Octoberfest Five: 5 Puzzling Unsolved Crimes

~by Marie Robinson
Unsolved crimes are as interesting as they are disturbing. It is often the bizarre details, as well as the open end, that makes them so haunting. These five mysteries are sure to intrigue, frighten, and tug at your heartstrings, for behind each crime we must never forget there is are victims and their families, who must live in a terrible state of limbo.

1. Tara Calico 

Tara Calico, a 19-year-old girl from Belen, New Mexico, vanished on September 20th, 1988 while on a bike ride. Before leaving, Tara told her mother to come pick her up at noon if she hadn’t arrived back at home yet; when she failed to return, Patty Doel (Tara’s mother), drove along her daughter’s normal bike route but contacted the police upon finding her missing. The only thing that was found that day was pieces of Tara’s Walkman and cassette tape. Several witness claimed to have seen Calico riding her bike, and a few of them even observed a Ford pick-up following her, although none of them assumed Tara to have been abducted. This pick-up truck has never been located.

There were no leads on the case, and nothing new to report until June of the next year, when a disturbing Polaroid photo was found in the parking lot of a drug store in Port St. Joe, Florida. The picture was found in a parking space where a windowless white Toyota van had been parked, and then driven away by a man with a mustache. The photograph was of a teenage or slightly older girl and a young boy, both gagged with black tape over their mouths and their hands seemingly tied behind their backs. Although no was entirely sure, it was believed that the girl in the photo was Tara, and the boy was another missing child from New Mexico named Michael Henley; however, Michael Henley’s remains were discovered in 1990 several miles from the campsite his family was staying at his time of disappearance, so it is unlikely that the boy in the picture is him.

It was never firmly decided that the girl in the photograph was Tara, but two other Polaroid’s of a similar unidentified girl have turned up over the years, but they have never been released to the public.
Several sightings of Calico were reported in the first two years of her disappearance, but none of the sightings have been confirmed and there has been no further evidence towards her case.

2. Hinterkaifeck Farm Massacre 

Equal parts brutal and bizarre is the case of the Hinterkaifeck Farm murders, which involved the killing of an entire family with a mattock (type of pickaxe). The Gruber family was made up of father Andreas, wife Cäzilia, their daughter Viktoria, and her two children—a daughter also named Cäzilia who was seven-years-old and a son named Josef who was two. Their maid, Maria Baumgartner, was on her first day on the job on March 31st, 1922; she was only employed a few hours before she was murdered along with the rest of the family.


The Grubers’ were a wealthy family that lived on a Bavarian farmstead around 40 miles north of Munich. Although they were solitary they were well known among the locals. Andreas was said to have been abusive to his wife and had an obsession with his daughter Viktoria, who was widowed. It was even rumored that her child, Josef, was the result of incest, and that Andreas forbid Viktoria to marry again and made her stay in the house. Viktoria was well liked among the community and she was known for singing in the church choir.


The family had also had an unusual run with their previous maid. She had claimed to hear footsteps and disembodied voices in the attic, and believed the house to be haunted and eventually left out of fright. Their new maid, Maria, was hired six months later.

Strange things began to happen at the farmhouse a few days prior to the murders. The first occurrence was after a snowstorm; Andreas was checking the property for damage when he found a set of footprints lead from the woods up to the house, but there was no set going back. However, upon a thorough inspection Andreas found no intruder. Andreas also told the locals about hearing footsteps in the attic, finding a set of scratches on the barn’s lock—as if someone had tried picking it—and a set of keys going missing. He never alerted the authorities about any of these peculiar happenings.

On March 31st, 1922 the Gruber family, along with their maid Maria, was murdered with single blows to the head and discovered by the townsfolk several days later. Andreas, both Cäzilias’, and Viktoria were found in the barn, stacked on top of one another and covered with hay. Investigators believed that they were lured one by one to the barn, where they were then killed. Maria and little Josef were killed in their beds and were each covered, respectively, with a sheet and one of his mother’s skirts.

Even stranger was that although locals hadn’t seen the Grubers’ in several days (which is the reason they went out searching for them), it had appeared that someone had been living in the house. Smoke had been seen coming from the chimney over the weekend, one of the beds had been used, and the animals had been fed and taken care of, and none of them had been harmed, including the family dog that was tied up. Locals had only started to become curious when Viktoria had not showed up for church on Sunday and little Cäzilia had not come to school on Monday.

 No real evidence was found and no suspects were ever confirmed. The family was buried in Waidhofen, though disturbingly enough without their heads, as they were sent to Munich to be analyzed and examined by clairvoyants. The farm was demolished in 1923.

3. Elisa Lam 

This is one of my “favorite” unsolved cases because of how absolutely bizarre it is. Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old Canadian student who was traveling the West Coast on her own. She was planning on visiting San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and San Francisco, but never made it past L.A where she stayed at the Cecil Hotel. The Cecil was already a tainted place by a previous unsolved murder, several suicides, and visits from serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger.


Elisa was keeping in touch with her family, and was supposed to contact them on the day of her scheduled checkout, January 31st, 2013; when she didn’t, Lam’s family contacted the LAPD and flew down to California to help search for her.


Several weeks went by without a trace of Lam, although hotel staff had seen her on the day of her disappearance, but had not seen her since. An employee at a nearby bookstore had seen her on January 31st, and commented that she was very friendly and lively.


The next bit of evidence would surface on February 14th, through the hotel’s surveillance video of one of the elevators. The video was from February 1st, and shows Lam entering the empty elevator by herself and presses several buttons on the control panel. I won’t describe the whole video to you, but I highly recommend you watch it HERE, as it is one of the strangest and most unsettling pieces of footage I have ever seen. Lam’s behavior in the elevator is very concerning, and some people believe it displays a psychotic episode (Lam was medicated for bipolar disorder and depression), others indicate that she is hiding from a pursuer.

Around the same time, guests at the Cecil were complaining of low water pressure and oddly colored and tasting water. The cause was investigated and Elisa Lam’s body was found in the one of the water tanks on the roof of the hotel. She was found naked in the tank, with the clothes she was wearing in the surveillance tape floating beside her. Pathologists ruled the death as an accidental drowning and found no evidence of suicide, physical or sexual assault, or any recreational drugs or alcohol in her system.


However, it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that Elisa could have gotten in to the water tank unassisted. The only ways to access the roof are through doors and stairs that are locked with passcodes, and that will set off an alarm when tried. These security measures could be avoided if one were to take the fire escape, but it seems unlikely that Lam would have this knowledge. The tanks, themselves, are 4-feet-high and have no fixed ladder or step on them, and when inspecting the water in response to customer complaints, the staff had to bring up them own ladder to inspect the inside. Lastly, the tanks are covered with heavy lids that would have been very difficult to replace from within.


There are tons of theories on Elisa Lam’s death, both compelling and juvenile, but what truly interests me about this case is the video. It’s downright creepy, and not knowing the whole story behind it, is truly terrifying.

4. Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm? 

In 1943, an unidentified woman was found in the hollow trunk of a tree (specifically a Wych elm) by four boys who were hunting on the estate of Hagley Hall in Stourbridge, UK. One of them had climbed up into the tree to look for birds’ nests, but when they looked down into the trunk they saw a human skull with hair, but since they were trespassing on the property they told no one. Eventually, one of the boys, named Tommy Willetts, felt guilt about keeping their discovery a secret, so he told his parents, who then reported it to the police.


When police returned to the tree they found a nearly complete human skeleton with a few fragments of cloth and a gold wedding band. A hand was missing but was found buried at the foot of the tree. She was believed to have died of asphyxiation as they found taffeta shoved in her mouth, and guessed her to have died around October 1941. With all the people reported missing during World War II it was impossible to identify the woman, and no real suspects were established.


The name came from a prostitute who was said to have gone missing around the time of the woman’s supposed death, and thus the skeleton was dubbed, “Bella”.


What gives this cold case a little quirk is that it generated a string of reoccurring vandalism in the form of graffiti, with the first appearing in 1944. The words “Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm?” appeared throughout London up until 1999, a message from those who wish to see Bella find justice and peace.

5. Charles Walton 

 Charles Walton was a 74-year-old farmhand from Warwickshire, England. He lived with his 33-year-old niece, Edith whom he adopted after the death of her mother when she was three. Charles lived a solitary life, and though he had no friends he was not disliked, although he did have a reputation for being a witch, and was feared by some villagers. The area in which Charles lived, Meon Hill, was rumored to be haunted, and had a heavy presence of phantom black dogs roaming the woods.


Charles did various jobs for a local farmer named Alfred Potter, and he set out on February 14th, 1945 with a pitchfork and a slash hook to continue working on a hedgerow at Mr. Potter’s farm. When Charles did not return home that evening, his niece, Edith, went out the farm to look for him, bringing with her a neighbor of theirs named Harry Beasley.


When they got to the farm they found Charles dead beside the hedgerow, killed by him own belongings. He was beaten over the head with his own walking stick, his slash hook was buried in his neck, and the pitchfork stabbing him through the neck and pinning him to the ground.


Walton’s murder was believed to be a part of a ritual or sacrifice, but his murder was never solved. Alfred Potter, the farmer, was questioned heavily, but never arrested, and Walton’s mysterious and grisly killing just added more folklore to an already haunted region, and a warning to locals to shy away from witchcraft.

Halloween Festival Of Lists: October 6: SIX Chilling Unsolved Cold Cases

 I'm utterly fascinated by true crime.  Forensic and cold case television shows jam up my DVR like the main gate at Heinz Field on a Steeler Sunday.  I have loads of books on the subject, and though it may make me seem like a morbid person, I've already got that distinction from all the horror movies I watch. 
But what really tickles my fancy are the cold cases.  Sure, it's great when a case is all tied up with a nice neat bow, but I find it so intriguing when the law enforcement on the case just has no friggin' clue and no idea where to even start.

I could have pulled about a hundred cold cases out of books and off the internet, so it was difficult to just pick six to highlight.  Half of my picks are wildly famous, each having at least two movies (in some cases several) films made of the events. The other three are notable, but maybe not as notorious.  But damn if they aren't all interesting as hell.  Because it's pretty much a given that we will never know who committed these crimes.  And that's as horrifying as any movie.

Jack the Ripper
The ultimate, and truly the coldest of cases.
Doubtful that there's anyone reading this who hasn't heard of this case.  If so, I tend to believe you must have been hit on the head with something extremely heavy as a child. 
In the poverty stricken and depressed Whitechapel district of Victorian London back in 1888, a series of murders so ghastly occurred that to this day, no crime has ever been as infamous.  Deemed Jack the Ripper due to the gruesome way he tore his victims up, he favored (or perhaps didn't favor, if we're being precise) drunken prostitutes, conceivably luring them into dark alleyways to plunge his scalpel into their soft skin and leave them mutilated on the cold, dirty streets. 

Crime scene photo of Mary Kelly, final victim

Scotland Yard was under severe pressure to discover who this disturbed killer was, but as the violence escalated, the more trouble they had pinning down a valid suspect.  To taunt law enforcement, Jack would send letters to them, the most famous of which was signed From Hell. 
He would mention dining on the women's body parts, discuss filleting them, and indeed sent a partial kidney to police as well. 
After 5 murders, each more horrific than the last, the killings stopped.  It is assumed that the Ripper was either jailed on a lesser charge or he himself died.  Most  detectives and forensic specialists would agree that someone who was so fond of killing and had gotten sadly, so skilled at it, would never (or could never) just stop.  In later years it has also been discussed that he fled the country, and it has even been suggested that he started a crime spree here in the states. There have been numerous suspects suggested and disputed over the last century - many people who claim to have fingered the correct person and "solved" the most notorious cold case in history. 
I've watched so many documentaries and read so many books on this subject that it's hard to even formulate an analytical opinion at this point.  It's impossible to verify facts at this point, and with no one who would have worked the case or even been in the area alive anymore, I think it is safe to say this is the most frigid cold case of them all. 

*Read the in-depth analysis of the Ripper case by Supervisory Special Agent John Douglas of the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, circa 1988.

Cherrie Mahan
This was a local case back in February of 1985.  I remember it well because it was the year before I graduated high school and it was all over the news. 
Cherrie was an eight year old who disappeared in Butler county, Pa. after getting off the school bus. Her parents weren't there to pick her up, allowing her to walk down the 150 yard lane to their home each day after school, which really wasn't unusual back then.
Schoolmates supposedly recall seeing her walk up to a blue van with a mural of a mountain/skiing motif on the side.  (This tidbit was something teens my age would talk about, teasingly warning each other about the "Cherrie Mahan Van" when we'd see a blue van.  Yeah, teenagers (including myself) are dumb shits.) 

Various television shows have focused on the abduction case since it erupted back in the mid-80's.  Computer age-enhancing photos of what Cherrie would look like today still circulate in newspapers and occasionally my local news will have updates, even 26 years after the crime.  Leads are still called in to Butler Co. police, with folks "seeing" someone who looked like they think Cherrie would look like today.  Even as recently as January 2011 a lead was uncovered but the victim's family knows better than to get their hopes up.  There are seven full boxes of exhausted leads sitting in the evidence room at the State Police barracks.
Mahan has been declared legally dead since 1998.

*Cherrie Mahan at The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

The "Glasgow Smile"

Elizabeth Short a.k.a.The Black Dahlia
One of the most infamous murders in Hollywood, The Black Dahlia case has been dissected and analyzed to death, no pun intended.  On January 15th, 1947, Elizabeth Short was found murdered in a empty lot in Los Angeles, her face cut ear to ear in what is known as the Glasgow Smile (also seen on The Joker in The Dark Knight) which caused her to bleed out.  She was found nude and cut in half, also apparently washed off by the murderer, perhaps to conceal evidence. The autopsy also concluded she'd been bound and beaten about the head. 

So why would someone kill Elizabeth Short?  That has been the ongoing question.  Some reporters ran with the case, making up stories that sounded better for the prying public.  Short was called a prostitute, a drunk, a promiscuous wanna-be actress with a penchant for sexual risks, and so claim she "deserved" the death she received, or at least that is was not surprising that her demise was so brutal and gruesome.
Due to the ridiculous slander and sensationalism by reporters, the case grew to astounding proportions and people were confessing left and right just to gain notoriety.  It is for this reason that detectives were never able to secure any solid leads, even though they did have several random suspects.  They never panned out and the case remains unsolved. 

For a random murder, especially in a place like L.A., it's perplexing why on earth this crime has received so much publicity. Tons of people are senselessly murdered every year in this entertainment mecca.  For someone who never got her acting career off the ground, it's surprising that she still holds the public's interest, even to this day.  Maybe it's just the grim circumstances - the abominable condition the body was in when found - that draws inquiring minds to the case.  But after this many years, it's doubtful if not impossible to assume the mystery of her death will ever be solved.

*A comprehensive essay on the life of Elizabeth Short is a click away.


The Severed Feet Mystery
One of the more bizarre cases in recent history, this mystery surrounds eleven detached feet that have washed up on the shores of British Columbia and Washington state.  Starting in August of 2007, severed feet have been found - eight in B.C. and the other three in the US.  The feet are the only part of the body found, and all but one foot have been in running shoes (the other was in a hiking boot) and most had socks on as well. 
One of the feet has been identified as a man who was thought to have committed suicide, but all the others are part of an ongoing puzzle.  A few of the feet have been shown to be from the same person, but it is befuddling indeed that no other body parts have shown up for any of the feet.

Several theories abound.  Plane crash?  Boating accident?  Foul play?  I mean, it does sound like the ol' cement shoes mafia method could be valid, but how many folks are wearing brand name running shoes when coldcocked by the mob, shoved in a car and dumped in the ocean?  Sure, a few...but all?  Equally bewildering is the fact that the footless victims are both male and female, young and old, right feet and left.

Scientists speculate that no matter how the feet became detached from the body, it is most likely that any natural deterioration or feasting by sea creatures was slowed due to the foot still being inside shoes, and in most cases socks as well. In other words, feet will last longer in the water than most other parts of the body.  It's also impossible to determine exactly how far the feet have traveled. 
So is it just random coincidence that washed all these feet ashore?  Seems entirely unlikely.  While this case can't exactly be called a cold case, because a foot was most recently found on August 30th of this year, it certainly is a nerve-rattling mystery - one that most likely will never be solved.

The Zodiac Killer
One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history is the identity of the Zodiac killer.  Between December 1968 and October 1969 in Northern California, the Zodiac was responsible for seven murders, though it is said he could have committed at least 37.
The killer himself coined the name Zodiac, and like Jack the Ripper, sent taunting letters - but this time the letters were encrypted in confusing ciphers, and sent to journalists in the area instead of police. Only one of his four letters sent was ever deciphered.  The Chronicle (San Francisco) printed all the cryptograms in the paper just as the infamy-seeking killer asked - he claimed he would go on a weekend killing spree unless his ciphers went front page.

  The Zodiac killer's modus operandi was shooting or stabbing his victims, sometimes as a couple, other times alone as in the case of cab driver. A couple picnicking in a park were stabbed multiple times and left for dead, but the male victim lived to tell the tale and describe the killer, resulting in the sketch below that has been circulating ever since.  Several people over the last forty + years have tried to take the blame for the killings, but all have been disproved and were obviously just seeking fame. The only suspect the police ever had was Arthur Leigh Allen, an alcoholic pedophile whose fingerprints (and later DNA) ended up not matching those of the evidence on file.  He died in 1992.

In a strange twist, the author of the book The Black Dahlia Avenger, Steve Hodel, claims that his father George Hill Hodel was not only the murderer of The Black Dahlia back in the 40's, but also the Zodiac killer. That would be some feat, to be responsible for two of the biggest unsolved cases in recent history.  Kind of hard to imagine, I think.

The interest in the Zodiac case has really never wavered over the years, with scores of people still trying to solve those ciphers and even more people calling in tips to a hot line that still exists at the Vallejo Police Department in California.  It remains one of the most puzzling (pun intended) mysteries in criminal history.

*Ridiculously comprehensive site regarding the Zodiac case:  ZodiacKiller.com

The infamous 'Cabin 28'

The Keddie Murders
Supposedly the basis for the movie The Strangers, The Keddie murders are a violent example of a crime that occurred for absolutely no discernible reason whatsoever.  Perhaps just because they were home, as is frighteningly indicated in the last reel of The Strangers.  (It should be known that The Strangers is not even close to a play by play of the murders committed at the Keddie resort.  In fact, I would have never really put those two things together if I hadn't read it several places online.  So take from it what you will, you can't make this shit up.)

In the spring of 1981 in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, four people were brutally killed by unknown assailants in the small resort town of Keddie, Ca. 
Glenna "Sue" Sharp and her children had been renting Cabin 28 at the resort since the previous fall, and the night of the murder her eldest daughter Sheila was sleeping over at the cabin next door.  When Sheila returned home the next morning she was horrified to discover the blood soaked crime scene. Three of the four victims were present, bound with electrical wire and duct tape.  One of the victims was strangled, but all of them were pummeled with a claw hammer and stabbed countless times, in one case bending the blade of the knife drastically from impact.  The walls and all the furnishings in the cabin had been destroyed and everything was covered in blood splatter.  The victims were nearly unrecognizable. Sue's daughter Tina wasn't accounted for, but three years later her head was found some fifty miles away.  Strangely, Sheila's two sons and a friend (all toddlers) were in the next room sleeping and were unharmed.

The Keddie Resort never recovered from the crime, falling into a state of disrepair.  The owner tried to renovate it, intent on selling it, but it was a no-go after all the reports of 'strange activity' going on.  Apparently the place has been deemed by locals to be haunted, with your typical unexplained noises and strange shadows about.  Psychics have declared the location a hotbed of paranormal activity, and because he was unable to escape from the cabin's malignant past, the owner had Cabin 28 (and several others in the general location) torn down. 
There has been no new information on the case in quite some time, but there was a two-part movie made about the killings which claim to have uncovered a confession to this reprehensible, bloody crime. Never proven, the Keddie killings still remain one of the most heinous cold cases ever.

*You can read about the movie and all things Keddie here.