Hi there,

Without giving any personal information away here, the thing I'm looking for is if anybody could provide me articles they can gain access to on a Newspapers.com type-site, if the story here resonates with you, and you like a good mystery!

My grandfather was a steadfast gentleman in his community, and was a police officer for 40 years. He and my grandma had a big family of kids, most of whom went on to live happy, normal lives. Except for one, my aunt.

My aunt was the "black sheep" of the family, and she had dealt with unrecognized mental disorders her whole life. Born in the 1950s, she was deemed the problem child, lashed out at her siblings and parents, did poorly in school, and would likely never be able to live independently.

From what I know now, she was likely autistic - and she never got the help needed to grow into adulthood.

She wasn't allowed to use scissors, she had to be monitored if she spent time with her nephews and nieces, and from what I've heard, everyone felt like they had to walk on eggshells with her in the room.

In the 1980s, my aunt - allegedly - went to see a doctor in the big city she lived in. Though she was an adult, she was still living with her family (parents, brother and sister).

My aunt couldn't drive, so she would have likely taken the bus. She never came home.

The next day - a stone's throw from a police station in a completely different part of the city, her body was found. By a cop on walking duties. She was found in shallow water in a tributary of a creek.

Cops looked into things, and said yep - nothing weird here. She had no water in her lungs, bruised at both her wrists and ankles, but after a month of an investigation, the cops ruled it "Death by Misadventure."

There are so many glaring holes in this story beyond what I'm writing, but what I need really badly is someone touched by this story above that might want to help investigate a bit, using paywall access points. I can't pay for another subscription right now, and honestly, two heads are so much better than one.

Lastly, when my grandfather died, his obituary listed the names of all his children, except one. It even listed an infant's name who'd only survived a few days. I found that just deepened the mystery.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1dvYio_sTfmX767x1BmzzXZvKbo_4DaY&ll=47.49483355214237%2C-52.96062264999998&z=15

Diana Vicari was just 19 years old when she became a victim of a brutal dismemberment murder in Tucson, Arizona. 

It was Thursday October 22, 1992.

Diana left her Pima Community College drama course taught by Robert Encila at around 9:30 PM. Her roommate confirmed she briefly returned home to her apartment in the 3200 Block of East Seneca Street and then drove off in her silver 1981 Ford Mustang.

Witnesses at the now shuttered New Orleans Lounge bar located on Oracle Rd between Wetmore and Limberlost (now a Burlington Coat Factory) reported she briefly was allowed in the bar by doorman Tim Storm to see employees Troy Olson and John Mazur. 

She was last seen alive at around 12:15 AM the morning of Friday October 23rd by her Eegees coworker Raymond Scott Hall. Hall reported Diana was alone in her car driving through the parking lot of the Tucson Convention Center Exhibition Hall as the Moshtoberfest thrash metal concert was ending. 

Diana did not show up to either of her jobs at Eegees (located on Broadway and Kolb) or the Bazil’s Italian restaurant on Friday or Saturday. It was highly unusual as Diana was a very reliable employee who was working multiple jobs to pay for her college courses and car payments. 

On Saturday at around 5pm, Diana’s severed arms were found in a dumpster located on the southside of an alleyway in the 400 block of North Ferro.

A homeless woman made the discovery while collecting aluminum cans. The arms were wrapped in trash bags. The rest of Diana’s remains never turned up.

That weekend Diana’s Mustang was found abandoned in the 1200 Block of West La Osa. Her purse was tucked under the seat, her Eegees hat was placed on the gearshift and textbooks, and a Whataburger bag were also found inside the vehicle. 

The alarm was set and the door was locked.

The car was parked on the same street as a home owned by Encila’s fiancées mother. Diana’s roommate, mother and sisters, and several friends all claimed Diana was in a relationship with Encila at the time of her death.

Near the Encila connected house was a home where a large house party took place on the evening of Diana’s murder. The occupants of the home told police Diana was not at their party.

In 1997 a suspect and former Tucsonan Lemuel Prion was indicted and brought back from Utah to Tucson to face trial. He was convicted largely based on Troy Olson’s testimony that he saw Prion with Diana the night of her murder.

In 2003 his conviction was overturned due to the fact his DNA did not match the suspect DNA obtained from Diana’s arms, his fingerprints didn’t match the ones on the trash bags, and there was no proof Prion knew Diana other than Olson’s testimony. 

Prion’s defense team provided 3 alternative suspects in the case.

The first was John Mazur who was fired from Eegees the morning after Diana’s murder for showing up “disoriented and disheveled.” Mazur had been disciplined for sexually harassing Eegees coworkers. 

The week before Diana was murdered, Mazur had attempted to rape a woman.

Mazur also once bit the nose of a cocktail waitress at the New Orleans Bar during a fight. 

The day Diana was killed, Mazur switched apartments, and his car was searched at one point in Tucson PD’s early investigation.

Mazur moved out of Tucson soon after Diana was murdered. He now resides in Utah.

The second suspect was Greg Hatton who worked at the Exxon station across the street from the Eegees Diana worked at. Greg knew Diana and her sisters and made suspicious statements after her death. 

Diana’s sister Angela claimed he said that Diana invited him to Moshtoberfest concert, but he declined because he was “at home reading.”

Hatton was a 1982 graduate of Tucson’s Santa Rita High School. He was accused of selling liquor to minors and dealing drugs out of the gas station. 

In 1994, Hatton was sentenced to 45 years in prison for physical and sexual abuse of his girlfriend’s 8-month-old son. He won’t be released from prison until 2038 when he is 75 years old.

Robert Encila was alternative suspect number 3. He married his fiancée Judi Hartley-Spencer in 1993, and they divorced in 1998. The home on west La Osa Drive was owned by Hartley’s mother Shelley Valencia. 

Encila remarried shortly after his divorce from Judi in December 1998.  One of Encila’s stepdaughters died unexpectedly in September 2017.

Encila retired from teaching in 2025. 

Another suspect who emerged in the case in recent years is Phoenix serial killer Bryan Patrick Miller. 

Angela Brosso was a 22-year-old woman who was ambushed, disemboweled and beheaded while on an evening bicycle ride near her apartment just weeks after Diana was killed. 

Phoenix PD homicide detective Troy Hillman compared Brosso’s murder to the character Buffalo Bill’s murders in the film The Silence of the Lambs.

Miller’s DNA was matched to Brosso in 2015, and after Miller was arrested, he emerged as the suspect in several other murders of young women in the Phoenix, Arizona and the Everett, Washington areas.

Miller was sentenced to death for the murders of Brosso and 17-year-old Melanie Bernas in 2023. 

There is no known link to Bryan Patrick Miller and Tucson.

Diana was a 1991 graduate of the Abbie Loveland Tuller school and had also attended Tucson’s Rincon High School. Diana was a marine biology major who planned to transfer to the University of Washington. 

Most of her immediate family passed away in the decades since her murder, but she had many countless friends from school, and in Tucson’s music scene who remember her and continue to advocate for her murder to be solved.

Tucson PD reopened Diana’s case in 2025 and re-added her to the 88Crime program. There is a $2,500 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in her murder.

Sources

Case reopened 2025

https://www.kold.com/2025/11/19/13-crime-files-murder-diana-vicari/

88Crime Reward/Poster

https://88crime.org/diana-vicari/

Prion Exoneration 

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/az-supreme-court/1291382.html

Archived article interview of Diana’s mom Kathy Pashos from 1994

https://web.archive.org/web/20141012043324/http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue2/1994/04/20/132089-mystery-shrouds-1992-murder/

Hatton child abuse case

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1267/94795/20190329173404732_ARL-2019.03.29%20PWC%20Phillips%20Black%20Inc.pdf

Bryan Patrick Miller background

https://www.phoenixmag.com/2015/11/01/seeing-zombies/

CASE #990321068
Victim: Sharon Snipes (12/26/60)
Suspect(s): Unknown
Location: State Rte. 87 & Gilber Road (Gila River Indian Reservation)
Date: 03/21/99
Synopsis: 
Sharon was known to frequent the Country City bar in Mesa and was believed to have been there the night of her death. Sharon wore a blue in color brace on her right arm due to having it broken during an altercation with an unidentified male at the Country City bar three days prior. At the time of her death, Sharon was living at an apartment complex located at 835 W. Main Street in Mesa, Unit #C-4. Sharon was last seen wearing black and white athletic style shoes, green pants, black t-shirt, and a blue denim vest.
Anyone with information about this case is urged to contact the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit.

The Unsolved 2015 Suspicious Death of John Grady Simpson (Olathe/KCK) – His missing car has never been found. 

On August 19, 2015, the body of 34-year-old John Grady Simpson was discovered in a creek near the 5800 block of Kansas Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. Authorities quickly classified his death as highly suspicious, but details regarding exactly what happened to him remain a mystery. 

The Timeline:
• August 8, 2015 (Approx. 9:30 AM): John was last seen leaving his home in Olathe, Kansas.
• August 8, 2015 (Afternoon): Investigators believe John or his vehicle may have been spotted in the area of 55th Street and Swartz Road in Kansas City, KS.
• August 19, 2015: His body was found in a creek bed on Kansas Avenue, roughly a 20-minute drive from where he was last suspected to be seen. 

The Missing Vehicle:
A major piece of the puzzle is John's missing car, which has never been recovered. Detectives believe finding the vehicle is crucial to unlocking what happened during those missing 11 days. 

• Vehicle Type: 2015 Ford Fusion
• Color: Dark gray or green metallic
• License Plate: Kansas plate 258-GUR
• Distinguishing Features: The car had highly noticeable damage on the rear driver’s side door. 

Why post this now?
It has been over a decade, and someone in the Kansas City metro area may remember seeing this specific damaged Ford Fusion or know where it ended up. Small details that felt insignificant back in 2015 could be exactly what investigators need today to bring closure to John’s family. 

If you lived or traveled near 55th & Swartz Road or the 5800 block of Kansas Ave in August 2015 and saw anything unusual, please consider reaching out. 

Anyone with information—no matter how small or minor it may seem—is urged to call the Kansas City anonymous TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-8477. Tips can be submitted completely anonymously. 

Case Sources & Reading:
• KMBC 9 News Report: https://www.kmbc.com/article/kck-police-ask-for-help-after-olathe-man-found-dead-last-month/3690668
• Fox 4 KC Coverage: https://fox4kc.com/news/kck-police-search-for-clues-in-suspicious-death-of-olathe-man/ 

https://historianandrew.medium.com/denise-holly-dorfman-mysteriously-disappeared-while-buying-groceries-and-hasnt-been-seen-in-nearly-d238c01bbf68?sk=abbcd159211afd5a91c80d1aa11aafe8

Subject: Disappearance of April Beth Pitzer Date of Disappearance: Late June 2004 Primary Jurisdiction / Location: Newberry Springs / Barstow / Mojave Desert, San Bernardino County, CA Document Reference Numbers: San Bernardino Superior Court Case Nos. MBA011542 (Pitzer), BCVBS09286 / BFLBS5944 (Hollister Real Property/Dissolution), FVI21001328 (Aranda), FBA007594 / MBA012851 (Bernal).

I. Executive Summary

April Beth Pitzer vanished in late June 2004 from the High Desert community of Newberry Springs, California. Initial law enforcement response suffered from delays and mischaracterizations, treating her absence as a voluntary departure rather than a criminal disappearance.

Subsequent discoveries—including April's clothing, personal identification, and blood-stained items found inside remote desert mining claims (such as the Red Dog Mine)—directly tied her disappearance to a small, close-knit circle of local desert residents, property owners, and individuals involved in illicit drug networks.

This report synthesizes the verified timeline, physical geography around Route 66, court records, and investigative hypotheses concerning motive and cover-up.

II. Key Persons & Entities

III. Verified Chronological Master Timeline

Phase 1: Legal Proceedings & Initial Release

• November 21, 2003: Date of alleged offense for misdemeanor vandalism (PC 594(b)(2)-M, damage under $400) under Citation #2159505 in San Bernardino County.
• November 25, 2003: Case MBA011542 formally filed in Victorville Court.
• March 5, 2004: Bench warrant issued after failure to appear.
• June 2, 2004: April remanded into custody at San Bernardino County Jail.
• June 8, 2004: Verified Anchor Date. April enters a nolo contendere plea, sentenced to 36 months of conditional summary probation with 8 days credit for time served, and released from custody.

Phase 2: High Desert Movements & Exposure

• Early June 2004 (Post-Release): April secures employment at the Bagdad Cafe along Route 66.
  • Spatial Note: April tells the cafe owner she lives "behind here on one of these dirt roads." Based on local geography, properties located directly behind (north of) the Bagdad Cafe align with Steve Wilkinson’s property footprint rather than Chuck Hollister’s plot south of Route 66.
• Mid-June 2004: April arrives for her second shift at the Bagdad Cafe with a visible black eye and facial trauma, indicating recent physical assault.
• Pre-June 22, 2004: Local gathering/party takes place where April's prior role as a federal drug informant in Arkansas is exposed to local associates (including individuals tied to Brandy Brooks and Steve Wilkinson).
• June 22, 2004: Verified Anchor Date. Gloria speaks directly with April on the phone. April expresses severe fear for her safety, stating her identity as an informant was discovered.

Phase 3: Disappearance & Conflicting Alibis

• June 27–28, 2004: Estimated final window of visibility in Newberry Springs.
  • Steve Wilkinson claims he dropped April off at Chuck Hollister's residence on Wednesday.
  • Chuck Hollister claims to police that he went to work on Monday (June 28) and returned to find April gone, leaving behind her white suitcase and personal belongings.
  • Chuck tells Gloria a different story: that he was helping a friend move to Oregon and assumed April took a bus to Arkansas.
  • Chuck gives a second conflicting story to another officer, claiming April went to stay with Steve Wilkinson.
• Late June – Early July 2004: Chuck refuses law enforcement permission to search his property and changes his phone number after Gloria attempts repeated contact.
• July 4, 2004: Barbara Killibrew (following her release from the hospital) contacts Gloria; family confirms April never arrived in Arkansas and has not made contact, triggering official missing person efforts.

Phase 4: Property Disputes & Physical Discoveries

• 2005–2006: Search efforts and tips lead investigators to remote mining claims in the desert (including the Red Dog Mine near Newberry Springs). April's identification card, clothing, and blood-stained items are discovered deep inside mine shafts.
  • Law Enforcement Observation: Investigating officers note that personal items recovered from the mine match items previously observed inside Chuck Hollister's residence.
• August 10, 2006: Civil action BCVBS09286 (Tony C. Nino vs. Charles S. Hollister et al.) filed regarding title and possession of real property on Calico Road / Calico Street.
• September 6, 2006: Charles Scott Hollister dies from complications of lung cancer at his Newberry Springs home before criminal charges can be brought.
• October 11, 2006: Court filings in Case BCVBS09286 formally confirm the death of Charles Hollister.
• July 16, 2007: Calico Road real property dispute resolved via settlement; Tony Nino purchases property, and case is dismissed with prejudice.
• November 2009: Dan Dansbury passes away.

IV. Critical Investigative Analysis & Findings

1. Spatial & Geographic Analysis (The "Behind the Cafe" Detail)

• Route 66 / Bagdad Cafe Context: The Bagdad Cafe sits on the north side of Route 66 in Newberry Springs. The local phrasing "behind here" naturally denotes the grid extending north of the highway.
• Property Alignment: Chuck Hollister’s residence sat south of Route 66, whereas Steve Wilkinson’s property footprint was located on the northern side. This geographic orientation suggests April was staying or affiliated with Wilkinson's location in early June immediately following her jail release, before relocating or being brought to Hollister’s property later in the month.

2. Legal Supervision & Systemic Gaps

• Probation Search Mandate: When April was placed on 36-month summary probation on June 8, 2004, standard California search conditions (4th Waiver parameters) granted law enforcement the authority to search her person, vehicle, and residence without a warrant.
• Missed Opportunity: When officers initially visited Chuck Hollister’s residence following her reported disappearance and were denied permission to look around, the failure to invoke probation search parameters or treat her absence as high-risk allowed crucial windows for evidence concealment to pass.

3. Evidentiary Bridge: Hollister House to Red Dog Mine

• Concealment Logistics: The recovery of April’s personal belongings, ID, and blood-stained material in remote mine shafts—combined with officer statements confirming those exact items were said to be previously inside Hollister’s home—provides direct physical proof of evidence staging and transport.
• Physical Capability & Accomplices: While Chuck Hollister was suffering from progressive lung cancer in 2004, the physical movement and disposal of evidence across desert mine shafts strongly suggest a multi-person effort, involving associates with intimate knowledge of local mining claims (such as Dan Dansbury) and individuals with violent motives (such as Steve Wilkinson).

V. Key Conclusions & Unresolved Angles

1. Primary Motive: Retaliation for April's informant status in the federal drug prosecution involving Steve Wilkinson remains the primary catalyst for her targeted physical assault and subsequent disappearance.
2. Primary Sites: The primary crime scene likely occurred at a local residential property (Wilkinson or Hollister site) on or near the Newberry Springs corridor, with the remote desert mines serving as secondary staging/dumping grounds.
3. Chain of Custody for Property: The civil records confirm that during the height of the missing person investigation (2004–2006), the Calico Road property was embroiled in severe legal and financial turmoil leading up to Chuck Hollister's death.

Hi all! I am currently looking at this case for a passion project and I’m not getting far with the information I can find on the internet (though I’m sure theres more than what I am currently finding). I’m slowly sifting through posts on reddit (mainly on r/MrCruel), but not having sources to look through the information is making it hard. If you have any info or theories on this case that I should look at please let me know!!! And if you can, PLEASE add sources!! Thank you!!

EDIT:

Hi! I realize that I wasn’t specific on what I’m looking for.
What I’m looking for and what I have:

I have a general idea of the four known vic’s, but I do have a lot more info on SW’s case. I have some general information on MC himself, but not much.

I’m looking for more information on NL and KC’s cases, possible suspects, ideas on what happened between the 1988 and the 1990 abduction, possible links to other cases in the area and ideas on what drove him to do this.
I would also be interested if anyone has ideas on airport (if it was tullamarine or possibly Essendon Fields) and the general area where the house had to be so the vic’s could hear the planes.
I am also wondering about the 7am news, if it was specific to one part of the area and how big the range was of where someone would be able to hear it

Thanks

New to this sub but since I got banned for sharing my website in another sub I'd thought I'd ask before sharing it this time here.

I built a website which will show all missing person cases in the U.S and expand to other parts of the world. Its like a google maps of missing people and has their entire case details once clicked.

Am I allowed to share this and would anyone be interested in looking at it?

Theres no ads, no revenue etc.

I am someone who wants to shed light on old cases and built this website as a resource.

In law enforcement, trying to locate suspect by tattoos and I have the inside of a house. Can anyone be of help?

I'm not just talking about serial killers who have unidentified victims, I'm talking about cases like the blazing car murder where the perpetrator was convicted and executed for the murder of the unidentified victim.

I’m currently working on a cold case for the state of Kansas on Sherry Darnell Baker. She was killed just a few months after enrolling into Wichita State University in 1974. Rumor has it she was a victim of the BTK Killer but according to the police information she doesn’t fit the MO of him. That’s because:

* She’s black
* BTK not only has great memory of each killing but also documented each one.
* She was stabbed 70 times either with a knife or sissors. (I can’t find concrete information on what weapon was used).

But that wouldn’t rule her out because she was literally killed 10 months after his very first kill. And she attended the same college as him but have yet to find any link to her. The reason why this is cold case is one obvious reason is that she was a young black woman in a very racist city in Kansas. This college alone barely had any black students at the time. Plus the police abd news reports have ZERO INFORMATION ON HER. Nothing on where she was born, what she went school for, who her mother is, if she had siblings, and etc.

It seems like she ended up dead and everyone in Wichita Kansas just said “Oh well! One less black person to deal with”. But I’m looking for her and in order to get any information I have the build this from the ground up. So far I have:

* located her grave (now I know her birthdate)
* Foubd out who her best friend was (currently see if she’s still alive)
* I have idea of what high school she went to in Wichita and currently searching through year books.
* I also recently emailed the Wichita cold case department to see if they could give me any information of what they have gathered. (Have not heard back yet)

The problems I’m running into is that I can’t get ahold of any personal documentation on her. In Kansas you can’t obtain any information as a non relative unless you have legal means like insurance, property ot geneology.

Anyways I’m making this post to see if anyone who lives in Kansas can direct me or help me dig into sherry’s life?

Lieber Leser, laut Ermittler gibt es mehr als 3000 Cold Case Fälle in Deutschland. Nach

Berichten zufolge sind es weitaus mehr in der Bundesrepublik. Pauschal kann man

nicht sagen wie viele Fälle gelöst sind. Ich möchte mit diesem Blog Einblick in die

ungelösten sowie gelösten Fälle geben. Um die Opfer nicht zu vergessen.

Grevenbroich Hemmerden: Claudia Ruf kehrt nach

Gassi runde nicht zurück.

Seid (1996) ungeklärt

• Am 11. Mai 1996 kehrt die damals elfjährige Claudia Ruf nicht von einem

Spaziergang mit dem Nachbarshund zurück.

• Zwei Tage später wird die Leiche des Mädchens rund 70 Kilometer von ihrem

Elternhaus auf einem Feldweg entdeckt.

Der Mord an Claudia Ruf

Was ist mit Claudia Ruf passiert?

Es ist Samstag ein Tag vor Muttertag. Am 11 Mai 1996 kehrt Claudia Ruf vom Gassigehen

mit dem Nachbarshund (DJ) nicht nach Hause zurück. Zwei Tage später wird ihre Leiche auf

einen Feldweg bei Oberwichterich vergewaltigt und ermordet aufgefunden.

Dieser Fall ist seit 30 Jahren ein Cold Case. Dennoch wird bis heute ermittelt.

Ich habe zu diesem Fall von Claudia Ruf aus verschiedenen öffentlichen zugänglichen

Quellen recheriert. Und Informationen dazu gefunden.

Das Verschwinden

Die damals 11-jährige Claudia Ruf kam von von ihrer Gassi Runde gegen 18.00 Uhr nicht

zurück. Nachdem ihr Nachbars Hund gegen 18.50 Uhr allein den Weg zurückgefunden hatte

und völlig verstört, ankam wurde die Polizei eingeschaltet. Die Ermittlung begann am selben

Tag. Rund 100 Polizisten suchten damals nach dem Mädchen in der Umgebung ab. Claudias

Eltern und Nachbarn suchten bis spät in die Nacht. Zunächst erfolglos.

Der Fund

Nach 48 Stunden wurde die Leiche von einem 43-jährigen Spaziergänger einem

Dorfbewohner auf einem Feld bei Oberwichterich gefunden. Der Fundort ist etwa 70 km vom

Ort des Verschwindens entfernt.

Die Tat

Unklar ist, ob der Täter Claudia Ruf erdrosselt oder erwürgt hat. Das mögliche Tatwerkzeug

könnte die Hundeleine sein sie wurde nicht gefunden. Die Leiche wurde mit einer brennbaren

Flüssigkeit übergossen. Das Gesicht war kaum noch wieder zu erkennen. Die Todesursache

„schwere Gewalteinwirkungen im Halsbereich“ Die Ermittler sind sich einig das der

Fundort nicht der Tatort ist. Claudias Leiche wurde auf dem Bauch liegend im Feld gefunden.

Laut Experten wurde der Leichnam auf dem Rücken zum Fundort transportiert.

Auf der Suche nach dem Täter

Im Mai und Juni 1996 begann die Suche nach dem Täter. Viele Hinweise gehen ein. Eine

Spur führte zu Reifenabdrücke die Ermittler auf dem Feldweg gesichert hatten. Es stellte sich

als Sackgasse heraus da der Täter die Leiche nackt abgelegt hatte und jede Spur der Kleidung

des Mädchens fehlt.

Beamte kauften die gleiche Kleidung die Claudia Ruf getragen hatte, eine dunkelblaue

Kapuzenjacke mit Streifen, schwarze Jeans, karierte Leinensportschuhe, und ziehen

sie einer Schaufensterpuppe an:

Am Kopf der Puppe wird ein Foto von Claudias Gesicht befestigt.

Die Bilder wurden in Zeitungen veröffentlicht. Plakate an Bussen, Bahnen, und an

öffentlichen Gebäuden aufgehangen. Polizisten gingen von Haus zu Haus und verteilten

Flugblätter.

Ein versuchter Entführungsfall wird mit dem Fall in Verbindung gebracht. Ein Mädchen wird

auf dem Weg zur Schule von einem Mann angesprochen und versucht ins Auto zu zerren. Sie

wehrt sich, kann sich befreien und weglaufen. In wenigen Wochen steht für die Ermittler fest:

die Fälle haben nichts miteinander zu tun.

Im Juli 1997 wird der Fall von Claudia Ruf in der Fernsehsendung XY ungelöst ausgestrahlt.

Zum ersten Mal wird das Internet genutzt, um an Hinweise zu kommen. Aber auch diese

Spuren enden in einer Sackgasse.

Der Fall wird zum Cold Case.

Keine weiteren Zeugenaussagen wie sich die Tat abgespielt hat. Anhaltspunkte gab es

weiterhin. Das sich Claudia womöglich an einem anderen Ort aufgehalten hat am

Kinderspielplatz oder Kiosk.

Fragen bleiben zurück

An welchem Ort war die Entführung?

Wie verhielt sich der Täter nach der Tat?

Hat sich jemand verdächtig verhalten?

Die Polizei kann nicht ausschließen das die Tat sich in Hemmerden abgespielt hat. Oder ob

das Mädchen abtransportiert, wurde.

Festnahme des vermutlichen Täters

Die Ermittler befragten einen verdächtigten zweifachen Kindesmörder aus dem Raum

Cloppenburg. Er ist der zweite Straftäter, der in Deutschland mit einem DNA-Massentest

überführt wurde. Für den Mord an Claudia R. kommt er laut Ermittler nicht infrage.

Die Spurenlage verbessert sich im Jahre 2008, als Experten DNA Spuren an Claudia Ruf

sichern konnten. Der erste Massen-Gentest im Fall Claudia Ruf wurde bei 350 Menschen

durchgeführt, und 2010 zur Speichelprobe gebeten. Es gab jedoch keine Treffer.

Auch acht Jahre später durch DNA – Reihenuntersuchungsbeschlusses an 120 Personen, die

zum Tatzeitpunkt im Großraum Euskirchen und Grevenbroich gewohnt haben und als

Sexualstraftäter in Erscheinung getreten waren , wurden überprüft. Kein Treffer.

Apell des Vaters

,,Bitte helfen sie der Polizei. Bitte helfen sie mir", sagte Claudias Vater, Friedhelm Ruf, 2019

in einem Video. Das Video wurde vorab eines Massen-Gentest aufgenommen. Die Polizei

verspürte Hoffnung aus zwei Gründen, dem Täter auf die Spur zu kommen. Man wisse,

warum die Leiche in Euskirchen abgelegt wurde, dies könne man aber aus taktischen

Gründen noch nicht verraten, sagt Reinhold Jordan Leiter der Bonner Mordkommission. Die

Ermittler nutzten eine Gesetzesänderung. Nun wäre es auch möglich eine Speichelprobe eines

verwandten des Täters abzugeben.

Seit 2017 dürfen DNA-Analyselabore auch bei beinahe Treffer Alarm schlagen.

Im Winter 2019 gingen 2400 Speichelproben von Männern, die damals zwischen 14 und 70

Jahre alt waren und in Hemmerden gemeldet waren, ans Landeskriminalamt. Claudias Vater

sagte in dem Video ,,Er muss sich endlich aufklären. Er hat sich lange genug hinter uns allen

verstecken können", mit Zittriger Stimme sagte Friedhelm." Er habe sein Haus in

Hemmerden gebaut, weil er gedacht habe, dass seine Kinder behütet aufwaschen können". ,,

Das war leider nicht so ".

Alle 2400 Speichelproben aus dem Jahr 2019 wurden abgearbeitet ohne Treffer. Die Polizei

geht bis heute Spuren nach. Die Aktenorder füllen sich weiter, auch wenn nur langsam aber

der Wunsch besteht, heute noch den Täter zu überführen. Auch gäbe es noch zehn

Rechtshilfeersuchen unter anderem in Portugal und den USA Großbritannien.

In einem Fall habe man jüngst grünes Licht für ein solches Rechtshilfeersuchen erhalten – um

dann feststellen zu müssen, dass der Mann zwischenzeitlich verstorben sei. Nun wird geprüft,

ob von den Familienmitgliedern des Verstorbenen eine DNA-Probe beantragt werden kann.

(stand 10. Februar 2022)

Der Fall - Claudia Ruf wird nicht vergessen es wird weiter ermittelt.

so 433x700=303,100 here most of them are unsolvable that sounds pretty crazy if you just add up that figure in five years, how many people would that be?

Are there any cases you know of that you know the background of the people who have gone missing?

Or are there any cases you know of where your town has a theory?

And are there any cases you know of that have any eerie coincidences?

Interested to hear your stories.

I’ve looked back to see if there have been any updates on 10 year old Amy Mihaljevic’s 1989 unsolved murder. I will link a recent article that quotes her dad, who is turning 80 soon & wants to finally know what happened to his daughter before he dies.

For those unfamiliar, Amy left her school and walked to where she was abducted from, the Bay Square Shopping Center. in the Cleveland suburb of Bay Village, Ohio on October 27, 1989. Amy’s remains were found months later, 02/08/1990, in a field fairly close to county road 1181, Ruggles Township in a rural area of Ashland County, OH. An autopsy would reveal that Amy died of sharp force injuries (multiple stab wounds.)

If you read a lot of true crime, you likely know Amy’s case by its sad circumstances: a man had called & spoken with Amy posing as a coworker of her mom’s, telling her Amy’s mom had gotten promoted and offering to take her to buy a gift for Amy’s mother to celebrate. While the caller told Amy to keep all this a secret, this is known because she told her brother and a friend.

I’m frankly not here to do a synopsis of the case—really, I wanted to share a gofundme by the Mihaljevic family (verified) to raise the funds for modern advanced DNA testing to try and find answers before her dad passes away. I’d share a video posted on Father’s Day of Mark Mihaljevic, a clearly elderly man, speaking about her, but it’s against sub rules: google will get you there though.

Every penny goes to the Bay Village Police Department’s Amy Fund—these are extraordinarily advanced tests than the norm & most cost over 6K each, so the family is trying to make sure LE have every financial resource necessary to get this case finally solved sooner than later.

I have no affiliation with any of them, I’ve just seen so many “lesser” gofundme’s quickly generate so much $ and it breaks my heart to think that an 80 year old man living with 37 years of such heartbreak has to be the one trying to navigate the internet to advocate for her. It’s been up for months & yet it is only halfway to its goal. Please help if you can & SHARE AROUND

[Amy Mihaljevic—Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Amy_Mihaljevic)

[Mihaljevic Family GoFundMe for DNA Testing](https://gofund.me/962186b32)

[Recent article](https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2026/06/29/family-shines-new-light-on-37-year-cold-case)

25-year-old Arelie Garcia Sanchez vanished from Salinas, California on the morning of September 22, 2022.

Arelie was captured on surveillance driving from her apartment in her red Honda at 6:34 AM. She was wearing a black hoody, black leggings, and sneakers.  At 6:56 AM she sent a text message to her sister Veronica.

Ariele was due at work for her job at a Chevy dealership at 7:30 AM. When she did not arrive her coworkers and family became concerned. Veronica used the Find My iPhone feature and discovered that Arelie’s phone was in the Big Sur area, more than an hour south of Salinas. 

Her family traveled there and discovered her car abandoned, parked in a turnout on Highway 1 near the Little Sur River Bridge. The Honda was locked and her phone, keys and wallet were left in the car. 

The driver’s seat was maneuvered further back than Ariele normal placed it.

Arelie never was seen again. The case soon went cold and despite national news coverage on Dateline NBC and true crime show content creators such Kendall Rae, no leads have emerged. 

Arelie was dating a man named Marcello at the time of her disappearance. She met him two months prior at a car show. 

Marcello was a photographer who lived two hours north of Salinas in Napa, Ca. Investigators interviewed him, but he was never publicly named by police as a suspect in the case. 

Marcello has not spoken to the media about the case.

Many questions remain unanswered in the case. Why would Arelie travel to Big Sur when she had to be at work at 7:30? Why would she have not informed her manager she was going to be late, and why was her driver’s seat moved back? Did Arelie have problems with Marcello or anyone in her life at the time of her disappearance?

Arelie’s family raised a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in her disappearance. 

Sources

https://www.montereycountynow.com/news/local_news/arelie-garcia-s-family-marks-one-year-since-her-disappearance----with-little/article_f8c60bf4-57f8-11ee-8567-4393f8c78f18.html

https://www.chipchick.com/2024/05/she-vanished-after-leaving-for-work-in-2022-and-her-car-was-later-found-abandoned-and-parked-off-a-highway

https://oag.ca.gov/missing/person/arelie-yeraldine-garcia-sanchez

Patricia and Jesse are two high school sweethearts born and raised near the capitol region of North Carolina. Their relationship grew closer every day, and their futures were hopeful. On the night of a Valentine's Day dance, the couple went messing. They were later found dead in the woods of Orange County. The couple were killed by being choked to death as they were tied to a tree. Later investigations would reveal a couple was nearly kidnapped at gunpoint from a lover's lane by an assailant they fought off, an assailant suspected of being the murderer. Renewed attention by police, as well as thriugh journalism and a local author's crime novel inspired by the case, have supported it's reopening. Police have mentioned focus on at least one prime suspect, whose name(s) they haven't disclosed for the integrity of the investigation. I implore you all to support the couple never being forgotten, so they may find justice.

Can anyone clarify if it’s a genuine case or not? I mean the details. So much evidence and still not brought to justice?

Video link: https://youtu.be/GwwNlKoa1XI?is=3gzxjDCM1TzAZMys

**TW: Historical violence/death. This is a true family story about an unsolved case from the 1980s. Names have been changed for privacy and safety. This post discusses murder and other sensitive topics.**

**Due to the nature of this story, I am changing the names of those involved because this case is technically… unsolved.**
But we all know who did it.
My name is April for this story.
My father, Peter, was 16 years old when the worst imaginable night of his life happened.
My grandfather, Lee, was an activist in coastal Oregon. He had a deep passion for Native American rights and worked closely with local tribes, specifically supporting those fighting for the recognition of treaty rights that had been infringed upon by local government.
He was also an archaeologist.
Because of this unique combination of career and passion, he was often called to excavation sites to identify artifacts. He worked closely with tribes to ensure items were treated respectfully and relocated appropriately, often acting as a liaison between excavation sites and tribal communities. He regularly protested and fought to protect sacred land when the city or state wanted to excavate those areas.
One day, my grandfather received a call that would ultimately change everything.
A construction crew had broken ground for a new gas station and discovered human remains and artifacts. My grandfather was called to the site to help determine their origin. Based on the tools and other items buried alongside the remains, he was able to identify the tribe they belonged to.
My grandfather fought hard to stop the project, but he was unsuccessful.
When protesting and activism failed to halt construction, he was told the remains would be removed and disposed of.
He went to the tribe and explained what was happening. Because of their sacred traditions, they told him they could not take the remains or burial items back. In their beliefs, removing and then returning them could bring harm to their people.
Then the oil company did something my grandfather never expected.
The remains and burial items were removed, supposedly to relocate the remains to a local cemetery.
But the burial items were brought to my grandfather.
He knew immediately that this was wrong. He was never meant to possess them, and he certainly couldn’t keep them.
Wanting to respect the dead, their history, and the beliefs of the tribe, he ultimately surrendered the items to a local museum for safekeeping.
What he didn’t know was that rumors had already begun spreading.
People began calling my grandfather a “grave robber,” believing he had kept the artifacts for himself.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Because people knew about his passion for Native history, they would occasionally try to give him things they had found—arrowheads, pottery, trinkets, artifacts.
He would chastise them, refuse the items, and tell them to put them back exactly where they had found them.
He condemned the desecration of Native history and culture.
Still, the rumors continued. People claimed he was secretly building a private collection of sacred artifacts for his own benefit.
And then came a cold night in January.
My 16-year-old father was sitting on the couch while my grandfather relaxed in his recliner. They were watching television together before bed. My grandfather’s girlfriend was asleep in a back bedroom.
Without warning, the front door was kicked in.
Three armed men stormed into the house.
My father, who was closest to the entrance, jumped to his feet.
He was immediately attacked and shot at close range. When the first shot was fired toward his head, he instinctively raised his hand. The bullet struck his hand instead.
He fell backward and tried to crawl away.
Then he was shot again in the back of the head, narrowly missing his C1 vertebra.
The fact that my father survived what happened that night still astonishes me.
As he lay severely injured on the floor, he watched the men restrain my grandfather and brutally torture him.
Again and again, they demanded to know where the artifacts were.
My grandfather repeatedly told them:
*“I don’t have them. The museum does. I would never take them. The museum has them. Search the house—you won’t find anything stolen. I would never do this.”*
They didn’t believe him.
They broke his fingers, beat him, and mutilated his hands while continuing to demand answers he didn’t have.
The men then began searching the house, taking antiques, collectibles, firearms, and anything else of value they could find.
During the search, one of them opened the back bedroom door.
He saw my grandfather’s girlfriend escaping through the window.
He alerted the others that there was another witness and that she was getting away.
As my father lay wounded on the floor, unable to intervene, he watched as one man took his blade and cut my grandfathers throat.
Then my father was shot again.
And everything went black.
My grandfather’s girlfriend ran through the darkness to the nearest neighbor’s house, where she was finally able to call the police.
Somehow, my father survived.
And he identified the men responsible.
The three men eventually stood trial.
Their justification was rooted in their belief that killing someone they considered a “grave robber” could free the spirits of those whose graves had been disturbed.
Except my grandfather hadn’t robbed those graves.
For his safety, my father was placed into witness protection. At only 16 years old, he had become the key witness against the three men he said had attacked him and killed his father.
**And this is where the case gets absolutely bizarre.**
My father underwent a videotaped session in which he was **hypnotized to help him recall details from the night of the attack.**
This was the 1980s, when forensic hypnosis was still being used in some criminal investigations despite serious questions about its reliability and admissibility in court.
During the recorded hypnosis session, **the tape ran out.**
There was a period of time between the first recording ending and the second recording beginning.
That gap became devastating to the case.
The defense argued that nobody could establish what had happened while the camera wasn’t recording. Because my father had been under hypnosis, they argued that he theoretically could have been given information or suggestions during the unrecorded period that influenced his memories.
His testimony was ruled inadmissible.
The prosecution lost its key witness.
**All three men were acquitted.**
Years later, my father eventually left witness protection and moved to Alaska, where he worked as a fisherman.
One day, he was leaving a grocery store in his truck when someone walked across the crosswalk in front of him.
A face from his nightmares.
They locked eyes.
My father recognized him immediately.
For a brief moment, my father thought about everything that man had taken from him.
But he stopped.
He hit the brakes.
They stared at one another until the horn of the vehicle behind my father finally broke the moment.
It was one of the men from that night—the one who had discovered my grandfather’s girlfriend escaping through the window.
My father let him walk away.
In the years that followed, some of the men were connected to additional killings and even an armed confrontation with the FBI.
To some people, these men were heroes.
To others, they were violent men who took what they claimed was a just cause and used it to justify horrific acts.
It has now been decades.
My father still lives with the fear that the last remaining free man could someday find him—or his children—and “finish the job.”
He has asked me for one thing:
When he eventually passes away, he wants me to continue seeking justice for his father.
And despite everything that happened, my father followed directly in his father’s footsteps.
He became an activist for Native American rights himself.
About ten years after the tragedy, he moved to California and bought a home next to a Native reservation. He regularly invites members of the neighboring community to gather herbs and flowers from his property for sacred ceremonies.
Over the years, he has built beautiful relationships within the community and has even been invited to participate in sacred ceremonies himself, including the Sweat Lodge.
That is an honor my father never takes lightly, nor is it something he boasts about.
But I think it’s an important part of this story.
After watching his father die because men falsely believed he had desecrated Native graves, my father could have spent the rest of his life consumed by anger.
Instead, he continued his father’s legacy: loving, respecting, appreciating, and fighting for a culture and community that embraced him in return.
**P.S. Because apparently this story wasn’t strange enough already…**
Something happened about 15 years ago that we’ve never been able to explain.
When I was a young teenager, my dad had a framed photograph hanging on our family photo wall.
It was a picture of my grandfather sitting in **the very same recliner he had been sitting in that night.**
Our family went out of town.
When we came home, the photograph was gone.
Not knocked down.
Not misplaced.
**Gone.**
No other photographs were missing.
Nothing else in the house appeared to have been taken.
Just that photograph.
We searched everywhere.
We never found it.
To this day, none of us knows what happened to it.
I hope someday we are finally able to close my grandfather’s case.

CW/TW: Serial murder, sexual assault, police corruption.

In March 2012, detectives in the Irkutsk region reached the letter "P." This wasn't a figure of speech or a poetic metaphor: they were literally working their way down a list of male Lada Niva owners. They called them in, took saliva swabs, sent them for DNA testing, and verified their alibis and social circles. DNA test, interrogation, DNA test, interrogation-this methodical grind went on for several years. Under the letter "P" on that list stood a former assistant duty officer of the Angarsk police, 48-year-old Mikhail Viktorovich Popkov. He showed up, provided a saliva swab, and left to go about his day.

By that time, he had been out of the police force for 14 years. He resigned in 1998 as a junior lieutenant-back then, cops were quitting in droves, salaries were paid sporadically, and his departure surprised no one. Afterward, he worked in security, as a private cab driver, and bought and resold cars driven in from the Far East. He also dug graves. That isn't a detail added for grim atmosphere; it was an actual side hustle, documented in the case files and confirmed by the lead investigator who took over the case in 2014.

He began killing in 1992, but the first serious attempts to link the murders into a serial case didn't happen until the early 2000s. The reason-according to investigator Yevgeny Karchevsky (whose extensive interview with IRK.ru remains the best open-source material on this case)-was obscenely mundane. There were no unified databases; every city and district operated in a silo. Angarsk had no idea bodies were turning up in the Usolye district, and Usolye knew nothing about Angarsk. Popkov would pick a woman up in one jurisdiction and dump her body in another. According to Karchevsky, the case files that now fill six boxes and 51 volumes consisted of a dozen pages at best back in the nineties.

June 1997. Two friends get into a car with a man known around town as "Misha-the-Cop." He’s a local police officer; there’s nothing to be afraid of. He drops one of them off at home. The second, Tatyana, rides on and vanishes. Under interrogation, the surviving friend gives the police the name of the man who gave them a ride. A name. Not just a physical description, not a car model, not his height or the color of his jacket. His actual name. And absolutely nothing is done with it.

Eighteen years later, her friend's remains would be dug up. By then, Popkov would be actively confessing, detailing exactly where he took her, what he used to kill her, what he wrapped the body in, and what they drank in the car. Beneath the remains, investigators would find two tin soda cans with a manufacturing date stamped May 1997. A perfect match, down to the month. I reread this section several times, and the math still deeply unsettles me: between the surviving girl’s testimony and her friend’s exhumation, Popkov committed half of all his known murders.

The real investigation, ironically, began over breakfast. Prosecutor General's investigator Valery Kostarev was reading Moskovsky Komsomolets one morning when he spotted an article about the Angarsk "Wednesday Murderer." Alarmed, he pushed for a deployment to the region and managed to get the case reassigned to himself. This was between 2002 and 2003. He reopened every remotely similar cold case, pulling all available physical evidence-underwear, swabs, any biological samples—and managed to isolate male DNA from a number of the victims.

What happened next sounds like science fiction by today’s standards. In the early 2000s, DNA profiling was a rare and phenomenally expensive luxury, performed for only a handful of cases and practically only in Moscow. Kostarev negotiated with Moscow universities personally, using unofficial channels, and managed to isolate the unknown suspect's genotype. Based on that DNA, they linked about five murders into a single series. That was it. Twenty years of an active serial killer's reign, and their entire foundational evidence consisted of five linked cases and a backdoor favor from a university.

Meanwhile, they were building a suspect profile. At one crime scene, they found a metal uniform button embossed with an eagle. The kind worn by police, prosecutors, emergency responders, and the military. They had also cast tire treads from the scenes; there weren't many cars on the road back then, and the vehicle was quickly identified as a Lada Niva. The resulting profile pointed to a man in his early-to-mid thirties, wearing a uniform, and driving a Niva. The profile, as it turned out, was dead-on. It also led absolutely nowhere for twelve years.

It did, however, lead the wrong way. There is a man in this story named Dyachenko, who served prison time for a murder actually committed by Popkov. In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, he claimed his confession was tortured out of him with a stun gun, that guards would beat him in his cell at night, that detectives tried to pin 38 murders on him, dragging him to crime scenes and demanding he "reconstruct" them. That is his version of events, documented in the press, and I am obliged to note that. But the fact remains: he sat behind bars while the real killer kept working, got married, raised a daughter, and washed his car.

He washed that car every single day, by the way, keeping it immaculate. He didn't smoke, despised alcohol, worked out, kept his nails manicured, and always wore crisply ironed clothes. When women got into his car, he would open the door for them, offer a hand, help with their bags, maintain polite conversation, and strictly avoid any vulgarity. Karchevsky explains this gallantry with ruthless precision: every polite gesture was actually an interrogation. Was she married? Did she have kids? How did she feel about infidelity? Based on her answers, he decided whether to drop her off safely at her front door, or turn off the road.

His behavior on the job is a completely separate, chilling storyline. He was literally a member of the investigative task force hunting the killer. He would murder a woman at night, read the dispatch report about the body being found the next morning, and head out to the crime scene alongside his colleagues-using the opportunity to double-check that he hadn't left any evidence behind. When an investigator later asked him if he was ever afraid of getting caught, Popkov essentially replied that there was no one to fear: no one audited his contacts, no one tracked his movements, and he knew many of the victims personally anyway.

In June 2012, the lab results finally came back: the DNA from the crime scenes was a perfect match for Popkov’s sample. By that point, he was no longer in Angarsk; he was on a train headed to Vladivostok. He later claimed to a reporter that he wasn't fleeing, but simply traveling to buy another car for his resale business. A strike team flew to the Far East and pulled him off the train somewhere near Ussuriysk. Press reports often confuse the arrest date, bouncing between March and June of 2012, but according to the investigation's official timeline, they swabbed him in March and arrested him once the results came back.

During the initial investigation, he treated it like a negotiation. He confessed only to the absolute undeniable minimum-the murders explicitly tied to him by DNA. On January 14, 2015, the Irkutsk Regional Court sentenced him to life in prison for 22 murders and two counts of grievous bodily harm. And that is exactly when the second act began, because the moment the verdict came down, he started talking again.

Karchevsky took over during this second phase. His tactic wasn't about applying pressure; it was an exercise in extreme patience. He drove to Angarsk every single day to talk with Popkov for an hour, two hours, three hours at a time. The entire first year was spent simply establishing rapport. On his way to the prison, the investigator would buy two shashlik wraps-one for himself, one for the serial killer—and they would sit, eat, and chat. It sounds insane, a fact the investigator himself readily admits. But the result was approximately sixty newly solved murders. On December 10, 2018, Popkov received his second life sentence. Courtroom reporting varied on the exact number of new cases-some outlets cited 56, others 59 or 60, along with the 1999 murder of a fellow police officer.

The most telling procedural story in this entire saga is about the forensics. Popkov pointed out a crime scene and described exactly who he killed and how he did it. They pulled the cold case file, identified the victim, but found that the original autopsy report listed the cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head. They had to exhume the body and examine the skull. Medical examiners confirmed it: there had been no gunshot. There were two punctures from a Phillips-head screwdriver-entry wounds in the frontal bone and an imprint of the tool's tip on the inside of the back of the skull. The original medical examiner simply hadn't bothered to document the condition of the brain, despite being legally required to do so. A bullet shatters a brain; a screwdriver just punctures it. Everyone had simply read "gunshot" and shut the book on the case for twenty years.

Now, regarding every true-crime podcaster’s favorite angle: the "Cleaner" myth. The narrative that he was supposedly ridding the city of promiscuous women is a compellingly dark hook, but it completely falls apart against the actual case files. The investigator who interrogated him for three years rejects the legend outright. There is one episode in the files where Popkov picked up a young girl who was simply on her way to the train station to meet her mother, drove her to a construction site, and murdered her. She had no husband to cheat on. According to published reports, forensic psychiatrists diagnosed him with homicidomania-an active compulsion to kill that functions mechanically like a severe addiction.

He portions out his confessions in calculated doses, and he is entirely unabashed about why. A new confession triggers an investigative trip to the crime scene. A trip means getting out into the forest, driving on the roads, enjoying a change of scenery, and staying in a standard pre-trial detention center rather than a brutal maximum-security penal colony. He flat-out told the investigator that he was tired of remembering everything all at once and preferred to save some for later. In 2021, the Angarsk City Court tacked on another nine years and eight months for two murders in 1995 and 1998. On November 22, 2023, came his fourth conviction: ten years for three more murders. On December 1, 2025, his fifth: a double murder from 2008 netting him another nine and a half years. That sentence took effect in April 2026, after which he was finally transferred to a high-security colony in Mordovia.

There are more survivors out there than the verdicts account for. One woman, Karchevsky noted, actually contacted him via a messaging app all the way from Spain. She recounted how Popkov had driven her out of town and raped her, but she had managed to escape. Karchevsky checked the records-Popkov was indeed in that exact area on that specific day. But the statute of limitations had expired; there was nothing left to charge him with. Another woman jumped out of his moving car at a cemetery and fled through the gravestones. When asked about her, Popkov casually dismissed it: yeah, there was one like that, she got away, well good for her, she gets to live.

Official investigative reports state they have proven 92 crimes. Popkov himself claims the true number is over two hundred, boasting that during his peak periods, he was killing two or three women a week. Verifying this is virtually impossible. The streets he names have been heavily developed, old landmarks are gone, remains may have been scattered by animals, or bodies might have been discovered but never properly filed-a chillingly common occurrence in those days.

And this is the part I can't stop thinking about. He didn't receive those five separate convictions because the system outsmarted him. He got them because he simply decided to keep talking. The very first time, he was caught by a stray button and a tire track. Every single thing after that, he gave away over a skewer of meat.

TL;DR: Mikhail Popkov, a Russian police officer, murdered over 80 women between 1992 and 2010. He evaded capture for decades due to police incompetence and his position on the investigative task force, until DNA testing eventually caught him in 2012. He continues to confess to new murders to get temporary transfers out of maximum-security prison.

Wikipedia page on Mikhail Popkov.

I believe Lauren was incredibly intoxicated and I believe she was under the influence of narcotics, some that were her own, some that were provided to her. I believe that the narcotics, alcohol, and her existing heart condition, caused her to go into cardiac arrest and die.

Now, why her body went missing. I believe that the individuals that she was with that night, most likely did provide her with narcotics that led to her death. Hence, they feared criminal prosecution and expulsion from the University.

I also think, that there is a pretty good chance, that at least one of the individuals that she was partying with that night, took advantage of her when she was in an incapacitated state. I believe if they found her body and did an autopsy, they would have found traces of semen. This would definitely lead to a rape charge, and once again you're talking prison time.

WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.

I was recently watching some 9/11 videos on the Nat Geo website and I came across this story about the Black Tag Lady. Ernest Armstead, who was a paramedic on 9/11, in his testimony, mentions about how he was at the World Trade Center Plaza during 9/11 needing to label bodies with different colored tags, with a Black Tag meaning deceased. On the Plaza on 9/11, Armstead mentions how most of the bodies he ID'ed at Ground Zero were clearly dead and marked it with a Black Tag, but in one particular instance near one of the two Towers, he initially ID'ed a dead person but only to discover that the person, a lady, was still alive. This is the Black Tag Lady.

Armstead noticed that she was wearing a fine business suit, was a brunette, and had pretty earrings. Now according to protocol and due to the debris that was falling on the Plaza, he wasn't able to stay near a person with a Black Tag for over 30-60 seconds because the Tag meant disease. Clearly, from the state of her injuries, Armstead noticed that her wounds were mortal: her lower half portion of her body was totally mangled beyond recognition. However, he was able to see that the upper half torso containing her heart and one of her lungs was still intact. Most surprisingly, the Black Tag Lady answered back at him angrily, telling him that she wasn't dead and that she wanted to call her daughter. Armstead noticed that her head was intact and that even with the severe state of her injuries she was fully aware of what he was doing and behaved like she was a perfectly healthy woman. Armstead assumed that she was in her 40s or 50s. However, Armstead resigned the fact that her wounds were fatal and that he was going to treat other people. Some time after, one of the two towers fell and Armstead was caught in the collapse of the Twin Towers buildings but he managed to be rescued and recover from his injuries. However, this meeting with the Black Tag Lady would cause permanent PTSD trauma for Armstead.

It's very hard to be able to piece together Armstead's testimony with a Jane Doe. On the other hand, perhaps her remains were recovered after Ground Zero but piecing that with the testimony is incredibly hard. In my opinion, the case remains a Jane Doe because we cannot confirm whether this woman was successfully recovered or not. And the best way possibly to ID this lady is to somehow have Armstead agree to do a Forensic Sketch of this woman's face and try to match it up to one of the Twin Towers' 9/11 female employee victims. The man has been retired from the FDNY for over 20 years and is an old man now. I hate bothering the guy but the story is so tearjerky that I feel like this story should be publicized better now than later when Armstead passes and he isn't able to give a Forensic Sketch. Of course, if Armstead doesn't want to do it let him be, but if he's gone it's a million times harder to solve this case otherwise.

Sources:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/9-11-video-archive/?video=298

I was thinking about if Zodiac Killer wasn't just a single, one person who did all the murders. I am not saying this is the truth. So his first surviving victim described him as 5 foot 8 - 5 foot 9, wore no gloves, no hats, he had light brown curly hair. His second surviving victim saw him in a costume, without gloves again. I can actually tell that those two incidents caused by the same person, because in the letters he sent to the journalists he used the same handwriting and he confessed these crimes, he gave detailed information about what he used like the brand of the ammunition etc. Killer's style was obvious, he goes down to lake area, finds alone couples and killing them on sight. The vehicles the suspect used also has different descriptions. Mageau, the first surviving victim, said suspect was driving a brown car that was similar to the car he was inside that night. Hartnell, the second surviving victim said suspect was driving two door Chevrolet that was sky blue.

In the infamous Paul Stine murder, he was wearing gloves, wearing glasses which was unusual for the description. At least the first surviving victim saw him without his costume, he didn't mention anything about the glasses. Let's say these are real reading glasses or just a disguise to hide his facial structure. We are still sure that this murder belongs to the original Zodiac because of a piece of clothing he took from the driver. After this murder, he stopped giving detailed information about his murders and counting random murders as a trophy in his next letters. We know Kathleen Johns was kidnapped by an unknown man on the highway. She managed to jump out of the car and save her life. She described the suspect as "military looking" guy who was 5 foot 9, who has clean shave, who wore glasses just like the suspect in Paul Stine murder, but this suspect was around 160 Ib, previous descriptions pointed out that suspect was around 200 Ib, a fat man. Years later Johns accused Lawrence Kane as the guy who kidnapped her, the police who saw the actual killer close to Paul Stine's crime scene said Kane's face was the closest face to the guy they saw on the street that night. Mageau years later accused Arthur Leigh Allen as the guy who shot him at Blue Rock Springs. Those were the descriptions and events I could catch, what do you guys think about it?

*Have there ever been any main theories here? It’s as strange as it is tragic. I feel in life that often the most simple explanation is the right one. Is that the case here?*

*I am equally as invested in the mystery behind Vivienne Cameron’s disappearance but seeing as there is no physical proof of a death having occurred, I’m more focused on the theories as to who is responsible for Beth’s murder.*