a killer. Finally, forensic genealogy using DNA collected from an adolescent rape survivor provided answers to the questions that had haunted investigators and families in Missouri, Tennessee, and South Carolina. But many fear that these crimes were just the tip of the iceberg for the monster that was Robert Brashers.

In 1986, the body of a man was pulled from Crater Lake in Montgomery TX 40 miles North of Houston. It soon became clear to investigators that he was the victim of a homicide having been shot multiple times, and his body weighed down with cinder blocks. Due to the injuries the man had suffered along with the water exposure and decomposition, police were unable to ID the man. He did have a couple tattoos, but it was not enough to help police give him his name back. Somehow, police came to believe that the dead man went by the street name "New York Billy' but they didn't have much else, and he was laid to rest; buried with little hope of him ever being identified, or his killer caught. Years later as DNA Science evolved, police exhumed the man's body and used genealogy to finally ID him after decades. It turned out that New York Billy was actually Clarence Wilson who would have been 34 years old when he was found. He was living in Texas after a falling out with family back in Modesto, CA. He was last known by his family to be alive in 1985.

Sometime between 10:30 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. on the night of July 6-7, 1985, someone entered the house she was staying at and stabbed Jane 54 year old Jane Hylton 29 times. Police set their sights on the most likely suspect – another resident of the house, 20 year old Ricky Davis. It was just too far-fetched to believe that someone else random had come along and killed Jane, and Ricky was arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to prison. But when the Northern California Innocence Project took up his case, they found untested DNA evidence. And this evidence would change everything. Forensic genealogy showed that Ricky was innocent – and someone else entirely was to blame for Jane’s vicious murder.