Elizabeth Ann Smart was kidnapped at age fourteen on June 5, 2002, by Brian Mitchell from her home in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. She was held captive by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, and later, in San Diego County, California. Her captivity lasted approximately nine months before she was discovered in Sandy, Utah, approximately 18 miles (29 km) from her home.
Bellmawr is a borough in Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 11,707, an increase of 124 (+1.1%) from the 2010 census count of 11,583, which in turn reflected an increase of 321 (+2.9%) from the 11,262 counted in the 2000 census.
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviatrix and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.
Danielle van Dam was an American girl from the Sabre Springs neighborhood of San Diego, California, who disappeared from her bedroom during the night of February 1–2, 2002. Her body was found by searchers on February 27 in a remote area. Police suspected a neighbor, David Alan Westerfield, of the killing. He was arrested, tried, and convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder. Westerfield was sentenced to death and is currently incarcerated at High Desert State Prison.
Eloise Anne Worledge was an 8-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Beaumaris, Victoria, Australia, on 12 January 1976. No one has ever been arrested in her abduction, which is now considered a cold case.
The murder of Karmein Chan is an Australian child murder case in which a 13-year-old Chinese-Australian girl was abducted at knifepoint from her Templestowe, Victoria, home during the night of 13 April 1991. Karmein's body was discovered at Edgars Creek in the suburb of Thomastown on 9 April 1992; the prime suspect for her abduction and murder is an unidentified serial child rapist known as "Mr Cruel", who had abducted and sexually assaulted a minimum of three prepubescent and adolescent girls in circumstances markedly similar to Karmein in the years prior to her abduction.
Marcus Fiesel was an American 3-year-old child who was murdered in Clermont County, Ohio, in August 2006. Fiesel had recently been removed from his mother's care by child protective services, and placed into foster care with David and Liz Carroll in Union Township, where he died from hyperthermia after being restrained and neglected in a closet for a two-day period. On February 21, 2007, Liz Carroll was convicted of murdering him. On February 26, 2007, it was announced attorneys for David Carroll had reached a plea agreement.
The Springfield Three refers to an unsolved missing persons case that began on June 7, 1992, when friends Suzanne "Suzie" Streeter and Stacy McCall, and Streeter's mother, Sherrill Levitt, went missing from Levitt's home in Springfield, Missouri, United States. All of their personal belongings, including cars and purses, were left behind. There were no signs of a struggle except a broken porch light globe; there was also a message on the answering machine that police believe might have provided a clue about the disappearances, but it was inadvertently erased.
Madeleine Beth McCann is a British missing person, who at the age of 3, disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007. The Daily Telegraph described her disappearance as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history". Madeleine's whereabouts remain unknown, although German prosecutors believe she is dead.
On 19 February 2008, nine-year-old Shannon Louise Matthews was reported missing in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England. The search for her became a major missing person police operation which was compared to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Shannon was found alive and well on 14 March 2008 at a Batley Carr house belonging to 39-year-old Michael Donovan. Donovan was the uncle of Craig Meehan, the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl's mother, Karen Matthews.
Ann Gotlib was a Soviet Jewish immigrant who disappeared at the age of 12 from the premises of a Louisville, Kentucky mall. The case to find her abductor was covered heavily by the Louisville news media and stretched for the next twenty-five years until a person of interest was eventually identified.
Michaela Joy Garecht was nine years old when she was abducted in Hayward, California, in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue. Sketches of Garecht's abductor were distributed along with missing person flyers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area within 24 hours of her disappearance, but search efforts proved fruitless. Her case was featured in national media, including profiles on the documentary series Unsolved Mysteries.
The Gilgo Beach serial killings were a series of murders spanning from the early 1990s until 2011. Many of the victims' remains were found over a period of months in 2010 and 2011 during a police search of the area along Ocean Parkway, near the remote beach town of Gilgo in Suffolk County, New York. The search was prompted by the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert, who, like many of the known victims, worked as an escort and advertised on Craigslist. The perpetrator in the case is known as the Long Island Serial Killer, the Manorville Butcher, or the Craigslist Ripper.
The murder of Jaclyn Marie Dowaliby is an unsolved child murder which occurred in Midlothian, Illinois, on September 10, 1988, when a seven-year-old girl was abducted from her bedroom and murdered by an unknown individual or individuals. Her strangled body was discovered in a section of wasteland in Blue Island four days later.
Maria Elizabeth Ridulph was a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from Sycamore, Illinois, on December 3, 1957. Her remains were found almost five months later in a wooded area near Woodbine, Illinois, approximately 90 miles (140 km) from her home. Maria was last seen by her friend on her neighborhood corner of Center Cross Street and Archie Place with an unknown man in his early twenties who called himself "Johnny".
Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Jane Gordon were two Australian girls who went missing while attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval on 25 August 1973. Their disappearance, and presumed abduction and murder, became one of South Australia's most infamous crimes. The presumed murders are thought by South Australia Police and the media to be related to the disappearance of the Beaumont children in 1966. The case is sometimes referred to as the Adelaide Oval abductions.
LeeAnna Warner was a young American girl who disappeared from the city of Chisholm, Minnesota, on June 14, 2003, in a suspected abduction and murder. On the day of her disappearance, LeeAnna was last seen walking home from a friend's house between 5:00 and 5:15 p.m. She was last spotted walking on southwest Second or Third Street. At the time of her disappearance, LeeAnna was 5 years old.
The murder of Rachael Runyan is an unsolved child murder which occurred in Sunset, Utah, on August 26, 1982, when a three-year-old girl was abducted from a playground and murdered by an unknown individual. Her body was found three weeks later in a creek bed in nearby Morgan County.
Margaret Ellen (Maggie) Fox was a 14-year-old American girl who vanished under suspicious circumstances in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1974.
Marjorie West is a four year old American child who went missing from McKean County, Pennsylvania on May 8, 1938. Her disappearance was heavily covered by both local and national media, but her whereabouts have never been ascertained. In 2018, The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit organization established by the United States Congress, referred to Marjorie West's disappearance as "the great unsolved mystery of the missing". A local publisher claims to have solved the mystery, but their solution has never been independently confirmed.
