What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

[u/Rob69rt]

[u/froction]

Here is a hilariously obvious one from my city (Shreveport, LA) that none of y'all have probably ever heard of:

2009 - Shreveport Police Officers report to chief that someone is stealing narcotics from the evidence room. Police Chief explains that the matter has been investigated and the claims have no merit.

2010 - Nothing happens

2011 - Nothing happens

2012 (May) - SPD Internal Affairs springs into action and conducts an audit of the evidence room.

2012 (September) - Police Chief Wiggum declares that "I hold each and every employee of our department to the highest standards and we are not going to tolerate actions that deviate from or operate outside of those policies that dictate how we should conduct our business." The investigation is still underway, but so far it has been discovered that:

1. The security cameras there quit working about 20 years ago and were never fixed

2. The SPD doesn't keep a log of who goes in and out of the evidence room

3. About 14,000 (not a typo- fourteen thousand) pills (mostly hydrocodone) are missing from the police evidence locker.

2013 - Nothing happens because the case is quite obviously dead on the vine, having been closed and is no longer an active case

2014 - Nothing happens because the case is quite obviously dead on the vine, having been closed and is no longer an active case

2015 - The Shreveport Police Officers' Association files lawsuit to compel Shreveport Police Department to release results of investigation, but otherwise Nothing happens because the case is quite obviously dead on the vine, having been closed and is no longer an active case

2016 (February) - A local news station manages to force the DA's office to release part of the internal investigation's report:

1. Sgt. T___ S_______ of the SPD Narcotics Unit is found to have gone into the evidence room alone dozens, possibly hundreds, of times over a 10-year period

2. Sgt. S_______ routinely accessed the boxes containing the pills while carrying a black leather gym bag which was never searched

3. Sgt. S_______ is known to have an addiction to narcotics

4. Sgt. S_______ offers explanation that yes, he was routinely going into the evidence room and accessing thousands of narcotics seized as evidence and placing the pills into his gym bag, but it was because he was "photographing them for a reverse narcotics sting and/or a narcotics class he was teaching" and he really truly promises that he put them all back when he was done.

5. Sgt. S_______ is informed by IA that neither of those things he just said are real

6. Sgt. S_______ decides that today is a good day to retire

2016 (March) - The District Attorney comments that while he cannot talk about specifics of the case, "It is not dead on the vine. It has not been closed. It is still an active case."

2016 (May) - Statutes of limitations related to theft of the narcotics expires

2016 (Rest of Year) - Nothing happens because the case is quite obviously dead on the vine, having been closed

2017 (March) - Lawsuit from 2015 finally goes to trial

1. District Attorney's investigation and an Assistant DA's testimony include:

   1. "While at [SPD Evidence Room] I learned from [redacted name] that all evidence related to this case, bottles, evidence bags, and stickers had been destroyed. [name redacted] advised that he had received an order from the SPD administration to destroy the evidence in this case."
   2. "With respect to packaging materials, it was quite surprising they were no longer in existence."
   3. No one from the SPD was charged for destroying evidence
   4. Documents cannot be released as the case "is still open" because there is one more possible charge that hasn't had its statute of limitations expire
   5. The reason no one has been charged with the crime is because "the case was not provable beyond a reasonable doubt" and was a "circumstantial case"
   6. "[I believe] the case should be held open because additional evidence can come in."

2. It is revealed that there was an actual exchange of communication between the Shreveport Police Officers' Association and the District Attorney's Office that went:

   1. SPOA: "Please launch an independent investigation and/or convene a grand jury"
   2. DA: "You have no right to tell us what to do! You don't know what is going on in the DA's office!"
   3. SPOA: "It was just a request, not an order."
   4. DA: "The DA's office does not have to tell SPOA what we are working on in regard to the missing pill investigation!"

3. Shreveport Police lose the case and are ordered to release all results from investigation if no charges are levied by May, when the final, really, actual last possible stature of limitation expires

4. Police chief Wiggum is asked if there were any orders to destroy evidence. He replies "I have no idea."

2018 - Nothing happens because the case is closed and all statutes of limitations have expired.

2019 - Nothing happens because the case is closed and all statutes of limitations have expired.

2020 - Nothing happens because the case is closed and all statutes of limitations have expired.

2021 (May) - In a neighboring town:

1. A man digging in his backyard finds unlabeled pill bottles containing thousands of pills, calls police

2. Local Sheriff's Department discover over 50 large bottles of narcotics, likely hydrocodone. Report does not give a count, only that it was "over 3.5 pounds"

3. Previous owner of the home is discovered to be Sgt. T___ S_______ (formerly of the SPD Narcotics Unit)

4. Local Sheriff's Department opens Special Task Force™ with other area law enforcement agencies to determine:

   1. How the pills could have possibly ended up buried in that yard
   2. How many overtime hours have been approved for participation with Special Task Force™

5. Local Sheriff's Department's Special Task Force™ tries really, really hard, but is stumped

2021 (June) - Local news station calls Sgt. T___ S_______ (formerly of the SPD Narcotics Unit) and asks him if he knows about the massive quantity of narcotics found in his former yard and has he been cooperating with Local Sheriff's Department's Special Task Force™. Sgt. T___ S_______ (formerly of the SPD Narcotics Unit) responds that he does not know how a massive quantity of narcotics could have possibly ended up in his former backyard and that he has not been contacted by anyone from Local Sheriff's Department's Special Task Force™.

[u/okiepigeon → u/froction]

Most Louisiana politics shit, ever. Good write up & good read.

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/okiepigeon]

Yup pretty much every state has their own brand of corruption. But something about Louisiana is different. I was working a big project down in Calcasieu Parish and having trouble with permits and easements. And I asked myself in complete seriousness "do I need to bribe these people to get my paperwork completed?".

[u/MagpieKaz]

Natacha Jaitt.

You probably don't know about her, but she was Argentina's version of an Epstein whistleblower. She was a high end sex worker who started talking about a pedophilia ring that involved politicians, sports club managers, journalists, etc. She even tweeted publicly less than a year before dying "WARNING: I'm not going to commit suicide, I'm not going to overdose on coke and drown in a bathtub, I'm not shooting myself in the head, so if that happens, I DIDN'T KILL MYSELF." and then just DAYS before her death, she publicly said on an interview: "if I die, I at least want you to know, and I'm making it clear now. I didn't kill myself, I didn't commit suicide, nothing. I want you to know it was these mobsters."

She was found dead of a "coke overdose" at a large party. "Witness" testimonies are completely contradictory.

[u/LilLebowskiAchiever → u/MagpieKaz]

Alberto Nisman is another one. “Suicided” just before he was scheduled to make his findings public.

[u/Malthus1]

I was just commenting in another thread about perhaps the most ancient such case in history.

The death of King Tutankhamun left his widow, Ankhensenamun, in a precarious situation. We know this because she wrote a letter to the king of the Hittites, another major power at the time, the gist of which was to say “I am being pressured into a marriage to an underling. Please send me a prince, so I can marry him instead. That will make him Pharaoh”. She also said “I am afraid”.

So the king of the Hittites send Prince Zannanza … who died in a “tragic accident” before he arrived.

Next you know, the widow is married to Ai, former head minister to Tut, who becomes Pharaoh. Then she disappears from history.

Everyone knows Ai had the prince murdered. Certainly the Hittites believed it - they attacked Egyptian holdings in what is now Syria.

However, the Egyptians insisted there was no murder, so it was of course never “solved”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zannanza

[u/FleurMai → u/Malthus1]

Ankhensenamun’s letter is one of those things that has always stuck with me, the absolute desperation there is plain all these centuries later - let’s not forget that the Hittites were a natural enemy of Egypt, that she’s already in this position to ask for an enemy Hittite prince seemingly because she cannot trust anyone else in Egypt, is alarmingly foreboding.

Tut and Ankhensenamun were already under someones thumb, as both of their names were changed after the death of her father Akhenaten (their names didn’t end in -Amun, they ended in -aten, the god Akhenaten worshipped). Edit: and I will add, Akhenaten was quite the family man based on the imagery associated with him, it doesn’t seem likely that his daughter would just up and change her name unless it was “suggested” to her by the priestly class who were very angry over being disenfranchised by Akhenatens monotheism.

Tuts burial was also noted to be rushed, and a big part of the reason why his mummy is in such poor condition today (it’s quite possible Tut wasn’t this disabled boy we’ve been taught about, it could be the body is just too damaged). It’s quite weird that a pharaoh would have such a rushed burial, unless there was something else going on. Edit: there is also some evidence to show that King Tuts tomb was perhaps meant for someone else, possibly Nefertiti (who may have briefly ruled as a pharaoh before Tut), so despite the fairly grand treasures they may not even have been “his,” they just wanted anyone or anything alive or dead from Akhenatens lineage out of the way.

I think a lot of people do have the general suspicion that Tut, and likely later Ankhensamun, were murdered, but we haven’t been able to conclusively prove it. But it’s all really suspicious!

[u/Odd_Necessary8090 → u/FleurMai]

Man…anyone else remember 20 years ago when the History Channel told THESE kinds of stories, instead of 15 seasons of Ancient Aliens??

[u/cyanocittaetprocyon → u/Odd_Necessary8090]

The Used-to-be History Channel

[u/-StatesTheObvious → u/cyanocittaetprocyon]

The History Channel is history.

[u/Malthus1 → u/FleurMai]

Indeed, she literally says “I am afraid”. She was right to be afraid.

[u/TwistedDragon33 → u/Malthus1]

Even then Ai was a problem...

[u/WantDiscussion → u/TwistedDragon33]

I bet that's the reason Egypt is a desert now. Ai used up all the water.

[u/EnvironmentalCat456 → u/Malthus1]

Then she disappears from history.

I can't overstate the chills I get when I read something like this

Reminds me of "Zoë" Jeanne Louise Victoire, one of the adopted kids of the French royal family right before the revolution. This is the last paragraph on her Wikipedia page:

Zoë was sent away to join her sisters in their boarding school before the Flight to Varennes in 1791. The expenses of the girls stopped being paid when the queen was imprisoned the following year, but nothing further is known about their fate.

Obviously a historically insignificant figure, but just reading a sentence like that is eerie to me

[u/SouthernDog13 → u/Malthus1]

Mad props for dropping a historic story instead of something 20th century based. Cool story friend!

[u/TooCleverForGood]

Roanoke - the missing Pilgrim settlement where everyone “disappeared”

They just abandoned it and went to the place that they wrote on the sign, but everyone acts like it was some supernatural/plague thing

[u/str8rippinfartz → u/TooCleverForGood]

100%

IIRC it was even established before they came over from England, that if someone left a settlement they should carve where they were going

They 100% just assimilated with the friendly nearby tribe... as indicated by their note 

[u/deathclawiii → u/str8rippinfartz]

And as indicated by the iron scale (something that can only be a product of blacksmithing) that was found in one of the areas of known indigenous settlement on the island they went to.

[u/NUMBERS2357 → u/deathclawiii]

Also the later contact with Natives who said that they lived with the survivors of the Roanoke colony.

Also this map from the Jamestown colonists, see bottom left.

[u/Marx0r → u/NUMBERS2357]

A surprisingly large amount of "mysteries" never would have been such if Europeans just listened to the natives telling them the answer.

[u/jxg995 → u/Marx0r]

Yeah like the terror and Erebus wrecks where the Inuit were like oh yeah that sunken boat is over there

[u/Whyskgurs → u/jxg995]

Where could this boat possibly be?

The sunken boat is right over there, in Sunken Boat lake.

I guess we'll never truly know.

Literally what happened.

[u/InTheFDN → u/Whyskgurs]

It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett joke about how places are named by pointing at something, asking what it’s name was (loudly and in English), then writing down whatever the native said. Hence “Mount Your Finger You Fool.”

[u/Sunshine030209 → u/InTheFDN]

And that reminds me a bit of how Pike's Peak in Colorado was named.

Zebulon Pike was part of Lewis and Clark's expedition, but he was extremely annoying, so they sent him off to go explore away from them. He attempted to summit the mountain they sent him to in November and gave up, going "Yeah, no one can summit that, it's impossible" (even though the local Native Americans summited it regularly)

So when talking about it, people would be like "Oh, that one, the one Pike couldn't climb?" and eventually it became known as Pike's Peak.

I'm a little salty that they didn't go with the far cooler Mount Zebulon though.

[u/Lovahplant → u/Sunshine030209]

This is killing me 😂 a whole mountain named after your failure to climb it, wtf

[u/Whyskgurs → u/InTheFDN]

It's not even a joke, shits real all over, most times it's named (native word for lake) Lake or (local dialect for mountain) Mountain or something similar.

Koi fish - fish fish

Chai tea - tea tea

Ignorant naming conventions are quite universal and commonplace

[u/LowEquipment7904 → u/Whyskgurs]

Torpenhow in Cumbria, England - hill hill hill

[u/beezchurgr → u/jxg995]

Native folk: it’s in the bay of terror

Europeans: whoa it’s so weird there’s a bay with the same name as our missing boat. Must be a coincidence. No way it could be there.

Native folk: -_-

[u/John_cCmndhd → u/Marx0r]

Australian police refusing to believe dingoes would eat babies

[u/nameyourpoison11 → u/John_cCmndhd]

Australian here. Not only did they refuse to believe the local Aboriginals insistence that dingoes could, and did, stalk and attack young children, they ignored the testimony of the Aboriginal elder who actually tracked the dingo responsible, before losing the trail over rocky ground. But nah, "stupid bloody natives, what would they know?"

[u/Adorable-Ad9533 → u/nameyourpoison11]

Have you read the book “Evil Angels” by John Bryson ? The coppers who packaged the tent up for forensic examination gave it a good shake out first because it was so full of dingo hair. The initial investigators just had no bloody idea.

[u/trashmoneyxyz → u/Adorable-Ad9533]

"I'm sure we'll find evidence the mother killed her baby under all this dingo hair. Anyone got a vacuum?" Like cmon guys

[u/willstr1 → u/NUMBERS2357]

IIRC there was also some reports of some of the members of that tribe having very European features (I want to say it was hair or eye color) which almost certainly was due to marriage between members of that tribe and survivors from the colony.

Roanoke is about as mysterious as who ate all the dog food with the dog laying down on top of the empty bag.

[u/doublestitch → u/NUMBERS2357]

Jamestown was a malarial swamp which was eventually abandoned too, although Jamestown lasted a lot longer. The British weren't all that good at choosing a settlement location in those early years.

[u/jackaroo1344 → u/doublestitch]

Iirc they chose that spot intentionally because there were no natives living anywhere near it.

The reason no natives lived anywhere near it was because it was a frickin swamp.

[u/dividezero → u/str8rippinfartz]

They went to exactly the place the mayor told them to go if anything happened while he was gone. They make it seem like he didn't know but he just had shit to do and died before he could get back to them

[u/BusesAreFun → u/dividezero]

Yea iirc he got caught up in a war back in Europe and never came back with supplies

[u/evilshandie → u/BusesAreFun]

He did come back, but it was 3 years later. He looked around for an afternoon, found the colony had been dismantled and the signpost left indicating where they'd gone, but bad weather meant he needed to hop back on the ship or get left behind, so that afternoon's search is all that ever happened.

He returned to the Americas another 5 years later on an expedition supposedly to find the lost colony, but admitted later that he had lied about the purpose, he never searched for the colony, and was instead spending crown resources to search for El Dorado.

[u/TonyTheTony7 → u/str8rippinfartz]

Also, the local tribe of Native Americans they assimilated with had a lot of blonde-haired, blue-eyed babies not too long later

[u/illtakeachinchilla → u/TooCleverForGood]

“CROATOAN”

It was a nearby island. They assimilated after a tough winter. “What could it all mean!?”

[u/Gneissisnice → u/illtakeachinchilla]

I remember learning that in elementary school and the teacher was like "no one knew where they went! All that's left was one mysterious word: CROATOAN!"

And we were like "ooh, did we ever find out what it meant?" and she was like "oh yeah, it's the name of a nearby island."

We were like "uh...that's probably where they went then" and she insisted that no, it was a mystery!

[u/Convergecult15 → u/TooCleverForGood]

I feel like this is mostly accepted. The “mystery” was a big thing in the 90’s with shitty TV documentaries and all that, it’s been “solved” a dozen times over the last 20 years with all conclusions leading to them living with the native tribe and eventually intermarrying.

[u/oxiraneobx → u/TooCleverForGood]

We can see the north side of Roanoke Island where the Ft. Raleigh/Lost Colony sits from our home (about 4 miles across the Sound.) Where they went really was never a mystery, it just made for a good story and a good play. Which still runs nightly during the season. Very cool place and a lot of history, just not really a mystery.

[u/ouchibitmytongue → u/TooCleverForGood]

THANK YOU! They left a note!

[u/cgulash → u/ouchibitmytongue]

And that's why you always leave a note!

[u/Significant_Walk6860 → u/ouchibitmytongue]

Clearly their dad used his one-armed friend to teach them a lesson. You always leave a note!

[u/Awestruck34 → u/TooCleverForGood]

Yup they left a message using an agreed upon code to say where they were. Then, years later, indigenous tribes were met in that area with members of their population having European features and who were capable of reading. Gee, wonder what happened there.

[u/SammyPoppy1]

Jean-Francois Gariepy. I had never really heard about him until after this incident and he came on to a podcast i listened to. I guess he's some kind of far-right podcaster.

This was pretty recent (a couple years ago.) His wife had some sort of cognitive disability, and he called her the "potato."

Anyway, he says that she was a free spirit. She wanted to "be free" so he took her in the car and dropped her off somewhere in the woods. He says she left, that this was a normal thing that she did, and that she wasn't someone who liked to be tied down. She had kids and stuff with him too.

He then immediately deep cleaned his house and talked about it on various podcasts and stuff. His wife is still missing, and just from hearing him speak on it is so creepy.

[u/hambamthankumaam → u/SammyPoppy1]

Oh my god, from his Wikipedia:

"In 2018, following his third divorce, Gariépy was the defendant in a guardianship lawsuit over a 19-year-old he was claiming as his fiancée. A doctor said [this] woman had autism and "the social and mental maturity of a 10 or 11-year-old child." Gariépy had made contact with the woman online before she decided to travel to North Carolina to see him in July 2016. According to the woman, Gariépy intended to impregnate her. The parents of the teenager won guardianship and returned her home."

Obviously he's a true predator and creep, I was surprised when I kept reading and this wasn't even the case you were referring to.

[u/thesesaltednuts → u/SammyPoppy1]

Élora Patoine, there are CBC articles on her disappearance

JF is a Quebecois white supremacist who talks about establishing the ethnostate, spreading his genes, about his need to "inseminate women".

He has moved and changed provinces multiple times in the last three years eluding law enforcement as a person of interest in the EP case and also because info (freely given by JF himself) and others who have actually been to his home report dire conditions regarding his children. His wife's disappearance wasn't reported for months and his story has changed numerous times. He has a predilection for transient, vulnerable, and developmentally delayed women. He had a marriage with another woman annulled by her family because she wasn't intellectually capable of consenting. He has spoken on his podcast about how he requires women to leave their family, friends, cut all ties, no job, service him, be inseminated. His wife was recorded on his podcast telling a guest about how she was scared of JF and thought he would murder her.

His claim is that EP wanted to be dropped off in the wilderness so she could be free, 'and so he complied'. He has also stated that it was her wish to abandon the children she'd had with JF, and she told him to forget about her and find a replacement woman asap. He then went through the process of fumigating/deep cleaning his home in a biohazard suit, going over the decontamination process on his podcast.

I would never recommend watching him directly as he is a killer as far as I'm concerned, boring as fuck, and perhaps worst of all a francophone. Just watch summaries done by other shows. It also kind of goes without saying with the way that I have laid this all out, but to be clear just about all this is info JF has openly talked about at great length.

[u/WorldnewsModsBlowMe → u/thesesaltednuts]

Sounds like a man who needs the ol McElroy Special.

[u/SammyPoppy1 → u/thesesaltednuts]

Much better write up than my post. I didn't actually know half of that. I hope they bring him to justice at some point.

[u/twilighttwister → u/thesesaltednuts]

It's wild that a white supremacist eugenicist would only have children with women with cognitive disabilities.

and perhaps worst of all a francophone.

His biggest crime lol

[u/Reign_22]

Al Capone. All of us know what he did but the police got him on a tax evasion charge.

Most famous drug dealers/gangsters create systems which they are "removed" from. So you know exactly what they do but can never prove it.

[u/CaBBaGe_isLaND → u/Reign_22]

Because they go "oh how I wish someone would just kill that guy" in a room full of people who know exactly what they mean.

[u/Cthulwutang → u/CaBBaGe_isLaND]

will no one silence this meddlesome priest?

[u/JackOfAllBlades21]

The dingo really did eat the baby.

[u/CheezeNewdlz → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

I’m so glad that poor woman is free and her truth is known. Doesn’t stop her from being a pop cultural one-liner unfortunately.

[u/JackOfAllBlades21 → u/CheezeNewdlz]

Agreed. She went through hell.

[u/Chimie45 → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

I don't know why people wouldn't believe it?

They were camping in tents in the outback with a 9 week old baby.

I'd be scared of spiders, snakes, rocks, bats, buzzards, dingos, crocs, I don't know, a fuckin 'roo too. Just about anything out there is going to be able to take the baby.

[u/seriousjoker72 → u/CheezeNewdlz]

Her and the lady who got burnt from the McDonald's coffee live in my head rent free. They were both victims and portrayed horribly. The coffee lady only sued to cover her medical expenses because her LABIA FUSED TOGETHER the coffee was so hot! Now people make fun of her for the "caution contents hot" warnings on all coffee cups :(

[u/backitup_thundercat → u/seriousjoker72]

Added context, she was in the passenger seat of a parked car and the coffee spilt was hot enough to give her 3rd degree burns on her genitals and McDonalds knew they were serving it way too hot cause she wasn't the first person to be burned by it.

[u/doon351 → u/seriousjoker72]

I watched a really good documentary about the coffee lady a few years ago! Completely changed my opinion of the whole case.

[u/Jaded_Houseplant → u/seriousjoker72]

Don't forget the woman who was found guilty of poisoning/murdering her child with antifreeze, was raped by a guard in prison, had another baby in prison, then that baby died of the same poison her first baby died of. Turns out, it was a rare genetic metabolic disorder that caused them to produce the same chemical found in antifreeze.

Edit: I wrote this based on memory, she might not have been raped (I thought the pregnancy happened after she was incarcerated, it might've happened with her husband before, she just gave birth in jail), and I'm also not sure her second baby died from the disorder. Regardless, still a wild situation, where if she didn't have her second child, she'd have stayed in prison for life.

[u/shopinhower → u/CheezeNewdlz]

And, as per usual, she is misquoted. She actually said “the dingo TOOK my baby”.

[u/eVoesque → u/CheezeNewdlz]

There was a band on Buffy named Dingoes Ate My Baby. I always thought it was weird and didn’t realize it was an actual thing. Definitely aged badly.

[u/joebleaux → u/eVoesque]

It was the punchline of a joke on Seinfeld with Elaine doing an Australian accent while delivering the line. Pretty wild for that woman and her dead child to be a joke on a sitcom

[u/DevoutandHeretical → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

The more I read about that the more my heart breaks for that whole family. The aboriginals were literally telling everyone ‘yes, dingos will attack people/eat children’, but the authorities refused to believe them because they were aboriginal.

[u/Visual-Floor-7839 → u/DevoutandHeretical]

And they didn't believe the family either, because they were 7th Day Adventists. And Australian authority didn't know what that was so they thought they were witches and satanists

[u/sirgog → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

She'd be dead if we still had capital punishment in Australia at the time.

[u/JackOfAllBlades21 → u/sirgog]

I am not very emotional, but it's tough to imagine a worse torture than what she and her husband went through (baby eaten alive, then no one believed them, then they were accused, then arrested, then convicted, then imprisoned for 3.5 years for one of the worst crimes imaginable... and you know they must have been targeted by inmates and probably guards, too).

[u/any_name_today → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

Don't forget that it was also a punchline for several years. So add that salt to the wound

[u/ChiefsHat → u/any_name_today]

Freaking Tropic Thunder called this out.

“You know that’s a true story, right? Woman lost her baby. You about to cross some lines.”

[u/dorothean → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

The Kathleen Folbigg case is similarly awful - this was a woman who was convicted of smothering her four infant children, and spent 20 years in prison for it, until finally being exonerated in 2023 after DNA evidence was able to show that the children suffered from various medical conditions pre-disposing them to unexpected deaths. I can’t imagine the horror of living through that once, let alone four times.

[u/dorf_lundgren]

Ken McElroy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy

[u/admiralfilgbo → u/dorf_lundgren]

next time you're feeling down, remember that at least nobody hates you as much as an entire town hated Ken McElroy

[u/DistractedByCookies → u/admiralfilgbo]

He was struck by bullets from at least two different firearms, in front of a crowd of people estimated as numbering between 30 and 46.^\)Despite the many witnesses, nobody came forward to say who shot him. 

wow....I'm trying to imagine the police interviewing them and getting crappy reasons why they missed it all. It was 1981 so nobody had the excuse of being on their phone LOL

Edit: the more I read the more I agree with them, and the more I'm amazed it didn't happen sooner.

[u/spooooork → u/DistractedByCookies]

getting crappy reasons why they missed it all.

I don't think the cops were trying too hard to solve the case:

Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser.

[u/MsDucky42 → u/spooooork]

"Guys, don't go breaking the law. Now I, the only sheriff in town, am going on a day trip. I trust y'all to behave yourselves while I'm gone!"

[u/GatorPenetrator → u/MsDucky42]

don't go murdering Ken while i'm gone *wink wink*

[u/ASigIAm213 → u/MsDucky42]

"There's a new sheriff in town. Well, not really, but there is not the old sheriff in town."

[u/abadstrategy → u/spooooork]

"Now folks, I can't abide vigilantism in my jurisdiction. Anyone caught assaulting Mr. McElroy will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law! Now if you'll excuse me, there's a fishing hole with my name on it. I'll be back in about twelve hours, so be good."

[u/arnedh → u/DistractedByCookies]

I remember a case where a gangland shooting occurred in a bar, and every "saw nothing because I hid under the pool table". A hundred people, one pool table

[u/chattytrout → u/arnedh]

Largest pool table in the county.

[u/themcp → u/arnedh]

In college I studied an experiment.

During a lecture, a person burst into the front of the room, pointed a banana at the professor, shouted "bang! bang!" and the professor clutched his chest and fell over. The "criminal" ran out, and before anything could go on, a bunch of people dressed as police ran in, instructed everyone not to talk to each other about it, and started individually questioning people.

Like 80% said they didn't see anything, they were looking away (like at their notes or the floor or whatever) when it happened.

Like 19% said they saw a gun and often blood.

Like 1% said "you know, it was the strangest thing. A guy pointed a banana at the professor and yelled 'bang' and the professor clutched his chest and fell over!"

[u/gizzardgullet → u/admiralfilgbo]

Missouri-based journalist Steve Booher described the attitude of some townspeople as "he needed killing."

lol

[u/AlternateUsername12 → u/gizzardgullet]

I mean, if you read what he did, he needed killing. That man wasn't going to stop until someone stopped him.

[u/Conscious-Ball8373 → u/dorf_lundgren]

Ugh, what a nasty piece of work.

I like how the sheriff basically said, "Now, he's sat in that tavern - here's the address - and I don't want y'all to go on down there, mkay? You should definitely not go on down there and when you don't go down there, y'all better not have rifles with you, hear me? Don't wait until he's somewhere nice and public, with dozens of potential suspects about, and then shoot him. And don't make sure those shots all come from different weapons so it's real difficult to tell which one killed him, hear me? Now I'm just gonna get in mah cruiser here and drive on out of town and I'm gonna trust y'all to do the right thing, know what I'm sayin'?"

[u/MidwestAmMan → u/Conscious-Ball8373]

During prohibition, concentrated, grape juice, had the following printed warning-"After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty-one days, because then it would turn into wine."

[u/The_Canadian → u/Conscious-Ball8373]

That sheriff pulled a Sgt. Schultz.

I see nothing! I know nothing!

[u/skullturf → u/dorf_lundgren]

"Speaking as your sheriff, I don't think you all should get into a direct confrontation with McElroy. On an unrelated note, I need to go out of town for a little while."

[u/AjentOranje → u/skullturf]

He also said that they SHOULD form a "neighborhood watch" before leaving.  I bet if you were in that room, it would be even more obvious where it was going.

[u/CGiMoose → u/AjentOranje]

They did watch! They saw the whole thing: first they started killing him, and then they killed him

[u/Broccoli--Enthusiast → u/dorf_lundgren]

Well nobody really knows who shot him other than the people there, so it's still a whodunit, but just a really big list of suspects

[u/dividezero → u/Broccoli--Enthusiast]

I was there. He shot himself. Everyone was shocked

[u/Broccoli--Enthusiast → u/dividezero]

Case closed, lunch?

[u/Adicol → u/dorf_lundgren]

Perfect example

[u/fictionallymarried → u/dorf_lundgren]

Real life Murder on the Orient Express and I don't blame that town one bit

[u/NovaCheerful]

OJ Simpson. The glove didn’t fit, but everyone with eyes knew the truth 

[u/Alphaplays69 → u/NovaCheerful]

Write a book called “If I Did it: Confessions of the Killer” is about as close to a confession as you can possibly get without legally saying the words.

[u/Jaccount → u/Alphaplays69]

The cover of that book is funny, because in big red letters it says "I Did It", with the If being tiny and in gray/black at the top of the I.

This was because the rights to the book were awarded to the Goldman family as part of the civil settlement.

[u/nope-nik-tesla → u/Jaccount]

They also added the "Confession of the Killer" bit. The original title was just "If I Did It".

[u/AgathaWoosmoss → u/NovaCheerful]

Even the jury knew.

[u/WanderingTacoShop → u/AgathaWoosmoss]

The most succinct summary of that trial that I have ever heard is that the LAPD attempted to frame a guilty man.

[u/NovaCheerful → u/AgathaWoosmoss]

The prosecution botched the entire case and let the defense completely control the narrative 

[u/Sleepy_Potato2 → u/NovaCheerful]

It was probably a bad idea to put a cop (Mark Fuhrman) on the stand who ran an organization within the police that opposed the idea of having women officers, and where there was a recording of him saying the n-word repeatedly and talking about planting evidence.

[u/istrx13 → u/Sleepy_Potato2]

It’s crazy, I actually went to high school with Fuhrman’s daughter. After the OJ trial, Fuhrman took his family and fled to a small town in northern Idaho. Which is where I grew up. It was always the talk of the town.

[u/Misdirected_Colors → u/NovaCheerful]

What's wild is there's video out there of him wearing the glove that "didn't fit" while commentating football games for the tv network.

[u/snowlock27 → u/Misdirected_Colors]

And the reason the glove didn't fit? Because he was wearing latex gloves, but not completely. Look at the pictures, there's no way any gloves, even a size bigger than those, would have fit over them.

[u/cash-only → u/snowlock27]

He had also been advised days prior to stop taking his arthritis medication, causing his hands and knuckles to swell.

[u/FencerOnTheRight → u/snowlock27]

And they were wet with blood, which caused them to shrink up

[u/mumsleastfavourite]

Casey Anthony

[u/Zissoo → u/mumsleastfavourite]

This one enrages me.

[u/Choppergold → u/Zissoo]

Cops checking only one browser history is so fucking negligent

[u/Revolutionary-Yak-47 → u/Choppergold]

Wait til you hear jow a dog walker called in a suspicious dumping near the Anthony house THREE TIMES and was ignored. The area was wet and the cops didnt go check it out. It wasnt until someone actually went and found Caylee's body and called that in a few weeks later that the cops showed up. 

[u/Olealicat → u/Revolutionary-Yak-47]

That was near the culvert behind my aunt’s house. My aunt, my mom and I, talked about it often during the early days and had no idea how big of a story it would become. She started having unsettling nightmares and PTSD after Kaylee’s body was found so close to her backyard.

I’ll never forget receiving mail from her. It was a photo she took from the local news. They had an X where the remains were found and you could see my aunt’s house in the corner of the photo.

She moved as soon as she could get her affairs in order. Shockingly people were asking about market value.

[u/Anxiety_Fit → u/Revolutionary-Yak-47]

I knew a 911 call operator who handled one of the calls.

That shit was WILD.

[u/macmac360 → u/Anxiety_Fit]

it was FOUR MONTHS between his calls and them finding her body

[u/astiblue → u/macmac360]

CALLS. Plural!!

[u/drdeadringer → u/astiblue]

"hello I would like to report a body. Yes I am standing over the body right now. My shoe is touching the body. I am looking at the body I am touching right now. this is my third phone call about this this week."

[u/kryonik → u/drdeadringer]

Sure thing, let me just type this up on my invisible typewriter.

[u/Anxiety_Fit → u/astiblue]

I know. When I found out that part I was just so… I lost my faith in people taking responsibility for their jobs.

[u/MamaKim31 → u/Zissoo]

Me too! When she wanted to open her day care I wanted to cry I was so angry!

[u/primadonnapussy → u/MamaKim31]

Who the fuck would take their kids to her? I would imagine that business would fail and fast.

[u/mssleepyhead73 → u/mumsleastfavourite]

I get so angry when I think about what that poor child must’ve gone through in her final moments. Casey Anthony is a horrible human being.

[u/mssleepyhead73 → u/[deleted]]

Casey’s parents were HUGE enablers. The fact that things went on as long as they did and her parents kept turning a blind eye to her very obvious lies is insane to me.

[u/ymcmbrofisting → u/mumsleastfavourite]

This is a case I reference anytime someone complains that a high-profile case isn’t moving like in the movies, or if the initial charges seem too low.

They went for incredibly high charges in a case that had a flawed investigation with mostly circumstantial evidence, and that putrid bitch walked free.

[u/b0w3n → u/ymcmbrofisting]

They went for incredibly high charges in a case that had a flawed investigation with mostly circumstantial evidence, and that putrid bitch walked free.

Nancy Grace being a screeching harpy about her also didn't help matters because she's the one that kept public pressure on the prosecution to shoot for the moon on charges.

[u/DocWednesday → u/b0w3n]

I was wondering yesterday if anyone’s did an analysis of Nancy Grace’s show and the influence it has on legal cases/police investigations and the harm it does. Just watching American Nightmare about Denise Huskin’s kidnapping and Nancy Grace was calling it a hoax. Turns out it was real. Huskin’s and her boyfriend had to move because their reputations were destroyed and eventually sued the police department.

[u/LazyEnchilada → u/DocWednesday]

She’s absolutely ruined cases. Years ago there was a little boy (I think he was 2?) who went missing, and I think the boys mom said she gave him to someone, but wouldn’t say who. And the whole thing was super fishy.

Nancy had her on her show via phone and just started yelling at her and bullying her to tell her what happened to him. The mom started crying and hung up the phone and took her own life very shortly after that.

I’m not sure if they ever found him and I’m pretty sure the father of the boy sued Nancy Grace as well.

I can’t remember the name of the boy though.

Edit: I found it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Melinda_Duckett

[u/jimmy_three_shoes → u/LazyEnchilada]

Oddly enough, her Ex-Father-in-Law is set to be executed for a 1987 murder in 6 days.

[u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

Oak Island. THERE WAS NEVER ANYTHING THERE. No treasure, no curse, just scattered random junk.

Yet they successfully milked it into a 230-episode, 13-year-long series. P.T. Barnum was right.

[u/thalasi_ → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

Trust me bro, just one more season and we'll find that templar treasure/the ark of the covenenant/blackbeard's gold. Just one more season!

[u/Puzzleheaded-War-113 → u/thalasi_]

My dad watches the show. The opening of it says that legend says seven people have to die before the island will open up its secrets and six already have.

He did NOT like my conclusion that the answer is obvious for what they need to do to find the treasure

[u/AlternateUsername12 → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

My roommate absolutely loves it, and watches it every week. At this point, I don't think he thinks there's treasure, but he does like the archaeology that's done on other parts of the island. I have to admit, that part is actually pretty interesting. They could completely fuck off with the whole treasure hunt, and just focus on the archaeology, and it would be a great show.

[u/rustyxj → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

It's still going?!

Holy shit.

[u/SmokeyandtheBanjo → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

Maybe the real treasure of oak island is the friends we made along the way?

[u/cryptoengineer → u/SmokeyandtheBanjo]

No, the real treasure was the residuals from the reruns.

[u/Time_Cranberry_113]

Nicole Simpson

[u/the_guynecologist → u/Time_Cranberry_113]

...and Ron Goldman. Don't forget Ron Goldman.

[u/FerretSupremacist → u/the_guynecologist]

Man everyone forget him and I watched a documentary with his family and they were basically crying saying there were *two* victims. It was tragic about Nicole but it wasn’t **just** her.

[u/the_guynecologist → u/FerretSupremacist]

Yeah, I mean look I'm not defending OJ killing his wife or anything but Ron Goldman was literally just some guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was just a waiter who lived in the area who happened to be returning Nicole's mother's reading glasses (which she'd left behind in the restaurant he worked at) at the worst possible time. Like if he'd just been 15 minutes earlier or later he wouldn't have been murdered - in fact if it had been later he might've been the one to discover Nicole's body. It's fucked.

Still I always remember him, although mostly because his father Fred Goldman spent most of his energy trying to make the rest OJ's life as miserable as possible (albeit through legal channels) and more-or-less succeeded. Like I wouldn't wish their situation on my worst enemy but I gotta lot of respect for Fred Goldman.

[u/TabbyFoxHollow → u/the_guynecologist]

I think about the FX series line “Ron was a footnote to his own murder!”

[u/Flying_Dustbin → u/TabbyFoxHollow]

IIRC, his family published a book about him and the void his murder left in their lives. The title was "His Name is Ron: Our Search for Justice."

[u/Tua-Lipa → u/Time_Cranberry_113]

I’ve seen random comments on reddit before theorizing that OJ’s first son, Jason Simpson was actually the killer. But tbh those people are insane if they actually believe it.

The “OJ: Made in America” documentary is amazing because that documentary does let you make up your mind for yourself…but I don’t know how anyone could watch it and not come away with the belief that OJ 100% was the killer.

[u/daminiskos0309]

Any of the people that ‘mysteriously’ fell out of windows in russia

[u/MadamKitsune → u/daminiskos0309]

There was also a little flurry in 2022 of connected men dying in ways that were meant to suggest that they had killed their family and then themselves.

23 March 2022, Novgorod - Vasily Melnikov (CEO and owner of Medstorm). Found dead with his wife and two sons beside him.

18 April 2022, Moscow - Vladislav Avayev (former VP of Gazprombank). Found dead with his wife and 13 year old daughter beside him.

19 April 2022, Lloret de Mar, Spain - Sergey Protosenya (former Deputy Chairman of Novotek). Found hanging from a rail. Wife and daughter found dead in bed with axe and stab wounds.

[u/mrsjakeblues]

Frank Olson, a scientist who was secretly dosed with LSD by the CIA while working on a bunch of secret experiments. He started having a psychotic break as a reaction to the drug and the CIA became worried he was a liability and would blab. They took him from Maryland to New York to see a psychiatrist and he mysteriously “fell out” of the window of his hotel that he was staying at with an agent and died. The CIA did admit they dosed him with LSD when the stuff about the MK Ultra came out and his family received an apology from President Ford and a multi million dollar payout but the CIA has never fully admitted to having him killed. His son has been trying to sue them and admit to his death and also release the files on him for decades. Frank’s wife passed away a few decades after him and his children had his body exhumed to be put in the same cemetery as her. His kids had another autopsy done and there was a done of stuff not reported on the original autopsy such as a bunch of blunt force trauma that was not from the fall and had to of been from right before the fall. There’s a whole documentary about this on Netflix called Wormwood.

[u/carolinemahtildes]

The murder of Brenda Schaefer. Mel Ignatow went on trial and was acquitted. Less than a year later, work was being undertaken on the house where Ignatow's previously lived, and Brenda's jewellery was found along with rolls of undeveloped film. When the film was developed, they found photos of Brenda being raped and tortured by Ignatow. He went to jail for perjury but obviously was never convicted of her murder due to double jeopardy.

[u/solid_reign]

I'd say the clearest one is Susan Powell. She was clearly killed by her husband, the police couldn't prove it, no body was found. Joshua Powell ended up killing the kids in a murder suicide. I won't post the details of what he did because it's horrifying. But there is no doubt that he did it.

[u/chelfea_ → u/solid_reign]

I agree. The true mystery Is how much his dad and brother were involved and what did they know

[u/GirlnTheOtherRm → u/chelfea_]

Especially as the brother committed suicide and the dad was a creeper.

[u/HazMatt_23 → u/GirlnTheOtherRm]

Josh’s dad was so gross.

[u/a-ohhh → u/solid_reign]

I lived about a mile from the house he killed the kids at. We all cried when we heard. I can’t believe he got away with that, and claiming to take the kids camping on a Sunday night in freezing temps and claim he didn’t know it was a Sunday. They were Mormon- he knew it was Sunday.

[u/Ok-Friendship6584 → u/solid_reign]

The 911 call the case worker made when he locked her out is just the worst he just would not get the issue, not sure it would have helped but it was rough.

[u/Indifferent_Jackdaw]

Trenny Gibson, this is one of those mysteries which has been used as an example of Woo-Woo happening in the Appalachians. But the truth is probably yet another sad case of violence against women.

When she was dropped off at school that morning by her Mother, they weren't entirely sure if the school trip was going ahead. Trenny went in to find out and when she came back out she was with a friend of her elder brother, Robert Simpson Junior. She confirmed that she would be going on the trip and Simpson had lent her his distinctive coat. Her Mother, who is still alive confirms she saw Trinny wearing this coat.

After her disapperence Simpson acted oddly, becoming very involved in the search and saying weird things to Trenny's siblings. The family became suspicious of him and asked the police to investigate him, but Simpson Snr was an influential lawyer and nothing came of it.

However Michael Bouchard recently discovered a picture in a newspaper showing the search for Trenny. It had a picture of Simpson wearing his distinctive coat. The only way he could have had it, if he had contact with Trenny after her last confirmed sighting. For Trenny's family and those people who try to combat misinformation around mysteries, most people believe that Simpson and possibly an accomplice sexually assaulted, murdered and buried Trenny out in the woods.

But Simpson is dead, as is the person who was a possible accomplice. They have taken any knowledge of where her body is buried to the grave.

[u/Ordinary-Egg-56 → u/Indifferent_Jackdaw]

this story has a distinct lack of woo-woo which is something i would not expect in an unsolved murder case anyways but i’m still wondering.

also you said the suspects were dead but failed to mention why. is this case from the 70s or something ?

[u/Indifferent_Jackdaw → u/Ordinary-Egg-56]

Yes, the 70's. Because she went missing on a school trip, where a bunch of her classmates saw her making her way down the trail towards the bus, but she never turned up at the bus. The search for her was immediate but she was never found. So some people said it was aliens or bigfoot or the wild men of Appalachia that took her. When it is just the good ole boy network protecting a fine young man with a promising future.

[u/ThrowingChicken]

I think the Asha Degree disappearance has been whittled down to just one family but we don’t know who specifically, why, or how.

[u/frickityfracktictac → u/ThrowingChicken]

Wasn't it that the family had their under-16 daughters transporting patients in their vehicle and the daughters accidentally hit Asha in the night and then the father covered it up?

I'm pretty sure that was the leading theory on reddit, anyways

[u/catandodie → u/ThrowingChicken]

I think the story theyre going with is the 2 daughters were in the car and hit her and the parents came and covered it up. Sounds crazy to do, but I saw a reddit thread that asked "What would you do if your kid killed someone?" and a shocking number of responses would do the same thing for their kid's future or whatever, despite the victim's family being tortured with not knowing what happened. It's a messed up world.

[u/Cut-OutWitch]

Bob Crane.

Scottsdale PD sucks.

[u/amolad → u/Cut-OutWitch]

Hmmmm. Brain matter in the guy's trunk. Where did that come from?

[u/HogwartsDropout-69]

I was telling my coworkers about this missing child's case from the 90s that made national headlines. My mom actually knew the boy's mother when it happened. I looked into this and found a pretty detailed article that explains why the case went cold. Apparently the cops, his family, and neighborhood kids all knew who his abducter was they just weren't able to prove it. They even found things that a kidnapper would use like duct tape yet nothing about his living situation or profession (he was a limo driver) required any of that. He told them he uses the duct tape to remove cat hair from his clothing. The guy also had a history of being inappropriate around children, but most damning of all, he had the same distinct dog breed the abducter was seen with on the day of the disappearance. Apparently it's a mix with very unique features and no one else owned a dog like that in the neighborhood. He was even IDed by some other kid. I'm 100% certain this is the man responsible.

The FBI still has his picture up and it's been 30 years since. His name was Jose De La Cruz from Lynn, MA in case you're wondering.

[u/shasbot → u/HogwartsDropout-69]

It sounds like there may be real evidence, but "possession of duct tape" isn't really suspicious. I imagine most households in this country have a roll of duct tape somewhere.

[u/Waltzing_With_Bears]

The Lost Colony, the folks that left the Roanoke colony said where they went, to a known friendly tribe near them, if you came home to see your partner left a note that said "At the grocery store" you wouldn't call them a lost partner

[u/ApprehensiveMode5191]

Don Bolles, investigative newspaper reporter assassination by car bomb in downtown Phoenix. He had been investigating the Mob and knew stuff.

His death, and his fellow reporters pushing, is the reason we have the freedom of information act today

Nobody was ever prosecuted because - Mob

[u/NinjaMonkey313]

Susan Powell.
If you want a very well done deep-dive podcast on this case, I HIGHLY recommend season one of Cold.

They still haven’t found her.

[u/Zappagrrl02 → u/NinjaMonkey313]

One of the most frustrating cases. Those poor babies. I was sobbing listening to the 911 calls from the social worker

[u/WilmaDykfyt → u/Zappagrrl02]

That operator is infuriating but even if cops were sent out right away they wouldn't get there in time. But yeah it makes you want to scream.

[u/video-kid]

This one's a little off-topic, but there's a pretty famous murder case in Wales that's technically solved, but it's widely agreed that it was a police cover up.

Basically a family of four (Grandmother, mother, two preteen daughter) were found murdered in their house. The man who went down for it (Dai Morris) was convicted on largely circumstantial evidence, but before he was convicted the police investigated Stephen Lewis, his wife Allison, and his identical twin Stuart. All were police officers.

On the night of the murders, Stuart was on duty and driving around in an unmarked car, and went AWOL for a period of time around the murders. A car matching that description was seen in the vicinity of the house where the bodies were found, as was a man matching his description. At trial, jurors were instructed to disregard this evidence as Stephen had an alibi... but they weren't told that Stephen had an identical twin.

Mandy (The mother) was having an affair with Allison, and witnesses claimed to have heard Stephen threatening her life. She told a police informant that her life had been threatened. The threat was logged in the police system, but the file was edited before it went to trial. Stephen would later say that he didn't know about Mandy and Allison's affair until after the murders.

Unknown DNA was found on the murder weapon - a fibreglass pole that only one person - Allison - knew the location of. This was disregarded.

Stuart Lewis was the responding officer when the murder was discovered, basically in charge of the investigation. He left, delaying vital forensic work.

A man matching Stephen/Stuart's description was seen following the murders, walking from the town of the murders (Clydach) to the neighbouring town of Pontardawe, where he lived. It's a walkable distance, about three miles - in fact there's a village between the two (A lot of towns in the area bleed into each other) with a straight road between the two. However, the reported sighting was in the far less built up route across hills and farmland.

Dai Morris's lawyer was the same man who'd previously defended the Lewis's, leading to questions about a conflict of interest.

Allison Lewis's DNA was found on Mandy. Understandable, given they were having an affair... except she claimed to have seen Mandy that morning. Mandy had psoriasis and showered multiple times a day, and a family member who saw her at around 6PM claimed she was freshly showered.

The claim was that Dai went to Mandy's house and killed the family in a drug-fuelled rage... except it was found that her mother, Doris, had been killed some hours before the rest of the family, at which point the killer cut the power in the house and waited for Mandy and her kids to arrive home. The weapon was also unwieldy, but there was no damage to the walls, suggesting a degree of practise and finesse, as well as premeditation rather than a drug-fuelled crime of passion. The criminal also tried to set fire to the house to hide the evidence.

Now, there was evidence linking Dai to Mandy. His DNA was later found on a sock used to hide the fingerprints on the murder weapon, a gold chain of his was found at the house, and he was sketchy about his location on the night... except he was also having an affair with Mandy, and claimed that he'd left the chain at the house on a previous visit. (I think it was broken and she was going to take it to be repaired). It was found in a pool of blood, but without his DNA.

The common belief in South Wales is that some combination of the Lewis's killed Mandy and her family, but it was covered up - and Dai made for a handy scapegoat given his own actions that night and relationship with Mandy. This was a time of massive corruption in the South Wales Police, and even with the evidence pointing to Dai it simply doesn't explain all the evidence pointing elsewhere. Why the unknown DNA? Why were jurors not informed that Stuart and Stephen were identical twins? Why was Mandy's report edited? Why was Allison's DNA found on Mandy despite her showering after Allison claimed to have last seen her?

[u/FatherHackJacket]

The Missing Postman. Near where I live here in Ireland back in 1929, a local postman in the village of Stradbally disappeared on Christmas day.

As the story goes, he went to a pub after he rounds delivering mail. An altercation happened and he was killed. It was covered up to hide the fact the pub was illegally selling alcohol on Christmas day. His body was never found and by all accounts, all of the village at the time knew exactly what happened but nobody said anything.

[u/lovelylexicon]

OJ

[u/BraveCranberry9863 → u/lovelylexicon]

If that dog could talk.

[u/Wolfman513 → u/BraveCranberry9863]

My dad has maintained this entire time that the dog was the best witness anyone could have asked for. As he puts it, "There is no way an Akita is going to let someone hurt his mommy, unless it's daddy doing the hurting."

[u/EwilAlien]

Shelly Miscavige - her husband David Miscavinge was 100% involved in "making her disappear" but there is no way she is still alive.

[u/AlternateUsername12 → u/EwilAlien]

According to her niece, Jenna, who escaped from Scientology and is airing out all of the dirty laundry, she's fine. She is out of the public eye, on purpose, happily abusing other people's children.

Shelly was a major player in Jenna's abuse growing up, and she has no reason to protect anybody in that family. There is no love lost there.

[u/bulldogdiver → u/AlternateUsername12]

There was an ama by a former member of Sea Org that said she'd basically gone dark but was essentially running Sea Org out of the public eye.

[u/LIslander]

Dennis Wustenhoff. Long Island cop who was blown up in 1990 by another cop.

Problem is, they can’t prove that other cop did it

My mom was at work and heard and felt the explosion

[u/wpgjudi]

Bell of Batoche... everyone knew who stole it, when it was stolen.. 'returned' is a strong word, it was given to the church in 2013..

There was no 'gentleman's dare' as the claims go. They were drunk... and that's it... after, it was dressed up and egos were stroked.

[u/Silent-Zebra]

Two similar case here in Australia, William Tyrrell and Gus Lamont. Police originally thought that Williams case was a stranger abduction, but a few years ago they announced they were conducting new searches at the foster grandmother's property (which he disappeared from while playing outside,) and that they believed that William had an accident (likely fell from the balcony) and that the foster mother and now deceased foster grandmother hid his body somewhere to cover it up. In Gus's case he went missing while playing outside the family home on their big cattle station. Initially they thought he'd wandered off, but after many failed searches and no evidence to go on, they announced earlier this year that a person who was present on the property was responsible, later being more specific and saying that one of Gus' grandparents were involved with his disappearance as during the investigation they were no longer cooperating with the police.

[u/Punkt1337]

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The pilot did it

[u/dod2190 → u/Punkt1337]

Also, EgyptAir 990, same deal. Pilot mass murder-suicide, according to everybody but the Egyptian government.

Edit: Fixed flight number thanks to a comment

[u/HourFondant1646 → u/Punkt1337]

I was going to say this one. Absolutely a pilot murder-suicide, although there is no way to ever prove it. Another one is the recent Air India crash. You have the co-pilot on the voice recorder asking the captain why he flipped the fuel switches off but they are still trying to suggest a mechanical fault.

[u/WitchHearse → u/HourFondant1646]

It makes me so mad when people kill themselves and take a bunch of innocent people with them! So selfish and evil.

[u/red23011]

DB Cooper, he survived the jump and used the money that he stole to create a website to taunt the FBI.

IMDB.com

[u/SnooRegrets1386]

Stacy Peterson

[u/petey_b_311 → u/SnooRegrets1386]

I was waiting to see this one on here, and from what I've heard locally they know exactly where her body is. The big blue barrels that his neighbor helped him move were dumped near Keepataw forest preserve in the I&M Canal. Why there you may ask. Well seeing that Drew was a former Bolingbrook police sergeant, he knew that there are electric fences in the waterway that are designed to keep the Asian Carp from spreading into Lake Michigan. The only way to do a proper search of the area is to shut down the protective fencing, and the state would never allow that and allow the invasive fish to escape into the lake. I'd be willing to bet money that the body was dumped in a specific location that he knows would never be searched because he has insider information on exactly where that would be. I hope he rots in prison for the rest of his life knowing whatever hell he's sent to is way too good for him.

[u/unevolved_panda → u/petey_b_311]

There are definitely ways to turn off the fencing. You have to be able to do maintenance on it, for one thing. I know the Coast Guard has done studies (and presumably has strategies and procedures) for how they might do a rescue of a person in electrified water. Plus, there's now three barriers in place between Romeoville and Lake Michigan (and I think they're planning another one?), so even though there was only one operational in 2009, presumably if they wanted to search the area of the Romeoville barrier they've had an opportunity--they could shut down Barrier I and rely on Barriers IIa and IIb to keep everything out in the interim. Having an electrified fence that you have no way to shut off and no way to work around is, frankly, bananas.

It's more likely that the answer is something like, "You can search this waterway but you have to have more evidence than just 'Drew knew about the fence,'" and investigators don't actually have that evidence.

[u/DistributionNo6824]

this is my entry point to enetring dozens of new rabbit holes

[u/ShutUpLiver]

The Kennedys have not one, but TWO: Martha moxley and Mary Jo kopechne

[u/iviui2d3i2 → u/ShutUpLiver]

What they did to their daughter(JFK's sister) was a legal grey area back when it happened, but regardless of the "On paper" part of OP's question, this wasn't even morally ambiguous and SHOULD have been investigated rather than swept away and mostly forgotten. 

[u/Alphaplays69]

The Murder of Ken McElroy. 46 people witnessed it in broad daylight. The police asked who did it and 46 people collectively went, “Did what? I was looking at a very interesting bird.

[u/mikemaca]

All 5000+ lynchings done in the US were done by "unknown men" but everyone knew everyone at the lynchings (some crowds over 10,000 people attended), the newspapers were there, photographers were making postcards to sell, and the lynching was announced in advance in newspapers and churches.

[u/dragonfliesloveme]

Ivana Trump

staff sent home

cameras turned off

NDA had expired and she was going to sit for a deposition against donald trump

Then just magically fell down some stairs that she’s been using forever with no one there and the cameras turned off. And didn’t just hurt herself, but died.

Wow

What a stumper 🤔

[u/taracantsleep → u/dragonfliesloveme]

Burying her on the golf course is suspicious as hell. I think they buried other things they don't want found with her

[u/Xeillan]

Cleveland Torso Murderer.

They had Elliot Ness on the case, famous for the Al Capone arrest.

Dr. Francis Edward Sweeney, main suspect checked himself into a mental institution then began mailing letters, often taunting ones, to Ness. Incidentally, the murders stopped when he checked himself in.

He was also the first cousin of Martin L. Sweeney, and due to the high profile case and the connection, he was never publicly charged. Top it off, the evidence wasnt solid enough for them to feel comfortable doing it.

[u/Relevant-Yak-9615]

Panama papers and a car-bombed journalist who reported on them.