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There’s nothing better than spending 6 hours binging a riveting true crime documentary that’s full of twists and turns. Truth really is stranger than fiction! But as satisfying as it is to find out that the estranged father did it all along or that the man’s jilted ex actually was innocent, sometimes, we don’t get all the answers. And that can make a story even more fascinating…
Redditors have recently been discussing some of the most famous and puzzling unsolved mysteries of all time, so we’ve compiled a list of the most intriguing cases below. Enjoy reading through and theorizing about what you think actually happened, and be sure to upvote the stories you’d love to see solved!
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#1
There is a ‘mystery’ that nobody thinks is a mystery. But personally I’m suspicious. There are a lot of missing Native American teenage boys in the area around Yakima Washington. Some of them where high risk but not all of them. At the start of the pandemic boys started going missing at like a 20% higher rate and then it calmed down after the pandemic. Some as young as 12 to as old as 23. The police don’t properly investigate. Just right them off as at risk teens that ran away. As of now they are not considered connected and there are more but you have to dig through Yakima county missing persons. I don’t know, I feel like so many serial killers get away with it because they target Native Americans (look at the center for missing and murdered indigenous women) and police in rural areas are often racist pieces of s**t. I think one day we are going to uncover what’s happening to these boys.
Red PANda (she/they) 5 months ago (edited)
Yeah they don’t properly investigate cases related to indigenous people and it drives me crazy. So many missing people
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#2
It’s nothing wildly infamous, but when I got my cat, I bought him a catnip cookie toy. He’d play with that thing for hours at a time. One day, it disappeared. We’ve rearranged the rooms multiple times since then and it’s nowhere to be found.
I know, it’s probably not what you’re looking for, but it’s the biggest unsolved mystery I know.
Red PANda (she/they) 5 months ago
Nice to have a lighthearted one among all these grim other ones. It’s a nice break
#3
How did reporter Dorothy Kilgallen, who was investigating the Kennedy assassination and had interviewed Jack Ruby, end up dead hours after appearing fine on the What’s My Line tv show? She was found sitting up in bed at home, in a room she didn’t normally sleep in, with her makeup still on and her Kennedy case file missing. It was never found and her death was never properly investigated.
Red PANda (she/they) 5 months ago
Well I can imagine it had something to do with Kennedy’s assassination…
#4
I grew up in a very small town. 4 people lived there named Reggie, and all of them mysteriously disappeared within 2 years. Never solved, not even a clue. Never heard from any of them again.
9 years go by, someone named Reggie moves to the town. Within 30 days, they disappear, never heard from again. That was 18 years ago, still no one knows what happened.
#5
The Setagaya family murder, in which the Miyazawa family were murdered in their home in December 2000. The killer was confident, having left fingerprints and DNA evidence, as well as the clothes he was wearing, in the house. Sand was analyzed from the scene, and had sand from Edward's Air Force Base in California. Not only that, only 120 sweaters of the kind the killer was wearing were sold. Somehow, still not solved.
#6
Amber Hagerman. She was about my same age and was killed in the city where I grew up. The AMBER alert system in the US was named in her honor and has helped safely recover many abducted children. However, Amber's murderer was never found and the tip hotline for her case remains open. Source.
Alexandra Davis 5 months ago
I'm not American and had no idea it was called after her. I always assumed it was amber for the colour and other colours are for other things like a "green alert" was natural disaster, "red alert" was fire etc
#7
The guy who killed a japanese family, stayed hours inside the house with the corpses using their computer and eating their food. he even took a s**t and didn't flush the toilet. he left so much dna in the house and the police haven't found him.
(english isn't my first language so excuse any mistakes).
#8
Brandon Swanson - he was on the phone with his father late one night after a car accident, said “Oh s**t!” and was never heard from again.
#9
My neighbor was beaten to death but he never admitted he was beaten while fighting for his life in the hospital. Even the nurse said it was obvious it wasn't just a fall. The police never started a case. That neighbor was very elderly and a sweetheart. He was murdered and the murderer is still there living free. Nobody cares and I'm disappointed in everyone involved. .
#10
Jack the Ripper's identity. Victorian London's most famous killer. Inspires countless stories and fascination. Women brutally murdered. Lots of apparent evidence. And despite all this.....noone can say for sure or even largely agree who he is! I work near Whirechapel too.....crazy the history there.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 5 months ago
George Chapman, in my opinion. He fits best. Also, when he went to New York, the murders in London ended. Murders of street women in New York went up.
#11
Zodiac killer, mfer went around in a costume and wrote letters taunting the police and all sorts and they still aren’t sure for certain who dunnit.
Jrog 5 months ago (edited)
Apparently the FBI had a lead suspect for a long time, connected through partial DNA match, weapon possession, match with composite portrait and even multiple confessions to relatives and friends who testified to investigators but the lead was not followed. After a whistleblower contacted a group of "internet detectives" about the evidence laying dormant, the case was brought to media attention and reopened in 2023. The suspect -who died in 2018 not before dispersing his conspicuous gun and assorted weapons collection- is named Gary Francis Poste, a former army technician involved in multiple suspicious deaths (a car crash and the homicide of his wife in a domestic violence incident).
#12
The disappearance of the five Sodder children. Five of the family’s ten children vanished in a house fire on Christmas Eve, 1945. Their parents and siblings escaped, but no remains of the other five children were ever found. The fire did not burn that long or that hot; remains should have easily been found of at least some of the five children. The fire itself seemed suspicious, and the family believed the children were kidnapped.
Bored something 5 months ago
Years later there was also a photo sent to the parents which looked like it could have been one of the children. They never gave up hope.
#13
The Missy Bevers murder should have been solved a long time ago. Tons of video footage of the killer and their car, iirc.
ZeldaHylia: I can’t believe it hasn’t been solved. The killer is on video. I was always confused by why they said the killer looked female by the way they walked. Such a weird story. It had to be someone who knew her. You’d think someone in her life would recognize the person in the video.
Upstaged75 5 months ago
The video of the person wandering around the church before she got there is chilling.
#14
When I was a kid, over the course of like 10 years, a bunch of severed feet washed up upon the shores of Vancouver Island.
It was almost always one foot, in a shoe, like 3-5 years apart.
Super odd
Edit: since Aug 2007, 20 different feet have been recovered in the Salish sea region alone.
#15
A bit off the cuff, but the Cocolitzli epidemics. This illness broke in Central America after Europeans made contact in the 16th century....and it destroyed entire villages; one epidemic killed 10-12 million people, even more than smallpox in the area. Absolute desolation.
No one knows what illness it was. Was it a hantavirus? Smallpox? Salmonella? Viral hemorrhagic fever? Why did it always appear after a drought? Where did it go? We will probably never know.
My favorite podcast, *This Podcast Will Kill You*, did an episode on Cocolitzli, going into detail about Contact and colonization and how & why there isn't much historical record on this.
For those who don't like to sleep at night
Jrog 5 months ago (edited)
Latest studies basically confirm it was two different agents. First, Salmonella enterica; the bacteria DNA was found in the teeth of 31 skeletons throug MALT (metagenomic analysis), and it is known to cause paratyphoid fever, an illness that still kills about 30k people each year in places that have limited access to vaccine or antibiotics, or have abysmal health standards. It raged in the central american populations in 1545 in an higly viral form. Second, a proto-form of the smallpox virus (VARV). It is suspected to be one of many variants (among them, the common measles and smallpox) of the RPV, the bovine pest, that was endemic in Asia and Europe at the time. That specific strain does not exist anymore and has since been replaced by the form that evolved two centuries ago and spread worldwide before being eradicated by vaccines, but at the time for an unprotected population living in close quarters with debatable hygiene it spread quickly, sweeping through 1520s Mexico.
#16
The Black Dahlia
It just seems so suspicious to me. It’s not everyday that a body just shows up cut in half, but there’s no blood in sight. If you read the page about the case from the FBI, something just doesn’t seem right.
Red PANda (she/they) 5 months ago (edited)
That’s terrifying, especially knowing the condition of the corpse…(don’t try to look up any pictures of it if you don’t want nightmares, please please trust me on this…look up a description if you want to satisfy your curiosity)
#17
In MA there was a young girl named Molly Bish that disappeared from her post as a lifeguard. Her body was found 3 years later. 24 years later and her killer has never been found.
#18
Bible John. It's insane that everyone who knew him covered for him. That's the only way he could've remained undetected.
For people who don't know, Bible John was a serial killer in 60s Scotland who had an extremely unique appearance, and it's pretty insane he was never caught.
#19
The Dyatlov Pass Incident.
Im aware of the new theory that recently has been presented, as a slab avalanche. But there are still questions that I don’t know.
Why was there high levels of radiation on the Hikers?
Why did they not die from impact from the slab avalanche? Most victims of such an avalanche are typically killed. Instead they cut the tent from the inside, and ran away. Also, wouldnt a slab avalanche push the tent? They are characterized by hard blocky material (had to google this)
I don’t fully accept the idea, but I’m open to having my mind changed.
Jrog 5 months ago (edited)
The radiation has been explained. The victims lived downwind of the radioactive plume released by the Mayak plutonium plant explosion, two years before. One of them was involved in the cleanup efforts. Others lived in towns that sourced water from the Techa river, that in a spectacularly Russian fashion was used both to dump radioactive material and as a drinking water source.
#20
JonBenét Ramsey
12345_PIZZA: The ransom note, to me, makes it so the only suspects are family members. That thing is just so long, so filled with movie like details, and so specific with John’s bonus. Plus it looks like Patsy’s handwriting.
Even so, I can’t think of any theory that makes total sense. If Burke did it on accident, why’d they send him to the neighbors since he could’ve let something slip? If John did it, would Patsy really help him cover it up? And if Patsy did it, how’d John seem to know right where the body was?
Chewie Baron 5 months ago
I’m quite convinced by the theory that the brother did it, especially as it was known he had a very violent side to him.
#21
Carlene Tengelsen. In 1972 she disappeared after stopping by Westgate Mall here in Macon, Georgia. Carlene’s mom got a phone call from her youngest daughter, who was at a day camp. She called because Carlene hadn’t picked her up. Mr. Tengelsen found the car later that night. It was parked across the street from the mall at a doughnut shop. At the time, the police didn’t take her disappearance seriously, and assumed she ran away. Years later the police department issued a formal apology and admitted they dropped the ball. When Carlene’s parents moved away a year later, they asked a neighbor if they could keep a phone with Tengelsen’s telephone number at their house in case she ever called. Carlene never called.
Carlene Tengelsen’s Disappearance 52 years later.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 5 months ago
Reading the update made me cry. I can't imagine not knowing.
#22
The escaped prisoners of Alcatraz.
Themonsterkiddo: They most likely drowned. I’ve visited Alcatraz many times and that bay is treacherous. They used a makeshift raft at nighttime. The water in the bay is extremely cold, very choppy with strong currents, and San Francisco commonly has fog from night until morning. They probably got knocked over by a wave and died of hypothermia. If it was foggy they may not have even been able to see which direction the shore was and the darkness would only add to the confusion. It’s a super cool story but they most likely died in the ocean.
liam newton-harding 5 months ago
Mythbusters proved that this was survivable. The FBI were REALLY focused on Angel Island, but the Mythbusters asked: why not aim for the Marin Headland, and use the current to get us there? And they did it. Plus, once escaped, it would be much easier to adopt a completely new identity, in that era.
#23
The murder of Elizabeth Barraza.
It was caught on camera and the getaway vehicle was clearly seen. The murderer was speculated as being a woman or man in a wig. Truly bizarre.
Jane Jayne Jain Jeign Jein 5 months ago
A woman or man - they really narrowed the field down with that lil nugget of deducting.
#24
As a native of the Portland Oregon metro area, it's really sad that Kyron Horman's disappearance is still unsolved. He will be 21 this year. Disappeared at 7.
JoNo 5 months ago
The top unsolved mystery I think about is the disappearance of the three Beaumont children who went missing from an Adelaide suburban beach (in the state of South Australia). That was in January 1966. Nothing since. There's been theories of who took them and what happened, but no definitive answer and the case is still open. Their parents were left with no children and divorced in the following years. My heart ached that they never knew what happened, and for so many years up to their deaths, at 92 (mother in 2019) and 97 (father in 2023). Another mystery, though most Australians can surmise what happened, was the Australian Prime Minister (Harold Holt) going missing after swimming in rough ocean waters in December 1967. He was officially declared dead by drowning, though conspiracy theories abound.
#25
Sneha Philip, the doctor who was last seen shopping at a store near her Lower Manhattan apartment the evening of Sept 10, 2001, but never returned home that night. Obviously, we all know what happened the next morning.
Her husband and family hired a private detective and fought to have a review of her case done for several years before she was officially named a 9/11 victim, even though there is no solid evidence to prove she was at or in the WTC at the time either plane struck or when the towers collapsed. BUT there's also no solid evidence to prove she WASN'T at the WTC either. It's so crazy. In a nutshell, there are about 4 or 5 theories on what happened to her and all of them are evenly plausible.
Leah Brown 5 months ago
Michele Harris went missing September 11, 2001 from near Binghamton NY USA and has never been heard from or seen again. Many people think her husband used the chaos of the day to dispose of her. Possibly with the help of a good friend who owned many scrap and waste recycling yards.
#26
The lost A-bomb off the coast of America, which the US government said not to worry about in the 50's and tried to cover up. Was dumped in the ocean in an aviation accident and it's still lost to this day.
100x more powerful then what was dropped in Japan.
Jrog 5 months ago
They found it in 2001 with modern hydrographic methods. It's firmly buried below 15 feet of silt at 70 feet deep, possibly leaking radiation. There is still one other missing airplane A-bomb laying in the Philippine Sea, east of Okinawa -where a fully armed US A4 Skyhawk fell off the carrier USS Ticonderoga while maneuvering for departure- and two atomic torpedoes laying with the USS Scorpion south-west of the Azores.
#27
Brian Shaffer's disappearance. He was in a bar and afterwards disappeared. Surveillance photos never show him exiting, but a search never found him. I don't remember the in depth details though.
Meaghan Stewart 5 months ago
It reminds me of this one (restaurant?) worker who disappeared on shift and wasn’t see. Leaving on any of the cameras and then, iirc, they were found crushed and decomposed behind one of the fridges or something. Excuse the lack of clarity, just going off memory!
#28
I was cycling home from work one day, I was 18 or 19. (This is in Ireland in the early 1980s). I thought I saw my first cousin walking along the path on the far side of the road. (He was living & working in a town about 25 miles away). So I went over to say hello.
It wasn't my cousin. It wasn't even anyone I knew. It wasn't anyone I had ever seen before. But he knew me, knew my name, knew where I was from, called me "*Mr [Loneswimmer]*".
I got utterly flustered and confused and embarassed and pretended I knew who he was and that I'd come over to say hello. So then I couldn't admit I had no idea who he was and I left after a brief exchange.
That was 40 years ago. I still have no idea who that was. I never saw him again. I could remember his face & voice for many years afterwards, I would even dream of him, but I've forgotten those now, except a vague sense.
ADJ 5 months ago
That is quite easily explainable, I too know many young people just because I know their parents, but I guess many of these young people do not know me. Especially nowadays when people publish photos all over net it is quite easy to recognise some youngster and call him by his name. Back in the day, it was harder, but not impossible.
#29
Where Josh Powell put Susan Powell’s body.
FunnyMiss: POS family is an understatement. It was truly insane what he did to her before and after her death. The poor social worker on the phone with another POS acting like she was overreacting and not taking the appropriate fast action.
I know 911 dispatchers are heroes 99 out of 100 times. The one time he wasn’t? A poor woman doing a job very few would ever want watched her charges die at the hands of their dad. I cannot imagine the anguish I’d feel after that.
#30
Sea people. An entire civilization who destroyed a couple of empires and very little is known about them. It’s still not even known if it was on specific group. There’s theories, but nothing really confirmed. Who they were, where they came from, their motivations, daily life, religion, etc. Just an entire group of people who brought down the lives of thousands, destroyed established, seasoned societies and armies, and we know very little facts about them. They are literally considered a possible huge figure in the late Bronze Age collapse and there’s just nothing known for sure.
EDIT: I meant there isn’t a lot we know for sure. Lots of theories and speculation using a lot of random puzzle pieces, but not much definitive conclusions. Don’t know too much about it so I’m inspired to look more now lol.
What do you think ?
Charlotte A. 5 months ago
I wish more of these were written in the assumption that not everyone knows what the OP is talking about. And when BP does compilations like this I wish they'd add info to the unclear ones instead of just copy/paste everything.
Eunice Probert 5 months ago
I agree! They assume that everyone is from the USA and knows about the murders.
Load More Replies...
Debbie 5 months ago (edited)
Madeleine Mc Cann https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdwijning_van_Madeleine_McCann And Natalee Holloway, although the last one is short of resolved: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/18/us/joran-van-der-sloot-natalee-holloway-plea-wednesday/index.html
Shark Lady 5 months ago
The police/authorities etc often "know" who committed loads of crimes but, certainly in the UK, won't go to trial if they don't think their evidence can get over the 'beyond reasonable doubt' threshold. It sucks and a lot of time the police are blamed, but if the evidence isn't there, what can they do. If a suspect chooses to do a "no comment" interview, which most solicitors advise, it makes it even more difficult.
Charlotte A. 5 months ago
I wish more of these were written in the assumption that not everyone knows what the OP is talking about. And when BP does compilations like this I wish they'd add info to the unclear ones instead of just copy/paste everything.
Eunice Probert 5 months ago
I agree! They assume that everyone is from the USA and knows about the murders.
Load More Replies... Debbie 5 months ago (edited)
Madeleine Mc Cann https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdwijning_van_Madeleine_McCann And Natalee Holloway, although the last one is short of resolved: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/18/us/joran-van-der-sloot-natalee-holloway-plea-wednesday/index.html
Shark Lady 5 months ago
The police/authorities etc often "know" who committed loads of crimes but, certainly in the UK, won't go to trial if they don't think their evidence can get over the 'beyond reasonable doubt' threshold. It sucks and a lot of time the police are blamed, but if the evidence isn't there, what can they do. If a suspect chooses to do a "no comment" interview, which most solicitors advise, it makes it even more difficult.
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