On July 15th, 1982, a gravedigger named George Kise at the Cedar Ridge Cemetery in Blairstown Township, New Jersey spotted something strange in a ravine at the rear of the graveyard. Upon closer inspection, he found that it was the corpse of what appeared to be a teenage girl whose face was so badly beaten … More Dawn Olanick: Princess Doe
On January 12th, 1981, a dog sniffing around a privately-owned, wooded area near Houston, Texas discovered the partially buried and decomposed bodies of two probable teenagers who remained unidentified until very recently. The victims had apparently been murdered about two months previously, and the amount of time that had passed since their deaths meant that … More Harris County Does
In June 1984, a young woman disappeared from a Stockholm street and later turned up butchered in a crime that became Sweden’s most notorious unsolved murder. It also inspired Stieg Larsson’s internationally best-selling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (originally titled Men Who Hate Women in Sweden). Twenty-eight-year-old Catrine da Costa, a prostitute and … More Catrine da Costa
The winter of 1972 would see the bizarre slaughter of an entire family that took place during a raging snowstorm and was almost definitely not what it first appeared. It was February 3rd, and fifty-one-year-old Bryce Durham was attending a Rotary meeting in Boone, North Carolina. The winter weather had been so harsh that day … More The Durham Family
On July 31st, 1960, a family on the lookout for interesting rocks near a creek bed off Old Alamo Road in Congress, Arizona stumbled across the partly-buried and dreadfully decomposed body of a little girl. It appeared that whoever had killed the child or left the body there had made more than one attempt at … More Sharon Lee Gallegos: Little Miss Nobody
Rikki Neave was six years old, and already hardened beyond his tender age. His mother Ruth, who had been the victim of abuse and neglect herself as a child and whose own parents had died in a bizarre suicide pact, was tragically repeating the cycle. She was a known amphetamine addict, and no stranger to … More Rikki Neave
It was around seven p.m. on the evening of November 30th, 1948. A couple strolling along Somerton beach near Adelaide, South Australia noticed a man in a suit sitting with his back propped against the seawall. As they watched, the man extended his arm and then dropped it limply. About a half-hour later, another couple … More The Somerton Man: Finally Identified?
In late February of 1957, in the woods near Fox Chase, Philadelphia, a young man out checking his illegal muskrat traps came across a horrific find stuffed inside a large cardboard box. Not wanting to alert the police to his own unlawful behavior, however, he decided to leave well enough alone. A few days later, … More The Boy in the Box
