This list of unsolved murders includes notable cases where victims have been murdered under unknown circumstances.
Lizzie Andrew Borden was an American woman who was tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and, despite ostracism from other residents, Borden spent the remainder of her life in Fall River. She died of pneumonia at the age of 66, just days before the death of her older sister, Emma.
The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five known victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. The case has been described as "arguably the most famous unsolved murder case in American history," and has become both a fixture of popular culture and a focus for efforts by amateur detectives.
The Hammersmith nude murders is the name of a series of six murders in West London, England, in 1964 and 1965. The victims, all prostitutes, were found undressed in or near the River Thames, leading the press to nickname the killer Jack the Stripper. Two earlier murders, committed in West London in 1959 and 1963, have also been linked by some investigators to the same perpetrator.
The Cleveland Torso Murderer, also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, was an unidentified serial killer who was active in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, in the 1930s. The killings were characterized by the dismemberment of thirteen known victims and the disposal of their remains in the impoverished neighborhood of Kingsbury Run. Most victims came from an area east of Kingsbury Run called "The Roaring Third" or "Hobo Jungle", known for its bars, gambling dens, brothels, and vagrants. Despite an investigation of the murders, which at one time was led by famed lawman Eliot Ness, the murderer was never apprehended. In 2024, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office teamed up with the DNA Doe Project to exhume some of the victims and use investigative genetic genealogy to identify them.
The Legend of Lizzie Borden is a 1975 American historical mystery television film directed by Paul Wendkos and starring Elizabeth Montgomery—in an Emmy-nominated performance—as Lizzie Borden, an American woman who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother in 1892. It co-stars Katherine Helmond, Fritz Weaver, Fionnula Flanagan, and Hayden Rorke. It premiered on ABC on February 10, 1975. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture Made for Television in 1976.
The Oakland County Child Killer (OCCK) is the name given to the perpetrator(s) responsible for the serial killings of at least four children in Oakland County, Michigan, between 1976 and 1977. The victims were held captive before being killed, and the four deaths triggered a murder investigation, which at the time was the largest in U.S. history, with Detroit's two daily newspapers, as well as the area's numerous radio and television stations, covering the case. A presentation on WXYT radio, titled Winter's Fear: The Children, the Killer, the Search, won the Peabody Award in 1977.
Tommy Lynn Sells was an American serial killer, often referred to as "the Coast to Coast Killer" due to his claims of committing murders across the United States. Though convicted of only one murder, for which he received the death penalty and was eventually executed in 2014, he is believed to have committed at least 22 murders, with Sells himself claiming over 70 victims.
Christopher Bernard Wilder, also known as the Beauty Queen Killer and the Snapshot Killer, was an Australian-American serial killer who abducted at least twelve young women and girls, killing eight of them during a six-week, cross-country crime spree in the United States in early 1984. Wilder's series of murders began in Florida on February 26, 1984, and continued across the country through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada and California, with attempted abductions in Washington and New York. Wilder victimized attractive young women, most of whom he would entice by promising to take their pictures. After subduing them, he would torture and rape them before shooting, stabbing with a knife, or strangling them to death. Two or more of his victims were electrocuted using a makeshift electrical cord.
Robert Zarinsky was an American serial killer and Neo-Nazi who killed three teenage girls in Monmouth County, New Jersey between 1965 and 1969. Convicted of one of these murders, he was sentenced to life in prison. He was also a suspect in four other murders, including the 1958 murder of a police officer in Rahway, but he was later acquitted for that crime.
Blood Relations is a psychological murder mystery written by Sharon Pollock. The play is based on historical fact and speculation surrounding the life of Lizzie Borden and the murders of her father and stepmother, crimes with which Borden was arrested for, though acquitted from and found not guilty.
The Doodler is an unidentified serial killer believed responsible for between six and sixteen murders and three assaults of men in San Francisco, California, United States, between January 1974 and September 1975. The nickname was given due to the perpetrator's habit of sketching his victims prior to stabbing them to death. The perpetrator met his victims at gay nightclubs, bars and restaurants.
Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.
An axe murder is a murder in which the victim was struck and killed by an axe or hatchet.
Lizzie Halliday was an Irish-American serial killer responsible for the deaths of four people in upstate New York during the 1890s. In 1894, she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by the electric chair. Halliday's sentence was commuted and she spent the rest of her life in a mental institution. She killed a nurse while institutionalized and is speculated to have killed her first two husbands.
The Rahway murder of 1887 is the murder of an unidentified young woman whose body was found in Rahway, New Jersey on March 25, 1887. She is also known as the Unknown Woman or the Rahway Jane Doe.
Terry Peder Rasmussen was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was convicted of one murder, and linked to at least five more in a series of crimes that stretched across the contiguous United States between 1978 and 2002. Due to his use of many aliases, most notably "Bob Evans", Rasmussen is known as the Chameleon Killer.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who was convicted of eight murders and confessed to committing 93 murders between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program has confirmed his involvement in at least 60 murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in American history. Little provided sketches for twenty-six of his victims although not all have been linked to known murders.
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