Laci Denise Peterson was an American woman murdered by her husband, Scott Lee Peterson, while eight months pregnant with their first child.
The murder of Danielle Jones was an English child murder case involving a 15-year-old schoolgirl who disappeared from East Tilbury, Essex, England. There was a large and exhaustive search to find Jones' body and it was considered one of the biggest cases Essex Police had to deal with at the time. Despite the police's best efforts, her body was never found.
It is possible to convict someone of murder without the purported victim's body in evidence. However, cases of this type have historically been hard to prove, often forcing the prosecution to rely on circumstantial evidence, and in England there was for centuries a mistaken view that in the absence of a body a killer could not be tried for murder. Developments in forensic science in recent decades have made it more likely that a murder conviction can be obtained even if a body has not been found.
The Soham murders were a double child murder committed in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England, on 4 August 2002. The victims were two 10-year-old girls, Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Amiee Chapman, who were lured into the home of a local resident and school caretaker, Ian Kevin Huntley, who subsequently murdered them – likely via asphyxiation – and disposed of their bodies in an irrigation ditch close to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. The bodies were discovered on 17 August 2002.
Events from 2002 in England
April Sue-Lyn Jones was a Welsh child from Machynlleth, Powys, who disappeared on 1 October 2012, after being sighted getting into a vehicle near her home. The disappearance of April Jones, aged five, generated a large amount of national and international press coverage. Mark Bridger was convicted of April's murder.
The Peterborough ditch murders were a series of murders which took place in Cambridgeshire, England, in March 2013. All three victims were male and died from stab wounds. Their bodies were discovered dumped in ditches outside Peterborough. In Hereford, two other men were stabbed but survived. The perpetrator was Joanna Christine Dennehy, a Cambridgeshire woman, who was later sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order.
Erica Lynn Parsons was a 13-year-old girl from Salisbury, North Carolina, who disappeared mysteriously in 2011.
Rebecca Marie Watts was a British student from Bristol who was murdered in 2015 at the age of 16. In November 2015, her step-brother, Nathan Matthews, was found guilty of her murder and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 33 years. His girlfriend, Shauna Hoare, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 17 years in prison, although Hoare had insisted to police that she had nothing to do with the killing, or dismembering Watts' body and hiding the parts. Both Matthews and Hoare were also convicted of conspiracy to kidnap, preventing the lawful burial of a body, perverting the course of justice and possession of two stun guns.
Tiahleigh Alyssa Rose Palmer was a 12-year-old Australian girl who lived in Logan City, Queensland. She was murdered on 30 October 2015. Her remains were found six days later and her foster father, Rick Thorburn, was charged with her murder on 20 September 2016. Thorburn pleaded guilty to the murder before the Supreme Court of Queensland on 25 May 2018.
Ashlee Anne Rose Martinson is an American woman convicted of the 2015 murders of her mother and stepfather, which she committed the day after her 17th birthday. Martinson's case received international attention. Martinson later pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree intentional homicide and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Fiona Oluyinka Onasanya is a former British politician and solicitor. She was elected as a Labour Party MP in the 2017 United Kingdom general election for the constituency of Peterborough and was removed from that office in 2019 following a successfully recall petition triggered by her convicition of perverting the course of justice.
Rania Alayed was a 25-year-old mother-of-three murdered by her husband in June 2013, in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Chief Detective Inspector Bill Reade described this as an honour killing, and the prosecutors stated she was murdered for trying to achieve independence from her husband and undergoing westernisation. Alayed's remains have never been found.
On the evening of 3 March 2021, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was kidnapped in South London, England, as she was walking home to the Brixton Hill area from a friend's house near Clapham Common. She was stopped by off-duty Metropolitan Police constable Wayne Couzens, who identified himself as a police officer, handcuffed her, and placed her in his car before transporting her to Kent. Couzens subsequently raped and strangled Everard, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a pond in woodland.
Ashley Zhao was a five-year-old girl who was discovered dead in her family's restaurant in Jackson Township, Stark County, Ohio, U.S., on January 10, 2017. Her death sparked an investigation led by the local police department in cooperation with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Charlise Mutten, a nine-year-old Australian girl, allegedly disappeared from the Wildenstein Estate wedding venue at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains area of New South Wales, Australia on 13 January 2022 and was subsequently found murdered when her body was retrieved at a location approximately one hour's drive from where she is believed to have died.
Rikki Neave was a six-year-old boy who was murdered on 28 November 1994 by a 13-year-old boy, James Watson, in Peterborough, England. In 1996, his abusive mother, Ruth Neave, was tried and acquitted of his murder. Watson was convicted of the murder in 2022 after new DNA evidence was found.
Emma Grace Cole was an American murder and torture victim from Bloomington, Indiana, whose burnt skeletal remains were discovered near a softball complex in Smyrna, Delaware, on September 13, 2019. She remained unidentified for over a year and was known as "Baby Elle", "Jane Smyrna Doe 2019", and "Smyrna Doe" until her identification in October 2020. The murder has gained significant attention and media coverage due to the brutality of Emma's death and her former status as an unidentified murder victim. She was murdered by her mother, Kristie Lynn Haas, who pleaded guilty to murder in 2023.
Known as the Chin Swee Road child death case, the charred skeletal remains of a 30-month-old girl, whose given name was Umaisyah, were first discovered hidden and sealed inside one of the metal cooking pots from a flat in Chin Swee Road on 10 September 2019. After they uncovered the identity of Umaisyah's remains, the police found that her parents, who used to reside in the flat, were likely responsible for killing the girl five years before in March 2014. The cause of Umaisyah's death was due to her father slapping her on the face twice or thrice with great force, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury that led to a brain seizure, causing Umaisyah to die and her parents, who did not seek medical help for her, burnt the body to avoid detection of their daughter's murder and abuse and the father's drug use.
