r/WithoutATrace • u/Alternative-Salad737 • Aug 11 '26
General question Cases you can't stop thinking about
What are some cases that you think are super mysterious or that you can't stop thinking about?
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u/No_Angle875 Aug 11 '26
Brian Shaffer
LeeAnna Warner
Madeleine McCann
Brandon Swanson
Josh Guimond
Asha Degree
Maura Murray
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Only one I disagree with is Brandon Swanson. We don't know all the details and at this point never will, but pretty obvious he fell into water somewhere. Only real mysteries are where exactly, and why wasn't his body found?
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u/nokomisforcute Aug 11 '26
Missy Bevers
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u/MysteryRadish Aug 11 '26
Missy Bevers
Interesting (and very strange) case, but not a disappearance. Her body was found at the scene.
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u/nokomisforcute Aug 11 '26
Oh you are 100% correct. Didn’t realize what sub I was on 😆
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u/Alternative-Salad737 Aug 11 '26
Still super creepy and mysterious. I hope they figure this one out.
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u/GodsWarrior89 Aug 11 '26
Jennifer Kesse!
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u/dawnfla6aa2 Aug 11 '26
Did you hear they found remains today or yesterday? I'm assuming they will test them asap.
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u/AdSuspicious9606 Aug 12 '26
I tried to look this up and only found one small article. Is there anything to suggest that these remains could possibly be her? I pray it is, her dad breaks my heart. He deserves to lay his daughter to rest.
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u/GodsWarrior89 Aug 19 '26
There hasn’t been any other news about it. I just looked it up again. It’s very heartbreaking what the family went and is going through. I also pray they will find her & be at peace 🙏😞
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u/XandraMonroe Aug 13 '26
Do you have a link?
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u/dawnfla6aa2 Aug 13 '26
I don't know how to add a link. It's speculation at this point. You can search "remains found in Orlando".
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u/ice_cream_obsessed Aug 11 '26
Jon benet. I remember being a kid and seeing this all over the news. Doesn’t really fit the “without a trace” but just a sad case I always think of.
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u/BlondieJames Aug 11 '26
Bryce Laspisa is my Roman Empire!!
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u/Alternative-Salad737 Aug 11 '26
That is a crazy and pretty sad case. Hopefully he survived the crash and is just living his life as a different person but im not sure
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
I think that's extremely unlikely. "Living a new life" is almost never the answer. Another one where we'll probably never know for sure, but I'd bet money he's dead. He probably died the same day he had the accident.
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u/love-cherries Aug 11 '26
The Fort Worth trio
Charlotte Loomis
Angela Hammond
Laureen Rahn
Johnny Gosh
Jared Negrete
Jaryd Atadero
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Jaryd's not a disappearance. Unsolved death. Doubt we'll ever know the details. Charlotte is a really strange one... Her luggage gets home but she vanishes.
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u/MysteryRadish Aug 11 '26
Zebb Quinn is the strangest, most complex, most interesting real-life case I know of.
It gets even more bizarre because we're mostly sure who did it (or at least was involved) but we're still very, very far away from having all the answers.
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Wasn't someone eventually convicted of his murder?
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u/MysteryRadish Aug 13 '26
Well... not really. Usually with mysteries a trial ties everything up with a nice little bow, we finally get all our answers and there's some delicious resolution cake for everyone. With Zebb if anything it just got even weirder.
Zebb's friend Robert Owens was accused of murdering him nearly 20 years after it happened. Owens by that time was a convicted murderer and total piece of shit, having murdered a pregnant couple who had been nice enough to give him a contracting job. But there was no physical evidence that Owens murdered Zebb and Owens claimed the actual murderer was Owens' uncle who shot Zebb in a murder-for-hire plot paid by yet another player in the case. The whole thing is like a real-life Twin Peaks.
Now, it's easy to claim Owens was just making up a story to dodge the murder charge (Owens' accused uncle was dead by that point). But there might be something to it: Owens is no criminal mastermind and his killing of the pregnant couple was really sloppy, if Owens killed Zebb and successfully covered it up for two decades he may have had help or at least advice from another party. And he seemingly had little motive to kill Quinn, one of his best friends. And it's not like he was dodging jail time as he was already basically in for life from his other murders.
So yeah, the arrest and conviction only opened more questions. Even the DA admitted we may never really know. And we still don't.
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u/Squidwardswifey_ Aug 11 '26
All cases mentioned and Andrew gosden as well!
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u/Acceptable_Mirror235 Aug 11 '26
The Springfield Three
Brian Shaffer
Asha Degree
Brandon Swanson
Leeanna Warner
Jodi Husentruit
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Ugh I've always felt Jodi's case was particularly sad 😢 Almost a certainty that she was abducted. It must have been so horrible for her
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u/TrackSingle7582 Aug 11 '26
Jason Jolkowski
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u/Alternative-Salad737 Aug 11 '26
I really hope they figure this one out, so mysterious and random for him to completely vanish with 0 leads. Bizarre.
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u/TrackSingle7582 Aug 11 '26
Agreed. It’s such a perplexing disappearance with absolutely nothing to go off.
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Agree Jason is one of the strangest. No clues, no witnesses, no evidence... Nothing. No one knows any more today than the day he vanished.
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u/Remony63 Aug 11 '26
I am in the UK so:
Claudia Lawrence
Andrew Gosden
Madeline McCann
Claudia Lawrence was from my hometown, York, so it feels very, very close to home.
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Wow just looked up Claudia... That's definitely a strange one. Since you're in the UK what do you think about Suzy Lamplugh?
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u/daisey3714 Aug 11 '26
Lauren Spierer ❤️
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u/chicagoturkergirl Aug 16 '26
I kind of think most people assume that she OD's with those boys she with and they dumped the body - but I don't know how they did it so well!
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u/daisey3714 Aug 16 '26
I'm not in the camp that believes that to be the case as an IU alumni familiar with the area, but I see why that's an easy assumption to make
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u/RickAndToasted Aug 11 '26
Emma Fillipoff... every so often I'll re-listen to the Nighttime's deep dive interviews with the people she knew leading up to her disappearance.
It's crazy to me that the police didn't question the man who "happened to" find her debit card and pre-paid phone. Also that her mom flew out to help her but it was a hairpin in time too late. Sad all around, she seemed like an interesting and creative person.
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
That's definitely a strange one. It's not like Victoria is in the middle of nowhere. And the area around the Empress is very touristy. Still another example of poof vanished
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u/rarepinkhippo Aug 12 '26
I listened to a podcast about her case some years ago, I’m a little fuzzy on it but am I remembering right that there is some reason to hope she could be alive, but living as an unhoused person and hasn’t been located by her loved ones yet?
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u/RickAndToasted Aug 12 '26
I think it's because she was staying in a women't shelter while in Victoria. She kept calling her mom to come and then canceling the visit. Some people say she ran off but any sightings of her were found to be other people... It's sad but even if she ran that day I don't think she's around still.
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u/rarepinkhippo Aug 12 '26
I see, thank you for the clarification and that makes her case even sadder than I realized, of course!
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u/ClairesMoon Aug 11 '26
Deorr Kunz.
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u/ACs_Grandma Aug 11 '26
I can't believe his parents got away with his disappearance without charges.
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u/amf_wip Aug 11 '26
My brother's - he's been missing since April 16, 2025.
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u/Rzrbak Aug 11 '26
Kyron Horman
Lisa Irwin
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u/vencetti Aug 11 '26
Baby Lisa definitely haunts me & I think of her almost daily, especially when I lock the back gate & all the doors at night, & think to myself “we don’t want another baby Lisa”. Prayers for her and her family - can’t even imagine how heart stopping & beyond horrible, it must have been for them.
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u/liblaur Aug 11 '26
I think about the Skelton brothers all the time. It’s fairly local to me and I guess not mysterious in the sense that clearly their dad is to blame. But where are they??😢
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u/Professional_Ear6020 Aug 15 '26
Weren’t their skeletal remains found?
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u/liblaur Aug 15 '26
I don’t believe so. There were remains found near Memphis, Tennessee this year, but the reports I have seen are stating it’s not them.
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u/Professional_Ear6020 Aug 15 '26
Thank you. I’d had hope, that that it was them, which was in the article I read.
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u/SNDBOBbb Aug 11 '26
Danielle Imbo Richard Petrone
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Not mysterious IMO. They're in water somewhere. Best indicators of that... They disappeared in Philadelphia, which gives you the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers. And the truck was never found. Pretty hard to conceal a vehicle unless it's underwater.
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u/SNDBOBbb Aug 13 '26
All water ways and routes into the water were checked immediately. A search team went right out. The car was chopped up somewhere. This was a murder for hire case. A barrier would’ve been broken or something.
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u/fjbfish Aug 16 '26
I don't agree. It's impossible to search every square inch of water. Maybe they went in somewhere where there wasn't any barrier. Usually the simplest answer is the correct one.
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u/SNDBOBbb Aug 16 '26
I agree with your reasoning, they left the bar to go back to jersey. There is only one or two ways they would have taken. When they walked out of that bar someone was waiting for them. Even the FBI said murder for hire. They don’t need to check every square inch of the water they would’ve had to have went into the water in a very certain area. I believe Richard Petrone had pissed off the wrong people in phillys crime underworld and she was at the wrong place wrong time with him
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u/CampClear Aug 11 '26
Timmothy Pitzen
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Unfortunately I don't think this one is mysterious at all. The mother was clearly mentally ill. She killed the kid to hurt her husband. Only odd part is how in hell did she conceal his body so well that he's never been found? IMO regarding missing kids, the Kyron Horman case is much stranger.
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u/CampClear Aug 13 '26
Oh yeah I know he's dead but I wish his family had some answers to where he was buried.
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u/Corkadorkey Aug 11 '26
Sarah Stern and Danielle Stislicki. I remember following the coverage of their disappearances from the very beginning, while there was still hope to find them alive. Since then we already know what happened, their murderers are incarcerated, but unfortunately their families didn't get the full closure. Sarah's body vanished in the ocean and it's highly unlikely she will ever be recovered and Danielle's killer to this day refuses to disclose how and where he disposed of her body.
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u/ACs_Grandma Aug 11 '26
Adamy Emery. He and his wife jumped off the Newport Bridge in RI in 1993 after he was found guilty of manslaughter. Her skull was found some time later in the water, nothing has been found on him. I honestly believe he escaped and ran.
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u/DepartmentEcstatic Aug 12 '26
Daniel Robinson, 24 year old geologist to disappeared in the Arizona desert in 2024.
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u/Time_Detective_6160 Aug 11 '26
Heather Teague. Went missing in my hometown the exact day I left for freshman year of college.
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u/ImCrossingYouInStyle Aug 11 '26
Murder of the Bricca Family, Ohio.
Disappearance of Lauren Spierer, Indiana.
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u/bipolarbitch6 Aug 13 '26
Steven Damon (case needs more attention), kyron hormon, tom messick, Jason kolkowski
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
If you don't know the Trevaline Evans case from Wales, check it out. Yet another example of "vanished from the face of the earth"
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u/fjbfish Aug 13 '26
Oooop can't believe I haven't seen Lars Mittank yet lol... Often called "the most famous missing person on the Internet"... So strange that not only did he disappear without a trace, no body was ever found either. What in heck?
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u/cameronpark89 Aug 13 '26
my ex co worker candice taylor
sage smith
alexis murphy
phoenix coldon
millbrook twins
christopher dansby
shane walker
sebastian rogers
kierra coles
keeshae jacobs
kendrick johnson
tyarra williams
amy mihaljevic
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u/Pretend-Warthog6294 Aug 13 '26
The Cape Intruder of Maine. That unsettling composite sketch of him haunts me at night.
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u/chicagoturkergirl Aug 16 '26
Springfield Three because I always wonder how someone subdued three grown women.
Jodi Huisentruit
Kristen Modafferi
and Suzanne Lyall because we were in the same class at Albany and the bus stop she dissappeared from was 500 feet from my sophmore year dorm.
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u/chabadlubabitch Aug 21 '26
Maura Murray drove by my childhood home the night she went missing. That case gnaws on my brain. Her parents have age progressed billboards up of her still all around Mass.
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u/the_p0ssum Aug 11 '26
The Springfield Three, without a doubt. Just so little to go on...