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?

[glass_houses]

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!"

Bro, stop applying logic to a mother who has lost their very young child. Yes, there are some mothers who are careless with their spawn, but the vast majority would have been in full mother bear mode in this kind of situation, and would not have allowed any of their minor children to leave their sight, both during and for some time after events. I can't really emphasise enough just abnormal leaving Burke upstairs by himself was.

 

[The Crescent King]

Bro, stop applying logic to a mother who has lost their very young child. Yes, there are some mothers who are careless with their spawn, but the vast majority would have been in full mother bear mode in this kind of situation, and would not have allowed any of their minor children to leave their sight, both during and for some time after events. I can't really emphasise enough just abnormal leaving Burke upstairs by himself was.

How was it abnormal? The call was made at close to 6am after checking on Burke, and he was sent to the Whites at 8am, so it's not like he was left upstairs for hours at a time. What's abnormal about wanting to spare your son from being traumatised about his sister's disappearance? They were (allegedly) expecting a call from a kidnapper - why keep Burke in the house for that? You're also forgetting that it was Fleet White who suggested that Burke come to his home to spare him from the chaos of the morning; it's not like John and Patsy were desperate to get him out of there. There was no carelessness as you allege as they had no reason to think that the White house was being targeted by JB's kidnapper + there were other children and adults there to look after Burke as John and Patsy were unable to do so that morning.

I also don't get your point about me "not applying logic" to the situation. You are also applying your own reasoning when you say that Patsy allowing Burke to leave the house was unreasonable when that fact is not self-evident. The police didn't object to Burke leaving, nor did they see it as unusual. You yourself are saying that Patsy was in a distressing situation, but because she didn't follow your logic about keeping Burke in her sights when she was a hysterical wreck she must be guilty of something related to JB's death.

I'm not 100% counting out potential Ramsey involvement for a couple of reasons (how uncoperative they were with the police, for example) but I do want to see actual critical thinking, evidence and sound reasoning from RDI theorists and I'm not seeing it at all. I also don't see how because John was reading a Bible passage where the first letter in the initial four sentences spelled "SBTC" (John didn't write any notes in his Bible IIRC) that means he dictated the note. That reasoning would absolutely not stand up in court.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Bro, stop applying logic to a mother who has lost their very young child. Yes, there are some mothers who are careless with their spawn, but the vast majority would have been in full mother bear mode in this kind of situation, and would not have allowed any of their minor children to leave their sight, both during and for some time after events. I can't really emphasise enough just abnormal leaving Burke upstairs by himself was.

You are sounding like a female True Crime addict. "I wouldn't have done that, therefore anyone who did [opposite of what I, here in my comfortable chair, think I would have done during an extremely stressful situation] is guilty of something."

Nobody knows how they will react to a stressful situation until it hits.

 

[Turquoise]

An extra Zodiac titbit for you to mull over...

In Nov 1969, a Zodiac correspondence letter included this diagram:

If you add up the numbers of the dates of each of Zodiac's confirmed muders then divide by 5 and minus 10 you get 10, 6 , 11 and 8. If we imagine the symbol as a clock face, each of those numbers are marked with an X.

Jensen/Faraday (12/20/68] = 12 + 20 + 68 = 100 Divided by 5 = 20 -10 = 10

Ferrin/Mageau (7/4/69) = 7 + 4 + 69 = 80 Divided by 5 = 16 – 10 = 6

Hartnell/Sheperd (9/27/69) = 9 + 27 + 69 = 105 Divided by 5 = 21 – 10 = 11

Paul Stine (10/11/69) = 10 + 11 + 69 = 90 Divided by 5 = 18 – 10 =8

You can get the 9 and also the missing 7 by doing the maths on other potential victims. Donna Lass, who was murdered in 1970, after the Nov 1969 letter was sent, could make up the missing number 7. Was Zodiac trying to communicate that number 7 was next?

To lend some support to this theory is Zodiac's writing the dates of his murders on the car door after the Hartnell/Shepherd attack in 1969 as if they were somehow significant.

Coincidence or was Zodiac obsessed with numbers?

 

[Cpl. Long Dong Silver]

No1currs about Jon Benet Ramsey

 

[The Crescent King]

Also @Twix Eatr

You've claimed that John's fibers were found in JB's underwear, and that fibers from Patsy were found in the duct tape - do you have an actual lab report (not Reddit) substantiating that claim? I ask because in Steve Thomas's deposition he admits that he saw no CBI report substantiating the idea that Patsy contributed to the duct tape fibers but was relying on what another officer allegedly said to him. Steve Thomas openly thinks that Patsy did it, but because the duct tape was dropped on the ground he acknowledges that any fibers could have been transferred due to that, so he doesn't consider four microscopic fibres found on the tape as indicating guilt. How come the lead investigator on the case who is openly PDI makes more modest claims than yourself?

http://www.acandyrose.com/s-evidence-fibers.htm

I also cannot find anything indicating that John's shirt fibers were found in JB's crotch from an actual lab report - indeed, that idea comes from a 2000 interrogation where he actually requests the report where this information supposedly comes from, yet it never materialised.

http://www.acandyrose.com/2000ATL-John-Interview-Complete.htm

As an aside, presenting the fiber evidence as "matching" is misleading. Fiber evidence is often shaky in general due to the nature of what fibers are (unlike DNA evidence like saliva or semen), and investigators use the term "consistent with" as opposed to "matching", as it's fairly difficult to prove where fibers come from.

You've also contradicted yourself by saying the unknown male DNA either doesn't exist or comes from a factory worker. The fact is the Ramseys were officially exonerated by Mary Lacey because of the unknown male DNA (so it definitely exists). This post actually contains links to all of the DNA testing reports - samples from JB's long bottoms, fingernails and ligature were examined, and each time John Ramsey was excluded as a contributer. The main contributer across the reports is JB herself and two unknown contributors. I fail to see how DNA from a factory worker would end up on a ligature or her underwear, when Patsy and John's fibers being found is not unusual whatsoever, and weren't even found according to any reports listed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/JonBenetRamsey/comments/opbgg4/major_rounds_of_dna_testing_in_the_jonbenet/

Edit: Another site with links to original forensic reports - https://www.jonbenetramsey.com/casefiles/#cbi-serology-and-cora-files

Edit 2: One thing many people interested in the JBR case don't know that a 12 year old girl called Amy (pseudonym) who attended the same dance studio as JBR was sexually assaulted by an unknown assault nine months after JBR's murder: https://www.the-sun.com/news/6702057/rapist-jonbenet-ramsey-murder-night-stalker-mystery/

 

[Twix Eatr]

You've claimed that John's fibers were found in JB's underwear, and that fibers from Patsy were found in the duct tape - do you have an actual lab report (not Reddit) substantiating that claim? I ask because in Steve Thomas's deposition he admits that he saw no CBI report substantiating the idea that Patsy contributed to the duct tape fibers but was relying on what another officer allegedly said to him. Steve Thomas openly admits thinks that Patsy did it, but because the duct tape was dropped on the ground he acknowledges that any fibers could have been transferred due to that, so he doesn't consider four microscopic fibres found on the tape as indicating guilt. How come the lead investigator on the case who is openly PDI makes more modest claims than yourself?

I said, "Fibers from John's shirt were found near her crotch area. Fibers from Patsy's jacket were found on the fibers of the rope of the garotte and the sticky side of the tape used on JBR." They were also found in the paint tray.

I quoted the police interview where they mention the fiber's on John's shirt. The same interview has lots of wrangling on Patsy's jacket fibers, too. The detectives reference the lab reports saying the fibers are identical to those on her jacket.

No, I don't have the lab reports on hand. Why would I need that when your source as a rebuttal acknowledges their presence? I personally find fiber evidence weak to begin with so I don't harp on it too much.

10 In addition to those questions,
11 there are some others that I would like you
12 to think about whether or not we can have
13 Mrs. Ramsey perhaps in the future answer. I
14 understand you are advising her not to today,
15 and those are there are black fibers that,
16 according to our testing that was conducted,
17 that match one of the two shirts that was
18 provided to us by the Ramseys, black shirt.
19 Those are located in the
20 underpants of JonBenet Ramsey, were found in
21 her crotch area, and I believe those are two
22 other areas that we have intended to ask
23 Mrs. Ramsey about if she could help us in
24 explaining their presence in those locations.

Can you find me the quote from Thomas that says what you claim? These are what I found and they indicate the mishandling of the evidence and crime scene as why they're not strong enough to rely on (because they could easily be challenged by the defense), not because they're unlikely to indicate involvement:

"...on the adhesive side of the duct tape... there were four fibers that were later determined to be microscopically and chemically consistent with four fibers from a piece of clothing that Patsy Ramsey was wearing, and had that piece of tape been removed at autopsy, and the integrity of it maintained, that would have made, I feel, a very compelling argument. But because that tape was removed, and dropped on the floor, a transference argument could certainly be potentially made by any defense in this case, and that's just one example of how a compromised crime scene may, if not irreparably, have damage the subsequent investigation."

"As often happens when detectives start kicking around seemingly unrelated items, we figured out that Patsy’s fur boots might be a possible source for a beaver hair the FBI lab had identified on the sticky side of the tape that had been across JonBenét’s mouth. It could even have been a case-breaking discovery, and we should have been off and running with search warrants in hand to get those boots. But the DA’s office once again stopped us in our tracks by shrugging their shoulders and declining to proceed with a warrant."

Here's a quote from Kolar's book Foreign Faction that helps discount the idea of transference from mishandling:

Trujillo advised me that lab technicians had identified eight different types of fibers on the sticky side of the duct tape that covered Jon Benet's mouth. They included red acrylic, gray acrylic and red polyester fibers that were microscopically and chemically consistent to each other, as well as to fibers taken from Patsy Ramsey's Essentials jacket. Further, fibers from this jacket were also matched to trace fibers collected from the wrist ligature, neck ligature, and vacuumed evidence from the paint tray and Wine Cellar floor.

Lab technicians had conducted experiments with the same brand of duct tape, by attempting to lift trace fibers from the blanket recovered in the Wine Cellar. Direct contact was made in different quadrants of the blanket. There was some minimal transfer of jacket fibers made to the tape during this exercise, but Trujillo told me lab technicians didn't think that this type of transfer accounted for the number of jacket fibers that had been found on the sticky side of the tape. It was thought that direct contact between the jacket and tape was more likely the reason for the quantity of fibers found on this piece of evidence.

BPD investigators looked to the other jacket fibers found in the Wine Cellar, in the paint tray, and on the cord used to bind JonBenét as physical evidence that linked Patsy with the probable location of her daughter's death- the basement hallway and Wine Cellar.

The paint tray was reported to have been moved to the basement about a month prior to the kidnapping, and investigators doubted that Patsy would have been working on art projects while wearing the dress jacket. The collection of jacket fibers from all of these different locations raised strong suspicions about her involvement in the crime.

Investigators also learned that fibers collected from the interior lining of the Essentials jacket did not match control samples from the sweater that had been provided to police by Ramsey attorneys. Investigators thought that this suggested she had been wearing some other article of clothing beneath the jacket.

I also cannot find anything indicating that John's shirt fibers were found in JB's crotch from an actual lab report - indeed, that idea comes from a 2000 interrogation where he actually requests the report where this information supposedly comes from, yet it never materialised.
http://www.acandyrose.com/2000ATL-John-Interview-Complete.htm

Yes, and if you read the source you're linking, they reference why they didn't turn it over to them:

2 MR. LEVIN: I think that is
3 something we'd have -- I would have to
4 discuss with Chief Beckner. And I think you
5 can appreciate why, when we are talking about
6 physical evidence in an ongoing investigation,
7 which is not a filed case, that we are
8 reluctant to release reports.

As an aside, presenting the fiber evidence as "matching" is misleading. Fiber evidence is often shaky in general due to the nature of what fibers are (unlike DNA evidence like saliva or semen), and investigators use the term "consistent with" as opposed to "matching", as it's fairly difficult to prove where fibers come from.

Agreed, although they actually do the exact same with DNA, too. They do not say it's a 100% match, but give the odds of it being someone else. Regardless, "match" is the phrasing the detectives used, not me.

You've also contradicted yourself by saying the unknown male DNA either doesn't exist or comes from a factory worker. The fact is the Ramseys were officially exonerated by Mary Lacey because of the unknown male DNA (so it definitely exists). This post actually contains links to all of the DNA testing reports - samples from JB's long bottoms, fingernails and ligature were examined, and each time John Ramsey waa excluded as a contributer. The main contributer across the reports is JB herself and two unknown contributors. I fail to see how DNA from a factory worker would end up on a ligature or her underwear, when Patsy and John's fibers being found is not unusual whatsoever, and weren't even found according to any reports listed here:

There was no contradiction, but I could've worded it clearer. I am not saying there isn't DNA there. I'm saying it's a complete red herring that isn't indicative of what people purport. "Unknown male perpetrator" is not accurate when there are multiple DNA sources and too small an amount to test anything. When there are multiple sources that may be contributing, there is never a match.

Mary Lacey misrepresented the findings entirely and the exoneration was a joke. How do you readily accept the crime scene and evidence being mishandled to disavow fibers, but somehow trace DNA can't get mixed in with others?

I had Grok synthesize for me:

DNA Evidence Limitations: A 2016 joint investigation by the Boulder Daily Camera and 9NEWS revealed that the DNA evidence Lacy relied on was not as conclusive as presented. Forensic experts found that the DNA samples from the long johns contained genetic markers from at least two people in addition to JonBenét, and the sample from her underwear could be a composite of multiple contributors, not necessarily a single individual. The link between the DNA on the long johns and the underwear was described as "tenuous at best," and the Bode reports did not use the term "match" but rather indicated that Unknown Male 1 "could not be excluded" as a contributor.

Criticism of Lacy’s Decision: Several experts and officials have questioned Lacy’s exoneration. Former Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner, who led the department from 1998 to 2014, stated in 2015 that exonerating anyone based solely on the DNA was "absurd" because the DNA’s connection to the crime was not proven and other evidence could not be ignored. Similarly, Boulder DA Stan Garnett, Lacy’s successor, called the exoneration "misleading" and noted that the compromised crime scene made definitive conclusions difficult. Former Adams County DA Bob Grant also criticized the move, stating that prosecutors typically exonerate by charging someone else, which Lacy did not do.

lternative Interpretations: Some experts, like biochemist Dan Krane, have suggested that the trace DNA could have been deposited long before the crime or through benign means, as people shed DNA constantly. The crime scene was not secure initially, raising the possibility of contamination. Additionally, a 2016 report noted traces of multiple DNA samples, including six separate profiles from unknown individuals, further complicating the assumption that the DNA belonged to the killer.

Lacy’s Additional Reasoning: Lacy later defended her decision by citing not only the DNA but also other evidence, such as a "butt print" in the carpet outside JonBenét’s bedroom, which she believed supported her intruder theory. However, this detail was not mentioned in her 2008 letter and has been met with skepticism. She also expressed concern about preventing a "travesty of justice," believing the Ramseys were unfairly targeted despite a lack of evidence showing motive or psychopathy.

The DNA is a joke, for sure, but we can agree to disagree. There was also no DNA found on the ligature, which is hard to believe if you think the killers got touch DNA on the long john's and underwear.

Edit 2: One thing many people interested in the JBR case don't know that a 12 year old girl called Amy (pseudonym) who attended the same dance studio as JBR was sexually assaulted by an unknown assault nine months after JBR's murder: https://www.the-sun.com/news/6702057/rapist-jonbenet-ramsey-murder-night-stalker-mystery/

Little girls get molested very often. This is another red herring. Those crimes aren't even remotely similar and you have to ignore mountains of evidence indicating RDI to entertain it. This guy was so sloppy and loud the victim's mother heard, barged in and chased him off. Conveniently, the intruder who killed JBR is a cat burglar who makes no sound, writes a huge ransom note for a dead girl, then escapes without leaving any evidence of his intrusion. Right.

@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.

All rape/SA stats are out-of-whack because men are rarely considered rapeable

An extra Zodiac titbit for you to mull over...

In Nov 1969, a Zodiac correspondence letter included this diagram:

View attachment 7671266

If you add up the numbers of the dates of each of Zodiac's confirmed muders then divide by 5 and minus 10 you get 10, 6 , 11 and 8. If we imagine the symbol as a clock face, each of those numbers are marked with an X.

Jensen/Faraday (12/20/68] = 12 + 20 + 68 = 100 Divided by 5 = 20 -10 = 10

Ferrin/Mageau (7/4/69) = 7 + 4 + 69 = 80 Divided by 5 = 16 – 10 = 6

Hartnell/Sheperd (9/27/69) = 9 + 27 + 69 = 105 Divided by 5 = 21 – 10 = 11

Paul Stine (10/11/69) = 10 + 11 + 69 = 90 Divided by 5 = 18 – 10 =8

You can get the 9 and also the missing 7 by doing the maths on other potential victims. Donna Lass, who was murdered in 1970, after the Nov 1969 letter was sent, could make up the missing number 7. Was Zodiac trying to communicate that number 7 was next?

To lend some support to this theory is Zodiac's writing the dates of his murders on the car door after the Hartnell/Shepherd attack in 1969 as if they were somehow significant.

Coincidence or was Zodiac obsessed with numbers?

This is nonsensical schizo shit, no offense.

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

Ted talked and talked and talked and talked. He was an extreme narcissist. JJD thought he could fool everyone and never wanted his daughters to know about this. He ruined their lives and wants to go away quietly.

The police have incentive to minimize it, too, because he was certainly on the clock while prowling and doing recon. He was the head of the burglary unit at one point and probably investigated his own crimes. But I agree, it's crazy there isn't more stuff out there about him. He was still calling and tormenting victims!

He also called himself the Unabomber and there's no "b" or "m" in his name, they must have gotten the wrong guy!

University and Airline Bomber

 

[Dysnomia]

Pedro Hernandez's 2017 conviction in the 1979 kidnapping and murder of 6 year old Etan Patz has been overturned. He was interrogated for 8 hours before confessing. During this time he was not read Miranda. The recording of Hernandez confessing was actually a second confession made after he was read his Miranda rights. The appeals court ruled that jurors were given instructions during the deliberation that prejudiced the verdict.

Now this doesn't mean he's innocent. His sister claimed that he confessed at his church in the 1980s. Hernandez has a low IQ and mental health problems. So it's also possible he could have been easily led into a confession by the police if they just wanted to close the case. However, I have a hard time believing his sister would lie unless she really hated him or something. I think this may be another Adam Walsh case in the sense that it's very possible the person we think is the murderer actually did not commit this crime. Ottis Toole was a notorious liar who likely inflated the number of crimes he and his partner Henry Lee Lucas committed. I'm on the fence about Toole since he had a bad history with telling lies. However his niece claimed he made a deathbed confession. I do not buy the Jeffrey Dahmer connection. He did assault a and expose himself to few underage boys. Including brother of victim Konerak Sinthasomphone. But Adam Walsh was 6. Dahmer didn't seem to be attracted to any males younger than teenagers.

 

[Twix Eatr]

New article about EARONS on dumpster site Mother Jones. Posting here since lots of his prowling is still unexplained.

Edit: I copied in the full article and also ran it through an AI to turn the text into audio for y'all since it's longform.

Evidence in Her Brutal 1979 Rape Pointed to the Golden State Killer. The Police Didn’t Want to Hear About It.​

How one woman’s quest for closure unleashed its own kind of nightmare.​

Samantha Michaels July 23, 2025

I ran the article through an text-to-speech AI for you beautiful Farmers; got 1/2 in this and trying to get all of it.

In 2019, Susan Bowlus got a text from a friend that caught her off guard. “I’ve been watching the coverage on the Golden State Killer,” her friend wrote, referring to the California serial killer who’d been arrested in 2018.

The killer’s name was Joseph DeAngelo, a cop-turned-criminal who’d broken into homes to rape and kill people during the 1970s and 1980s. He was finally caught in Sacramento County, thanks to DNA evidence and a genealogy website. Soon, he’d be prosecuted. “It’s so creepy and I feel weird asking you about this,” the friend continued, but “I remember you telling me about an assault you had.”

Forty years earlier, when Bowlus was 22, a man had entered her Sacramento-area house while she was sleeping and spent hours attacking and violating her. Police never identified him. As she tuned in to the coverage of DeAngelo’s arrest, she grew unsettled: Other confirmed survivors were describing rapes that seemed eerily similar to what she’d experienced. And DeAngelo had lived just a short drive away from her. Was it a coincidence?

Bowlus, who’d long yearned for some resolution to her case, reached out to the Sacramento County district attorney’s and sheriff’s offices, asking for the old crime report. If DeAngelo were the culprit, it would be too late to participate in his trial, but she wanted to know one way or the other and hoped getting an answer would help her heal. “It sounded like that bastard DeAngelo for sure,” retired Sacramento Sheriff’s Detective Richard Shelby, who searched for the Golden State Killer during the 1970s, told me when I described Bowlus’ assault.

DeAngelo’s arrest and conviction made national headlines, framed as long-awaited justice for the dozens of people he raped. He was sentenced in August 2020 to life without parole. “It’s just so nice to have closure and to know he’s in jail,” Jane Carson-Sandler, who survived a 1976 assault, told the Associated Press after DeAngelo’s arrest.

“The nightmare has ended,” Carol Daly, one of the original detectives working the case in Sacramento, said in a statement on behalf of another victim.

Susan Bowlus circa 1979 Courtesy Susan Bowlus

But Bowlus was not acknowledged as a survivor by local authorities, and her quest to learn more about her assault would morph into a nightmare all its own: Over four years, she had so much trouble getting records from the sheriff’s office that it began to feel deliberate: “Why were these people that were supposed to be helping me becoming my adversaries?” she asked me rhetorically. Bowlus “felt that she had been failed and betrayed” by law enforcement, says Jim Hopper, a Harvard psychologist who spoke with her before she filed a lawsuit seeking access to the records.

Citing insufficient evidence, authorities frequently deny victims of violent crimes access to government resources, including state compensation funds established to help survivors cover the costs of therapy, lost wages, or funerals. That’s according to Jennifer James, a sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Officials who administer the funds tend to assume “people are lying” if they don’t have all their records, and so they “weed them out,” James said.

Bowlus, indeed, spent years trying to get her share of the compensation the state legislature promised to each of the Golden State Killer’s living victims. Along the way, she learned she was not alone. There were other potential survivors still out there in need of assistance—and closure.

Bowlus grew up in Northern California and moved to Sacramento to attend Heald Business College, where she studied to be a legal secretary. In her early 20s, she got a secretarial job with a railroad company, where her roommate also worked.

The gig wasn’t her dream—she wanted to become a photographer—but it paid well enough to buy a house in nearby Citrus Heights with a big oak tree in the backyard. It was in the fall of 1979, as she was looking forward to a promotion to railroad engineer, a role very few women held, that the attack took place.

Bowlus worked as a railroad engineer in the early 1980s Courtesy Susan Bowlus

She recalls falling asleep after midnight on September 25 and waking up with a man on top of her. He’d already blindfolded her and proceeded to tie her up. The attack lasted for hours as he moved her from room to room. She prayed for her survival as he started rattling knives in a kitchen drawer. “I was strong, but in dire fear I would not make it out alive,” she told me.

When her attacker finally left, she ran outside for help, pounding on her neighbors’ door. They called the police, and she went to the hospital for a forensic exam. Afterward, she sold her house, relocated to Nevada, and focused on her engineering job at the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. She would eventually move to New York City to pursue her current career as a portrait and fashion photographer.

In the meantime, for decades, she tried to move on from that traumatic night in Citrus Heights. But after hearing from her friend and following DeAngelo’s prosecution, Bowlus couldn’t ignore her insatiable curiosity to find out what had happened to her. “I was always wondering through the years” who did it, she says. She hoped an answer might exist in her crime report, but when she first requested the documents in 2020, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said it couldn’t find them. She asked the staff to keep looking.

Joseph DeAngelo, who was dubbed the East Area Rapist, the Golden State Killer, and other nicknames, appears in a Sacramento County courtroom with public defender Diane Howard for his arraignment on multiple murder and rape-related charges in April 2018. Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty

After DeAngelo’s sentencing, the office finally produced the report, but it was incomplete. Whoever had redacted the page numbers had forgotten one—“page 15 of 24”—which caught Bowlus’ attention, because the office had handed over only 20 pages.

When she inquired further, staff at the sheriff’s records bureau said they’d given her everything except a few pages of medical records, which they’d need a court order to release. Puzzled, she reached out to the district attorney’s office, where an investigator agreed to request the remaining pages on her behalf. “It doesn’t make sense that you can’t get your own medical records,” the investigator, Kevin Papineau, wrote to her in an email. But his request to the sheriff’s office was rejected.

As Bowlus obsessed over her case documents, she started to experience intense anxiety and problems sleeping. Why couldn’t she see her own medical files? Striking out with law enforcement, she turned to other survivors for support. Rose Ireland, who’d been attacked by DeAngelo in Santa Barbara County, told her that state lawmakers had passed a law allowing his victims to apply for up to $10,000 apiece for therapy to help them deal with their trauma—Ireland’s application had been approved. Bowlus, noting the close similarities between her case and the others, decided to try.

This, too, proved more challenging than she’d anticipated. California’s Victim Compensation Board, the agency processing the applications, denied her request, arguing that she was not a crime victim. Bowlus pushed back—she had 20 pages of her crime report, after all—whereupon the board clarified that she was not a victim of the Golden State Killer specifically.

When Bowlus emailed the sheriff’s office to ask about this, Detective Rob Peters wrote back to say there wasn’t enough evidence linking her attack to DeAngelo. “There were very specific things he would say to his victims, things he would have his victims do, as well as things he would take from the residences,” he wrote, and “none of those things were in your report.” Peters suggested that perhaps she’d been assaulted by another serial criminal such as the Woolly rapist, who wore wool gloves during his crimes in the 1970s. But that was impossible—the Woolly rapist was locked up at the time she was attacked.

In fact, there were parallels between Bowlus’ rape and ones DeAngelo committed that conflicted with what Peters had claimed: The Golden State Killer often burglarized other homes in the neighborhood first. His victims tended not to hear him enter, and he usually moved them from room to room and rummaged through their things. All of that happened to her. Her attack had lasted about four hours. “I don’t know any other rapist that would stay in the house that long,” Shelby, the retired detective, told me. Her perpetrator also had repeatedly told her to “shut up,” asked her to get lubricant and masturbate, and instructed her to remain still for at least 15 minutes after he left the premises—all rather unusual habits of DeAngelo, according to court filings in her case. How could the sheriff’s office be so sure her rapist wasn’t DeAngelo?

DeAngelo was also identified as the Visalia Ransacker because of the crimes he committed there, including a murder, during the 1970s. Visalia Times-Delta

When Bowlus posed that question, Peters simply reiterated that her assault did not sound like a typical DeAngelo assault and that he felt confident about his assessment after reviewing 54 pages of her file. This, too, confused her: Hadn’t the records bureau suggested there were only 24 pages?

Frustrated, Bowlus turned to private investigator Tony Reid, an expert on the Golden State Killer who had helped law enforcement search for him and then wrote a book on the subject. Reid had obtained crime reports for other victims while trying to help an incarcerated man he believed was framed for one of DeAngelo’s crimes. Bowlus messaged him on Facebook in 2020, and he’d been intrigued enough to take her case.

Then, a bombshell: In 2022, Reid got a trove of documents from an anonymous source—47 pages of Bowlus’ crime report, or 27 more than she’d already received.

The documents showed there had been footprints outside Bowlus’ house that resembled those of DeAngelo: same size, same type of shoe. Jim Bevins, the lead investigator on the interagency Golden State Killer task force during the 1970s, had investigated her rape and had sent Bowlus’ bedsheets to a forensic lab for analysis. “There is nothing in the available information” that would exclude DeAngelo as a suspect, Reid wrote in a report later submitted in court.

With this evidence, Bowlus hoped she could convince the Victim Compensation Board to approve her therapy funding. Wasn’t it clear or at least probable that she’d been attacked by DeAngelo? The sheriff’s office still didn’t think so, though it still hadn’t shared her full file with her. And the board continued to deny her application, citing lack of proof.

An undated photo released by the FBI shows ski masks from East Area Rapist cases. FBI/AP

California’s Victim Compensation Board, established in the 1960s, was a first of its kind in the nation, though every state now has one. It’s a three-member panel that reimburses people for expenses related to violent crimes, from hospital bills and funeral costs to lost wages and therapy fees. California typically gives victims seven years to apply, but in 2018, state lawmakers enacted a bill extending the deadline for Golden State Killer survivors.

Crime victims nationwide have long complained about the red tape they’ve encountered when applying for compensation funds: There’s a lot of paperwork, and the requirement to submit police reports can be disqualifying for some people. In a 2022 survey, the victims advocacy group Alliance for Safety and Justice found that 96 percent of violent crime victims never saw a dime, and three-quarters received no mental health support.

In California and nationally, about half of violent crimes aren’t even reported to police, the same survey found, often because the victims don’t believe law enforcement will help them. In another 2022 report, the nonprofit Prosecutors Alliance of California found that roughly 70 percent of the 700 crime survivors surveyed didn’t know why they had been denied compensation.

FBI Special Agent Marcus Knutson (left) and Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Paige Kneeland look for evidence at the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. FBI/AP

As Bowlus was fighting for access to her records, the California Legislature passed a law to compensate people forcibly sterilized while serving time in state prison years before. But the Victim Compensation Board denied more than 300 of the 500-plus applications it received, most often for lack of documentation. Journalists at KQED and the Nation identified multiple cases in which former prisoners with valid claims were rejected. “Many people experienced trauma from applying,” said James, the UCSF professor, who helped some of them apply. “It feels like as a state, as a society, we’ve prioritized bureaucracy—needing to weed out fraud and someone taking advantage of the system—over making sure that everyone who needs care or resources is able to access services.”

After the board rejected Bowlus’ first application and appeals, she asked it to request her complete 54-page file from the sheriff’s office—a California court had previously ruled that the board is obligated “to obtain full crime reports from law enforcement agencies…through its subpoena power if necessary.” The board refused—so Bowlus filed a lawsuit. Under legal pressure, the board issued a subpoena and the sheriff’s office finally handed over 24 pages to Bowlus, and ultimately, after some urging, the additional 23 pages that private investigator Reid had obtained.

But seven pages were still missing. Bowlus and Reid suspected they contained the lab results for the semen-stained sheets that were sent for testing, which might have identified the perpetrator. “Of all the things that could go missing from a case file,” Reid told me, “this would be the last. This would have been essential information for any prosecution.”

The DA’s office also told Bowlus that it didn’t have the semen analysis from her sheets. But the lack of transparency Bowlus faced throughout her quest left her highly skeptical. “It was so traumatizing to be gaslit,” she told me. She and her supporters began to wonder whether local officials were hiding something. “Somebody was not producing all the documents,” says her attorney, Patrick Dwyer. “And the question was, why?”

Carol Daly and Richard Shelby were two of the original detectives assigned to the East Area Rapist (Golden State Killer) case. On the mirror are notes taken by Russ Oase, a friend of Shelby’s and former federal officer who pursued the case on his own time. Nick Otto/Washington Post/Getty

That question became harder to ignore after Reid obtained yet another record: an internal police memo from March 1979 that cast even more doubt on the sheriff’s office’s claims. Peters, the detective, had told Bowlus that DeAngelo could not have been her attacker because he’d already left Sacramento by 1979 and moved elsewhere in California. But in this memo, issued a few months before Bowlus was raped, a police officer on the East Area Rapist Interagency Task Force informed his team that he believed the Golden State Killer had tried to rape someone else in Sacramento County that week. The officer wrote that the sheriff’s office wanted to hide this new attack from the public “so that the press will not over-react” and cause more panic.

This came as a shock for Bowlus. Could the sheriff’s office now be brushing her off, she wondered, because her rape had happened at a time when county officials were leading the public to believe—despite potential evidence to the contrary—that the Golden State Killer was no longer located there?

Even more upsetting: The memo’s author had predicted the killer would strike again on a Tuesday, as was his habit. That was the day of the week Bowlus was raped. (DeAngelo was arrested for shoplifting a few miles from Bowlus’ house in July 1979. He was suspended from his job at the Auburn Police Department that August; she was raped in September.) “They lied to the public, knowing that he’s still attacking,” she thought. “The community was not warned.”

An article from the Auburn Record notes DeAngelo’s shoplifting conviction. Auburn Record

The internal memo clearly states that Sacramento authorities intended to conceal from the public the Golden State Killer’s likely whereabouts in 1979. A year earlier, the Bay Area Journal reported that the sheriff’s office had previously asked journalists to “sit on” the story a while, so as not to jeopardize the Golden State Killer investigation—as those reporters held off on publishing, more women were raped. Journalists “are cooperating very well,” Bevins, the investigator who later looked into Bowlus’ case, told the Journal.

I found no evidence to support Bowlus’ suspicion that the sheriff’s office was trying to cover up something related to her case—though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t. (The office did not respond to my requests for comment and rejected my public records request. The district attorney’s office also declined to comment.)

Shelby, the former detective, who retired in 1993, told me that he doubted the sheriff’s office was conspiring to deny her the records. More likely, he said, its personnel were stretched thin and didn’t see much point in spending time on her case—and frankly didn’t care because DeAngelo is in prison. “In their mind, it’s over and done,” he said. “They’re thinking, ‘It’s not him, and we don’t even care if it is because he’s already arrested; we’re not gonna spin our wheels.’”

In the meantime, Bowlus was denied the help she sought. “It’s incomprehensible why they’d spend more than four years torturing an identified, known, agreed rape victim,” says Kristen Reid, investigator Tony Reid’s spouse and business partner, “instead of spending five minutes to resolve an easy question of forensics.”

Or simply asking the Golden State Killer, who had no incentive to lie. Earlier this month, Tony Reid got his hands on the minutes from DeAngelo’s 2020 sentencing. Prosecutors had made an unusual deal with the serial killer: In exchange for him pleading guilty to 13 murders and 13 kidnappings and admitting to 161 other uncharged crimes, they agreed to never press any more charges, even if he admitted to other crimes later.

This past September, the Victim Compensation Board finally approved Bowlus’ application. After half a decade advocating for herself, she received state funding to cover the cost of therapy. A judge also ordered the state to pay $83,000 to cover her attorney’s fees.

The board has, by now, granted money to 29 of the killer’s 33 survivors who applied. But at least a couple of others didn’t bother submitting applications because they’d already been disappointed by how police treated them and couldn’t stomach another bad interaction.

Liz Silva was 12 years old when she was abducted and raped by a cop she now believes was DeAngelo, based on his appearance and the fact that her stepdad worked in the same town as DeAngelo for a while. She says the Sacramento County DA’s office did not invite her to DeAngelo’s 2020 sentencing hearing because she lacked enough evidence—the snub left her feeling “totally dismissed.”

DeAngelo joined the Exeter Police Department in 1973, around the time 12-year-old Liz Silva was raped by a police officer. Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office

I also spoke with Karen Burns, who was raped in a Sacramento-area home invasion in 1979, shortly after Bowlus’ attack. She struggled to obtain all her records from a police department after DeAngelo’s arrest and didn’t apply for victim compensation, she says, after she heard how much trouble Bowlus was having: “I started getting everything together,” all the paperwork, “but I didn’t have it in me to finish and get disappointed again.”

Hopper, the Harvard psychologist, told me police are sometimes insensitive with survivors because of their training: “It can be a job where you’re overwhelmed, you’re dealing with things nobody else wants to deal with, you’ve got too many cases, and criminals who are lying to you all the time. The interviewing methods you learn can be focused on trying to break down the criminals and get them to confess, and those can become deeply ingrained habits, and now you’ve got a rape victim sitting across from you.”

But when cops treat survivors with suspicion and question their honesty, he says, it can cause a form of “betrayal trauma,” wherein victims are harmed by an institution that was supposed to help them.

Every case is unique, but the experts I spoke with said the roadblocks Bowlus faced are a nationwide problem. “Most crime victims have encountered similar challenges in getting any kind of information from law enforcement,” says Tinisch Hollins, executive director of the advocacy group Californians for Safety and Justice. That ranges from follow-up and general information about their case to the documents and evidence the victims need to show to secure compensation.

According to attorney David Snyder, executive director of the nonprofit First Amendment Coalition, California’s public records law generally allows police to withhold arrest reports indefinitely. “A lot of people assume that when an investigation is over, you can get the records. That’s not the case,” says Snyder, who has done legal work for Mother Jones in the past, and there’s little oversight to ensure that police are handing over even the documents they are required to share.

Californians for Safety and Justice is pushing a bill introduced by San Diego Assemblywoman LaeShae Sharp-Collins that would make it easier to apply for compensation without a police report—instead, survivors could provide records from a counselor or social worker showing they were harmed. The state “is failing to help many victims of violent crime,” she said in a statement accompanying the bill.

“People for many reasons are afraid of police, or they’re afraid of retaliation by the perpetrator, or they are so traumatized they don’t want to go through a lengthy court proceeding, but if they don’t file a police report, they can’t access services,” says Alicia Boccellari, a San Francisco Bay Area psychologist who works with survivors. In 2001, she created a first-of-its-kind trauma recovery center at UCSF to provide free services ranging from victim support groups to home visits and assistance with compensation applications. Now there are trauma recovery centers statewide, and in other states, too, though some have had their funding cut by the Trump administration.

Susan Bowlus in the Citrus Heights neighborhood where she was attacked. Sam Van Pykeren

It is too late for Bowlus to benefit from these reforms. In April, I met her outside her old house in Citrus Heights, where a family now lives. She admired the big oak tree in the backyard, always her favorite part of the property, and said she was relieved that it had survived as long as she had. As we walked around the neighborhood, she told me about the therapy she’d started and the coping tools she was learning.

She had been practicing summoning an image of her favorite place—Lake Tahoe, where she loves to spend afternoons with a book and a sandwich. She thinks often of Sacramento Superior Court Judge Jennifer Rockwell, who took her side and helped her get therapy.

Bowlus may never see all of her records. After so many years obsessing over how to get them, she is trying to move on. But this, too, is harder than she’d imagined.

“It’s an age-old story, the fight for truth and justice,” she says. “And is it worth it?”

 

[Spergerella Junior]

New article about EARONS on dumpster site Mother Jones. Posting here since lots of his prowling is still unexplained.

It’s so nauseating to read. Most people I know who’ve been sexually assaulted never bothered to report simply because they had no confidence that the system such as it is would bother helping them. Worse, the process would just serve as another way to be tortured. Monsters slip away unpunished due to a system burdened by paperwork, burn out, stupidity and low empathy. And honestly I get it from both sides. I stopped believing in justice a long time ago.

And if we are being honest, most assaults like this really can’t be proven by the standards a court of law actually should adhere to.

Crimes become excused or ignored simply because it feels pointless to do anything.

I don’t subscribe to ACAB in general, but it’s not insignificant he was a police officer.

 

[Twix Eatr]

And if we are being honest, most assaults like this really can’t be proven by the standards a court of law actually should adhere to.

This is what I was going to post after reading your first paragraph. It's just an unfortunate truth that these types of crimes almost always happen in intimate settings without witnesses. People who've been assaulted would obviously want to shower ASAP, but that'd remove evidence needed that a rape kit would collect. Even then, places have untested rape kits sitting in a back log.

I've been harping on about these issues for a bit now in an attempt to reach my female friends regarding gender insanity. It's like, you all banded together for that "#metoo" shit, and yesterday it was believe all women. Now you cosign men AS women? Given how difficult it already is for women to come forward, do you think it'll be easier if the woman knows her rapist can simply declare himself a woman and go rape more women in their prison?

I genuinely am an ACAB person, tbh, but not in the usual retard way. I simply believe the system itself makes it impossible for honest cops to thrive, i.e., thin blue line and the brotherhood aspect. I don't assume every cop is a POS or that no shooting is ever justified. I agree that it's not nothing that he was a cop.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

This is what I was going to post after reading your first paragraph. It's just an unfortunate truth that these types of crimes almost always happen in intimate settings without witnesses. People who've been assaulted would obviously want to shower ASAP, but that'd remove evidence needed that a rape kit would collect. Even then, places have untested rape kits sitting in a back log.

I've been harping on about these issues for a bit now in an attempt to reach my female friends regarding gender insanity. It's like, you all banded together for that "#metoo" shit, and yesterday it was believe all women. Now you cosign men AS women? Given how difficult it already is for women to come forward, do you think it'll be easier if the woman knows her rapist can simply declare himself a woman and go rape more women in their prison?

I genuinely am an ACAB person, tbh, but not in the usual retard way. I simply believe the system itself makes it impossible for honest cops to thrive, i.e., thin blue line and the brotherhood aspect. I don't assume every cop is a POS or that no shooting is ever justified. I agree that it's not nothing that he was a cop.

I had deleted from power leveling from my original post, but I’ll summarize a bit: while I was growing up, many of the cops (and firemen!?!) in my town often had “girlfriends” and by that I mean they were statutorily raping my 14 year old friends. Also the close calls I did have with predators, each time I came across a cop immediately afterwards, asked for help or tried to report the creep, and every time I was turned away or refused help. I hope it’s different now. It makes me wonder if Deangelo had any victims when serving as a cop/interacting with women who were requesting assistance. I guess we will never know.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

I had deleted from power leveling from my original post, but I’ll summarize a bit: while I was growing up, many of the cops (and firemen!?!) in my town often had “girlfriends” and by that I mean they were statutorily raping my 14 year old friends. Also the close calls I did have with predators, each time I came across a cop immediately afterwards, asked for help or tried to report the creep, and every time I was turned away or refused help. I hope it’s different now. It makes me wonder if Deangelo had any victims when serving as a cop/interacting with women who were requesting assistance. I guess we will never know.

Where the fuck did you grow up? Rapeville, West Virginia? And multiple predators? Yeah, we had a creepy guy that got a little handsy with a girl but he "left town" permanently after a few guys had a talk with him after they ransacked his trailer. But multiple?

 

[Spergerella Junior]

Where the fuck did you grow up? Rapeville, West Virginia? And multiple predators? Yeah, we had a creepy guy that got a little handsy with a girl but he "left town" permanently after a few guys had a talk with him after they ransacked his trailer. But multiple?

I grew up in a suburb of a large east coast city. But I’ve also moved around and lived in small towns and there’s never not been crime places so…I guess I’m surprised you are surprised.

In the early 90s all the neighborhood kids made jokes about pervert priests. The kids knew. The kids probably still know. Predators show themselves to who they think can’t hurt them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...fixture/66e3ba03-4a4b-4a2b-b3f7-1d4d5313b0cd/

I had friends that took this guys money. He was a known weirdo, but I don’t think our parents knew about him. Could have turned into some Dean Corl or Gacy shit easily.

Unfortunately I could add a lot more lore to this list.