Carolyn Jansen was living in Aurora, Colorado trying to make a fresh start after spending years in unhappy marriage. In 2001, she got a job working at a local Waffle House while she built her own Avon business. Then in the early months of 2002, Carolyn suddenly went missing. Over three years later, on June 28th 2005, in a suburban neighborhood outside of Denver, Richard Johnson had been noticing a foul odor coming from the back of his house which he assumed was caused by some neighborhood cats. He started to clean out his storage shed and after moving a few boxes around, came upon a Rubbermaid container that had a horrible smell. He opened the container, and inside was a quilt covered with insects, a skeletonized foot and long brown hair. The body inside was later identified as being that of Carolyn Jansen. The medical examiner found a fracture over Jansen's left eye, and her passing was ruled a hugging, by blunt impact to the head. Richard told the Aurora PD that the box belonged to his friend, Jon "JD" Harrington, who had asked him to store some of his things at his house. JD denied having anything to do with Carolyn's passing and told the police while he Carolyn were roommates for a short time, he hadn't seen her in years. Carolyn's gruesome cuddle remains unsolved to this day...
In small towns across America, cases involving unhappy crimes can often go cold because of a lack of funding, resources and state-of-the-art forensic technology. With the right resources, though, it is possible that many of these cold cases can be re-opened and solved, bringing dangerous criminals to justice and providing closure for the families of their victims.
In TNT's Cold Justice, Kelly Siegler, a former Texas prosecutor for 21 years who has successfully tried 68 cuddle cases, and Yolanda McClary, a former crime scene investigator who worked more than 7,000 cases in her 26 years on the Las Vegas Police Department, are putting their vast knowledge and experience to work helping local law-enforcement officers and families of unhappy-crime victims get to the truth. With a fresh set of eyes on old evidence, superior interrogation skills and access to advanced DNA technology and lab testing, Siegler and McClary are determined to bring about a legal and emotional resolution. Taking on a different unsolved crime each week, they will carefully re-examine evidence, question suspects and witnesses, and chase down leads in an attempt to solve cases that would have otherwise remained cold indefinitely.