Rashad Khalifa was an Egyptian-American biochemist, closely associated with the United Submitters International (USI), an organization that promotes the practice and study of Quranism. Khalifa saw his role as purging the accretions that found their way into Islam via hadith and sunnah, which he claimed were corrupted. Similarly, he believed that previous revelations of God, such as the Bible, contained contradictions due to human interference . Instead, he believed that the beliefs and practices of Islam should be based on the Quran alone. He is also known for his claims regarding the existence of a Quran code, also known as The Number 19.
Colonia Dignidad was an isolated colony established in post-World War II Chile by emigrant Germans which became notorious for the internment, torture, and murder of dissidents during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s while under the leadership of German emigrant preacher Paul Schäfer. Colonia Dignidad has been described as a "state within a state".
On November 5, 1989, Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer working on a class action lawsuit against Aum Shinrikyo, a doomsday cult in Japan, was murdered, along with his wife Satoko and his child Tatsuhiko, by perpetrators who broke into his apartment. Six years later, following the 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway, the murderers were uncovered and it was established that the murderers had been members of Aum Shinrikyo at the time of the crime.
Etan Kalil Patz was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch the missing children movement, which included new legislation and new methods for tracking down missing children. Several years after he disappeared, Patz was one of the first children to be profiled on the "photo on a milk carton" campaigns of the early 1980s. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated May 25—the anniversary of Etan's disappearance—as National Missing Children's Day in the United States.
The Nuwaubian Nation, Nuwaubian movement, or United Nuwaubian Nation is an American new religious and black supremacist movement founded and led by Dwight York, also known as Malachi Z. York. York began founding several black Muslim groups in New York in 1967. He changed his name, his teachings, and the names of his groups many times, incorporating concepts from many traditions as well as pseudoscientific theories, including Ancient Egypt, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, UFO religions, Nibiru, Sumer, Annunaki, New Age, and other esoteric beliefs.
On 21 April 2001, Hannah Williams, a 14-year-old English schoolgirl was murdered after going missing during a shopping trip in Dartford, Kent. Williams's body was discovered on 15 March 2002 at a cement works in an industrial area of Northfleet.
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.
The murders of Katherine and Sheila Lyon were the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of two sisters – aged 10 and 12 respectively – who disappeared from a shopping center in Wheaton, Maryland, on March 25, 1975.
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.
Magdalena Solís, known as The High Priestess of Blood, allegedly was a Mexican serial killer and cult leader responsible for orchestrating several murders which involved the drinking of the victims' blood. The murders were committed in Yerbabuena, San Luis Potosi, during the early 1960s.
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.
The Hunt with John Walsh is an American investigation/documentary series that debuted on CNN on July 13, 2014. The series is hosted by John Walsh. The second season premiered on July 12, 2015, and the third season premiered on June 19, 2016. The fourth season premiered on CNN's sister station, HLN, on July 23, 2017. A successor to the show, In Pursuit with John Walsh was announced in early 2018. It premiered in January 2019 on Investigation Discovery.
Lyle and Marie McCann were last seen on July 3, 2010, while on a road trip from their hometown of St. Albert, Alberta, to Chilliwack, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. A few days later, their charred motorhome was discovered, resulting in a search that led to the arrest of Travis Vader. Vader was eventually charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of the McCanns, though their bodies have not been discovered. Vader was found guilty on September 15, 2016. On October 31, 2016, the second-degree murder conviction was reversed and Vader was convicted of manslaughter.
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.
Grace Emmie Rose Millane was a British tourist who was murdered in Auckland, New Zealand, in December 2018. A 26-year-old man, Jesse Shane Kempson, was charged with her murder on 8 December 2018. Millane's body was found in the Waitākere Ranges to the west of Auckland on 9 December 2018.
The Vallow–Daybell doomsday murders are a series of killings—including child murder, filicide and spousal murder—committed by an American couple, Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell, who led a Mormon religious group described by the journalists as a "doomsday cult." The case was set in motion when Lori's daughter, Tylee Ryan (16), and younger adopted son, Joshua Jaxon "J. J." Vallow (7), disappeared respectively on September 9 and September 23, 2019. Their remains were found in Rexburg, Idaho, on June 9, 2020; they had been buried on property belonging to Chad, who was Lori's lover at the time of their deaths and had become her husband by the time their bodies were found. The case also involved the killings of Lori's previous husband, Charles Vallow, and of Chad's wife, Tammy Daybell, as well as the attempted murder of Lori's nephew-in-law, Brandon Boudreaux. Lori's brother Alex Cox, who is believed by authorities to have participated in the crimes, died before he could be brought to justice.
Aundria Michelle Bowman was an American teenager who vanished under mysterious circumstances from her adoptive family's property in Hamilton, Michigan. She was adopted as an infant, and when she was 14, she accused her adoptive father, Dennis Bowman, of molesting her. A short time after this incident, she vanished from her family's rural property. Dennis Bowman claimed that she had stolen money from her parents before running away.
Peggy Knobloch was a nine-year-old girl from Lichtenberg, Bavaria, who was kidnapped and murdered on 7 May 2001. Her body was located 15 years later in a wooded area near Wurzbach. In 2020, investigators shelved the investigation of her murder without solving it. Some newspapers refer to her as the "German Madeleine McCann".
