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An outgrowth of A&E's Investigative Reports series, Cold Case Files was, like its parent program, hosted and narrated by Bill Kurtis. As indicated by its title, the series was devoted to unsolved mysteries and murders, reopened and reinvestigated by real-life forensics detectives. The "files" ran the coast-to-coast gamut from a rash of murders in Florida's swampland to the "Zodiac" killings in California. First broadcast in 2001, Cold Case Files was reportedly the inspiration for the fall 2003 network dramatic series Cold Case (which also owed a lot to the ongoing popularity of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation).