Over the years, there have been countless murders, but some stick in our minds more than others. Some because of who the victims are, some because of who the perpetrators are and some because of the sheer brutality of the crime. But then there are the unsolved cases. These fascinate me; how did someone get away with these crimes? What was their motive? What triggered them? And will we ever know the truth?
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JonBenét Ramsey
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was born on 6th August 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Patricia Ramsey (known as Patsy) and John Bennett Ramsey (a successful businessman); the couple also had an older child, a son called Burke. JonBenét was part of the child beauty pageant scene, winning various titles, including Little Miss Colorado, National Tiny Miss Beauty and America’s Royale Miss.
Patsy told police she realised JonBenét was missing in the early hours of 26th December 1996 after discovering a ransom note in the house. This note had some issues; it was not typical of a standard ransom note. It was three pages long and written with a pen on paper that were both from the house. Usually, ransom notes are short, to the point and pre-written. Lines 3 & 4 of the letter said, ‘We respect your business [sic] but not the country that it serves’. It seems strange that they would target JonBenét because of an implied hatred of the United States. It said, ‘We have your daughter in our possession’ – most kidnappers would be straight to the point, just declaring ‘we have your daughter’. Further on, it said, ‘You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account’. This is an awfully specific amount of money (in fact, remarkably similar to the bonus John Ramsey had recently received), and it doesn’t ring true that a kidnapper would say ‘from your account’ – they don’t care where the money is coming from.
The note also instructed Patsy and John not to contact friends or the police, but Patsy called 911 at 5.52 a.m. (can’t say I blame her) and family & friends afterwards (maybe not the best idea before talking to the police, but you never know how you’ll react until you’re in that situation). Two police officers arrived at the house within 3 minutes of the call being made and started searching the house. Officer Rick French went to the basement and found a door secured by a wooden latch, but he didn’t open it; he was looking for an exit route the kidnapper could have used, so he dismissed this door. A forensic team was sent to the house, and John started making arrangements to pay the kidnapper. Sadly, only JonBenét’s room was cordoned off to prevent contamination of evidence. Soon after, friends and even the family’s minister arrived at the house, contaminating any other areas and destroying any possible evidence that may have been there.
At 1 p.m., Detective Arndt suggested that John Ramsey and family friend, Fleet White, search the house (I’m not sure why this was suggested or why the police hadn’t done it thoroughly themselves). They started in the basement and opened the door that had been looked over earlier. Behind the door, they found the lifeless body of JonBenét. Her torso was covered in a white blanket, her wrists and neck were bound in a nylon cord, and her mouth was covered in duct tape. John picked up his daughter’s body and carried her upstairs, sadly disrupting the crime scene even further.
The autopsy showed that JonBenét had been strangled with a garrotte made from nylon cord and the broken handle of a paintbrush, and there was a skull fracture (there has been discussion that this could have been caused by a torch that was near her body). The official cause of death was ‘asphyxia by strangulation associated with craniocerebral trauma’. Some accounts state there was no sexual assault, but others I have read said there was some evidence of vaginal trauma. It did appear that her genitals had been wiped roughly with a cloth.
The case has never been fully solved, but many people focused heavily on the family. The ransom note was suspicious, and all three immediate family members had their handwriting compared to the letter. John and Burke were cleared, but Patsy’s results couldn’t be conclusively cleared. However, the parents were never officially named as suspects in the murder. Other theorists believe that JonBenét was killed by her brother, Burke, and her parents were covering up for him. I have seen programmes where they have gone through the 911 call and claimed that Patsy thought she had hung up before saying, “Baby, what did you do? What did you do?” believing her to be addressing Burke, but this was never proved. You can hear the 911 call here.
In 2006, John Karr was arrested after claiming he drugged and sexually assaulted JonBenét before accidentally killing her. This was eventually dismissed as there were no drugs in her system, and his DNA didn’t match that found at the scene. The case is still unsolved and still draws many theories worldwide.
The Alphabet Murders
It was 16th November 1971 when 10-year-old Carmen Colón went missing in Rochester, New York, after leaving a pharmacy her grandmother had sent her to. It was 4:30 p.m. when she was seen entering a beige car, and she was reported missing at 7.50 p.m. Around 50 minutes after Carmen left the pharmacy, many motorists observed her running down a road, trying to escape a reversing beige car. Carmen was waving her arms, screaming for help and naked from the waist down. Later, one witness claimed she was grabbed and shoved back into the car. Now, this seriously irritates me. I read that 38 people admitted witnessing this, and not one reported it until three days later. I understand that there is the Bystander Effect - a social psychological theory where people are less likely to help if there are many people about, assuming someone else will do something (you can read more about this with the case of Kitty Genovese here). But this is a screaming, semi-naked child! If you see situations like this, do not hesitate to report it. Rather you’re mistaken, then someone else is dead. Unfortunately, two days later, Carmen’s partially naked body was discovered by two teenage boys. An autopsy revealed her body was covered in fingernail scratches, she had a fractured skull, and she had been raped before being strangled to death.
On 2nd April 1973, 11-year-old Wanda Walkowicz went missing in Rochester at around 5 p.m. She was reported missing at 8:00 p.m. by her mother. Witnesses later said they had seen Wanda talking to the driver of a beige car, and another said she had seen a man forcing a girl matching Wanda’s description into a vehicle. Police began an intense search, but unfortunately, they did not find Wanda alive. At 10.15 a.m. on 3rd April, a policeman found her fully clothed body; it looked like she had been thrown from a moving vehicle and rolled down the embankment. The autopsy showed that Wanda had fought back against her murderer. She had been sexually assaulted before being strangled to death and having her clothes put back on. Her clothing showed white cat fur, although Wanda’s family did not own a white cat. The police did not think there was a link between the murders despite the apparent similarities.
On 26th November 1973, 11-year-old Michelle Maenza was last seen by school friends walking home at 3.20 pm; she went to the shopping centre to pick up the purse her mother had left earlier. A witness told how they had seen Michelle crying in a beige vehicle that was travelling noticeably fast. At 5.30 pm, a motorist saw a man with a young girl by a beige car with a flat tyre; when he stopped to help, the man grabbed the girl and pushed her behind his back while hiding the licence plate. The motorist felt intimidated, so they drove off (but again, they didn’t find anything suspicious. FFS). At 10.30 am on 28th November, Michelle’s fully clothed body was found face down in a ditch. Her autopsy showed she had received blunt force trauma before being raped, strangled to death, and redressed. There were white cat hairs on her clothing.
After the three brutal murders, authorities released a composite drawing of the man in the beige vehicle who so many witnesses had seen. Over 800 potential suspects were interviewed, but the killer was never found. The murders became known as The Alphabet Murders or the Double Initial Murders. Each child’s first and last name's initial matched. Curiously, the places where their bodies were found also matched the letter. Carmen Colón was found in a village named Churchill. Wanda Walkowicz was located in a town called Webster. Michelle Maenza had been found in a town named Macedon.
This case had strong suspects, including Carmen’s uncle, Miguel Colón. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence but no physical evidence to link him to the murders. He committed suicide at the age of 44 in 1991 after shooting and wounding his brother and wife. Dennis Termini was a 25-year-old firefighter who was a known rapist of teenage girls and a beige vehicle owner. He was followed by police after abducting a potential victim and shot himself in the head to evade punishment. In 2007, his body was exhumed to see if his DNA matched that found on Wanda (there was no evidence available for Carmen and Michelle). It wasn’t a match. In 2011, Joseph Naso was arrested and found guilty of the California Alphabet Murders. He was suspected of these murders, especially as one of his victims was a 22-year-old called Carmen Colon, but his DNA was not a match. The murders remain unsolved.
The Zodiac Killer
On 20th December 1968, Betty Lou Jensen (16 years old) and David Arthur Faraday (17) were on their first date; they had borrowed David’s mother’s car and were parked up in a well-known ‘lovers’ lane’ called Lake Herman Road in Solana County, California. At 11 p.m., their bodies were found by Stella Borges. David had been shot in the head, Betty Lou was located 28 feet away, and she had been shot five times in the back as she ran for her life.
On 4th July 1969, Darlene Ferrin (22) and Michael Mageau (19) drove into Blue Rock Springs Park, just 4 miles away from Lake Herman Road. It was just before midnight. A car parked behind them, and a man left the vehicle, proceeding to shoot at the young couple. The gun was fired five times, with bullets passing through Michael and hitting Darlene. At 12:40 a.m., someone rang the Vallejo Police Department, reporting the attack and claiming they were responsible. The caller also confessed to the murders of Betty Lou and David. Darlene was pronounced dead at the hospital, but Michael survived despite having been shot in the face.
It was 27th September 1969 when Cecelia Shepard (22) and Bryan Hartnell (20) went to Lake Berryessa for a picnic. They were relaxing when they saw a man wearing a black, executioner-style hood walking towards them. He was holding a gun. He told the couple he was an escaped convict and would need their money and car. The hooded man then brought out pre-cut plastic clotheslines and instructed Cecelia to tie up Bryan before he tied up Cecelia himself. Both were then viciously stabbed, Bryan receiving six stab wounds and Cecelia 10 stab wounds. The hooded man left, but not before leaving a cross-circle symbol drawn on Bryan’s car door. At 7.40 pm, the Napa County Sheriff’s office received a call from a man saying he wanted to ‘report a murder – no a double murder’ and that he was guilty of the crime. A man and his son, who were fishing nearby, heard the screams of Cecelia and alerted the authorities. Cecelia was still conscious when the police arrived and told them what had happened. Tragically, she slipped into unconsciousness and never woke up, dying two days later. Bryan managed to survive.
On 11th October 1969, cab driver Paul Stine (29) was driving a passenger to his destination. Before they arrived, the passenger shot Paul dead. The killer took Paul’s wallet, car keys and part of his shirt that he had ripped away.
Other killings around the time were speculated to have been victims of The Zodiac. They were:
· Robert Domingas (18) and Linda Edwards (17) shot and killed on 4th June 1963.
· Cheri Jo Bates (18) stabbed to death on 30th October 1966.
· Donna Lass (25) last seen on 6th September 1970.
· Kathleen Jons (22) abducted with her infant daughter in a car on 22nd March 1970. She managed to escape.
Throughout the murders, the killer had been sending letters to newspapers. On 1st August 1969, The San Francisco Examiner, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Vallejo Times Herald received a handwritten note stating: ‘Dear Editor: I am the killer of the two teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman’. The letters contained details that only the killer would know. They also threatened more murders if the letters weren’t published on the front page of the newspapers. The fourth letter revealed the killer's desire to be called The Zodiac Killer. Each letter closed with the same symbol found on the car Cecelia and Bryan had been driving. Four ciphers (a disguised way of writing, secret codes, etc.) were also received that The Zodiac had said would reveal his identity. One of the ciphers was famously solved by teacher Donald Harden and his wife, Bettye. It said, ‘I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all’. Only 2 of the four ciphers have been cracked, with the second one not happening until 2020. All letters ceased in 1974.
There have been many suspects and conspiracies of the identity of The Zodiac throughout the years, including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and members of The Manson Family. There was a fun theory about the Zodiac Killer in American Horror Story: Cult. One of the more ridiculous ones is that Texas Senator Ted Cruz was the Zodiac despite not being born until two years after the first attack. Lawrence Kane, Ross Sullivan, Arthur Leigh Allen, and Richard Marshall were all considered suspects throughout the years. The case is still unsolved, and I don’t think we will ever know the truth until all the ciphers have been cracked.
The Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short was born on 29th July 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts. She lived with her mother and father until 1930, when her father’s car was found on the Charlestown Bridge; it was assumed that he had jumped into the Charles River and committed suicide. Elizabeth suffered respiratory problems as a child, such as asthma and bronchitis and underwent lung surgery at just 15 years old. The doctors then suggested that moving to warmer climates during the Winter months would help, so her mother would send her to stay with family friends in Miami, Florida. Soon after, she dropped out of school in her sophomore year (age 15-16).
In 1942, Elizabeth’s mother received a letter from her presumed dead husband. Rather than committing suicide as thought, he had relocated to California to start a new life. Elizabeth moved to live with her father, but they argued often, and she moved out in January 1943. She lived with various friends and, for a short time, with an Army Air Force sergeant accused of abusing her. On 23rd September 1943, Elizabeth was arrested for underage drinking at a bar; juvenile authorities instructed her to return to Boston, but she soon returned to Florida. While in Florida, Elizabeth met Major Matthew Michael Gordon JR, another Army Air Force officer. She told friends he had proposed to her in a letter while recovering in India after injuring himself in a plane crash. She accepted, but sadly, he died in another plane crash on 10th August 1945.
After her fiancé’s tragic death, Elizabeth moved to Los Angeles in July 1946. She rented a room behind the Florentine Gardens nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard; she aspired to be an actress while working as a waitress. On the 9th of January 1947, Elizabeth was meeting her sister, who was visiting from Boston and was dropped off at the Biltmore Hotel by Robert ‘Red’ Manley, a 25-year-old married man she was dating.
At 10 a.m. on 15th January 1947, Betty Bersinger was walking with her 3-year-old daughter in the Los Angeles Leimert Park neighbourhood. At first, Betty thought she had found a shop mannequin, but it was Elizabeth’s naked body that had been severed into two pieces. She ran to a nearby house to alert the police. Elizabeth’s body was mutilated, cut in half at the waist and drained of blood. There were wounds on her thighs and breasts, and the corners of her mouth had been cut to form a ‘Glasgow Smile’. Her intestines had been tucked beneath her buttocks, her hands were under her head, and her legs had been crudely spread apart. Her body had been washed before being placed there by the killer. The autopsy had been performed on the 16th of January 1947 by the Los Angeles County coroner, Frederick Newbarr. Elizabeth’s body had been cut in half via a hemicorporectomy technique (a radical surgery in which the waist is amputated, removing the legs, the genitalia, the urinary system, pelvic bones, anus, and rectum).
Once Elizabeth had been identified via fingerprints, reporters contacted her mother to say Elizabeth had won a beauty contest. Only after asking lots of questions and receiving lots of information about Elizabeth did the reporters inform her mother that her daughter had been murdered. I can’t describe how much I despise tabloid newspapers, and this is one of the many reasons why.
Many theories surround Elizabeth’s death, including a possible link between this murder and The Cleveland Torso Murders (an article for another day). Unfortunately, nobody has ever been caught for this horrific killing, and no one is sure what happened in those days between her disappearance and her body being found (there are reports that she was seen in The Cecil Hotel). Sadly, in death, Elizabeth Short has the fame she always craved in life.
Jack the Ripper
It was 3.40 am on Friday, 31st August 1888, when Mrs Emily Holland was walking along Buck’s Row (now Durward Street) in Whitechapel, London, when she discovered the body of Mary Ann Nichols. The body was horrifically mutilated, the throat severed, the abdomen ripped open, and her genitals stabbed.
At 6 a.m. on Saturday, 8th September, Annie Chapman’s body was discovered at the back of 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields (part of the Whitechapel area). Her body had been attacked similarly to Mary’s, but her small intestine had been placed above her right shoulder. Her post-mortem also showed that her uterus, part of her bladder, and genitals had been removed.
At 1 a.m., Sunday, 30th September, Elizabeth Stride was found in Dutfield’s Yard, just off Berner Street (now Henriques Street) in Whitechapel. She had a 6-inch slash across her throat, severing her carotid artery and trachea. One of the differences with Elizabeth’s body is the lack of mutilation; canonically, she is classed as a victim of Jack the Ripper, but she may have been murdered by someone else. Of course, the murderer may have been interrupted before ‘finishing’ the job and ran off.
The interruption theory would make sense as later that night, at 1.45 a.m., the body of Catherine Eddowes was found. Again, the throat was severed, her abdomen had been cut wide open, and the intestines again placed over her right shoulder. There were added mutilations this time, possibly to make up for the lack of those inflicted on Elizabeth. Catherine’s left kidney had been removed along with most of her uterus; this time, the face had also been attacked. Her nose had been cut off, there were slits on her eyelids, and her cheeks had been slashed with triangular incisions. Part of her ear was later found within her clothing.
At 10.45 am on Friday, 9th November, the butchered body of Mary Jane Kelly was found on her bed at 13 Miller’s Court, off Dorset Street in Spitalfields. Her throat was cut down to the spine. Her face was ‘hacked beyond all recognition’. The abdomen was nearly emptied of all its organs. Her uterus, kidneys and one breast had been placed by her head. Other organs were left by her foot and throughout the bed; part of her abdomen and thighs were left on a small table. Her heart had been cut out and could not be found.
These five victims are classed as the official canon victims, although there were more Whitechapel murders around the same time. Rose Mylett, Alice McKenzie, the Pinchin Street Torso, and Frances Coles could all have been considered victims of Jack the Ripper, but officially, the last one was Mary Jane Kelly.
Unfortunately, many of the City of London files relating to the Whitechapel murders were destroyed in The Second World War. We do know that more than 2,000 people were interviewed, over 300 were investigated, and 80 were detained in relation to them. Sir James Fraser, the Commissioner of the City Police, even offered a £500 reward for the arrest of Jack the Ripper.
There were, and still are, many theories about who Jack the Ripper was. Some are plausible, and others are not so much (to be polite!). Prince Albert Edward Victor, Queen Victoria’s grandson, was one famous suspect. It was also rumoured that he had secretly married and fathered a child; the Royal Family didn’t want a ‘commoner’ to be heir to the throne, so agents went out and killed anyone who knew about the couple (there is no proof of this, though). I also read a suggestion that Lewis Carroll (of Alice in Wonderland fame) was Jack the Ripper. Thomas Cutbush was considered and accused by the British press just after the murders. He spent time in asylums before being placed in Broadmoor Hospital after hinting at knife attacks against women. He died there in 1903 at the age of 37. Inspector Frederick Abberline was a detective at Scotland Yard and was a prominent figure in the Jack the Ripper investigation. He firmly believed it was Seweryn Klosowski, better known as George Chapman. Chapman was a Polish serial killer who had moved to England as an adult. Another popular theory is that H. H Holmes was Jack the Ripper. Holmes was in England at the time of the murders, although Holmes tended to kill for financial gain (of which there was none with the Whitechapel murders). However, his great-great-grandson believes he was Jack the Ripper.
There are many theories about Jack, and I’m sure they will continue: doctors, butchers, jealous women…the list goes on. I think that this is one case that will never truly be solved.
And those are just 5 of the many unsolved cases out there. I hope they can eventually be solved, and the victims and their families can gain peace. Thanks for reading, take care, and I will see you next time.
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