Murders have always been unsettling, the reason behind can be anger, jealousy, thrill or accidents. Some of them are solved and some get famous and feature in our article of Unsolved Murders. The act of murder is seriously condemned. Let’s look at such unsolved murders over the history
5. JonBenét Ramsey.
The six-year-old child beauty queen’s murder is still a mystery, whether there was a kidnapping or not, the involvement of family members or it was a work of an intruder, and a handful of suspects are still not enough to find out what really happened to six-year-old beauty sensation, JonBenét Ramsey.
Morning of December 26, 1996, Patsy Ramsey found a ransom note for Jon Benet Ramsey on the staircase inside the house, this prompted her to call 911 at 5:52 in the morning, as they picked up Patsy: “We have a kidnapping. Hurry please!”, “We have a… there’s a note left and our daughter’s gone“, and when the operator asked about how long’s she’s been gone? Patsy said, “No I don’t, please, we just got up and she’s not here.”
Later she told 911 about ransom note and she ended the call after 911 told that they sending somebody.
Ransom note demanded $118,000 dollars with $100,000 dollars in 100 dollar bills and rest 18,000$ in 20$ bills.
According to reports Jon Benet’s death was due to ‘asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma’, which also revealed that she had a fracture to her skull and was sexually assaulted. Shockingly she was alive when her killer strangled her to death.
There are many theories about the involvement of someone close to her family and Ramsey’s(Jon, Patsy, and Burke) were also held accountable for killing their daughter, Burke Ramsey, JonBenet’s older brother was 9 at the time this event took place.
In 2016 Pedophile John Mark Karr confessed that he was with JonBenet at the time of her death and that might explain the sexual assault, but it later turns that he was lying the whole time as his DNA didn’t match the DNA on scene.
Gary Olvia and Bill McReynolds were also considered to be the major suspect. Even after 2 decades, no one is convicted for JonBenet’s murder.
4. The Black Dahlia
On 15th Jan 1947 around 11 A.M., Betty Bersinger was taking her three-year-old daughter on a morning errand when she found the body of Elizabeth Short aka “The Black Dahlia” lying in an empty lawn, which she originally mistook for a mannequin.
Short’s body was cut in half from the waist below and was posed such that her eyes were open, her hands were above her head and her face was cut up to her ears to make a fake smile like Heath Ledger’s joker in 08 Batman’s movie.
The body was cut with surgical precision as the cuts were clean, leaving no trauma to internal organs and soaked out of blood, leaving her body pale.
FBI helped LAPD by identifying the victim through her fingerprints, LAPD circulated flyers in hopes of getting more information about Short, which describer her 5’10” height, 110 lbs weight and etc.
Robert “Red” Manley was one of the last people she was last seen alive in Biltmore Hotel while some seen her after Robert drooped her to Crown Grill bar.
Due to the cuts on her body suspicion aroused on people with surgical skills, by the end of December 1948 police considered 192 suspects in total, over 50 people confessed to Short’s murder but only 22 people were considered feasible suspects by the Los Angeles DA.
Doctor George Hodel being the most notorious suspects among all.
George had a reputation of being the bad guy, he had 11 children from 5 different women and his own daughter ran away from home, after getting caught by police she told them that her father tried teaching her oral sex at the age of 11 and George also offered her to his friends while she was just 14 and George himself had sex with her at the age of 14 which resulted in getting her pregnant at the age of 15.
Steve Hodel, son of Dr. George Hodel investigated the case after he retired from the force and believes that his father George Hodel killed Elizabeth Short.
3. Chicago Tylenol murders.
Between Sept 29, 1982, and 1 October 1982, a total of 7 people died in the original Tylenol murders, with several more deaths in subsequent similar copycat crimes.
After the deaths of all the 7 victims, it was clear that Tylenol was intentionally poisoned with Potassium Cyanide.
What makes this more dangerous that victims purchased it form different stores which in turn also got from different manufacturing plants.
This lead Johnson and Johnson to recall over 31 million bottles of medication and offered replacement bottles, and $100,000 dollars were offered as a reward for any information about the one who poisoned the pills. This act cost J&J about 100 million dollars.
Chicago police department went throughout the city giving warnings about poisonous Tylenol through a loudspeaker.
The killer must have done this within a day or two before the murder started happening as cyanide would eat through the capsules if held for a longer period of time. It was easy for the killer to do such a horrible task as there were no security cameras back then.
Some well-known suspects include: New York City resident James Lewis was considered a prime suspect, Lewis sent a letter to Johnson and Johnson demanding $1 million to stop the killings and was convicted of extortion for sending the letter but did not have enough evidence to charge him for Tylenol murders.
Lewis also sent a threatening letter to President Reagan concerning tax codes earlier. However, Lewis was ruled out due to DNA evidence
Roger Arnold and Laurie Dunn and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski were among the major suspects, but due to lack of evidence, everyone walked away.
2. The Zodiac Killer.
“I like killing people because it is so much fun, it is so much more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all.”.. “I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collection of slaves for afterlife” [from segmented cipher sent to newspapers”]—Zodiac Killer
On Aug 1, 1969, 3 local newspapers received a handwritten letter in an envelope without any return address. The letter mentions the details of murders that only a killer would have known.
Unlike serial killers, he constantly used to send a letter to Police departments mocking them for being unable to decipher the letters and not finding him.
Dear Editor: I am the murderer of 2 teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman of the girl on 4th of July.
Zodiac Killer, He mentioned the details that only a killer would have known.
Claimed to have killed 37 people, 5 confirmed dead, 2 injured and 20-18 total dead.
On Sept 27, 1969, Bryan Hartnell one of the two victims of Zodiac who survived despite being stabbed six times in the back, described Zodiac as 5’8” to 6 ft, heavyset, and a white man.
Zodiac left a message on Bryan’s car with Zodiac’s sign, which had dates of all the 3 killings written by a knife.
Later Zodiac killed a cab driver, a teenage girl had a good look at the killer and she described it to police as a man, she described Zodiac to be between 25-30 years, white male, heavy rimmed glasses.
”PS 2 cops pulled a goof about 3 min after I left the cab.”
Zodiac’s mocking policeman after killing the cab driver in his letter.
Later he sent a letter which indicated Zodiac might try to kill children’s school bus, he also included diagrams of bombs that can be used in buses.
In 1974 the letters stopped and so does the killings, almost 5 decades later no one has any idea about the man behind the mask. Arthur Leigh Allen was considered the prime suspect.
When police searched his house they found a formula for bombs, constructed bombs, and tapes about Zodiac killer but Allen’s DNA was not a match with the DNA of the postcard’s stamp saliva sent to police also the fingerprints did not match the one recovered from the Paul Stine crime scene.
Earl Van Best Jr., Richard Gaikowski, Lawerence Kane and more were considered as persons of interest.
1. Jack The Ripper
All of the 5 victims attributed to Jack the Ripper were all within a mile to each other, the reign of terror lasted almost 12 weeks from August 7 with the first victim Mary Ann Nichols found dead on her back, her throat severely slashed and she was disembowelled. Later discovered by Charles Cross in Buck’s row in White chapel on August 31, 1888.
9 days later, the second victim, Anne Chapman was found dead within a mile from Marry Ann, but this time the violence escalated with a murder taking her womb.
Police didn’t take much time to realize that the murderer had anatomical knowledge by the manner in which Anne Chapman’s womb was removed. So suspicion went on to doctors or someone with basic anatomical knowledge.
Police received many letters claiming to be the killer, Jack the ripper. One month prior to the first killing, the third victim was found Elizabeth Stride, shockingly after 45 minutes another body as found in Mitre Square, Catherine Eddowes was the second victim in the same night, Catherine’s uterus was removed, so was her left kidney.
Mary Kelly was the last and the final victim was found dead in the most gruesome manner with her body disemboweled and skinned down.
Ripper’s reign of terror lasted 12 weeks or so murdering 5 women having only one similarity of being Prostitutes. Either the killer really hated the business of prostitution or it was a mere coincidence that they were all into prostitution.
Aron Kosminski, a polish jew was a prime suspect who had fled to London with his family, escaping the Russian pogroms in early 1880, what raised everyone’s eyebrow is that Aron was known his hatred towards women particularly Prostitutes, and his appearance matched the description provided by the police of a man in Mitre square, which was the night of double murder, Montague Jhonson Druitt, Walter Sickert, Joseph Barnett, James Maybrick were among the top suspects.
But due to lack of evidence, no one among all the suspects has been convicted yet.
Now that you’ve read about the top 5 unsolved murder mysteries, read about Times when Simpsons actually predicted the future or read Quotes from the man who wanted to create sex zombies.
