It might have something to do with the fact that many of the stories, known as ‘cold cases,’ were never solved. The added mystery seems to captivate people’s minds even more, sometimes even years or decades after the terrible events take place.
One member of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community hasdelved deeperinto the spine-chilling topic, asking fellow redditors to share what true crime cold cases don’t sit right with them, and quite a few people replied. If you’re interested in their answers, scroll down to find them on the list below, but do it at your own risk, as some of the stories can be quite disturbing.
Below, you will also findBored Panda’sinterview withKevin Bennett, Ph.D., a full teaching professor of psychology at Penn State University, Beaver Campus, and the creator of theKevin Bennett Is Snarlingpodcast, who was kind enough to share his thoughts on why so many people are interested in the rather spine-chilling true crime stories.
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About three years ago there were suddenly a rash of ladies throwing themselves down garbage chutes in Chicago to commit sicide. All within a year or so timeframe. Generally in the same area downtown.Everyone was saying it was random sicide or just bad luck.I don’t buy it.I think there was a serial k*ller or something operating in the city.If you’ve ever lived in a high rise you know it’s damned near impossible to accidentally throw yourself down a garbage chute. And I just don’t see most women choosing that as their way out.
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I don’t remember her name, but I saw one on a cold case tv show that left me screaming at the detectives.Woman mysteriously vanished from her work without a trace and they found her body a few weeks later. During this time, they showed interviews with her husband, who she married pretty recently, I think. And the way he talked about her was terrifying. He went on and on about how he hated her kids, they were taking her away from him, she wasn’t allowed to be anyone else’s, etc. Never made any sort of expression other than a blank stare.Near the end of the episode, he talked about how he slept with her urn every night and “frolicked” in the ashes every morning. He lied to her son that he lost the urn so that the kids wouldn’t have access to their mom’s memorial. His last statement was that he was glad she was dead cause it meant that nobody else could have her. The episode concluded with the narrator saying that they currently had no suspects.rosescript:This sounds exactly like an episode of the recent reboot of Unsolved Mysteries, “13 Minutes” about Patrice Endres. She disappeared from work one day and was found dead later, her husband was an absolute creep and her poor son never got an closure.
The disappearance of Kyron Horman. The kid was at school with his stepmom, she saw him walk down the hall in the school and he was never seen again. Gone. Disappeared without a trace.There’s no evidence at all. People like to believe the stepmother k*lled him or something but there is no sound evidence, and I believe the search for him was the most money Oregon has spent on a missing person case. Over 10 years later and there’s still nothing.
Well, we got curious as to why they would do something like that, too. So we got in touch with Dr. Kevin Bennett, a full teaching professor of psychology at Penn State University, Beaver Campus, and creator of theKevin Bennett Is Snarlingpodcast, who shared that people’s interest in true crime and dark or troubling stories can be attributed to a combination of psychological, evolutionary, and social factors.
The case of Joshua Maddox.In 2008 Joshua Maddox left his house to go for a walk and never returned. 7 years later in 2015, his body was found in the chimney of a cabin that was in the process of being demolished.There are multiple weird elements to the case:-Josh was found in the fetal position facing head-first into the chimney-In order to have gotten into the chimney he would have needed to scale the building and remove a metal grate that was blocking the entrance, placed there so that animal were not able to get in.-Josh was found completely nude except for a thermal shirt-the cabin was still locked and secured.And strangest of all:-His clothes were found neatly folded inside of the cabin, sitting right in front of the fire place.There’s so may weird details of the case that just don’t make any sense whatsoever.
“On a psychological level, humans are naturally drawn to stories that evoke strong emotions such as fear, suspense, and curiosity, which can stimulate the brain’s reward system and provide a sense of excitement or even catharsis,” Dr. Bennett explained.
“Evolutionarily, there may be an adaptive component—learning about dangerous situations and criminal behavior can help individuals better understand threats and avoid potential dangers,” he continued.
The owner of a funeral home business went to Camden, Maine with his wife. They had some kind of altercation. The wife disappeared, and was never found.Police in the home town think they know that there was foul play, but have no leads that they can follow. The case is closed.
The Black Dahlia case, the fact that such a gruesome act of m**der was committed, and that the lead suspect is very likely the killer, but didn’t serve jail time sickens me. Also its quite interesting how one of the suspects died on the anniversary of the last time she was seen alive.PennyoftheNerds:I know there were several suspects, but I assume you are referring to George Hodel. And if so, it baffles me that his family even thinks he did it. So much so that his son became a detective in part to try and prove his father was guilty.
“This rise can be linked to broader cultural shifts, such as an increased fascination with psychology and criminology, as well as the comfort of engaging with fear in a controlled environment.
The Mary Morris m**ders. Two women both named Mary Morris that were both killed just a few days apart in a really close proximity to each other.
Yogurt Shop Mders in Austin, Tx. False confessions, overturned convictions, DNA not giving the answers, this case is so confusing. But someone red and k**led 4 teenage girls before setting a fire and we still don’t know who they are. It’s not okay.
That family that got m**derd in the French alps and the cyclist who came across the scene and the little girl stayed still under her mums dress for 8 hoursDoes anyone have a update on this.Chetanzi:Her sister survived also, despite being shot multiple times and pistol-whipped on the head. They’re teenagers now and being re-interviewed for any new leads. Poor girls. I kind of agree with the other commenter who replied to you… sounds like it was a professional hit. Left the gun (shattered, in pieces) at the scene of the crime. Shot the cyclist execution-style. Freaking horrible.
“Unsolved mysteries can have a profound psychological impact on people, often leading to feelings of frustration, anxiety, and a lingering sense of unease,” Dr. Bennett noted. “The human brain is wired to seek closure and understanding, and when faced with unresolved cases, individuals may experience cognitive dissonance or intrusive thoughts as they attempt to make sense of the unknown.
“This lack of closure can fuel ongoing curiosity and even obsession, leading people to revisit details, construct theories, and engage in speculative discussions,” he said, adding that on a collective level, though, unsolved mysteries can create a sense of communal intrigue, bonding people together over shared efforts to uncover the truth.
Amy Lynn Bradley always freaks me out. She went missing from a cruise ship. Later a soldier in the US military likely came across her in a brothel and did nothing to help her because he was afraid of getting in trouble. No one has seen her since.
Laurie Depies. Vanished in Wisconsin in 1992. No viable suspects and her body was never found. She just vanished one night shortly after she arrived at her friend’s apartment complex, car door open and no sign of a struggle.For true crime buffs, one potential suspect is Chuck Avery, the older brother to Steven Avery, subject of Netflix’s docu-series Making a M**derer. Turns out Chuck is violent rapist and ped*phile.
Sky Metalwala was 2 years old when he disappeared. His mother concocted an obviously false story, but was never charged in his disappearance.What happened to the child is one question. Why the police have obviously chosen to give the mother a pass is a much bigger question.
A local case from 1977. A small Indiana town with a population of less than 2,000 had 3 unsolved child mrders committed in the same year. After the third mrder, the k*llings stopped and the cases remain unsolved.
Michael Dunahee. Posters for this kid were everywhere when I was a kid. He disappeared from a playground in Victoria BC in 1991. The latest theory is that he’s out there somewhere with no memory of who he was. RCMP recently released a composition of what he might look like now in hopes that it will trigger him to remember and come forward.
Springfield three.This is a case where 3 girls went missing shortly after graduation, they were all supposed to attend after parties and activities, and out of thin air they just disappear.What’s mind boggling is there is no connections between a single piece of evidence that was gathered. The weird/sexual “prank calls”, the ex bf involvement, and C*x weird hints.YEARS later, aside from being completely unsolved, anytime ANYONE comes close to figuring it out, something ends up stopping it. Whether it’s police regulations, media censors etc.. Or they’d immediately retreat once reaching a certain point. One journalist even said herself she knows what happened but is afraid of speaking out. Whether she’s lying for attention or not (journalist), it’s still weird how many people came in with tips or clues and it’s still somehow a dead-end. Someone out there knows a lot more than they’re giving.
Shannon Paulk. 11yo girl kidnapped and later found m*rdered in my hometown, Prattville Alabama. It’s been 20 years and they still don’t know who did it.
Not typically a cold case, because the case was closed as far as I knew although there is chatter about new leads.Gareth Williams, an ex-spy for the British secret service, was found dead in his flat a week after he went missing.His naked body lay stuffed in a duffle bag in his flat’s bathtub, the zipper pad locked on the outside.Although the coroner thought it was likely the result of foul play, the police declared his death an accident. An unfortunate result of Williams locking himself in the dufflebag and unable to get out. After which he died.Still seems like a bad coverup to me.EDIT: I just now learned that Williams was known to have a fetish for auto asphyxiation, bondage and total enclosure. Which may have had a thing to do with how he ended up in the dufflebag.But it still doesn’t explain how the zipper got padlocked from the outside.There has been a call to analyse existing evidence (hair and dna from the padlock) to maybe get a new lead, but I haven’t heard about anything turning up yet.Although it may have been an assisted accidental s*icide, there are still questions unanswered.
It’s not necessarily a cold case, but There were several (2-5) of John Wayne Gacy’s victims who went missing while Gacy was confirmed to be out of town. IIRC, the bodies of those victims were all under his house. That means someone else had to at least kidnap and hold the victim until Gacy returned if the accomplice(s) didn’t actually m*rder the boys.
The deaths of Lisann Froon and Kris Kremers.They were two young Dutch women who disappeared from a hiking trail in Panama. Some of their belongings and bones were found weeks and months later. The eerie part is that one of them had a digital camera and had been taking pictures of their hike. It showed them reaching the summit then continuing down the trail where it becomes much more treacherous. Then ten days later there’s a flurry of photos in the dark. Most of them showed nothing but a few showed their surroundings and the bloody scalp of one of them. Their cell phones were also used to attempt emergency calls for several days.The case was never solved and likely never will be. The two main theories are that one or both of them suffered an accident that incapacitated them or some form of kidnapping/human trafficking gone bad.
In my town, there was a girl in her early 20s. It’s a small town, 1,000 people maybe. Most of everyone lives in the boonies, super rural place.Anyway, she worked at a restaurant/bar in the village. Her boss and coworkers said her shift ended and she punched out. She didn’t show up the next day for her shift. They actually never found her. Sure, they found hair, blood, and a shoe. They found her car parked at an abandoned house outside town. But they never found her body.Search parties through out the woods, police dogs, everything. My mother and I searched for a good few weeks, as well. We all found nothing.My mother worked at a mountain resort for a bit a couple years later. She was in the backroom on break when her coworker came in. He sat at the employee computer. My mom got ready to head back out to the front desk. She turned to ask her coworker a question. He was scrolling a missing persons website. And there she was, my mother saw her smiling face. The girl in her 20s. The coworker turned and made eye contact with my mom. He smiled and turned back and said, “they never did find her. Pretty little thing, huh?” He turned back to my mom and said, “I wish I could have seen her one more time.” And my mom quit. That night, she quit her job. She drove home. She sat on her bed for hours, wouldn’t talk to us. She swears to this day, he mdered the girl. She just got this feeling. He moved a couple weeks later after he said that weird st.She actually only told me all this a couple years ago. When this happened I was like 10 years old, I’m 25 now.
The disappearance and death of Patrice EndersCheck out the Cold Case Files reboot on Netflix. The husband maintains his innocence but he’s creepy as f******ck. There’s a lot of things he’s said and done that just doesn’t sit right. For starters he seemed to have some kind of personal jealous vendetta against Patrice’s teenage son because he was the main focus of her life. Even in interviews he’d openly say the kid is a loser and he just didn’t feel like he was going anywhere in life. Then when Patrice went missing from her hair stylist business he went ahead and changed all the locks in the house so the son couldn’t come in the house. Since then the kid’s basically been banned from entering the house, and the creepy husband has said that he would snuggle with the ashes of Patrice like a teddy bear as he sleeps…but then when asked where her remains were he had to go dig it out of an old cardboard box in a closet. If you loved someone so dearly why would you keep their remains in a plastic bag in a cardboard box in a closet??? It’s just weird and creepy all around.
Brianna Maitland. This happened near where I live, I was very young but that case still bothers me. Beautiful 17 year old girl just vanishes, her car was found crashed into an abandoned building and she was just gone. Real life Without a Trace type s**t.
Alexandra Wiwarchuk. Young nurse who went for a walk in Saskatoon, SK, Canada in 1962 and never came home. Two weeks later she was found partially buried in a shallow grave a few blocks from her apartment. What doesn’t sit right with me is her next door neighbour across the alley was a 48 year old postal carrier who was involved with an infamous California m**der case in the 20s. The 20s case was made into a Hollywood movie. But his name is never brought up in the 62 investigation or now as a cold case. Even in a biography about the guy, the nurses death is glossed over in a single sentence.
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LaVena Johnson. Not technically a cold case since listed as a sicide but she showed signs of a beating, her genitals were mutilated with a corrosive chemical, the gunshot wound that was inconsistent with suicide, and bloody footprints were found outside her living quarters. But your gonna tell her family she klled herself?
There was that one guy who was acting unusual at an airport so security pulled him in. He said people were after him and he wasn’t safe. Security left or got him a drink. There is cctv of him bolting full speed from the airport and jumping the fence. Never seen again.
Steven Truscott accused of killing Lynn Harper. A young (13 I think) is accused of ring and kling her with almost no proof, only because he gave her a ride on his bike on his way home. He spent several decades in prison, some of it on death row.If you lived in Ontario Canada in the 70’s, it made the news.
That horrible double m*rder case from Delphi, IN.That piece of s**t needs to be caught.LaylaDoo:Your comment was the one I was looking for. I live in Indiana and this case haunts my dreams. We literally have a picture of the guy and his voice on the girls’ phone and still haven’t arrested anyone. Hopefully that guy behind anthonyshots or whomever they have, for a different case, is the guy who did it. These girls deserve justice. Their poor families! Just breaks my heart and scares me so much that he is still out there.
There was a hit and run in my hometown several years back. About 10 years ago, a hometown “confessions” page popped up on Facebook. Most of it was dumb petty s**t, but then someone anonymously admitted to committing the crime.The victim’s mother saw it and became distraught all over again. She offered up a cash reward for anyone that would come forward with information. She reached out to the local PD and they tried to get Facebook to disclose the information, but I dont think they ever did. To my knowledge its still unsolved. What sits weirdly with me is one of the city councilmen was arrested for DUI on that same road a few years ago. He was not charged as he got the field sobriety test thrown out because it was “discovered” that the road has a slant and is very uneven…
One that has stuck with me is the missing boy named Andy Puglisi. They have a documentary about his disappearance called ‘Have you seen Andy?’ The little boy went missing from a public pool in 1976, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was 10 years old at the time of his disappearance.
Dylan Ehler, a 3 year old boy who disappeared from his grandmother’s home in Nova Scotia. Literally just gone. His boots were found and never anything else.
Jodi Huisentruit.Disappeared after telling a coworker she overslept and was running late. Signs of struggle outside of her apartment but they never found her. This was back in ‘95.Anonymous:I just watched a Dateline or 20/20 episode about her case. At the end of the show, the detective says he thinks he knows who killed her, but just can’t prove it yet. There seem to be a few prime suspects, including an older man she was friendly with who has now stopped cooperating with the cops. None of the suspects are particularly compelling based on the information included in the episode. I know it’s scary to think about, but sometimes random people attack and kill, and they may not have even known she was a local celebrity or targeted her for anything connected to her work. I was hoping they were going to say that new DNA testing tech had provided new leads, but nothing like that was included in the episode. Sad case all around for sure.
Jon Benet. So many bizarre details that just got glossed over, including super sketchy details involving the older brother.McFeely_Smackup:I have no doubt that her mother or brother killed her, one of the two. Too many details point to inside the home.The only person still alive that 100% knows for sure is John Ramsey , and he’s not likely to ever tell.
Philip Cairns. Schoolboy who disappeared while on his way back to school after lunch break in Dublin, Ireland. His school bag was found a few days later in a lane way near his home but no trace of him was ever found.
Amy Wroe Bechtel, we’re learning about it in my English class. She went to plan a 10k, and disappeared. Only her car and keys were found.
Murder of Garrett Phillips.12 year old kid found murdered in his own apartment in upstate NY. Neighbors heard commotion, they knocked on the door, heard some footsteps, then called the police when no one answered. The perpetrator likely jumped out of a second story window and ran or drove away.Lots of questionable witnesses, backtracking of statements, weird police coincidences.They railroaded Nick Hillary. He was ultimately acquitted, but police still think they had the right guy so they aren’t investing the case any further.
I remember there was this case from a few decades back. Little boy disappeared for months, town goes crazy trying to find him, later an older man is found with a boy similar to the missing kids description. Man says it’s his sister’s nephew that he got permission to take on the trip but the kid seems to not quite be all there or something. I think he even days he doesn’t know the man when he’s separated and questioned.They take him back to his “family” (the one who reported him missing initially) but the kid also shows no recognition of that family and they claim his actions and habits are completely different and that he’s not the same. Of course they assume abuse and after a few years he’s “back to normal”.With thay said the entire time the other family (of the man who said it was his nephew) has been fighting to get him back because they claim thats their kid. There’s a huge legal battle and the first family ends up with custody but the second family spends years trying to get him back and claiming they stole their son.Theory is if he is the second families kid he may have lied about not knowing his uncle as a joke but when he was placed with the other family he was too scared to say the truth until he eventually believed it himself.Now it’s generations later. That kid is dead along with anyone else who was alive at the time. But the descendents of both families still exist. Both families are divided. We now live in an age where DNA test from a descendent of the missing kid and a descendent of a sibling from the first family and one from the second family should be able to set this case once and for all. But none of the missing kids descendents want to go through with it because they “know the truth” and don’t need to prove anything.
My uncle was found dead in a warehouse he owned with “multiple shots to the head.” It was ruled a s*icide.
There are many, but I have a sick stomach when a child is /children are murdered. One of them that really stuck to me is the 1977 Oklahoma Girl Scout murders.
Murder that happened in my town a couple years ago, missy beavers in Midlothian Texas? Not sure if anyone knows about this one but she was my grandmas friend and a fitness instructor, while at a church preparing for a early morning workout class someone walked in and was caught on camera wearing what looked like a full swat team uniform, and killed her with a hammer basically just destroying her head from what I heard. Apparently they brought in the fbi and they have repeatedly said they have a suspect but no one’s been arrested yet.Note/edit: I didn’t research anything this is literally just what I remember hearing about it, if I used the wrong name or got the details wrong (which I probably did) apologies.
DB Cooper. Able to hijack a plane, get tons of money and parachute out with no body, and very little of the money being found since.
This one no one has prob heard of but hits close to home. Webb Pedrick. Dude left his front door in California and vanished. He’s a family friend, well the family is. He was kinda estranged from his family in the first place but I guess no one knows where he is. We get the family news letter around the holidays and is just a post script now. “Still no news from Webb”. Just freaky how people can just disappear.
Asha Degree. She was so young, there is no way she decided to pack up her things and run away in the middle of the night.
Corrie McKeague.RAF Airman last seen on CCtv entering a cul de sac, is then never seen again, no body found, just vanished.
Brandon Swanson.Seriously, go listen to the “Morbid” podcast about him, it’s episode 293/294.So much that’s odd about it, I listened to it earlier this week and I can’t stop trying to figure it out.Dude is on his way home from a party, on a straight road to his house that he takes every day and knows really well, calls his parents as he needs help pushing his car out of a ditch, when they arrive to where he described he was, he was nowhere to be seen. They call for 47 minutes talking the whole time, he’s flashing his lights, they’re honking their horn, can’t find each other. The next day the cell phone records are pinged to a mast literally miles away and when that road is searched, there’s his car but not him. The last thing they heard him say on the phone was “oh s**t” then the call went silent. No body was ever found, no possible explanation given.
Back in 1989 when pelican bay prison was being constructed. 2 campers were murdered. Years later my former sketchy as hell brother in law brought it up in conversation. I think he did it.
A couple of police officers intentionally shot at each here in Ontario around the Niagara Falls area, and no one is providing an explanation as to WTF is going on.
Sophie Toscan Du Plantier. What a warped and messed up case! I hope it gets solved one day, poor woman.
The Adnan Syed case, aka Serial podcast season one.It was the first that got me into true crime genre.As a Muslim kid growing up in the US, I was basically doing most of the things Adnan was doing, basically in the same hide from the family manner.The realization that it could land someone in jail for life and how little it took to take someone there was a slap on the face.Spent years obsessing over that case. The only reason I moved on was because I realized there is no way to get any closure on this.For anyone who cares about my opinion on this: we basically know absolutely nothing about what really happened. We do know what didn’t happen though: anything Jay said.
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