Hunting for Evil

June dawns over this proud nation fresh with promise and the hint of better days. We are looking forward to catching up with friends and sharing all of our news. There is just one problem: for most of us, our ‘news’ is that we’ve spent a year eating biscuits on the sofa.

So, what do we talk about? Telly, of course. That’s what everyone always talks about, because it’s brilliant! So why not go armed with details of the most riveting, gripping and astonishing true crime series on television, Evidence of Evil, on CBS Reality? This is the documentary series that explores cutting-edge DNA profiling and other forensic techniques that have changed the course of criminal investigations, showcasing the hard work and dedication of investigators, police, forensic scientists, and other experts in their fields, as they bring the perpetrators to justice.

Evidence of Evil looks at some of the more engrossing and calculated crimes encountered by American law enforcement in the last 30 years, and examines the extraordinary means they employed to catch the perpetrators. This June, CBS Reality premieres new episodes from its third season. [Health and safety warning: these episodes will have viewers on the edge of their seats – it might be wise to put some cushions on the floor.]

Evidence of Evil: Tortured for Love follows a 2018 case that began when police in Chandler, Arizona, chased up a welfare check request, only to discover a woman barely alive after a brutal assault in her own home. Her assailant was arrested in what police assumed was an all-too-common case of spousal abuse – but their investigation took a gruesome turn that saw them looking into the possibility of two other victims. When forensic technicians looked through the perpetrator’s belongings, his audio recordings and computer searches unveiled a more complex plan, which spread further and deeper than the police could have ever imagined.

Another new episode, Highway of Horror, follows a story that began in September 2017 when the dead body of a young woman called Shelby Weatherly was found by the side of a highway near Castle Rock, Colorado. Police discovered a distressing crime scene, but little else. There was no obvious motive, and no immediate suspect – but the investigators were hopeful that items collected at the scene may have contained traces of the suspect’s DNA. This captivating film reveals how a dedicated team of experts was able to reconstruct events leading up to Weatherly’s brutal murder, and bring her killer to justice.

Still in Colorado, we go to the city of Boulder, back in 1993, for the hunt for The Tantra Rapist. In September of that year, police received a call from an apartment complex in the south east of the city, with a woman reporting she had been raped. The subsequent investigation unearthed evidence that this was not the first attack at that location, and as police widened their search, they were able to link it to other attacks from the past decade, spanning Colorado and Texas. Eventually, they encountered an individual with an erratic and unpredictable lifestyle…but could DNA prove this was their perpetrator?

In September 2015, a young mother and her son went missing from their home in Orem, Utah, a small community south of Salt Lake City. The boy’s father reported them missing when they didn’t turn up for a custody exchange. As the investigation progressed, it took a sinister turn, and police became convinced that the pair had been murdered – by someone close to them. When forensic investigators cross-examined the victims’ mobile phones with CCTV footage, they uncovered a far more duplicitous plan then they could have imagined.

Each episode of this meticulously researched and compelling series uses key witness testimony, new interviews, reconstructed sequences and archive footage to tell the story of how dogged police work and forensic genius have helped solve some of the most baffling and downright evil crimes in American law enforcement history.

So draw the blinds, pop the telly on, and completely immerse yourself in each investigation on CBS Reality. It’s TV that’s really worth talking about.

"Evidence of Evil” airs weeknights at 10pm from 7th – 18th June on CBS Reality Freeview (66), Sky (146), Virgin (148) and Freesat (135)

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