What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

[u/Rob69rt]

[u/Malthus1]

I was just commenting in another thread about perhaps the most ancient such case in history.

The death of King Tutankhamun left his widow, Ankhensenamun, in a precarious situation. We know this because she wrote a letter to the king of the Hittites, another major power at the time, the gist of which was to say “I am being pressured into a marriage to an underling. Please send me a prince, so I can marry him instead. That will make him Pharaoh”. She also said “I am afraid”.

So the king of the Hittites send Prince Zannanza … who died in a “tragic accident” before he arrived.

Next you know, the widow is married to Ai, former head minister to Tut, who becomes Pharaoh. Then she disappears from history.

Everyone knows Ai had the prince murdered. Certainly the Hittites believed it - they attacked Egyptian holdings in what is now Syria.

However, the Egyptians insisted there was no murder, so it was of course never “solved”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zannanza

[u/TwistedDragon33 → u/Malthus1]

Even then Ai was a problem...

[u/FleurMai → u/Malthus1]

Ankhensenamun’s letter is one of those things that has always stuck with me, the absolute desperation there is plain all these centuries later - let’s not forget that the Hittites were a natural enemy of Egypt, that she’s already in this position to ask for an enemy Hittite prince seemingly because she cannot trust anyone else in Egypt, is alarmingly foreboding.

Tut and Ankhensenamun were already under someones thumb, as both of their names were changed after the death of her father Akhenaten (their names didn’t end in -Amun, they ended in -aten, the god Akhenaten worshipped). Edit: and I will add, Akhenaten was quite the family man based on the imagery associated with him, it doesn’t seem likely that his daughter would just up and change her name unless it was “suggested” to her by the priestly class who were very angry over being disenfranchised by Akhenatens monotheism.

Tuts burial was also noted to be rushed, and a big part of the reason why his mummy is in such poor condition today (it’s quite possible Tut wasn’t this disabled boy we’ve been taught about, it could be the body is just too damaged). It’s quite weird that a pharaoh would have such a rushed burial, unless there was something else going on. Edit: there is also some evidence to show that King Tuts tomb was perhaps meant for someone else, possibly Nefertiti (who may have briefly ruled as a pharaoh before Tut), so despite the fairly grand treasures they may not even have been “his,” they just wanted anyone or anything alive or dead from Akhenatens lineage out of the way.

I think a lot of people do have the general suspicion that Tut, and likely later Ankhensamun, were murdered, but we haven’t been able to conclusively prove it. But it’s all really suspicious!

[u/Odd_Necessary8090 → u/FleurMai]

Man…anyone else remember 20 years ago when the History Channel told THESE kinds of stories, instead of 15 seasons of Ancient Aliens??

[u/Malthus1 → u/FleurMai]

Indeed, she literally says “I am afraid”. She was right to be afraid.

[u/TooCleverForGood]

Roanoke - the missing Pilgrim settlement where everyone “disappeared”

They just abandoned it and went to the place that they wrote on the sign, but everyone acts like it was some supernatural/plague thing

[u/str8rippinfartz → u/TooCleverForGood]

100%

IIRC it was even established before they came over from England, that if someone left a settlement they should carve where they were going

They 100% just assimilated with the friendly nearby tribe... as indicated by their note 

[u/deathclawiii → u/str8rippinfartz]

And as indicated by the iron scale (something that can only be a product of blacksmithing) that was found in one of the areas of known indigenous settlement on the island they went to.

[u/NUMBERS2357 → u/deathclawiii]

Also the later contact with Natives who said that they lived with the survivors of the Roanoke colony.

Also this map from the Jamestown colonists, see bottom left.

[u/Marx0r → u/NUMBERS2357]

A surprisingly large amount of "mysteries" never would have been such if Europeans just listened to the natives telling them the answer.

[u/jxg995 → u/Marx0r]

Yeah like the terror and Erebus wrecks where the Inuit were like oh yeah that sunken boat is over there

[u/Whyskgurs → u/jxg995]

Where could this boat possibly be?

The sunken boat is right over there, in Sunken Boat lake.

I guess we'll never truly know.

Literally what happened.

[u/InTheFDN → u/Whyskgurs]

It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett joke about how places are named by pointing at something, asking what it’s name was (loudly and in English), then writing down whatever the native said. Hence “Mount Your Finger You Fool.”

[u/Whyskgurs → u/InTheFDN]

It's not even a joke, shits real all over, most times it's named (native word for lake) Lake or (local dialect for mountain) Mountain or something similar.

Koi fish - fish fish

Chai tea - tea tea

Ignorant naming conventions are quite universal and commonplace

[u/Sunshine030209 → u/InTheFDN]

And that reminds me a bit of how Pike's Peak in Colorado was named.

Zebulon Pike was part of Lewis and Clark's expedition, but he was extremely annoying, so they sent him off to go explore away from them. He attempted to summit the mountain they sent him to in November and gave up, going "Yeah, no one can summit that, it's impossible" (even though the local Native Americans summited it regularly)

So when talking about it, people would be like "Oh, that one, the one Pike couldn't climb?" and eventually it became known as Pike's Peak.

I'm a little salty that they didn't go with the far cooler Mount Zebulon though.

[u/beezchurgr → u/jxg995]

Native folk: it’s in the bay of terror

Europeans: whoa it’s so weird there’s a bay with the same name as our missing boat. Must be a coincidence. No way it could be there.

Native folk: -_-

[u/Broad_Regret_7560 → u/jxg995]

It's kind of amazing how often Indigenous knowledge gets treated like folklore until someone with a GPS "rediscovers" the exact same thing decades later. Then suddenly it's considered a breakthrough.

[u/Suspicious_Effect → u/Broad_Regret_7560]

In the PNW, a few tribes have oral history telling of a massive earthquake several generations ago. It was treated as absolute superstition in the geology community until it was connected with Japanese records of a massive tsunami around the same time and a bog was discovered that had been fossilized by that very same earthquake (1700 cascadia earthquake if you're interested). Only then did everyone realize that "Oh maybe their stories were real."

[u/John_cCmndhd → u/Marx0r]

Australian police refusing to believe dingoes would eat babies

[u/doublestitch → u/NUMBERS2357]

Jamestown was a malarial swamp which was eventually abandoned too, although Jamestown lasted a lot longer. The British weren't all that good at choosing a settlement location in those early years.

[u/dividezero → u/str8rippinfartz]

They went to exactly the place the mayor told them to go if anything happened while he was gone. They make it seem like he didn't know but he just had shit to do and died before he could get back to them

[u/BusesAreFun → u/dividezero]

Yea iirc he got caught up in a war back in Europe and never came back with supplies

[u/TonyTheTony7 → u/str8rippinfartz]

Also, the local tribe of Native Americans they assimilated with had a lot of blonde-haired, blue-eyed babies not too long later

[u/illtakeachinchilla → u/TooCleverForGood]

“CROATOAN”

It was a nearby island. They assimilated after a tough winter. “What could it all mean!?”

[u/heysirri3454 → u/illtakeachinchilla]

It's funny how it gets treated like one of history's biggest supernatural mysteries when they basically left a forwarding address. The real mystery is how "they literally carved where they were going" got turned into decades of ghost stories.

[u/Convergecult15 → u/TooCleverForGood]

I feel like this is mostly accepted. The “mystery” was a big thing in the 90’s with shitty TV documentaries and all that, it’s been “solved” a dozen times over the last 20 years with all conclusions leading to them living with the native tribe and eventually intermarrying.

[u/ouchibitmytongue → u/TooCleverForGood]

THANK YOU! They left a note!

[u/cgulash → u/ouchibitmytongue]

And that's why you always leave a note!

[u/Significant_Walk6860 → u/ouchibitmytongue]

Clearly their dad used his one-armed friend to teach them a lesson. You always leave a note!

[u/oxiraneobx → u/TooCleverForGood]

We can see the north side of Roanoke Island where the Ft. Raleigh/Lost Colony sits from our home (about 4 miles across the Sound.) Where they went really was never a mystery, it just made for a good story and a good play. Which still runs nightly during the season. Very cool place and a lot of history, just not really a mystery.

[u/Awestruck34 → u/TooCleverForGood]

Yup they left a message using an agreed upon code to say where they were. Then, years later, indigenous tribes were met in that area with members of their population having European features and who were capable of reading. Gee, wonder what happened there.

[u/mumsleastfavourite]

Casey Anthony

[u/Zissoo → u/mumsleastfavourite]

This one enrages me.

[u/Choppergold → u/Zissoo]

Cops checking only one browser history is so fucking negligent

[u/Revolutionary-Yak-47 → u/Choppergold]

Wait til you hear jow a dog walker called in a suspicious dumping near the Anthony house THREE TIMES and was ignored. The area was wet and the cops didnt go check it out. It wasnt until someone actually went and found Caylee's body and called that in a few weeks later that the cops showed up. 

[u/Anxiety_Fit → u/Revolutionary-Yak-47]

I knew a 911 call operator who handled one of the calls.

That shit was WILD.

[u/macmac360 → u/Anxiety_Fit]

it was FOUR MONTHS between his calls and them finding her body

[u/astiblue → u/macmac360]

CALLS. Plural!!

[u/Anxiety_Fit → u/astiblue]

I know. When I found out that part I was just so… I lost my faith in people taking responsibility for their jobs.

[u/MamaKim31 → u/Zissoo]

Me too! When she wanted to open her day care I wanted to cry I was so angry!

[u/primadonnapussy → u/MamaKim31]

Who the fuck would take their kids to her? I would imagine that business would fail and fast.

[u/mssleepyhead73 → u/mumsleastfavourite]

I get so angry when I think about what that poor child must’ve gone through in her final moments. Casey Anthony is a horrible human being.

[u/ymcmbrofisting → u/mumsleastfavourite]

This is a case I reference anytime someone complains that a high-profile case isn’t moving like in the movies, or if the initial charges seem too low.

They went for incredibly high charges in a case that had a flawed investigation with mostly circumstantial evidence, and that putrid bitch walked free.

[u/b0w3n → u/ymcmbrofisting]

They went for incredibly high charges in a case that had a flawed investigation with mostly circumstantial evidence, and that putrid bitch walked free.

Nancy Grace being a screeching harpy about her also didn't help matters because she's the one that kept public pressure on the prosecution to shoot for the moon on charges.

[u/DocWednesday → u/b0w3n]

I was wondering yesterday if anyone’s did an analysis of Nancy Grace’s show and the influence it has on legal cases/police investigations and the harm it does. Just watching American Nightmare about Denise Huskin’s kidnapping and Nancy Grace was calling it a hoax. Turns out it was real. Huskin’s and her boyfriend had to move because their reputations were destroyed and eventually sued the police department.

[u/LazyEnchilada → u/DocWednesday]

She’s absolutely ruined cases. Years ago there was a little boy (I think he was 2?) who went missing, and I think the boys mom said she gave him to someone, but wouldn’t say who. And the whole thing was super fishy.

Nancy had her on her show via phone and just started yelling at her and bullying her to tell her what happened to him. The mom started crying and hung up the phone and took her own life very shortly after that.

I’m not sure if they ever found him and I’m pretty sure the father of the boy sued Nancy Grace as well.

I can’t remember the name of the boy though.

Edit: I found it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Melinda_Duckett

[u/thuglife_7 → u/ymcmbrofisting]

If her 911 phone call recording was available to the jury as evidence, in court, then that’s all they should have needed to put that bitch away.

[u/MrdnBrd19 → u/thuglife_7]

People have seemingly forgotten that their most damning evidence was from a "smell expert" who got his certification from a shady online school. What the hell is a "smell expert" and how does one work? Furthermore how would a shady online school test that he was an expert in smelling? That jury did the only thing they could do when the State was presenting shitty ass evidence like testimony from a smell expert.

[u/PsychoticMessiah → u/MrdnBrd19]

Due to my work I’ve smelled plenty of dead bodies. Apparently I’ve missed out on a side hustle.

[u/MrdnBrd19 → u/PsychoticMessiah]

It's apparently pretty lucrative. There is a great Frontline documentary they did in partnership with Propublica called "The Real CSI" which looks at the "expert witness" pipeline where people with little to no experience can go online to these shady online schools, get certified as an expert witness, then go into court and put a heavy thumb on the scales of justice.

[u/Pretend-Rent-337 → u/thuglife_7]

Everyone who heard that call knows she did it. It's just that the law is sometimes blind, and lawyers are very expensive.

[u/Academic-Contest3309 → u/Pretend-Rent-337]

It's that you need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. If the charge was "giving a shit about your kid" she would have been charged without hesitation.

[u/littlemsshiny → u/thuglife_7]

I didn’t follow this case. Why wasn’t the call allowed into evidence?

[u/TabbyFoxHollow → u/littlemsshiny]

Also what did the call say?

[u/catandodie → u/TabbyFoxHollow]

I think it's the one where her mom called frantically saying there's no sign of caylee and the car smells like a dead body, and then casey starts talking all unbothered about how she's been looking for her herself the past 30 days

[u/ivylass → u/catandodie]

I lost my toddler son for 30 minutes once and I was FRANTIC. My husband thought he was in the house with me and I thought he was outside with his dad. Turned out he'd wandered over to the next door neighbor's house to see the kitties.

I called the cops and everything. Not being arsed for a month? I smell a rat from a mile away.

[u/misskyralee → u/ivylass]

I show more concern when I can’t locate one of my *cats* in my house, I cannot imagine being this flippant about my child.

My kid is 6 now but she once crawled into one of her under bed drawers to hide and then fell asleep. I found her on only the second check of her bedroom but the 45 seconds or so in between when I was searching other places in the house for her were filled with absolute dread.

[u/irishgirl1981 → u/ivylass]

I have three children who are now teenagers and have had moments throughout the years where I lost sight of one or another of them. It's an immediate panic feeling, even if they were found to have wandered only a few feet away. When Casey was found not guilty, I sat on the front stoop with my then toddlers and sobbed. Poor Caylee deserved so much better.

[u/theconceptofcanada → u/catandodie]

The wild goose chase and the whole uhhh, Disneyworld thing that she led the investigators on as well. That was not... Normal.

[u/PurposeConsistent131 → u/ymcmbrofisting]

They shot for the sun … sometimes lower charges are needed to get a conviction.in this case everyone wanted blood but the indisputable evidence just was not there.

The public wanted death , the prosecution went for it and it was unattainable. A shame . She should be in prison if they had gone for a lesser sentence/charge the public would have been angry, also.

It can be a lose/ lose situation or a win/win situation. Guess what happened….sometimes lower charges people get off and some people are in prison for life

[u/TENDER_ONE → u/mumsleastfavourite]

This is the one that also pisses me off to this day! And oddly enough, the 48 Hrs podcast just put out an episode on this I’m listening to right now. Is this an ad? Don’t care. Still pisses me off and I’m going to finish listening to it anyway.

[u/Hapalops → u/TENDER_ONE]

My teacher for a forensic class had a copy of the hearing to admit the forensic evidence that he put on in the background of labwork one day.     Everyone in the video seemed exhausting and stupid but the judge and scientist. Most of the discussion was so erratic it made us all cringe. Like defense lawyer trying to get him admonished for saying "her car smelled like a corpse" and argue the testing was invalid and without probable cause and therefore should be stricken. So they had to do a whole sidebar on if running a corpse farm qualifies someone to say AS AN EXPERT something smells like death.    (Judge clarified that he thought it did AND the chemical testing would have been normal process eventually)

[u/qoes → u/Hapalops]

As someone who had a dead rabbit under their porch this week I'll add that even amateurs can definitely tell if something smells like death. 

[u/dorf_lundgren]

Ken McElroy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy

[u/admiralfilgbo → u/dorf_lundgren]

next time you're feeling down, remember that at least nobody hates you as much as an entire town hated Ken McElroy

[u/gizzardgullet → u/admiralfilgbo]

Missouri-based journalist Steve Booher described the attitude of some townspeople as "he needed killing."

lol

[u/AlternateUsername12 → u/gizzardgullet]

I mean, if you read what he did, he needed killing. That man wasn't going to stop until someone stopped him.

[u/The_Canadian → u/gizzardgullet]

Based on the story of what he did, I kinda get it. The justice system didn't deal with him.

Not that I agree with vigilante justice, but I can see how they got there.

[u/Malphos101 → u/The_Canadian]

Vigilante action is just the final failure of the justice system.

The cops could have easily made a case against him for SOMETHING long before this, they just didnt want the hassle (and some were scared of him). So instead of the cops and prosecutors and the judges doing what they should have done, they let the situation get so bad that the people had to do something themselves which is never acceptable with a problem this chronically documented.

Dont get me wrong, Im not saying the people involved need to be rounded up and run through the legal system that failed them. But the situation is unacceptable and no one should look at it and go "Yea! They got things DONE! We need to take a page out of their book!"

[u/DistractedByCookies → u/admiralfilgbo]

He was struck by bullets from at least two different firearms, in front of a crowd of people estimated as numbering between 30 and 46.^\)Despite the many witnesses, nobody came forward to say who shot him. 

wow....I'm trying to imagine the police interviewing them and getting crappy reasons why they missed it all. It was 1981 so nobody had the excuse of being on their phone LOL

Edit: the more I read the more I agree with them, and the more I'm amazed it didn't happen sooner.

[u/Conscious-Ball8373 → u/dorf_lundgren]

Ugh, what a nasty piece of work.

I like how the sheriff basically said, "Now, he's sat in that tavern - here's the address - and I don't want y'all to go on down there, mkay? You should definitely not go on down there and when you don't go down there, y'all better not have rifles with you, hear me? Don't wait until he's somewhere nice and public, with dozens of potential suspects about, and then shoot him. And don't make sure those shots all come from different weapons so it's real difficult to tell which one killed him, hear me? Now I'm just gonna get in mah cruiser here and drive on out of town and I'm gonna trust y'all to do the right thing, know what I'm sayin'?"

[u/MidwestAmMan → u/Conscious-Ball8373]

During prohibition, concentrated, grape juice, had the following printed warning-"After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty-one days, because then it would turn into wine."

[u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance → u/MidwestAmMan]

https://www.michelegargiulo.com/blog/grape-bricks-prohibition-wine

lol

[u/The_Canadian → u/Conscious-Ball8373]

That sheriff pulled a Sgt. Schultz.

I see nothing! I know nothing!

[u/skullturf → u/dorf_lundgren]

"Speaking as your sheriff, I don't think you all should get into a direct confrontation with McElroy. On an unrelated note, I need to go out of town for a little while."

[u/AjentOranje → u/skullturf]

He also said that they SHOULD form a "neighborhood watch" before leaving.  I bet if you were in that room, it would be even more obvious where it was going.

[u/CGiMoose → u/AjentOranje]

They did watch! They saw the whole thing: first they started killing him, and then they killed him

[u/whaletacochamp → u/skullturf]

simpler time where the sheriff and the townspeople could get together, have an unrecorded meeting where they agree to kill the local shithead, and then everyone carries it out without spilling the beans or posting on social media about it. Simpler times.

[u/Potential_Net_5687 → u/whaletacochamp]

Lynching has a bad rep for a reason tho lol

[u/justprettymuchdone → u/Potential_Net_5687]

It does. This is maybe one of three semi-modern examples I can think of where vigilante justice was pretty fucking called for though.

[u/Broccoli--Enthusiast → u/dorf_lundgren]

Well nobody really knows who shot him other than the people there, so it's still a whodunit, but just a really big list of suspects

[u/dividezero → u/Broccoli--Enthusiast]

I was there. He shot himself. Everyone was shocked

[u/Broccoli--Enthusiast → u/dividezero]

Case closed, lunch?

[u/Adicol → u/dorf_lundgren]

Perfect example

[u/fictionallymarried → u/dorf_lundgren]

Real life Murder on the Orient Express and I don't blame that town one bit

[u/stizzleomnibus1 → u/dorf_lundgren]

Fun fact: the movie Road House is based on this event.

[u/Reign_22]

Al Capone. All of us know what he did but the police got him on a tax evasion charge.

Most famous drug dealers/gangsters create systems which they are "removed" from. So you know exactly what they do but can never prove it.

[u/CaBBaGe_isLaND → u/Reign_22]

Because they go "oh how I wish someone would just kill that guy" in a room full of people who know exactly what they mean.

[u/Cthulwutang → u/CaBBaGe_isLaND]

will no one silence this meddlesome priest?

[u/Azrayle → u/Cthulwutang]

Off I trot to Canterbury...

[u/NovaCheerful]

OJ Simpson. The glove didn’t fit, but everyone with eyes knew the truth 

[u/AgathaWoosmoss → u/NovaCheerful]

Even the jury knew.

[u/WanderingTacoShop → u/AgathaWoosmoss]

The most succinct summary of that trial that I have ever heard is that the LAPD attempted to frame a guilty man.

[u/NovaCheerful → u/AgathaWoosmoss]

The prosecution botched the entire case and let the defense completely control the narrative 

[u/Sleepy_Potato2 → u/NovaCheerful]

It was probably a bad idea to put a cop (Mark Fuhrman) on the stand who ran an organization within the police that opposed the idea of having women officers, and where there was a recording of him saying the n-word repeatedly and talking about planting evidence.

[u/istrx13 → u/Sleepy_Potato2]

It’s crazy, I actually went to high school with Fuhrman’s daughter. After the OJ trial, Fuhrman took his family and fled to a small town in northern Idaho. Which is where I grew up. It was always the talk of the town.

[u/Jackal239 → u/istrx13]

The really funny bit is that Idaho is where a ton of Neo-Nazi/White Supremacist enclaves are.

[u/Ciserus → u/NovaCheerful]

When I watched the American Crime Story miniseries about this case I kind of rolled my eyes at the scene where the junior prosecutor goes rogue and springs the murder glove demonstration as a complete surprise. Typical hollywood dramatization!

But no, that's how it actually happened. Everyone in that damn courtroom thought they were the star of some movie.

[u/jellyhessman → u/NovaCheerful]

Lol, when your lead investigator pleads the fifth to fabricating evidence while on the stand, you're kind of fucked.

The LAPD is and was so corrupt that the jury fucking hated them more than the murderer.

[u/SPersephone → u/jellyhessman]

Also, when your lead investigator begs to be able to retire early because he’s so racist, he can’t control himself

[u/GrooveBat → u/NovaCheerful]

The glory-loving judge did not help. He completely lost control of the trial.

[u/the_guynecologist → u/GrooveBat]

And said judge letting TV cameras inside the courtroom turning the whole thing into a media circus/reality tv sensation also kinda hindered justice a wee bit.

[u/Alphaplays69 → u/NovaCheerful]

Write a book called “If I Did it: Confessions of the Killer” is about as close to a confession as you can possibly get without legally saying the words.

[u/KipSummers → u/NovaCheerful]

They let the defense control the main piece of evidence

[u/ScytheSong05 → u/NovaCheerful]

'The LA cops framed a guilty man" is the best description of the Simpson case I've ever heard..

[u/Misdirected_Colors → u/NovaCheerful]

What's wild is there's video out there of him wearing the glove that "didn't fit" while commentating football games for the tv network.

[u/snowlock27 → u/Misdirected_Colors]

And the reason the glove didn't fit? Because he was wearing latex gloves, but not completely. Look at the pictures, there's no way any gloves, even a size bigger than those, would have fit over them.

[u/cash-only → u/snowlock27]

He had also been advised days prior to stop taking his arthritis medication, causing his hands and knuckles to swell.

[u/FencerOnTheRight → u/snowlock27]

And they were wet with blood, which caused them to shrink up

[u/Time_Cranberry_113]

Nicole Simpson

[u/the_guynecologist → u/Time_Cranberry_113]

...and Ron Goldman. Don't forget Ron Goldman.

[u/FerretSupremacist → u/the_guynecologist]

Man everyone forget him and I watched a documentary with his family and they were basically crying saying there were *two* victims. It was tragic about Nicole but it wasn’t **just** her.

[u/the_guynecologist → u/FerretSupremacist]

Yeah, I mean look I'm not defending OJ killing his wife or anything but Ron Goldman was literally just some guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was just a waiter who lived in the area who happened to be returning Nicole's mother's reading glasses (which she'd left behind in the restaurant he worked at) at the worst possible time. Like if he'd just been 15 minutes earlier or later he wouldn't have been murdered - in fact if it had been later he might've been the one to discover Nicole's body. It's fucked.

Still I always remember him, although mostly because his father Fred Goldman spent most of his energy trying to make the rest OJ's life as miserable as possible (albeit through legal channels) and more-or-less succeeded. Like I wouldn't wish their situation on my worst enemy but I gotta lot of respect for Fred Goldman.

[u/TabbyFoxHollow → u/the_guynecologist]

I think about the FX series line “Ron was a footnote to his own murder!”

[u/Flying_Dustbin → u/TabbyFoxHollow]

IIRC, his family published a book about him and the void his murder left in their lives. The title was "His Name is Ron: Our Search for Justice."

[u/Tua-Lipa → u/Time_Cranberry_113]

I’ve seen random comments on reddit before theorizing that OJ’s first son, Jason Simpson was actually the killer. But tbh those people are insane if they actually believe it.

The “OJ: Made in America” documentary is amazing because that documentary does let you make up your mind for yourself…but I don’t know how anyone could watch it and not come away with the belief that OJ 100% was the killer.

[u/the_guynecologist → u/Tua-Lipa]

I’ve seen random comments on reddit before theorizing that OJ’s first son, Jason Simpson was actually the killer. But tbh those people are insane if they actually believe it.

That theory comes from a private investigator called Bill Dear who made a bunch of books and documentaries putting forward the theory but frankly the guy's a complete nut and his theory has... well, more holes in it than OJ's victims frankly (not trying to be offensive, just fuck me it's all pretty silly if you know the actual details of the case.)

There's a great article I read tearing it and Bill Dear's almost stalker-like behavior investigating Jason to pieces from 2000 (which should show you how long Dear's been pushing this theory.) I'll see if I can find it, it's just a bit hard since Google's turned to shit recently.

The “OJ: Made in America” documentary is amazing

Oh yeah, one of the best documentaries ever. Highly recommended viewing. The way it manages to weave the entire story of race and the relationship between the black community and the LAPD going back to the early 20th century just for background context (which you kind have to do with the OJ thing) is brilliant.

EDIT: Found it! Had to use the Wayback machine too because while the article's still up on the Village Voice website they've reformatted it and it's frankly almost unreadable in its current state. So here it is in its original formatting:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120410015132/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/04/oj_simpson_bill_dear_full_of_it.php

And I got the date a bit wrong, it's from 2001 - although it's got a new forward from 2012 when Bill Dear finally managed to get some schmuck to publish his book properly. It's a long read but a pretty good tear-down of Bill Dear's whole theory and methodology (the guy was digging around in Jason Simpson's trash and staking out outside his house for Christsakes. In 2001.)

[u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

Oak Island. THERE WAS NEVER ANYTHING THERE. No treasure, no curse, just scattered random junk.

Yet they successfully milked it into a 230-episode, 13-year-long series. P.T. Barnum was right.

[u/thalasi_ → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

Trust me bro, just one more season and we'll find that templar treasure/the ark of the covenenant/blackbeard's gold. Just one more season!

[u/Puzzleheaded-War-113 → u/thalasi_]

My dad watches the show. The opening of it says that legend says seven people have to die before the island will open up its secrets and six already have.

He did NOT like my conclusion that the answer is obvious for what they need to do to find the treasure

[u/rustyxj → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

It's still going?!

Holy shit.

[u/Lunar-Bill → u/rustyxj]

Honest to God it's absolute fucking dirge. My Dad watches it despite how obviously bullshit it all is, he's adamant it's all real

[u/AlternateUsername12 → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

My roommate absolutely loves it, and watches it every week. At this point, I don't think he thinks there's treasure, but he does like the archaeology that's done on other parts of the island. I have to admit, that part is actually pretty interesting. They could completely fuck off with the whole treasure hunt, and just focus on the archaeology, and it would be a great show.

[u/SmokeyandtheBanjo → u/TrumpsDoubleChin]

Maybe the real treasure of oak island is the friends we made along the way?

[u/cryptoengineer → u/SmokeyandtheBanjo]

No, the real treasure was the residuals from the reruns.

[u/JackOfAllBlades21]

The dingo really did eat the baby.

[u/CheezeNewdlz → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

I’m so glad that poor woman is free and her truth is known. Doesn’t stop her from being a pop cultural one-liner unfortunately.

[u/JackOfAllBlades21 → u/CheezeNewdlz]

Agreed. She went through hell.

[u/eVoesque → u/CheezeNewdlz]

There was a band on Buffy named Dingoes Ate My Baby. I always thought it was weird and didn’t realize it was an actual thing. Definitely aged badly.

[u/joebleaux → u/eVoesque]

It was the punchline of a joke on Seinfeld with Elaine doing an Australian accent while delivering the line. Pretty wild for that woman and her dead child to be a joke on a sitcom

[u/sirgog → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

She'd be dead if we still had capital punishment in Australia at the time.

[u/JackOfAllBlades21 → u/sirgog]

I am not very emotional, but it's tough to imagine a worse torture than what she and her husband went through (baby eaten alive, then no one believed them, then they were accused, then arrested, then convicted, then imprisoned for 3.5 years for one of the worst crimes imaginable... and you know they must have been targeted by inmates and probably guards, too).

[u/any_name_today → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

Don't forget that it was also a punchline for several years. So add that salt to the wound

[u/DevoutandHeretical → u/JackOfAllBlades21]

The more I read about that the more my heart breaks for that whole family. The aboriginals were literally telling everyone ‘yes, dingos will attack people/eat children’, but the authorities refused to believe them because they were aboriginal.

[u/Visual-Floor-7839 → u/DevoutandHeretical]

And they didn't believe the family either, because they were 7th Day Adventists. And Australian authority didn't know what that was so they thought they were witches and satanists

[u/redroserequiems → u/DevoutandHeretical]

It would also be a blow to tourism. As usual, money and racism rule.

[u/JackOfAllBlades21 → u/DevoutandHeretical]

It was a crazy story... but also crazy to make up.

[u/carolinemahtildes]

The murder of Brenda Schaefer. Mel Ignatow went on trial and was acquitted. Less than a year later, work was being undertaken on the house where Ignatow's previously lived, and Brenda's jewellery was found along with rolls of undeveloped film. When the film was developed, they found photos of Brenda being raped and tortured by Ignatow. He went to jail for perjury but obviously was never convicted of her murder due to double jeopardy.

[u/solid_reign]

I'd say the clearest one is Susan Powell. She was clearly killed by her husband, the police couldn't prove it, no body was found. Joshua Powell ended up killing the kids in a murder suicide. I won't post the details of what he did because it's horrifying. But there is no doubt that he did it.

[u/chelfea_ → u/solid_reign]

I agree. The true mystery Is how much his dad and brother were involved and what did they know

[u/GirlnTheOtherRm → u/chelfea_]

Especially as the brother committed suicide and the dad was a creeper.

[u/HazMatt_23 → u/GirlnTheOtherRm]

Josh’s dad was so gross.

[u/a-ohhh → u/solid_reign]

I lived about a mile from the house he killed the kids at. We all cried when we heard. I can’t believe he got away with that, and claiming to take the kids camping on a Sunday night in freezing temps and claim he didn’t know it was a Sunday. They were Mormon- he knew it was Sunday.

[u/Ok-Friendship6584 → u/solid_reign]

The 911 call the case worker made when he locked her out is just the worst he just would not get the issue, not sure it would have helped but it was rough.

[u/daminiskos0309]

Any of the people that ‘mysteriously’ fell out of windows in russia

[u/Cut-OutWitch]

Bob Crane.

Scottsdale PD sucks.

[u/trainwreck42 → u/Cut-OutWitch]

Apparently they didn’t have a homicide division at the time

[u/EwilAlien]

Shelly Miscavige - her husband David Miscavinge was 100% involved in "making her disappear" but there is no way she is still alive.

[u/AlternateUsername12 → u/EwilAlien]

According to her niece, Jenna, who escaped from Scientology and is airing out all of the dirty laundry, she's fine. She is out of the public eye, on purpose, happily abusing other people's children.

Shelly was a major player in Jenna's abuse growing up, and she has no reason to protect anybody in that family. There is no love lost there.

[u/Punchinyourpface → u/EwilAlien]

If she was alive he'd be trotting her out for the world to see so everyone would stop asking where she went. She's either dead or been so abused that she's in horrific condition.

[u/SleepingWillow1 → u/EwilAlien]

Didn't her niece recently show up on tik tok saying she is hiding out by choice.

[u/der_innkeeper → u/SleepingWillow1]

She say this after having a conversation with Mitch McConnell?

[u/FunkySeeFunkyDo_ → u/der_innkeeper]

The niece in question doesn’t seem to have a reason to protect the Miscaviges. She’s out of the CoS and uses her platform to spread awareness about how fucked up Scientology is. She claims that Shelley is very much not a victim and that she’s one of the biggest perpetrators of systemic abuse within the CoS.

[u/ThrowingChicken]

I think the Asha Degree disappearance has been whittled down to just one family but we don’t know who specifically, why, or how.

[u/frickityfracktictac → u/ThrowingChicken]

Wasn't it that the family had their under-16 daughters transporting patients in their vehicle and the daughters accidentally hit Asha in the night and then the father covered it up?

I'm pretty sure that was the leading theory on reddit, anyways

[u/MagpieKaz → u/ThrowingChicken]

Yeah, I consider Asha Degree solved already. For starters, the whole "there's NO WAY she'd leave the house by herself" because the parents say so, I never understood why everyone just took their word for it. If you remove that element, it becomes a way less mysterious case. I remember being a kid with an extremely violent and unstable home life nobody knew about, and when CPS came and asked point blank, I lied, because I was scared of my mom. One time my mom threw me out in the street and I went straight to the most dangerous place I knew of, because I thought that's where I deserved to live now (I was 8). Even if she wasn't being abused, kids' brains are so random, she could easily have decided that the basketball game her team lost was the end of the world/she was being bullied for fouling out, and she decided to run away. Why do we all start from the base she literally would NEVER leave her house in a storm, and so someone MUST have groomed her?

And then there's the girls who killed her in the hit and run, they confessed drunkedly at a party I believe even more than once. I feel it's practically solved.

[u/RichardB4321 → u/MagpieKaz]

Also, the answer is that little kids do things all the time which are inscrutable to adults but make complete sense to the kid. It is rarely as dramatic as vanishing in the middle of the night, but not always.

[u/catandodie → u/ThrowingChicken]

I think the story theyre going with is the 2 daughters were in the car and hit her and the parents came and covered it up. Sounds crazy to do, but I saw a reddit thread that asked "What would you do if your kid killed someone?" and a shocking number of responses would do the same thing for their kid's future or whatever, despite the victim's family being tortured with not knowing what happened. It's a messed up world.

[u/The_Magic → u/ThrowingChicken]

Awhile back I saw someone point out that the family was known to use Kerosene heaters in their apartment. Before Asha disappeared she was observed sleeping a lot and complaining about headaches. Allegedly the family when interviewed after her disappearance were observed being confused and inconsistent. It is entirely possible that Asha woke up suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and was confused and took herself for a walk and in her state wandered off and died.

[u/lovelylexicon]

OJ

[u/BraveCranberry9863 → u/lovelylexicon]

If that dog could talk.

[u/Wolfman513 → u/BraveCranberry9863]

My dad has maintained this entire time that the dog was the best witness anyone could have asked for. As he puts it, "There is no way an Akita is going to let someone hurt his mommy, unless it's daddy doing the hurting."

[u/ApprehensiveMode5191]

Don Bolles, investigative newspaper reporter assassination by car bomb in downtown Phoenix. He had been investigating the Mob and knew stuff.

His death, and his fellow reporters pushing, is the reason we have the freedom of information act today

Nobody was ever prosecuted because - Mob

[u/NinjaMonkey313]

Susan Powell.
If you want a very well done deep-dive podcast on this case, I HIGHLY recommend season one of Cold.

They still haven’t found her.

[u/Zappagrrl02 → u/NinjaMonkey313]

One of the most frustrating cases. Those poor babies. I was sobbing listening to the 911 calls from the social worker

[u/Silent-Zebra]

Two similar case here in Australia, William Tyrrell and Gus Lamont. Police originally thought that Williams case was a stranger abduction, but a few years ago they announced they were conducting new searches at the foster grandmother's property (which he disappeared from while playing outside,) and that they believed that William had an accident (likely fell from the balcony) and that the foster mother and now deceased foster grandmother hid his body somewhere to cover it up. In Gus's case he went missing while playing outside the family home on their big cattle station. Initially they thought he'd wandered off, but after many failed searches and no evidence to go on, they announced earlier this year that a person who was present on the property was responsible, later being more specific and saying that one of Gus' grandparents were involved with his disappearance as during the investigation they were no longer cooperating with the police.

[u/coffeehouseprophet]

Bob Crane

[u/SnooRegrets1386]

Stacy Peterson

[u/petey_b_311 → u/SnooRegrets1386]

I was waiting to see this one on here, and from what I've heard locally they know exactly where her body is. The big blue barrels that his neighbor helped him move were dumped near Keepataw forest preserve in the I&M Canal. Why there you may ask. Well seeing that Drew was a former Bolingbrook police sergeant, he knew that there are electric fences in the waterway that are designed to keep the Asian Carp from spreading into Lake Michigan. The only way to do a proper search of the area is to shut down the protective fencing, and the state would never allow that and allow the invasive fish to escape into the lake. I'd be willing to bet money that the body was dumped in a specific location that he knows would never be searched because he has insider information on exactly where that would be. I hope he rots in prison for the rest of his life knowing whatever hell he's sent to is way too good for him.

[u/DistributionNo6824]

this is my entry point to enetring dozens of new rabbit holes

[u/ShutUpLiver]

The Kennedys have not one, but TWO: Martha moxley and Mary Jo kopechne

[u/bottomlesstopper]

Epstein

[u/ricree → u/bottomlesstopper]

I don't know if this counts. There were a lot of wealthy people who'd be willing to have him murdered for the sake of covering up their involvement.

Sure, it's hard not to turn our eyes towards the sitting US president at the time, especially when said president is known to be especially closely connected. But at the same time, there were certainly others with the means, motive, and opportunity to make it happen.

[u/Punkt1337]

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The pilot did it

[u/dod2190 → u/Punkt1337]

Also, EgyptAir 990, same deal. Pilot mass murder-suicide, according to everybody but the Egyptian government.

Edit: Fixed flight number thanks to a comment

[u/HourFondant1646 → u/Punkt1337]

I was going to say this one. Absolutely a pilot murder-suicide, although there is no way to ever prove it. Another one is the recent Air India crash. You have the co-pilot on the voice recorder asking the captain why he flipped the fuel switches off but they are still trying to suggest a mechanical fault.

[u/WitchHearse → u/HourFondant1646]

It makes me so mad when people kill themselves and take a bunch of innocent people with them! So selfish and evil.

[u/LIslander]

Dennis Wustenhoff. Long Island cop who was blown up in 1990 by another cop.

Problem is, they can’t prove that other cop did it

My mom was at work and heard and felt the explosion

[u/Blackmore_Vale]

Prince’s in the tower. We all know it was Richard III. He had means, motive and had previously murdered others to get what he wanted. But because we can’t prove 100% it was him we can only say it’s probably him but we will never know.

[u/meggatronia → u/Blackmore_Vale]

Shhhhhh... you dont wanna summon the Ricardians

[u/bookmarkjedi]

How about the missing $13 billion in US coffers from Venezuelan oil revenues? That is an ongoing "unsolved" mystery.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hit-with-demand-for-answers-over-secret-13b-raked-in-from-venezuelan-oil-revenues/

[u/ApprehensiveMode5191]

Putin stealing children from Ukraine, where Are they?

[u/justprettymuchdone → u/ApprehensiveMode5191]

IIRC, one of Putin's closest advisers very publicly "adopted" a Ukrainian teenager. Fucking evil.

[u/ToplessForestSprite]

Christopher Walken 100% knows what happened to Natalie Wood

[u/Binji_the_dog → u/ToplessForestSprite]

My completely uninformed opinion is that they all took a bunch of quaaludes and she accidentally fell off the boat and couldn’t get back on.

The other guys were either too incapacitated to help or they didn’t even know it was happening.

[u/JackOfAllBlades21 → u/Binji_the_dog]

That is the most likely explanation, IMO.

[u/DanielMcLaury → u/ToplessForestSprite]

Why would this be the case? She either fell off a boat or was pushed at night. Walken claims he wasn't there to see what happened. The boat captain believes Wagner murdered her because she was flirting with Walken. If that were the case, what possible reason would Walken have to keep his mouth shut?

(And you can't say "his career." At this point Walken already had an Academy Award whereas Robert Wagner was a TV actor. And not a post-Sopranos TV actor, a TV actor from the era before prestige TV.)

EDIT: Natalie Wood dying also almost resulted in the movie they were working on together being cancelled, so the events of that night also actively hurt his career.

[u/Ascholay → u/DanielMcLaury]

As far as I know he has cooperated with the police. He may be keeping quiet publicly for his friend's privacy but letting relevant authorities know what he knows

[u/DanielMcLaury → u/Ascholay]

I don't think Walken was even friends with Wagner before. He was co-starring in a movie with Natalie Wood and as far as I know she invited him

[u/Waltzing_With_Bears]

The Lost Colony, the folks that left the Roanoke colony said where they went, to a known friendly tribe near them, if you came home to see your partner left a note that said "At the grocery store" you wouldn't call them a lost partner

[u/red23011]

DB Cooper, he survived the jump and used the money that he stole to create a website to taunt the FBI.

IMDB.com

[u/Alphaplays69]

The Murder of Ken McElroy. 46 people witnessed it in broad daylight. The police asked who did it and 46 people collectively went, “Did what? I was looking at a very interesting bird.

[u/fictionallymarried]

No amount of police backflipping and Netflix propaganda can convince me the Ramseys aren't behind Jonbenet's death. Could it have been an accident? Yes. But the immediate lawyering and tainting of the crime scene says everything.

The simplest explanation is not the one where an intruder gets in, spends several minutes writing a theatric ransom note that looks suspiciously like *Patsy's handwriting, only to not take Jonbenet at all for reasons no one can explain. The family did it. Poor little girl.

[u/Mysterious-Drink4002]

Where I live in Westport, CT, Joan Werkin. Clearly killed by her husband, but our incompetent cops couldn't prosecute.

[u/kregnaz]

Who is the redacted current US president appearing thousands of times in the epstein files?

Nobody (formally) knows.

[u/Regularjoe42 → u/kregnaz]

I love that one part of the files where they censored the word "don't".

Gosh, I wonder what they put into the scanning algorithm that made them want to censor out "Don T."

[u/Xrevitup360X → u/Regularjoe42]

Yep. It was a sentence and the only censored word was "don't" as it's the only word that fits in that spot. So more than likely an apostrophe was missing from the word so their auto censorship got it.

[u/dod2190]

Hinterkaifeck. Was solved by a group of police cadets some years ago but the identity of the killer cannot be released under German privacy laws because he still has descendants living in the area.

[u/anjani916]

Nicole Brown & Ronald Goldman

[u/GreninjaStrike]

Dyatlov Pass. Everyone knows it was an avalanche.