The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer, who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s. The case has been described as the most famous unsolved murder case in American history. It became a fixture of popular culture and inspired numerous amateur detectives to attempt to solve it.
James Renner is an American author, investigative journalist, producer, and director. He worked as a reporter for Cleveland Scene and was editor of the alternative newspaper The Cleveland Independent. He is known for his work in the thriller, science fiction, and true crime genres. In 2019, Renner founded The Porchlight Project, a nonprofit dedicated to offering support for the families of the missing and murdered.
Amy Renee Mihaljevic was a ten-year-old American elementary school student who was kidnapped and murdered in the U.S. state of Ohio in 1989. Her murder case received national attention. The story of her unsolved kidnapping and murder were presented by John Walsh on the television show America's Most Wanted during the program's early years. To date, her killer has not been found, yet the case remains active; new information in 2007 and 2013 has increased hopes of resolving the case. In February 2021, it was announced that a person of interest emerged in the case after a woman contacted authorities in 2019 with potentially valuable information.
Levi Bellfield is an English serial killer, sex offender, rapist, kidnapper, and burglar. He was found guilty on 25 February 2008, of the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, and sentenced to life imprisonment. On 23 June 2011, Bellfield was further found guilty of the murder of Milly Dowler. On both occasions, the judge imposed a whole life order, meaning that Bellfield will serve the sentence without the possibility of parole.
The murder of the Grimes sisters is an unsolved double murder that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 1956, in which two sisters named Barbara and Patricia Grimes—aged 15 and 12 respectively—disappeared while traveling from a Brighton Park movie theater to their home in McKinley Park. Their disappearance initiated one of the largest missing persons investigations in the history of Chicago. The girls' nude bodies were discovered alongside a deserted road in Willow Springs on January 22, 1957.
Christopher Bernard Wilder, also known as the Beauty Queen Killer and the Snapshot Killer, was an Australian-American serial killer who abducted and raped at least twelve young women and girls, torturing and killing at least 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 was killed during a struggle with police in New Hampshire on April 13, 1984. Since his death, he has also been considered a suspect in many unsolved murders, including the unsolved 1965 murder of two teenaged girls in his native Sydney.
The Alphabet murders are an unsolved series of child murders which occurred between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York.
Eve Stratford and Lynne Weedon were murdered in separate, sexually motivated attacks during 1975 in London, England. Stratford was a bunny girl and model. Weedon was a schoolgirl who was killed almost six months later, on the other side of London. After Weedon's cold case was re-opened in 2004, new DNA techniques revealed that she and Stratford had been murdered by the same person. Stratford's case was re-opened in 2007, but neither case has been solved. A £40,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the killer remains on offer.
Robert Joseph "Bobby Joe" Long was an American serial killer and rapist who was executed by the state of Florida for the murder of Michelle Denise Simms. Long abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered at least ten women in the Tampa Bay area in Florida during an eight-month period in 1984. He released 17-year-old Lisa McVey after 26 hours. McVey provided critical information to the police that enabled them to arrest Long.
Lindsay Jo Rimer was a 13-year-old British girl from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire who was murdered. She was last seen alive buying cornflakes at a SPAR shop on Crown Street in Hebden Bridge on 7 November 1994, and her body was found about a mile away in the Rochdale Canal, which passes through the town, on 12 April 1995. Despite repeated appeals for information by police, her murder remains unsolved.
The murder of Krista Lea Harrison occurred on July 17, 1982, in Marshallville, Ohio. The case remained unsolved for two years, until Robert Anthony Buell was convicted of her murder in 1984. In the year 2000, Harrison's case appeared on the fifth season of the American television show Forensic Files in an episode titled "Material Evidence."
Tina Marie Harmon was a 12-year-old American girl who was abducted, raped, and murdered on October 29, 1981 after being dropped off in Lodi, Ohio. After the discovery of her body, she was later buried at the Maple Mound Cemetery. Two men were originally convicted of her murder on circumstantial evidence but were eventually released when the conviction was overturned. Harmon's murder was solved in 2010 when DNA from the individual who raped her was matched to Robert Anthony Buell.
Jeannette DePalma was an American teenager who is believed to have been murdered sometime on or around August 7, 1972 in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey, United States.
Vishal Mehrotra was an eight-year-old boy who was abducted from Putney, London, England, on 29 July 1981. The child's partial remains were discovered 25 February 1982 on an isolated farm in Sussex. The killers were never identified and no one has ever been charged with the murder.
Janet Brown was an English nurse who was murdered by an intruder in her house in Radnage, Buckinghamshire in 1995. The case remains unsolved, and the investigation remains open. Links have also been suggested between her murder and that of 50-year-old Carolanne Jackson 10 miles away in Wooburn Green, which occurred in similar circumstances and on almost the exact same day two years later. In 2015 it was announced by police that a DNA profile of Brown's killer had been extracted.
Manon Dubé was a 10 year old Canadian girl from Sherbrooke, Quebec who disappeared on January 27, 1978, and was found dead in Ayer's Cliff on March 24, 1978.
On 16 June 1980, Patricia "Patsy" Morris, a fourteen-year old schoolgirl from Feltham, London, was murdered by strangulation. She disappeared after leaving her school during her lunch break, and was found dead in undergrowth on Hounslow Heath near her home two days later. Despite repeated appeals for information by police, her murder remains unsolved.
Chris Clark is a British amateur crime writer who writes chiefly about serial killers and their supposed links to unsolved crimes. He is a retired police intelligence officer who worked in the King's Lynn area for Norfolk Police, although his career was somewhat unsuccessful and he had three applications to join the new National Criminal Intelligence Service rejected in 1993, with the commanding officers unimpressed by his record and applications. In 2022, his book Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders, which was jointly written with journalist Tim Tate and alleged links between Peter Sutcliffe and unsolved murders, was made into an ITV prime-time documentary series of the same name.
