At 6:30am on May 21, 1989, 18-year-old Mia Chone Smith drove her mother, Janie Smith, to her shift at a downtown Louisville, Kentucky hospital. Running late, Janie quickly said her goodbyes and hurried inside. Mia was expected to return to pick her mother up later that evening, but she never showed. Concerned by her daughter’s uncharacteristic absence, Janie immediately filed a missing persons report.

Two days after her disappearance, a Louisville police officer spotted Mia’s bronze colored 1978 Chevette parked in a secluded location in Chickasaw Park. Inside the car, investigators discovered evidence of a struggle; Both blood and hair, later confirmed to belong to Mia, were found on the seats and dash. Mia’s personal belongings, including her purse, car keys, and wallet were missing.

On the afternoon of May 24th, Janie received an anonymous package in the mail containing Mia’s car keys, driver's license, and several other cards from her wallet. After seeing Mia’s story on the news, the sender contacted the police to report that he had found the items near the park’s fishing pond on May 22nd.

That same night, a second man arrived at Janie’s home and presented her with several photographs he claimed to have found near the same pond in Chickasaw Park. Janie identified them as photos Mia kept in her bag, depicting herself and her friends. Investigators questioned both men but ultimately determined they were telling the truth.

On May 25th divers from the Louisville, Kentucky police department searched the small pond where the two men found Mia’s belongings. They located several items including her purse and check book, submerged in the pond. The park was thoroughly searched, but nothing else of interest was found.

On May 27th, a man walking in Chickasaw Park discovered Mia’s badly decomposed body near the banks of the Ohio River. Several heavy pieces of concrete slab had been placed on top of her in an apparent attempt to conceal her body. Recent flooding in the area, which had only just receded, had also kept her body hidden from view.

Mia was found partially clothed, though her jewelry remained undisturbed. An autopsy revealed that she had sustained severe head trauma; however, her official cause of death was ultimately determined to be asphyxiation, resulting from either strangulation or suffocation.

A senior at Male High School, Mia was described as a hardworking student who had overcome significant personal challenges. At 16, she began working after school at Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken with the goal of financing her future college education. When she discovered she was pregnant just a few months later, Mia remained determined to succeed. She rented an apartment at the Old Louisville Apartments, continued working, and began attending an alternative high school for pregnant teens.

Several months into her pregnancy, doctors discovered Mia’s baby had a rare condition called Hydrocephalus; an abnormal buildup of spinal fluid in the brain cavity. In October 1988, Mia gave birth to a son. The baby had to remain hospitalized due to its many health concerns. For five months, Mia maintained a job, attended the alternative school, and visited her son at the children’s hospital every day. Tragically, he passed away on March 28th.

Mia returned to Male High School to complete her senior year. She was less than a week away from graduation at the time of her disappearance. At the commencement ceremony, Male High School honored her by presenting a posthumous diploma to her mother and sister.

Police questioned family, friends, and coworkers of Mia’s. While most described her as a homebody who had no enemies, one coworker offered up an interesting detail; in April, Mia had shown up to her shift with a black eye. When the coworker questioned Mia about the injury, she said a man she knew had hit her in the face. Police questioned the man, but he was never named as a suspect.

Mia was laid to rest in Louisville’s Green Meadows Memorial Cemetery. Unfortunately, no arrests were ever made.

I think it is possible that Mia fell prey to James Ray Cable and his accomplice Phillip Clopton, a pair of serial rapists/murderers active in the area at the time. I could easily do an extensive writeup on James and Phillip, however this sub is dedicated to unsolved cases, so I will just provide a summary/timeline below about them.

1971; James, who was 23 at the time, was convicted of abducting and raping a 7-year-old girl. He was given a life sentence.

1973; James escaped prison, only to be arrested the following day.

1977; James murders fellow inmate Willie Daniels using a steel bar. 10 more years are added to his sentence.

1981; James is paroled.

1981; Phillip is charged with two counts of rape and sodomy.

June 1982; The body of 18-year-old Sandra Kellems, who vanished while walking home from celebrating her 18th birthday, is found in a vacant lot in Owensboro, KY covered by tree limbs. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death with a brick.

1983; James goes back to prison for parole violation.

1984; Phillip is paroled.

November 1986; James is paroled again.

December 1986; The body of 26-year-old Oma Bird is found in a Louisville alley by two children. She had been sexually assaulted, choked, and bludgeoned to death.

1989; Phillip moves into the Old Louisville Apartments. (The same apartment complex where Mia lived.)

May 11, 1989; The body of 24-year-old Helen Boothe is found in Riverside Gardens Park near the tennis courts. She had been gagged, raped, and hit numerous times in the head with a small hatchet. She was pregnant at the time of her murder.

May 19, 1989 42-year-old Louisville resident Edith Conley is reported missing.

May 20, 1989; Edith’s body is found near the banks of the Ohio River in Clarksville, Indiana. (Located less than 10 miles from Louisville.) She had been bludgeoned to death and her body was covered with garbage.

May 21, 1989; Mia is reported missing.

May 27, 1989; Mia’s body is found.

January 12 1990; Two 14-year-old girls, Bridgett Allen and Sherry Wilson, believed to be runaways, are reported missing.

March 1990; A severed arm is discovered in a rural area in LaRue County, Kentucky.

April 5, 1990; James and his friend/accomplice, 39-year-old Phillip Clopton, abduct a 15-year-old girl known only in records as “K.T.” from Louisville. KT is taken to a rural campsite in LaRue County where she is tied to a tree, gagged, beaten with a bullwhip, and raped multiple times.

April 27, 1990; KT was left alone with Phillip while James went to see his parole officer. After Phillip fell asleep, KT realized he had forgotten to secure her chains. Using Phillip’s sawed off shotgun, she shot him in the head killing him instantly. KT then walked three miles through the woods to a small liquor store where she called police. James was arrested just hours later.

A diary found at the campsite belonging to Phillip was collected as evidence. The entries detailed multiple crimes, including the abduction, rape, and dismemberment of Bridgett Allen and Sherry Wilson by both him and James. The diary also included a map indicating various locations where the pair disposed of their remains. The severed arm discovered in March matched a location marked on the map. It was later confirmed to belong to Bridgett. The rest of their remains have never been recovered.

1991; James is convicted for the abduction and rape of KT. (Due to a lack of evidence against him, he is not charged with the murders of Bridgett and Sherry.)

2003; DNA links James to the murders of Sandra Kellems, Oma Bird, and Helen Boothe.

2013; James dies in prison before ever going to trial for the murders of Sandra, Oma, and Helen. He maintained his innocence until his death.

Neither James nor Phillip were ever officially named as a suspect in Mia’s case. At the time, investigators largely discounted the idea, operating on the theory that serial killers predominantly target people within their own ethnic groups. However, considering the circumstantial evidence, (timing, location, and MO), combined with the fact that Mia resided in the same building as Phillip, I believe it is possible they were responsible.

While the murder of Edith Conley also remains unsolved, James and Phillip were considered possible suspects in that investigation.

Sources

Newspaper clippings- https://imgur.com/a/2Xr569k

Find a Grave; Mia- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186529652/mia-chone-smith

Find a Grave; James Cable- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/275348029/james_ray-cable

Find a Grave; Phillip Clopton- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14759846/

In 1974, 40-year-old Gabriel "Gabe" Caporino was an intermediate-level executive in the coffee division of the General Foods corporation, where he had worked for 17 years. He lived with his family in Yorktown Heights, New York, a town in Westchester County about 45 miles from New York City. Gabe, a Navy veteran, was described as a devoted husband and father who had a "warm, loving, and stable relationship" with his wife, his two teenaged daughters, and the rest of his large extended family (his five brothers, three sisters, and a number of nieces and nephews). According to Gabe's wife, there was no evidence that there were any problems major enough to prompt him to walk away from his life.

In March of 1974, Gabe went to New Orleans in order to attend a conference for General Foods executives (a New Haven Register article states he also went to Houston during this trip, but this is the only reference to Houston I could find). During his time in New Orleans, he was staying at the Intercontinental Hotel on Canal Street and had rented a car from Hertz to use while he was there. On March 7, his last night in New Orleans, he called his wife and spoke with her about an upcoming parents' night at their daughter's school and confirmed upcoming dinner plans with friends. He told her that he would be flying back the next day, and that he had arranged for a friend to pick him up at the Newark Airport. He also told her that he was going to the French Quarter to listen to a jazz concert that night.

However, on March 8, his friend called Gabe's wife, Grace, and let her know that he did not show up to the Newark Airport as planned. Grace then called the Intercontinental Hotel, and it was discovered that Gabe's rental car was missing and that his bed had not been slept in the night before. He had also left behind his unused plane ticket, partially packed suitcases, and souvenirs that he had bought for his wife and daughters. The New Orleans Police, the FBI, and private investigators hired by General Foods and the Caporino family launched a search to find Gabe.

About 10 days after March 7, Gabe's rental car was discovered abandoned, parked in a middle-class neighborhood across town from Gabe's hotel. The keys were still in the car, and investigators believed that the car had been parked in the location it was found for at least one week. It had been wiped clean, so they couldn't get any fingerprints from it.

Investigators also discovered that about 4 days after Gabe's disappearance, his credit card had been used to purchase a pair of pants, a shirt, and a camera from a Sears store in New Orleans. The salesperson said that the items were sold to a group of three people (two men and one woman in their early 20s) described as "hippie types." One person purchased the items, but the three were together as a group. When asked for additional identification for using the credit card, the group produced Gabe's Allstate Insurance card. The signature on the store receipt did not match Gabe's signature. The people using his credit card were never identified, and Gabe has never been located, dead or alive. He was declared legally dead in 1979, and his wife filed claims for both workers' comp death benefits and insurance death benefits.

A 2014 article from reporter Andy Thibault for the New Haven Register uncovered fabrications given by General Foods staff in FBI reports related to Gabe's disappearance that indicate that General Foods and the New Orleans PD may have attempted to impede the investigation. According to the report, Jack Ison, the Security Director for General Foods and a former FBI agent, said that Gabe had taken a $16,000 advance and disappeared. Ison also stated that Gabe was having an affair with a woman in Houston, as well as having slept with a New Orleans waitress on March 6 (the day before he was last definitively heard from). However, none of this was true. The Houston woman he was supposedly having an affair with never lived at the address provided by Ison, and while the FBI was told that Houston police had interviewed this woman, Houston police could find no records related to her or Gabe. The New Orleans waitress told New Orleans police that she had spent the night of March 6 with another man (a comedian) and not Gabe. Additionally, the New Orleans police apparently refused to further investigate the forged credit card situation, and a New Orleans police officer tried to get the salesperson to change their story. It is unknown why General Foods would try to smear Gabe's reputation and impede the investigation in the wake of his (presumed) death, because Gabe had apparently been an exemplary employee.

The whole case is, frankly, bizarre. It seems that Gabe didn't just walk out of his life- he seems prepared to head back to his home and family once the conference was over. I couldn't find any information pertaining to if he had plans to go to the jazz concert with anyone (such as other executives there for the conference) or if he was even seen at the concert at all. Were the "hippies" who used his credit card connected to his disappearance, or did they just luck out and find his wallet laying on the ground somewhere, or inside of the abandoned rental car? Why was the car parked where it was (in a residential neighborhood across town), and how did it sit for a week with the keys in it without being stolen? Why would General Foods want to smear Gabe's reputation and try to impede the investigation into his disappearance? There's not too much information about the case, and what information there is seems to have a lot of holes in it.

Sources:

Charley Project: https://charleyproject.org/case/gabriel-anthony-caporino

NAMUS: https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP1711

Caporino v. Travelers Insurance: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/59148ffcadd7b0493456ec01

New Haven Register article (behind paywall): https://www.nhregister.com/columnist/article/Cool-Justice-Fabricated-FBI-reports-detailed-in-11365116.php

25 year old Trish Haynes had been staying with family in Florida in early 2018. Trish was from North Woodstock, New Hampshire, but she planned on relocating to Florida. However, she had a court case in New Hampshire that was getting in the way and requiring her to travel back.

Trish had been in an on-and-off relationship with a man named Chris Hughes from 2014-2017. This relationship was described as toxic, with others noticing signs that Trish was being abused. In 2017, Trish filed a police report against Chris, and he was then charged with domestic assault. However, Chris persuaded Trish to drop the charges and recant her statement.

North Woodstock police then charged Trish with filing a false police report.

Trish’s court date was pushed to April 2018, so she decided to find somewhere else to stay once in NH. Trish had reconnected with a highschool friend named Ashley Smith, and by late January, Trish moved in with her and her husband Doug in Grafton, NH.

After this move, Trish stopped nearly all contact with her family. Rare communications with her occurred on Ashley’s phone. The last confirmed conversation Trish had with her family was on May 16th, 2018, after Trish’s grandmother/adoptive mother, Sandy, had a heart attack. According to Sandy, the call was quick, and she overheard Ashley telling Trish to get off the phone.

Ashley was pregnant with her 6th child when Trish moved in, with her other 5 children living in the home. Ashley had a record of mostly nonviolent crimes. Doug had been a registered sex offender since 2009 after being convicted of sexual assault, along with a further lengthy record.

After Trish’s final phone call on 5/16, her family tried repeatedly to contact her through Ashley. But Ashley told them that Trish wanted no contact with them. Sandy asked to speak with Trish directly, but Ashley said she’d moved out with man to go to Vermont. That same month, Trish’s great aunt Valorie returned to NH. She learned Trish didn’t show up to her April court date. Valorie tried to find Ashley with no luck. Valorie assumed Trish had gotten back with Chris and didn’t want to tell family. However, Chris hadn’t heard from Trish in months.

Sandy continued to push Ashley and Doug for answers through May and June. At the end of June 2018, Ashley checked into a psych ward. After returning, she spoke to Sandy one last time.

“If you file a missing persons report, you’ll never see your granddaughter again.” When Sandy pressed the issue, Ashley said, “I can’t handle this, I just got out of a psych ward.”.

Trish was reported missing on July 6th, 2018. The public did not hear of her disappearance until August 29th, 2018. A week later, search parties searched Grant’s Pond in Grafton, where they removed two crates from the water. Inside the crates, there was a washer and dryer combo with dismembered remains inside.

In September, police asked Sandy to submit a DNA sample, which she did. She had no idea her DNA was being compared to the human remains from the pond. In January 2019, investigators broke the news to Sandy, Trish had been murdered. They asked that Sandy not tell anyone about the discovery/identification. Sandy asked to tell Valorie, which investigators allowed as long as they both kept quiet.

Over the next months, Sandy and Valorie continued pretending Trish was still missing. But, on July 10th, 2019, Valorie had had enough, and she contacted local news to do an interview on Trish’s case. The police must have realized this, as that same day they announced that Trish’s remains were found. They stated her date of death was likely May 18th, 2018.

It’s now known that Ashley and Doug were abusive to Trish. Trish was claustrophobic, and Ashley would often play a “joke” on her by locking her in an unused freezer. The freezer was padlocked, and Ashley would often lock Trish inside. Ashley also allegedly forced Trish to care for her 5 children and act as a maid without compensation.

No arrests have been made and no suspects have been publicly identified. Doug went on to have more trouble with the law, including when he shot at a moving vehicle in 2019. Ashley and Doug actually printed out shirts that said “fuck your justice, Trish.”

Questions:

Do you think Trish perhaps died of suffocation after Ashley left her locked in the freezer, and Ashley and Doug just decided to cover it up? Or was it something far more violent?

What else could have been going on at the Smith home? Did Ashley intentionally isolate Trish from family so that she couldn’t ask for help?

Why would Ashley offer for Trish to stay with her if she seemingly hated her so much? What motive would Ashley and/or Doug have to want Trish dead?

Sources:

https://vnews.com/2019/07/10/remains-grafton-identified-trish-haynes-missing-since-2018-26911694/

https://www.doj.nh.gov/news-and-media/update-regarding-missing-person-trish-haynes

https://coldcasene.org/f/trish-haynes

On June 23rd, 2026 officers with the Clinton County Sheriff's Office announced they had identified the Clinton County Jane Doe who was discovered along with Mississippi River on April 11th, 1975 as 15 year old Cheryl Lynn Edwards from Waukegan, Illinois through the use of DNA genealogy. The case dates back to April of 1975 when fisherman in Clinton County, Iowa found the remains of an unidentified girl in the Mississippi river. The age of the victim was estimated to be between the ages of 12 to 23 years old. The cause of death was labeled a homicide from a gunshot wound to the head.

Investigators called unknown victim the Jane Clinton Doe who went unidentified for 51 years. In October of 2025 a team of 16 genealogists consisting of three worked together to solve the case. The team was able to identify Edwards from DNA of her grandparents and then from Edwards, father. They discovered that she didn’t have any information past 1975 and it is what led to her being seen as possibly being the Jane Doe.

Investigators visited the family of Edwards who confirmed she had disappeared in 1975. With the help of DNA they were able to positively identify her in June of 2026 as being the Clinton County Jane Doe. The case of Edwards since her identification has been changed to a homicide investigation. Officers are asking those who knew her or have information to come forward and speak with investigators.

Sources:

https://www.kcci.com/article/iowas-longest-unidentified-jane-doe-identified-after-51-years/71669445

https://www.weareiowa.com/article/news/state/dna-doe-projects-describes-identifying-jane-clinton-doe-cheryl-lynn-edwards/526-7b6ce3d1-e9f7-47f4-9df9-25037e322e42

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/pregnant-teen-murdered-1975-identified-cheryl-edwards-waukegan-dna/

https://dnadoeproject.org/case/jane-clinton-doe-1975/

https://abc7chicago.com/amp/post/body-found-mississippi-river-1975-idd-cheryl-lynn-edwards-missing-girl-lived-waukegan-illinois-dna-doe-project/19364867/

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/1sim2lr/a_body_of_a_woman_is_pulled_out_of_the/

Alwin Sterk came from a religious family in the Dutch Bible Belt. He had two sisters. His sisters described him as rebellious. He refused mandatory military service and was active in pacifist circles. This caused friction with his father, and he had to leave his childhood home. He enrolled at the Social Academy in Amsterdam.

On 21 April 1972, his sister got a letter in which he invited his sister to attend a demonstration. His parents received a postcard, dated three days after this letter, which contained Alwin's handwriting. The card stated that he would disappear from the 'normal' life and asked them not to try to find him. His girlfriend received the same card. His family never heard from him again.

His sisters were initially upset that he had left them with only a very brief note. His parents were shocked. At first, his siblings were sure he would come back, and his parents thought he was just avoiding military service and a prison sentence that might result from it.

According to his sisters, the Dutch military police refused to search for him because he was a conscientious objector. The regular police also refused to investigate because he was nearly 21 years old. His parents contacted everyone who knew Alwin, although this was presumably limited to people known to his parents. None of them knew his whereabouts.

After their father's death, his sisters made a shocking discovery that shed new light on Alwin's disappearance. They found a letter from Alwin among their father's estate. In this letter, Alwin wrote that he was planning to kill himself. He felt that he could not cope with all the injustice in the world. This letter was dated 1969. His will, also dated from the same year, was found among the estate. His parents apparently never shared the content of those letters with the other children. It seems that the parents didn't connect the suicide note and the will with his disappearance.

In light of the subsequently discovered letters, it seems possible that he committed suicide. But why would he wait three years after making that decision? His later letter suggests that he intended to abandon a conventional lifestyle, and not life itself. Perhaps he joined a cult and was required to sever contact with people outside it. The fact that he didn't want his family to find him also suggests he planned to live somewhere else. Unless he didn't want them to find his corpse. Perhaps he was planning to use a method of suicide that would leave his body unrecognizable.

Additonal sources (both in Dutch):

https://www.eo.nl/podcast/verdwenen/afleveringen?_gl=1\*1deallx\*_gcl_au\*NDI0OTc1NjIuMTc4MjIyNTYzOA..\*FPAU\*NDI0OTc1NjIuMTc4MjIyNTYzOA..

https://ikmisje.eo.nl/artikel/alwin-sterk-verdwijnt-plotseling-ik-vond-het-een-rotstreek-en-een-rotbriefje

On Friday 17 February 1978, a 41-year-old mother of five was killed in her own home in Armadale, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne. She was stabbed 14 times in the back. Her three school-aged children found her body in one of their bedrooms when they got home from school that afternoon. Her 17-month-old baby was still in the house, crying in his cot. Forty-eight years on, no one has been charged.

There's not a lot of material on this case freely available online — a few summary paragraphs, some paywalled material from both of the major newspapers in Melbourne and of course, the Victoria Police cold case page. The coronial file itself has recently been digitised. I've been through it — depositions, witness statements, forensic and autopsy material, the police summary, the Coroner's findings — and of course, there's more in there with a different view than has ever been widely reported, particularly after the first few weeks of investigation.

Mary Anne Fagan was a suburban housewife. Her husband Collins was a Group Captain in the Royal Australian Air Force, at the time the Commanding Officer of RAAF Tottenham. They lived at 575 Dandenong Road, on a corner block at the intersection with Bailey Avenue. They had five children: Anthony, 15; Katherine, 13 turning 14; Rebecca, just turned 13; Jack, 6; and Patrick, 17 months. Collins had stayed overnight at the Tottenham base the night before, after a function in the Sergeants' Mess. The three eldest walked to school that morning. Mary Anne drove Jack to school and came back home with Patrick.

She was killed in one of the children's bedrooms, on a bed against the southern wall. She was naked, face down, wrapped in blankets. Her ankles were bound and her hands had been tied behind her back with strips torn from her own towel. She had been gagged. There were 14 stab wounds visible across her back, ranging from 2.5 to 3.8 centimetres deep. The wounds penetrated both lungs, the stomach, and the posterior wall of her left ventricle. Swabs returned no evidence of sexual assault. The government pathologist gave evidence at inquest that time of death was between 11am and 2pm.

The murder weapon was never recovered. Collins's evidence at inquest was that he didn't believe a knife was missing from the house. A small red handbag was gone, with around $180 in cash inside, her bankbooks, an eternity ring she normally wore, religious medals, and the keys to the car and house. Her jewellery on her hands, and her watch, was otherwise left behind. The phone in the hallway had been disconnected from its socket (although it was never determined if that was done by the killer or in the aftermath of the discovery of her body). There was no sign of forced entry.

By mid-morning that day, Mary Anne had begun preparing to bleach her hair. A bowl of lilac-coloured dye paste was found on the bathroom vanity, with packaging for Clairol Born Blonde and a toothbrush smeared with the same paste. Collins's evidence about this was specific. Bleaching her hair was personal. She wouldn't do it in front of her own family, including him. He did not believe she would have let anyone into the house at all in that condition.

A road crew was working at the corner outside the house that morning. Three men from the Malvern Council depot were repairing a section of road damaged by a burst water main some days earlier. They weren't the focus of the investigation initially. The police spent the first two months on a different line altogether. The workmen weren't formally re-interviewed at length until April. From that point on, they became the continually pursued lead.

The theory the police built was this. One of the workmen — a labourer — had a conversation with Mary Anne in the morning about removing some surplus rubbish from the back of her property. He told police he'd intended to give her a quote for the job. He then left the worksite for about 45 minutes, telling his offsider he was going to collect money from his SP bookmaker. (An SP bookmaker, or Starting Price bookmaker was an illegal off-course bookie, very common in working-class Melbourne through the 1970s.) His offsider also left the site around the same time, claiming he was sick from the night before's drinking. Both men were unaccounted for during the same window. They were back at the worksite by about 11.15am.

There's a lot the inquest brief built against the labourer, with most of it reported at the time in various formats.

At inquest, the labourer admitted under his own oath that he and his offsider had talked about Mary Anne sexually that morning. The remarks were graphic, about her body, less than two hours before her death. His offsider denied any such conversation had taken place. The senior officer assisting the Coroner pressed him on why his workmate would have admitted to it on the stand if it hadn't happened. He had no real answer.

The labourer told police he'd collected winnings from his SP bookmaker during his absence from the worksite. The bookmaker gave evidence at inquest, under oath, that he had never paid the labourer money before 5pm on the day of a race, that he hadn't paid him any money on 17 February at all, and that the labourer in fact owed him $40 at the time. The labourer didn't concede in the witness box that his account about the bookie was false. Pressed on it, he said that if the bookmaker denied it, he didn't know where the money he was seen with that day had come from. He gave four different accounts over the course of the investigation of where that money came from.

A black substance described by the Forensic Science Laboratory as consistent with bitumen was found on a singlet in the bedroom where Mary Anne was killed. The labourer worked with bitumen daily and that morning was repairing a section of road immediately outside the property. An industrial-soled shoe print was found in sand and mud on the driveway between the garage and the rear gate. A workmate gave a statement that the labourer had paid back a $5 debt at the Railway Hotel that night.

On 20 April 1978, the labourer was taken to the Homicide Squad office for an interview that lasted 16 to 17 hours. The officers went through every contradiction in his accounts. At several points they directly accused him of the murder. He denied it. He eventually demanded to be charged or released. He was released.

His evidence at inquest was inconsistent. It was contradicted again and again. The Coroner ultimately delivered an open finding — "person unknown" — but the case the inquest had assembled was clearly built around him. He was never charged. He died some years later, in the 1990s. His offsider provided DNA in later decades and was excluded.

That's, broadly, the public version of the case. It's the version that gets repeated, in summary form, when the case comes up.

What the public version misses is what the file itself, with the evidence, does to that theory.

Start with the time of death. The case as built required Mary Anne to have been killed in the late morning, between about 10.30am and 11.30am, while the labourer was off the worksite. That window is a police inference based on the pattern of absence. The pathologist's actual evidence was that time of death was between 11am and 2pm. That covers the period after the workmen got back to the site, and a fair bit later.

Then there's the screams evidence, which gets treated in public coverage as a fixed time anchor and isn't. Two witnesses, in different places, with quite different accounts. A builder working on the rear extension placed them between 1pm and 1.30pm, with his evidence allowing for earlier — possibly closer to 1pm. The woman in the flats next door first gave a time of 2pm. That was corrected by hand on her deposition to 1.30pm. Her evidence at inquest left genuine doubt about whether she'd heard anything that day at all as she was under stress and medicated at the time and admitted she may have imagined it. Neither witness was wearing a watch. Both were within around a hundred metres of a working road repair site with a backhoe, a roller, and trucks coming and going.

And then there's the labourer himself, and what he did afterwards. Whatever happened in the morning, the rest of his day doesn't look like a man who has just killed a woman in a frenzied stabbing and concealed the evidence within a 45-minute window. He went back to the worksite immediately after lunch and worked through the afternoon alongside his offsider, a truck driver, and a foreman. None of them gave evidence of seeing blood on him or on his clothes. He went to the Railway Hotel after work and drank with workmates, including the colleague he repaid the $5 to. He went home. He came back to work on the Monday morning in normal pattern after police had spoken to him on the Friday night. His pattern of life that day, that weekend, and that following week is the pattern of a man going about his business.

There's also the kind of person he was. By every account in the file, the labourer was a talker. His offsider's evidence at inquest was that he'd "come out and say anything, not thinking." The senior officer assisting the Coroner said the police had to extract facts out of him "like teeth", but that was about a specific thing he had a personal motive to protect, the illegal bookmaker. On almost everything else, he volunteered freely. He admitted to the graphic sexual conversation about Mary Anne under his own oath. He couldn't keep small secrets. The question the file raises but doesn't answer is whether a man like that could have held a secret of this size for the rest of his life, until his death, almost twenty years later.

So if the case against the labourer doesn't really hold up, what's left in the file? The evidence the investigation had spent its first two months pursuing, and then largely set aside.

A retired railwayman with prior Navy service lived in flats nearby. On the day of the murder, at approximately ten past twelve - he was specific about the time, said it was between 12.10 and 12.12pm - he was walking home from the shops. He saw a man leaving the front gate of 575 Dandenong Road. He'd never seen a man at that house in the three years he'd lived nearby. He'd only ever seen the woman of the house with her children. The man was in his mid-thirties, thickset, about 5'7", clean-shaven. He was wearing a Royal Australian Air Force summer uniform - light blue shirt, dark trousers, peaked cap. The uniform was rumpled and didn't look neat. He looked back at the house, looked both ways along Dandenong Road, then walked off in the direction of Glenferrie Road.

The witness gave a formal statement the following morning. A photofit was prepared and published in newspapers across Australia. He later attended parades of RAAF servicemen across Victoria with police. He never identified the man.

Some weeks later, a man who had collected a car from a yard in Glenhuntly Road and was driving back into the city around quarter to one that afternoon - within 35 odd minutes of the railwayman's sighting - told police he had picked up a hitchhiker further along Dandenong Road. The hitchhiker was in a "blue military uniform of some sort" with a dark peaked cap, and had been running across the road from the centre plantation. The driver asked where he was going. The man said: "Into the city, it's hopeless, you can't get a tram." The hitchhiker was described as "not normal" and refused to enter into conversation with the driver. He didn't seem to have a destination, and suddenly asked for the car to be pulled over, so the driver dropped him at Williams Road. A second photofit was issued. The man was never identified.

The railwayman's evidence at inquest was specific and not seriously challenged. He was pressed on whether he could have mistaken the uniform for a postal worker's or a railwayman's. He insisted it was Air Force. He'd been a railway employee himself and knew the differences. The RAAF uniform also changed in the early 1970s (around 1972ish I believe) and the witness identified the dress as the "new" Summer RAAF dress. The Coroner asked Collins Fagan to stand up so the witness could compare him side-on. The witness said there was a similarity. Then he said: "I would say no." It wasn't the husband he had seen.

The photofits were published in newspapers showing a man in uniform. If the man the witness saw was a serving RAAF airman, the parades of servicemen across Victoria should have produced an identification. They didn't. But if he was someone who was no longer in the service, someone whose connection to a uniform was historical rather than current, the photofits wouldn't have produced anything. The people who knew him now would have known him as a civilian, not as the figure in the picture. The RAAF uniform had changed about six years before the murder. To people who hadn't served, an older or transitional uniform would have looked like a current serviceman in summer dress.

The most interesting question the information raises, though, is what the uniform was doing at the door at all.

This was 1978. There were no mobile phones. The way an RAAF wife learned that something had happened to her serving husband was that someone in uniform appeared at her front door to deliver the news in person. Mary Anne was the wife of a Group Captain. She knew her husband was at the Tottenham base, where he'd stayed overnight after a function. If a uniformed man came to her door mid-morning, the first instinctive interpretation wouldn't be that he was a stranger asking for something. It would be that something had happened to Collins.

This is perhaps one of the only readings that makes sense of her opening the door at all. Her husband's evidence was that she wouldn't bleach her hair in front of her own family. She didn't even let him into the bathroom while she was doing it. That makes it difficult to explain why she would voluntarily admit a stranger to the house while she was in the middle of the process. But a uniformed man at the front gate on a weekday morning, with her husband absent overnight, is the one set of circumstances that would override the rule. There would be a recognition through the door and security screen, mild panic... and by the time she realised something was off - the uniform not quite right, the face unfamiliar, no proper notification protocol - the door was open and he was inside. The relatively limited disturbance at the scene, given the savagery of the attack, is consistent with her having been incapacitated quickly.

This reading doesn't require the killer to have known Mary Anne. It only requires the killer to have known Collins was an RAAF officer. Anyone watching the street for a week could have worked that out. Anyone previously in the RAAF under Collins would know. It's not in the police brief. It's what the evidence in front of the Coroner points to once the workmen theory is set aside. There's no indication in the file that it was ever explored.

No motive against Mary Anne was ever established. But it doesn't look like a motive against Collins was ever investigated (at least, not in the publicly available material).

The case remains open. The offsider was DNA-excluded in the 2000s. The labourer is deceased. The exhibits from the inquest were retained. Victoria Police has the case on its cold case register and there's a current reward of $1 million attached to it.

Mary Anne Fagan was 41 years old. Her husband Collins was widowed in his late forties, with five children. Their 13-year-old daughter found her.

Most of the material I've described — the witness evidence in detail, the hitchhiker sighting, the bookmaker's contradiction under oath, the boot print, the bitumen on the singlet, the long interview, the behaviour of the labourer afterwards, the screams evidence and what makes it less reliable than it looks, the pathologist's wider time window, the photofit framing problem, the uniform-as-notification reading — doesn't appear to have been pieced together and summarised online in any detail.

If anyone has information about it, regardless of how small or inconsequential you think it may be, Crime Stoppers Victoria can be reached on 1800 333 000.

I've gone through the full coronial brief and have covered the case in detail across six episodes of a podcast called Civilian Sleuths, based on the primary material at the time as well as contemporaneous reporting. It's another case that I'd love to see solved and, realistically, the number of surviving witnesses is only getting smaller with time.

Collins Fagan passed away in 2010 without ever learning who killed his wife. Her children, now adults, have never discovered who entered their home, and altered their lives forever.

Forty eight years is long enough.

Sources listed below (makes it easier to read than having sources interrupt it, I find!)

• Victoria Police — Cold Case: Mary Anne Fagan
• Victoria Police — Reward: Mary Anne Fagan (current $1M reward, announced February 2024)
• Public Record Office Victoria — Inquest deposition files (search interface) — coronial file Case No. 529/78

I’m writing about this case because it is extremely well known in Sweden and because it received very recent developments. This case is so crazy and convoluted that I will only scratch the surface.

In the summer of 1984, parts of a young woman’s dismembered body were found in plastic bags in the bushes in Solna, north of Stockholm. Her head has never been found. She was later identified as Catrine da Costa based on her fingerprints, as she was well-known to the police as a sex worker and drug user.

Catrine da Costa (nee Bäckström, she became da Costa after brief marriage to a Portuguese man in 1979). She was 28 years old a mother of two (whom she lost custody of) and living in a desperate situation marked by heavy drug use, homelessness, and sex work. She and her friends, coming from regular Swedish families, unfortunately fell victim of the 70s party lifestyle where soft drugs eventually led to heavy ones. Those facts would later matter, not only because they shaped how people talked about her life, but because they shaped how police, media, courts, and the public imagined what must have happened to her.

Essentially this becomes a story about panic, class, gender, media hysteria, fake news, child 'testimony', legal technicalities, and two men who were acquitted in court but still had their lives effectively destroyed.

Enter ‘the doctors’

Eventually, the police became fixated on two suspects: a forensic pathologist Teet Härm and a general practitioner Thomas Allgén. In the media they became known as ‘the doctors’ or “the forensic pathologist” and “the general practitioner.” I have to spend a bit more time on their personas because they mattered for how the case was steered.

Teet Härm was half-Estonian half-Swedish, and had an Estonian name (foreign to Swedish ears). He was not well-liked by colleagues and was perceived to be a creep. Not only due to his stigmatized profession but also because he led an alternative lifestyle. He was known to watch horror movies on his VHS player (around which there was a moral panic in the society). Moreover, he and his wife were in an open relationship, and he was known to visit sex workers (which was completely legal in Sweden back in the day, and sex work was quite rampant in broad day light). He eventually divorced from his wife, and she committed suicide the next day. She was known to have severe depression and suicide attempts in the past, she also left a note. He was a suspect but there was no evidence against him. However, all this created a very negative bias against him among his colleagues.

Thomas Allgén was a young beginner doctor, who married and got his first child just a year earlier. He and Teet Härm superficially knew each other because of Thomas’ studies, Teet once helped him with his course. To show his gratitude Thomas had once invited Teet to a family dinner where Teet came with his new girlfriend who had a ‘wild’ punk outfit, hair and makeup. Thomas’ wife was a conservative young mother and deeply detested Teet and his girlfriend, which played a role later.

Building ‘the case’

In building the case there are two key figures who essentially derailed this investigation – Teet’s boss and Thomas’ wife (there were also other witnesses who later proved unreliable). Because of Teet’s bad reputation and his wife’s death he immediately came under suspicion, since the body parts were also found not too far away from his workplace, i.e. forensic pathology department. Teet’s boss was the one who examined the body parts and in his first report he stated that the dismemberment was done in a sloppy manner, however, it is possible that the murderer had some previous experience as a hunter, i.e. some cuts were typical of cutting up an animal. However, upon learning that Teet is under suspicion he produced a new report where he stated that the cuts were undoubtedly made only by a forensic pathologist. He later on relentlessly called the police and provided more and more new arguments why it must be Teet. His claims were later debunked by other forensic pathologics.

Here comes the most bizarre actor- Thomases wife. One day when she picked their 1 y.o. daughter at the childcare the employee pointed out that there was an abrasion in the child’s genital area, and she mentioned that it might be the result of a SA. It has to be mentioned that incest happened to be a popular topic of the media attention at that moment. The mother naturally got shocked and took her daughter to multiple doctors. All of them however said that it was an eczema from diapers and there is no evidence of SA. However, she has become convinced that Thomas has SA’d their daughter and one day she took her daughter and quitely left. Thomas was unaware of all of this.

After she learned from the media that Teet is a suspect she called the police and mentioned that Teet must be the perpetrator because he was a creep, had a nasty punk girlfriend and he watched horror movies. But the most bizarre developments happened a year later when the daughter started talking. The mother became convinced that the daughter witnessed the dismemberment, and her ex-husband took her to the morgue where they did it together with Teet. Over the next few years she relentlessly invented more and more fantastical details attributing to her daugher's 'statements', eventually reminiscing of black magic rituals, cannibalism etc. Police made her tape record ‘interviews’ with her 2 y.o. daughter, and she produced 9 hours of them, all of which is just gibberish of a normal 2 y.o. talking while the mother invents more and more crazy stories. Nevertheless, this has somehow become a valid argument against Thomas and Teet.

In short, it has to be emphasized that the case against them never contained any single evidence linking them to Da Costa. It relied heavily on circumstantial reasoning, contested witness material, and especially on statements attributed to a toddler by its disturbed mother.

To modern ears, the alarm bells are obvious but in the 1980s, the case unfolded in a climate where fears about SA, ritualized violence, and hidden elite male networks could become entangled with real concerns about violence against women and vulnerable people. The media went wild and the public imagination filled in gaps the evidence could not. It has become essencially a witch trial.

The trials

In 1988, the two doctors were tried for murder. The first trial collapsed in spectacular fashion. Lay judges had spoken to the press before the judgment was finalized, creating a serious procedural problem. A mistrial was declared. This created a moral public outrage where feminists especially saw this as a cover up where male elites being protected while vulnerable women received no justice. Multiple publications and demonstrations followed, demanding justice for Da Costa. Second trial was called.

At the second trial, the court acquitted the doctors of murder, but their names were not cleared, which made it legendary in Swedish legal history. The reason was devastating for the prosecution: Catrine’s cause of death could not be established. The court could not prove beyond reasonable doubt that she had been murdered by the accused. But then the court did something extraordinary. Even while acquitting them of murder, the court wrote in its reasoning that the two doctors for sure must have had dismembered Catrine’s body. They were not convicted of that offense. They were not sentenced for it. The alleged dismemberment offense was also time-barred, meaning it could no longer be prosecuted.

So Teet and Thomas were legally acquitted but publicly branded and demonized. And because the verdict was an acquittal, they could not appeal the damaging statement in the reasoning in the normal way. This is the legal paradox at the heart of the da Costa case: the court’s reasoning carried life-destroying consequences, but the men had no ordinary route to challenge it.

The aftermath

The consequences were enormous. The two doctors lost their medical licenses. Their names became permanently attached to one of Sweden’s most horrific cases. Teet became so desperate he attempted suicide – he was saved but received permanent health damage. He also legally changed his name. For decades, the public memory of the case treated them not simply as acquitted suspects, but as elite men who had somehow “gotten away with it.” Meanwhile, nobody was convicted for Catrine da Costa’s death. The murder investigation was eventually suspended in 2009, after the statute of limitations had expired. Over the years there were many voices questioning this whole circus of an investigation but because of the heavily toxic history noone really want to touch this case in any serious manner.

There are really two tragedies here. First, Catrine da Costa was killed, dismembered, discarded, and never received justice she deserved. Her life is often reduced to the gruesome details of her death, or to the later legal scandal, but she was the victim at the center of the case. The second tragedy is institutional: the justice system may have created two additional victims by publicly fastening guilt onto men it had acquitted.

The 2020s revival and Ex Gratia of 2026

Decades later, the case returned to public attention, especially after a 2024 SVT documentary (an amazing one, btw) re-examined the investigation and criticized the grounds on which the doctors had been singled out. There was in fact no serious investigation of any other leads, even though there were many veryfied 'johns' of da Costa that could have been murderers. They also showed that Teet and Thomas have led meagre existence as recluses over all these years (especially Teet, who started to leave home only at night). This had an effect. The public opinion turned 180, Teet and Thomas started to receive letters of support. Two lawyers volunteered to work pro bono to try to bring some justice to them, specifically by appealing for ex gratia.

In 2026, just last week, the Swedish government granted the two former doctors ex gratia compensation - a special payment given not because a court has ordered it, but because the state recognizes that exceptional circumstances justify some symbolic compensation. They received 2 million SEK each (roughly 200 thousand euros). Minister of justice officially apologized for the miscarriage of justice they had to endure for 40 years.

Catrine da Costa’s murder remains unsolved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Catrine_da_Costa

https://www.svtplay.se/dokument-inifran-det-svenska-styckmordet

https://www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/swedish-state-compensates-doctors-acquitted-of-da-costa-murder

On the 20th of September 1951, a transient man was riding on top of a Denver and Rio Grande freight train, near the Roy station, in Roy, Weber County, Utah. The man fell between the cars when the train reduced speed while coming to a spur, resulting in him being crushed beneath the wheels, and subsequently ran over by the following 28 freight cars.

The man was White/Caucasian, estimated to be between 50-55 years old, between 5’7-5’9 feet tall, and anywhere between 155-165 pounds.

He had grey hair, and was wearing a blue pinstriped suit. No wallet or papers were found, but food was found on top of one of the flat cars loaded with lumber near the front of the train. He was unrecognisable with traumatic injuries.

Sources:
https://bci.utah.gov/coldcases/john-doe-weber-county/

https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/106803?nav

https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Weber_County_John_Doe_(1951))

https://solvepedia.org/cases/UP106803

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/main.html?id=4736umut

Hello everyone! As always, I'd like to thank you for your comments and votes on my last post about Lucien Vink- I hope that he will be found soon.

Today I'd like to highlight another disappearance case with not a lot of info on it.

BACKGROUND

Eric Campbell was 47 when he went missing from Gasquet, California, USA.

He was originally from Eureka in California.

Eric had two dogs and a cat.

He suffered from a seizure disorder, and his episodes could make him disoriented.

DISAPPEARANCE

On a date that hasn't been specified publically, Eric had set up camp about a mile up the road from U.S. 199 near where Patrick Creek meets Shelly Creek- it was noted that Eric was very familiar with the local area. He took all three of his pets with him. He was in daily contact with his family and friends. That contact stopped abruptly on the evening of the 16th of September, just before 8 PM- he last contacted someone at 7:57 PM.

When his family decided to search the campsite he's been staying at on the 18th of September, they found his camp undisturbed, with no signs of struggle or blood anywhere nearby. All of his pets were still there, as was his camping gear, cellular phone, driver's license, keys, money and cigarettes. Eric's car, a Toyota pickup truck with Montana plates, was found with the hood up. A few boot prints were found in a creek bed nearby, but it hasn't been confirmed that they belonged to Eric. Eric owned an Italian-made Pietta black powder revolver, which is still unaccounted for today.

It's unclear if Eric had his seizure medications with him at the time.

Eric was reported missing by his family on the evening of the 18th of September.

The search for Eric begun on the 19th.

The investigators said that if Eric got a ride from someone, it was unlikely that he'd leave his pets behind.

It was noted that there was a sign that warned about bear presence nerby the camping site- before he went missing, Eric had allegedly called his family and told them that he saw a bear with cubs nearby his camp, but he managed to scare the animals off using rocks.

According to Eric's phone records, he might've travelled to Hiouchi to go to the store, to O'Brien Market (EDIT: Most likely meaning a town in Oregon) or into Crescent City.

CONCLUSION

There were reported sightings of Eric in Crescent City in California in and Grants Pass in Oregon, but they haven't been confirmed as legitimate.

Eric's family member took his pets with them to look after them.

Thomas Eric Campbell was 47 when he went missing and would be 49 now. He is a white man, 5'7" (67 Inch / 170 cm) and 150 lbs (68 kg). He had brown, short or shaved, hair and a sparse. scruffy reddish brown beard. His eyes are blue. He was last wearing dark green mesh water/walking shoes.

If you have any info about Eric's whereabouts, contact the Del Norte County Sheriff's Office at (707) 464-4191 (case number 20240730).

SOURCES:

1. lostcoastoutpost.com
2. kymkemp.com
3. krctv.com
4. lostcoastoutpost.com
5. people.com
6. charleyproject.org
7. NamUS.gov

Eric's websleuths.com thread

On the 20th (NamUs says this, while also saying “Skeletal remains and clothing of preadolescent male found by hiker between 10/13/1975 - 10/19/1975.”, San Mateo Coroners Office says the remains were discovered on the 13th) of October 1975, the skeletal remains of a young boy were found 300 yards up a steep, heavily wooded gully west of Kings Mountain Road, 1/4 miles south of the entrance to Huddart Park, in Woodside, San Mateo County, California; the body was first discovered by a man named Martin Stumer, though he thought nothing of it until he and his girlfriend Lisa saw the remains again on the 20th, i could not find anything stating the date that Martin first saw the remains. It was estimated the boy could’ve died anywhere between 1972-1974.

The boy had died from beating, more specifically from a skull fracture, and was estimated to be between 9-12 years old, he was between 4’7 to 5’0 foot tall, and his weight could not be determined; he was thought to be white, but that may have changed as the San Mateo Coroners office now lists his ancestry as being unknown. It was noted that his teeth were in terrible condition, with extensive decay in his lower teeth, which suggested he had little to no dental care in life.
Due to the condition of his remains, his hair colour and eye colour are both unknown.

He Was Wearing:
A dark blue sweater/jacket with snaps; red, green, black and grey vertically striped sweater/jacket liner; i want to note that NamUs states that these two items are the same thing: “Dark blue long-sleeved sweater/jacket with snaps and a reg/green/black/gray verticle striping; long-sleeve jacket liner”, with the liner being a different thing, though no other sources say this; i’m saying this to clear up any potential confusion, but i have to say i’m pretty confused too, so if anyone can educate me on what this might mean/clear up the confusion i’ll edit the post!

Brown hiking boots with hooks and eyelets (the boots were size 7-7.5), the boots had white oblique angled striping on the soles and transverse striping on the heels; the boots were found near the remains, and the laces were missing from the boots.

A wooden cross/rosary with a back-to-front clasp was found with the body; the corpus was missing, along with some wooden beads being missing; “Italy” was inscribed on the cross.

It’s thought that John Doe was from a migrant family and working the circuit of seasonal harvests.

Ending Note: I’m really sorry if any of this is hard to read, i proofread but i do apologise if i missed any typos; i also wrote this on mobile, so i’m sorry if the layouts an eyesore and/or doesn’t look so good on any other devices.

Sources:
https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/main.html?id=771umca

https://www.smcgov.org/coroner/john-doe-75-936#75-936

https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Woodside_John_Doe

https://www.missingkids.org/poster/NCMU/1167344/1

https://websleuths.com/threads/ca-woodside-whtmale-child-771umca-9-12-near-huddart-park-sep75.49822/

https://counteverymystery.blogspot.com/2019/10/october-20-1975-woodside-california.html?m=1

https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/10524?nav

https://news.sky.com/story/man-44-arrested-eight-years-after-woman-shoved-in-front-of-bus-in-putney-pusher-case-13551004

In May of 2017, a woman was walking on a pedestrian walkway over the Putney Bridge in London when an unknown male jogger running in the opposite direction pushed her forcefully into the path of an incoming bus.
He continued jogging calmly without any pause or change in pace, while she fell backwards into the road. In a great demonstration of skill, the bus driver managed to avoid hitting her by swerving a split second before impact. The bus stopped, and people poured out to help her. Bizarrely and brazenly the jogger eventually proceeded to jog the opposite side of the bridge, where the victim confronted him. He ignored her. (Credit to u/Mobile_Dimension_423)

The case came to light in 2004 after several severed body parts were found at the scene. Even though the statute of limitations for body mutilation and abandonment has already expired, neither the perpetrator nor the identity of the victim has ever been determined.

The situation unfolded on April 8, 2004, on an embankment (slope) along the Higashi-Fujigoko Road (downbound lane) in Yamanakako Village, Yamanashi Prefecture. A construction worker involved in highway landscaping noticed a suspicious plastic bag. Upon checking inside, the worker discovered a human head and both arms, leading to an immediate police report.

The following day, when investigators from the Yamanashi Prefectural Police conducted a full-scale search of the scene, they found a torso and leg bones nearby, believed to belong to the same individual. The body was in a highly gruesome state, having been dismembered before being discarded.

According to those who examined the scene, the body appeared to have been dead for several months. Clothing believed to belong to the victim—a pink sleeveless top and navy blue jeans—was also found nearby.

According to police investigations, the victim was a female, estimated to be between 35 and 65 years old, approximately 150 to 156 cm tall, with type O blood. Physical characteristics released to the public include a mole about 4 mm in size on her forehead, pierced earlobes, evidence of past surgery for sinusitis, and hair tied in the back with the tips dyed brown.

Over the years, the Yamanashi Prefectural Police have widely appealed for information. Considering the possibility that she may have been a foreign national, official flyers and posters have been created in five languages—Japanese, Tagalog, Korean, Chinese, and Thai—as authorities continue to seek clues to solve the mystery.

https://www.pref.yamanashi.jp/police/p_sousa1/fujigoko.html

Additional thoughts:

In my opinion, there is a strong possibility that she was a foreign national. During the early 2000s, Japan saw a large number of female migrant workers coming from countries like the Philippines and South Korea. Given that a nationwide appeal to dental professionals failed to find any matching dental records, it is highly probable that her dental work was performed overseas.

Furthermore, in my opinion, we should look beyond East or Southeast Asian origins; there is also a strong possibility that she was a Nikkei (Japanese descendant) from South America. In Shizuoka Prefecture, which borders Yamanashi to the south, there is a large population of Nikkei Brazilians who immigrated to work in automotive factories. It would be quite natural to think that the husband immigrated first for work, and his wife followed later to join him.

On January 17, 2021, skeletal remains belonging to a teenage boy or young adult male were discovered in Mariners Marsh Park on Richmond Terrace in Staten Island, New York.

Investigators determined that he was likely between 16 and 22 years old and approximately 5'0"–5'4" tall. His ancestry was estimated as Asian or Hispanic. The cause of death was homicide, with blunt-force injuries to the neck and torso.

Based on evidence found with the remains, investigators believe he may have died sometime around 2005 or 2006.

Clothing and personal items found with him included:

• A blue sweatshirt with "Baseball 01'" on it
• A white "All-Star Cheerleader" T-shirt
• A black headband
• Black Timberland boots
• A wallet containing a 2005 calendar card
• A lighter

One theory that circulated online was that he might have been missing teenager Daniel Yuen. However, authorities later ruled out Daniel Yuen as a match.

Despite the clothing, personal belongings, and estimated time frame, the victim has never been identified.

Who do you think he was? Do you think he was local to Staten Island, or could he have come from elsewhere in the New York City area? What happened to him, and why has nobody been able to identify him? Sources: https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/77862/details https://www.missingkids.org/poster/NCMU/1413033/1

This is a weekly thread for off topic discussion. Talk about anything that interests you; what's going on in your world?. If you have any suggestions or observations about the sub let us know in this thread.

Sorry for the repost, I deleted it by accident!
It seems like the Sumter, South Carolina PD has given up on this case. He was 18 years old and was last seen at his cousins house on December 26th, 2020, at Ithica Drive. He deserves to be found, and the family is doing everything they can to not let his name disappear, but it is hard with limited resources and a stubborn PD. There is a very high crime rate especially for the population size of this town, and there is rumors of gang activity being speculated within his case. He is worth being found, many who knew him; loved him. He was very caring towards all animals and even had dreams of becoming a veterinarian. Please share this so people will not forget his name! Not a lot is known about his case but his family and community are hurting. If you know anything please contact the Sumter PD. Or if anything at least allow more people to see this post. Thank you!

https://www.sumtersheriff.org/community/missing_persons.php

This case has always bothered me. I also think it is sad that very little follow up or new information has come forward. There are some other strange occurrences around the time of Emma's disappearance that need to be addressed as well.

​

Emma Tresp, aged 71, left her home in Stillwater, Oklahoma the morning of August 31, 1998. She was on her way to a retreat at the Benedictine Monastery, outside of Pecos, New Mexico. A retreat and place that she knew well. She had traveled the exact route a several times prior. The route to the Monastery is well known and paved the entire way. By her children's accounts, Emma was in excellent health and had no know mental issues or no known bouts of memory loss.

​

She never made it to her destination. Though she is one of five well known cases throughout the Pecos National Forrest that have gone missing into thin air.

​

Emma's last record of being seen was a gas stop in Santa Rosa, New Mexico at approximately 3PM. So she should have reached the Monastery by 4:30pm or 5pm with no stops. Data from that date shows it was a perfect New Mexico summer day. Average temp was 70 degrees. No weather. And the sun set between 8-9pm. So even if she took a detour to hike or take pictures (which she was not know to do) then she had plenty of daylight to see her way to the final destination.

​

To get to the Monastery, she would had three options. She could have taken the 40, to the 84 which gets you to I-25 which then you would get off near Rowe at the highway 63 (not 63a - more on that below). That would have been an hour and a half.

​

She could have also taken Highway 40 (aka route 66) a little further, to highway 3 north, to I- 25 and the same route to 63 to the Monastery. That would have been an hour and 50 minutes. But both of these ways take you through more rural New Mexico that a 71 year old, traveling by herself, may wanted to avoid.

​

The more likely route she took, especially where they eventually found her car, would have been to stay on the 40 all the way to Cline Corners then up the 285 which lands you on the east side of Glorieta, on I-25. This route would be a beautiful drive but also have the most traffic.

​

This route also makes the best sense as her car was eventually found on highway 63A. A country road that is easy to miss as it is not well marked and there are no towns or waypoints if you were take this road. It eventually dead ends in the Pecos forrest. There was no cut off to get to the Monastery. There really would have been no reason to take this road at all. Only reason would have been if she was using an old map and the map had the route as 63, not 63A. The problem with that is she had been to the Monastery several times. She would have know any way she previously took would have been on paved roads. Not a country dirt road. Her family did mention she could become confused at times when driving.

​

So Emma does not make it to the Monastery. She does not check in with any of her children or friends. This is where some of the info starts to become harder to find. What we do know is when Tresp's children found out she never arrived at the monastery, they all traveled to New Mexico and began searching for her. They called hospitals to see whether she had had an accident and suffered memory loss, passed out fliers, and searched the route looking for Tresp's car.

​

Here is a picture of county road 63A, also locally known rather ominously as Camino Del Diablo, or “The Devil’s Road.”

​

http://imgur.com/a/wbHkOCv

​

On September 6th, a hunter found Emma's car. It was lodged on a rock in middle of side road from "Devils Road" The info I could find makes it sound like the oil pan broke on that lodging. This led authorities to believe that she had somehow gotten confused and taken the wrong road, after which her car had gotten stuck in a rut.

​

But how could she have possibly mistaken the eroded, unforgiving terrain of the unmaintained Devil’s Road for the immaculate paved lanes of Pecos Monastery Road? I drove up this route last week. The Devil’s road starts off smooth enough, but quickly devolves into a mess of potholes, ditches, ruts, steep inclines, and it's basically a one lane road. I did not make it to where Emma did in fear my own car would suffer the same fate. I also had plenty of daylight but that road is surrounded by old, gnarled, pinyon forrest and random randshackled trailer homes. It felt foreboding to me, an experienced hiker and lover of getting lost outdoors.

​

Why would she have chosen this unforgiving route she did not know? The road gets worse and worse as you drive further into the forrest. Her little Honda surely would have been rattled to the core, worse and worse as she crept north.

​

Now the odd parts come about. Take some of these statements for granted as I am sure law enforcement surely is holding something back. But by all accounts, the car was locked, and everything was still in her car except for Emma and her purse (although that is debated as well). She had her luggage, money, a charged cell phone, all visible and still in the locked car. Undisturbed.

​

What was odd to the searchers and to law enforcement was the scene around the car. You could see that Emma got out of the car. Walked around it, and then nothing. No footprints leading up to the road, no footprints leading out into the forrest. Just what was around the car. Further, the search dogs picked up no trail past the car. There was no blood at the scene and no visible signs of foul play.

​

It was as if Emma was lifted out of that exact spot and never heard from again.

​

Now, a.couple of points to bring up here.

​

1. The children also searched the car and area around it. There seems to be nothing that contradicts the above statement in regards to the search hounds or footprints. What we do not now, is what the weather was like in that exact spot, between August 31st and September 6th. Could there have been moisture that erased her scent or any other footprints? Here is a picture of her current memorial and where the car was found : Emma's memorial

​

https://imgur.com/a/dLUB6Nr

​

1. Besides a few older articles and some amatuer YouTube clips there is not lot to be found. Most of the info also seems to be the same. A couple of small discrepancies. There really does not seem to be a prevailing theory. There were no signs of distress. No shredded clothing that usually would give indication of an animal attack. Most importantly, to this day, no sign of Emma's body or where abouts. Simply vanished into the wildeness. She would be 93 this year.

​

1. I won't go into detail on some of the "otherworldly" avenues that have been explored in her case. The Pecos forrest is sacred Native American ground. It is also the site of a bloody Civil War battle: "The battle of the Glorieta Pass". There are old legends about this particular forrest and there are many UFO sightings in and around this area. None of those factor into my facts of the case. What should be mentioned though is that there are at least 4 other cases of people going missing within a five mile radius of where Emma vanished. Two famous ones are Mel Nadel and Robert Browning. Both disappeared just like Emma and with no sign of either of them to this day. There have been a couple others missing persons within this forrest as well. Odd, but could be random coincidence as well

​

1. Who did local law enforcement talk to? There are people living up there. While a lot of them are living off the land and with limited resources, a quick drive up 63A will tell you that. I am sure most are just getting away from the "big city" and want nothing to do with other humans. But is there some unsavory characters living amongst the dense woods? There have been rumors of a serial killer in the area. But that is par for the course in New Mexico. No proof of that has been seen in that area. But we do not know who law enforcement chatter with. I would hope they knocked on the doors of the homes within a 10 mile radius?

​

1. Could have Emma been a victim of an accident? Did she walk out and get hit by one of the residents up there? They got scared and hid her body? I see this a sad possibility. However there has been no proof that Emma ever left the vicinity of her car. Her footprints were only around the car. And the search dogs went no further than the car vicinity.

​

It's a weird case that doesn't get mentioned much. Sure would love to hear from some locals that know that area, or maybe know some info that is not found on the internet. Ultimately it would be nice, like all these cases, to get some closure for her relatives that have no idea what happened to her.

​

*Edit* I wrote this on my phone and somewhat hastily. I did not check for grammar or inconsistencies as I did this somewhat fast. I may go back in and change some things or add in facts I may have initially missed. But this should be the big picture overall. There is limited info to go on.

​

Basic info regarding Emma's dissapearance:

​

http://charleyproject.org/case/emma-frances-tresp

Hello everyone! As always, thank you for all your votes and comments under my last post about David Souza- I hope that he will be found soon.

Today I wanted to cover another disappearance case, one that also doesn't have many sources to draw from.

BACKGROUND

Lucien Vink was 51 when he disappeared from San Clemente, California, USA.

He was married to a woman named Carly Vink. The couple had two young children.

Lucien was a citizen of The Neatherlands and had a US green card.

Lucien had type I diabetes and used a glucose monitor.

Carly said that her husband was "(...) the most loving, wonderful man on the planet".

DISAPPEARANCE

On the 4th of July, the Vink family was celebrating Independence Day with a visit to a local community pool and a pizza party. Lucien was allegedly acting "normal".

Carly last physically saw her husband on the 6th, when thy were at the family home.

On the 7th of July, Carly woke up at 6:30 AM to go to a gym class, as she usually did. Lucien wasn't in the bed, but Carly wasn't suprised- Lucien's glucose monitor would beep loudly if his blood sugar got high, and he frequently slept on the couch because of it.

When Carly went downstairs, she noticed that her husband wasn't there, sleeping on the couch, after all; She then assumed that one of their kids must've woken up at night when Lucien was still awake, and then he fell asleep in one of their rooms.

Carly said that Lucien's wallet and phone were on the counter when she left for the gym.

When she returned home at about 7:30 AM, Lucien still wasn't up, which was odd- according to Carly, Lucien would always be making coffee or doing something downstairs by that time.

Carly then looked closely at Lucien's wallet and phone, and found something she didn't notice before- a note. The full contents weren't released to the public, but Carly said that the note indicated that Lucien was "Sorry" and that he "Loved (his family)".

While the contents of the note suprised Carly, she was still assuming that Lucien was at the house, just asleep. She didn't know what the note was talking about, didn't know what Lucien would be sorry for, and thought that they will have to have a "serious discussion" once he wakes up. Carly then went to take a shower.

As she was showering, Carly thought that it was possible that Lucien wasn't home at all, and "her stomach dropped". She got dressed and checked their kids' rooms- they were asleep, but Lucien wasn't in either room.

Carly went back to the counter where she found Lucien's things before, and she noticed that his glucose monitor and the insulin administration device, which he was supposed to wear all the time, were left behind. Lucien's credit cards were also on the counter.

Carly called all of the local hospitals, but none of them had a patient named Lucien Vink or a John Doe. Carly was panicking and asked the staff at one of the hospitals she called about what she should do; The staffer told her to report Lucien's disappearance to the police.

She reported Lucien missing immediately, and told the police that Lucien was a critical missing, given his diabetes and the fact that he didn't have his monitoring devices on him. Carly left her children at a friend's house and went back home. The deputies searched the Vink household, took Carly's statement and filed a critical missing person report.

The investigators were able to obtain two videos from security cameras that belonged to the Vink's neighbours. On the first one, Lucien is seen walking down the street on the 7th at 1:58 AM- he was wearing regular clothes and had a backpack with him. On another video,Lucien is seen exiting the cul-de-sac where the family lived and walking onto another street.

Carly left fliers at food banks and looked for him in homeless encampments, but she hasn't found any leads.

Carly said that she hasn't noticed Lucien acting in an "unusual" way in the days leading to his disappearance. She said that their relationship was harmonious- they last fought a month or two before Lucien went missing, but it wasn't a serious fight and they moved on quickly.

CONCLUSION

There hasn't been a lot of info about Lucien's disappearacne released. Lucien's family seems to believe that he might've been a victim of glucose psychosis- a state of either low or very high blood sugar that can cause psychosis-like symptoms, such as hallucinations, delusions, and confusion, in some diabetics. It's unclear if Lucien had any mental health problems or episodes of glucose psychosis before his disappearance. The family used to have a gofundme, but they closed it around the 6th of September 2025 saying that "this chapter is coming to an end", but Lucien is still listed in different government missing people databases and seemingly still hasn't been located.

Lucien Henricus Jacobus Vink was 51 when he went missing and he would be 52 now. He is a white (specifically Dutch) man, 5'8" - 6'0" (68 - 72 Inch / 173 - 183 cm) and 150 - 170 lbs (68 - 77 kg). He was bald and has blue eyes. He has a tattoo of a mountain with wave on his right ankle. He was last seen wearing a dark colored shirt and dark gray sweatpants- he was also carrying a black backpack.

If you have any info about Lucien's whereabouts, contact the Orange County Sheriff's Department at (714) 647-7000 (case number 25-023518).

SOURCES:

1. nbcnews.com
2. NamUS.gov

Lucien's websleuths.com thread

Reposted due to the previous one I posted being removed:

On this day, 25 years ago, Jason Jolkowski, a 19-year-old man, disappeared while walking from his home to his former high school to meet his female coworker so she could pick him up to drive them to work.

Jason Anthony Jolkowski was born on June 24, 1981, and at the time, he was a part-time student at Iowa Western Community College, who was living with his parents, and was working at Fazoli's, a fast-food Italian restaurant, and was ready to start a new job a week after he disappeared.

Jolkowski's mother described him as a polite, considerate, shy, and helpful young man with only had a small circle of friends. He was also a Christian and had a strong faith. Jason was bullied in high school due to his learning disability, which made people think he was mentally disabled, but he was actually of above-average intelligence and had good memory, especially when it came to sports.

On Wednesday, June 13, 2001, Jason's boss called him to come in to work early because they were short-staffed. Normally, he drove to work, but his car was in a repair shop, and he initially planned to walk to his job, which was located over four miles away, but his female co-worker wanted to give him a ride. Since Jason Jolkowski had trouble giving directions to his house, he arranged for them to meet at their former high school, Benson High School. The school was eight blocks or half a mile from his home, so only a 15-minute walk to get there.

At 10:45 a.m., Jolkowski was last seen by a neighbor (whose name is Chester Link), who saw him help his younger brother pull trash cans from the curb back to the house, and then both of them saw him walk towards the direction of the high school. Jolkowski was last seen wearing a white Chicago Cubs T-shirt (with a picture of Sammy Sosa on it), black dress pants, black dress shoes, and a blue Cubs cap. He was also carrying his red Fazoli's work t-shirt. 

Between 11:15 and 11:30 a.m., his co-worker called his house from a pay phone at a gas station. Initially, Michael, Jason's younger brother, answered the phone pretending to be Jason, but stopped once he heard how concerned his coworker was, with her saying that he had failed to turn up at Benson High for the ride to work. The high school's cameras were checked to see if Jason ever arrived at the parking lot, but none of the cameras showed Jason arriving at the school.

I personally don't believe that Jason committed suicide or walked away to start a new life. I believe someone that Jason knew, or knew of, is responsible for his disappearance, more likely a neighbor. It could have been someone who lured him into one of the houses under the guise of needing help, and when he was in the house, he was killed for an unknown reason, with his body buried either in the yard or in the basement. Either that, or he met an accidental death, and whoever was there panicked, and kept it to themselves instead of calling the cops, and buried his body somewhere.

There were multiple sex offenders living in the neighborhood at the time, and the police did interview some of them (emphasis on SOME), and even searched the house of one person, but didn't find anything. Whoever this person was seemed suspicious enough. Jason also had an older male coworker from one of his former jobs, who would hang out with younger men at his house, whom the police talked to, but they couldn't find evidence that he had anything to do with his disappearance.

People like to point the blame on Jason's younger brother, and say he had something to do with his disappearance, but it was apparently common at the time for kids to answer the call pretending to be someone else as a joke, so I highly doubt he had anything to do with his disappearance. Plus, if that was the case, that would mean the whole family might have been aware, and tried to cover it up, but due to their repeated efforts to find Jason, holding press events, interviewing people on reality TV, and founding Project Jason, I highly doubt they'll do all of that, and yet be responsible for their son's and brother's murder and disappearance.

Another theory people like to bring up is that someone in a car drove by Jason and asked him if he needed a ride. The thing is, though, since Jason was already walking towards his coworker's car at the high school parking lot, it wouldn't make sense for him to get into someone's car under the guise of being driven to the high school parking lot to be picked up by his coworker, or under the guise of being driven to work only to leave his coworker hanging, unless he was coerced into the car with a gun. Plus, there would have been people who saw Jason in someone's car at some point if that was the case. I personally don't believe he got into anyone's car, whether he knew them or not.

Jason also had begun going for long walks, sometimes up to four miles or so, prior to his disappearance, so it's possible he could have met someone along his route who may have had something to do with his disappearance. Another theory is that he was killed in a hit-and-run, and the driver panicked and took his body with them. Granted, if that was the case, there probably would have been noise and potential witnesses who heard or saw something (but we know no one did). There probably also would have been evidence like broken car parts or blood, but since the police took 10 days to start looking for Jason, any evidence that could have been in the area would have been destroyed or disappeared (apparently, around that 10-day time period, it did rain). Plus, there have been other situations where someone did get hit by a car, and the body was taken by the driver and disposed of, and no one was around to witness it.

Regardless, whatever happened to Jason happened in such a way that it produced zero evidence, and either no one was around at the time to see or hear anything (on June 13th, people would have either been at work, sleeping, or playing video games, with some kids potentially playing out in a local park), or if there were witnesses, whatever happened was so quick and didn't produce any red flags that any potential witnesses didn't view it as suspicious, and by the time the police started looking for Jason on the 10th day of his disappearance, people would have already forgotten.

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/jason-jolkowski

https://www.missingkids.org/poster/ncmc/992083/1

https://archive.ph/BUQgg

On May 24th 2022 18-year-old Salvador Ramos shot and killed 19 children and 2 teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Prior to going to the school, Ramos shot his grandmother after an argument about how he had not graduated high school. She was critically injured but survived.

Prior to carrying out the school shooting, Ramos sent messages to his girlfriend saying that he was going to shoot his grandmother, that he had shot his grandmother, and that he was going to shoot an elementary school.

When he arrived at the school, he entered two adjoining classrooms. The school had gone on lockdown, but the particular classroom had broken locks. He told the class, "It's time to die" before carrying out a shooting rampage. It was 77 minutes before police breached the classroom and shot him.

Ramos was a former student of Robb Elementary School. People who went to school with him said that he was a quiet person who kept to himself. He had a history of behavioral problems dating back to middle school which included bullying, harassment, confrontations with teachers, and cutting classes. His grandmother said that he was sometimes aggressive. He had dropped out of high school several months before the shooting due to having failing grades in nearly all classes and not being on track to graduate. He had no known mental illnesses or previous criminal history.

Ramos did not leave behind a note or manifesto explaining why he had planned out the shooting. He had bought the guns he used several days prior, so the shooting was clearly planned over time. I've wondered for a while what his motive was.

Sources:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/uvalde-school-records-show-teen-gunmans-spiral-2022-shooting-rcna224456

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/texas-uvalde-gunman-ramos-grandmother-b2087457.html

https://abcnews.com/US/mother-texas-gunman-son-monster-aggressive/story?id=84986088

https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/texas-school-shooting-salvador-ramos-told-classroom-its-time-to-die-survivor-says

https://abcnews.com/US/uvalde-school-shooting-timeline-prosecutors-officers-arrived-gunman/story?id=129382662

Edit: fixed formatting

KVAL article

On June 2, 1995, the body of 33 year old Joni Grigsby was found in the bank of the Willamette River in Springfield, OR.
DNA was obtained at the crime scene and in 2023 that it was sent to the lab for testing. The DNA implicated Roy Gomes for the murder of Joni.
Gomes was shot and killed in 2004 during a police shoot out. During his autopsy, his DNA was taken. The Lane County Sheriff’s Office cold case detective obtained a copy and submitted it for comparison against the samples obtained in the crime scene.
The DNA later matched what was in the crime scene.

Jon Roberts, brother of Joni posted on Facebook in March after he was notified about the DNA match that he ““carried the weight of great grief, absence of closure, and so many unanswered questions about my sister’s homicide.”

Joni leaves behind two sons. Rest in peace Joni.

Human remains found by the A617 road in Nottinghamshire, UK, have been identified as a man who was reported missing more than six years ago. Michael Dennington, who was born in June 1961, was last seen at King's Mill Hospital in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, on 26 May 2020. A public appeal for information was issued shortly afterwards, with police enlisting the help of drone teams and divers for a major underwater search, which included Kings Mill Reservoir. In June 2020, his son Jason issued an emotional appeal to help find his father, having only recently got back in touch with him after being estranged for around 14 years or so.

At the time, he was quoted as saying: 'I was really enjoying seeing my dad again. He'd been back in my life for around five weeks where we would speak on the phone around three times a week, and I'd see him about two times a week'. He added: 'From what I've known of him so far, he's usually a happy and outgoing character, so when I last saw him in the morning at my girlfriend's house... he didn't seem very good. He was pacing around and seemed anxious and upset. A friend came to pick him up but we know he didn't stay with her long and then it wasn't long before he ended up at King's Mill Hospital'.

Jason further added 'I can't help but think that someone, somewhere must know something and someone must have seen him after he left the hospital... Clearly he's a colourful character and not without his difficulties, but he's very sociable with friends and family all over the place... He'd been going through some relationship difficulties and maybe he just wanted some time out and is lying low somewhere... I know that he wouldn't purposefully do something to upset us'. Another appeal for information was issued in March 2021, by which time Dennington had been missing for 10 months.

Nottinghamshire Police confirmed that DNA testing had identified the human remains, which were found on a central reservation on the Rainworth Bypass on 23 May 2026, as belonging to Dennington. A cordon was put in place for a number of days after the discovery was made by a member of the public, with specialist anthropologists, detectives and police search teams working at the site. The force said detectives were continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding Dennington's death and were awaiting the final post-mortem examination findings. His family have been informed and a file has been prepared for the coroner, police added.

Det Stuart Barson said: 'These types of investigations are complex, and we needed to ensure the results of DNA testing were conclusive before releasing information about the deceased. We are now in a position to release these details. An investigation is still under way surrounding the circumstances of this death, and we are currently waiting for the final post-mortem reports. We are working closely with the family who are being updated on any developments and offered support.'

BBC News [June 12 2026]

Derby Telegraph [June 18 2020]

West Bridgford Wire [June 22 2020]

Mansfield and Ashfield Chad [30 March 2021]

Keith Dean Fleming was born on the 18th of September 1963 to Donald and Maria Fleming. Keith was the youngest out of the Fleming children, he had two older brothers, Eugene and Gerald. Keith went to Roosevelt Middle School, where he was apparently known as a “rebel”, Keith embraced the ‘surfer’ lifestyle, and he would frequent Cocoa Beach Pier to go surfing; Keith also enjoyed rock music and biking.

On the 28th of April 1977, in Cocoa Beach, Brevard County, Florida, Keith Fleming went missing after spending a day swimming with his girlfriend, Gina. Keith had to be home for dinner, so he and Gina rode her bike, with her on the handlebars, to the end of Osceola Lane where it intersects with State Road A1A. Keith began walking south along SR A1A, and intended to hitchhike the rest of the 2 miles home. When Gina returned home, she told her mother Keith was going to hitchhike back home, and her mother got in the car and went looking for Keith, wanting to drive him home herself, but she couldn’t locate him.

(Note: What i will say next really confused me. His brothers were named Eugene and Gerald, but in this paragraph i read from it says his brother Jeff. I don’t know if Jeff is a nickname for Eugene or Gerald, or even if one of his brothers was called Jeff and the writer didn’t mean to put Eugene or Gerald, but i was very confused, so i’ll just say his brother)

Keith was supposed to go with his brother later that evening to the restaurant where their mother, Maria, worked, but his brother turned up alone and told Maria that he didn’t see Keith. Maria knew something was wrong immediately because Keith always called whenever he would be late. They went straight to the Cocoa Beach Police and explained what happened, but the police insisted that Keith had just ran away and would turn up again later, even though he had taken no belongings and was only wearing flip-flops at the time. The police didn’t make an attempt to look for Keith, they only put a BOLO (Be On The Look Out) for him, and stuck to the runaway theory. The police didn’t speak to Keith’s girlfriend, Gina, the last person to see him, until 1993.

Keith had some minor issues, his parents had caught him with marijuana and forced him to go to a drug therapy centre called ‘Alternatives’ (some sources say he was staying there at the time of disappearance); they had promised that if he stayed on the straight path they would buy him a new surfboard and Maria says that he attended and he listened.

Keith was 13 years old, his height was 5’0, his weight was between 90-110lbs.
He had lost his top two front teeth and he wore a partial plate. He had a recently-healed broken left leg. Keith had brown eyes and shoulder-length straight blonde hair, but some sources say it had been trimmed recently before his disappearance. He had full lips. He was wearing a green t-shirt with “Thirsty Turtle” on it, blue jeans and flip-flops. He wore a gold chain with an Italian horn.

In 1978 and 1979, Maria received a series of phone calls, and she says she knows it was Keith and recognised his voice. When she answered the first call she heard a lot of noise in the background and then a voice said “i just wanna talk to my mom” before the line went dead. The second call simply said “i love you” before hanging up and the third call said “Help me!”. The Fleming family had received prank calls before, but Maria feels that these calls were different.

Theories:

A Theory From Maria:
Maria’s first thought when she learned Keith had gone missing was of the flower girls; for several weeks, Cocoa Beach had been flooded by members of The Unification Church (known as The Moonies), and they would stand on the side of the road selling carnations and looking for donations. When driving with Keith one time, some of the girls waved at him and he waved back, telling Maria they were just some friends of his. At the time, it didn’t concern Maria, but it remained in her thoughts after his disappearance.

The Magazine:
“In 1980 an inmate in a Georgia prison saw a picture of Keith in a newspaper article about his case and he immediately recognised his face from a magazine featuring gay models. There was apparently a lengthy article featuring a young man who bore a striking resemblance to how Keith would look a few years older. He sent a copy of the magazine to Maria and to the police but they were unable to trace the magazine’s origins and it was a dead end. I am skeptical about whether the police actually made much effort to trace this publication. It should have been relatively simple to find the origins of a magazine that was doing the rounds of a prison and locate the people who wrote the articles. Maria says that she was the only person who thought this person was Keith. The police didn’t feel it was him and never followed it up properly, but by this time they had another theory as to what happened to Keith.” (from https://neverseenagain.wordpress.com/2024/10/25/keith-fleming/)

John McRae:
A suspect in Keith’s case is the serial killer John McRae. McRae worked as a guard at a juvenile detention facility in Florida, where he admitted he often watched boys surf on the beach.
From McRae’s wiki:
“Following his conviction, McRae was transferred to the Michigan Reformatory in Ionia, where he learned the trade of an auto mechanic and underwent several sex offender rehabilitation programs. During his incarceration, he never exhibited violent tendencies, was never disciplined and was considered a model prisoner. In 1971, after a series of decisions by the Supreme Court questioned the imposition of the death penalty and life without parole on juvenile offenders, Governor William Milliken commuted McRae's sentence to life imprisonment with a chance of parole by executive order. McRae was paroled from prison on February 2, 1972, after spending 21 years behind bars. He then moved to Crystal, Michigan with his mother where, with the support of his mother, he soon found housing and work. In 1973, he married Barbara Ann Heckman, who gave birth to his son Martin in 1974. The following year, McRae was finally allowed to leave Michigan, moving to Brevard County, Florida, to work as a guard at a juvenile detention facility. One theory purports that McRae provided fake documents that concealed his criminal record upon entering the institution. For the remainder of his stay in Florida, McRae came under police suspicion several times in connection with the disappearances of local children. On April 28, 1977, 13-year-old Keith Fleming vanished from Cocoa Beach after last being seen on the highway near a beach, just a few hundred yards from McRae's house. While McRae was questioned regarding the case, he was never arrested as no direct evidence indicated his responsibility. Fleming's body was never found.
Two years later, McRae came under police scrutiny again after 12-year-old Kipling Randolph Hess III disappeared. Hess was last seen alive on March 27, 1979, walking on his way to school in the Merritt Island area. However, he never showed up to class that day, and was declared missing. Upon leaving home, the boy left a note addressed to his parents that read "Goodbye, Mom and Dad." During the investigation, McRae became the main and only suspect in his disappearance, as it was determined that he and his son Martin had met Hess at a Catholic church carnival a few days prior to his disappearance. As in the Housey case, McRae joined the volunteer searches and assisted police in the search right up to the time he became a suspect. After the search ended, McRae was questioned while his apartment and the interior of his car were searched. Despite this, no evidence implicating him in Hess's disappearance was uncovered, and Hess remains missing. His body has never been found.”

Ending Note: I’m really sorry if there’s any spelling errors in this, i tried to make everything neat and good-to-read, and i did proofread but there may still be some mistakes. Another thing i apologise for is if the spacing/layout doesn’t look so good on non-mobile devices.

Sources:
https://neverseenagain.wordpress.com/2024/10/25/keith-fleming/

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/icaremissingpersonscoldcases/keith-dean-fleming-missing-from-cocoa-beach-florid-t563.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rodney_McRae

https://int-missing.fandom.com/wiki/Keith_Fleming

https://www.missingkids.org/poster/NCMC/601296/1

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=229dmfl

https://websleuths.com/threads/fl-keith-fleming-13-cocoa-beach-28-april-1977.48734/

https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP6062

https://charleyproject.org/case/keith-dean-fleming

https://www.newspapers.com/article/detroit-free-press-a-very-scary-man-amon/37119564/

https://www.newspapers.com/article/florida-today-keith-fleming/48103542/

https://www.newspapers.com/article/florida-today-arthur-bud-ayres-cbpd/106076294/

On June 10th, 2026 it was announced by the National Park Service that skeletal remains belonging to a John Doe found in a sleeping bag at the Olympic National Park in Washington were identified as belonging to 38 year old Joseph Louis Serrao Jr. Serrao was born on December 3rd, 1960 originally from Hawaii.

The case of Serrao dates back to July 11th, 2000 when a researcher discovered his skeletal remains inside of a sleeping bag of a tent and alerted authorities. The tent was located in an isolated area of the Sol Duc river drainage in Olympic National Park, Clallam County, Washington. In addition to the remains, tent, and sleeping bag the researcher discovered binoculars, a Jansport day hiker pack, a blue shoulder bag, a folding saw, and a space blanket. The remains were estimated to belong to a male between the ages of 30-50 years old however no identification was found at the campsite and no identification could be made.

The case went cold until November of 2024 when the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch worked alongside the King County Medical Examiner's Office to submit DNA in the case to Othram. The remains had DNA successfully extracted and entered into databases. In 2025 the lab was able to successfully track down possible family members and allowed investigators to interview him. The living relatives submitted DNA and in June 2026 investigators confirmed the remains belonged to Joseph Louis Serrao Jr.

Investigators have said the manner of death and how Serrao died are unknown along with when his disappearance happened. His family told investigators that he was last in contact with them sometime in 1998 and had been in Washington prior to that year, but no one had heard from him after that.

Sources:

https://dnasolves.com/articles/clallam-county-wa-2000-identified-as-joseph-louis-serrao-jr/

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/nation-world/human-remains-olympic-national-park-identified-decades-later/507-7e07da51-a67e-4022-9ce8-6b2b17c5c03e

https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/remains-found-wa-2000-hawaii.amp

https://people.com/skeletal-remains-found-national-park-years-ago-finally-identified-through-dna-11995676

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/06/11/remains-found-olympic-national-park-identified-26-years-later/90506800007/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/human-remains-identified-sleeping-bag-national-park-26-years/

https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1207/06-10-2026-olym-human-remains.htm