42 Netizens Share Their Most Interesting Local Unsolved Mysteries

My great great aunt was systematically sexually assaulted for years by a number of men in the village, the whole village knew and then she was found dead under suspicious circumstances and the police did no investigation.  


 That village is a black hole of toxic secrecy and people know what happened to her, they're just too cowardly to say.  


 Her name was Agnes Amalie Waade and she was a wonderful, kind human being who loved animals and who was extraordinarily kind to everyone. But especially children and animals.


Edit: Case from Norway.

Here in Stockholm, it’s probably the m****r of prime minister Olof Palme. It’s not only strange that someone could m****r the prime minister in the middle of the capital and not get caught, but both witnesses and police have said and behaved strangely throughout the investigation.

Check out The Unlikely Murderer on Netflix if you want more.

Rachel Mellon Skemp - Bolingbrook, IL

She was sick home that school day during winter with her stepdad and suddenly "disappeared" without a jacket, shoes or her purse during a wintery Chicago suburb evening. Her stepdad was covered in deep scratches on his chest, neck and arms and told the police it was from "fixing up an old car in the garage". What Rachel's stepfather stated was that he went to check up on her in the afternoon and she was sleeping in bed. He left the house to supposedly walk the dog but the dog ran off and he stated he chased after it and came home without the dog and without checking up on her.

Many people speculate that due to her crying a few days before to her friend about "having to take care of a problem" that her stepfather sexually abused her to the point of pregnancy, which further raised suspicion when she had a hidden kitchen knife in her bedroom as well as her personal diary about the sexual abuse and mistreatment her stepfather inflicted on the young teen. The only missing articles from the home were just her bedsheets and many people believe that he hid and ditched her body in the trunk of his car when police were called to investigate.

Her biological mother wasn't too keen on looking for her nor Rachel's stepfather and they both moved to different states together. Rachel's biological father however hasn't given up on hope for searching what remains of his daughter as he moved back to Illinois and has spent decades with what resources he has to uncover the truth.
The last I heard he was trying to hire a company to search the ground via sonic waves for anything.

Grew up in Adelaide, m****r capital of Australia. Can probably take your pick between:

- the Beaumont children, 3 sisters who were led away by a man at Glenelg Beach and disappeared with no trace after six decades
- Adelaide Oval kidnapping, potentially linked to the Beaumont children, another two young girls disappeared without a trace from a football game
- Family murders, the perpetrator of one of the crimes was put away but the dark mystery was how many h**h profile people in the city were potentially involved, doctors, politicians etc

And we also had the Somerton Park mystery cadaver but that got solved recently.

August 15, 2002, Michael and Mary Short of Oak Level, VA, were shot in the head while sleeping in separate rooms. (He slept apart from her due to his snoring.) When his employee found their bodies later that morning, it was also discovered their 9-year-old daughter, Jennifer, was missing. Six weeks later, Jennifer was found dead under a bridge--45 minutes away in North Carolina.

This case was heavily investigated with no cure, and continues to be revisited periodically without resolution. Theories (professional and amateur) have ranged from criminal enterprise to business dealings to stalkers/traffickers, to revenge to family abduction, but all have come up empty.

From Texas- The Ice Box Murders. On June 23, 1965, police were sent to the home of Fred and Edwina Rodgers. The door was locked, there was food on the table, but there was no sign of a struggle, or of the couple. Their heads and dismembered body parts were later found in the fridge. The couple had a 43 year old son that lived with them, he disappeared on the day of their murders and was legally declared dead 10 years later.

As an FYI, to those who are not from the area: an ice box is a term used for the refrigerator. It was mostly used by older generations, and is not commonly used now, but I grew up hearing this term.

Illinois has plenty but I can't believe the Lane Bryant murders haven't been solved yet (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_Bryant_shooting). Five women were k**led mid-morning at a clothing store in 2008. Another survived, and there's a sketch of the shooter but no suspects.

I’m from Wales - Trevaline Evans a 52-year-old lady disappeared from Llangollen in 1990 after leaving a sign on the door of her antique shop that said “back in two minutes.”.

Italy.

Emanuela Orlandi vanishing: the 15yo daughter of a Vatican employee disappeared while coming back from a music course in 1983. Since then there have been a lot of investigations and suspects but no real clues about what happened.
Potential leads regarded Pope John Paul's attempted assassination, dirty bishops, the notorious Roman "banda della Magliana" (a criminal g**g that robbed, k**led, kidnapped, dealt d***s and p**********n during the '70s and '80s), and white women s***e trade.

At a certain point, a possible suspect - who said a lot of lies but was alsso able to produce a flute that really seemed Emanuela's one - made a correlation with another girl, k**led in 1984, with no relationship whatsoever with Emanuela during life.
This time he was right and Kethy's grave was actually opened to find it robbed and the casket taken away.
Emanuela's family is still fighting for the truth, her brother firmly believes in some Vatican responsibilities, while the original investigator still believes in a "plain" sexual a*****t ended in m****r.

The image of Emanuela used in the missing posters is very familiar to any Italian and especially Roman grown up in the '80s, with her flute and her black hairband, and for a long time there was some hope that she could be still alive (there was a trace that lead to an English college in the '90s), but nowadays all is wanted is some justice for a 15 yo vanished in a hot summer afternoon.

Livia Beirnes. She used to babysit me when I was young. Someone tied her up in her basement and burned the house down and they never caught the culprit.

Not my hometown itself but just down the highway…the murders of Barry and Honey Sherman. Billionaire Toronto couple who were found hanging by belts from a railing that surrounded their indoor pool. There is video of a suspect near their home but you can’t see the face…and there’s no other leads despite a 35 million dollar reward.

Rex McElroy murdered on the street of Skidmore Missouri in the 1980s. He terrorized the town for years, with r*pe, arson, attempted murder. They finally had enough and one morning shot him dead in his brand new truck with his wife seated next to him. No one ever confessed and no one was convicted.

Austria, Wiener Neustadt: Pencil Murderer

1973 an 11 yo girl was brutally murdered on the way home from school with her own pencil.

Vancouver BC - Cindy James. A woman who reported ~90 instances of stalking, harassment, and attacks over a 7 year period from 1982-1989. She went missing in 1989 and was later found dead in the yard of an abandoned house hogtied in the fetal position with nylons around her neck. Cindy had several d***s in her system and a huge dose of morphine that was suspected to be intravenously administered (though no needle was found near her body).

I’m not even sure what popular opinion is on this case and I go back and forth between it being self inflicted and the result of a third party. Ultimately I think it was someone else, and that she likely knew who.

I'm from Argentina. There's many i'm interested in, Cecilia Giubileo, Claudia Ferro (i mean, we kinda know but there's no official statement), Sofia Herrera (i have so much hope she'll be found safe and well)

The one that really stuck with me tho is Maria Rosa Di Leo. Excuse me if i miss use some words.

Okay, this was years ago. Maria Rosa was a daycare teacher (or kinder, not sure what the word is for 3-5 year olds in English) who lived with her parents in Rosario, Santa Fe, was dating a man called Luis (who lived in Buenos Aires, another province) planning to marry

Maria had the daycare in their (parents and her) place. It was a humble daycare, nothing big or that had something different that you might really want your child to go there.

For months she kept receiving calls from a woman who wanted to make the inscription for her kid to go there althought, according to the calls, she lived on the other side of the city. Again, this is a humble place, not something you'd drive a long time daily for.
Anyway on one of those calls the woman apparently tells her she'll sign her kid there.
She actually goes not long after, (which they find weird, its not like she lived 5 blocks away) and Maria Rosa brings out the paperwork, she is about to write down the info when she gets shot, there's actually a pen trail on the paper.

She is found by her mom at the place, obviously police is called

Anyway there's no suspects. Some people nearby said they saw a brunette woman, some people saw a blonde woman, but they dont know who she is or if it was even her who shot Maria Rosa. More than that and the calls, they have nothing.

Months after a tv channel gets an anonymous message saying a woman, Miriam Buisart, was who shot Maria Rosa. They give this info to the police in charge who start investigating. Turns out Miriam lived in Colon, Buenos Aires, which is were Luis, Maria Rosa's boyfriend lived.

They investigated and she was brunette -not blonde like some people had said- had money and had dated Luis.
She got detained, at her place they found a blonde wig, she had missed work, her car was similar to one described to have been there the day of the m****r and she took it to the carwash althought the neighbours did not recognize that as the car, the hair found in the crime scene did not belong to her, her phone line was investigated and had no ties to the daycare.

On the day of the crime she says she had been with her boyfriend, claims to have casually dated Luis in the past but it was not serious and meant nothing, she had last seen him 5 or so months before the crime. The blonde wig, she said was for a costume from a party and had she done it, she would not have gotten such a cheap wig.

She did say that a few weeks before, her daughter picked up a call from Luis -or someone claiming to be him- telling her to tell Miriam to call to another phone number later, she didn't call but thinks it was probably an attempt to incriminate her.

Anyway she did went to jail for two years but then was absolved. Many things fit but there was no actual proof. Maria Rosa's parents weren't happy with the fact that she didn't contact them, apparently Luis stopped talking to them during the investigation (and he didn't say anything or help with the investigation in any way, which imo is suspicious) the case went cold and to this day there's no answer.

They found a severed hand in the dog park across the street from my old house. Never found out who it belonged to or where it came from. Not exactly the best safest town, there’s a good deal of d***s and crime, but the neighborhood was still outta place for that kinda thing, just a small cul de sac with old people and kids so it was pretty wild.

Omaha, NE: Jason Jolkowsi disappearance. In June 2001, the 19 year old man was walking 6 or 7 blocks from his home in a middle class, semi urban residential neighborhood to a nearby high school to meet a coworker for a ride to their job. He was last seen by his younger brother and a neighbor bringing trash cans back up from the curb up to his family's garage then walking west toward the high school. Sometime during the short 10 to 15 minute walk on a bright summer day around lunchtime, Jason vanished. Neighbors and people living in the area saw and heard nothing unusual, and no trace evidence (keys, wallet, discarded clothing, etc) has ever been found. I get it that kidnappings/disappearances can happen in the matter of seconds, but it's still so crazy that a young, 6'2" man could vanish while walking in the middle of a semi-busy neighborhood. This is a neighborhood not far from major thoroughfares in the city of Omaha (those familiar with Omaha know what I'm talking about: Fontenelle Blvd, Saddle Creek Road/Northwest Radial Highway, Maple Street, 52nd Street etc.) and even within the neighborhood there is regular foot and car traffic. This wasn't some isolated rural area out in the boonies at night with nobody else around.

It's quite baffling, also considering there were no other disappearances reported in the area before and since. It's literally like he was there 1 second and gone the next. Also frustrating because when Jason's parents called Omaha PD that afternoon, they were brushed off with the "Oh he probably ran away" trope and OPD didn't start a serious investigation until almost a week later.

Central Iowa, United States— Johnny Gosch was a paperboy who disappeared at the age of 12 one morning in 1982 while doing his paper route. Despite being the first missing child to have his picture printed on milk cartons, he still hasn’t been found. His mom claims that she met him in the 90s and got photos of him in the 2000s, but most people here don’t think that happened. It’s a sad case for a lot of people in my dad’s generation, that something like that could happen here and a boy could go missing without a trace. I hope he’s found, if nothing else but to give his parents peace.

Tacoma, Washington state, Tekah Lewis, toddler that disappeared from a bowling alley 20+ (?) years ago. She's never been found.

I'm in Germany and the case of Rebecca Reusch is so crazy.. Also Frauke Liebs.