Gary Leon Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, is an American serial killer and sex offender. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the second most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders. He killed many teenage girls and women in the U.S. state of Washington during the 1980s and 1990s.
Joseph Augustus Zarelli, previously known as the "Boy in the Box", "Boy in a Box", or "America's Unknown Child", was an American 4-year-old boy whose naked, extensively beaten dead body was found on the side of Susquehanna Road, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957. Joseph appeared to have been cleaned and freshly groomed, with a recent haircut and trimmed fingernails, although he had suffered extensive physical abuse prior to his death, with multiple bruises on his body. Joseph was also severely malnourished. The body was covered with scars, some of which were surgical. Authorities believe that the cause of death was homicide by blunt force trauma.
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.
The Somerton Man was an unidentified man whose body was found on 1 December 1948 on the beach at Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. The case is also known after the Persian phrase tamám shud, meaning "is over" or "is finished", which was printed on a scrap of paper found months later in the fob pocket of the man's trousers. The scrap had been torn from the final page of a copy of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, authored by 12th-century poet Omar Khayyám.
James Paul Freund and Pamela Mae Buckley, commonly known as the Sumter County Does, Jock Doe and Jane Doe respectively, were two previously unidentified American murder victims found in Sumter County, South Carolina on August 9, 1976. They had apparently traveled through various places in the United States before being murdered in South Carolina. This was inferred from some of their belongings.
Colleen M. Fitzpatrick is an American forensic scientist, genealogist and entrepreneur. She helped identify remains found in the crash site of Northwest Flight 4422, that crashed in Alaska in 1948, and co-founded the DNA Doe Project which identifies previously unidentified bodies and runs Identifinders International, an investigative genetic genealogy consulting firm which helps identify victims and perpetrators of violent crimes.
The Isdal Woman is a placeholder name given to an unidentified woman who was found dead at Isdalen in Bergen, Norway, on 29 November 1970.
The Bear Brook murders are female American murder victims, two discovered in 1985 and two in 2000, at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, United States. All four of the victims were either partially or completely skeletonized; they were believed to have died between 1977 and 1981.
Peaches is an unidentified female whose torso was discovered on June 28, 1997, in Lakeview, New York, near Hempstead Lake State Park. The cause of the woman's death is listed as homicide, apparently by decapitation. As of 2023, she remains unidentified since her skull has yet to be found. The woman had a tattoo on her left breast depicting a heart-shaped peach with a bite taken out of it and two drops falling from its core, which resulted in her nickname. As of December 2016, additional skeletal remains found on Long Island in 2011 have been positively identified as belonging to Peaches, along with the remains of her child. As a result, Peaches is now linked to the Long Island serial killer as a potential victim.
Unidentified decedent or unidentified person is a term in American English used to describe a corpse of a person whose identity cannot be established by police and medical examiners. In many cases, it is several years before the identities of some UIDs are found, while in some cases, they are never identified. A UID may remain unidentified due to lack of evidence as well as absence of personal identification such as a driver's license. Where the remains have deteriorated or been mutilated to the point that the body is not easily recognized, a UID's face may be reconstructed to show what they had looked like before death. UIDs are often referred to by the placeholder names "John Doe" or "Jane Doe".
The Redhead murders is the media epithet used to refer to a series of unsolved homicides of redheaded females in the United States between October 1978 and 1992, believed to have been committed by an unidentified male serial killer. The murders believed to be related have occurred in states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The murders may have continued until 1992. The victims, many remaining unidentified for years, were usually women with reddish hair, whose bodies were abandoned along major highways in the United States. Officials believe that the women were likely hitchhiking or may have engaged in sex work.
Lyle Stevik was the alias used by an American man who, in 2001, committed suicide in Amanda Park, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. Although his body was quickly discovered, and fingerprints, DNA, and dental information collected and recorded, there were no matches in any databases and his identity remained unknown until 2018.
The Peter Bergmann case pertains to the mysterious death of an unidentified man in Sligo, County Sligo, Ireland, on or around 16 June 2009. The man, using the alias "Peter Bergmann", had checked into the Sligo City Hotel on 12 June, where he stayed during the majority of his visit to Sligo. The man's movements were captured on CCTV throughout the town; however, the details of his actions and intentions remain unknown. His interactions with other people were limited, and little is known of his origins or the reason for his visit.
Martha Marie Morrison was a 17-year-old American girl who was murdered in 1974, and whose remains went unidentified for over 40 years after their discovery.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women between 1970 and 2005. In 2014 he was convicted of the murders of Linda Alford, Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca, and Audrey Nelson Everett, and in 2018 for the murder of Denise Christie Brothers as well as several others in 2019. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
DNA Doe Project is an American nonprofit volunteer organization formed to identify unidentified deceased persons using forensic genealogy. Volunteers identify victims of automobile accidents, homicide, and unusual circumstances and persons who committed suicide under an alias. The group was founded in 2017 by Colleen M. Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press.
Mary Edith Silvani, known as "Sheep's Flat Jane Doe" and "Washoe County Jane Doe" while unidentified, was an American woman found shot to death near Lake Tahoe in Washoe County, Nevada in July 1982. She was unidentified for 37 years, the investigation becoming a cold case. The Washoe County Sheriff's Office announced her identity on May 7, 2019. Silvani was identified through DNA analysis and genetic genealogy with assistance from the DNA Doe Project and utilizing the public genealogy database GEDmatch.
Othram is an American corporation specializing in forensic genealogy to resolve unsolved murders, disappearances, and identification of unidentified decedents or murder victims. The company also offers law enforcement agencies tools and programs to infer kinship among individuals, both closely and distantly related, through a combination of short tandem repeat (STR) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) testing, as well as forensic genome sequencing of DNA.
Carl William Koppelman is an American professional accountant and unpaid volunteer forensic sketch artist. Since 2009, Koppelman has drawn over 250 reconstructions and age progressions of missing and unidentified people.
Joyce Marilyn Meyer Sommers, also known as the Christmas Tree Lady, was a formerly unidentified American woman who died by suicide in a cemetery in Annandale, Virginia on December 18, 1996. She was identified more than 25 years later on May 11, 2022.
