Top 13 Unsolved Murder Cases
Unsolved murder cases are the mystery stories that we all like to read. They are fascinating real facts that gave birth both to rumors and to fear among the residents of the town where the crime took place. These cases gained international fame and the most interesting stories were put into movies and books. Even though many years have passed, the cases are still open and the public awaits for the criminal to appear. Here is a list of the most notable unsolved crimes in history:
#1. Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Other nicknames used for the killer at the time were "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".
Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard. The "From Hell" letter, received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, included half of a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
Extensive newspaper coverage bestowed widespread and enduring international notoriety on the Ripper. An investigation into a series of brutal killings in Whitechapel up to 1891 was unable to connect all the killings conclusively to the murders of 1888, but the legend of Jack the Ripper solidified. As the murders were never solved, the legends surrounding them became a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory. The term "ripperology" was coined to describe the study and analysis of the Ripper cases. There are now over one hundred theories about the Ripper's identity, and the murders have inspired multiple works of fiction.The canonical five Ripper victims are Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.Jack the Ripper, whoever he was, has been the subject of hundreds of books and articles. The theories surrounding his identity vary from a covert Masonic plot to a member of the royal family. Here are the most likely suspects:
Montague Druitt, a barrister with knowledge of human anatomy. Rumored to be insane, he disappeared after the last murder; his body was later found floating in the River Thames.
George Chapman, a barber who lived in Whitechapel during the time of the murders and who was later found guilty of poisoning three of his wives.
Aaron Kosminski, a Whitechapel resident known for his affinity for prostitutes. He was hospitalized in an asylum several months after the last murder.
#2. The Zodiac Killings
The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. Numerous suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. The killer originated the name "Zodiac" in a series of taunting letters sent to the local Bay Area press. These letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been confirmed to have been decoded.In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive", yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007.The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo as well as in Napa County and Solano County.The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.
What made the case so fascinating, though, was the way he toyed with police and reporters. He called in several of the murders and began to send coded letters to newspapers, using a cross within a circle as his symbol. At one point, he mailed in a piece of bloodied shirt to prove he was who he claimed to be. Another time, he threatened to shoot up a school bus full of children. The investigation went on for years. Several suspects were considered and questioned, but to no avail. The Zodiac was never caught. The story continues to terrorize people to this day#3. Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.
The logo for Death Row Records is a blindfolded black man strapped into an electric chair at the moment of execution. Death Row is the label that made rappers such as Snoop Dog, Dr. Dre, and Tupac Shakur famous, and its logo is emblematic of the violent posturing adopted by many gangsta rap artists—not just Death Row artists—in their quest to sell their music. A rapper’s public face is frequently a gangbanger’s scar face, whether he has a genuine gang affiliation or not. But as rap’s popularity grew in the 1990s, the violent posturing turned real. Tales of beatings and public humiliations surfaced. Rappers slandered one another with increasing viciousness and frequency. An East Coast-West Coast feud developed, pitting Death Row Records, which is based in southern California, against New York’s Bad Boy Entertainment. The feud eventually escalated from a battle of words to a bloody war. Its two most prominent casualties were the rival rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.
#4. Chicago Tylenol murders
The Chicago Tylenol murders occurred when seven people died after taking pain-relief medicine capsules that had been poisoned. The poisonings, code-named TYMURS by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, took place in late 1982 in the Chicago area of the United States.These poisonings involved Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules, manufactured by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, which had been laced with potassium cyanide. The incidents led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter substances and to federal anti-tampering laws. The case remains unsolved and no suspects have been charged. A $100,000 reward, offered by Johnson & Johnson, McNeil's parent company, for the capture and conviction of the "Tylenol Killer", has never been claimed.
#5. The Death of Edgar Allen Poe
On September 27, 1849, Poe left Richmond, Virginia, on his way home to New York. No reliable evidence exists about Poe's whereabouts until a week later on October 3, when he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, outside Ryan's Tavern (sometimes referred to as Gunner's Hall).A printer named Joseph W. Walker sent a letter requesting help from an acquaintance of Poe, Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass.His letter reads:Dear Sir—There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan's 4th ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, and I assure you, he is in need of immediate assistance. Yours, in haste, Jos. W. Walker
All medical records and documents, including Poe's death certificate, have been lost, if they ever existed.The precise cause of Poe's death is disputed, but many theories exist. Many biographers have addressed the issue and reached different conclusions, ranging from Jeffrey Meyers's assertion that it was hypoglycemia to John Evangelist Walsh's conspiratorial murder plot theory.It has also been suggested that Poe's death might have resulted from suicide related to depression. In 1848, he nearly died from an overdose of laudanum, readily available as a tranquilizer and pain killer. Though it is unclear if this was a true suicide attempt or just a miscalculation on Poe's part, it did not lead to Poe's death a year later.
Even so, some newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", euphemisms for deaths from disgraceful causes such as alcoholism. In a study of Poe, a psychologist suggested that Poe had dipsomania.
Numerous other causes of death have been proposed over the years, including several forms of rare brain disease or a brain tumor, diabetes, various types of enzyme deficiency, syphilis,apoplexy, delirium tremens, epilepsy and meningeal inflammation.A doctor named John W. Francis examined Poe in May 1848 and believed Poe had heart disease, which Poe later denied.A 2006 test of a sample of Poe's hair provides evidence against the possibility of lead poisoning, mercury poisoning, and similar toxic heavy-metal exposures.Cholera has also been suggested.Poe had passed through Philadelphia in early 1849 during a cholera epidemic. He got sick during his time in the city and wrote a letter to his aunt, Maria Clemm, saying that he may "have had the cholera, or spasms quite as bad".
Because Poe was found on the day of an election, it was suggested as early as 1872 that he was the victim of cooping. This was a ballot-box-stuffing scam in which victims were shanghaied, drugged, and used as a pawn to vote for a political party at multiple locations.Cooping had become the standard explanation for Poe's death in most of his biographies for several decades,though his status in Baltimore may have made him too recognizable for this scam to have worked.More recently, analysis suggesting that Poe's death resulted from rabies has been presented.
#6. The Nicole Brown/Ron Goldman Double Murder
The O. J. Simpson murder case (officially called the People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson) was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County, California Superior Court from January 29 to October 3, 1995. Former American football star and actor O. J. Simpson was tried on two counts of murder following the June, 1994 deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history.Ultimately, Simpson was acquitted after a lengthy trial that lasted over nine months which was presided over by Judge Lance Ito.Simpson hired a high-profile defense team initially led by Robert Shapiro and subsequently led by Johnnie Cochran. Los Angeles County believed it had a solid prosecution case, but Cochran was able to persuade the jurors that there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence (then a relatively new type of evidence in trials)including that the blood-sample evidence had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians – and about the circumstances surrounding other exhibits.Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the Los Angeles Police Department. Simpson's celebrity and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention on the so-called "Trial of the Century". By the end of the criminal trial, national surveys showed dramatic differences between most blacks and most whites in terms of their assessment of Simpson's guilt.
Later, both the Brown and Goldman families sued Simpson for damages in a civil trial. On February 6, 1997, a jury unanimously found there was a preponderance of evidence to hold Simpson liable for damages in the wrongful death of Goldman and battery of Brown.On February 21, 2008, a Los Angeles court upheld a renewal of the civil judgment against him.
#7. The Case of the Disembodied Feet
All of the severed feet have washed ashore in the Pacific North West waters. All of the eight feet came to shore in British Columbia, Canada, except for one which washed up in Washington State. The disembodied feet were all in sneakers.The first foot was found in August of 2007 and the last was found in October of 2009. Eight severed feet washing up on shore is not a coincidence, as some law officials have reported. Although an investigation is still under way to try and solve this mystery, some believe that there is a natural explanation for this.
The sneakers holding the severed feet have been all brand names such as Nike, New Balance, Addias, and Campus. None of the feet have been in just regular shoes. They are all of different sizes and so far two sets have matched, meaning they have found both feet of two different people. The feet have been male and female. This is all the clues that the police have in solving this mystery.
The authorities have reported that none of the feet have shown signs of being severed by cutting; they look as though they have come off of the bodies through natural decomposition while being in the water. A woman who found one of these severed feet on the shore told the newspaper that the bones did indeed look as if they had been cut. Some believe the severed feet are the work of someone who has access to dead bodies such as an undertaker or mortician. It could possibly be the work of a sick individual that is taking the feet off of the dead bodies before burial when no one would be the wiser. Others say it is medical students playing pranks with the cadavers that have been left for research in science.
When all is said and done, no one knows who these severed feet belong to or where they are coming from.
#8. JonBenet Ramsey
JonBenet Ramsey was a six year old girl who was popular for her active participation in a number of beauty contests across the United States. On December 26, 1996, Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her parent’s home. According to the autopsy, Ramsey suffered from strangulation with a nylon cord. The skull of the child also suffered blunt trauma. There were also suspicions of sexual abuse as it was discovered that the girl’s underwear had some dried blood on it and there was a distinct swelling of the vaginal wall. There were many speculations that surrounded the death of Ramsey. But until today, there have been no new suspects presented or new evidence brought to court for this crime.The case, which after several grand jury hearings remains unsolved, continues to generate public and media interest.
Colorado law enforcement agencies initially suspected JonBenét's parents and her brother. However, the family was partially exonerated in 2003 when DNA taken from the victim's clothes proved they were not involved.Her parents would not be completely cleared until July of 2008.In February 2009, the Boulder Police Department took the case back from the district attorney to reopen the investigation.
Media coverage of the case has often focused on JonBenét's participation in child beauty pageants, her parents' affluence and the unusual evidence in the case. Reports have also questioned the police's overall handling of the case. Several defamation suits have been filed against several media organizations by Ramsey family members and their friends over reporting of the murder.
#9. The Black Dahlia
"The Black Dahlia" was a nickname given to Elizabeth Short(July 29, 1924 – ca. January 15, 1947), an American woman and the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder. She acquired the moniker posthumously by newspapers in the habit of nicknaming crimes they found particularly colorful. Short was found mutilated, her body sliced in half at the waist, on January 15, 1947, in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. Short's unsolved murder has been the source of widespread speculation, leading to many suspects, along with several books and film adaptations of the story.According to newspaper reports shortly after the murder, Elizabeth Short received the nickname "Black Dahlia" at a Long Beach, California drugstore in mid-1946, as a word play on the then-current movie The Blue Dahlia. Los Angeles County district attorney investigators' reports state that the nickname was invented by newspaper reporters covering the murder. Los Angeles Herald-Express reporter Bevo Means, who interviewed Short's acquaintances at the drug store, is credited with first using the "Black Dahlia" name.
#10. Female homicides in Ciudad Juárez
The phenomenon of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, called in Spanish the feminicidios ("femicides") and las muertas de Juárez ("The dead women of Juárez"), involves the violent deaths of hundreds of women since 1993 in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a border city across the Rio Grande from the U.S. city of El Paso, Texas. The estimated homicide toll is speculated to be around 400, but many local residents believe that the true count of los feminicidios stands at an estimated 5,000 victims. Most of the cases remained unsolved as of 2003,and are still mainly unsolved today.According to the Organization of American States's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:
The victims of these crimes have preponderantly been young women, between 12 and 22 years of age. Many were students, and most were maquiladora workers. A number were relative newcomers to Ciudad Juárez who had migrated from other areas of Mexico. The victims were generally reported missing by their families, with their bodies found days or months later abandoned in vacant lots, outlying areas or in the desert. In most of these cases there were signs of sexual violence, torment, torture or in some cases disfigurement.
According to Amnesty International as of February 2005 more than 370 young women and girls had been murdered in the cities of Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua.
In November 2005 BBC News reported Mexico's human rights ombudsman José Luis Soberanes as saying that 28 women had been murdered so far in 2005. Despite past and current unsolved murders in August 2006 the federal government dropped its investigation, concluding that no federal laws had been violated.
The most prominent suspects in the Juárez serial case were arrested and convicted
1995 - Abdul Latif Sharif was arrested, charged, and convicted of the 1995 murder of Elizabeth Castro Garcia (Lote Bravo).
1996 - Several members of Los Rebeldes, a Juárez street gang, were arrested (Lote Bravo).
1999 - Los Choferes, bus drivers on routes between the maquiladoras and residential districts, were arrested (Lomas de Poleo).
2001 - García Uribe and González Meza were arrested for the murder of eight victims found in a cotton field near the Association of Maquila Workers in East Juárez (Cotton Field).
#11. Óscar Romero The Archbishop of San Salvador
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980) was a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador. He became the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, succeeding Luis Chávez. He was assassinated on 24 March 1980.After his assassination, Romero was succeeded by Monsignor Arturo Rivera. In 1997, a cause for beatification and canonization into sainthood was opened for Romero, and Pope John Paul II bestowed upon him the title of Servant of God. The canonization process continues. He is considered by some the unofficial patron saint of the Americas and El Salvador and is often referred to as "San Romero" by Catholics in El Salvador. Outside of Catholicism, Romero is honored by other religious denominations of Christendom, including the Church of England through the Calendar in Common Worship. He is one of the ten 20th century martyrs who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey in London, a testament to his wide respect even beyond the Catholic Church.In 2008, he was chosen as one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy by the Europe-based magazine A Different View.
#12. Bob Crane
Robert Edward "Bob" Crane (July 13, 1928 – June 29, 1978) was an American actor and disc jockey, best known for his performance as Colonel Robert E. Hogan in the television sitcom Hogan's Heroes from 1965 to 1971, and for his 1978 murder, which remains officially unsolved.Bob Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, but he spent his childhood and teenage years in Stamford, Connecticut.[1] He graduated from Stamford High School (Stamford, Connecticut) in 1946.Music was always very important to Crane, and he started playing drums very early in life. By junior high, he was organizing local drum and bugle parades with his neighborhood friends in Stamford.Later, he became very involved in his high school marching and jazz bands, as well as in the school’s orchestra.He also played for the Connecticut Symphony and the Norwalk Symphony Orchestras as part of the youth orchestra program.On June 21, 1948, Bob enlisted in the National Guard and was honorably discharged on May 1, 1950.In 1949, he married high school sweetheart Anne Terzian, and they raised three children - Robert David, Deborah Ann, and Karen Leslie.Bob and Anne were later divorced, and he married Patricia Olsen, an actress whose stage name was Sigrid Valdis. They had one son, Robert Scott Crane, and adopted a daughter, Ana Marie.
#13. Boy in the Box (Philadelphia)
The "Boy in the Box" is the name given to an unidentified murder victim, approximately 4 to 6 years old, whose naked, battered body was found in a cardboard box in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957. He is also commonly called "America's Unknown Child".The boy's body, wrapped in a plaid blanket, was inside a cardboard box that once contained a baby's bassinet from J.C. Penney. The body was found first by a young man checking his muskrat traps. Fearing the police would take his traps away, he did not report the matter. A few days later, a college student spotted a rabbit running into the underbrush. Knowing there were animal traps in the area, he stopped his car to investigate and discovered the body. He too was reluctant to have any contact with the police, but did report his find the following day.
The case engendered massive media attention in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, with pictures of the boy even being placed in every gas bill in Philadelphia. However, despite the publicity at the time of the body's discovery and sporadic re-interest throughout the years, the case remains unsolved to this day, and the boy's identity is still unknown.
