The 1931 “Wallace murder” in Britain is also a good one.
Julia Wallace is murdered; her husband is tried, convicted and sentenced to death as the killer. However, after re-examination if evidence, an appeal was lodged and he ended up acquitted.
That’s a head scratcher for sure. For those too busy to read, there are podcasts that address most of these cases. My wife and I can’t get enough. Examples:
Back to the tv show. my favorite is the one on the Loch Ness Monster and two of the leading “experts”, men who have lived on the Loch and been studying this for years, come out and admit their is nothing there. One man admits the early sightings from about 1900-1940, were giant river catfish (which can grow to 15 feet and live 50 years) dumped into the Loch to entice sport fishermen, were the source of earlier “monster” sightings. Yes, I can see a 15 foot fish, about twice the size of the average rowboat, would scare the crap out of anyone!
These men, who once were sure nessie existed, have dived into the loch and examined every clue like photos and testimonies and admit, their is no “monster”. Although it has brought in alot of tourists.
Now the big question is when will this whole thing be forgotten and people quit looking for it?
It’s really so sad, not only what happened to her, in what should have been happy circumstances (circus !) but add the fact that she was basically forgotten. It’s as if the only people who showed some compassion were the ones who came up with the “Little Miss” moniker .
To recommend another podcast: Bella, and some of the other cases mentioned, are discussed on My Favorite Murder. They’ll be doing live shows on a tour of Europe soon.
On a micro-level: a few years ago my BIL’S brother, a cop, came home from work and killed his wife, three young children, then himself. He used his service gun.
The murder’s identity is a given. The unsolved mystery is why - no note, no indications he was troubled, in a good marriage, and so on. Just came home and killed his family.
BILl’s mom, grandpa, brother, and sister (happened last November) are suicides. A mystery I’d like to see solved is nature vs. nurture - is suicide influenced by genetics?
This is sort of side story that is usually ignored, but the suicide of Edward Cowles Stevenson. Either his wife or his daughter came and found him hanging. No note, no obvious motive, zilch.
That would not be the end of the tragedy for Mildred Stevenson, though, as some years later her daughter Colette, and their small children, would later fall victim to the infamous Jeffrey MacDonald.
Anyway, MacDonald’s story is so notorious, that Colette’s fathers’ suicide is pretty small potatoes in comparison, but still another head-scratcher.
I kinda wondered about the puppy euthanasia, too. I would think they would have been able to get the contents of the dog’s stomach out somehow. Maybe other places in the digestive tract wouldn’t be as straightforward. I guess first and foremost, they wanted to establish if the dog had somehow eaten or drank since being in the closet(?)
Wow, so many compelling mysteries and murders, many of which I was aware, some notable ones I was not…the Oakland County (Babysitter) murders, the sister’s blog is fascinating and haunting, her pain and drive is very apparent…the history of the Cecil Hotel, damn, that is incredibly creepy…
Here in the Capital Region of NY, we’ve had several, one of most well known is the disappearance of Suzanne Lyall which occurred right before we moved up here…
She disappeared 20 years ago just about two weeks ago, and like so many cases, it’s horribly maddening for the families that someone out there likely knows what happened and where she is…
Something very similar happened hear less than two years ago, no public indications of trouble, he just came home, killed his son and wife, set the house on fire and committed suicide, all with his service weapon…there very well could be underlying issues that were never made public, but very similar to the situation you referenced…
The killer left notes and DNA in several places. Nothing has ever come of any of it.
I was a teenager when April was killed and didn’t live too terribly far away. I remember my friends and myself being scared to go anywhere by ourselves after that.
“Spontaneous human combustion” in general and the Reeser case in particular don’t seem to be genuine mysteries.
Much was made of the fact that only Reeser’s body and the chair she was sitting in were heavily damaged by fire (similar to what’s been recorded in other such “mysteries”):
“In fact, the floors and walls of Mrs. Reeser’s apartment were of concrete. When last seen by her physician son, Mrs. Reeser had been sitting in the big chair, wearing flammable nightclothes, and smoking a cigarette-after having taken two Seconal sleeping pills and stating her intention of taking two more. The official police report concluded, “Once the body became ignited, almost complete destruction occurred from the burning of its own fatty tissues.” (Mrs. Reeser was a “plump” woman, and a quantity of “grease”-obviously fatty residue from her body-was left at the spot where the immolation occurred.) As the fat liquefied in the fire, it could have been absorbed into the chair stuffing to fuel still more fire to attack still more of the body"