Fifty-eight-year-old Alma Preinkert had been the Registrar at the University of Maryland campus in Washington DC since the mid-1930s, and was much loved by the student body, who referred to her affectionately as “Miss Preink.” It was Saturday, February 27th, 1954, and Alma and her sister Margaret had been out at a friend’s house playing … More Alma Preinkert

It was a midsummer evening in June of 1956, and forty-nine-year-old Louise Welk was relaxing with a beer in her Rice Lake, Wisconsin apartment. Shortly after pouring herself a glass, she heard a knock at her front door. Apparently with no hesitation, Louise went to answer it. As soon as she swung the door open, … More Louise Welk

It was the early summer of 1970. Harvey and Jeanette Crewe lived on a modest farm in Pukekawa, a town about forty miles south of Auckland, New Zealand. Harvey, who was twenty-eight, and Jeannette, who was thirty, had an eighteen-month-old daughter named Rochelle. The previous few months had apparently been difficult for the Crewes, as … More Harvey & Jeannette Crewe

On July 9th, 1970, in Lansing, Michigan, sixteen-year-old Laurie Murninghan was working her part-time job at Gallaghers Gift and Antiques Shop when an armed assailant stormed through the front door demanding money. The robber first grabbed at store owner Mrs. Gallagher, hitting her in the head with his pistol. The impact caused the firearm to … More Laurie Murninghan

In the early fall of 1988, in the Midwestern United States, a little girl would vanish in the middle of the night from her own bedroom, and her own parents would later be suspected in her murder. Seven-year-old Jaclyn Dowaliby lived in Midlothian, Illinois with her family. She had gone to bed as usual at … More Jaclyn Dowaliby

As the autumn of 1988 approached, a young English woman with a passion for photography and adventure would be brutally cut down while on an African safari. Twenty-eight-year-old Julie Ward worked for a publishing company in Suffolk, England, but had always dreamed of trekking across the Serengeti and capturing the majesty of nature with her … More Julie Ward

As the autumn of 1987 descended, a strange and grimly classic English murder mystery would begin to unfold in a crumbling old manor house in rural Shropshire. Simon Dale had spent much of his career as an architect, following in the footsteps of his father. He mainly focused on restoring country mansions that had fallen … More Murder at the Manor: Simon Dale

In June of 1984, a young woman would disappear from a Stockholm street and later turn up butchered, in a crime that would eventually go on to become Sweden’s most notorious unsolved murder and the inspiration for Stieg Larsson’s internationally best-selling book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Twenty-eight-year-old Catrine da Costa, a prostitute and … More Catrine da Costa

Recent high school graduate Paula Jean Oberbroeckling was a beautiful, blonde eighteen-year-old with aspirations to become a model. In the summer of 1970, she was working part-time as a sales clerk at Younker’s Department Store, while also tutoring developmentally disabled children in her spare time. She and her roommate Debbie Kellogg shared a small house … More Paula Jean Oberbroeckling

Late September of 1970 would feature the murder of a prominent rancher in Oklahoma, a case that remains one of the most infamous unsolved homicides in the state’s history. Thirty-two-year-old E.C. Mullendore III was living the high life on the 130,000-acre Cross Bell Ranch in Osage County, Oklahoma. E.C. had inherited the massive property from … More E.C. Mullendore III