There are Murders without resolving Which are highlighted by the violence suffered by its victims or difficulty in finding the killers.
A murder is defined as the act of ending the life of a human being without a valid justification or excuse. Most societies consider this as a very serious crime and the people involved should be charged with considerable penalties.
Nevertheless, many are the murders that remain unresolved each year in the world and some of them manage to gain fame in such a way that they remain in the collective memory for years.
Some of these crimes are classified as cold cases, implying that the act in question has not been resolved and is not the subject of a recent criminal investigation. However, the possibility that new information may emerge from the testimony of new witnesses, re-examined files, new material obtained as evidence or new activities on any suspect is left open.
In many cases, new investigative tools are developed over time that allow us to analyze in a new way the evidences that have survived over time in order to clarify the facts (1).
This is a list of some of the most famous cases of deaths in modern history due to murder or in which the circumstances that led to the death have not been clearly established.
1- The case of Taman Shud
The Mystery of the Somerton Man is the case of an unidentified man who was found dead on December 1, 1948 at Somerton Beach, Gleneg in Australia. The name by which it is known refers to the phrase"Tamam Shud"which means"finished"or"finished"in Persian.
These words were found on a piece of paper that was found months later in one of the trouser pockets that this man used. The book from which this paper was torn was found and on its pages was found a telephone number, another number and a message that seems to be encrypted (2).
2- The feet of the Salish Sea
Since August 20, 2007, several human amputees have been discovered off the coast of Salish Sea in the province of British Columbia in Canada and in the state of Wasington in the United States.
The feet belonged to five men, one woman and three others of unknown sex. Only five feet corresponding to four persons have been identified (3).
3 - The murders of Lake Bodom
On January 5, 1960, four teenagers were camping on the shores of Lake Bodom north of Helsinki in Finland. Between 4 am and 6 am, an unknown person killed three of them with a knife and a blunt instrument, only wounding the fourth person.
This is Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson, who lived a normal life until 2004 when he was convicted but later acquitted (4).
4- The murder of Rashawn Brazell
In February 2005, Rashawn, 19, disappeared from his home in Bushwick, Brooklyn. On the morning of the 14th of that month at 7:30 a stranger knocked on the door of Rashawn's residence and then drove along with him to Gates Avenue station.
The last time he was seen he was dating the guy at Gates Avenue Station in Bedford, Stuyvesant. Four days later his body was found dismembered in two bags on the rails of the same station (5).
5- The case of the lead masks
On August 20, 1966, the bodies of two men were found dead on the hill of Vintém in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The bodies rested together and no evidence of traumas or blows was found.
Each of them was wearing a formal suit, lead-protected lenses, and a rain coat.
A small notebook was found in which the following instructions were read: 16:30 to be in the specified place. 18:30 ingest capsules, then effect protect metals wait for mask. The men were identified as Manoel Pereira da Cruz and Miguel José Viana (6).
6- The disappearance of Brian Shaffer
On the night of March 31, 2006, Brian Shaffer, a medical student at Ohio University, went out with his friends to celebrate the beginning of the vacation.
A security camera at the entrance of the bar saw him talking to two women just before 2 a.m. Of April 1 to then apparently re-enter the site. He has not been seen since then and the case has received attention since there is no other entrance to the bar than the one being recorded.
7- Hinterkaifeck
Hinterkaifeck was a farm located between the Bavarian towns of Ingolstadt and Schrobenhausen. Andreas and Cazillia Gruber, and their children Viktoria, Cazilla and Josef, in addition to the maid of the house were all killed with an ice pick.
Prior to his death, it was reported that Andreas had reported strange occurrences occurring at home. It is believed that the killer decided to live in the house for a few days after he had killed everyone since the animals were fed and the food was consumed (8).
8- The murder of the Oklahoma Scout girls
On the morning of June 13, 1977 at Camp Scott, Mayes County, Oklahoma, three girls were found dead. The three, ranging from ages 8 to 10, were raped and murdered.
Two months before the incident, one of the camp counselors found a note that warned of the fact that it was to be committed. A man known as Gene Leroy Hart was arrested, but later acquitted of this crime (9).
9- The death of Elisa Lam
The body of Elisa Lam, a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, was found from a water tank on the ceiling of the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
The case has become famous because a video released from the hotel's security cameras shows Elisa acting strange moments before her death. This can be seen entering and exiting an elevator, which appears to be damaged, and engaging in conversations outside the elevator (10).
10- The murder of Dorothy Jane Scott
Dorothy Jane Scott disappeared on May 28, 1980 in Anaheim, California. Months before his abduction, Scott reported having been receiving anonymous calls to the work of an unidentified man.
The calls warned of the love and devotion that this person professed for the woman, along with threats of death. In 1984, his remains were found on Santa Ana Canyon Road and the cause of his death could not be identified (11).
11- Murders of the freezer
Charles Frederick Rogers was a suspect killer of the city of Houston, Texas. This one disappeared in June of 1965, after the police found the dismembered bodies of their parents in the residence that the three shared.
Rogers was never found and as the only suspect in the murders, the case remains unresolved (12).
12- The Cleveland Torsos Killer
Also known as the Crazy Butcher of Kingsbury Run, he was a serial killer who took the lives of 13 people over 4 years. This character beheaded his victims and even ripped some of their hearts off.
The village sheriff arrested a suspect, but he committed suicide before entering court (13).
13- The Tylenol Murders in Chicago
A total of seven people died in 1982 in the Chicago metropolitan area by consuming acetaminophen capsules that had been poisoned with potassium cyanide.
The contaminated bottles came from different factories, which led to the belief that they had been poisoned and then returned or altered in the store. The responsible person was never found (14).
14- The Disappearance of Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible
Ashley Freeman and Laura Bible disappeared after spending the night at Ashley's house for her 16th birthday in December 1999 in Welch, Oklahoma.
The next day the Welch residence was burned down and the bodies of Ashley's parents inside. Both parents were shot dead in the head before being burned. To date the girls have not been found (15).
15- The murder of Ambrose Ball
Ambrose"Jay"Ball disappeared in January of 2015 after his car was reported involved in a traffic accident in London. After an extensive police search, he was not found until three months after his disappearance when his body was discovered on the River Lea in Tottenham on April 22, 2015.
A campaign on Facebook was launched to encourage witnesses to give their testimonies, but the same one began to receive messages from people warning their friends and family to stop asking about the case (16).
16- The murder of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon
Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon were two Dutch students who disappeared on April 1, 2014 while they were doing mountaineering in Panama. After an intensive search, parts of their bodies were found months later.
The two young men's mobile phones were found and it was determined that several calls to emergency numbers were attempted (17).
17- The Murder of Jeremiah Duggan
Jeremiah Joseph Duggan was a British student in Paris who died on a visit to Wiesbaden, Germany in March 2003. The circumstances of his death were disputed after finding that the young man was involved with the LaRouche movement, which has been Classified as a political cult.
50 minutes before his death, Duggan made a call in which he was quite upset about being involved with that movement. Although death was classified as suicide, a subsequent report indicated that it could be a montage to conceal another previous cause of death (18).
18- Assassinations in the Paturis Park
Between February of 2007 and August of 2008 a series of 13 murders of homosexual men in the park Paturis of Carapicuíba, Brazil were registered. These crimes were perpetrated by an individual who came to be known as the"Rainbow Maniac".
A policeman known as Jairo Francisco Franco was arrested in 2008 for being the suspect murderer, but in 2011 he was acquitted of charges (19).
19- The case of Richard Lancelyn Green
Richard Lancelyn Green was a British expert on Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes and regarded as one of the best in the world about these authors.
In 2004, Green suspected that Arthur Conan Doyle's personal papers being auctioned at Christie's had been obtained illegally and tried unsuccessfully to stop the process. In the weeks before his death, Green reported being followed by an American person who could not be identified and feared for his life because of his opposition to the auction.
His body was found strangled with laces that had been fitted with a spoon. The cause of his death could not be identified, although the doubt was left open to a possible suicide elaborated to incriminate one of its rivals. This plot is similar to one of the books of Sherlock Holmes called"The problem of the Bridge of Thor"(20).
20- The death of Gareth Williams
Gareth Williams was a Welsh mathematician and employee of the British intelligence service MI6. On August 16, 2010, his body was found naked and in a state of decay inside a sleeping bag that had been sealed from the outside.
Her family believes that much of the DNA evidence at the crime scene was missing by the police to cover up the murder. The first investigation concluded that the death had not been natural and with a possible criminal hand. A re-investigation concluded that Williams's death was probably an accident (21).
References
- Oxford Dictionary. Cold Case. [Online] [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from en.oxforddictionaries.com.
- Vacant, Mike. AV. Club. The victim of Taman Shud is as much a mystery as whodunnit. [Online] January 4, 2016. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from avclub.com.
- Wang, Yanan. The Washington Post. Severed feet - still inside shoes - keep mysteriously washing up on Pacific Northwest shores. [Online] February 11, 2016. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from washingtonpost.com.
- Tofani, Felipe. Fotostrasse. LAKE BODOM MURDERS - WE VISITED WHERE EVERYTHING HAPPENED. [Online] February 15, 2015. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from fotostrasse.com.
- Donohue, Pete. New York Daily News. Unsung butchering of 19-year-old Rashawn Brazell enters eighth year without any leads after his body was found in dark Brooklyn subway tunnel. [Online] February 25, 2013. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from nydailynews.com.
- Barclay, Shelly. Historic Mysteries. The Lead Masks Case. [Online] October 27, 2011. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from historicmysteries.com.
- Findbrianshaffer.com. [Online] [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Tomao from findbrianshaffer.com.
- Swancer, Brent. Mysterious Universe. The Mysterious Unsolved Murders of Hinterkaifeck Farm. [Online] September 17, 2014. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from mysteriousuniverse.org.
- Swann, Jennifer. Elisa Lam Drowned in a Water Tank Three Years Ago, but the Obsession with Her Death Lives On. [Online] October 27, 2015. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from vice.com.
- True Crime Diaries. Telephone Games. [Online] November 28, 2012. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from truecrimediary.com.
- Mysteries, Unexplained. The Strange Ice Box Murders. [Online] [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from coolinterestingstuff.com.
- Badal, James. Cleveland Police Museum. The Kingsbury Run Murders. [Online] [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from clevelandpolicemuseum.org.
- Markerl, Howard. PBS. How the Tylenol murders of 1982 changed the way we consume medication. [Online] September 29, 2014. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from pbs.org.
- Armstrong, Elizabeth. USA Today. Case of girls missing since 1999 gets new look. [Online] January 26, 2016. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from usatoday.com.
- Scoota. Ambrose Ball did not die of natural causes. [Online] April 30, 2015. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from thetottenhamindependent.co.uk.
- Krit, Jeremy. The Daily Beast. The Lost Girls of Panama: The Camera, the Jungle, and the Bones. [Online] August 8, 2016. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from thedailybeast.com.
- The Guardian. New evidence shows 'suicide' student was beaten to death. [Online] March 25, 2007. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from theguardian.com/uk.
- Sydney Morning Herald. Brazilian police hunt 'rainbow maniac', serial killer of homosexuals. [Online] December 10, 2088. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from smh.com.au.
- Day, Elizabeth. The Telegraph. Case of the Sherlock Holmes fanatic 'who killed himself but made it look like murder'. [Online] December 12, 2004. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from telegraph.co.uk.
- Stanton, Jenny. Daily Mail. Spy found dead in a bag 'had infuriated his MI6 bosses by illegally hacking into secret US date on Bill Clinton'. [Online] August 30, 2015. [Cited: January 2, 2017.] Taken from dailymail.co.uk.