True Crime Cases

In the early hours of 13 November 2022, four University of Idaho students — Madison Mogen (21), Kaylee Goncalves (21), Xana Kernodle (20), and Kernodle's boyfriend Ethan Chapin (20) — were stabbed to death in an off-campus rental house in Moscow, Idaho. Two roommates in the house at the time survived uninjured. The killings went unsolved for seven weeks and drew national attention as investigators withheld most details of the case.

On 13 August 2018, Chris Watts reported his pregnant wife Shanann Watts and their two young daughters, Bella (4) and Celeste (3), missing from their home in Frederick, Colorado. Watts gave a series of televised appeals for their safe return and appeared cooperative with investigators — appeals that were later shown to be a performance. Within days, inconsistencies in his account, and the discovery that he'd been having an affair with a coworker, led investigators to focus on him directly.

On 13 February 2017, best friends Abigail "Abby" Williams (13) and Liberty "Libby" German (14) were dropped off to hike the Monon High Bridge Trail near Delphi, Indiana. When they failed to meet Libby's father as planned that evening, a search began. Their bodies were found the next day about a mile from the trailhead. Before she died, Libby recorded a Snapchat video of a man on the bridge and captured audio of him saying "down the hill" — evidence police released publicly within days, hoping someone would recognise the voice or the man in the grainy image, who became known as "Bridge Guy."

Between June 2015 and June 2016, seventeen babies on the neonatal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital died or suffered sudden, unexplained collapses. Nurse Lucy Letby, who had worked on the unit since 2012, was present for a disproportionate number of the incidents — a pattern consultant paediatricians began raising informally with hospital management from October 2015, only for Letby to remain on the ward, by the consultants' own later account, for several more months before being moved to an administrative role in July 2016.

OneCoin was a cryptocurrency investment scheme founded in 2014 by Ruja Ignatova, who marketed herself as the "Cryptoqueen." The scheme raised approximately $4 billion from investors worldwide by selling a cryptocurrency that had no actual blockchain. It was one of the largest financial frauds in history.

Christopher Duntsch was a Dallas neurosurgeon who, between 2011 and 2013, performed spinal surgeries that left 31 of his 38 patients permanently injured or dead. Two patients died. His malpractice occurred across multiple Dallas-area hospitals, which passed him on rather than reporting him to regulatory authorities.

In December 2010, while searching for missing sex worker Shannan Gilbert, police discovered the remains of four women — Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello — dumped along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach, New York. They became known as the "Gilgo Four." The discovery led to a wider search that eventually turned up the remains of several more victims along the same stretch of coastline, spanning disappearances dating back to the early 1990s. The case went unsolved for well over a decade and became one of the most written-about unresolved serial killer investigations in the US.

On 3 May 2007, three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from a ground-floor apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while her parents Kate and Gerry McCann were dining with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant, checking on their three sleeping children at intervals through the evening. When Kate returned to check on the children around 10pm, Madeleine was gone. There was no sign of forced entry. The disappearance triggered one of the largest and most heavily reported missing-person investigations in modern history.

Maura Murray was a 21-year-old University of Massachusetts Amherst student who disappeared on 9 February 2004. Her car was found crashed on Route 112 near Haverhill, New Hampshire, after a snowstorm. When a local resident offered to call for help, Murray was present. Minutes later, she was gone.

Theranos was a Silicon Valley health technology company founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford University at 19. The company claimed to have developed revolutionary blood-testing technology that could perform hundreds of diagnostic tests from a single finger-prick of blood. At its peak, Theranos was valued at $9 billion and Holmes was celebrated as the world's youngest self-made female billionaire.

Asha Degree was 9 years old when she disappeared on 14 February 2000 — Valentine's Day — in Shelby, North Carolina. Multiple witnesses saw a young girl matching her description walking alone on Highway 18 between 2:30 and 4:15am during a rainstorm, moving away from her home. When a motorist slowed down, the girl ran into the woods.

In January 1999, 18-year-old Hae Min Lee disappeared from Woodlawn High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Her body was found six weeks later in Leakin Park. Her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested and convicted of first-degree murder in 2000. He maintained his innocence throughout his 23-year imprisonment.

Heaven's Gate was a UFO religious movement founded in the early 1970s by Marshall Applewhite (known as 'Do') and Bonnie Nettles (known as 'Ti'). The group believed that human bodies were containers for souls, that Earth was about to be 'recycled', and that salvation lay in leaving the planet aboard a spacecraft.

Kristin Smart was a 19-year-old freshman at California Polytechnic State University when she vanished in May 1996, following an off-campus party. She was last seen being walked home by fellow student Paul Flores. Smart's disappearance was reported the following day; her body has never been found.

JonBenét Ramsey was a 6-year-old child beauty queen found murdered in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colorado, on 26 December 1996. She had been reported missing by her parents that morning; her body was discovered hours later by her father, John Ramsey, during a police search of the house. She had been strangled and shown signs of head trauma.

In July 1996, four people were shot and killed at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi. Curtis Flowers, a Black man who had previously worked at the store, was charged with the murders. He was tried six times by the same prosecutor, District Attorney Doug Evans, over the next two decades — a constitutional record. Three trials ended in hung juries; three convictions were overturned on appeal by the Mississippi Supreme Court for prosecutorial misconduct.

Lynette Dawson was a 33-year-old mother of two who disappeared from her home in Bayview, Sydney, in January 1982. Her husband, former NRL player and PE teacher Chris Dawson, was the prime suspect from the outset. He claimed she had left voluntarily; police investigations in 1982 and 2003 concluded without charges.

Harold Shipman was a British general practitioner who murdered 215 of his patients between 1975 and 1998, making him the most prolific serial killer in British history by confirmed victim count, and one of the most prolific in world history. His victims were predominantly elderly women who died in their homes or at his surgery, killed by lethal doses of diamorphine (medical heroin).

The Golden State Killer committed at least 13 murders and 50 rapes across California between 1973 and 1986, operating under several names before being linked as a single offender in 2001. He was known as the East Area Rapist (for crimes in the Sacramento area), the Original Night Stalker (for murders in Southern California), and finally the Golden State Killer when investigators connected the cases.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) describes a crisis in Canada involving the disproportionate disappearance, murder, and ongoing violence experienced by Indigenous women and girls. Indigenous women in Canada are killed at more than six times the rate of non-Indigenous women. Hundreds of cases remain unsolved or uninvestigated.

The Zodiac Killer was an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He claimed responsibility for 37 murders in letters to newspapers; five confirmed victims have been attributed to him. His letters included cryptograms, some of which remain unsolved.