In 2009, thirty-seven-year-old Paula Hounslea was having something of a rough time. She was suffering from poor health in general and bipolar disorder in particular, and though she had worked as a seamstress and a bartender in the past, she was unemployed at this juncture in her life. She lived in West Derby, Liverpool, England, … More Paula Hounslea

On the afternoon of November 15th, 2013, several gardeners were clearing weeds at a house on Audley Drive in the village of Warlingham, in Surrey, England. One of the workers noticed that the padlock on the cover of the seven-foot well in the garden had been broken; curious, the gardener lifted the cover and peered … More Damian Chlywka

On the evening of April 30th, 2012, ninety-two-year-old Emma Winnell was put to bed by her home-care nurse. Emma was in her own house, located in the suburb of Moseley, in Birmingham, England. The nurse left shortly after her duties had been accomplished, locking the front door behind her as she always did. But when … More Emma Winnell

Nineteen-year-old Ashley Dighton was spotted on CCTV cameras on the afternoon of June 11th, 2007 entering a Sainsbury’s supermarket on Simone Weil Avenue in Ashford, Kent, England. At some point after this sighting, he mysteriously vanished. A month later, his horribly decomposed remains, minus his head and sections of his arms, were discovered dumped in … More Ashley Dighton

Thirty-year-old banker Alistair Wilson lived with his wife Veronica and their two children in the town of Nairn, Scotland, about seventeen miles east of Inverness. Alistair seemed by all accounts to have a completely normal existence until 2004, when he unwittingly became the victim of one of the country’s most mysterious and infamous unsolved murders. … More Alistair Wilson

Russell and Shirley Dermond were an elderly couple, living in a gated community near Lake Oconee, northeast of Eatonton, Georgia. The pair had married in 1950 and had four children and nine grandchildren. Russell had owned several Hardee’s restaurants in Atlanta before retiring in 1994. On May 1st of 2014, Russell was spotted in Eatonton … More Russell and Shirley Dermond

In the UK in 2010, the bizarre death of a brilliant but intensely private individual would eventually spawn rumors of covert assassination by either the British secret service or a shady foreign power. Gareth Williams, a highly intelligent, Welsh-born mathematician, began working for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham in 2001, not long after receiving … More Gareth Williams

Twenty-three-year-old Kirsty Jones was originally from Tredomen, near Brecon, Powys, Wales. Described by her mother Sue as “bright, intelligent, and independent,” Kirsty had been spending the summer of 2000 backpacking around Singapore and Malaysia, and in August, arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She checked into an inexpensive guesthouse called the Aree and set about hiking … More Kirsty Jones

John Pezzenti Jr. was, by all accounts, a beloved and accomplished man throughout his life. Though born in Connecticut, he was seduced by the breathtaking landscapes of Alaska from an early age, and moved there in 1976, when he was twenty-four years old. He worked on the Valdez pipeline for a time, and even owned … More John Pezzenti Jr.

It was December 2nd, 2005 in Lakewood, Washington, and ten-year-old Adre-Anna Jackson headed out on the three-block walk to school as usual. What neither she nor her mother knew, however, was that school had been cancelled that day because of snow. Had either of them been aware of this fact, it’s possible that tragedy could … More Adre-Anna Jackson