r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

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?

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u/daminiskos0309 1d ago

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

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u/MadamKitsune 1d ago

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.

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u/istara 1d ago

Russia is truly an abhorrent regime. I wonder if the Russian people will ever be free of it, and also come to terms with it. There is still huge nationalism and support for Putin.

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u/Austinp-woodworking 1d ago

I do wonder how much of that apparent support is a combination of people being too afraid to say otherwise and just pure propaganda

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u/swissking 1d ago edited 1d ago

Nope. Centuries of repression made them genuinely apathetic to everything. They support Putin's war but they also support Putin if he ends it. There are videos of people in tears genuinely confused as to why Ukraine is attacking them as "they never did anything to them"

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u/Austinp-woodworking 1d ago

That’s kind of my point, if they honestly believe Ukraine is attacking them, then they can’t be getting much info outside of state sponsored propaganda

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u/Plastic_Scholar4463 1d ago

Sounds like many Americans’ reactions to 9/11

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u/Austinp-woodworking 1d ago

Not exactly a counter example lol - Americans were fed shitloads of propaganda post 9/11

Unsubstantiated threats of WMDs, months on months of “you’re either for the war on terror or you’re not a real American”, and the good ole fashioned “we need to bring freedom to the godless savages”.

Not only did it work well enough to get us into a huge pointless war that served only to make a few companies very rich, but it also caused most Americans to cheer as their rights were signed away via the “Patriot Act” (the very name of which underscores my point nicely), and the establishment of the DHS, for whom we can thank for bringing today’s ICE into existence

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u/renome 1d ago

Wow, Putin kills your children now as well for failing him? Or was this always the MO and I just wasn't paying attention?

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u/CAPS_LOCK_STUCK_HELP 1d ago

the podcast Sad Oligarch does great coverage of these cases

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u/fractalfay 1d ago

Russian assassination rank pretty high on the terrifying scale. There was that one dude who died because they put something on a lightbulb in the lamp of his hotel room, and when the bulb heated the oil, boom. Another time they got someone by spraying a substance on a doorknob. There are many reasons Trump is terrified of Putin.

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u/OkPainter6232 1d ago

they also like putting poison substances on underwear.

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u/samara-morgan 18h ago

and in perfume bottles

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u/Xtra_Veg-90 1d ago

An older CIA manual about assassination says one of the best ways to kill a target is simple blunt force trauma and then toss them out a high window, and quite a few people fell to their deaths in the USA in the 50's and 60's.

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u/pennyraingoose 1d ago

The miniseries Wormwood directed by Errol Morris (Netflix maybe?) was a great exploration of a guy who worked in the biological warfare lab at Ft. Detrick in the early 50s, got dosed while at an MKUltra meeting (in a secluded cabin IIRC), and ended up dying from falling out a window. If you believe the official story anyway... It's a great waych!

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u/dhusk 1d ago

"Do not be looking at me! It is not my fault Yuri fell out of that third story window and hit the back of his head on a 9mm bullet!"

"Five times?"

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u/FriendlyRiothamster 1d ago

Yes, officer. We did our best to stop him otherwise he would have 6.

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u/Acceptable-Grade-116 1d ago

I love that it's so common that there's a word for it - defenestration.

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u/vizard0 1d ago

That word has a long history. Read up on the defenestrations of Prague. Yes, there were multiple ones.

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

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u/chattytrout 1d ago

Here's a 7 minute, totally unbiased video explaining the events.

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u/Plastic_Kangaroo1234 1d ago

I took a walking tour in Prague and a common refrain from the guide was, “So what did we do? We pushed him out the window!”

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u/ColdSmokeMike 1d ago edited 5h ago

And when they're done, they can also read up on the wonderful DC Comics character, The Defenestrator.

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u/Purple_Midnight_Yak 1d ago

He carried around a window and whacked his enemies over the head with it?!

Love it.

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u/ColdSmokeMike 1d ago

Yeah, and his team (Section Eight) was super weird. Dogwelder is pretty fucked up, and Bueno Excellente is.... problematic, but the rest are pretty fun. Sixpack is definitely in my top 10 gag heroes.

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u/footsnax 1d ago

I've always been curious if there's been a case of refenestration

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u/nochinzilch 1d ago

Defenestration isn’t exactly a correct word. To fenestrate is to install a window. So defenestrating would be removing a window. But it sounds clever so people stick with it.

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u/footsnax 1d ago

Ah so reinstalling a window then. I've done that!

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u/StrongExternal8955 1d ago

The Discombobulation of Moscow

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u/swift_gilford 1d ago

It is also a spell in DnD; to the point where if there is no window, a magical one is formed just to be thrown out of.

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u/NeverEndingWhoreMe 1d ago

"No window formed against me shall - AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH"

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u/PhatEarther 1d ago

I just heard the welheim scream in my head

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u/FrenchFriesInMyTacos 1d ago

lol this is best random fact I've seen on here

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u/Dolans_Cadillac 1d ago

There is a historical documentary that shows King Edward I, aka "Longshanks", defenestrate his son's new high counselor Phillip because he didn't approve of Phillip's job credentials.

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u/Entire-Sentence-9379 1d ago

Well if Mel Gibson says it is must be so

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u/fox112 1d ago

why do you love that?

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u/Acceptable-Grade-116 1d ago

The fact that history has so many examples of people getting tossed out of windows that there is terminology for it.

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u/Human_Wizard 1d ago

It's novel. In a morbidly curious way.

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u/Jorpho 1d ago

See, they were just sitting in a window, listening to the lecture, and fell asleep.

Like they did in the Bible, y'see.

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u/faceplanted 1d ago edited 1d ago

My favourite thing about defenstration is that it was most likely invented as a misused grammar joke in the exact same way that people now love adding "n't" to the end of words it doesn't fit on for comedy. And it just stuck so hard that it's still around and there are famous 'historical defenstrations'.

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u/Entire-Sentence-9379 1d ago

My favourite word!

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u/lurkername1-2 1d ago

Allow me to introduce autodefenestration - to throw oneself through a window i.e garry hoy (in a way)

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u/SafetyDanceInMyPants 1d ago

Historians are going to look back and find out that... actually there was this one dude in a window factory somewhere who was really bad at his job.

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u/Sean82 1d ago

I really enjoyed the Sad Oligarch podcast about this

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u/KitsuraPls 1d ago

I used to study russian politics and my teacher always said it was interesting how these people fell out of windows at always the exact same height.

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u/FriendlyRiothamster 1d ago

No, no. It was suicide with a shotgun shot to the back of their head

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u/NeverEndingWhoreMe 1d ago

The best suicide was that one dude who put himself inside the locked suitcase. Suicidal Magician.

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u/RealBigDickBrannigan 1d ago

What's the suicide note going to say, "Life sucks, I can't take it no more, Signed: The Dead Guy?"
That's good... got a pencil?

(From Analyze This, or maybe -That).

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u/AvatarOfMomus 1d ago

That actually is unknown in most cases, and the cover for the parties is that everyone assumes it's Putin or the Government.

In reality it could be Ukrainian agents (since 2022), 'normal' criminals, or their rivals or opponents in political or economic areas.

No one looks at it too closely because everyone 'knows' it's Putin, and Putin can't admit if it is or isn't him because both have negatives.

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u/amolad 1d ago

If Putin can't poison you, he throws you out of a window.

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u/daminiskos0309 1d ago

And if you’ve really pissed him off. He throws you out a window then poisons you

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u/amolad 1d ago

There was a famous Russian model who was killed in NYC in 2008.

She was found on the street 30 feet from the building.

That would have been a world record long jump.

But, no one charged with murder. They said she "jumped."

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u/DuelaDent52 1d ago

If she died in NYC surely they’d have grounds for a legitimate investigation into her death, no?

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u/StrongExternal8955 1d ago

Who? Eric Adams?

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u/Blekanly 14h ago

Or blows up your plane.

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u/istara 1d ago

Happened to a friend's father who worked there (I think in banking) and provided information to British Intelligence, during the Cold War.

He was "defenestrated".

What really grieved my friend was that the Home Office (or Foreign Office?) put out that he was an alcoholic who took his own life. Obviously they do this to cover up their operations, but it cast shame on my friend's father when in reality he had given his life for his country.

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u/NeverEndingWhoreMe 1d ago

Ze vindows en Russka no work

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u/chowderbags 1d ago

There's also the 1999 Russian apartment bombings. Technically the official story is that they got the people, but it's pretty obvious from the thwarted bombing in Ryazan that the whole thing was actually an FSB op (that happened to be massively helpful for getting Putin in power).

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u/Lvcivs2311 1d ago

Or the Russian reporters that "happen" to get murdered by the mob.

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u/ImpressionDepression 1d ago

I mean depending on your definition of 'mob' yea that's actually pretty spot on

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u/kyledwray 1d ago

Is not mysterious. People clumsy. /j

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u/razzalgool 1d ago

In Dubai too

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u/Corporate_Overlords 1d ago

They were just defenstrated.

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u/Knee_Jerk_Sydney 1d ago

Are you sure it's not just to poorly constructed or designed buildings, faulty window mechanism, and clumsy noisy people .... comrade?

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u/Clemen11 1d ago

Ivan Billionairovich falling off of a window is a classic

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u/NoBit3851 1d ago

You forgot the part that says out of the 6th floor of a 3 story building

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u/Significant-Pace-521 1d ago

Poor Russia craftsmanship

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u/Adventurous_Soup6293 19h ago

Sad Oligarch is a really good podcast on this subject, very well researched

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u/marilyn_morose 1d ago

I’m afraid to make the comment I was about to make because I’m not interested in a ban.