23 August 2011. Dąbrowa district on the outskirts of Gdynia, Poland; city known together with Gdansk and Sopot as Tricity (Trójmiasto). 13 year old Izabela "Iza" Strzałkowska lives here. She is a talented pupil and an athlethic teenager. She is keen in football, basketball and field hockey. In a week she is due to start her middle school.

On afternoon of that day she left her family home to meet with her friend, Ola. The girls met around 5pm and spent time until about 7pm, when Ola had to return to her home. Iza then offered to walk her back to the bus stop. At around 8:20pm Ola took her bus home and Iza began to go back to hers alone. From the bus stop she had three available routes to her home with the shortest one leading through a wooded area. Iza used to avoid that path as it had freightened her. For reasons that remain unknown, that evening she chose it.

When Iza failed to arrive home (she was to return by 8:30), her parents became increasingly worried. Her mother, Małgorzata, called and texted her daughter repeatedly but received no answer. The family began searching the neighbourhood themselves and at approximately 10:40 p.m., Małgorzata discovered her daughter's body in vegetation only about 300 metres from the family home. The location was so close that the house was visible from the scene.

It was obvious that Iza had been sexually assaulted. Her pants and underwear were removed and her blouse was moved as to reveal her breasts. She was probably trying to fight and call for help as her phone was lying just beside her and her watch was broken - it stopped at 8:37pm.

The parents immediately called for help. The medics that arrived fought for the girl's live but she was soon proclaimed dead. Her necropsy would later reveal that she was already dead when her mother had found her. She was attacked from the back and suddenly strangled probably with a forearm.

The police had recovered biological evidence from the victim's belly. The attacker's DNA profile turned out to be complete and in excellent quality. There was only one problem - zero matches. They also found paint particles on the victim's body, which would originally turn investigation to many concstruction workers in the area. DNA analysis of the sample gave the culprit blue eyes with 94% probability and blonde hair with 84% probability.

The investigation quickly became one of Poland's largest murder inquiries. Police collected DNA samples from almost 1000 men over several years. Almost the same number of witnesses have been interviewed. Surveillance was checked, numerous forensic experiments were made and countless leads were followed. A reward of 10000zł (3500$) was offered.

Despite the enormous effort, every DNA comparison returned negative. The killer had never been arrested before or since the crime. His DNA was absent from police databases. Eventually, in 2013, the investigation was formally suspended because the offender could not be identified.

On the place where Iza was killed, a cross with her photo was erected. On every anniversary of her death, numerous people light candles and lay flowers there.

We skip to the year 2020. The case is reopened with the police unit specialised in cold cases called Archiwum X (translated to Archives X, or X-Files, as ambiguously as that sounds). The entire case is re-reviewed. In 2024 the prosecutors have decided to use investigative genetic genealogy, rather than police DNA databases. This method has already helped to solve numerous cold cases in USA but would be the first such case in Poland.

The biological sample collected from the crime scene was compared with profiles in the internationally available commercial genealogy databases. Again, there was no direct match. However, there seemed to be an indirect match. There was someone who voluntarily uploaded their DNA in a research for their ancestry. That someone was a distant relative of the killer.

Once investigators knew the killer belonged to a particular family line, a painstaking genealogical reconstruction began. The prosecutors reconstructed a giant family tree using genealogical records obtained from Poland's PESEL population register and even from church archives. And then they started to exclude all the obviously innocent family tree members, one by one. It took entire two years to narrow the huge family tree to exactly dozen men. Among them was Michał K., 37yo who had lived nearby Iza's home back in 2011 and would be 22 at the time.

It is not stated how the investigators narrowed down from twelve men just to one, but Michał K. was arrested on 21 July 2026. Reportedly he would instantly confess telling the police "I'm the person you're looking for." Subsequent forensic testing was a 100% match. The killer was finally caught.

Personally, the most disturbing aspect of this case is Michał K.'s live. He seemed to be a completely ordinary man. He was never suspected, or even noted by the police. He married and became father to two children (kindergarden age today). He worked steadily. Technically he could face a lifetime in prison, but thanks to his later presumably normal life, I fear he could get much less. Of course, his possible involvement in other unsolved sexual crimes in the area will be examined.

Today, Iza's father and brother at least know the case is solved and the culprit will face the consequences. Iza's mother unfortunately passed away in 2021, timelessly advocating to keep the case alive.

Sources:

https://www.rp.pl/przestepczosc/art44876721-szukal-przodkow-pomogl-wytypowac-zabojce-dziewczynki-byl-nim-jego-krewny

https://tvn24.pl/trojmiasto/gdynia-zabojstwo-13-letniej-izy-po-15-latach-zatrzymali-37-latka-meza-i-ojca-dwojki-dzieci-st9155101

https://www.rmf24.pl/regiony/trojmiasto/news-niekarany-ojciec-dwojki-dzieci-15-lat-temu-mial-zabic-13-let,nIdn,1011075

For more than a three decades, there has been a deepening mystery around Dublin: during the late 80s and early 90s, a growing number of young women disappeared without so much as a trace. Over the years, this series of disappearances have become known as Ireland’s Vanishing Triangle. The triangle is in the eastern part of the island, roughly the boundaries of Leinster, in an 80-mile area outside Dublin.

I would like to compose a multi-part series of posts describing each one of the disappearances considered to be a part of Ireland’s Vanishing Triangle, in chronological order of when the women disappeared. My first post will be about Annie McCarrick.

—————————————————————————————————

26-year-old Long Island native Annie McCarrick was 5’8” with long brown hair. She had a deep love for Ireland, and eventually made the step of moving away from her friends and family to relocate to Dublin in January of 1993. By all accounts, she was happy with her life there and, at the time of her disappearance, was preparing for a visit from her mother. She was working as a waitress at the Courtyard Restaurant in Donnybrook and as a waitress at Café Java on Leeson Street.

On Thursday, March 25, Annie called Café Java to collect her wages. Her wages were not ready, and she arranged to call again on Friday. She then visited friends and stayed for dinner.

The following day, Friday, March 26, Annie spoke to both her flatmates before they left separately to travel home for the weekend. Shortly before 11am, she visited the AIB branch on Sandymount Road to carry out some personal banking. This is the last confirmed sighting of Annie, and it was captured on CCTV. She did some shopping at Quinnsworth supermarket before returning to her apartment at 3:00pm. She was seen on a bus at about 3:40 pm in Ranelagh heading toward Enniskerry so that she could go to the Wicklow Mountains for the day; she had asked a friend to accompany her, but her friend declined.

Some time later that evening between 8-10pm, the doorman at Johnnie Fox's pub in Glencullen claims to have seen Annie at the pub accompanied by a young man who was wearing a wax jacket. Allegedly, Annie had gone to see an Irish music and dancing show (a traditional event called the Hooley Show) but did not realize that there was a cover charge. The man seen with Annie then paid for her, accompanying her to watch the show. Nobody saw either Annie nor her friend leave the pub, and the man's identity has never been discovered. However, it is believed that this was a false sighting and that Annie might have gone missing sometime after arriving in Enniskerry. As it was dark and wet outside that night, it seems unlikely that Annie would have walked all the way from Enniskerry to Glencullen, which was 4 miles away.

Annie had made arrangements with friends, inviting them to her apartment for dinner the next day, March 27. When they arrived and knocked on her door, no one answered and they left. The following day when Annie did not show up for work, alarms were sounded and she was reported missing that evening.

As the number of women gone missing around Dublin began to increase in the following years, authorities began to suspect that the disappearances, and likely murders, were the result of a serial killer. All of the cases appeared to share some common characteristics:

- The women's ages range from late teens to late 30s
- They disappeared inexplicably and suddenly
- No substantial clues of their fate has ever been found despite large-scale searches

32 years later in 2025, Gardaí arrested a 62-year-old man at his home in County Meath on suspicion of Annie’s murder; he was released without charge after 24 hours of interrogation. A house in the Monastery Walk area of Clondalkin was also searched by officers, with the building itself and its garden being subject to both technical and forensic examinations. Sources close to the investigation revealed that the arrested man was well known to Annie since the late 1980s, and that his parents previously lived at the property being searched in Clondalkin. According to media reports, the arrested man had been the prime suspect in Annie’s murder for a number of years, and Gardaí theorized that he had killed her as the result of a personal dispute. It was reported that Garda detectives had traveled abroad to take statements from a close confidant of the suspect. This man told Gardaí that he was with the suspect during the weekend Annie vanished. On perhaps an unrelated note, it has also been established that Annie had confided in friends that she had been having trouble with a man, who had previously struck her.

Do you think Annie was a victim of a serial killer targeting a demographic of women in the Dublin area? Was she the unfortunate victim of stranger danger? Or personally targeted by someone she knew?

Sources:

https://abcnews.com/2020/story?id=2059587&page=1

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0324/1366090-annie-mccarrick-murder/

https://www.rte.ie/news/crime/2025/0612/1518029-annie-mccarrick/

The unsolved murder of Julie Pacey took place on 26 September 1994 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, and remains one of the most intriguing cold cases in the United Kingdom. Julie, born in 1955/1956, was 38 years old and a mother of two. Married for 18 years to Andrew Pacey, her childhood sweetheart since the age of eight, they lived in a luxury bungalow at 30 Longcliffe Road in the peaceful Manthorpe area. Julie worked part-time at the local St Peter's Day Nursery on St Catherine's Road, right opposite the town's police headquarters. She was described by family, neighbours, and the press as a "vivacious blonde," a "perfect mum," extremely attractive, popular, kind, caring, considerate, and completely devoted to her family. Andrew worked for a long-established plumbing business in the town. The couple had a 14-year-old daughter, Helen, and an 11-year-old son, Matthew. The family saw themselves as ordinary and unremarkable, as Andrew later stated on Crimewatch.

Several suspicious incidents preceded the murder. On Friday, 23 September 1994, around 3:30 pm, a local girl who regularly went to the Pacey home after school to wait for her mother saw a strange man wearing blue overalls enter the driveway. The man, described as chubby, around 35 years old, with a big round and notably red/ruddy face, rough hands, and brown workman's boots, walked back out when the girl approached. Julie, upon letting the girl in, confirmed that the man had knocked on the door, entered the house, and asked for directions to Eskdale Road. This witness later helped police create a detailed artist's impression of the individual, who became known as the "Overalls Man."

On the day of the murder, Monday 26 September, Julie left home for work around 10 am. She returned in the family Audi around 2:45 pm. About half an hour later, she left again to go shopping and was seen driving along Highcliffe Road near her home. At that time, the same man in blue overalls was seen walking along the road; he stepped out in front of her car, nearly causing an accident. After Julie passed, he suddenly turned and ran in the direction her car had gone. Multiple witnesses also reported sightings of a dark BMW 5-series in the area in the days before, including one parked next to the Pacey family's Audi in their driveway. The family always insisted Julie did not drive or have access to such a car, but the accounts came from people who knew her well.

The murder occurred between approximately 3:20 pm and 4:15 pm. Around 4:15 pm, daughter Helen arrived home from school and discovered her mother dead in the first-floor bathroom. Julie had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a cord/ligature. She was fully clothed, though some items of clothing were disarranged. There were no signs of forced entry and little evidence of a prolonged struggle (her beautifully manicured nails were unbroken). Police theorised the attacker may have entered easily because Julie left her keys in the lock upon returning home. Only one item was reported missing from the house: a French Luc Desroches watch that she had recently bought on holiday for the equivalent of about £10. The watch has never been recovered and is believed to have been taken by the killer.

The "Overalls Man" was sighted by numerous witnesses around the estate and in Grantham between 22 and 27 September. On the morning after the murder, at around 9 am, he was seen kicking at the grass as if searching for something. Later, he entered a shop in the town centre still wearing the blue overalls and behaving in a highly suspicious manner. He had asked various people for directions to different locations (including a distant industrial site) but never asked them to repeat the instructions. Police distributed the artist's impression to every house on the estate and, exactly one week after the murder, stopped more than 500 people walking or driving along Longcliffe Road for information.

The case received major publicity with an appeal on the BBC programme Crimewatch in November 1994. In 2001, investigators examined possible links (without a definitive conclusion) to the murder of 21-year-old Sharon Harper four months earlier in the same town — Harper was also strangled and beaten. This was part of the wider national Operation Enigma into unsolved murders of women in the UK during the 1990s.

In 2015, the case returned to Crimewatch with a second appeal, 21 years after the original. Scientists had successfully created a full DNA profile of the perpetrator using the advanced DNA-17 technique — described as a landmark forensic breakthrough. The DNA matched no one on the UK National DNA Database. Police publicly appealed for names of potential suspects to compare against the profile and directly asked the "Overalls Man" to come forward so he could be eliminated via DNA. Interestingly, the actor who had played the killer in the original 1994 reconstruction (Steve Watson) was briefly investigated after the re-appeal because confused viewers called in to name him as the real perpetrator. Police took his DNA, which fully cleared him.

To this day, the exact motive remains unclear, although there was a clear sexual element. Investigators believe it was a premeditated attack on Julie, who had no known enemies and led an ordinary family life. The "Overalls Man" remains the prime suspect and, if still alive, would be in his mid-to-late 60s today. The family, particularly the daughter who found the body, continues to live with the trauma of an unresolved case. Lincolnshire Police continue to appeal for information.

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11857097/Crimewatch-actor-now-DNA-tested-in-unsolved-Grantham-murder-case-21-years-later.html

This post covers a pretty obscure and poorly documented pair of crimes, both of which occurred in Umatilla County, located in northeast Oregon, over the course of over a decade.

Dollie (though I've also seen it spelled as "Dolly") May Hughes was by all accounts a beloved 78-year old woman who lived in a home in the small town of Stanfield. She was active in the community, widowed some years earlier and lived independently. She was known to be social and friendly, and no one had a bad thing to say about her. On September 14th, 1981, Dollie was found dead in her home, having been stabbed numerous times. There were no signs of robbery or sexual assault, but her body had been grotesquely mutilated in some fashion, with a law enforcement official stating that she "had some body parts cut off". At the time, there seemed to be a general feeling among investigators that the killer was not a stranger due to the fact that Dollie usually locked her doors at night, but that remains speculation. No suspects were ever definitively identified, though there's some unofficial speculation that authorities have recently made some progress on the case (take this with an iceberg sized grain of salt).

In September of 1998, in the town of Milton Freewater situated a stone's throw from the OR/WA border, firefighters were called to a house fire, in which the body of an elderly woman was discovered. It would be identified as 69-year old Evelyn Joyce Gretencourt (also spelled in documents as "Gretencort". Her cause of death was strangulation, and there were no outward signs of robbery or sexual assault. Unfortunately, there's very very little I can find on Evelyn's life, let alone the exact circumstances of her death. Two things stand out, however. One is that the murder remains unsolved, and the second is that there are some pieces of information available to investigators that make them believe the murder of Evelyn is tied to that of Dollie May Hughes 17 years prior. What exactly that information is, I have no idea. Obviously it's something being kept close to the chest, but that's also the extent of what has been reported on regarding the two murders and their possible link.

At face value, the cases are dissimilar-- one involved mutilation and stabbing, while the other involved strangulation and a concerted effort to obscure evidence through arson. But both victims were elderly women, living alone in homes within small towns in Umatilla County, and were killed in a small geographic radius during home invasions without the presence of robbery or sexual assault. Northeastern Oregon isn't the most populated area, and these two murders were both very far from the norm even for criminal activity in Umatilla County. If the same killer was in fact responsible for both murders, we have to wonder what exactly they were doing for 17 years between two brutal homicides targeting vulnerable women.

On May 19th, 1982, 35-year old Cheryl Vivian Emmerson worked night shifts, and consequently got her sleep in during daylight hours. She lived in Pendleton, a short drive from Stanfield and one of the bigger cities in the county. Sometime during the day, an intruder entered her home, slashing her throat after some sort of struggle. There were no signs of robbery or sexual assault. In this case, I think the age difference is noticeable, but in all three incidents the perpetrator was driven seemingly by a lust for murder and violence, rather than an explicitly sexual or financial motive. All three women were killed within the sanctity of their homes, making it all the more frightening.

So, what are your thoughts? Was there a violent serial offender committing crimes for nearly two decades without detection in rural Oregon?

https://www.oregon.gov/osp/pages/cold-case-unit.aspx

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1178469067/

(An attached image of a news article on Dollie May Hughes)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8Zn8hRtrhJ9dyobo8

(An attached image of a news article on Vivian Emmerson)

https://www.solvethecase.org/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsolvethecase9c0c8-main.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2F1992-29%2F360e4c82-3967-4d8d-a748-c277353e3951.jpeg&w=3840&q=75

https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/emergency-incident/family-of-missing-newhaven-woman-renew-appeal-to-find-mother-of-three-after-ten-years-5602127

I've always been fascinated by missing persons cases, and one question has been on my mind for a while.

Are there cases where someone is still publicly listed as missing, but the police actually know they're alive and where they are?

One case that made me think about this is Fatima Mohamed-Ali from the UK. As I understand it, she left her home around 15 minutes after her husband had gone to work and then disappeared. To be absolutely clear, I'm not suggesting this is what happened in her case, nor am I implying anything about her husband. This is simply a hypothetical inspired by the circumstances.

Suppose someone is unhappy in their marriage, is experiencing abuse, or has another serious reason for wanting to disappear and start a new life. If that person is later found by the police, but tells them they're safe and doesn't want their family—or a specific individual—to know where they are, what happens then?

Would the authorities keep that information confidential and allow the person to remain publicly listed as missing to protect their privacy or safety? Or would they announce that the person has been located while withholding any details of their whereabouts?

In Fatima's case, this explanation seems less likely, as the police were still issuing public appeals relatively recently. But it made me wonder how often this situation occurs in general.

Are there missing people whose cases remain "open" in the public eye even though the authorities have privately confirmed they're safe? Or is that essentially never done?

I'd be interested to hear from anyone with knowledge of missing persons investigations or examples of cases where this has happened.

On March 23, 1988, 26-year-old Deborah "Debbie" Ann Linsley from Bromley, Kent, was brutally murdered inside a crowded commuter train in one of the UK’s most disturbing and still unsolved cases.

Debbie worked as a hotel manager in Edinburgh and had returned to London to attend a hotel management course. She was staying with her parents and was excited to be a bridesmaid at her brother Gordon’s wedding two weeks later. That Wednesday afternoon, her brother drove her to Petts Wood station. She boarded the 14:16 train to London Victoria — a journey that normally took about 34 minutes with several stops.

The train was an old-style 4EPB unit with a mix of carriages: some with central corridors and others featuring isolated compartments that seated six people each, with no internal access between them and doors opening directly to the outside. Debbie entered one of these closed compartments (possibly because smoking was allowed there) in the second carriage. There were around 70 passengers on the train.

At some point during the journey — especially during the short six-minute stretch between Brixton and Victoria — Debbie was savagely attacked. She was stabbed 11 times in the face, neck, and abdomen, with at least five wounds to the area around her heart. One of those wounds was fatal. She fought back fiercely: she had defensive wounds on her hands and managed to injure her attacker, whose blood was later found at the scene. When the train pulled into Platform 2 at Victoria station at 14:50, a British Rail porter discovered the blood-soaked compartment and Debbie’s body.

What makes this case so shocking is that, despite the crowded train and the violent nature of the attack (a French au pair in a nearby compartment heard screams and sounds of a struggle shortly after leaving Brixton), almost no one noticed anything unusual. The au pair thought it might be a fight or a sexual assault and didn’t pull the emergency cord — something she was later criticized for during the inquest. No one saw the killer enter or leave the compartment.

The murder weapon was never found, but it is believed to have been a heavy-bladed knife between 13 and 19 cm long. Police considered the possibility of a sexual assault but found no evidence of it. Detective Superintendent Guy Mills described the crime as “savage and brutal” and suggested the attacker was likely a repeat violent offender due to the ferocity of the assault.

The initial investigation collected over 1,200 witness statements and questioned hundreds of people. Persons of interest included a short, stocky man seen jumping from the train, a “scruffy man with dirty blond hair” who got off at Penge East, and another man who was staring at women boarding at Orpington. The case was featured on the BBC’s Crimewatch UK.

Years later, advances in DNA technology allowed the case to be reopened in 2002. The killer’s blood from the scene was used to create a full DNA profile, but it has never matched anyone in the national database. In 2013, police offered a £20,000 reward and launched fresh appeals. Debbie’s parents (her mother has since passed away) made several emotional public appeals over the years.

The murder had an immediate impact: British Rail sped up the removal of isolated compartment carriages and painted red bands on them so passengers could identify and avoid them. Guards were instructed to patrol more actively.

More than 36 years later, Debbie Linsley’s killer remains free. The DNA profile exists, but there is still no match. Many speculate the perpetrator may have been a serial offender or someone who acted on sudden impulse when given the opportunity. The fact that Debbie injured her attacker suggests he likely went home bloodied and wounded — something family or friends might have noticed.

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

https://morbidology.com/the-railway-ripper-the-unsolved-murder-of-deborah-linsley/

https://www.channel4.com/news/dna-breakthrough-may-help-crack-train-murder-cold-case

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/brutal-murder-woman-26-south-23659459.amp

On July 16th, 2026 investigators with the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office announce they had identified a human skull discovered on November 6th 1984 on a ranch about 12½ miles south of George West, Texas near U.S. Highway 281. The skull was identified as belonging to missing 27 year old Thomas Frank Scott from Fortworth, Texas who went missing on August 23rd, 1984.

When the skull was discovered it had a large hole in the skull with officers determining the death was a homicide. The evidence collected at the scene included pieces of clothing and a gold Bulova Accutron Railroad Approved wristwatch. Despite an extensive investigation the officers were never able to identify who the remains belonged to. In November of 1989 a forensics report was submitted about the remains in an attempt to use new methods to get leads the case. The forensics report concluded the cause of death was either blunt force trauma or a bullet hole. Investigators suspected the victim was dead as a result of foul play, however after 1989 the case went cold again.

In July 2024 the case was reopened using modern DNA genealogy in an attempt to get an identity. Through the use of DNA and anthropological analyses along with the CODIS database authorities* *led to an identification in early 2026 as belonging to Thomas Frank Scott. Despite the identification the suspect who killed Scott has not been identified with authorities continuing to investigate the case.

Sources:

https://www.solvethecase.org/case/1984-32/thomas-frank-scott

https://www.southtexasnews.com/the_progress/live-oak-county-cold-case-solved-after-nearly-42-years/article_00f08622-26eb-4a88-a0ef-e8f088daa3bb.html

https://charleyproject.org/case/thomas-frank-scott

On July 14th, 2026 the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office announced that a human bone discovered in Eel River on February 1st, 2026 had been identified as belonging to 48 year old John Thomas Davis III who had been missing since October 23rd, 2021 after failing to return from a hunting trip. Davis and his son left home from McKinleyville, California before hiking from their vehicle to set up camp 3 miles up at Eel River.

The two were out hunting when on October 24th a storm blew through causing their tent to flood. Davis stayed with the tent while his son retrieved the vehicle however by the time he returned his father was gone and after hours of searching 911 was called with him officially reported missing on October 25th. National guard, Highway Patrol, and State Troopers began a search with no evidence found and eventually ending in July of 2022.

On February 1st a fisherman in Eel River discovered a long bone believed to be human about 2 miles to the North of the Dos Rios Bridge. A search began on February 3rd with investigators finding belongings possibly that belonged to Davis but no additional remains. Using relatives DNA the bone was identified as Davis on June 16th, and a search consisting of over 70 volunteers began on July 11th for more remains in the area of the discovery. During the search additional bones were discovered with them being sent for examination however they were determined to be nonhuman.

Sources:

https://krcrtv.com/news/local/dna-match-confirms-remains-belong-to-humboldt-county-man-missing-since-2021

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/07/14/bone-believed-to-belong-to-man-reported-missing-in-2021-revives-search/

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2021/11/04/search-for-missing-hunter-in-mendocino-county-turns-to-eel-river/

https://charleyproject.org/case/john-thomas-davis-iii

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/eel-river-california-disappearance-22347151.php

Hello everyone! As always, thank you for your votes and comments under my last post about Layla Santanello- I hope that she will be found soon.

Today I'd like to highlight a different case centering around a troubled young woman.

A lot of the info in this post was taken from a podcast-interview with Kristi Boyd, Rio's mother, and it's possible that it might be biased in some way. Please keep this possible bias in mind when reading. I am not involved in the case in any way and don't know Rio or anyone in her family, so I can only share the info I gathered up from different sources.

BACKGROUND

Rio Boyd was 21 when she went missing from Spanaway, Washington, USA.

She was named after the hit song "Rio" by Duran Duran.

At the time of her disappearance, Rio lived with her father, Brian Boyd, and his new family. Her mother, Kristi Boyd, lived in Oregon at the time.

Brian and Kristi separated when Rio was 2 years old. The couple went back together at some point, but it didn't work out in the end and they split once more. They had an informal custody arrangement, but the kids (Rio and her brother) spent most of the time with Kristi. Being a single mother was "tough" for Kristi.

Rio was a "happy, artistic, creative" child growing up. She also loved the outdoors- she'd run around the local forest and went fishing with her cousins.

Rio struggled at school due to having ADHD. Kristi got her diagnosed and got her medication, but some members of the family (including Brian) claimed that Rio didn't need to take them- due to their influence, Rio stopped taking her medications regularily around three times in her life. Rio ultimately went to an alternative school close to Kristi's home, but she was "teased" due to being the "new girl", which discouraged her a lot. She ended up dropping out in the end.

After she quit school, Rio spent a lot of time babysitting her younger cousins. However, she quickly ended up falling into a bad crowd- Rio started to drink alcohol, take "pills" (over-the-counter cough medication known as 3C) and party. There was an incident in which Rio and a friend took 3C together at Rio's house- the friend ended up hallucinating and Kristi had to take her to a hospital; Rio didn't suffer any adverse effects, however.

Kristi decided that she can't let her daughter end up like her friend. She moved Rio to her father's home to get her as far away as possible from local bad influences. Unfortunately, Rio's stepsister was a "radical", and Rio ended up partying again.

Rio visited Kristi every few months, but she didn't get along with her mother's new partner, who also lived at the house. At one time, Rio started doing drugs right in front of Kristi. During an argument that took place at an unspecified date, Rio threatened her mother's partner with a knife and told him to "never get between her and her mother again"; Rio then stabbed the knife into a table- nobody was hurt during the altercation. Still, that was too much for Kristi- she and her partner got restraining orders against Rio, who ended up moving back to Brian's house. Despite the restraining order, Kristi was always just a phone call away- after some time, she decided that she couldn't bear it if Rio needed her and she couldn't help her due to the restraining order, so it was dropped.

In the end, Rio ended up moving back with her father and his family, most likely to stay closer to her current social circle.

Shortly before her disappearance, Rio started to learn glass blowing, which she had a knack for according to her father, Brian Boyd. He said that his daughter was "a budding artist who had a passion for drawing and was considering a career in the field".

Brian said that he misses his daughter's "unique dry humor" and "how she lit up every room she walked into".

DISAPPEARANCE

Kristi last saw her daughter in person in summer of 2022.

A few days before Rio went missing, she told Kristi that she felt like "she was being spied on" and that she "was gonna get jumped". She also said that when she was coming out of a local 7-eleven recently, a group of men in a truck was staring at her, and it gave her "a really bad feeling". She felt like she was being stalked. Kristi told Brian about it, but he said that Rio was just "imagining things".

17th of October started with an argument between Brian and Rio- she wanted to borrow his phone as she didn't have her own, and he was trying to "get with some girl". The phone arrived via mail, and Kristi was the one who paid for it. Rio's first call was to her mom- she seemed "normal" and she told Kristi that she was going to visit her friends that day. Kristi sent her multiple messages during the day, asking about the phone and chatting- when Rio didn't answer multiple messages she sent her, Kristi got concerned.

Rio was last seen on the 17th of October at her home at the mobile home park on Field Road in Spanaway. She left the house around 6 PM to visit a friend- she took her brand new phone with her, but left behind her keys, identification, and wallet. Rio never arrived at her friend's home.

When Rio didn't come home, Brian called her phone. When the call was picked up after two days of calling, Brian didn't hear his daughter's voice, but that of a male stranger, who, as it was later found out, was a neighbour who was walking his dog. After being asked to identify himself, the man said that he found Rio's phone on the ground, ran to it and picked up the call. Brian hurried to the spot where Rio's phone was found to pick it up- that place was around the 400 block of Field Road, 400 feet (~122 m) away from Rio's house.

Kristi tried to convince Brian to report Rio as missing, but Brian wasn't too worried about his daughter's disappearance at first- he was convinced that she was going to come home at some point. When she didn't, however, Brian reported Rio missing.

Rio's uncle, Chad Boyd, said that it's unlike his niece to leave somewhere without letting her parents know. She also left her pitbull, Roscoe, at home, and she would allegedly never abandon her pet like that.

Rio's phone has been given to the investigators for forensic examination, but it's not stated if anything was found.

Police asked the people living or working near 198th Ave Ct E and Field Road in Spanaway to share any surveillance foootage they might have and might've recorded Rio from from 4 PM on the 17th of October to 4 PM on the 19th of October. The CCTV from a building opposite to where Rio's phone was found was analyzed, but no clues were found.

At first, Rio was considered a runaway, but she is now considered an "endangered missing".

CONCLUSION

Kristi suspects that Brian's boss might be involved in Rio's disappearance. According to her, Rio told her that the man gave her cocaine and got her addicted to it. He also asked her for sexual favors, including a threesome with his wife.

Kristi and Brian worked together to find Rio at first, but at some point Brian almost got into an altercation with Kristi's partner, which caused a rift.

The investigators don't believe that the man who found Rio's phone has any connection to her disappearance.

Rio Jina Boyd was 21 when she went missing and would be about 25 now. She is a white woman, 5'6 (168 cm), 180 - 215 lbs (82 - 98 kg). She has brown hair and brown eyes. She has a scar on her left forearm and a small mole on her upper lip. Her ears are pierced. She was last seen wearing blue jeans and possibly a black Seattle Sawhawks jacket.

If you have any info about Rio's whereabouts, contact the Pierce County Sheriff's Office at 253-798-7530

SOURCES:

1. fox13seattle.com
2. fox13seattle.com
3. komonews.com
4. thenewstribune.com
5. The Missing podcast
6. charleyproject.org

Rio's websleuths.com thread

On July 10, 1991, Fekade Ashine was fatally shot in West Los Angeles. According to a December 1992 Los Angeles Times report, the LAPD wanted Sophie David in connection with his death. The article described Ashine as David’s estranged boyfriend and stated that America’s Most Wanted had profiled her in February and August 1992.

The same report described David as an Ethiopian woman who had worked as a nurse and hairdresser, spoke English with a British accent, and often wore dark glasses. The article itself concerned another Ethiopian woman who was mistakenly detained after an America’s Most Wanted viewer incorrectly identified her as David.

David’s case continued to appear on America’s Most Wanted years later. In an episode broadcast on August 1, 2009, the show displayed several personal photographs of David, gave her age as 45, and continued to describe her as wanted.

However, I have been unable to find a later official police announcement, court record, arrest report, or credible news article explaining what eventually happened. An America’s Most Wanted fan-forum administrator recently stated that she remains at large, but I have not found current official confirmation from the LAPD.

Has anyone found an official record confirming whether Sophie David was ever arrested, located, declared deceased, or otherwise removed from wanted status?

Are there archived LAPD bulletins, court dockets, or newspaper databases that could clarify the present status of this case?

Sources:

Los Angeles Times:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-12-25-me-2516-story.html

America’s Most Wanted episode from August 1, 2009:

https://archive.org/details/americas-most-wanted_202603

The Sophie David segment appears at approximately 27:19 to 28:37.

On July 16th, 2026 officers with the Amarillo Police department in Texas announced they had made an identification in the August 5th, 1997 stabbing of 45 year old Gloria Ann Covington who was discovered by Dorien Thomas (disappeared 1998 from Amarillo) and another child in Hilltop Park, now known as Hines Memorial Park.

At the time of the case investigators suspected Covington had been abducted in a vehicle and taken to the park where she was assaulted however attempted to escape her attacker and was stabbed to death. The witness to Covington’s abduction reported to police she saw a light colored truck pick her up and this witness a woman named Linda Gayle Jackson would be murdered under similar circumstances a month later with the same colored truck being given in her case by witnesses.

Police announced that the perpetrator in the case of Covington was identified using DNA from hair found at the scene as Jimmy Dale McClinton. McClinton at the time lived in Amarillo, Texas but was never a suspect or ever questioned in connection with the murder. McClinton died in November of 2025 at the age of 73 years old shortly after investigators had questioned him following his DNA being identified in 2024. During the interview he gave very little information before requesting a lawyer he did however give DNA which matched.

The ID was officially confirmed to be McClinton following the DNA comparison which brought back a 100% match with hair found at the crime scene. The reason for an arrest not being made was due to investigators getting the paper work and DNA confirmation happened shortly before his death and by the time it was all processed McClinton had died. Investigators also announced he is a suspect in other cases.

Sources:

https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/amarillo-police-news-conference-updates-1997-cold-case-murder-gloria-covington-stabbed-to-death-hilltop-park-dna-testing-state-crime-lab-austin-texas-rangers

https://www.newschannel10.com/2026/07/16/gloria-covington-cold-case-solved-after-almost-30-years/?outputType=amp

https://foxsanantonio.com/news/local/amarillo-police-highlight-cold-case-murder-from-1997-in-latest-podcast-gloria-ann-covington-stabbed-north-branch-ymca-detective-jimmy-rifenberg-lt-jim-clements-dorien-thomas-linda-jackson

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/3ujivv/what_happened_to_dorien_thomas/

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/a472cg/what_happened_to_dorien_thomas_9_year_old_boy/

https://charleyproject.org/case/dorien-deon-thomas

In the predawn hours of Saturday May 16, 2009, 48 year old Hattie Gertrude Brown vanished after picking up her nephew at a gas station in Halifax County, Virginia. Two months after her sudden vanishing her car was found burned in a secluded wooded area behind an abandoned barn. It’s been 17 years and, even after extensive searches, not a single trace of Hattie has ever been found.

Hattie Gertrude Brown was born on September 21, 1960, in Halifax County Virginia by parents Adolphus N. and Emma Brown.

The second youngest out of 12 siblings she, as her brothers and sisters before her, helped out on her parent’s farm; but the farm life was not made for her. She had big dreams of becoming a flight attendant but at the time height requirements would block her from perusing this career path as her 5’4 stature was deemed too short.

Hattie attended Halifax high school where she graduated in 1978 and after a period of uncertainty, she found a job in Tennessee where she would be employed for about two years. After leaving this job in 1980 she decided to enrol in the U.S. military where she joined the army.

Whilst in the army she joined air assault school where she earned her air assault badge, she also attended airborne school in North Carolina. During all of this she also found the time to enrol into nighttime college classes where she earned her associate’s degree in general studies.

11 years into her army career she rose through the ranks going from Private to Sargent first Class.

In 1990 he was deployed to the Persian Gulf to fight in the Gulf War. There she participated in operation Desert Storm.

Returning to the United States she would continue to work in the army but, in 1998, her declining health would force her into an early retirement after 18 years serving her country. She left the military with many medals to her name and after her retirement she decided to go back to Halifax County to stay close to her siblings and to help with her mother’s health problems.

During this time Hattie decided to enrol in the Danville community college where she majored in medical coding and terminology.

At the start of 2009 Hattie’s life was calm and uneventful; she was still very close to her family and was in the midst of preparing a bridal shower for her brother’s fiancé in which she would have been a maid of honour.

In the very early hours of Saturday May 16, 2009, Hattie received a phone call from one of her nephews (30 y.o. Derek). Derek reportedly asked Hattie to be picked up from a Sheetz Gas station. (It is unknown if anything else was said during that phone call to convince Hattie to venture out into the night at such a late hour). She climbed into her silver Volkswagen Jetta and drove towards the gas station.

She arrived at the Sheetz gas station at the intersection of Route 501 and Route 58 in Halifax County, Virginia, there she was spotted by a surveillance camera with Derek at about 2:33 a.m.

Cameras pick up the two at the entrance of the gas station where Hattie is seen briefly talking to the gas station’s security guard.

The car soon after left the gas station, and the cameras showed her driving with Derek in the passenger seat.

Derek then allegedly asked Hattie if she could drop him off at a house party. The car made it to the party and, by Derek’s account he last saw Hattie idling in her car outside of the house.

Later that day Hattie was expected to meet family at the bridal shower she was planning. The family waited for Hattie’s arrival but as time passed and Hattie failed to show up, the family stared to get increasingly worried. The next day the family was still waiting for any sign of Hattie and when she didn’t show up to Church that Sunday the family knew something was terribly wrong.

Initially the family worried that her health got suddenly worse and that was why she wasn’t reaching out, but with the days passing and with no sign of Hattie anywhere the family decided to report Hattie as a Missing person.

By June the family was working with police to find Hattie: they firstly searched Hattie’s House; there they found her wallet complete with Id, credit cards and her medication. Police looked at possible transactions made after her vanishing, but her bank account sat dormant and no purchases to her name had been made.

After some time, investigators learned about Derek’s involvement as the last person to see Hattie. Speaking to investigators he denied any involvement in the case and recounted to have last seen his aunt before entering the party.

In the days and weeks leading up to the disappearance Hattie’s sisters said that she was helping her nephew, but the reasons to why are not known. The family states that helping the family would have been something that Hattie would have done even if it were to inconvenience her even though they described her decision to go out on the night of the 16^th as uncharacteristic.

Looking into Derek’s past police found some crimes linked to him, mainly destruction of property and burglary.  After his questioning Derek was let off by police as they investigated other leads.

On **July 7******^th 2009, Two month after her sudden disappearance, Hattie’s Volkswagen was found by a farmer abandoned and burned on a farm in Virgilina, southeastern Halifax County (about 15 miles from the Sheets Gas station). It had been completely destroyed by the fire and looked as if it had been parked at the location for a long time. The car was parked behind the farm structure, hidden away from unwanted attention. Authorities said the farm was abandoned, which suggested a local person was involved in Hattie's disappearance, since a local would be aware that it would be a safe place to leave her car where it wouldn't be found for some time.

After the discovery of the car Police announced Derek Brown as a person of interest in her disappearance.

In September 2009 divers and investigators searched the bodies of water that surrounded the area around the burnt vehicle, sadly nothing was found.

In February 2010 police issued a warrant for a woman named Crystal who had missed a court date. Police thought that this woman could have information on the disappearance but, even after Crystal turned herself in, nothing of note was released to the public about this woman’s possible involvement.

After some time, according to Hattie’s family, Derek quietly left the area cutting off contact with the family and remaining quiet about the situation.

In the absence of any new info the family raised money for private investigators and placed a $1000 dollar reward for any tips that could lead to Hattie’s whereabouts.

In 2013 Another Disappearance shattered the family even more. One of Hattie’s Brothers, James Brown jr., **vanished on Thanksgiving Day **(28******^th of November) from Neal's Corner Road in Clover, Virginia. Very little is known about his disappearance. Investigators maintain that the two disappearances are not related.

In 2016 Hattie’s family legally declared her dead even though they are still searching for answers on what happened to her.

Also in 2016 Derek was arrested for an unrelated assault and burglary case.

Even now, after 17 and 13 years respectively, the family is still hopeful to find answers in Hattie and James ‘s cases.

I got my info from:

·       https://charleyproject.org/case/hattie-gertrude-brown

·       https://charleyproject.org/case/james-oliver-brown-jr

·       https://www.wdbj7.com/content/news/10-years-after-disappearance-family-of-missing-Halifax-County-woman-continues-search-for-answers-509829411.html

·       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhI2bH0Xb4c

·       https://wset.com/news/abc13-investigates/surveillance-video-shows-last-moments-hattie-brown-was-seen-alive

·       https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/6168d5/missing_and_forgotten_james_oliver_brown_jr/

·       Pictures of the burned car: https://www.sovanow.com/articles/burned_vehicle_identified_as_belonging_to_missing_halifax_woman/

·       Surveillance video of Hattie on the night she vanished: https://wset.com/news/abc13-investigates/surveillance-video-shows-last-moments-hattie-brown-was-seen-alive

I have to thank the Black girl gone podcast for finding so much about Hattie’s life story.

Maps location of the Sheetz gas station: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Main+St+%26+US-501,+Riverdale,+VA+24592,+USA/@36.6865766,-78.8997433,3a,48.9y,289.52h,87.56t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sM6XmspslJ-w7myGYwamnNA!2e0!5s20090301T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D2.4428865984982338%26panoid%3DM6XmspslJ-w7myGYwamnNA%26yaw%3D289.5168167662095!7i3328!8i1664!4m6!3m5!1s0x89ad6476a4f4b893:0x6082b561eb9e28f8!8m2!3d36.6874823!4d-78.9000068!16s%2Fg%2F11gdxk1qcx?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDcwOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

1980s was a time of political and social unrest for Poland and for most of the Central Europe. It was a time of strife and change heralding an era of an even bigger strife and change. The world of closed borders, controlled elections and constant state surveillance, the only world many Poles ever knew, would soon cease to exist.

Beata was just 19. She recently graduated from high school, got admitted to a university to study her dream subject and had big plans for the future. In October 1988 she left her sister's house in Pruszcz Gdański and disappeared. Two weeks later her body was found in a drainage ditch close to Grunwaldzka Street. Despite the efforts of the investigators her killer was never found.

Beata Piskorz was born sometime in 1969. She lived with her mother Kazimiera on Obrońców Wybrzeża Street in Pruszcz Gdański. She dreamed of traveling, activity that was very limited in 1980s Poland. In Spring of 1988 she passed her matura exam, in October she started studying geography at the University of Gdańsk.

On Monday, 21 October, Beata and her mother visited Beata's older sister Alicja, who also lived in Pruszcz Gdański with her husband and children. They spent the afternoon together. Around 6 p.m. Beata said that she's going to visit her friends and left her sister's house. After visiting her friends she was supposed to return home on her own. That was the last time her family saw Beata alive.

Kazimiera returned home in the late evening hours. She was surprised to see that her daughter still hasn't returned. At first she wasn't very worried. But when Beata did not return for the night, Kazimiera got really anxious. She knew that Beata wouldn't stay out late without first informing her about her plans. Kazimiera decided to report her daughter's disappearance to Citizens' Militia (Communist era Polish equivalent of police). Despite the search effort Beata remained missing. Kazimiera had a very bad feeling about this almost from the beginning and suspected that something very bad happened to her daughter. The breakthrough in the case occured two weeks later.

On 3 November 1988, one of the local women noticed human feet sticking out of the drainage ditch close to Grunwaldzka Street. When she approached the ditch, she discovered the body of a young woman covered with some leaves and branches. Militia was notified and the deceased was quickly identified as the 19-year-old Beata Piskorz. The body was lying on its back. The medical examiner established that the cause of death was strangulation and that she was raped before her death. Investigators learned that Beata left her sister's house without any form of ID and with no money. However, the pendant and the ring she was wearing were left on her body, which made robbery an unlikely motive.

Investigators working on the case established that on the evening of 21 October the friends Beata intended to visit weren't home. They assumed that once she found that they weren't there, Beata decided to return home on foot. The militiamen decided to look for the people who might've seen her on her way home.

Militia decided to place an appeal for witnesses to come forward in the local newspapers. It proved effective. Number of people contacted Militia. Beata was last seen about one kilometer away from her home by Elżbieta B., who knew her personally. The last sighting occured in an underpass near the railway station. Few witnesses reported hearing a woman scream and call for help few hundred meters away, in the vicinity of Wita Stwosza Street, some time later. They decided to ignore the screams: the area was rough and frequented by drunks and bums. Such occurences were quite common. Beata died just 900 meters away from her home.

It was later established that on the day of the murder around 5 p.m., while Beata was still at her sister's house, a woman was passing near the scene of future crime. She was accosted by a strange man, got scared and managed to run away. While running she stopped another passerby and asked him for help. He also saw the suspicious stranger. Their descriptions helped create a composite sketch of the suspect. A second woman came forward claiming that she too was accosted by the same man near the spot where Beata was later attacked. The stranger supposedly asked this woman if she's not afraid of walking there alone.

Around the same time Militia received reports about the man who was accosting women in the vicinity of the railway station and could be connected to the case. Another witness from Wita Stwosza Street claimed that on the evening on the murder he heard the woman's screams and call for help, but before that he also heard her say: "Stop being silly, let go of me" to someone. Some speculated that this meant that if this voice belonged to Beata, it could have meant that she knew her killer. However, it was never proven that the voice heard near Wita Stwosza Street belonged to Beata.

Some time later, Citizens' Militia arrested a man named Stanisław who resembled the composite sketch of the suspect. Militia also learned he accosted random women before. Stanisław quickly confessed to Beata's murder. Despite the fact that killer's semen samples and hair were recovered from the scene of the crime, technical limitations made DNA testing impossible. Stanisław's statements to the Militia were inconsistent, none of his versions of the events fit the established facts. Not long after his arrest Militia learned that he was staying at a psychiatric hospital on the day of the murder. After that Stanisław was quickly released from custody. No one else was ever arrested in connection with the murder of Beata Piskorz.

Few years ago Archiwum X, cold case unit of Polish Police, started working on Beata's case. Their task is made more difficult by the fact that DNA samples collected at the scene of the crime did not survive to the present day. With no possibility of DNA testing and without the discovery of some new evidence only the traditional detective work remains. 38 years that have passed since Beata's murder brought her loved ones many questions and no answers. The statute of limitations in this case will expire in 2028.

Sources (in Polish):

https://www.se.pl/trojmiasto/slyszeli-krzyki-19-letniej-beaty-nikt-nie-zareagowal-studentka-zginela-900-metrow-od-domu-aa-7J1f-s8T6-sC1Z.html

https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/tajemnicze-sprawy-sprzed-lat-wciaz-nie-zostaly-rozwiazane/my9gcy7

https://gp24.pl/niewyjasnione-zbrodnie-sprzed-lat-ktore-wstrzasnely-pomorzem-zabojstwa-badane-przez-archiwum-x/gh/c1-13088707

Otterbein Jane Doe was a white woman in her sixties found murdered in a corn field near Otterbein, Indiana, on October 8th, 1976, by farmer Norman Skoog. She had been shot, wrapped in duct tape, and then stuffed fully clothed into a cardboard box, which investigators believed had been left there within the last half day, citing a rainstorm the night prior, which would have dampened the box. No local missing persons reports matched her description, though investigators believed she likely lived in the area, as the cardboard box she'd been found in was only distributed in the Midwest. She had two distinctive scars, one from a radical mastectomy and another down her abdomen, from her sternum to her navel.

Jane Doe's remains were exhumed in 2019 for genetic genealogy testing through the DNA Doe Project, which commenced in 2021 upon the creation of a usable genetic profile. Genealogists quickly hit a roadblock - the unknown woman had recent Croatian ancestry, and very distant DNA matches in public databases. After three years of research, the team finally made a breakthrough: a young Croatian woman who immigrated to Ohio in 1905, where she gave birth to a daughter later that year, Jane Hart. Unfortunately, extenuating circumstances led the baby to be given to St. Joseph's Orphanage for Girls, in Columbus, Ohio, where Jane lived until early adulthood, when she moved to an institution for adults with developmental disabilities, the Columbus State Hospital*. By 1950, Jane had moved to Chicago, where she worked as a family's live-in maid, and ultimately disappeared from the records in the early 1970s. Her murder remains unsolved.

---

https://www.jconline.com/story/news/2019/07/13/body-exhumed-reopening-76-cold-case-woman-found-box-benton-co-cornfield/1702057001/

https://dnadoeproject.org/case/benton-co-jane-doe-1976/

https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6224/records/17468121?tid=&pid=&queryId=8f2bb62c-6b3b-410e-b614-bc44d8443ff1&_phsrc=glf32653&_phstart=successSource

https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/36902717?tid=&pid=&queryId=2164ed57-feb1-4288-8085-c1cbc0d9871b&_phsrc=glf32655&_phstart=successSource

https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/62308/records/219233625?tid=&pid=&queryId=93fdc1af-d61b-4ea6-9f42-b5522ae35073&_phsrc=glf32657&_phstart=successSource

https://case.edu/ech/articles/s/st-josephs-orphanage-girls

*It went by a different name at the time, which I have chosen not to use.

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

6 year old Chance Smith was dropped off at his grandfathers (Randall Lane) house on Scout Road in Locust, NC on Saturday December 13, 2003. His mother reported that he initially did not want to stay but ended up doing so.

Smith was seen walking into the woods with a dog and friends around 2:30 p.m. His grandfather noticed him missing and called in a missing persons report with the police at 3:44pm.

After an extensive search with over 150 volunteers, Smith was found in a horse pasture face down at around 11:30pm lying on his jacket in an area that had previously been searched. The Locust Police Chief thought Smith was placed there during a pause in the search. He was taken to the local hospital (Stanly Memorial, which was about 20 to 30 minutes away).

After being treated for hypothermia, a head wound was found. Attempts to revive Smith were unsuccessful.

The autopsy revealed that the Smith died from a traumatic brain injury and that the “most likely cause of the injuries is an object with a blunt surface and a curved surface.”

Things to note:

The clothing he was found in was not the same clothing he was wearing upon arrival to the grandfathers house. The clothing he was found in did not have any blood on it. There was no blood at the scene. No potential weapons or objects have been reported found.

Upon being interview by police at later time, the grandfather mentioned that he knew who did it:

Chief Haigler recalls the conversation:

“I didn’t ask him anything specific, other than I said, ‘When you go to bed at night, you lay down and go to sleep and close your eyes, do you ever see Chance?’ [Lane] got real quiet and put his head down. He said, ‘sometimes he speaks to me.’ I said ‘So you know what happened? Who did it?’ He said, ‘Yes, I do, and I started to take care of it myself a couple of times.’ Then he got real quiet, started looking out the window, crying, sobbing,” Haigler said. “He never discussed it again after that.”

Link to a recent article that contains the autopsy report:

News Article and Autopsy Report

Link to NC SBI site:

SBI Information)

Theory:

I think it was one of his friends that either threw a rock too hard or maybe hit him with a farrier hammer. I think they panicked when they realized he was injured and sought assistance from an adult, who then cleaned things up. I think the adult is who the grandfather was talking about when he said "I started to take care of it myself a couple of times.", but never acted due to it possibly revealing which "friend" was the one that hit him.

In October 2002, 26-year-old Smithsonian intern Irina Hans was shot in the head while walking home from the Metro. Her purse and jewelry were left beside her, no one reported hearing the shot, and her murder remains unsolved.

I came across this case in a fairly roundabout way. I was listening to a Dateline episode about the murder of Ella Jackson, whose ex-husband and close friend, Jason Hans, was featured prominently. Jason had already lost his first wife, Irina Hans, to an unsolved murder in 2002.

There does not appear to be a large amount of coverage available about Irina’s case, but the circumstances immediately caught my attention.

Who was Irina Hans?

Irina Hans was born in Odesa, Ukraine, and had lived in the United States for approximately a decade by the time of her death.

She studied art history at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where she earned both her undergraduate degree and a master’s degree. She was working toward a doctorate and hoped to become a museum curator.
She and Jason met during their first semester at the university and had been married for approximately five years.

In September 2002, Irina temporarily moved to the Washington, D.C., area after receiving an eight-month advanced-level internship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The internship was formally identified as the 2002–03 Harry and Beverly Mandil Internship.
Jason remained at the couple’s home in Columbia, Missouri, while Irina rented a room in a house on Appleleaf Way in Suitland, Maryland.

Although Irina was excited about the Smithsonian opportunity, she reportedly did not feel safe in the Suitland neighbourhood. On the day she died, she had decided to look for a new apartment in the Adams Morgan area of Northwest Washington.

The night of October 12, 2002

On Saturday, October 12, 2002, Irina attended a concert in Washington, D.C. Some later coverage identifies it as a National Symphony Orchestra performance.
After the concert, she travelled by Metro to the Branch Avenue station in Suitland. From there, she had approximately a one-mile walk to the house where she was staying.

Irina apparently called her roommate hoping to arrange a ride from the station, but the roommate did not answer. Rather than take a taxi, Irina began walking home.
This was an especially tense time in the Washington area. The D.C. sniper attacks were underway, and residents had been warned to remain cautious in public places. Eight people had already been killed in the attacks by the night Irina was murdered.

Shortly after 11 p.m., Irina’s body was discovered along a largely deserted section of the 4200 block of Old Branch Avenue, close to St. Barnabas Road and only a few miles from the Washington, D.C., border.

She had been killed by a single gunshot to the head.
Nearly 100 local and federal officers reportedly descended on the area, initially fearing that the sniper had struck again. Roads and highway ramps were closed while authorities examined the scene.

Investigators soon concluded that Irina’s murder was not connected to the sniper attacks. The shot had been fired at close range, the bullet was not the same calibre associated with the sniper, and the location and circumstances did not resemble the other shootings.

Was robbery the motive?

Initial reports stated that police could not determine a motive. Irina’s purse and jewelry were reportedly found beside her body, which would seem to weigh against a completed robbery.

However, several months later, the lead investigator said that police believed Irina was probably killed during an attempted robbery.

The available articles do not explain what evidence led investigators toward that theory or whether Irina may have resisted an attempted theft before being shot.
The fact that her valuables were left behind could mean that the offender panicked after firing the gun. It could also mean that robbery was never the true motive.

There were apparently no known witnesses. Despite the gunshot occurring in a residential area, police said no one called 911 to report it. Contemporary reporting suggested that gunfire was unfortunately common enough in the neighbourhood that residents may not have reacted to a single shot.

It is unclear from the public reporting who ultimately discovered Irina, precisely how much time passed between the shooting and the discovery of her body, or whether any useful forensic evidence was recovered.

The investigation

Police had no publicly identified suspects and very few leads. Within weeks, Irina’s murder had joined dozens of other unsolved homicides in Prince George’s County.
Jason was at the couple’s home in Missouri when Irina was killed, and nothing in the available reporting suggests that police considered him a suspect. He repeatedly appealed for anyone who had seen or heard something that night to contact investigators.

Several months after the murder, he distributed a newsletter to friends and family in which he wrote about Irina’s choice to walk home. He explained that although he wished she had taken a taxi, her decision reflected the independence, confidence and frugality that he loved about her.
More than two decades later, no one appears to have been arrested or charged with Irina’s murder.

The later connection to Ella Jackson

Irina’s widower, Jason, later married Ella Diebolt, also known as Ella Jackson. They had a son together before divorcing, but remained close friends and co-parents.
Ella subsequently married Glenn Jackson. She disappeared in Kentucky in October 2019 and was later determined to have been murdered by Glenn.

Jason helped search for her, advocated publicly for justice and eventually cared for Ella and Glenn’s young son.
It was while listening to Dateline’s coverage of Ella’s murder that I learned Jason had already endured the unsolved killing of his first wife.

The two cases are not believed to be related, but it is an almost unimaginable amount of violent loss surrounding one family.

The Washington Post — “Woman, 26, Slain in Pr. George’s” — the initial October 2002 report on Irina’s murder and the determination that it was unrelated to the D.C. sniper attacks

The Washington Post — “With No Answers, No Solace”

Thirty-eight-year-old Shelton was last seen on June 19, 2001 at the Embassy Suites hotel in Columbia, South Carolina where he was planning a bachelor party for a friend. He called his family on his cell phone to say that he was on his way home.

Shelton was driving his brother's white 1988 Oldsmobile Regency at the time; however, he never made it home. In April of 2003, the car was discovered in a parking space at Greenbrier Apartments located near the Columbia Place Mall. The police said that the car had been in the parking space for at least two months and probably as long as the time when Shelton went missing; however, there was no evidence recovered from the car.

In October of 2005, a man named Mark Anthony Richardson (who was a former college roommate of Shelton's) was arrested and charged with Shelton's death.

Police suspect that Shelton was at Richardson's house the night he went missing and was shot to death by Richardson. Richardson was tried for murdering Shelton in April of 2008; however, the trial ended in a mistrial due to lack of evidence.

At the time of Shelton's disappearance, he attended the University of South Carolina where he majored in administrative information management and worked as a computer systems manager at the Department of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science at the university's medical school. He lived with parents in Renton, South Carolina and commuted to Columbia, South Carolina for work & school.

As of 2026, Shelton's case remains unsolved, but foul play is suspected.

Links
https://charleyproject.org/case/shelton-john-sanders

https://projectcoldcase.org/2025/08/25/shelton-sanders/

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/shelton-sanders-missing-student-sister-b2567945.html

https://www.rcsd.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Sanders-Shelton-J-cold-case-missing-3.pdf

https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP10231

https://www.wistv.com/2024/10/30/last-seen-shelton-sanders/

https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article252626138.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5325808

Fourteen-year-old Kevin was last seen on March 30, 1997 in Goose Creek, South Carolina. His family was in the U.S. Navy and their home is located in the Charleston Naval Weapons Station.

On the evening of March 30th, Kevin was playing video games with his younger sister. When his mom came home, they talked for awhile. Afterwards, Kevin's mom and sister went to bed while Kevin stayed up to play more video games. When his family woke up, Kevin was missing.

Two days after his disappearance, Kevin's clothes were discovered at a nearby construction site separated about 5 or 10 feet along the road. Witnesses reported seeing a person matching Kevin's description walking by himself along a dirt road wearing nothing but boxer shorts and sneakers.

Kevin's mom says it's uncharacteristic of Kevin to leave home without warning. She believes that he snuck out of the house to meet his friends on the night he went missing, but all of Kevin's friends deny seeing him that night.

In 2006, authorities announced they were investigating Kevin's case as a homicide due to new forensic evidence and tips from the public. In October of that same year, the Goose Creek area was searched for his remains, but there was no sign of them.

In December of 2006, a man named Thomas McCardle was publicly named a suspect in Kevin's presumed murder. Another man named Michael Moorcroft bragged about how he and McCardle murdered Kevin; however, he claims that that he made up the story.

As of 2026, Kevin's case remains unsolved. His family moved out of South Carolina in 1998 and currently live in Georgia.

Links
https://charleyproject.org/case/kevin-lamont-mcclam

https://www.missingkids.org/poster/ncmc/830882/1

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1830dmsc.html

https://www.wistv.com/story/4345981/investigators-change-missing-child-case-to-murder-investigation/

https://www.forthelost.org/kmcclam.html

https://www.wistv.com/story/5779173/investigators-name-suspect-in-goose-creek-childs-disappearance/

https://www.wistv.com/story/3364104/missing-kids-mysteries-kevin-mcclam/

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of Peter Falconio. We at ABC News have put together this article which does a visual deep dive into what we know about the situation, including recent updates from earlier this year.

For those unfamiliar with the case and prefer to remain on Reddit, here is an old r/UnresolvedMysteries thread about it.

In 2005, Bradley John Murdoch was convicted and sentenced to life in jail over the murder of Mr Falconio, a 28-year-old British backpacker, and the assault and attempted kidnapping of his girlfriend, Joanne Lees, near the remote Northern Territory town of Barrow Creek on July 14, 2001.

Last year, 67-year-old Murdoch died from stage-four cancer in palliative care at Alice Springs Hospital, 22 years into his sentence.

He never revealed the location of Mr Falconio's body, despite repeated pleas from Mr Falconio's family and police over the years, and the introduction of "no body, no parole" laws in the NT in 2016.

A one-day coronial inquest into the death of infamous outback murderer Bradley Murdoch revealed that on June 25 — three weeks before Murdoch died — two police officers visited the 66-year-old in the Alice Springs Correctional Centre.

"The officers had hoped to play a video of Mr Falconio's parents, recorded with the help of Manchester police in the United Kingdom, for Mr Murdoch's viewing only," Ms McConnel said.

"When officers attended at the prison, Mr Murdoch stated his innocence and refused to watch the video."

In July this year, Northern Territory Police released never-before-seen footage of the officers questioning Bradley John Murdoch from that visit.

Today, Speaking exclusively to the ABC on the case's 25th anniversary, search and rescue specialist Jim Whitehead has revealed his research-backed theory: Mr Falconio's remains could be 70 kilometres from the scene of the crime.

"I'm thinking probably east of the Stuart Highway, east of somewhere between Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek," Dr Whitehead said.

"Immediately [what] comes to mind [are] the mounds of dirt and gravel that councils leave on the side of the roads when they trim the roads and do the table drains.

"I feel like that would be an ideal place to put a body."

During his almost 40-year career as a Queensland Police officer, Dr Whitehead helped to find some 570 people. He worked on some of the country's most high-profile cases, including those of Daniel Morcombe and Allison Baden-Clay.

Most recently, he was called in to assist in the search for five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby, who was allegedly abducted and murdered in Alice Springs.

On the same day the video of Mr Murdoch was filmed last year, police increased the reward for information that could lead authorities to Mr Falconio's body to $500,000. But NT Police Acting Commander Mark Grieve says so far the renewed appeal has resulted in “very few” tip-offs.

“I’ll be honest, 95 per cent of that information that comes through is assessed and is certainly not viable,” he says, noting it is “extremely disappointing” police have been unable to return Mr Falconio’s remains to his family.

“Unfortunately, at this point in time, the only person who knows, or definitely knows, where he’s buried is now no longer with us,” he says.

“It’s a sad, sad fact when you think that you may not be able to bring that sort of closure to a family.”

Stefanie Damron was a 13 year old girl living in rural New Sweden, Maine, when she went missing from her family’s backwoods compound. Since then there have been no credible sightings or clues to her whereabouts, despite the involvement of local and state law enforcement, and the FBI.

On the day of September 23, 2024, Stefanie reportedly had an argument with her sister while her parents were away from the homestead, and walked off into the woods never to be seen again. This argument was reported by the 80 year old non relative male that the two girls shared a yurt with on the family property, and referred to as “grandfather”.

According to her parents, Lisa and Christopher (Dale) Damron, who lived in another area on the property in a trailer, they were away that day looking for jobs. They were not unduly worried as, according to them, she had taken off into the woods “to cool off” twice before, and “knew the woods like the back of her hand”. They reported her missing the next day when she did not return.

Stefanie did not have a cellphone and had limited access to the internet. The family live an off the grid lifestyle that included the home schooling of Stefanie and her five siblings. They have no running water and a generator for electricity.

The parents had a previous run in with CPS in Texas when they were arrested for marijuana possession and leaving the kids in the car while they were visibly intoxicated in McDonald’s. At that time they lost custody of their children for 6 months.

The FBI has posted a reward of $15,000 for information leading to Stefanie’s safe return or the arrest and prosecution of anyone involved in her disappearance. Damron is described as a white female with green eyes and shoulder-length brown hair. She is about 5 feet tall and weighs 130 pounds. She was wearing blue jeans, a long-sleeved blue shirt and black Harley Davidson hiking boots at the time she went missing

What happened to Stefanie Damron?

Here are some sources:

Disappearance of Stefanie Damron - Wikipedia
FBI Website
Stefanie Damron - 500 Days Since Her Disappearance
Parents of Missing Maine Teen Speak Out
One year since Stefanie Damron's disappearance, family and advocates add clarity to her case

On July 17, 1966 (a Sunday), Vernon Shipman (43 years old), owner of the Tempo Music store on Main Street, and Charles Glass (36 years old), manager of the same store, disappeared. Five days later, on Friday, two workers who were dumping trash found their bodies, along with that of a woman, Louise Davis Shumate (62 years old, from Asheville), in an isolated clearing near the Lake Summit dam, south of the city. The three were brutally beaten and stabbed, and the bodies were arranged in a semicircle. There were signs of mutilation (including a car jack used in a horrific manner on Shumate).

The Victims:

Vernon Shipman, 43: Owner of Tempo Music Shop on Main Street in Hendersonville. He also worked for the N.C. Employment Security Commission. Described as a soft-spoken, neat, meticulous gentleman who enjoyed cooking and music. He was homosexual (kept secret in the conservative 1960s South) and had a close partnership with Charles Glass. He was highly dependable and never missed work.

Charles Glass, 36: Manager of Tempo Music Shop. More flamboyant, a music lover, connoisseur of Oriental culture, and self-proclaimed expert in voodoo. He had a broken leg and used crutches at the time. Also homosexual. Had a more sullen or volatile personality.

Louise Davis Shumate, 61–62: Resident of Asheville, employed at Taylor Instrument Co. in Arden. She appeared to lead a somewhat mysterious or double life; not well-known in Hendersonville. Her family described her as quiet, but investigations uncovered unknown aspects of her life.

Shipman and Glass were business partners who had previously opened a short-lived café together. Shumate had no obvious prior connection to the men.

Discovery of the Bodies (July 22, 1966):

Two workers, Charles Hill and Larry Shipman (no relation to Vernon), discovered the bodies while dumping brush and limbs in a grassy clearing used as an informal trash site off North Lake Summit Road, near the Lake Summit dam. At first, they thought the bodies might be mannequins.

The bodies were arranged in a crude semicircle, all lying on their backs:

Vernon Shipman: Fully clothed. A long piece of scrap iron (~18 inches) rested across his neck. Fatal blunt force trauma to the right temporal area of the head.

Charles Glass: Fully clothed. His crutches were laid across his body in the shape of a cross. Multiple puncture wounds (21 total, mostly on the left side of the neck and scattered on the chest).

Louise Shumate: Partially disrobed, with clear signs of sexual assault. Multiple puncture wounds (around 17, on the breasts, abdomen, and sternum). Fatal blunt force trauma to the left temporal area of the head. A whiskey bottle was tilted against her neck.

Primary cause of death for all three: Fractured skulls from heavy blows to the head. There were also numerous puncture/stab wounds. No rape kits, semen analysis, or DNA testing existed in 1966.

Items found nearby: Shipman’s and Glass’s wallets (money missing), Shumate’s change purse, and her prescription sunglasses.

Timeline and Last Sightings:

Sunday, July 17, 1966: The three were last seen alive together in Shipman’s 1962 blue Ford Fairlane (white roof). A mysterious fourth person (a man estimated 40–50 years old, wearing an outdated blue pinstripe suit) was in the back seat next to Shumate. Witnesses saw the car in areas like Evans Road, Little River Road, and Kanuga Road. Shipman was in a good mood; Glass seemed slighted because he had not been invited to a business dinner that Vernon was attending.

Shumate reportedly left her apartment in Asheville around 4:30 p.m.

Shipman’s car was found abandoned on Wednesday, July 20, on an unpaved road parallel to the railroad tracks between Seventh Avenue East and Ray Avenue.

The bodies had been exposed for approximately five days. By the weekend, curiosity seekers flooded the area.

Crime Scene Theories and Investigation Challenges:

One persistent theory places the murders at the Cheves Cottages (also known as a site for parties, alcohol, and discreet encounters) on the Greenville Highway in Flat Rock. Multiple people claimed over the years to have transported the bodies from there to the dump site (e.g., Donnie Case gave a confession with immunity but said he did not arrange them). Reports of blood at the cottages existed, but SBI lab tests on samples from walls and floors found no human blood or tissue.

Other investigators believed the killings occurred at the body discovery site. The initial investigation under Sheriff Paul Z. Hill was hampered by a contaminated crime scene (hundreds of people, including officers, trampled the area), lack of modern forensics, inter-agency rivalries, and political pressures—the case became a major issue in the 1966 sheriff’s election (Hill lost to James Kilpatrick).

Kilpatrick’s team (including chief detective Neal Grissom) conducted extensive follow-ups, interviewing dozens and exploring leads. The case was reopened multiple times in later decades, with FBI profiling and renewed interest in the 2000s, but no one was ever convicted.

Suspects and Theories:

Motives speculated: Revenge or dispute tied to the victims’ sexual orientation, drugs, business/financial conflicts, a random encounter involving Shumate and the fourth man, voodoo-related (due to Glass), or even fleeting connections like parties at the cottages.

Notable persons of interest over the years included a chiropractor (childhood friend of Shipman with a heated financial argument involving Glass), various locals linked to the cottages, and Edward Thompson Jr. (a fugitive who went on a violent crime spree in 1968 with similarities; he had newspaper clippings of the murders and reportedly told victims he had “already killed three people”). Thompson died in prison in 1989.

Several false or unproven confessions emerged, including from inmates in Florida.

Evidence degradation and lost items over decades (except, notably, Glass’s crutches) have hindered modern resolution. The case remains officially unsolved more than 58 years later, still discussed locally as one of Henderson County’s most shocking crimes.

https://828newsnow.com/news/228822-murder-in-the-mountains-notorious-killers-linked-to-asheville-area/

https://eu.blueridgenow.com/story/news/2007/06/25/small-town-big-crime/28068305007/

The Toruń Murders

The first murder was commited on 14 February 1984. Ewa P. worked as a train dispatcher for the Polish State Railways in Toruń. She was returning from her shift that ended on 10 p.m. or according to other sources she was leaving for her next shift. Regardless of that, the crime occured not far from the worker's hostel on Włocławska Street where she lived, on the way to a bus stop where she would get on a bus to go to work and get off the bus when returning to the hostel. Ewa P. was hit on the head with a hammer and dragged into nearby bushes. She died almost instantly.

The next murder was commited ten months after the first, in December 1984. It was late. Teresa L. was returning from her work at the "Praktyczna Pani" Center in Toruń to her house on Polna Street. She got of the bus at the intersection of Grudziądzka Street and Polna Street. She was attacked from behind, strangled until she lost her consciousness and then dragged into a nearby ditch. There she was raped and her body was mutilated. The killer stole her sheepskin coat.

The last murder was commited almost a year later in so-called Dolina Marzeń (Valley of Dreams) near Rapacki Square in Toruń. On 7 November 1985, between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Anna J. was returning from a night out at the now non-existent "Wodnik" Nightclub. Around halfway to the bus stop she was overpowered, rendered unconscious and raped. The killer later threw her body into a nearby pond. He also took her leather coat.

The investigations conducted in the respective cases failed to identify the killers. New leads emerged only in the early 1990s when Leszek Pękalski, a man from Borzytuchom accused of murder and rape. Pękalski claimed that during the year he spent in Toruń he murdered three women in the city.

Who is Leszek Pękalski?

Leszek Pękalski was born on 12 February 1966 in Borzytuchom Commune, in Northern Poland. He has a twin sister, Joanna. Leszek came from a difficult family. His mother, Cecylia, was unmarried, uneducated and alcoholic farm worker at a local State Agricultural Farm, who had an affair with a married man. The pregnancy was a result of this affair.

Leszek was unwanted and frequently abused by his mother and grandmother. He spent most of his childhood in various orphanages. He was considered intellectually disabled, frail and unattractive. He had a poor personal hygiene. Most people were repulsed by him, some pitied him. Leszek travelled a lot across the country. He would leave sometimes for a few days and sometimes for months. Before he was arrested Pękalski lived with his alcoholic uncle in Osieki near Bytów.

One other thing that didn't help Leszek win people over was his unhealthy interest in sex and food. He openly spoke about wanting to be with a woman. When his twin sister's husband showed him a photo of a sex doll in a newspaper once, Pękalski became obsessed with it. He started saving money from his small disability benefits and later gave it all to his brother-in-law, asking him to buy such doll for him. Brother-in-law took the money, but never bought it. Some wonder if such purchase would've potentially saved some lives.

In 1992 Pękalski was convicted of rape of the older neighbour from his village. Mrs. Bernadetta was returning home from her sister's house. It was still light outside. The assailant was wearing a beret and had most of his face hidden by a polo neck pulled up. But she recognized his voice and his distinctive way of walking. She asked what does he want and he replied that he's going to kill her. His hands were trembling. Mrs. Bernadetta reported the rape to the police after her friend's husband convinced her to do so. She was afraid that no one would believe her.

For the rape the court sentenced Leszek to two years of suspended prison time. Around that time his file caught an eye of prosecutor's office secretary. She connected his person with a murder of 17-year-old trainee shop clerk from nearby Darżkowo, Sylwia Rudnik. Sylwia worked at a shop in Kołczygłowy. She was murdered a week before the rape in the forest near the road to Bytów. Her naked and violated body was found by her parents on the next day, 27 June 1991.

Pękalski did not deny that he is Sylwia's killer. He explained that he had met her in the store where she worked. She took pity on him when he asked her for food. After closing the shop she went to the forest where Pękalski was with her friend and gave him some food. He told her his sad story. On the next day she returned to the clearing with more food. At one point Leszek asked her to become his wife. Sylwia either started laughing or got scared and tried to run away. Pękalski started strangling her and then beat her with a stick. He then assaulted her dead body. He later told the policemen that he would've spared her if she allowed him to have his way with her.

After confessing to the murder of Sylwia, Pękalski started confessing to more and more crimes. According to some he confessed to 90 murders. One of the murders he confessed to was the murder of 13-year-old Małgosia, whose beaten and naked body was found in the forest between Papowo, Wałcz and Człopa. The girl was also sexually assaulted. He spoke in detail about some cases, but was vague about others. Investigators verified his claims, but court later found many faults with the way investigation was conducted. Some murders he confessed to were commited at the same time and at the opposite ends of the country. But in some cases during visits to the scenes of the crime he spoke about the details only the killer would know. He described some of the murders in his prison diary.

Pękalski was ultimately charged with 17 murders, two rapes and February 1990 kidnapping of 6-month-old child in Białystok. The girl died of hypothermia. Among the 17 murders he was charged with was the 1985 murder of Anna J. However, in court Leszek Pękalski recanted all of his confessions. The court also criticized the investigation. The only murder he could be convicted of was the murder of Sylwia Rudnik. This shocked many, including the experts who took the part in trial, who believed that Pękalski was a serial killer. Nevertheless, in 1996 for the murder of Sylwia Leszek Pękalski was sentenced to 25 years in prison. At the time the death penalty was already abolished. He served his sentence in the therapeutic department of the prison.

Psychiatrists who evaluated Pękalski agreed that he's a dangerous pervert and necrophile with a high risk of reoffending, who should be removed from the society permanently. Since 2007 all his applications for a conditional early release were rejected. Leszek Pękalski was released from prison on 11 December 2017 and then transferred to a National Center for the Prevention of Dyssocial Behavior in Gostynin for evaluation. He remains there to this day. In many cases he was accused of, including the murders in Toruń, the statute of limitations has already expired.

Sources:

https://torun.naszemiasto.pl/kto-przed-laty-zabil-te-kobiety/ar/c1-3868150

https://plus.poranny.pl/wampir-z-bytowa-byl-oskarzony-o-porwanie-w-bialymstoku-6miesiecznej-marty-obnazenie-i-porzucenie/ar/11828447

https://www.se.pl/wiadomosci/polska/nie-wypuszczajcie-wampira-on-zabi-moja-coreczke-aa-XsSS-WbJD-sTam.html

https://archiwum.tvn24.pl/magazyn-tvn24/104/tvn24.pl/magazyn-tvn24/hurtownik-smierci-moze-wyjsc-na-wolnosc-trwa-wyscig-z-czasem%2C104%2C1948.html

https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/trojmiasto/leszek-pekalski-trafi-do-zakladu-w-gostyninie/n8dknve

This is a weekly thread for off topic discussion. Talk about anything that interests you; what's going on in your world?. If you have any suggestions or observations about the sub let us know in this thread.