What crime stories have you been obsessed by?

[WomenHour]

I was griped by the James Bulger murder 25 years ago

[quote CrazyToast]**@Foghornleghorn99* @Sparklesocks* Sadly unsolved missing cases are more common than anyone would really think. It's just more easy to hide a body than we are led to believe. I've realised this after listening to so many unsolved crime stories.[/quote]
Absolutely it happens - But its still a tiny percentage compared to those who are found/explained though. If you hear/read about the cases it might seem like it’s happening all the time, but most missing people cases are resolved (even though some have upsetting outcomes).

I think the mystery aspect of these cases is what stays with people. It’s such a scary idea that someone could just disappear without a trace. I can’t imagine how difficult for their loved ones not to have that closure.

I highly recommend US Podcast 'Crime Junkie'. Its mainly unsolved murders and disappearences, the girls who read it are fantastic.

@Sparklesocks Have you ever looked up any data on the numbers? I havent, but I do wonder. No idea about numbers of missing persons vs numbers of solved murders etc. I do wonder if more murders go unsolved than are solved. I was living in a nice 'CSI solves everything' mindset before I discovered true crime podcasts.

[quote CrazyToast]@Sparklesocks Have you ever looked up any data on the numbers? I havent, but I do wonder. No idea about numbers of missing persons vs numbers of solved murders etc. I do wonder if more murders go unsolved than are solved. I was living in a nice 'CSI solves everything' mindset before I discovered true crime podcasts.[/quote]
I’m not sure about worldwide stats for missing people but this is from missingpeople.co.uk:

*How long are people missing for?

Children

80% of children are found within 24 hours
90% of children are found within 2 days
Only 2% of children will be missing for longer than a week (over 3,000 child missing incidents are for longer than a week)

Adults

75% of adults are found within 24 hours
85% of adults are found within 2 days
5% of adults will be missing for longer than a week (nearly 4,500 adult missing incidents are for longer than a week)

Long term missing

While going missing for a long period of time is thankfully quite rare, as of 31st March 2019 there were nearly 5,000 ‘long-term missing individuals’ in the UK. These are people who have been missing for over a year. Over 1,500 of these individuals were children, with nearly 3,000 adults and a small number where age was unknown or not reported.*

Of course it’s still thousands so not to dismiss the cases, but comparatively it’s a small number and when you compare it to the size of the population.

And not sure about murders either, but I think we consume a lot of media in that area (I know I do) so it may seem inflated.

The Al-Hilli murders in Annecy
The disappearance of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers in Panama
The disappearance of MH 17

And the spy found dead inside a zipped holdall in his bath tub. Very fishy

[quote ZoeTurtle]@LioneIRichTea If you haven't heard of it already, the Isdal Woman is another very similar to the Somerton Man.[/quote]

As is the Oslo Plaza "Jennifer Fergate" case

A few years ago I went to the Museum of London special exhibition that was from Scotland Yard's Black Museum.

I've seen lots of unpleasant photos and read lots of unpleasant stuff about true crime but it was another level. Actually seeing things "in the flesh". Lots of real nooses used to hang criminals; all labelled. Death masks of those executed. Thomas Cream's bag of poisons. Acid bath Haig's rubber gloves he wore while disposing of bodies. As well as guns, knives, blunt instruments etc etc. Absolutely fascinating in the grimmest way possible.

The Al-Hilli family massacre in the Alps drives me mad. The obvious suspect would be his brother as the two were in a battle over their Dad's will. But, how would a hitman or whoever know they would be on a remote mountain road at that time, given that it was a last minute decision to go for a drive that day? The only witness was a British man on a motorbike who was overtaken by the Al-Hilli car and he said there was no other vehicle following them.

The French cyclist at the scene was shot first so it is possible that he was the intended target but why? The killer was so determined not to leave a witness that he hit one of the children with his gun when he had run out of bullets. She survived, as did her sister and I hope they are getting on ok. I wonder if, in the future they will remember anything more.

Not a crime, but they were doing sonar training in a lake in Oklahoma and found two cars containing 6 bodies. One car containing 3 people who had been missing since the 60s. The son of one of the men was in his 80s and had always wondered where his father had disappeared to. The other contained the bodies of 3 teenagers who had disappeared in the 70s. Both were unsolved mysteries, but it shows that people can just disappear in plain sight.

BovaryX Regarding Springfield Three, local rumour says that the women are buried under that car park but I saw a doc on ID where they used ultrasound equipment and they doubted any bodies were there and the timing of the construction and disappearance was all wrong. I think it makes sense that Sheryl, the mother was the intended victim - as you say, Suzie and Stacie were never meant to be there that night. Some people blame local mafia but I think that's a stretch for a tiny town in the Mid West.

Ted Bundy - lots of people have referred to him as charming, etc but there was a recent article - in Cracked I think, about how that was just a myth started by him as part of his defence. In reality, he was a scrawny, pathetic weirdo who loved to boast about how clever and special he was to anyone who would listen. The prison guards and lawyers all found him tedious and arrogant. When filmmakers use Zac Efron to play him as the handsome, magnetic charmer it just perpetuates the myth created by him.

His victims - especially the 12 year old girl in Florida, were ambushed and attacked by him, not charmed.

Claudia Lawrence and any missing people cases fascinate me. The hows and the whys people go missing. Is it through personal choice or has something terrible happened to them?
The Russell family murder as well really got to me as well and remember seeing a documentary of Josie and her Dad. I still wonder how they are today.

With the Annecy shootings, I think the gun used was a WWII German service gun. A lot of people kept souvenirs after the war. I think a teenager or adult took his grandfathers gun to shoot rounds in a remote location, and then the cyclist turned up and he just shot him. Then the car driver saw it and stopped and they got shot too. It seems very unlikely that it was a planned hit.

Nikori - that is my theory, that a gunman was hiding in the hills waiting for a random target. Except that the killer was an excellent marksman - they didn't miss a shot and each one was perfectly aimed so they believe it was a professional. Also, the car park was so remote you could normally wait all day for someone to show up.

There was one suspect - a former soldier - who committed suicide after police interviewed him. Turns out he had once dated the sister of the French cyclist who was also killed. Seems a very strange coincidence. The cyclist was also the only person who told anyone where he would be that day, as his father-in-law had suggested the cycle route to him.

I agree dayswithaY as I really enjoyed the documentary on Netflix but I could barely get through the footage of him. Not because it was disturbing but because I just found his arrogance so mind numbingly boring, just droning on and on about himself. When his lawyer and the man who was writing a book about him said they both found him tedious as fuck and very hard to listen to that made a lot of sense. I felt sorry for them having to spend so much time listening to that. Nothing so boring as arrogance. Although he might’ve been able to turn on the charm when he needed to, narcissists usually can.

[quote RonObvious]@FlamingoAndJohn Just looked it up and it is called "Evil has a name: The untold story of the golden state killer investigation." It's one of those Audible Original things.[/quote]
Thanks for that @RonObvious.
I got a free Audible trial and started listening on my run this morning.
It’s amazingly good, more like a podcast or radio documentary than a book.

@Conair
What's the evidence that Alistair Wilson's wife executed her own husband from outside their home, with their children inside, managed to immediately raise the alarm at the pub opposite, call emergency services, simultaneously hide all evidence and stash the gun down a drain a mile away?

Missing people especially adults.Many i would assume just disappear cause they want too.

There was a child who disappeared in America years ago,she was a teenager.They found her in Mexico years later.

She made a concious decision to leave.And dint want to go back to her family.

And talking of missing people.

This one always gets to me.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Trevor_Deely

@dayswithaY

BovaryX Regarding Springfield Three, local rumour says that the women are buried under that car park but I saw a doc on ID where they used ultrasound equipment and they doubted any bodies were there and the timing of the construction and disappearance was all wrong. I think it makes sense that Sheryl, the mother was the intended victim - as you say, Suzie and Stacie were never meant to be there that night. Some people blame local mafia but I think that's a stretch for a tiny town in the Mid West.

Ted Bundy - lots of people have referred to him as charming, etc but there was a recent article - in Cracked I think, about how that was just a myth started by him as part of his defence. In reality, he was a scrawny, pathetic weirdo who loved to boast about how clever and special he was to anyone who would listen. The prison guards and lawyers all found him tedious and arrogant. When filmmakers use Zac Efron to play him as the handsome, magnetic charmer it just perpetuates the myth created by him.

His victims - especially the 12 year old girl in Florida, were ambushed and attacked by him, not charmed.

Ha yes! Anne Rule found him very ordinary when she worked with him. Back in the eighties they cast Mark Harmon as Buddy in the famous mini series, then named as the world's most handsome man. Women would write to Rule saying they felt awful as they were in love with Bundy after watching the mini series. But of course, it wasn't Bundy, but Harmon's portrayal. It all fed into the narrative, however, that Bundy was charming and appealing.

[quote CrazyToast]@piscean10 Shannan Watts. It is just unfathomable to look at that man and know what he did.[/quote]
There was a horrible forum I came across when reading about this case as it scared me more than any other case I think. The amount of people on it who were desperately searching for excuses for Watts, pinning the blame on Shan’ann in every way they could....she bullied him, she was an MLM boy, she was a Disney Mom who used her children for likes, she got them into debt, she stole from a previous employer, Watts was the breadwinner and hardworking while she played at it, she put the girls into expensive childcare that poor little Chris had to slave away at his job to pay for.....it was disgusting and I was shocked to see the many women in it joining in. Not once asking why that man didn't just walk away when HE was the one having an affair and HE was the family annihilator.

Glad to see anyway the other day that it was removed by Wordpress. It took victim blaming to a whole new level by people who claimed they just wanted to work out the 'reasons'.

Claudia Lawrence, I agree with PP that the police seem to be waiting for someone in the friendship group up break.
Corrie McKeague, I came across the websleuths site during this case, he seems to have a multifaceted life but simply vanished

Someone discovered a car containing a missing person in a lake, and it was discovered via google earth. Look how close it is!

Lindsay Buziak- murdered.
Israel Keyes- the serial killer.

@dayswithaY

Nikori - that is my theory, that a gunman was hiding in the hills waiting for a random target. Except that the killer was an excellent marksman - they didn't miss a shot and each one was perfectly aimed so they believe it was a professional. Also, the car park was so remote you could normally wait all day for someone to show up.

There was one suspect - a former soldier - who committed suicide after police interviewed him. Turns out he had once dated the sister of the French cyclist who was also killed. Seems a very strange coincidence. The cyclist was also the only person who told anyone where he would be that day, as his father-in-law had suggested the cycle route to him.

Wow! That’s really interesting. I never knew all that, but it makes a lot of sense.

I’d like to know what happened to Trevaline Evans