The First 48

A wall of silence from a frightened community hampers efforts to solve a brutal murder; and a mother of two is shot execution-style in her kitchen in an affluent neighborhood. In a visual style more like drama than reality show, we tail Miami homicide investigators as they race time to solve these murders. Who're the suspects? Are the detectives right?

LOCATION: MIAMI In the first case, OVERKILL, Miami homicide sergeant Joe Schillaci and his team of investigators are dispatched to a brutal case of overkill. A young man has just been gunned down in broad daylight on a crowded street. He's been shot numerous times to the head, not far from a busy apartment complex filled with children. It's in a part of town where drug dealers and thugs rule the streets. Detectives have just 48 hours to find a witness willing to talk before threats and intimidation take hold of the neighborhood. In the second case, LEFT FOR DEAD, an unidentified man has been found shot and brutally beaten in an empty parking lot. When he dies in the hospital hours later, a cigar-chomping veteran detective Manny De La Torriente and his rookie partner Jose Rodriguez must act quickly to unravel the mystery. But with an unidentified victim and no physical evidence, investigators have their work cut out for them.

In Kansas City, two veteran detectives tackle a mysterious case of a young woman brutally murdered in a snowy cul-de-sac; and a female homicide sergeant and her all-male team investigate the murder of a man shot and dumped in a bucolic park. As these detectives race against time during the critical first hours of their investigations, they must enter a dark subculture of drugs, guns, and buried safes.

Kansas City investigators track down two suspects and must convince one of them to give up his own father, and detectives must rely on inhabitants of a drug-ridden area to help solve a murder.

A victim's body is burned beyond recognition; witnesses to a murder refuse to talk to police.

Police try to convince the frightened residents of a Miami housing project known as the "Pork and Beans" to help them track down the man who's been terrorizing the community. But after the third murder in a month, no one even calls 911. Sergeant Joe Schillaci heads the homicide team that must crack the mystery and convince the frightened residents to come forward with information that will help them catch the predator before he kills again.

The detectives must track down the killers of an Ice Rink employee and a body floating in the canal. The detectives have a tough job ahead of them as they try to find the elusive murderers.

LOCATION: DALLAS In Dallas, a motorist discovers a man's body alongside the highway— with his genitals on fire. The investigation propels detectives on an odyssey through a rowdy world of Texas prostitutes and drugs. And when a hard working Mexican migrant supporting his young family is found dead in a parking lot, detectives can't find a motive. As their investigation deepens, they must navigate a complex web of family ties and loyalties to identify the killer ... and catch him before he flees the country.

Detectives Dillian and Jewell join forensic anthropologist Laura Fulginiti to determine the identity of a female skeleton found in the desert. And the shooting of a teenager at a high-school party puts Detectives Rodriguez and Kulesa on the trail of a shooter wearing a ski mask.

Miami homicide detective Mayree Morin and her team, who find a man who's been shot assassination-style at least a dozen times, must move fast to find the killer before he slips away. And the murder of a celebrated doctor's son leads veteran detective Ervens Ford and his rookie partner Kevin Ruggiero down a shady path of halfway houses and strip clubs.

Hours after a jealous stripper vows revenge, her two-timing boyfriend is shot and killed. But the girlfriend is not the shooter, and it's up to Detective Tom Kulesa of Phoenix PD to unravel the mystery. And when a young father is dragged screaming from his bed in the middle of the night and gunned down in his doorway, Detective Mike Polk must figure out fact from fiction in witnesses' stories before the killers' trail grows cold.

When Phoenix homicide Detective Tom Kulesa realizes a potential witness to a double murder has gone missing, he must race against time to stop another vicious killing; and in Detroit, Sergeant Jo Ann Kinney must turn to forensics to solve the murder of a man found dead in a brand new Cadillac Escalade.

LOCATION: MIAMI In Miami, when a hard-working store worker is cut down in a hail of gunfire, a veteran Sgt. Pepi Granado and his team must turn to a silent witness--the store's video surveillance system, which caught the entire murder on tape; and in Detroit, Sgt. Jo Ann Kinney and Detective Ed Williams tackle the case of a young couple found brutally killed in their house and learn that the victims knew their killer. They must track down reluctant witnesses deep in the narcotics game...before their killer has a chance to get away.