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 greater a'tuin]

Zodiac killer

Richard Gaikowski lines up best with me.

 

[Turquoise]

I suggest that you watch the Lore Lodge's series on the case. I was on the side of "protecting their remaining child" but the big "Ah ha!" moment for me was the comparison between the ransom note and the notes Ramesy snr made on his Bible.

Any chance you can tell us more or provide a time stamp so I don't have to watch 18 hours worth of videos.

 

[Twix Eatr]

I suggest that you watch the Lore Lodge's series on the case. I was on the side of "protecting their remaining child" but the big "Ah ha!" moment for me was the comparison between the ransom note and the notes Ramesy snr made on his Bible.

The fact they didn't immediately safeguard Burke after this is a huge indicator they were in on it. You just wake up and find a ransom note with your daughter missing. The kidnappers could be still in the house, outside, coming back, who knows? They still have Burke hanging around in his room alone all morning, then send him to one of the neighbor's. It's almost as if they knew there was no existential threat from deranged kidnappers.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

Richard Gaikowski lines up best with me.

Cold cases with lists of ‘good’ suspects really puts into focus the number of dangerous degenerates creeping around at all times. Also looking back in time and seeing the sheer number of monsters operating at the same time in the same areas.

While TC as an interest has exploded, I find it interesting that the interest or storytelling related to infamous criminals seems to have dropped off. I’m not sure if that’s because we socially fear accidentally deifying freaks like Bundy again, or if law enforcement sits on info or associates are less likely to talk due to media literacy…or maybe I’m totally wrong!

I’m just surprised that someone Joe Deangelo doesn’t have a dozen books about him now in the style of Ann Rule.

 

[The Crescent King]

I suggest that you watch the Lore Lodge's series on the case. I was on the side of "protecting their remaining child" but the big "Ah ha!" moment for me was the comparison between the ransom note and the notes Ramesy snr made on his Bible.

I actually have watched it and their livestreams several times, and I don't find it convincing. Aiden went into the series relying only on pro-Ramsey Did It sources and left out some details that sort of swayed me towards the Intruder theory being stronger than what's let on. Aiden is also strongly BDI rather than JDI and has never said anything to the effect that he believes John molested JB.

For me the most objective look at the case and all of the theories is Matt Orchard's video on it. I used to be BDI myself but after watching that video decided to look into the Intruder theory with more depth; I also enjoyed the series done by The Prosecutors Podcast.

 

[squidward tentacles]

The fact they didn't immediately safeguard Burke after this is a huge indicator they were in on it. You just wake up and find a ransom note with your daughter missing. The kidnappers could be still in the house, outside, coming back, who knows? They still have Burke hanging around in his room alone all morning, then send him to one of the neighbor's. It's almost as if they knew there was no existential threat from deranged kidnappers.

There was an interesting reddit post going over why the writer thought it was John, and this was one of the main points: if Burke did it, why on earth would they let him out of their sight, where he could go off and tell the neighbor anything about the case, that might not fit the narrative the Ramseys had established?

That, to me, puts a giant hole in the pineapple flashlight narrative.

 

[Silence of the Troons]

Funnily enough, I watched some of that yesterday. I haven’t finished it yet, but I think the most likely answer is that she fell overboard. (...) Her brother said she was feeling sick, she’d been drinking… what if she leaned over the rail to be sick and toppled in? That’s what I think, anyway.

The photos of her that were taken by the ship's photo service went missing 9-10 hours before she disappeared and were the only ones to go missing. That seems awfully coincidental. Alister "Yellow" Douglas also knew about her disappearance at a stage when no-one except the family and the captain and his security team were supposed to know about it, and his story changed after he was brought in to the FBI. Not to mention, there's those pictures of "Jazz" that the FBI analyzed and considered were very likely photos of Amy.

Both her camera and pack of cigarettes were gone and the balcony door was open when her dad woke up (but it was closed when he last saw her). I think she went out of the cabin but was planning to be right back, and then something happened to her.

I know there were all those sightings, but were they ever proven to be her? We know that people love to get attention any way they can.

Eyewitness testimony is rarely useful unless it's fresh. At least one guy who claimed to have seen her, Frank Jones, was later exposed as a liar.

I find the first alleged sighting of her and Yellow on the boat to be the most credible eyewitness testimony. The two women who reported seeing them at 5:45-6:00 AM came forward the same day, and they identified Yellow (who should be more easily identifiable than most other people on the ship since he was the ship's bassist) as the man who was with her. This was before it became publicly known that he'd been seen dancing with her the evening before.

Yellow the exorcist knows how and why Amy disappeared.

 

[Farmholio]

The fact they didn't immediately safeguard Burke after this is a huge indicator they were in on it. You just wake up and find a ransom note with your daughter missing. The kidnappers could be still in the house, outside, coming back, who knows? They still have Burke hanging around in his room alone all morning, then send him to one of the neighbor's. It's almost as if they knew there was no existential threat from deranged kidnappers.

My line of thinking about this case is more holistic. Given that there IS an explanation for what happened, no matter how absurd the situation appears to be, the odds are way in the favor of John murdering JonBenet as part of an ongoing sexual abuse situation. Even though the attempt to fake a kidnapping was botched so much that it's almost comical, that is STILL the only reasonable explanation you can come to for the existence of that stupid fucking ransom note.

It goes like this:

• If the ransom note was written by someone in the family, then someone in the family committed the murder.
• If someone in the family committed the murder, it was almost certainly one of the parents.
• If one of the parents committed the murder, it was almost certainly the one with a material motive or cause to do so.
• If there was evidence of ongoing chronic injury in JonBenet's crotchal region, AND she was murdered, AND she was found dead in her house, AND there was a ridiculous ransom note definitely written by one of the parents, then it must have been John who committed the murder.

Is there a possibility that Burke did it and they covered it up, or it was some stupid accident the Ramsays turned into the biggest circus you could imagine rather than just fessing up, or some other odd scenario that doesn't fit common themes for this kind of crime? Yeah sure. I'm just saying in absence of direct physical evidence or credible testimony pointing strongly towards any one of those scenarios, I'm going to just generally lean towards the more prosaic scenario: parental sexual abuse and then murder. It's the best fit for this kind of crime. Everything that follows is just chalked up to a combination of horrible police incompetence, the eccentricities of a really weird family, and sheer dumb luck.

Just because John was rich and ostensibly intelligent doesn't mean he isn't capable of eccentric retarded behavior and mistakes, especially in a high stress situation that overlaps with what you could consider the part of his life that is intrinsically nutso. I would wager that if John did it, and I'm convinced he did, that he most likely didn't intend to kill JonBenet in cold blood, but it was just an eventuality that he arrived at because of his ongoing abuse, like she was screaming or struggling or he got carried away or whatever. So the whole fuckup of the fake kidnapping was a big series of weird panic moves followed by more sober damage control in the wake of those idiotic decisions.

There is basically NO way for a reasonable juror to think an intruder or anyone not in the family had anything to do with it, simply because of the ransom note. You have to be smoking some heavy doobies to think that note was written by an intruder. And if you accept that the ransom note was written by one of the Ramsays I think there's just a natural conclusion you can come to based on the general situation taken in its totality. John did it. Other scenarios are possible but less likely. Remember, in any case where you don't have the crime on tape you're always doing a statistical analysis of probabilities in your head to decide what happened.

Also if I was a police officer involved in any way with this case I'd fucking kill myself out of shame for not being able to catch the retard who wrote that note. It must have really burned a lot after the fact when, after they obliterated the scene with a stampede of interference, it became clear there was no longer enough evidence or leads to actually pursue a conviction. That note is sheer agony, it is so obviously one of the Ramsays. And yet here we are.

 

[unwieldy_object]

One mistake I think a lot of people makes in the case of the JBN when discussing it now is the assumption that they knew what we know now.
The forensic standards were extremely different in 1996, lots of things we take for granted that a murderer would know wasn't known then. Dna for example had only been used for ten years and while that seems like a lot of years to us, Internet wasn't the same and this kind of knowledge didn't spread as fast then.
I'm on the fence whether the family was responsible for her murder, it seems to be the most likely theory but I just don't know, it's unsolved for a reason, but pretty much everything that people today say are too stupid of them to have done if they were guilty is things I think can be attributed to simply not having the knowledge that we have today.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

@Farmholio aside from statistics, do you have any other reason to assume John did it over Patsy? I know we’d all like to assume a mother couldn’t do what was done to that little girl, but I’ve known enough people sexually abused by women now to really question if Patsy could be the perpetrator. Her putting JB in pageants and projecting so much on her pings my emotional incest radar I guess. I guess I could see her being a dumb ass and allowing inappropriate access to her daughter, not necessarily intentionally, and then trying to cover up what she felt like was her fault. My speculation is definitely just based on vibes and life experience so feel free to rate me autistic.

 

[Farmholio]

@Farmholio aside from statistics, do you have any other reason to assume John did it over Patsy? I know we’d all like to assume a mother couldn’t do what was done to that little girl, but I’ve known enough people sexually abused by women now to really question if Patsy could be the perpetrator. Her putting JB in pageants and projecting so much on her pings my emotional incest radar I guess. I guess I could see her being a dumb ass and allowing inappropriate access to her daughter, not necessarily intentionally, and then trying to cover up what she felt like was her fault. My speculation is definitely just based on vibes and life experience so feel free to rate me autistic.

No you're right. It is just trying to analyze it holistically based on probability (likelihood of scenarios). It is definitely possible for a lot of situations to in fact be true in this case, which is I suppose one of the reasons people talk about it so much to this day. All I'm literally saying is in my view the odds are stacked in favor of JDI. Not that the edge that theory has is particularly high, certainly not absolute. I think if you were to analyze it purely from what is the most likely, accepting fully that you cannot come to a firm conclusion and must rely on comparing probabilities, and setting aside any biases or gut feelings, I'm pretty sure the cold statistics would favor John as the murderer. And since I don't really have any gut feelings pointing me in any other direction, and I'm not aware of any strong evidence that shifts the probability elsewhere, that's where I land in the debate.

I wobbled a lot thinking about this case over the years because there's so many weird details you can get hung up on, but I decided taking the totality of it into mind, and considering other crimes like this (which is sort of a funny phrase since, how many crimes have a ridiculous ransom note like that?), that it is more likely John murdered JonBenet than any other possible scenario. But that's all, just more likely.

I kind of think that's how a juror ought to think about a case. I mean for example, the dude in 12 Angry Men is definitely guilty... As cool as the movie may be, those jurors are basically talking themselves out of a reasonable frame of mind into an unreasonable doubt with too much distraction on singular details, failing to analyze the whole picture. The likelihood of the boy having the astronomically rotten luck for their interpretation to be correct is extremely lower than the likelihood of his guilt. The JonBenet case is not directly comparable to this, since there is no single scenario that is extremely more likely than the others (although you have to be insane to buy an intruder theory with that note), but still the principle of examining the case in essence rather than in any one little fact is, I think, applicable.

Admittedly I still can't help but prick up my ears to listen to any alternative theory just because it's such a weird case. If the Ramsays didn't behave so bizarrely or if the police had their shit together even a little bit, it would be a whole lot simpler. But it's extremely difficult to square their behavior with that note and the body being in their house. If John did it then he was definitely one of the weirdest murderers ever.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

@Farmholio I’ll try to find the study, but sadly I think the younger the child, statistically the death or abuse will be more likely due to the mother. Shit rolls down hill.

I can’t say how much this applies to this situation, but:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/255033/number-of-child-fatalities-due-to-abuse-in-the-us-by-perpetrator-relationship/

But sex abuse stats make it more complicated, leaning more to acquaintances and more towards fathers: https://rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens

It’s so hard to know the true stats due to low reporting. Most people I know who have been abused during childhood never reported. Anyone I know sexually abused by a woman definitely never reported.

 

[Farmholio]

@Farmholio I’ll try to find the study, but sadly I think the younger the child, statistically the death or abuse will be more likely due to the mother. Shit rolls down hill.

I can’t say how much this applies to this situation, but:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/255033/number-of-child-fatalities-due-to-abuse-in-the-us-by-perpetrator-relationship/

Well I was taking the chronic inflammation to JonBenet's crotch into account as presumed probable rape rather than innocent coincidence, and I just sort of assumed a male perpetrator more likely in that scenario. If these stats are correct in a generalized way then that's pretty fuckin surprising to me.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/254893/child-abuse-in-the-us-by-perpetrator-relationship/

Like even just sex abuse seems to lean towards mom, although I don't know how that plays out in terms of female vs male victims, or if you break it down in terms of the specific manner of sexual abuse. I would bet straightforward penetrative rape on female victims would lean towards male perpetrator but I don't know.

 

[naaaaiiiiillllll!!!]

Ted leaves his job at Berkeley college in the summer of 1969.

Standin' on the Uncle's porch,
he told me about manifestos!
Oh, with a package in hand,
he knew that it was now or never.
That was the best cabin ever!

Oh yeah, back in the summer of '69, ohh.

 

[Turquoise]

@Farmholio

Handwriting analysis aside, the ransom note does little to negate the intruder theory in my opinion. It's true that a small foreign faction would not communicate in that way but if it were a lone intruder, then he might. I've always thought that if it were an intruder, he was possibly in the house before they came home and decided to get creative to fill some time in. A neighbor did observe a light on which he had never seen the Ramseys use before.

I'm undecided on whether or not it was an intruder though.

 

[The Crescent King]

I disagree with the notion that the Ramseys placing Burke with the Whites speaks of guilt. Think about it - if an intruder wanted to take Burke he would already have done so, and the ransom note makes it clear that John is the target, not the Whites. Interestingly enough JonBenét is never mentioned by name in the ransom note; it's entirely directed towards John, as the practice note found by police contained an address to Patsy that was removed in the final draft. If you think your home's security has been compromised removing your remaining child from the home after the police have been called seems the most rational action to take. Had Burke remained in the home I could see pro-RDI theorists say "they clearly didn't believe a kidnapper was lurking in the home as they left Burke upstairs all day!"

As someone who used to be pro-RDI, those theories leave out a lot of pertinent facts. I found it suspicious when I learned from Linda Arndt that John and Patsy didn't seem to notice the phone call from the kidnapper never coming in and that John had a "cordial" manner, but the original police reports note that John was actually attentive to the phone and seemed to be trying to hide his tears from the others. Linda Arndt is a basket case herself and was noted in Steve Thomas's book to be close to Patsy, so close in fact that she refused to inform Boulder PD of what Patsy was confiding in her.

I used to think that the undeniable similarities (at first glance) between Patsy's writings and the ransom note was the smoking gun, yet handwriting experts who examined the original note, while not eliminating Patsy, also thought her likelihood of writing it as very low. Again, the note contains word for word replications of phrases from films like Dirty Harry and Speed (e.g. "she dies" repetition) - does Patsy seem like to type of person to have watched those films often enough in the pre-Internet age to memorise those lines so she can quote them in a fake ransom note after murdering her daughter? Moreover, from my knowledge of handwriting analysis the original piece of writing has to be viewed, not a scan.

If the evidence of John and Patsy's involvement in the murder or sexual abuse were that strong (either together or individually) I imagine the Grand Jury, who heard more evidence than what we know, would have indicted them on murder or sexual abuse charges. Instead they were indicted on aggravated child neglect that lead to JB's death by a third party (which BDI theorists take as evidence for Burke's involvement).

I also used to think the head blow must have come first as it's repeated so often by RDI theorists - I've never seen an RDI theorist posit the strangulation as the initial attack. Yet there was no blood found in the home and JB's head injury wasn't even known until autopsy - what object could shatter her skull without bleeding? The lack of blood suggests that it occurred very close to death. I haven't come across any medical/pathology reports that definitively concludes which injury came first, and it's also not true that all medical examiners concur with the idea that JB was being chronically sexually abused.

 

[DavidFerrie]

Have we Zodiac killer or LISK sperged yet?

Richard Gaikowski lines up best with me.

Gaikowski is an interesting candidate. In Zodiac Unmasked, Robert Graysmith mentions that an unnamed man at a 1973 Halloween gay/hippie orgy in San Francisco was loudly claiming to be Zodiac; while he was at the SF Good Times underground newspaper "Gaik" reported on and promoted countercultural sex-and-drugs stuff like this, and might very well have been the sex-party loudmouth.

Another intriguing possibility is Paul Doerr. Author Jarrett Kobek analyzed Z's personality and interests, did extensive online research looking for where he may have interacted with the fringe-media of his era, and stumbled across this guy -- a Vallejo resident and Navy vet who was the right age and build, and was a nerdy, creepy loner obsessed with fantasy worlds and violence.

 

[Turquoise]

Gaikowski is an interesting candidate. In Zodiac Unmasked, Robert Graysmith mentions that an unnamed man at a 1973 Halloween gay/hippie orgy in San Francisco was loudly claiming to be Zodiac; while he was at the SF Good Times underground newspaper "Gaik" reported on and promoted countercultural sex-and-drugs stuff like this, and might very well have been the sex-party loudmouth.

With respect, that might be the most tenuous link in the history of true crime.

Drunk hippie claims to be Zodiac. Gaik was one of California's 5 million hippies. Maybe it was him.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Something that following true crime has taught me is that everyone lies. They lie because they are guilty, they lie to themselves, they lie because they want attention, they lie because they have something unrelated to hide, they lie because they’re fucking stupid. This goes for suspects, victims, family, witnesses and police.

"Everyone lies. Murderers lie because they have to; witnesses and other participants lie because they think they have to; everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it, and to uphold a general principle that under no circumstances do you provide accurate information to a cop." - David Simon, "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" (yes, the same guy who did The Wire)

Drunk hippie claims to be Zodiac. Gaik was one of California's 5 million hippies. Maybe it was him.

It's not much better than "all the letters in Ted's name are also contained in this phrase." He also called himself the Unabomber and there's no "b" or "m" in his name, they must have gotten the wrong guy!

 

[Turquoise]

It's not much better than "all the letters in Ted's name are also contained in this phrase." He also called himself the Unabomber and there's no "b" or "m" in his name, they must have gotten the wrong guy!

The FBI called him unabomber. He called himself Z, although used an
anglo-saxon rune to denote it.

Point taken though. A few things I listed are just cute little coincidences.