Creepy Unsolved Mysteries - From unsolved murders to unidentified people to unexplained supernatural events, what are some of the creepiest unsolved mysteries you've ever heard of?

[The Crescent King]

@Turquoise

That's interesting about Amanda Knox. Admittedly I knew very little about the case besides the media furor around it and Amanda's protestations of innocence. I remember doing a brief cursory glance over the case once and thought it was odd that Amanda was kissing her boyfriend in front of the police outside where Meredith was stabbed, but I've never heard of the other details you mentioned. Do you have any resources (such as a podcast, website, etc.) that a newbie could use for further digging?

As a related aside, I experienced first hand myself how badly so many true crime followers want to complicate a case by adding in complex conspiracy theories when I followed Delphi, in addition to how common it is for cases to be drowned in lore that's so often inaccurate. I'm doing a deep dive into the West Memphis Three currently and was quite shocked to see how quickly the whole "the WM3 are innocent cherubs and Damien Echols was just an edgy teen set up by hillbilly police" fell apart upon actual reading of the case. I haven't made up my mind definitively over whether the WM3 are guilty but I am certain that more than one person killed the boys that day, and some of Jesse Miskelley's confession details (though the issues with his confessions are numerous) + the lack of solid alibis for any of the WM3 certainly are strong indicators of involvement.

What's the general opinion about the Central Park 5?

 

[Twix Eatr]

I can't see a mother being so complicit and keeping quiet about it even into the grave. I feel like if they had done it, she would have confessed before the end. She was dying from cancer for quite a while.

I think if she was complicit, she'd take it to the grave, especially if she believed it was Burke. There's always a chance John framed her for the writing, but who knows? She could've accidentally hurt JB.

Also, hasn't John pushed for further investigation over the years and spent a lot of money on the case? This is almost unheard of in cases where guilty people get away with it.

No. He' s pretended he does this, though. It's why he pushes for DNA testing nonstop because there is no viable DNA and he knows it. John has always stonewalled, refused to cooperate, called his lawyer immediately while trying to fly out to Atlanta to avoid an interview w/ police, misrepresented details, and has changed his story tons. He's actually sued plenty of people, IIRC. Here's a greatest hits of lies.

What's the general opinion about the Central Park 5?

I always thought they were railroaded, coerced into false confessions, then exonerated when that one guy confessed whose DNA matched. But given that literally every instance of blacks as victims turns out the opposite, I suspect there's more to this than total innocence.

I think I read that they were at least jumping people or hitting folks with a bat or a brick, but one of them admitted to raping the lady without coercion? I hope someone here knows this case well because I'm down to dive in.

 

[Turquoise]

@Turquoise

That's interesting about Amanda Knox. Admittedly I knew very little about the case besides the media furor around it and Amanda's protestations of innocence. I remember doing a brief cursory glance over the case once and thought it was odd that Amanda was kissing her boyfriend in front of the police outside where Meredith was stabbed, but I've never heard of the other details you mentioned. Do you have any resources (such as a podcast, website, etc.) that a newbie could use for further digging?

As a related aside, I experienced first hand myself how badly so many true crime followers want to complicate a case by adding in complex conspiracy theories when I followed Delphi, in addition to how common it is for cases to be drowned in lore that's so often inaccurate. I'm doing a deep dive into the West Memphis Three currently and was quite shocked to see how quickly the whole "the WM3 are innocent cherubs and Damien Echols was just an edgy teen set up by hillbilly police" fell apart upon actual reading of the case. I haven't made up my mind definitively over whether the WM3 are guilty but I am certain that more than one person killed the boys that day, and some of Jesse Miskelley's confession details (though the issues with his confessions are numerous) + the lack of solid alibis for any of the WM3 certainly are strong indicators of involvement.

What's the general opinion about the Central Park 5?

The Kercher family used to run a website which neatly presented all the evidence against Knox and Raf but sadly it no longer exists. I don't know of any other website or podcast which will give you all the information in a concise way. Roberta Glass knows the case inside out and has done many podcasts on Knox. However, the information will be a bit scattered.

I don't know what the general consensus on the Central Park 5 is but I can tell you that the documentary "When they see us" is a hideous distortion of the facts. I'm a bit rusty on that case but they're guilty as sin. They were initially brought in by police for general diversity behaviour. The cops didn't even know about the woman but the boys either alluded to her or directly started talking about her (I forget). Because the boys didn't understand the law, they thought they could get away with prison sentences by blaming the worst parts of the attack on their friends. I believe one of the girl's hairs or threads of clothing was found on one of the boys too and another boy had jizzed his pants. They got incredibly lucky though when degenerate sicko Mathias Reyes came along later and saw a dying white woman ripe for the rape.

There are common themes with all of these 'innocence' cases. First, there's always a general but vague narrative - racism, satanic panic, anti-Americanism etc. - but none of the subjects ever go into detail about the evidence that led police to suspect them. Moreover, the documentaries don't even go into detail. It's ironic that you mentioned Knoxy and Raf's kiss as that's the part that her supporters like to play up. "She was villified for being a bit quirky." Same with Echols. "He was villified for wearing black and being into metal." Second, there's no talk of the victim (they themselves are the biggest victims) or of finding the real assailant (Knox's acquitting court still held that Meredith must have been killed by more than one person). Third, many of them, though not all, love playing celebrity. Echols, Knox and Ian Bailey are some of the best examples.

And a slightly unrelated word on Echols. Why are Hollywood so into this dude? Imagine hanging your hat on a guy whose greatest accomplishment is having been wrongfully convicted for ass-raping and murdering 3 children. Imagine getting matching tattoos (Depp) with a guy who kicked dogs to death and taunted the families of the victims, murderer or not.

 

[Turquoise]

I think if she was complicit, she'd take it to the grave, especially if she believed it was Burke. There's always a chance John framed her for the writing, but who knows? She could've accidentally hurt JB.

No. He' s pretended he does this, though. It's why he pushes for DNA testing nonstop because there is no viable DNA and he knows it. John has always stonewalled, refused to cooperate, called his lawyer immediately while trying to fly out to Atlanta to avoid an interview w/ police, misrepresented details, and has changed his story tons. He's actually sued plenty of people, IIRC. Here's a greatest hits of lies.

I always thought they were railroaded, coerced into false confessions, then exonerated when that one guy confessed whose DNA matched. But given that literally every instance of blacks as victims turns out the opposite, I suspect there's more to this than total innocence.

I think I read that they were at least jumping people or hitting folks with a bat or a brick, but one of them admitted to raping the lady without coercion? I hope someone here knows this case well because I'm down to dive in.

Interesting on John Ramsey there. It seems you know that case better than I do.

As for the Central Park 5, they were that night, in their own words, "wilding". I guess that'd be 'chimping out' in modern parlance. So yeah, they were attacking random people. You can watch their taped confessions on youtube. Each of them nervously plods through the truth of what happened that night, careful to remove themselves from the centre of the action. Let me tell you, when a black kid is genuinely innocent, he does not shrink away and admit guilt like that. He "wilds".

 

[FedPostalService]

There was a mountain of evidence against Knox. Copy and pasted from another thread

It was the nigger. The Italian police are retards and she was unfortunate enough to have a prosecutor autisticly focus on her.

It might surprise you but the Italian legal system is very broken and really corrupt.

She was looked after in prison as the criminals in there knew she wasn’t capable of anything and was just a dopey American and felt sorry for her.

 

[FedPostalService]

As for the Central Park 5

They Central Park 5 make me MATI.

“We went out to kill white people but we didn’t kill that particular white woman” shouldn’t be a stance that makes you a cause celeb for civil rights activists.

 

[Turquoise]

It was the nigger. The Italian police are retards and she was unfortunate enough to have a prosecutor autisticly focus on her.

It might surprise you but the Italian legal system is very broken and really corrupt.

She was looked after in prison as the criminals in there knew she wasn’t capable of anything and was just a dopey American and felt sorry for her.

If you believe she's innocent, do you concede that she's the unluckiest suspect in the history of true crime?

- The fact that she got Meredith's blood on Raf's knife after accidently cutting her in a kitchen accident just a day or two before the murder.

- The fact that she inadverdently scrubbed the passage floor clean when she surfed across it on a bathmat just 12 or so hours after the murder which led police to think she'd deliberately scrubbed it clean to remove evidence.

- The fact that she was caught at a murder scene which someone had attempted to clean retreiving a mop to clean up a plumbing leak somewhere else.

- The fact that another girl who looked just like her was in desperate need of bleach on the morning after the murder.

- The fact that the DNA became contaminated and mixed hers and Meredith's blood and ended up leaving Raf's DNA on Meredith's bra.

- The fact that police, postal police, interpreters and witnesses all conspired against her.

- The fact that the other two roommates were able to provide clear alibis immediately and without fuss but Amanda suffered a rare bout of amnesia and couldn't remember where she'd been 24 hours earlier.

- The fact that Rudy closed and locked the door in a really unusual way which caused police to think it wasn't him who locked it at all.

And on and on...

Believe Amanda is innocent if you will but you must concede, that is some rotten luck.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Really though, where is Maura Murray's remains? She obviously is dead.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

I think if she was complicit, she'd take it to the grave, especially if she believed it was Burke. There's always a chance John framed her for the writing, but who knows? She could've accidentally hurt JB.

I can believe the adult Ramseys did it or I can believe a home invader, stranger or acquaintance, did it but I've never been convinced that Burke did it. I just can't see a 9 year old killing his sister in that manner.

Really though, where is Maura Murray's remains? She obviously is dead.

It was a very rural area and heavily wooded. It's very difficult to find bodies in that landscape. Remember that guy that died a while ago having a meth freakout on the phone and ran away from his car? It took them over a decade to find the bones and that was in a flat prairie and they had a good idea of which direction he ran off to. In fact, there's even a post on Maura Murray's sub about him because the cases are so similar.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mauramurray/comments/swgky6/brandon_lawsons_body_was_found_within_this_circle/

 

[Twix Eatr]

Agree with both stances on Murray and Maitland, although I hate the MM case. Internet people get a hold of something quite simple and twist it into a mystery. She was D&D, crashed her car, and died in the elements.

Yes, it's notoriously difficult to find bodies, even in frequently trafficked areas. This dude was out near people for 4 years and not found. Add in topographic challenges or private property and it's exponentially more difficult.

Jason Jolkowski is another odd one.

 

[FedPostalService]

If you believe she's innocent, do you concede that she's the unluckiest suspect in the history of true crime?

Yes.

More words so I don’t get banned for a one word reply.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

@Twix Eatr the Reddit on Earons was interesting to peruse. I SWEAR someone brought up an ancient news article about the monster who ended up charged a year or so before he was arrested. They had been digging into local news papers, looking for anything on local criminals who happened to be police officers, and found one on him being charged for shop lifting. I realize that wasn’t how he was caught, but it still stands out to me. They had also found an article about his engagement to a Bonnie, which was a name he was overheard crying about by a living victim. I always wondered in that info found its way to the detectives actually working the case. Internet detectives can be unhinged, but what some of them do isn’t all that different to what a lot of threads here do.

 

[Elderly beef taco]

There was discussion a little back about why missing children show up near water. I might be able to shed some light:

Humans can't live more than 3 days with water. We tend to build near water, for both the convience of using it for transport and all the other benefits it can bring. Hell, i think there's a whole thing about how we like shiny/sparkling things because they remind us of water.

We are attracted to water because we need it. So a lost child would probably seek it out instinctively, even if they didn't realize that was what they were doing, as a survival thing.

Also, things across water might make you think there's people (even just light), plus a kid might not realize how hard swimming is.

 

[Twix Eatr]

@Twix Eatr the Reddit on Earons was interesting to peruse. I SWEAR someone brought up an ancient news article about the monster who ended up charged a year or so before he was arrested. They had been digging into local news papers, looking for anything on local criminals who happened to be police officers, and found one on him being charged for shop lifting. I realize that wasn’t how he was caught, but it still stands out to me. They had also found an article about his engagement to a Bonnie, which was a name he was overheard crying about by a living victim. I always wondered in that info found its way to the detectives actually working the case. Internet detectives can be unhinged, but what some of them do isn’t all that different to what a lot of threads here do.

Those were definitely dug up after he was named. Whether Bonnie was legit or one of his red herrings was something everybody speculated on. Her being real was crazy, as was him getting fired for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellant. But yeah, all of this came up when people had his name to Google.

Prior to that, he was on nobody's radar. The folks behind the "12-26-75" podcast claimed their notes had emphasized to start looking at police in Exeter. It's not far fetched since many believed he was an LEO; he'd shine flashlights in people's eyes, yell, "Freeze!" at victims, and some claimed they heard a police radio/scanner before an attack. He also hit everything he shot at, including Det. McGowan's flashlight.

McGowan was the detective who staked out a garage they believed EARONS would hit. Sure enough, he did, but got away when he fired and hit the flashlight he held at his face:

McGowan wanted to look at police, too, saying he felt he recognized the perp or had met him before, too. The composite sketch from this encounter is one everybody discounted as silly and crude, but it's the only one that actually resembled JJD:

It's still rumored he might've been following the case on the proboards as some names were floated as possible alts. They were same IP range, allegedly had some interesting comments, and he'd regularly manually delete stuff. Oh, they stopped posting the day of the arrest, IIRC.

Personally, I sincerely doubt it, but one comment on an alleged alt was interesting:

Look for the guy watering his perfectly manicured lawn or look for the teenager wearing all black that only comes out at night.

JJD was obsessive about his lawn, apparently.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

Can’t seem to quote or @ right now, but I trust your memory being better than mine. I do have a distinct memory of him being publicly named and immediately remembering a Reddit post made earlier about the shoplifting article in a speculative way, and trying to find it, but I never could. I recall the Bonnie posts being after for the reason you mentioned, most assuming Bonnie was a red herring.

I had followed Michele McNamara’s blog for quite a while before her death due to being acquainted with the folks who built her site.

When he was arrested I literally jumped around and yelled like a tard, but it felt like a victory for women especially, even though he did victimize men too. The length of time he operated and terrorizing victims years later with phone calls…those crimes are why I hate sliding glass doors.

Pardon my shitty phone posting.

 

[chalkyresidue]

I worked with a girl whose parent were both senior academics and she was thick as fuck and the local town bike.

During the early days of the Mama JF disappearance I did some digging and found what looks like a father in academia. Which everything right back on topic, sadly enough.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

During the early days of the Mama JF disappearance I did some digging and found what looks like a father in academia. Which everything right back on topic, sadly enough.

Is she still missing? Was he ever charged?

 

[whiterock]

Anyone here have thoughts on Ben McDaniel? Short rundown is he was an open water diver that was living in Florida after a financial hit post 2008 and essentially taking time away from his life, staying at his parents beach house.

Despite not being certified, he was exploring an underwater cave- Vortex Springs- and apparently getting very deep. One day he goes out to dive, truck sits in the lot for two days, dive shop reports him missing when they realize he never came out of the water. He was kind of sneaking into the cave but the shop owners were tolerating it. The cave diving community calls in the cavalry and searches this cave extensively, they find nothing, not even scuffs on the walls. World’s best cave divers essentially state that they don’t think he’s in there. (Except for Jill Heinerth, who says years later that it’s *possible* he’s in there but still isn’t conclusive.) Police tested the water for quite a while and didn’t find traces of decomposition, which would have occurred at the temperatures in the cave.

The main theories are that he:
1- died in a small passage in the cave and got stuck, he’s still trapped somewhere in there. Accident.
2- went into the cave and killed himself somehow- his family said he had been depressed but was doing better, which can sometimes precede suicide. Suicide, maybe with an added element of carefully hiding his own body underwater.
3- left the cave that night and disappeared above ground. Dive shop owner had previous kidnapping and assault charges for beating the shit out of someone in the woods, and the main train of thought seems to be that McDaniel got in a fight with the dive shop owner, who then flipped out and killed him. Homicide.

This case is semi popular online especially with the rise in cave diving horror slop on YT. Scary Interesting covered it pretty well. It’s one of the few examples where the more I read the less I’m inclined towards the most logical answer (accident) and more towards the idea that he isn’t in that cave at all, and that for once, irresponsible diving practices aren’t the answer. Still, though, I feel split 50/50 between he’s in there/he isn’t.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

One I always think about is the Kenny Vietch one. Something about the M Cave and that it's likely he just committed suicide in the desert is something.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

Is she still missing? Was he ever charged?

He appears to have gotten away with it unless someone stumbles across the bones one day.

It's fucking insane that an idiot like JFG actually managed to get away with murder.