As we near the end of our cold case exploration and the holiday season, the final case follows the heartbreaking disappearance of five children from their home on Christmas Eve. The Sodder children’s disappearance has captivated the town of Fayetteville, West Virginia and has haunted the Sodder family for years, desperate for answers and diminished hope that their relatives might be found.

The Missing Sodder Children. 1945. “The Children Who Went Up In Smoke,” by Karen Abbot. Smithsonian, 25 Dec. 2012.

1945: The Sodder family included parents George and Jennie, and their ten children. On the night of Christmas Eve, 1945, nine of the ten children (as one son was away serving in the army) settled into bed in preparation for the morning. Around 1 a.m., a fire broke out. George and Jennie and four of their children escaped, but the other five were never seen again.

George had tried to save them, breaking a window to re-enter the house, though he could see nothing through the smoke and fire, which had swept through the living and dining room, kitchen, office, and his and Jennie’s bedroom. Outside with his wife remained Sylvia (2), Marion (17), John (23), and George Jr. (16). Unaccounted for were Maurice (14), Martha (12) Louis (9), Jennie (8), and Betty (5). George ran to the side of the house to get his ladder in an attempt to bypass the downstairs to get into the children’s bedrooms upstairs, but discovered his ladder to be missing.

In desperation, he thought he could drive one of his two coal trucks up to the house and climb atop it to reach the windows. But even though they’d functioned perfectly the day before, neither would start now. He tried to scoop water from a rain barrel to quell the fire but found it frozen solid. George’s voice ached from the smoke and from screaming out his young children’s names.

Marion sprinted to a neighbor’s home to call the Fayetteville Fire Department but couldn’t get any operator response. A neighbor who saw the blaze made a call from a nearby tavern, but again no operator responded. The neighbor drove into town and tracked down Fire Chief F.J. Morris, who initiated Fayetteville’s version of a fire alarm: a “phone tree” system whereby one firefighter phoned another, who phoned another until all responders were aware of the situation.

Though less than two miles away, the fire department didn’t respond until 8 A.M., finding nothing but ash and a grieving family. George and Jeannie assumed that five of their children were dead, but a brief search of the grounds on Christmas Day turned up no trace of remains. Chief Morris suggested that the blaze had been hot enough to completely cremate the bodies, though an official heat index reading was never taken.

A state police inspector combed the rubble and attributed the fire to faulty wiring. George covered the basement with five feet of dirt, intending to preserve the site as a memorial. The coroner’s office issued five death certificates just before the new year, attributing the causes to “fire or suffocation.”

Still, the Sodders began to speculate if their children had survived the fire.

George Sodder was born in Italy in 1895, and immigrated in 1908 with an older brother who quickly returned back to Italy. Once he met Jennie and they settled in West Virginia, they became “one of the most respected middle-class families around.” George held strong opinions about everything from business to current events and politics, but was, for some reason, reluctant to talk about his youth. He never explained what had happened back in Italy to make him want to leave. Fayetteville was quaint, with a small but active Italian immigrant community, and George made a name for himself, launching his own trucking company, hauling dirt for construction and later freight and coal.

A few weeks after the fire, the Sodders began recalling strange instances prior. There was a stranger who appeared at the home a few months earlier, back in the fall, asking about hauling work. After turning him down, he pointed out the two separate fuse boxes, and said, “This is going to cause a fire someday.” Since he had just had the wiring checked by the local power company, which pronounced it in fine condition, George thought little of it, aside from it being odd at the time. Around the same time, another man tried to sell the family life insurance and became irate when George declined. “Your goddamn house is going up in smoke,” he warned, “and your children are going to be destroyed. You are going to be paid for the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini.” George was outspoken about his dislike for the Italian dictator, occasionally engaging in heated arguments with other members of Fayetteville’s Italian community, and at the time didn’t take the man’s threats seriously. The older Sodder sons also recalled something peculiar: Just before Christmas, they noticed a man parked along U.S. Highway 21, intently watching the younger kids as they came home from school.

“Missing or Dead?” Greensboro News and Record, November 18, 1984

Undeterred, George and Jennie erected a billboard along Route 16 and passed out flyers offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of their children. They soon increased the amount to $10,000. Then there were the anecdotes: a letter from someone saying young Martha was in a convent in St. Louis, the motel operator who saw the children right after the fire, and a picture of a young girl from New York City who looked so much like Betty that George drove to see her, but was turned away by the girl’s parents.

The billboard stood for over 30 years, and now, only one Sodder child remains: Sylvia, who believes her brothers and sisters lived long past the fire. Her children and grandchildren continue the hunt for answers, and the local community holds the children in memory. Theories have circled around mafia involvement, kidnapping, or perhaps the melancholy reality that the children never survived the inferno.

As always, the BuzzFeed Unsolved video delving more in depth in details is provided here for future viewing. Best of luck in theorizing, and until next time (whenever that may be). Thank you for sticking around this long; I hope I’ve given you something to look forward to reading, and have been able to tickle your “Sherlock Holmes” gene at least a little.

For today’s case, I give to you the most recent event we’ll cover. Occurring in 2013, Elisa Lam’s death is also the first of our topics that delves into the possibility of the supernatural. Either way, the young 21-year old’s is shrouded with mystery, and demands a closer look.

Elisa Lam. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind The Disturbing Death Of Elisa Lam,” by Natasha Ishak. ATI, 15 Oct. 2019.

2013: On January 26th, Elisa Lam arrived in LA. She was headed to Santa Cruz as part of her solo trip around the West Coast; a getaway from her studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where she was originally from. While her family was nervous about her being so far from home, she was always sure to ease their fears by calling them each night to tell them about her adventures from the day. All went well, and according to plan.

Of course, until January 31st.

On January 31st, Elisa never contacted her family, nor would she again.

On her final day staying at The Cecil Hotel, Elisa failed to update her family, thus prompting them to grow concerned enough to call the hotel staff asking if they’d check on her. Upon examining her room, Elisa was nowhere to be found, and she had never officially checked out.

Staff decided to take a look at security footage to attempt to locate Elisa, or at to get an idea of when she was last seen. What they found however, would prompt more questions than answers. The hotel video showed Elisa in one of its elevators on the date of her disappearance acting rather strangely. In the footage, Lam can be seen stepping into the elevator and pushing all the floor buttons. She steps in and out of the elevator, poking her head out sideways toward the hotel’s hallways in between. She peers out of the elevator another few times before stepping out of the elevator entirely, never to be seen again.

At the time of writing this, the video has 24,432,537 views due to how strange the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, as well as her strange behavior.

Two weeks would go by without another development in the case.

Hotel maintenance worker Santiago Lopez began to receive complaints about the water quality. Low water pressure, strange coloring, and a weird taste coming from the tap water were all reported, and he began to investigate the hotel water tank. Upon opening the tank, Lopez discovered Lam’s rotting corpse.

Rescuers try to remove Elisa Lam’s body from the water tank on the rooftop of the Cecil Hotel. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind The Disturbing Death Of Elisa Lam,” by Natasha Ishak. ATI, 15 Oct. 2019.

Nobody knows how Lam’s corpse (floating lifelessly next to the same clothes she wore in the surveillance video) ended up in the hotel’s water tank or who else might have been involved. It was ruled to be impossible to Lam to have climbed into the tank and closed the door on herself.

One of the final people to see Elisa Lam alive was the owner of a bookstore that she traveled to prior to her death. Katie Orphan, owner of The Last Bookstore was quoted with stating, “It seemed like she had plans to return home, plans to give things to her family members and reconnect with them. She bought things to bring back to them.”

Lopez gave a detailed description of how to get to the water tank (which presumably was the exact way Lam would have to get up to the tanks): Take the elevator to the 15th floor of the hotel before walking up the staircase to the roof. Then, first turn off the rooftop alarm (which only employees can do), climb up on the platform where the hotel’s four water tanks were located. Finally, climb another ladder to get to the top of the main tank.

In the end, Lam’s death was ruled accidental, and no further pieces of evidence have surfaced since. Theorists point to the hotel’s historically supernatural ties, Lam’s bipolar disorder (and her subsequent medication), and a 3rd party as all possible in her death. Either way, we may never understand the strange circumstances surrounding such a young woman’s death.

As always, the BuzzFeed Unsolved video delving more in depth with details and theories is provided here for further reading. Best of luck, until next time.

While most of our previously mentioned cold cases involve the deaths of John Doe’s and names unknown to most, even the most notorious and well-known names and figures cannot escape become another unsolved case. Once investigators have thrown in the towel due to lack of evidence, or too much time being past, once a case has been deemed “cold”, it is in a sense “frozen”, never to be thawed. The hopelessness aspect can scare away new investigators and theorists, but for some, the added challenge provides increased motivation for bringing justice to the families.

Our next victim’s name is one that is unforgettable. Hailed for her contributions to the feminist movement and her achievements in aviation, the disappearance and death of Amelia Earhart has puzzled government officials and fans for nearly a decade.

Amelia Earhart. “Amelia Earhart Biography,” by Biography.com Editors. Biography, A&E Television Networks, 6 Sept. 2019.

1937: Earhart’s attempt to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe would be her final flight. Known already for becoming the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, Earhart was poised to become a national icon, further cementing her name in the record books.

Along with a top-rated crew of three men, (Captain Harry Manning, Fred Noonan, and Paul Mantz) Earhart began to plan for their voyage. The plan was to take off from Oakland, California, and fly west to Hawaii. From there, the group would fly across the Pacific Ocean to Australia. Then they would cross India, on to Africa, then to Florida, and back to California. After landing in Pearl Harbor for some repairs, they began another takeoff, but something went wrong. Earhart lost control and looped the plane on the runway. Several witnesses, including an Associated Press journalist, said they saw a tire blow, while other sources, including Paul Mantz, indicated it was pilot error. Though no one was seriously hurt, the plane was severely damaged and had to be shipped back to California for extensive repairs, and the original flight was cancelled.

By the time the plane was repaired, weather patterns and global wind changes required alterations to the flight plan. Due to previous commitments and contract disputes, Captain Harry Manning and Paul Mantz would not join the team on the second attempt.

After flying from Oakland to Miami, Florida, Earhart and Noonan took off on June 1st from Miami with much fanfare and publicity. The plane flew toward Central and South America, turning east for Africa. From there, the plane crossed the Indian Ocean and finally touched down in Lae, New Guinea, on June 29, 1937. About 22,000 miles of the journey had been completed. The remaining 7,000 miles would take place over the Pacific.

Bad luck continued to plague the second voyage.

Though the flyers seemed to have a well thought-out plan, several early decisions led to grave consequences later on. Radio equipment with shorter wavelength frequencies were left behind, presumably to allow more room for fuel canisters. This equipment could broadcast radio signals farther distances. Due to inadequate quantities of high-octane fuel, the Electra carried about 1,000 gallons — 50 gallons short of full capacity. Witnesses to the takeoff reported that a radio antenna may have been damaged, and according to experts, evidence shows that the charts used by Noonan and Earhart placed Howland Island (one of their destinations) nearly six miles off its actual position.

Amelia Earhart. 1937. “Amelia Earhart: AMERICAN AVIATOR,” by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed 30 Oct. 2019.

At 7:42 AM, radio control picked up this message from Earhart: “We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet.” This would be the final message received from Earhart.

Despite the efforts of 66 aircraft and nine ships and an estimated $4 million rescue authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt,  the fate of the two flyers remained a mystery. Theorists believe that Earhart and Noonan might have flown without radio transmission for some time after their last radio signal, landing at uninhabited Nikumaroro reef, a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean 350 miles southeast of Howland Island. Based on several on-site investigations that have turned up artifacts such as improvised tools, including bits of clothing, an aluminum panel, and a piece of Plexiglas the exact width and curvature of an Electra window, many believe they crashed on to the island, either dying in the crash or dying several days later.

Analysis of radio distress signals sent by Earhart in the days after her disappearance have revealed that she may have survived the crash and continued to send messages. Various citizens documented the reception of messages from Earhart via radio. On July 4, two days after the crash, a San Francisco resident heard a voice from the radio saying, “Still alive. Better hurry. Tell husband all right.” Three says later, someone in eastern Canada picked up the message, “Can you read me? Can you read me? This is Amelia Earhart … please come in.”

While the ultimate fate of Earhart remains to be unknown, it is certain that her death was an incredible loss, and losing her at such a prime time in her career only adds salt to the wound.

As always, the BuzzFeed Unsolved video delving more in depth with theories (including the theory that she survived the crash and was taken as a prisoner of war) is included for further reading here. Best of luck in your theorizing, until next week.

While our last case took us over seas, our seventh entry brings us back to Pennsylvania, specifically to Philadelphia. In the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Cedarbrook lies a small gravestone reading: “America’s Unknown Child”, homage to a young victim, never to be named, claimed, or forgotten.

The Boy in the Box. 1957. “The Boy In The Box — Inside The Creepy Unsolved Mystery,” by Katie Serena. Allthatsinteresting, 31 Aug. 2019.

1957: A young hunter sets out to check his traps near a park just north of Philadelphia. As he moves through the brush, he finds a tiny cardboard box, lying discarded on the ground. Inside, the naked body of a small boy, wrapped in a plaid blanket within a discarded baby’s bassinet cardboard box. Fearing that the police would confiscate his illegal traps if he alerted them to the box, the young hunter ignores it, and resumes hunting. Days later a college student comes across the hunting ground and decides to unlock several of the traps, in hopes of keeping the nearby animals safe. He finds the box, and alerts the police.

When the investigation first began, police were hopeful. Described as having blue eyes, fair complexion and medium to light brown crudely cut hair, his nails were neatly trimmed. He had deep bruises covering much of his body and face and experts believe that due to the cold weather, the child may have been lying in that box between 2-3 days to 2 to 3 weeks. Such a young boy (determined to be between the ages of 4-6) had to have a family searching for him, and police were prepared for fingerprint data to reveal his identity.

They were wrong.

In fact, his body showed several signs of abuse and mistreatment. With the help of X-rays, several doctors determined the child had probably been under the age of 5, but he weighed just 30 pounds and stood at only 40.5 inches tall. According to a medical examiner, the Boy in the Box had the body of a child who was just over two-years-old. His hands and feet were wrinkled, indicating he was submerged in water for an extended time just before or after he died.

When they were compared to a national database and local hospital records, no results were ever found. Though the entire city of Philadelphia and the country spread his battered face on over 400,000 flyers, on gas station billboards, on telephone poles, and bus stops, 1,000’s of leads led to no further information about the boy’s identity.

Digital Facial Reconstruction of the Boy in the Box . “Disturbing Facts And Theories About ‘The Boy In The Box’ ,” by Cat McAuliffe. Unspeakable Times, Ranker. Accessed 21 Oct. 2019.

Several theories have popped up over the years.

Investigators have explored the idea that the boy was a foster child who had died accidentally, or perhaps that he was a human trafficking victim. Experts agree that if the case had occurred 10-20 years ago, national news coverage and improvements in DNA evidence would have resulted in a closed case. Either way, it’s incredibly tragic that such a young boy had his life stripped away from him, and that no one had to answer for the crime.

As always, the BuzzFeed Unsolved video delving more in-depth with theories and details is provided here for your viewing. Best of luck with your further reading and theorizing, until next time.

Crime in the early 40’s-70’s was much different than crime today. With little to no DNA and forensic tools to investigate, as well as being under staffed and under educated, law enforcement fought against the birth of the “serial killer”, increases of gang violence, and saw the birth of criminal profiling. The lack of understanding of genetic evidence led to the failure of countless cases, and the basis for our exploration into some of the most notorious cold cases. For the first case outside of American borders, one of Australia’s “most profound mysteries” was to be found ashore in early December.

The Somerton Man. 1948. “Tamam Shud / Somerton Man,” by Nick Pelling, Jan. 2014. Cipher Mysteries.

1948: On Somerton Beach in Adelaide, South Australia, a man’s body was found. He was lying back with his head resting against the seawall, his legs extended and his feet crossed. Believed to have died while sleeping, an unlit cigarette was on the right collar of his coat, and a search of his pockets revealed an unused second-class train ticket from Adelaide to Henley Beach, a narrow aluminium American comb, a half-empty packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum, a cigarette packet, and a small box of matches.

He had no ID, and all the labels on his clothing had been removed. He wore a suit, and polished dress shoes, suggesting that he was well-off; a businessman who found himself far from where he was dressed to be. Tucked into a small pocket in the dead man’s pants was a small scrap of printed paper that had been ripped out of a book: it contained the Persian phrase Tamam Shud (i.e. “It Is Ended”, or “The End”). Authorities were able to trace the torn page back to the book from which it originated: a copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (a Persian book of poetry). In the back of the torn copy of The Rubaiyat lied a series of letters scribbled on the back cover, appearing to be code or a cipher. Military experts were unable to crack the code, and it remains undeciphered to this day.

Tamam Uhud. 1948. “Tamam Shud / Somerton Man,” by Nick Pelling, Jan. 2014. Cipher Mysteries.

The autopsy revealed very little; doctors believe he died of a heart attack, but poison was never ruled out due to the significant amount of internal bleeding and strange circumstances surrounding his death. However, zero traces of a poisonous substance were found, and no other findings were released.

Along with the cipher on the back of The Rubaiyat investigators found a hidden phone number which led them to a young nurse named Jessica ‘Jo’ Thomson. While being questioned, she claimed to have no knowledge of the man or The Rubaiyat, but investigators noted her strange reaction as she was shown photos of the man’s corpse. She was “…completely taken aback, to the point of giving the appearance that she was about to faint”. After further questioning, she admitted to being given a copy of the Rubaiyat by a man called Alfred Boxall, who she had met at the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney in 1944 while she was training to be a nurse at the nearby Royal North Shore Hospital. Yet, the lead swiftly disappeared as Boxall quickly proved to be very much alive and living in Maroubra (thus not the dead man found on the beach). From then, the case went cold.

2007: Derek Abbott, a professor at the University of Adelaide decided to conduct his own investigation on the case, and came up with stunning findings. According to Abbott, Thomson had an illegitimate child with the Somerton Man before he died. When Abbott found an old photograph of Thomson’s son Robin, he noticed that the boy shared some distinguishing features with the Somerton Man: Both had canines positioned right next to their front teeth, and the upper hollows in their ears were larger than the lower hollows. Both of these features are related to heredity and only appear in 1 percent or less of the population, leading him to believe that is much more than a coincidence and that she knew much more than she disclosed. Just to make matters more complicated, Abbott married Rachel Egan, Jo Thomson’s biological granddaughter, after getting to know her during his investigation. If his theories are correct, the three children he now has with Egan are the great-grandchildren of the Somerton Man.

2013: Adding to Abbott’s theory, Thomson’s daughter Kate revealed on Australia’s 60 Minutes that her mother had told her long ago that she indeed did know more about the Somerton Man, but had not revealed anything to police in order to keep her children safe. She also revealed that her mother was able to speak Russian, and suggested that her mother may have been involved in some spy-related activity.

Both Thomson and Abbott’s claims are accompanied by plenty of scrutiny from fellow investigators and researchers. The only thing that remains certain is that the well-dressed man found on Somerton Beach will continue to be a John Doe, one who is surrounded with ciphers and complicated coding, and a story much deeper than the one we know of now.

As always, the BuzzFeed video delving more in depth with details and theories is listed here for further reading. Best of luck, until next time.

When talking about cold cases, so many of them are swept under the rug. Even in highly publicized cases, like the Zodiac Killer case, the victim’s names almost always go forgotten. For many others, the perpetrator goes on with no consequences and there are no answers, no solutions, no happy endings, and no news articles. The next case for discussion differs in many ways from the previous cases: the victim’s name will never be forgotten, there was an arrest, and supposedly the case is closed. Still, there are a few loose ends, most notably: did they get the right guy? Did they get the ONLY guy?

Kennedy’s Motorcade. 1963. “The JFK Conspiracy Conspiracy,” by Michael Taube. Claremont Institute, 16 May 2019.

1963: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. Preparing for the next presidential campaign, Kennedy traveled through nine different states in less than a week. Meant to put a highlight natural resources, conservation efforts, education, national security, and world peace, all for his run in 1964, Kennedy traveled through Texas until finally arriving in Dallas.

At noon, Kennedy, his wife Jacqueline, Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, all sat in the open convertible. The Kennedys entered and sat behind them, and because the weather had cleared, the roof was down.

The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. The couples waved to onlookers, and smiled as the streets were lined with citizens overjoyed to see their President. As it passed the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire echoed.

Kennedy was shot in the head, immediately crumpling over on to Jackie’s lap. Governor Connally had been struck in the back. Panic flooded over the street, as husbands shielded their wives and wives shielded their children. Witnesses recalled hearing three shots, but testimonies differed greatly and due to shock, few can be taken as accurate recollections of the event. The car began to speed down the road toward Parkland Memorial Hospital in hopes of tending to the wounded.

At 1:00 p.m., John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Connally would later recover from his wounds. Kennedy’s body was placed on Air Force One, and Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath of office administered by US District Court Judge Sarah Hughes in front of the White House staff, and Jacqueline Kennedy, her clothes still stained from blood.

At 1:30, Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested and charged for the assassination. Oswald was a recent employee of the Texas School Book Depository. While fleeing the scene, Oswald was stopped by Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit, and responded by shooting him four times, killing him instantly. Once the manhunt began, e lasted 24 hours in police custody. While being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail, live television coverage suddenly saw a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range, killing Oswald two hours later. The man, later identified to have been Jack Ruby, claimed to have been “doing America and Mrs. Kennedy a favor”.

The Impact of the Assassination. 1963. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, by JFK Library , National Archives.

Once Oswald had been killed, the police lost their only chance at understanding his motive or hearing his alibi, much less taking him to trial. Ruby’s motives have also been highly disputed, as many believe he could have been covering evidence, perhaps even a partner who had planned to kill Oswald in case of him being captured.

In fact, conspiracy shrouds JFK’s assassination. After the killing, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known as the Warren Commission after Chief Justice of the United States, Earl Warren. The Warren Commission was meant to investigate the assassination of Kennedy, as well as Oswald’s death. The results of the Warren Commission has been highly disputed, especially his findings in that Kennedy was struck by two bullets shot by one assailant.

According to a 2013 poll, 70 percent of Americans believe there was a broader plot beyond just Lee Harvey Oswald on the sixth floor overlooking Dealey plaza in Dallas. The most popular of the theories surrounds the existence of multiple shooters, focusing on the physics of the attack and the bullet wounds. The phrase “the bullet curved” commonly gets thrown around when talking about the JFK Assassination, as many researchers and theorists point out the impossibility of the neck wound and head wound being from the same shooter in the same direction. Others surround the “Umbrella Man”, or the involvement of the KGB, CIA, and mob. The mystery surrounding the incident has resulted in too many conspiracies to touch on here. Though the Kennedy Assassination has more answers than several of our other aforementioned cases, the truth may be never uncovered. Some rumors are to be expected with the filmed murder of the President, but theorists have taken the unanswered questions and given the case a mind of its own.

As always, the Buzzfeed Unsolved video delving into the specifics and theories is linked here for further reading. Best of luck in your searching, until next time.

For the first entry NOT about homicide, I’ve picked a doozy. Everything that I’ve written about so far seems so bleak, and the fact that they’ve gone unanswered just adds salt to the wound. For a change, here’s something that doesn’t involve a murder (though it does include a bomb, a plane hijacking, and a quarter of a million dollars).

Police Sketch of Cooper. 1971. “D.B. Cooper Hijacking,” by Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI, 12 July 2016.

1971: Flight #305 is bound for Seattle, Washington from Portland, Oregon. On his ticket it reads, “D.B. Cooper”, and he boards the flight after paying with cash. He wears a business suit and tie, orders a bourbon and coke, and once the flight takes off, he puts his plan into motion.

Mr. Cooper calls a stewardess over to his seat, and he shows her a note that asks her to sit. He has a bomb on board, and she needs to do exactly as he asks.

She does.

Within his briefcase lies a mass of colored wires. “Take his note to your captain”, he says. Cooper demands four parachutes, $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills, and a re-fueling truck for when the plane lands. They’d be landing in Seattle for fuel for the rest of the trip, south towards Mexico.

Once they landed, the other 36 passengers were released in exchange for the cash. Three crew members and the captain remained as the plane traveled south. Near Reno, Nevada, Cooper made his move:

He jumps.

Never to be seen again.

That’s it.

Whether Cooper survived or not is unknown. Law-enforcement officials in five different planes tailed the jetliner, yet no one witnessed the jump. By using wind speed and free fall data, researchers have found that Cooper landed somewhere on Bachelor Island, an area along the Columbia River in Washington. Near this same river, several twenty-dollar bills have washed up, believed to belong to Cooper. These bills have been the only physical evidence found.

The FBI launched a nation-wide investigation. From the official investigation report, “We’re calling it NORJAK, for Northwest Hijacking, we interviewed hundreds of people, tracked leads across the nation, and scoured the aircraft for evidence. By the five-year anniversary of the hijacking, we’d considered more than 800 suspects and eliminated all but two dozen from consideration.”

D.B. Cooper. 1971. “Was The FBI Wrong About D.B. Cooper’s Infamous Skyjacking? An Amateur Sleuth Thinks So,” by Sharon Lynn Pruitt. Oxygen, NBCUniversal, 28 June 2019.

Evidence suggested that Cooper was not an experienced jumper. His parachute was unable to be steered, he wasn’t dressed for a rough landing (which he most certainly had), and he jumped at night. Many believe he died on impact, though his body and parachute has never (nor will they) been found.

1980 – A young boy finds a wet, rotting package full of twenty-dollar bills ($5,800) that matches the ransom money serial numbers. Again, this is all that’s ever been discovered from the hijacking, and it came nearly ten years later.

For everyone that believes that Cooper never survived, just as many believe he walked away with the cash and got away with it. Leading suspect Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr. was arrested a year after the D.B. Cooper hijacking for hijacking a plane from Denver to Los Angeles after jumping with $500,000. Never officially prosecuted, McCoy died in 1974 after escaping prison and getting into an altercation with pursuing guards. Since, the case has gone cold.

As always, BuzzFeed Unsolved’s video is linked here. Best of luck theory hunting, until next week.

Does crime affect your day to day life? Depending on where you’re from, and your personal experiences, some of us would answer ‘yes’. Whether you have a heightened sense of fear and awareness of violence, or you were lucky enough (as I am) to be from an area where you’ve been blessed with the gift of blissful ignorance about how growing up in a high crime neighborhood can affect you.

Maybe that’s why I have such a fascination with crime; it’s uncharted territory for me. Being from a small rural town, we were never scared to go outside at night. We didn’t think about carrying weapons (other than the hunting knives that most boys brought to school and the occasional rifle in a truck), and we never looked at our neighbors in fear.

This simply isn’t reality in other towns and cities in the United States, especially in large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, as our next cold case details. For bustling California in the 40’s, crime was all too familiar.

The Black Dahlia. “The Black Dahlia: How ‘Moral Panic’ Gripped the Community in the Wake of Elizabeth Short’s Gruesome Murder,” by Laura Barcella. A&E Television Networks, 14 Jan. 2019.

1947: A mother and her child walk the streets of Los Angeles, only to stumble upon a horrific sight in a vacant lot: a young woman, who had been severed at the waist, with a crude blanket covering her blood-drained body. Her mouth had been carved into a permanent grin. Ligature marks bruised her wrists, ankles, and neck, with other signs of prolonged torture. She was naked, and not a single drop of blood stained the lot, meaning that she had only been dropped off here, and murdered elsewhere.

Using her fingerprints, the FBI and LAPD found her name to be Elizabeth Short. She was from Medford, Massachusetts, and had moved to Los Angeles in hopes of becoming a Hollywood starlet. She was known by friends as being friendly, graceful, kind, and even a bit of a spitfire. She was passionate, strong, and free.

Her romantic interest was Major Matt Gordon, a pilot, whom she told her close friends that she intended to marry once he returned from serving in India. Gordon would never return, instead killed in action, leaving Elizabeth heartbroken and alone. In her grief, she rekindled an old flame with former boyfriend Lieutenant Gordon Fickling, and began staying in several different friend’s homes until she “found her footing”. During this time, she was going out late at night, drinking, and finding herself in trouble with the law. Those closest to her believed this behavior was to cope with her loneliness and feeling of being lost in the world, with no true home or calling.

On January 9th, she had her current boyfriend Robert Manley drop her off at the Biltmore Hotel in Hollywood in order to meet up with her sister prior to visiting Massachusetts. By January 15th, she had been missing for nearly a week, until she was found butchered in a parking lot.

She was 22.

Elizabeth Short’s Mugshot, captured when she was 19 for underage drinking in Santa Barbara . [1944]. “The Black Dahlia,” by Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI: Famous Cases and Criminals.

Within hours, the crime scene was flooded with reporters. Newspapers referred to her as “The Black Dahlia”, in reference to a crime film of the previous year. The public was obsessed with the gruesomeness of her death, and her stardom. Seemingly furious with the holy treatment being given to Short, the killer sent letters to the Los Angeles Examiner, offering her personal belongings (birth certificate, photos, address book, etc.). DNA testing on the letters has wielded no results.

Letters From the Supposed Killer. [1947]. “Cold Case #5 – The Chilling Death Of The Black Dahlia,” by Maitri Patel. Odyssey, 20 Mar. 2017.

Warning: The above link contains extremely graphic images, and shouldn’t be viewed by those who may be sensitive to crimes of this nature. Caution is advised.

Since her death, over 50 men and women have confessed to the murder. Several suspects, (most notably George Hodel, her then-boyfriend Robert Manley [who would later be diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a mental hospital], and Mark Hansen to name a few) have been pinpointed but never charged.

Short’s promiscuous behavior near the time of her death has made it nearly impossible for investigators to determine possible suspects, sexual partners, and even friends. Having the public eye put her in such a high podium (thanks to the media and the alias given to her in order to increase recognition) made the investigation cumbersome, as well as the lack of advanced genetic testing at the time. The odds of finding The Black Dahlia killer are slim to none, doomed to be unsolved and “cold” for eternity it seems.

For further reading, BuzzFeed Unsolved has a short but fantastic video detailing the murder and further explaining several suspects and theories, and I recommend for those interested to check it out. Thank you for reading, and best of luck with creating your own theories.

As a society, we thrive on crime and violence. The most popular shows on television are nearly all true crime: NCIS, Criminal Minds, Law and Order, CSI, Bones, etc. It’s not a coincidence that we are fed stories of crime from the media, and that our movies, our books, our Facebook feeds are filled with violence.

The more horrifying, the more fascinating. It’s attention grabbing, it’s appealing because its taboo. It’s wrong, but we love to hear about the ones who live outside the confines of our societal norms. Stories about crime sell quicker, sell out, and sell the story.

And if the story goes unsolved?

Suddenly we’re all Sherlock Holmes.

JonBenét Ramsey. “Court papers: Grand jury in 1999 sought to indict JonBenet Ramsey’s parents,” by Michael Martinez and Faith Karimi. CNN, 25 Oct. 2013.

1996: December 26th, the morning after Christmas, the Ramsey house awoke to find their beautiful six-year old daughter JonBenét missing from her bed. JonBenét was a pageant star, who lived a life of luxury. She was an American icon, recognized by her curly blonde hair, her smile, and her supportive family cheering her on at events: her mother Patsy, a former beauty star herself, her father John, a successful multi-millionaire businessman, and her elder brother Burke, who was nine at the time of her disappearance. She loved camera time, and captured the hearts millions who watched her captivate her audiences with her southern charm and confidence. JonBenét was poised to be a star.

And she was gone.

In place of their loving daughter, Patsy and John found a ransom note demanding 118,000 dollars. Though the note explicitly warned against notifying the police, authorities were called and arrived at around 6:00 A.M. Once they began their investigation of the home, the first mistakes were made. None of the house was sectioned off other than JonBenét’s room, meaning the family was allowed to roam and tamper with evidence. John and Patsy were never interviewed separately. In fact, as they examined the house the officers instructed the family to help them search and investigate.

This presented to pose a problem when John Ramsey went into the basement and came back with the body of his daughter.

Jonbenét had suffered a skull fracture, had been strangled (with what would later be revealed to be made from parts of Patsy’s paintbrush), had been gagged and bound, sexually assaulted (there would be no DNA found), and the autopsy revealed that she died primarily from asphyxiation with complications from the skull fracture.

Followers of the case usually fit within two groups: those who believe the family did it, and those who believe an intruder did it. Though all three members of the immediate family were investigated, the media coverage and public has held them as the primary suspects.

Ransom Note. 1997. “Disguised Handwriting: Unmasking The Ramsey Ransom Note,” by Brenda Anderson. Expert Handwriting Analysis, 9 July 2013.

Handwriting analysis has been inconclusive in determining whether or not Patsy wrote the ransom note (which is an odd thing to leave in a home if you’re going to kill the child and dump her in the basement). Much of the language in the note raised flags as well, as it was verbose and oddly specific. Considering how contaminated the DNA at the crime scene was, fingerprint data has been inconclusive both on her body and in the home. Initially, Patsy and John were considered hostile witnesses and were difficult to work with, citing their fear of being accused. Years would go by before any development in the case.

1999: A grand jury decides to convict John and Patsy for their presumed involvement, however insufficient evidence prevents a formal conviction. Prior to Patsy’s death in 2005 due to cancer, she and John released a memoir titled, “The Death of Innocence” which detailed their struggles with being perceived as murderers of their own child. They believe an intruder broke into the home late at night, (and investigators have several names of people of interest in this theory) and framed the family in order to cover their tracks.

2016: JonBenét’s brother Burke speaks to the media for the first time during an interview with Dr. Phil in which he defends his family (though the interview has been torn apart by behavioral analysts and body language experts who have pointed out a few red flags of their own).

Yet, we’re no closer to knowing who for certain killed JonBenét.

This case has interested me in similar ways as the Zodiac did, both because it went unsolved, and because I’ve been developing my own theories as to what I think happened. BuzzFeed Unsolved has another amazing video detailing the crime and explaining theories much better and more in depth than me, so if interested please check it out.

Several people have taken responsibility for the murder, and new loopholes seem to pop up every couple of years. While hope may still remain for determining what happened, it’s clear that investigative incompetence and media played a powerful role in preventing the truth from being revealed.

1969. “Why has DNA evidence not yet unmasked the Zodiac Killer?” by Charles Russo. Medium.

As a criminology major, I hope to dedicate my time at Penn State studying the human psyche and researching criminals’ motivations. When I first became interested in learning more about crime, I began falling into holes on YouTube, attempting to gain as much accessible knowledge as I could about the “monsters that walk among us”. A video by BuzzFeed Unsolved entitled “The Horrifying Murders of the Zodiac Killer” caught my eye in 2016. As arbitrary as it seems, I owe my initial interest and fascination with serial murderers and criminal psychology to this 22 minute video. Thus, there is no better way to begin my blog than talking about the unsolved murders that started it all.

1968: San Francisco Bay. Two teenagers are murdered in their car in December, both shot to death. A year later, and another couple has been shot, though the male survived the attack. Investigators didn’t believe the two were related, and had zero witnesses or suspects for either incident.

1969: On the 1st of August, the San-Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vallejo Times-Herald each receive an identical, handwritten letter. The author of the letters takes responsibility for the attacks, stating “I am the killer of the two teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman.” They then go on to explain details of the crime in which only the murderer would know: the type of ammunition used, the clothing worn by each victim, the location of each bullet wound. After a demand for their letter to be printed on the front page (or else more blood would be shed), 1/3 of a cypher followed, encrypted with homemade symbols that supposedly hid the identity of the killer. Each letter was signed with a circle with a cross through it, later attached to the symbol of the Zodiac Watch Company.

This was the day that the Zodiac Killer was born.

Later that year, a third couple would be attacked, with the male victim surviving once more. This time, the letters began with: “Dear Editor, this is the Zodiac speaking.” After sufficient “proof” was given  that the writer was indeed the killer, the author would begin to delve into his motivations, and taunts directed at the San Francisco and Vallejo Police. The descriptions were vivid, and posted verbatim on the front page for every Californian to read.

The Zodiac Killer had exactly what they craved (perhaps even more than murder), and that was attention.

A taxi driver was shot and killed in October. The subsequent letter contained a piece of his blood-soaked shirt, and the information that they remained at near the crime scene, even as police arrived.

“The S.F. police could have caught me last night if they had searched the park properly instead of holding road races with their motorcycles seeing who could make the most noise.”

Some investigators believe the first responders came in physical contact with the Zodiac Killer, that night, yet after a few brief questions let the passer-by go.

The letter concludes with a threat to attack a children’s school bus and “pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out”

Chaos ensued.

Around this time the first three cypher pages had begun to be de-coded by a school teacher and his wife. To this day, it remains to be the only Zodiac Letter to be decrypted, and contrary to what the Zodiac had promised, it didn’t contain their name or address.  Rather, it contained the explanation of why the Zodiac killed.

1969. “Zodiac killer theories still rolling in after 45 years,” by Kevin Fagan. SFGate, SFChronicle.

“I like killing people because it is so much fun.” read the first line of the letter. It contained references to Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and proclaimed that they would never release their name, in fear that the police would try to “slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife”.

1974: The final letter is received. Aside from their review of “The Exorcist” as “the best satirical comedy”, the Zodiac gives the final scoreboard:

ME-37 SFPD-0

Throughout the years, many copycat letters have been sent, as well as cyphers. It’s unknown how many victims fell pray to the Zodiac Killer, or even if it was a single person. Theorists have dedicated years to uncovering hidden evidence, re-examining DNA, and fanatics alike have created sites, forums, and research blogs to keep the memory of those lost alive, and to keep the hope alive that one day, an answer might be found.

Cases 40+ years old (especially as the odds of the killer being deceased increase astronomically) don’t get solved every day, and usually, they never do. Readers can attribute the failure to that of the police department, who missed several key pieces of evidence, to the news outlets, for giving up their platform as free real estate for panic, or congratulate the Zodiac on flaunting just enough to get us to look but never find.

I highly encourage those who wish to learn more (like me!) to read the letters themselves and do their own research, as well as watch the BuzzFeed video that got me so enthralled in the first place. Original scans of the letters and cyphers can easily be found, and they’re both fascinating and chilling.

One can only hope that this intriguing and unique case doesn’t fall into limbo, and that new answers may be found in order to grant the families of the victims peace. I’m of the group of people who think that perhaps the case just needs another set of fresh eyes.

As of now, I hope those eyes are mine.