Random Most Famous Unsolved Murders In The US (21 items)

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  (#1) Tupac Shakur

  • Dec. at 25 (1971-1996)

  Shakur was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in 1996, which led to his death six days later. He had just attended a boxing match, and a witness identified a Crips gang member, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, in the lobby. The witness also said that Anderson had attacked Shakur.

  It is speculated that the death was gang-related, but sufficient evidence was never given to lead to any arrests.
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  (#2) The Notorious B.I.G.

  • Dec. at 25 (1972-1997)

  Christopher George Latore Wallace was better known by his stage names, The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie or Biggie Smalls. He became a central figure in the East Coast hip hop scene during a time when the West Coast hip hop scene was dominant in the mainstream. This led to an ongoing feud between the two groups.

  He was killed in 1997 in a drive-by shooting in L.A. No one was ever named as a suspect in his death.
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  (#3) Bob Crane

  • Dec. at 50 (1928-1978)

  Known for his role as Colonel Robert H. Hogan on Hogan’s Heroes, Crane's body was discovered in his apartment in 1979 after an electrical cord was tied around his neck, and he had been bludgeoned to death. The murder weapon was never found, but police suspected that it was a camera tripod. A friend of Crane’s was named a suspect after blood was found in his car that matched Crane’s blood type.

  However, DNA testing was not available at the time, so no charges were ever made. The case was reopened in 1990, but testing was inconclusive. Crane’s death remains unsolved.
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  (#4) William Desmond Taylor

  • Dec. at 50 (1872-1922)

  A silent film director, Taylor was found shot in the back in his home on February 2, 1922. The case involved a Hollywood-worthy cast of characters. Some suspected comedian Mabel Normand's cocaine dealers, since Taylor was allegedly protective of Normand and trying to separate her from her pushers. Normand's lover, director Mack Sennett, was also believed to have possibly murdered Taylor out of jealousy over the comedian's possible infatuation with the director. Another suspect was Taylor's former valet, a shady character from Ohio who faked an English accent, embezzled money, and enlisted in and deserted the Army three times under three different names.

  Young actress, Mary Miles Minter, was another possible guilty party due to her unrequited love for Taylor. Despite the plethora of colorful suspects and a confession from one of Taylor's actresses three decades later, no arrests were ever made.
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  (#5) Jimmy Hoffa

  • Dec. at 69 (1913-1982)

  Famous gangster and labor union president, Hoffa was last seen in the parking lot of a restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, in 1975, when he was waiting to meet someone in the early morning. He was finally declared dead seven years later in 1982, though his body was never recovered, and speculations as to what happened abound to this day.
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  (#6) Dorothy Kilgallen

  • Dec. at 52 (1913-1965)

  Kilgallen was a game show co-host on What's My Line?. The cause of death on her 1965 New York City death certificate reads, "acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication / circumstances undetermined." Many people have said publicly that Kilgallen could have been murdered by needle injection after drinking a large amount of alcohol.

  A strange 911 called was placed in 1965 when a stranger informed police that Kilgallen had been murdered. The case remains unsolved.
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  (#7) Thomas C. Hindman

  • Dec. at 40 (1828-1868)

  Hindman was an American politician who was assassinated by one or more unknown assailants in the fall of 1868. The assassins fired into his window while he was reading his newspaper with his children in Helena, Arkansas.
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  (#8) Thelma Todd

  • Dec. at 29 (1906-1935)

  Thelma Todd, also known as “Hot Toddy,” was an actress in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Todd lived in an apartment above the café she ran on the Roosevelt Highway. She was found dead inside a garage, left behind the steering wheel of her car. At the time, some believed she had committed suicide or accidentally killed herself while warming up her car.

  However, signs of foul surfaced later on. Despite this, the death of was ultimately ruled a suicide after evidence arose that Todd was depressed and occasionally spoke of suicide. 
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  (#9) JonBenét Ramsey

  • Dec. at 6 (1990-1996)

  The six-year-old beauty queen’s unsolved murder was one of the most famous murder cases in the world. One night in December 1996, her parents reported her missing. Eight hours later, she was found dead in their basement. No one was ever charged with the murder, although her parents remain on the suspect list, decades later.
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  (#10) William Goebel

  • Dec. at 44 (1856-1900)

  Goebel was an American politician who was shot on January 30, 1900, by an unknown assailant in Frankfort, Kentucky. He died just one day before being sworn in as Governor of Kentucky. He remains the only state Governor in the United States to be assassinated while in office. He was sworn in just before dying.
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  (#11) Peter Ivers

  • Dec. at 37 (1946-1983)

  Musician and host of the New Wave Theater in Los Angeles, Ivers was killed in his bed in 1983, having been beaten to death. Upon his death, hundreds of friends had gone to Iver's apartment to mourn his death, and in doing so, they compromised much of the evidence. A number of theories abound about the cause for his murder.

  Some say he was killed as the result of a robbery, while others speculate that he was killed by a New Wave Theater patron. Unfortunately, none of these theories came to fruition, and the murder remains unsolved.
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  (#12) Barbara Colby

  • Dec. at 36 (1939-1975)

  Television actress Barbara Colby was walking with a colleague to his car in 1975 when they suddenly got shot at. She died instantly from her wounds, but the man she was with was able to describe the shooting to the police before dying as well. He said the shooting occurred without reason, and that there were two gunmen whom he did not recognize. No attempt was made to rob Colby, and the motivation for the murders is still unknown.
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  (#13) Phantom Killer

  There is only one repeated case of serial murder in the twin cities of Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas. The murders took place in 1946 when five people were killed and another three injured. Victims who survive, Mary Jeanne Larey and Jimmy Hollis, were able to provide a description of the attacker, a 6-foot tall man with a white sack over his head with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth.

  A .32 caliber pistol was used, and the crimes always took place three weeks apart from each other. One suspect, Youell Swinney, was imprisoned for a car theft in 1947 and was released in 1973. However, he was never officially charged with these murders.
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  (#14) Doodler

  The Doodler, also known as the Black Doodler, is an unidentified serial killer believed to be responsible for 14 slayings and three assaults of gay men in San Francisco, California, between January 1974 and September 1975. The nickname was given due to the perpetrator's habit of sketching his victims prior to having sex with them and then stabbing them to death. 

  Police questioned a young man in the case, but could not proceed with criminal charges because the three surviving victims didn't want to "out" themselves by testifying against him in court. To date, the suspect has never been publicly named or apprehended, and very little information is available about the crimes.
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  (#15) The Grimes sisters

  Barbara and Patricia Grimes were teenage sisters in Chicago, Illinois, who disappeared in 1956 after leaving their house to go see a movie. When they went missing, a search and rescue team was sent out in search of them. Their bodies were found a year later, naked, and one of the sisters had been molested before her death. No one was ever declared a suspect.
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  (#16) Mary Meyer

  Mary Meyer was a Washington, D.C. native and known close friend of President John F. Kennedy. In 1964, she was found shot to death after going for a walk. A nearby mechanic who heard the gunshots saw an unidentified man standing over her body. According to the mechanic, the man was Black and wore dark slacks and a cap. Meyer had been shot in both the heart and the back of the head. Both bullets were fired at close range. 

  Shortly after the shooting, a Black man named Raymond Crump was arrested and tried for the crime. He was acquitted because no gun was found and he was never linked to owning a gun.
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  (#17) Rashawn Brazell

  • Dec. at 19 (1986-2005)

  The case of Rashawn Brazell has gone down in history as one of the most horrific murder cases in the state of New York. 19-year-old Brazell disappeared from his Brooklyn home on February 14, 2005, when he left his home for an appointment with his accountant and lunch with his mother. That morning, an unknown male rang the buzzer for Brazell, and the two walked to Gates Avenue Station together.

  According to eyewitnesses, the pair exited the subway at Nostrand Avenue station. This is the last time Brazell would be seen alive. Four days later, two bags of body parts were found on the tracks at the subway station. The fingerprints of the victim were identified as Brazell. No other information has been recovered about the identity of the unknown male who accompanied him to the subway station, and no breaks have been made in the case. Brazell’s case has been profiled on America’s Most Wanted a total of five times.
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  (#18) John Middleton Clayton

  Republican Congressman-elect, John Middleton Clayton, was murdered in 1889 in Pinkerton, Arkansas. He was contesting his extremely narrow defeat for a seat in the U.S. Congress after the largest fraudulent election in Arkansas history went down wherein a ballot box, which had a majority of votes for Clayton in it, was stolen by four masked men who held the Black-majority precinct at gunpoint.

  On January 29, Clayton was shot through the window of the boardinghouse he was staying at, dying instantly. He was later declared the winner of the election, unseating his opponent and leaving it vacant. His assassin remains unknown.
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  (#19) The Boston Strangler

  In 1962, a serial killer strangled 13 women in the Boston area. The victims ranged from ages 19 to 85 and were strangled with silk stockings. Almost all were sexually assaulted, and there were no signs of forced entry into their houses. A convicted rapist, Albert DeSalvo later confessed to the crimes, and though the trial lacked physical evidence that DeSalvo was the murderer and some of his confessions had inconsistencies, he was sentenced to life in prison.

  He escaped in February 1967 with two fellow inmates, but gave himself up the following day. Afterwards, he was moved to the maximum security Walpole State Prison, where he was stabbed to death six years later in the infirmary. His killer was never identified.

  Many theories later arose that there were several men involved in the murders of the 13 women, and DeSalvo wasn't involved at all, particularly in the last murder of Mary Sullivan in 1964. However, in 2013, DNA testing revealed that DeSalvo was, in fact, the murderer.
  
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  (#20) The Zodiac Killer

  Named for four cryptograms the killer sent to the police, the Zodiac killer is one of the most famous serial killers in history, and has never been caught. Over 2,500 suspects were interviewed but none were ever held accountable. Though the killer claims to have murdered over 37 people in Northern California between 1968 and 1969, only seven victims have been confirmed, with two survivors.

  In 1969, the Vallejo Times Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner received three nearly identical letters,
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  (#21) The Black Dahlia

  Elizabeth Short was a 22-year-old who worked as a waitress while hoping to make it in Hollywood. She disappeared on January 9, 1947. On January 14, a passerby discovered Short's mutilated body in a residential section of L.A. Short's corpse was cut in half, and her face had deep gashes. Marks on her wrists indicated she'd been tied up and possibly tortured. A lack of blood at the scene meant she had been killed elsewhere and dumped in the vacant lot where she was discovered. The press started calling Short the Black Dahlia (possibly a reference to Short's dark hair and the recent release of a film called The Blue Dahlia).

  The police had a huge suspect pool that included all the men Short had dated and medical students at L.A. area colleges (who had the surgical knowledge needed to sever Short's body). The case has stayed in popular culture through the years, most notably with James Ellroy's novel The Black Dahlia, but no one has ever been arrested for the crime.

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