The 15 Best Dateline Episodes Of All Time Ranked

The following article contains mentions of domestic abuse, sexual assault, child abuse, and violence.

With over 32 seasons of Dateline, there are over 2,720 total episodes of the news magazine reality show, but the best Dateline episodes are those that deal with the most compelling, complex, and longstanding cases. The series’ real-life exposés on crimes, criminals, and their victims have been captivating audiences since the 90s, and shows no sign of slowing down – despite increasing competition in other true-crime formats. From true-crime books to documentaries, and of course, the proliferation of the podcast format of true-crime stories, there is an embarrassment of true-crime riches available today – which also means that some have forgotten the original true-crime series.

Long before podcasts were even an idea and HBO and Netflix were filled with true-crime documentaries, Keith Morrison, Lester Holt, Josh Mankiewicz, and a host of other anchors and correspondents were detailing gruesome and ghoulish crimes for the NBC series that premiered in March 1992. In each episode of the long-running show, a sensationalized story from the news is presented. The best Dateline episodes of the series generally come from the most fascinating and horrifying news stories that have a mystery or an intriguing character at the center.

Most episodes of
Dateline
are available to stream on Peacock.

Conduct Unbecoming

Season 19, Episode 32

The vast majority of Dateline episodes focus on crimes that take place within the United States. It makes sense considering that is where the news program and its correspondents are based. Every so often, however, the series tells the audience the twisting story of something that happened in another country.

Such is the case in “Conduct Unbecoming” which focuses on the stories of several different women who had intimate items and clothing stolen from their homes in the Canadian province of Ontario. Initially, it seems like the episode is recounting several disconnected cases, but they’re all actually linked by the same man, who is eventually charged with breaking and entering, sexual assault, and murder.

Part of the reason this episode is so fascinating for those interested in true crime stories is because it examines how a person’s criminal activity can escalate over years. Former Royal Canadian Air Force colonel David Russell Williams is someone whose story initially sounds impossible. He managed to break into more than 80 different homes and steal items from women, wearing those items as trophies, before he graduated to more violent crimes.

14 Scorned

Season 26, Episode 1

Dateline shows everyone who has an interest in understanding murder cases that sometimes real life is even stranger than fiction. Love triangles are often the subjects of romantic comedies, but in reality, they’re not entertaining, and in this case, prove deadly.

The case in this episode centers around single mom Cari Farver who disappears after dating a new man for a few weeks who happens to have a very jealous ex. After her disappearance, the man gets disturbing texts and emails supposedly from Farver herself. So does Farver’s mother and the man’s ex – for three years. The twists and turns in the case are strange and, ultimately, heartbreaking.

Like many of the episodes that sparked the interest of the public, this is one Dateline case that is also available to listen to on Dateline’s podcast series. Netflix also crafted their own documentary about the case called Lover, Stalker, Killer.

13 The Pink Skirt Plot

Season 28, Episode 4

There are quite a few cases explored in Dateline over the years that don’t highlight a straightforward investigation of a few months. Many of the episodes chronicle investigations that can take years. This one takes nearly 15.

This investigation is definitely one of perseverance and patience.

Adam Joel Anhang Uster and his estranged wife Áurea Vázquez-Rijos were leaving the Pink Skirt Club in Puerto Rico when they were attacked in 2005. Uster bore the brunt of the attack and died from the altercation while his wife ended up with only minor injuries. Multiple people were examined as suspects, and one was even arrested and found guilty in court, only to later be exonerated as an investigation continued to see if his estranged wife was involved in the case.

She fled Puerto Rico and settled in Europe, eventually ending up in Italy. Her globetrotting created a difficult investigative trail to follow and meant she couldn’t be arrested for over a decade. This investigation is definitely one of perseverance and patience.

12 At The Bottom Of The Lake

Season 27, Episode 3

“At The Bottom Of The Lake” is one of the most interesting Dateline episodes because the criminal investigation it tracks over more than two decades will leave the audience wondering if it’s actually murder or simply a mistake that a young man tries to outrun.

The episode focuses on the case of a young woman found in a Cessna plane in a lake in Montana, drowned, and abandoned there by the plane’s pilot in 1982. It took more than 20 years before the man, who had since changed his name and built a new life for himself, was found. The story, however, is that the two were going to run away together, eloping, and when they ended up in the lake, he couldn’t free her from the plane. The authorities, however, believe that is a lie.

When correspondent Keith Morrison spoke about the episode with Great Falls Tribune right before it originally aired, he called it, “the most interesting and bizarre story I have ever done,” at least at the time. He also said there was so much information to go through over the course of the investigation (which Dateline had been following since 2006) that he wasn’t sure it would all fit into their two-hour window to tell the story.

11 The Secret In Black Rock Canyon

Season 32, Episode 28

This Dateline episode is for those who see horror movies as cautionary tales. It’s very much the kind of real-life event that inspires a slasher movie, but it’s a tragedy in the life of a teenage girl.

Cassie Jo Stoddart house sits for someone, invites her boyfriend over to watch a movie with her, and is later murdered. Because her boyfriend is the last known person to see her alive, he’s the initial suspect. He tells investigators about a pair of friends who also came over to see Stoddart while she was house-sitting, and it’s those two teenage boys who are ultimately found guilty thanks to a videotape of them recounting their crimes.

Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik were both lovers of horror who wanted to experience what it was like to be the killer in a horror story. They recorded themselves right before and right after the murder, giving both authorities and the audience a horrifying glimpse into their actions.

This episode is also explored further in the
Talking Dateline
podcast in which Andrea Canning and Keith Morrison discuss the case and reveal some things that didn’t make it into the episode that aired on television.

10 The Night Before Halloween

Dateline: Secrets Uncovered; Season 10, Episode 65

“The Night Before Halloween” explores an investigation that spans 23 years. Robin Lucille Hoynes of Whittier, California was found dead on the morning of Oct. 31, 1984, in the KFC restaurant where she was an assistant manager. The body was found with stab wounds in her back and her throat slashed, and no one knew who exactly had committed the horrific crime.

William Charles Marshall was fired just a few days before the murder and was an immediate suspect. However, the investigation didn’t turn up any evidence, and he was released. Then, 19 years later, the case was reopened. In a thrilling and surprising turn of events, an old piece of evidence, a piece of foam, was tied back to Marshall’s boot.

This, combined with a witness recanting their original testimony, eventually led to Marshall being found guilty by a jury. It’s a long and sad story for the friends and family of Hoynes, but that justice was eventually served does make for a small silver lining.

9 Dead Man Talking

Season 31, Episode 29

Nicholas Alahverdian is one of the strangest and most frightening characters to appear on Dateline. His tale includes sexual assault, a faked death, and the COVID-19 pandemic, making it one of those Dateline episodes that feels stranger than fiction. In 2018, when Utah began processing backlogged sexual assault kits, one came up as a positive match for Alahverdian, in a case from 2008.

At around the same time, Alahverdian was being investigated for credit card fraud and domestic abuse. Then on February 29, 2020, it was announced that Alahverdian had passed away due to complications with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and COVID-19, only for him to be discovered hiding in Glasgow, Scotland.

“Dead Man Talking” may not be the most abhorrent
Dateline
story, but Alahverdian is one of its most captivating villains.

It’s a twisting, unbelievable tale and Alahverdian comes out looking both monstrous and brazenly untruthful, lying about the smallest facts of his life. “Dead Man Talking” may not be the most abhorrent Dateline story, but Alahverdian is one of its most captivating villains.

8 Haunting

Season 25, Episode 24

In “Haunting”, there are two double murder cases, both equally brutal and shocking. In the first, a doctor, William Hunter, came back to his house in Omaha, Nebraska to discover his son Thomas and his 57-year-old housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman, dead. Both had been stabbed by knives found in the kitchen.

When investigators assigned to the case visited another murder scene, that of Roger and Mary Brumback, they found the bodies killed similarly to Hunter and Sherman. Thanks to some eyewitness accounts, Anthony Garcia was investigated, and it was discovered that Garcia had recently been removed from Creighton Pathology, where Hunter and Brumback both worked.

He targeted these doctors, considering them the reason behind his firing. The truth of who Garcia is and the relationship between the victims (and a possible third one) makes the episode a tense and shocking watch all the way through.

7 Along Came Sarah

Season 31, Episode 30

Sarah Jean Hartsfield is the star of “Along Came Sarah”, a 2023 story about the titular woman who left a long string of deaths in her wake. Hartsfield has been married five times, engaged once more, and two of her partners have ended up dead. The most recent death occurred in February 2023. Joseph Hartsfield was admitted to the hospital with a suspicious illness and quickly passed away.

Though Sarah seemed distraught, the ER nurse thought that the chemical levels in Joseph’s body implied something had been done to him, prompting her to call the police. Sarah was then arrested and charged with murder, leading to the reopening of another investigation involving Sarah’s previous husband, David Bragg.

Sarah shot and killed her husband in May 2018, but she was cleared of any wrongdoing after the murder was determined to be made in self-defense. It’s a fascinating look at Sarah and, despite her facade, the Dateline episode paints her as calculating, cold, and almost a puppet master in her dealings with her previous husbands.

6 The Secret Keepers

Season 27, Episode 44

“The Secret Keepers” kicks off with a phone call, as many great Dateline episodes do. In this one, a woman, Kelly Baker, calls the police to tell them she came home to find her husband dead. At first, presumed to be death by natural causes, the coroner finds two small bullet holes in Randy Baker’s body.

Now assuming this case is a murder, investigators uncover one of the more surprising conspiracies in the show. Each time more lengths of the spider web are unspooled, the tension is ratcheted up.

It turns out that Randy’s wife Kelly Baker, his sister Carol Baker, and his nephew Kelly Raisley plotted to kill Randy for the insurance payout. Kelly pulled the trigger, but all three plotted the murder. It’s shocking and completely unexpected, even for those well-versed in the twists of Dateline episodes.

5 The Man Who Knew Too Much

Season 25, Episode 7

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” is actually a follow-up to another Dateline episode, “The Girl With the Blue Mustang”, from season 18. In that episode, the worst-case scenario of what can happen when one speaks to the police without a lawyer present is depicted.

When Michelle O’Keefe, an 18-year-old college student, was found shot to death, a local security guard, Raymond Lee Jennings, tried his best to help police find the perpetrator. However, his efforts to assist made police suspicious and Jennings was arrested for the crime and sentenced to life in prison.

A self-proclaimed “autodidactic polymath”, Clint Ehrlich, saw the Dateline episode and realized the evidence was not adding up. He and his father went to work trying to free Jennings and eventually succeeded after the innocent man had served eleven years in prison. It’s a heartbreaking story about a man wrongfully targeted. The race to free him from these unfair circumstances becomes more compelling than the murder case that kicked off the story.

4 The Real Thing About Pam

Season 30, Episode 22

This Dateline episode features some of the series’ most complex and weaving twists that are not fully untangled until the very end of the episode. “The Real Thing About Pam” is Dateline‘s third episode about Pam Hupp, a trilogy that covers a well-known murder case and the frightening woman at the center.

The story is so popular that The Thing About Pam has even become a dramatic miniseries. This episode concerns the murder of Betsy Faria from Troy, Missouri.

Faria, who had cancer, was found dead in her home in December 2011. After driving her friend home from chemotherapy, Hupp stabbed the weakened woman to death, then left the scene to make it appear that Faria had been killed in a domestic dispute with her husband. With a 911 call from Hupp and chilling interviews from relatives, this is one of the more disturbing Dateline episodes.

3 Deep In The Woods

Season 26, Episode 17

This season 26 episode, “Deep in the Woods”, deals with the disappearance of Private First Class Kelli Bordeaux, a young army medic stationed at Fort Bragg. At first, the prime suspect was Kelli’s partner, Mike Bordeaux, who was last seen with Kelli. However, a private investigator and bounty hunter, David Marshburn, became intrigued by the case and set out to find out what really happened.

Marshburn discovered Bordeaux had actually last spent the night with Nicholas Michael Holbert, a man she had met at a local bar. After their date went sour, Holbert murdered Bordeaux and buried her body in the woods. Marshburn’s investigation led him to Holbert, and he managed to befriend the man.

Somehow, Marshburn got Holbert to admit to the murder, and he was even brought to the site of Bordeaux’s grave. The unexpected twists of this episode are nearly as shocking as Holbert’s confession to Marshburn, whose intuition and cleverness drew him to the case in the first place.

2 The Doomsday Files

Season 30, Episode 9

When suburban mom Lori Vallow became interested in fringe beliefs and conspiracies, her investigations led her to Chad Daybell, an author who wrote a Christian-themed apocalyptic fictional series and held similar views to Vallow. The former beauty queen and grave digger married and their cult-like union, consisting of strange, fringe practices, is covered in detail by Dateline with “The Doomsday Files” as the culmination of the investigative piece.

The Idaho couple ended up murdering Tylee Ryan and J. J. Vallow, Lori’s children, considering it mandated by god, in line with their cult-like religious beliefs that also made the couple consider themselves deities in their own brand of Mormon religion.

It’s a deep and complex tale with even more murders resulting from the Daybell’s growing certainty in their mandate from heaven.

It’s a deep and complex tale with even more murders resulting from the Daybell’s growing certainty in their mandate from heaven. A cruel tale of manipulation and narcissism, it’s the kind of story Dateline is best known for.

1 The Phone Call

Season 29, Episode 42

A tragic tale of wrongful incarceration, “The Phone Call” depicts Pete Coones’ imprisonment for the murder of his father, exoneration, and then sadly his death soon after release. Coones’ father became dependent on his housekeeper, Kathleen Scholl, late in his life and even ended up making her an insurance beneficiary for when he died.

When Kathleen and her husband Carl were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, a phone call made moments before her death led prosecutors to believe Pete murdered them. Despite little evidence and Pete’s physical limitations making it impossible for him to have killed Kathleen and Carl, he was sentenced, only to be released 13 years later after new forensic evidence and testimony cleared him.

Tragically, he had developed cancer in prison and died months after his release. The real impact of wrongful convictions and the way courts can develop tunnel vision when prosecuting are highlighted in the episode. Dateline does not pull any punches in this episode, describing the true devastation to Pete Coones’ life.