Random International Unsolved Crimes That Most Americans Have Never Heard Of (11 items)

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  (#3) The Tragic Murder Of The Al-Hilli Family In The French Alps Is Still Unsolved Years Later

  On September 5, 2012, an unknown assailant shot and killed four people near the French Alpine town of Chevaline, near Lake Annecy. The murders took place in a small parking area at the end of a remote 3 km-long road.

  Three victims were members of the al-Hilli family: Saad, 50, an Iraqi-born British citizen; his wife Iqbal, 47; and her mother-in-law, Suhaila al-Allaf, 74. Authorities also found the body of a local French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45. Another cyclist discovered the bodies after seeing al-Hilli's 7-year-old daughter stumbling around the parking lot before she collapsed. The unknown attacker had shot the girl in the shoulder, then pistol-whipped her. Her 4-year-old sister, who authorities did not find until hours later, had hidden underneath her mother's skirt, physically unscathed but nonetheless traumatized by the incident.

  Initially, police suspected an estranged brother, Zaid al-Hilli, committed the crimes over a dispute involving their father's estate, but French investigators did not charge him due to lack of evidence. Speculations that al-Hilli possibly had connections to bank accounts linked to Saddam Hussein, that his wife had a secret ex-husband in the US who died on the same day as she did, and that al-Hilli was involved in complex security technology have only added to the mystery surrounding the case.

  The media have discussed several potential suspects, including Michael Hecht, a Belgian suspected of a similar 30-year-old murder in Brittany, and Nordahl Lelandais, an ex-soldier. In January 2022, a man was arrested in connection with the case, but police eventually determined he was not a suspect. Authorities did say in February 2022 that they felt closer to solving the case than ever.
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  (#9) The Beaumont Children's Kidnapping Shocked Australia And Has Never Been Solved

  Even half a century later, the disappearance of three Australian children from an Adelaide beach is still one of the most haunting events in Australia's history. Called the equivalent of the Lindbergh kidnapping in the US, the crime altered attitudes about personal security and child safety in a previously carefree society.

  On Australia Day, January 26, 1966, Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont traveled by bus to nearby Glenelg Beach, a trip they had previously made without incident. Witnesses saw the children in the company of an older man in his mid-30s and said they appeared comfortable in his presence.

  The eldest Beaumont purchased food with a one-pound note; her mother later stated she had only given the children coins, so someone else must have given them the money. Witnesses last saw the children in the mid-afternoon, walking in the direction of their home. They were never seen again, and their disappearance prompted a media circus and shocked the entire country, which was used to routinely allowing their children similar unsupervised mobility.

  Although police received many tips over the years and unsuccessfully attempted to connect a locally known pedophile to the disappearance, authorities have never found any trace of the children. In 2018, after investigators received new information, they upturned a nearby factory site looking for the children’s remains. Australian police called off the dig when it unearthed only animal bones.

  The children's mother, Nancy, was 92 when she died in 2019, having never received closure in her children's case. Their father, however, is reportedly still alive.
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  (#6) The Murder Of Television Journalist Jill Dando Shocked The UK, But It's Still A Mystery

  Jill Dando was a British BBC television journalist and on-camera broadcaster. An unknown assailant shot her to death outside her home on April 26, 1999. One of Britain's most recognizable television personalities, she hosted the program Crimewatch, which coincidentally broadcasted information about unsolved crimes.

  After leaving her boyfriend's home on the morning of April 26, she arrived at her own home in suburban London. As she was opening her front door, an assailant grabbed her, wrestled her to the ground, and shot her once through the temple, killing her instantly. A neighbor observed a 6-foot-tall white man rapidly leaving the vicinity but did not connect him to the incident until later, having heard nothing.

  After a year-long investigation, police arrested a man with a criminal history of stalking and inappropriate sexual behavior named Barry George. Initially convicted and given a life sentence, the courts eventually dismissed the conviction on appeal. The courts retried George and acquitted him. George eventually won several libel lawsuits against a number of British tabloids.

  Some have claimed Dando was murdered by someone with a Yugoslav or Serbian connection as revenge for a NATO bombing, which killed 16 employees of a Serbian TV station. According to The Mirror, “Jill had fronted a TV appeal for Kosovan-Albanian refugees just weeks before her death, which is believed to have enraged Serb paramilitaries.”

  In 2019, BBC interviewed the case's lead detective, Hamish Campbell, who stated he didn't think Dando's murder would ever be solved. He also claimed they investigated 2,000 suspects over the course of the investigation, but no new names have been added to the list in years. “Sometimes I felt we were a day away from solving it,” Campbell said of the case.
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  (#5) Amy Lynn Bradley Disappeared From A Caribbean Cruise Ship And Has Never Been Found

  On March 24, 1998, on a cruise ship sailing from Aruba to Curaçao, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley left her cabin in the early morning hours, intent on smoking a cigarette. The ship was on the verge of docking, and her father saw her sleeping in the family cabin at 5:30 am. When the entire family awoke at 6 am, Bradley had vanished, having left her cabin barefoot with only her lighter and cigarettes.

  While the family began a frantic search, cruise ship management refused to stop passengers from disembarking and also refused to alert the other passengers to Bradley's disappearance. Several crew members had previously interacted with Bradley in the ship's nightclub and expressed an inordinate amount of interest in her during the cruise.

  Authorities never found Bradley, and despite an FBI investigation into her and her family's background, they were unable to continue an investigation in an international jurisdiction. The FBI received several credible tips from people who correctly identified her tattoos; one such tipster indicated unknown perpetrators were holding her against her will in a Curaçao brothel.

  Con artists claiming to be ex-Navy Seals who knew Bradley's whereabouts offered to stage an armed intervention and successfully extorted $200,000 dollars from the Bradley family until the ringleader was unmasked and prosecuted. An adult website emailed Bradley's parents a photo of a woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to her and implied the individual in the photo was not there willingly. In 2005, an individual claimed to have spotted Bradley in Barbados.

  Although Natalee Holloway's similar vanishing in 2005 rekindled interest in Bradley's disappearance, she has never been located. As of 2018 - 20 years after Bradley's family last saw her - the FBI offers a reward of $25,000 for concrete tips.
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  (#7) The 1986 Assassination Of A Swedish Prime Minister Went Unsolved Until 2020

  Olof Palme was an outspoken Swedish politician and the country's prime minister when he was assassinated in Stockholm in February 1986. An unknown shooter targeted Palme when he was walking home with his wife from a movie and killed him on a city street. Palme was a vocal, left-wing Social Democrat whose politics alienated many factions, both domestic and international.

  Possible entities behind his assassination included the Yugoslav Security Service, a separatist Kurdish group, the South African government - Palme was a passionate and vocal opponent of apartheid - and even extremist members of the Swedish Security Service.

  Most likely because of public pressure to solve the crime, Swedish police eventually arrested a low-level street criminal and addict named Christer Petersson, who was initially convicted after Palme's wife identified him as the assailant. The courts sentenced him to life in 1988. Upon appeal, the case fell apart as utterly circumstantial with no weapon ever being retrieved and no explanation as to why Pettersson would kill Palme, someone he claimed to admire. Subsequently, Petersson would confess on numerous occasions when news organizations compensated him, though these admissions were not deemed credible.

  In a stunning turn of events, it was announced on June 10, 2020, that Palme's case was officially closed. Authorities reportedly determined that a man named Stig Engstrom was the assassin, but no arrest or trial could take place since Engstrom died by suicide in 2000.
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  (#8) Mormon Missionary David Sneddon May Have Been Kidnapped And Taken To North Korea

  David Sneddon, a Mormon missionary studying Chinese and traveling as a tourist in Yunnan Province, was 24 years old when he disappeared in 2004. Local Chinese authorities asserted he likely fell into a popular canyon and drowned, but no body was ever located. His parents traveled to China and located several witnesses who credibly claimed they had interacted with David long after he traversed the gorge and that he had been seen near the China-Burma border.

  For 12 years, the Sneddon family maintained they did not believe David was dead. In September 2016, Choi Sung-yong, the head of the South Korean Abductees' Family Union, said he had information claiming Sneddon is currently living in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Allegedly, Sneddon is married to a Korean woman, has two children, and is an English teacher. Sung-yong maintains then-Korean leader Kim Jong-il issued Sneddon’s kidnapping to have him tutor his son, Kim Jong-un, in English since Sneddon was fluent in Korean. Reportedly, a Korean woman in Beijing approached him, inquiring if he could tutor her children.

  North Korea has a history of abducting foreign nationals, including numerous Japanese couples who the country forced to remain in North Korea and tutor government officials in the Japanese language and culture. In 2016, a spokesperson for the North Korean foreign ministry vehemently denied the Sneddon kidnapping allegations.

  On June 29, 2021, David's brother, James Sneddon, gave an address to the United Nations claiming that he had evidence proving his brother had not died while hiking as the Chinese government had claimed, though he did not disclose the evidence in question.

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