10 Times Pop Culture Solved Real Life Crimes

4. Cold Justice Actually Solves A Cold Case

Many of the most popular true crime cases are on the more grisly end of the spectrum. That's the case with the murder of of a seventeen-year-old Arizona teenager and her unborn baby, on the very day in 1997 she was due to be induced.

That was the case that appeared in an episode of the TNT show Cold Justice last year, which actually went a ways to solving the murder. Much like the Strange Piece Of Paradise case, local law enforcement had always suspected one man of the murder, but never had the evidence to make it stick: the ex-boyfriend of Marisol Gonzalez, Cecilio Cruz, who was finally taken into custody for second-degree murder and manslaughter seventeen years later.

Which was down to the episode of Cold Justice on the case, which inspired witnesses who were previously afraid to go on the record about Cruz's involvement for fear of their lives came forward after watching.

Sergeant Tod Moore apparently worked closely with the makers of the show to secure Cruz's arrest, initially bringing the case to the producers' attention and then being instrumental in getting the information out there and finally getting his man