# Bizarre, Unsolved or Otherwise Infamous True Crime Cases From Your State / Country
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 13, 2020, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890 "2020-02-13T18:45:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@williambaskerville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/williambaskerville)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/21 "2020-02-14T06:48:20Z")
Here in Ireland, it would be the disappearance of Philip Cairns.
In 1986, A 13 year old school boy left home to return to school after lunch, and joined a throng of perhaps 1200 other school kids also returning from lunch. He vanished, without a single trace. All the schools involved had school uniforms :- somebody somewhere should surely have noticed a kid in uniform getting into a car, or even walking the wrong way (away from school).
6 days after his disappearance, his school bag was found in a lane about 200 meters from his home, with the religious knowledge and geography books missing. The lane had been previously searched, and the police believe the bag was placed there shortly before it was found.
Nothing more is publicly known than what I’ve recounted. About 3 years later, the missing school books were found on enclosed waste land about a mile from Philip’s home. This has never been publicly disclosed, for exclusionary reasons (I know this because a then girlfriend worked in a office building adjoining the waste land).
As it happens, my childhood home was 10 houses away from Philips’s : I spent many weekends at the time as part of search parties combing the Wicklow mountains.
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### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/22 "2020-02-14T07:00:14Z")
Here in San Luis Obispo, where I’ve lived for most of the last 28 years, the **Kristin Smart** case has been in the news lately with rumors of new developments.
> **[Murder of Kristin Smart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Kristin_Smart)**
>
> Kristin Denise Smart (born February 20, 1977–declared legally dead May 25, 2002) was an American woman who was found to have been murdered by Paul Flores at the end of her freshman year on the campus of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly).
> On May 25, 1996, Smart attended a fellow Cal Poly University student’s off-campus party. At approximately 2 a.m., she was found passed out on a neighbor's lawn, and two students began to help her walk to her dorm room. A third...
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### Author:  [@Kovitlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kovitlac)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/23 "2020-02-14T15:41:57Z")
> [@Heracles](#):
>
> Around here, there was Claire Lortie. She was a lawyer who hired an entrepreneur in the summer of 1983 to dig a hole on her property, supposedly to find the sewer connection. The digger found this odd because he knew the sewer wasn’t in that part of the lot. She insisted, he dug the hole, but he also warned his brother who was the local police chief. When the police came to investigate, the hole had been filled up; when they dug again, they found a freezer with Ms. Lortie’s former spouse inside. _In pieces._
>
> At trial, she claimed she had found his dead body (and that she didn’t know who had killed him). She said he had decided to cut him up, freeze the resulting parts, arrange for the freezer to be moved from the basement to a pick-up truck (the lid must have been locked, I guess), then have the hole dug and push the freezer down into the hole herself.
>
> The jury eventually acquitted her of the murder charge.
It’s kind of baffling how often people apparently stumble across dead spouses / family members, seeing how often this defense is used. At this rate I’m beginning to seriously fear for my parents!
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### Author:  [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/24 "2020-02-14T15:54:18Z")
One of the more famous, [D.B Cooper.](https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/db-cooper-hijacking)
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### Author:  [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/25 "2020-02-14T15:55:21Z")
Growing up, we had to deal with the [Oakland County Child Killer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_County_Child_Killer), a serial killer working in our area targeting children the same age as my older siblings. This was back in the mid 70s, and the killer has never been identified although there has been new findings in the last couple of years.
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/26 "2020-02-14T16:25:59Z")
Here in **Missour** i:
On July 10, 1981, town bully and generally bad dude [Ken McElroy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy) was shot to death in broad daylight, in the middle of town in Skidmore, in front of 20-30 witnesses.
But nobody saw anything, and the case remains unsolved to this day.
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### Author:  [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/27 "2020-02-14T16:36:54Z")
> [@outlierrn](#):
>
> Here in San Luis Obispo, where I’ve lived for most of the last 28 years, the **Kristin Smart** case has been in the news lately with rumors of new developments.
>
> [Murder of Kristin Smart - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Kristin_Smart)
I knew more than a few people involved in that case and had heard there were some new developments. As I’m sure you know, the case has been solved for years. They just can’t prove he was the one who (allegedly) did it. Without a body, pretty tough.
I hope the new developments garner a conclusion. That poor family.
* * *
My own pick for this thread is the same one as I mentioned in the previous thread, also in San Luis Obispo. An honest-to-goodness whodunit without even the hint of a suspect, the victim, Marina Ruggiero was from out of town, an innocent woman attending the wedding of her childhood friend. She left the reception to go back to her room at the hotel and 45 minutes later, was found brutally stabbed to death in her room. [It still gives me the creeps](https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/crime/article226883504.html).
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### Author:  [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/28 "2020-02-14T16:39:08Z")
_ **Rhode Island** _ checking in:
> [@](#):
>
> [Adam Emery,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Emery)his wife Elena Emery, and two friends were at a roadside food stand when their car was side swiped. Adam became distraught and followed who he believed to have struck his vehicle. After successfully causing the other car to stop, witness accounts say Adam ran to the driver’s side and fatally stabbed the driver, 20 year old Jay Bass through the heart.
>
> Further investigation proved that not only had Adam followed the wrong car, but he showed little to no remorse for his actions. After being convicted of second degree murder for the crime in 1993, the couple’s abandoned vehicle was found on the Newport Bridge and the pair were suspected to have died by suicide. Though Elena’s remains were eventually discovered, Adam’s body has not been found and he remains on the FBI’s most wanted list.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/29 "2020-02-14T16:53:45Z")
Everyone has gone with murders so far, but I’ll try a theft.
> **[Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft)**
>
> In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Guards admitted two men posing as police officers responding to a disturbance call, and the thieves tied the guards up and looted the museum over the next hour. The case is unsolved; no arrests have been made and no works have been recovered. The stolen works have been valued at hundreds of millions of dollars by the FBI and art dealers. The museum is offering a ...
In 1990, thieves dressed as police officers gained access to the museum, tied up the guards, and stole $500 million worth of art. None of it has ever been recovered, and there are essentially no leads at this point.
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### Author:  [@Jumpbass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jumpbass)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/30 "2020-02-14T17:20:59Z")
In my neck of the woods, it was the [Zodiac Killer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer).
> [@](#):
>
> Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California from at least the late 1960s to the early 1970s. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Napa County, and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. The killer targeted four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29, with two of the men surviving attempted murder. The Zodiac himself claimed to have killed up to 37 victims. The killer originated the name “Zodiac” in a series of taunting letters and cards sent to the local Bay Area press. The letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved.[1]
>
> Suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. The San Francisco Police Department marked the case “inactive” in April 2004, but re-opened it at some point prior to March 2007.[2][3] The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County.[4] The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.[5]
I was just a kid, but I remember hearing the talk.
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### Author:  [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/31 "2020-02-14T17:39:54Z")
> [@Telemark](#):
>
> Everyone has gone with murders so far, but I’ll try a theft.
>
> [Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft)
>
> In 1990, thieves dressed as police officers gained access to the museum, tied up the guards, and stole $500 million worth of art. None of it has ever been recovered, and there are essentially no leads at this point.
While visiting the museum a few years ago, the people there seemed convinced it was organized by Whitey Bulger and were hopeful the pieces would be found or returned on his death. Since he died a year and a half ago, I guess not.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/32 "2020-02-14T21:40:15Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> The Hall-Mills murders in New Jersey in 1922 were never solved. A clergyman and one of his choir members were having an affair and were murdered in a field. The man’s wife and her two brothers were charged and tried, but acquitted for insufficient evidence.
>
> I’m currently reading a novel very loosely based on the trial, which was the most notorious and widely covered until the Lindbergh trial took over that honor a few years later. The novel is called The Bellamy Case by Frances Noyes Hart, and it is a real page-turner. Unlike real life, the author provides a solution at the end in the form of a confession letter.
That’s what I was going to mention. Any case that has a character dubbed “The Pig Woman” has to be mentioned.
It was the trial of the century until there were others.
> **[Hall–Mills murder case](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall%E2%80%93Mills_murder_case)**
>
> The Hall–Mills murder case involved Edward Wheeler Hall, an Episcopal priest, and Eleanor Mills, a member of his choir with whom he was having an affair, both of whom were murdered on September 14, 1922, in Somerset, New Jersey, United States. Hall's wife and her brothers were accused of committing the murders, but were acquitted in a 1926 trial. In the history of journalism, the case is largely remembered for the vast extent of newspaper coverage it received nationwide; it has been regarded as...
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### Author:  [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/33 "2020-02-14T22:08:21Z")
Well for bizarre, New Hampshire had a man arrested for standing in the tank of woman’s outhouse in White Mountain National Forest back in 2005.
[https://www.wmur.com/article/man-pulled-from-women-s-outhouse-tank/5142933](https://www.wmur.com/article/man-pulled-from-women-s-outhouse-tank/5142933)
[https://www.fosters.com/article/20050629/NEWS0201/106290019](https://www.fosters.com/article/20050629/NEWS0201/106290019)
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### Author:  [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/34 "2020-02-14T22:10:32Z")
My county sheriff has a [cold cases page](https://www.amadorsheriff.org/operations-div/investigations-bureau/cold-case-investigations) seeking any information on listed homicides.
Steven Lee Stafford (20 years old) killed by blunt force in 1997.
Dennis Palmer (33 years old) found in a mine shaft in 1987.
Gloria Shomler (33 years old) stabbed in bed in 1987.
Those are pretty damn cold cases, from 23 and 33 years ago.
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### Author:  [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2020, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/35 "2020-02-14T23:49:28Z")
Texas is a big state
Unusual:
[The Murder of Scott Dunn](https://www.lubbockonline.com/article/20120523/NEWS/305239785) -interesting because IIRC it was the first case in Texas that was tried as a murder without a corpus delecti - luminol showed so much blood in the victims apartment that the coroner? or at least the person who could speak to the issue, said that there was no way a person could be alive after losing that much blood. One of the stories in a true crime book called “The Murder Room” by Michael Capuzzo
Infamous:
[The University of Texas Tower Shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting).
1966 - one of the earliest of the mass shootings, a lone gunman went to the 27th floor of a building at the University of Texas and killed people until he was killed. One of my university professors was a student at UT when the shooting spree occurred.
Unsolved and close to home
[Three girls disappeared in 1974, from Seminary South](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Worth_Missing_Trio) - a mall just a few miles from where I lived at the time, about the same age as I was.
Never been solved.
Honorable mention to my great-uncle for being involved in a missing person case that stank to high heaven, and for helping with some rather stupidly done extortion attempts, that I’ve discussed [here](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=618722) before
That’s just the tip of the iceberg
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2020, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/36 "2020-02-15T01:03:17Z")
In the early 1980s, two newspaper carriers disappeared from the Des Moines, Iowa area without a trace. My sister went to school with Eugene Martin, the second one.
> **[Eugene Martin](https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/eugene-martin/)**
>
> Eugene Martin, 13, disappeared on Aug. 12, 1984, in Des Moines while delivering newspapers. He was last seen between 5:30 and 6 a.m.
My brother was a paper boy at the time this first one happened.
> **[Johnny Gosch](https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/johnny-gosch/)**
>
> West Des Moines paperboy Johnny Gosch, 12, disappeared in the early morning hours on Sept. 5, 1982, after setting out to deliver the Sunday paper.
I was still living in Des Moines when this one (he wasn’t a paperboy) happened, and I have no recollection of ever hearing about it until I saw it on this website a few years ago.
> **[Marc Warren Allen](https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/marc-allen/)**
>
> Marc James Warren Allen, 13, went missing from Des Moines on March 29, 1986 after telling his mother he planned to walk to a friend's house.
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### Author:  [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2020, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/37 "2020-02-15T02:57:18Z")
This one was close to home, literally. Hawaii. [Diane Suzuki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Diane_Suzuki) was a dance teacher in the building my Dad had his business in. My Mom, Dad and niece knew her because she’d let my niece (too young to start dance classes) watch from the side of the classroom. Diane disappeared after class in 1985 and the prime suspect was the photographer in the next building whom my parents also knew. My Mom talked about how we was always staring at Diane whenever he saw her and supposedly asked her our several times but she refused.
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### Author:  [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2020, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/38 "2020-02-15T04:05:40Z")
This one happened a few miles from my house in Maryland and it’s possible I went to the same high school parties as the guy. I went to a different school but some of my classmates knew him and one’s father was his defense attorney. The killings were pretty gruesome:
[Biography of Larry Swartz, Convicted Murderer](https://www.thoughtco.com/larry-swartz-the-sudden-fury-murders-972246)
> [@](#):
>
> According to Larry, Kay’s response was sarcastic and belittling. In response, Larry picked up a nearby wood-splitting maul and smash it over her head. He then stabbed her multiple times in the neck with a kitchen knife.
>
> Bob came in to see what was going on and Larry plunged the knife into his chest. He continued stabbing Bob around his chest and heart multiple times. Once Bob and Kay were dead, Larry busied himself trying to make it look like a crime that was committed by someone who had broken into the house.
>
> …
>
> The case was the inspiration for the best-selling book by Leslie Walker, “Sudden Fury: A True Story of Adoption and Murder.” In addition to the book, a movie based on the murders was made in 1993 called “A Family Torn Apart,” which starred Neil Patrick Harris of “Doogie Howser, M.D.” as Larry Swartz.
Johnny Galecki from _The Big Bang_ theory was also in it. And I’ve seen the case on one of the true-crime shows.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2020, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/39 "2020-02-15T04:36:21Z")
The disappearance of \*Maud Crawford \*, a prominent S. Arkansas Attorney.
Very interesting tale of greed and very rich families in Ouachita county.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2020, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-unsolved-or-otherwise-infamous-true-crime-cases-from-your-state-country/847890/40 "2020-02-15T05:18:50Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> Here in **Missour** i:
>
> On July 10, 1981, town bully and generally bad dude [Ken McElroy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy) was shot to death in broad daylight, in the middle of town in Skidmore, in front of 20-30 witnesses.
>
> But nobody saw anything, and the case remains unsolved to this day.
I readvhe wiki article you linked to, theme wanderecinto the wiki article only Nodaway County, where Skidmore is located.
The article has a section entitled “Crime”: [Nodaway County, Missouri - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodaway_County,_Missouri#Crime)
Jeepers! Is that amount of murder and mayhem standard for counties in Missouri? In the US?
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