There have been UM stories that were spooky, and others that were sad. However, what UM segments do you consider to be both spooky and sad?

My choice would be the disappearance of Judith Hines. As you'll recall, Judith Hines was the woman who disappeared in 1965 after going to a doctor about having an abortion.

What made it spooky was that a policeman kept receiving an anonymous caller from a woman claiming that Judith was alive and living in Omaha. :eek: After the story originally aired, police received an anonymous letter claiming that Judith was deceased, and that she died during an abortion, and her body was then disposed of.

What I find sad about the story is that it involved a woman who didn't want to have her baby, and tried to get rid of it by having an abortion. I am convinced that if Judith Hines had chosen a more viable alternative, such as adoption, she would still be with us. But instead, we are left with not only a mystery as to what happened to Judith, but also the sad wondering of what kind of life her child might have had if he or she had been given a chance to be born. :(

Had Judy had more options such as legal abortion should would still be alive! This is just a prime example of how dangerous illegal abortions can be. I am sure she died as a result of a back alley abortion because she did not have a safer termination alternative under the direct supervision of trained medical doctors, and that person/s covered up their crime. Now as far as the whole Omaha thing....that is just too weird!

I can't defend it but it was "the times" as they say. It would be a good case to show during a "pro choice" vs. "pro life" debate thats for sure. Sadly Judy's story is not unique and was likely a very commonplace one in the 1960s with the only thing that makes the Hines case different from the rest is you had this mystery surrounding her death.

I guess by the time the UM was filmed Judy's parents might have already passed on. I would have been interested to hear their insight on the case. I can't say I personally know of anyone who died from this type of abortion but it was all too commonplace around the time Judy disappeared/died.

My vote for both spooky and sad is the case of the lady who disappeared after she said she was meeting a blind date. Her car and purse was later found in a Howard Johnson's parking lot. UM had an update stating that she had killed herself in a hotel room. I can't remember her name, but it's such a sad case! The spooky part is the circumstances of her disappearance. She was obviously so troubled that she felt suicide was the only way out.

My other vote would be the case where a lovely Asian-American girl disappeared. Many people swore they saw her being forcefully led around by an Asian man (one of the sightings was in an ice cream parlor). UM had an update saying they found her purse, but I've not heard anything after that. Of course, bad memory that I have, I can't remember her name either! But the case was sad and spooky at the same time.

I can't defend it but it was "the times" as they say. It would be a good case to show during a "pro choice" vs. "pro life" debate thats for sure.

I agree. To tell you the truth, I'm pro-life. And while UM tended not to promote any political propaganda (unlike too many shows of today), I think the Judith Hines story makes a strong argument against abortion.

I agree. To tell you the truth, I'm pro-life. And while UM tended not to promote any political propaganda (unlike too many shows of today), I think the Judith Hines story makes a strong argument against abortion.

That is an interesting suggestion. However, it could also tip the other way. Hines had to seek out a black market abortion because abortion wasn't legal. So long as it is legal, these black market abortions are less likely to occur. I'm not looking to start any abortion debates, but I don't think we should say the case makes a stronger argument towards one outcome or another.

Agreed I just think it would be a good thing to show anyone interested in the abortion issue and let them decide for themselves. Beyond that Hines didn't deserve to die like that, she shouldn't have died like that anyhow - Its hard to find who to fault in this case and Kane is right it really is pretty sad and tragic.

1) This "doctor" shouldn't have even been practicing abortions being that he wasn't even a real doctor. Then again he had obviously performed several successful abortions prior to Judy's death. It could be written off as a "freak accident" but the fact that he was even practicing makes a good share of the blame fall at his feet.

2) Judith herself was a bit naive too. She likely died of an allergic reaction to something she was injected with prior to the abortion (or so the letter says). You would think she would know what type of drugs she was allergic to, maybe that was the farthest thing from her mind at the time but allergic and deadly reactions to drugs aren't as uncommon as most people would like to think.

Then again if Judy was in a real hospital, having a legitimate abortion with a real doctor they might have been able to save her life after she had the allergic reaction.

This case has always stayed with me although I haven't seen the segment in a long time (several years as a matter of fact). If I recall, wasn't Judy's car found abandoned in a residential neighborhood with blood all over the back seat? Perhaps her death had nothing to do with an illegal abortion. Perhaps she had the procedure down and was later abducted. A shot in the dark but hey, anything is possible.

And wasn't there an update? Wasn't a letter sent anonymously to the police stating that Judy wasn't alive and had been dumped upon her death in a nearby body of water? I really want to see this case again.

The case that stands out to me as spooky and sad was the case of Little Miss Panasoffkee, the women found dead in Florida. Hers was one of the first cases to use complete forensic facial reconstruction. I remember her reconstructions and I saw them again on the Doe network. I have always been spooked by those images. And the case saddens me because, after all these years, she still doesn't have her identity back. And if it's true that she did give birth to a child, perhaps someone, somewhere, grew up without knowing their real mother.

On a sidenote, there is a segment I know of on UM that saddened me so much, I don't watch the reconstruction. The case was profiled recently. It was the girl whose boyfriend murdered her parents when she tried to break up with him, and then tried to murder her by stabbing. I turn this case off when I see the preview for it.

Another UM story that I'd put on the list would be the murder of Rhonda Hinson. She was the North Carolina woman who was shot to death while en route home from a Christmas party in 1981.

It's really sad that a young woman died so young, at the age of 19. She would be turning 44 this year if she had lived. Since she was an only child, her death dashed any hopes of her ever becoming a mother, and folks ever becoming grandparents. :(

What is spooky is her demeanor prior to the murder. According to her folks, she would bathe late at night, which is said to be common for victims of sexual assault. Also, Rhonda asked her mother about the idea of dating a married man. Her behavior lead one to question whether she had been sexually attacked and/or if she or someone she knew was having an affair with a married person. Obviously, something was bugging Rhonda, and it's my belief that she was going to reveal whatever it might have been, and then was killed before she could. :eek:

This case has always stayed with me although I haven't seen the segment in a long time (several years as a matter of fact). If I recall, wasn't Judy's car found abandoned in a residential neighborhood with blood all over the back seat? Perhaps her death had nothing to do with an illegal abortion. Perhaps she had the procedure down and was later abducted. A shot in the dark but hey, anything is possible.

And wasn't there an update? Wasn't a letter sent anonymously to the police stating that Judy wasn't alive and had been dumped upon her death in a nearby body of water? I really want to see this case again.

Yes, there was an update. In fact, I mentioned it. After the story was first broadcast, the police received a letter claiming that Judith was actually dead. While they believe the info is legitimate, they made an on-camera plea, asking the unknown author to come forward (so far, to no avail).

Another case that I consider both spooky and depressing is the mysterious death of a young woman in California who didn't have enough cab fare and was let out in an isolated area near a cliff in the middle of the night. Her body was found the next morning at the bottom of the cliff. The woman was wearing "thrift store clothes" and her purse contained no id of any kind. Police suspect it was a suicide but I have often wondered if she didn't just lose her footing and accidentally fall from the cliff. As I remember it, she was only a dollar or two short of having exact cab fare and it seemed especially heartless of the cab driver to just leave her stranded like that in such a forlorn area that late at night.

This is beating a dead horse, but I always thought that the Angela Hammond case was spooky and depressing. Spooky because of the circumstances involved, and depressing because the boyfriend was tailing Angela and her abductor and blew out his engine in the process. *whew!*

And yes, the Judith Hines and Gale Delano cases are both excellent nominees for this category.

I saw a very short segment today about a baby who was found beaten to death. This was in 1991, I think. A woman had a baby out in the woods at night, the man she was with beat it to death within minutes, and then they took off. The police don't know who these people are. If they didn't want the baby, why not give it up for adoption? It's scary and sad to know that there are people like this out there. :(

I saw a very short segment today about a baby who was found beaten to death. This was in 1991, I think. A woman had a baby out in the woods at night, the man she was with beat it to death within minutes, and then they took off. The police don't know who these people are. If they didn't want the baby, why not give it up for adoption? It's scary and sad to know that there are people like this out there. :(

I've seen that story a few times before, and every time I am absolutely sickened by it. It's bad enough to take the life of a mature person, who has a chance of defending himself/herself, but it's appalling even moreso to hear of it happening to an innocent child, much less a newborn baby. I find it sad as well that these people apparently haven't been caught. Hopefully this little baby girl will never be forgotten.

I agree with all of the spooky/sad segments already mentioned. My opinion on them -

1. JUDITH HINES - Although I was not alive in 1965, I understand completely if Judith thought she had no other choice than to have the abortion. As cliche as this sounds, those were simply different times. You hardly EVER saw a single woman have a baby on her own. And the ones that did were frowned upon and looked at in a very negative way. It was around that same time period that whites and blacks still weren't allowed to share public restrooms. (People were so stupid back then.) So, I don't think it can be easily stated that Judith could choose a more viable alternative. While some people would probably just brush off this case as "Woman goes to have illegal abortion, is killed during it, body is dumped in the bay," blah, blah, blah.... we still have questions that remain. Like, who drove Judith's rental car 300 miles away to that residential neighborhood? Why did he choose that location? Obviously the car was still going to be found and traced and he made no attempt to clean up the blood on the seat. Was it an attempt to make it look like foul play to brush away suspicions from the abortion clinic? And the mysterious phone calls from Nebraska - what was up with those? Whoever phoned in obviously knew something about Hines but waited 25 years to say something. And the phone calls didn't even start until the Coral Gables police officer went to that seminar in Omaha. Very strange case.

2. RHONDA HINSON - What always bugged me about this case was the incredible luck that her killer had being able to shoot her just one time as she sped away and STILL managing to kill her. That bullet traveled through the trunk of her car, through the back seat, and finally traveled through the drivers seat before striking her heart and killing her. What are the odds that someone could get such a lucky shot? I can't figure out what would drive somebody to kill her. Maybe the constant showers she took were because someone she knew had raped her and she was hesitant at first about reporting him to the police. Maybe once she finally did decide to report him, she was shut up before she had the chance. Of course, that doesn't explain her question about seeing a married man. I wonder if the police ever talked to any of Rhonda's friends. Surely somebody had to know who she was seeing and what was going on in her personal life. On the night she was murdered, she left a Christmas party with two other girls who she gave a ride home to before getting killed. I'm pretty sure her killer was probably in the parking lot of that office party waiting for her to come out. He then probably followed her as she dropped off her friends waiting for her to be alone and then made his move.

3. OKLAHOMA BABY BEATEN TO DEATH - Yes, that was such a sad segment. Her parents were probably extremely young and just weren't thinking straight at all. There were so many other ways they could have handled this. The fact that they went to this extreme makes me think they probably didn't want their loved ones to know they were having that baby. The sight of that tiny casket was difficult to watch.

RHONDA HINSON - What always bugged me about this case was the incredible luck that her killer had being able to shoot her just one time as she sped away and STILL managing to kill her. That bullet traveled through the trunk of her car, through the back seat, and finally traveled through the drivers seat before striking her heart and killing her. What are the odds that someone could get such a lucky shot?

I'd say there's a good possibility that the killer was an experienced sharpshooter. But it could also be that, after he fired the shot, he saw Rhonda's car slowing down or stopping entirely, giving him the indication that the bullet fired had hit Rhonda, and therefore, didn't have to fire a second shot.

I should add the murder of Bill Henderson. He was the elderly man who was found beaten and strangled to death in his home in 1991. The unknown killer had used an iron to bludgeon the victim. The killer then stole Bill Henderson's pickup truck, and jettison the vehicle sometime after he drove out of Texas.

At one point during the drive, he had picked up two hitchhikers. The two men became suspicious of the driver, and tried to report the truck stolen to no avail. The vehicle had not been reported stolen at the time, because Bill Henderson had not yet been discovered dead.

What is spooky about the case is the composite sketch of the suspect. He was depicted as having numerous small ponytails. Because of the general description of the suspect, especially his numerous ponytails, the sketch gives me the creeps, even by just thinking about it.

What is sad is that the victim was an elderly man who had developed heart disease, and his health was failing to the point where he didn't have a fair chance to defend himself against his attacker.

I believe this case will eventually be solved, because the cop who was interviewed for the UM segment mentioned that a bloody palm print was found at the crime scene. In any case, if or when the killer is eventually nabbed, I hope he will realize that by brutally killing a defenseless elderly man in the Lone Star state, he made the mistake of messing with Texas!

I've seen that story a few times before, and every time I am absolutely sickened by it. It's bad enough to take the life of a mature person, who has a chance of defending himself/herself, but it's appalling even moreso to hear of it happening to an innocent child, much less a newborn baby. I find it sad as well that these people apparently haven't been caught. Hopefully this little baby girl will never be forgotten.

I feel that same as you and Tap Dancer. I guess the newborn was too much of an inconvenience to them, so they resorted to the extreme measure of terminating it, rather than consider an alternative that would have given the baby a fair chance at life. :mad:

If or when the couple is eventually identified and caught, let's hope they don't get off easy. They need to learn that (to paraphrase the late Sen. Barry Goldwater) extremism in the effort to get rid of a child is an unpardonable vice.

It always seemed to me that the couple who beat the baby to death were druggies or some other sort of criminals who would feel burdened by a child. Too bad they didn't know they could sell it on the adoption black market for big bucks. Not ideal, but presumably anyone who'd pay thousands to have a child would treat it well.

There have been UM stories that were spooky, and others that were sad. However, what UM segments do you consider to be both spooky and sad?

My choice would be the disappearance of Judith Hines. As you'll recall, Judith Hines was the woman who disappeared in 1965 after going to a doctor about having an abortion.

What made it spooky was that a policeman kept receiving an anonymous caller from a woman claiming that Judith was alive and living in Omaha. :eek: After the story originally aired, police received an anonymous letter claiming that Judith was deceased, and that she died during an abortion, and her body was then disposed of.

What I find sad about the story is that it involved a woman who didn't want to have her baby, and tried to get rid of it by having an abortion. I am convinced that if Judith Hines had chosen a more viable alternative, such as adoption, she would still be with us. But instead, we are left with not only a mystery as to what happened to Judith, but also the sad wondering of what kind of life her child might have had if he or she had been given a chance to be born. :(

The Blind River Rest Stop Murders. The composite of the murderer was scary and it was just depressing because you couldnt help but feel soo bad for Gordon Macalister who saw the love of his lfe get murdered right in front of him

2. RHONDA HINSON - Maybe the constant showers she took were because someone she knew had raped her and she was hesitant at first about reporting him to the police. Maybe once she finally did decide to report him, she was shut up before she had the chance. Of course, that doesn't explain her question about seeing a married man. I wonder if the police ever talked to any of Rhonda's friends. Surely somebody had to know who she was seeing and what was going on in her personal life. On the night she was murdered, she left a Christmas party with two other girls who she gave a ride home to before getting killed. I'm pretty sure her killer was probably in the parking lot of that office party waiting for her to come out. He then probably followed her as she dropped off her friends waiting for her to be alone and then made his move.



That's an interesting theory about rape. I always just thought she might have felt 'dirty' about seeing a married, presumedly older man. Maybe the married guy was her boss and she liked the attention but felt pressured into sex. Or she was really into it but felt badly about seeing a married man. Especially if she happened to be religious. Or the 'married guy' could have outright raped her and she got confused about the situation.

That's also a good point about the girlfriends. You'd think they'd know something. And if the 'married guy' was from work, you'd think there would have been gossip.


As far as which cases were most spooky and depressing for me, I agree with another poster about the jane doe from Dana Point. Whatever happened, accident or suicide, it just seemed so lonely and sad. Also the Pamela Ray case.

Edit - but probably the all time spookiest and saddest for me was Dorothy Donovan. That's just nightmarish.

Yes, I agree the Rhonda Hinson case fits into this category. What a poor, beautiful young woman and I'm so sorry for her family

There are a few that got to me personally as well in terms of being spooky and depressing but unfortunately my memory isn't the best so Two that come to mind:
(1) The Lyn Amos Murder -That was the one involving the banker in Washington DC who was ambushed in her apartment, forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol and then set on fire and left for dead in 1995. She died ten days later from her burns. She seemed like such a beautiful, pretty young woman who had so much potential in life and the case really got to me for some reason. Also, I doubt that case will ever be solved and it bothers me that the evil monster that did it will likely never be held to account

(2) OK, I think her name was something like Antoinette Cayedito but I'm not quite sure. She was the young girl of American Indian descent in New Mexico who disappeared from her mother's house without a trace. A while later the police department received a call from a young girl who claimed to be the missing girl in question but she got cut off by a male before she could give more details. Then a waitress had a strange encounter with a girl who matched her appearance in a restaurant where she left a note on her napkin under the table asking for help. Then her sister told police that, on the night that she had disappeared, someone had knocked on the door claiming to be her "Uncle Joe" and then had snatched her away when she opened it. That case was just so creepy but also so sad because it looks like that poor girl suffered for a number of years at the hands of some very evil people and was desperately trying to escape.. For all we know she might still be suffering all these years later (look at Jaycee Duggard). I read that her poor mother died a few years ago without knowing what happened to her daughter and her case is still unsolved. I really hope against all hope that this case can somehow still be solved and, if possible, the evil people who did this can be held accountable for their crimes

The following are several that I've always found somewhat difficult to watch.

1. New Hampshire Serial Killer. Well to start with, the nighttime always adds an air of eerieness to anything, and whether it's night or day, most people don't think in a million years that a situation as mundane as using a vending machine is going to lead to abduction and attempted murder. Also, it's a good thing that the victim had a friend living nearby, because, at least from looking at the surroundings in the segment, it looks like this whole thing took place out in the middle of West Bumblexxxx, and when you have to run for your life in the middle of the night in a place where few, if any people are going to see or hear anything, that's probably one of the spookiest, most unsettling experiences a person could ever have.

2. Tracy Wofford-Bunn. Again, another segment where somebody is running from someone or something in the middle of the night (and in a neighborhood that I've heard is not a particularly safe place to be at night), made even scarier by the fact that, between the time she disappeared and the time she was found the next morning, we don't know just exactly what took place or why. Another scary thing is when she was found, it didn't initially occur to the lady who lived in the apartment complex that Tracy was dead. She thought she was just asleep, and when Robert Stack said "it soon became obvious that the woman was NOT asleep," I can honestly say that is one of the top five most chiiling sentences ever spoken by RS. Also, when the story was finally solved (which wasn't something I was ever expecting to happen in the first place), the killer had already been dead for some time.

3. Jim Burnside. It's perplexing enough trying to figure out what it was in the first place that made the cute, friendly Annette fall in love with this man who was old enough to be her father, drank and smoked heavily, and was (at least in my opinion) quite ugly from looking at the pictures of him that were shown on UM. These things aside, this man is one of the most sick and twisted people I've ever seen profiled on the show. Listening to him repeatedly threaten Annette, her mother basically not being able to do anything about it, and the cold, calculating look he had about him as he was loading his rifle are all scary enough, but to me, the single most horrific moment of that whole segment is the exchange he has with his daughter ("you wouldn't hurt me, would you Daddy?" Oh, yes I would!").

4. Keri Lynn Nixon. It's unsettling, to say the least, that there were people down in South Carolina who were rock-solid in their belief that they had seen (and in some cases, stood face to face with and even talked to her), yet when the story was updated, that entire theory was dismissed as being untrue. Kind of makes me wonder if there might have been another girl going around pretending to be her, especially since the police in Eutawville, SC were unsuccessful in getting any information from the friend that seemed to be traveling with her.

5. Lisa Marie Kimmell. Another case where several witnesses who could best be described as everyday people with nothing noticeably suspicious or questionable about themselves, were dead sure that they saw something that probably didn't happen (especially since a body identified as Lisa's had been found before the fact), and one very troubling aspect of the case is that the clincher for most of these people was seeing the customized license plate, because when you think about it, no two licence plates from the same state are going to be exactly identical, so if it wasn't Lisa's car that they saw, that what was it that they did see? And if it was Lisa's car, was she actually the blonde-haired girl driving, or a look-alike? With all of these strange occurrences, it might have been some people's hope that perhaps that body had been misidentified, but when it was finally discovered years later what really happened, it turned out to be something as scary, or perhaps scarier, than everything that was thought to have happened before. Her car was found buried on the property of the man who would ultimately be put to death for the crime, and evidence now suggests that Lisa herself also suffered a horrible, gruesome death at the hands of this man.

6. Tennessee ATV Murders. When the three victims decided to take a ride in the woods, they were thoroughly unprepared for what happened, since they had done the same thing many times before without incident. When they encountered the killer, that to me was one of the scariest moments in UM history. Not only did the killer apparently not utter a word, but he shot at the victims as calmly and methodically as if he'd been out in the woods hunting animals.

Also, something I wanted to mention to the poster who mentioned the story about the infant who was beaten to death just in case they, or anyone else was unaware. That case was largely solved in 2009. The baby's mother was identified as Penny Lowry and sentenced to 45 years in prison for the crime. However, the identity of the male suspect remains unknown.

5. Lisa Marie Kimmell. Another case where several witnesses who could best be described as everyday people with nothing noticeably suspicious or questionable about themselves, were dead sure that they saw something that probably didn't happen (especially since a body identified as Lisa's had been found before the fact), and one very troubling aspect of the case is that the clincher for most of these people was seeing the customized license plate, because when you think about it, no two licence plates from the same state are going to be exactly identical, so if it wasn't Lisa's car that they saw, that what was it that they did see? And if it was Lisa's car, was she actually the blonde-haired girl driving, or a look-alike?

Lisa Kimmel's mother has posted on this board before and her theory seems to be that those witnesses really DID see Lisa, but just misremembered the timeline. Since Lisa had traveled to Wyoming and driven through Buffalo and Casper on numerous occasions, it's likely that those witnesses did see her at some point, just not on the particular weekend she was kidnapped.

Lisa Kimmel's mother has posted on this board before and her theory seems to be that those witnesses really DID see Lisa, but just misremembered the timeline. Since Lisa had traveled to Wyoming and driven through Buffalo and Casper on numerous occasions, it's likely that those witnesses did see her at some point, just not on the particular weekend she was kidnapped.

Well, when you think about it, I guess that's the only worldly explanation that there could be, because under the circumstances (the car, the license plate, people getting a good look at the girl behind the wheel), I guess it would have been next to impossible for it not to be Lisa.