What are some of the lesser-known still-unsolved cases from the earlier years?

[Composite Sketch]

This is another idea I came up with. There are the oft-talked about cases that still haven't had a resolution such as D.B. Cooper, Tami Leppart, the I-70 killer, the Maples children, Widadda and Tara Leigh Calico, but there are still lots of wanted fugitives that have been profiled on UM but are rarely, if ever, talked about here. Here are a few (EDIT: by "few" I mean "several") that stick out in my mind. Of course, if they have been solved and I haven't been aware of that, let me know.

-The Bike Path Killer, originally aired in early 1996. I honestly have no idea why this one doesn't get talked about more. My vote for the scariest real-life UM story ever, due to the three drawings seen in the segment - the middle one being the most scary UM sketch of all-time, IMO. I had a hard time falling asleep for a long time after seeing that one.

http://www.courttv.com/news/hiddentr...lem_page1.html - A story about the rapes and murder.

-Elderly Texas man bludgeoned to death in his home and his truck stolen. I didn't see the original airing of this case but I did see when it was re-aired in August 1992 and they had an update where the two hitchhikers called the telecenter and gave a description of the guy who picked them up in the stolen truck.

-New Orleans serial killer, aired in October 1992. Strangled eight women, seven to death, was never caught or identified. I wonder if he stopped killing after he was profiled, and where and how he was seen nine months after his last murder (Stack mentioned near the end "He was last seen in the New Orleans area in October of 1992")

-Maria Soccorro de la Rodriguez LaPine. The Black Widow, who had several husbands die in mysterious circumstances, faked her own death and invented a sister to profit from life insurance. Stack mentioned how she was likely hiding out with her elderly mother and three children, yet she was never found.

-Hit-and-run killing of a young boy in Florida (I think - someplace hot where it doesn't snow) on Christmas day. This might have been aired in September 1993 on the 6th season premiere.

-New York mail bomber, who sent booby-trap packages over a 10-year period, killing one of his first targets and injuring several others. This first aired in January 1997.

-"Tom Johnson", who answered an ad about a computer system and who attacked the salesman and his fiance, killing the woman. This first aired in March 1994, and I'm amazed that the guy got off without ever being identified, even with the potential of the serial number from the computer leading authorities to him.

-Dr. Kenneth Frank, the California doctor convicted of drugging and raping two women in the mid-1980s, and who disappeared in January 1990.

-Tina Jefferson, the 24-year-old who was raped and killed in a Virginia schoolyard in May 1988. Witnesses saw her earlier that night in a supermarket with a well-groomed, well-spoken man, and the drawing of the suspect shows him smiling (it's really weird in a way). Case originally aired on November 1, 1989, and revisited on August 29, 2001 when DNA linked her murder with a double murder seven months later.

-On the same episode as the Jefferson murder, a young Montana woman gets into an accident on a highway, and simply walks away and is never seen again.

-The Boston area rapist, aired in May 1990. That case angered me because (and correct me if any of these details are incorrect) his first victim was raped in a clinic on Christmas Eve, and a few days after New Year's in a clothing store a woman was raped in a change room. There were at least two other attacks IIRC. I'm male but it really bothered me that women aren't even safe from rape in their place of work.

-From October 1993, a Korean woman murdered in New York City and whose body was found in a dumpster. Even though a witness saw and talked to a young Caucasian male with glasses and bloody clothes near the dumpster, just before he discovered the body, no one was arrested for the crime.

-A woman finds her biological father, and later that day, after getting drunk in a bar, the father ends up dead. A mysterious man whom no one knew was seen with the father in the bar. Date of airing unknown but likely before 1992.

Wow, I believe that's all that I can think of at the moment. Anyone else want to add anything or talk about the cases I've mentioned?

*Edited because I keep thinking of new cases to add.

[UMfan77]

Those are all really interesting unsolved cases that you've mentioned and I've seen most of them.

The one about the man "Tom Johnson" who bought a computer from a man and his girlfriend is very interesting. It is mentioned in the segment that while the man and his girlfriend went out to breakfast, a woman in the hotel complained to the management of noise coming from the room next to her. After the man and his girlfriend came back to the hotel after breakfast, that's when all hell broke loose. I wonder if this case has ever gotten solved.

The other segment you mentioned about a father visiting his daughter is familiar to me. The daughter got embarrased after her father became rowdy in a bar that she was in and she left with her friends without saying goodbye to him. The father was seen with a unknown man and then a few days later, the father's body was found.

There are so many unsolved cases, it's so unbelievable that they can't get solved.

[JohnMill]

Elderly Texas man bludgeoned to death in his home and his truck stolen. I didn't see the original airing of this case but I did see when it was re-aired in August 1992 and they had an update where the two hitchhikers called the telecenter and gave a description of the guy who picked them up in the stolen truck.


This was one of the scariest cases I've ever seen - I saw it when I was probably twelve and I couldn't sleep for days due to the gruesome composite sketch. The guy was nabbed though because I remember breathing a sigh of relief that the nut wasn't out on the street anymore. I believe the elderly man was found dead by his son.

On the same episode as the Jefferson murder, a young Montana woman gets into an accident on a highway, and simply walks away and is never seen again

Very creepy one - I remember the episode when the woman just walks off into the desert. Is she also the chick who took a picture of herself staring blankly and it was later found after her disappearance on an undeveloped roll of film? - I think this case is similar to the girl who got her car stuck in the mud and walked away never to be seen again. I think both women had severe nervous breakdowns and wandered away never to be seen again.

Another one I remember is about a woman who went missing and was seen on an Indian reservation or something and then promptly vanished.

I remember most of the ones you posted - how about the hit and run killing of a young boy Pedro (Gonzales?) in Chicago by "CaChimba"? - that guy has never been found

Later.

[Composite Sketch]

We may be talking about the same hit-and-run. I do remember that the victim and suspect were both Latin. What I remember most about the segment was that the kid went to show his friend his new toy (might have been a Super Soaker) and they froze the camera just as the car was about to hit him.

If you're right and they caught the murderer of that Texas man, I'm glad. I actually remember the sketch well even though it's been 12 years. I didn't think it was scary because it was in colour (weird I know, but only the black & white ones scare me) and he had interesting hair - it was blond and in many small braids. I recall remarking that with a distinct hairstyle like that he'd be easy to find. Maybe I was right. If anyone can name names, that'd be terrific.

[Tendervittles]

The lady from, I think New York who had her baby stolen from her while walking home with her friend and sister from the hospital.

She said she recognized the lady who stole her as one who had been at the hospital every day, always looking at her baby, and always telling her that her little girl was the prettiest baby there.

From what they showed, when the women walked out of the hospital, the suspect said something like, "it's about time! I thought you would never come out", then she put a gun to the baby's head and said if she didn't give the baby to her, she'd shoot it.
She forced them to walk around the corner to this dark alley, and then a car came up, the lady grabbed the baby, ran to the car, and they sped away.
When they first showed this story, the little girl would have been 4 years old. It's been awhile, this girl is now a teenager,and still nothing.

Sometime after this, I remember reading in the paper that some construction workers had found a body of a little girl in an ice chest that had been thrown by the side of a highway. But they estimated that the girl was about 4 yrs old, and the other girl would have been a few years older. Still, I kind of felt like they might be linked, especially if the lady who kidnapped the baby was unstable, and had been neglecting the child and she was smaller from being malnourished.

The other one was where this lady with a 2 yr old and a newborn were supposed to meet her mother at a flea market. When they get there, the 2 yr old has to go to the bathroom, so the mother, not wanting to take the baby into the porta potty, sets her down outside. When she comes back out, the baby is gone.
After reporting the baby missing, another lady comes forward, a worker at a booth at the market, she says she has a little baby too, and that earlier that day a strange lady was all over her baby, touching it, trying to hold it. It weirded that mama out, so she moved the baby away from the lady. (I think this was told with the Morgan Nick story).

Victor Shimon, the boy who grew up as an orphan, he later found out that he actually came from a big family, but when he was born, his mom died, and then dad got injured on the railroad where he worked. Dad lost his job, and the kids had to all be farmed out. Dad got coerced by social workers into believing that putting Victor up for adoption would be best, but he never got adopted I don't think.
He was looking for his family, with the possibility that his name could have been "Simon" but the 'H" was added because of their accent and record keepers spelling phonetically.

And finally, a man named Christoph, who had been raised in Germany(?), by his mom and who he thought was his father. But a couple years before she died, mom told him of working at a hotel in Canada and meeting Chris's real dad.
It was only 4 letters, but he had a couple of pictures. Toward the end of the segment, Chris said he wanted to "meet his dad, see what kind of man he was, and then HE'D decide whether he liked him well enough to have a relationship with him." While it comes off as Chris sounding like he wants to be in total control of the situation, I think it's more like perhaps Chris didn't know how to correctly phrase things in English.
Chris is now married with three kids, and was only stationed in the US for a short while, so he didn't have very long to find his dad.
They've never updated as to whether he actually found, much less met, his father.

Joan Gay Croft, the little girl who's family was in a tornado in Texas in the 30's I think. They took her, along with her half sister to the hospital, and the rest of the family went to another hospital.
Two men came in the night specifically asking for the Croft children, and in front of the sister, who was about 7, took Joan away, and she was never seen again.
Later, they said Joan had died, but when the aunt went to take clothes to the funeral home, she was told that those clothes wouldn't fit this partular little girl, that she was bigger.
I don't think they showed the body to the aunt, so no one is really sure if it was really Joan, or another little girl.
In the meantime, no one knows where Joan is. I'd like an update on this story, especially since they have the technology to exhume the body and do DNA tests.

and finally, Clifford thorne, his mama thinks his daddy took him. That's another one where they should do some DNA. I'm sure they have records where they buried those remains that they originally thought were clifford. Here, too, his mother never actually looked at what they found, she just said I feel in my heart it's not clifford, and they left it at that.
With this one, I do think the Dad knew more than he was admitting.

[dynoguy88]

One of the early cases - Who murdered Tracy Kirkpatrick? A pretty 18 year old girl from Frederick, Maryland that was stabbed to death when she was working part time in a woman's clothing store in the late 80's. Not long after she was murdered, the Frederick Police recieved a phone call on tape from a man claiming his name was Don and that he was the one who murdered Tracy. He said he realized how much sadness he caused by the killing but since they had the death penalty in Maryland that he won't come forward. A short time later, a psychic got a phone call from a man that wanted help in finding Tracy's killer and she said she would need more information first. He sent her newspaper clippings of the killing and he frequently talked to the psychic on the telephone, but she started to suspect that he might be the killer. When she contacted police, they played "Don's" tape recorded telephone call for her and she felt that "Don" was the same man. Police searched his home but they lacked enough evidence to make an arrest. Sad, sad, case.

On the cases you mentioned -

I just watched the Boston area rapist one on tape less than a hour ago. And you're right, that was heartbreaking. He raped that nurse on Christmas Eve right before she was getting ready to go home to her family to celebrate the holidays. A few days after Christmas, when he raped those two woman in the clothing store - he simply walked out of the store when he was finished and not a single witness saw him. Talk about awful timing.

The New Orleans case was pretty chilling. Always strangling his victims and always dumping their bodies in illelgal trash dump sights. At least that one lady survived, but she had her voice permantly damaged after being strangled so hard.

[JohnMill]

I remember that one (One of the early cases - Who murdered Tracy Kirkpatrick? A pretty 18 year old girl from Frederick, Maryland that was stabbed to death when she was working part time in a woman's clothing store in the late 80's)

It was like a strip mall sort of thing where you could see into the windows and see the counter and everything - he stabbed her in the back of the store correct?

A few others

1) The case of I believe a robbery of a grocery store - the doof who robbed them and after subduing them attempted to inject them with something that would make them fall asleep (It didn't work) - Luckily nobody was killed.

2) Did "Little Miss" have sort of 80s curly hair - you know the hairstyle I'm talking about all teased up.

3) The disappearance of several fisherman - One survived and lived to tell the tale - He said they were ship wrecked and had to abandon ship and eventually drifted away from each other. He remembers seeing his mates picked up by a large freighter. Those men were never seen again but their family got calls saying "I'm bringing them home" and then the call went dead. It is believed they were captured by the Cuban government.

4) Gail Delano - from the first broadcast (post malden) very lonely and depressed woman from Maine. I remember the monolouge they played at the end of the case "To say time passes quickly is a joke, for me time seems to stand still" - She disappeared while meeting a man she met in the personals. It turned out she never even turned up for this appointment but instead flew out of the state (to the southern US) and killed herself in a hotel room.

5) "Judy Hines is alive and she lives in Omaha" (Actually Judith Hines died after a failed abortion in the sixties and was "buried" at sea but those familiar with the case will get the "joke")

Later.

[Tendervittles]

I remember a really early one where this girl name Sherry turned up missing.
I think she was about 13 or 14.

A day or two after she went missing, her uncle saw her running barefoot along the median of a freeway at sunset. Not knowing she was missing, though, he thought to himself, "that sure looks a lot like Sherry." and then thought no more about it.
I believe he was a trucker, and the place he saw her running was several miles away from her home.

Her next sighting was I think a year later, someone who'd seen a flyer or poster in a window, or who was a friend of the uncle was in a truck stop several states away and saw her walk in with two older, dirty, questionable looking men. Sherry was wearing different clothes, unlike the clothes she usually liked to wear, her hair was different, she seemed distant, and she was dirty. However, she didn't seem to be acting uncomfortable around the men.

I don't recall there ever being an update on this case. I don't even remember Sherry's last name, so I can't google it.

[Composite Sketch]

Originally posted by dynoguy88
I just watched the Boston area rapist one on tape less than a hour ago. And you're right, that was heartbreaking. He raped that nurse on Christmas Eve right before she was getting ready to go home to her family to celebrate the holidays. A few days after Christmas, when he raped those two woman in the clothing store - he simply walked out of the store when he was finished and not a single witness saw him. Talk about awful timing.

Was I right in that the rape of the nurse happened in a clinic? I wanted to say doctor's office but it wouldn't make sense. Do you recall how he managed to isolate her and entrap her? Was the nurse by herself? (It's been 7 years since I saw the case that one time, hence all the questions)

The fact that he did it on such a day angered me, but what put me over the edge was how he was brazen enough to rape two women one after another in the same store. Where was the second woman assaulted? I always wondered why when he was with one woman, the other didn't run for it and get some help. I had forgotten that it was both women who were raped, but I did remember how he was not seen at all when he left - it was because it happened in the morning, right?

The police artist's depiction surprised me because the person looked kind of overweight (in fact, I remember exclaiming "he's FAT"), and nothing like the actor that portrayed him. Usually they try and find people that can ressemble the actual persons involved.

I was so mad when the case finished with no update saying he was captured. I babbled on about this case but it's one that's bothered me so much, kind of like the Rogers triple murder from the Diabolical Minds episode. I've tried to find anything about this on Google with no avail.

[dynoguy88]

O.K., I went back and looked at my tape of the Boston Area rapist to make sure I got all the details right for you since you haven't seen it in a long time. -

It was December 24, 1989, Christmas Eve. It happened at a Medical Clinic in a mall in the late afternoon, near closing time. 20 miles south of Boston. Because it was Christmas Eve, the clinic was pretty much desserted. 3 people were working; 1 male doctor 1 female nurse and 1 female lab technition. The nurse was up at the front desk. The rapist walked in and his beeper went off. He asked the nurse if he could use the phone and she said it was alright. He walked around and instead of using the phone, he put a gun to her back and told her to walk to the end of the hall. He gathered the other 2 people in the back room. He told the female lab tech to tape the nurses arms behind her back. He then left the nurse in the room and turned off the light. He took the the doctor and lab tech to withdraw the $1600 from the safe and then he told the lab tech to tape the doctors arms behind his back. He locked the doctor in a closet and then took the female lab tech to one of the examining rooms and that is where he brutally raped her. Just minutes before she was planning on leaving to spend Christmas Eve with her family. He didn't rape the nurse.

Two days later, the rapist raped the two women in the clothing store. One of the women was just 18 years old. Like the first case 2 days earlier, he chose another shopping mall in the suburban Boston area similiar to the first. Since he raped both women, I too wondered why the other woman didn't try to run for help while he was raping the other girl. But she was probably so terrified, she didn't know what to do. And remember, he made both women take off their clothes and wait in the dressing rooms. Since he had a gun, they must have thought they should stay put. He made them lock the door so that no customers would walk in. Once he finished raping both women, he simply left the store and not a single eyewitness saw him. I would think there would be more people around for an after Chrismas sale or something but I guess there wasn't the many people.

Not long afterwards, the rapest was tied to 9 more robberies, all in the greater Boston area. 8 more women were raped and their descriptions matched the same man who had raped the nurse on Christmas Eve and the 2 women in the clothing store.

It was estimated that he weighed around 200 pounds. Very average looking so that he blends into any crowd. He sometimes wears glasses.

Still no update to this case.

[dynoguy88]

Originally posted by JohnMill
I remember that one (One of the early cases - Who murdered Tracy Kirkpatrick?)

It was like a strip mall sort of thing where you could see into the windows and see the counter and everything - he stabbed her in the back of the store correct?

That is correct. She was stabbed to death in some storage room in the back of the store. Pretty close to closing time.

[Composite Sketch]

Thank you for that detailed information. It's definitely appreciated.

I wonder if the attacks stopped after the 11th one, or after his case was shown on UM. Yeah, he did seem like an average-looking person. I can't even recall any distinguishing characteristics in his face aside from his chubiness. Didn't he sometimes wear a fake mustache?

That case reminds me so much of the I-5 Killer case from 1980-81 it's scary. But Randy Woodfield never used his gun or targeted people in their homes. One of his better-known attacks was similar to what was just mentioned about Tracy Kirkpatrick - two women targeted after being noticed in a well-illuminated store with large windows, confronted with a gun, taken to the back, assaulted sexually, shot and left for dead (one of the girls survived though).

[Leia]

What about the case of Chaim (sorry, memory is failing me horribly today) a young Jewish student who was murdered in his dorm room? Was this ever solved?

[Kane]

Originally posted by Leia
What about the case of Chaim (sorry, memory is failing me horribly today) a young Jewish student who was murdered in his dorm room? Was this ever solved?

This was the case of Chaim Weiss, who was found dead on the morning of November 1, 1986. His murder has been discussed here previously. But the unfortunate answer to your question is no.

The detective who worked on this case was obviously frustrated that he unable to establish either a suspect or a motive. It may be a tough case to crack, but don't let this make you pessimistic. There is always the hope that it could one day be solved. After all, there is no statute of limitations on murder.

[Bluejay]

Joan Gay Croft: It is possible that a woman in Canada has been identified as Joan Gay. Because Joan Gay spoke very indistinctly, hospital workers may have misheard her when she gave her name. Three other little girls were never identified. All were older than Joan Gay. There used to be a piece on line describing much more about the Canadian lady and why she thought she might be Joan Gay, but all I can find now is this:

http://ardmoreite.com/stories/041498/news/news06.html

"Little Miss": If you're speaking about Little Miss 1565, whose story was never told on Unsolved (and should have been), the photo of Eleanor Cook on the cover of Rick Davies' book "A Matter of Degree" has her in Margaret O'Brien curls with big ribbons, but she may have later had her hair cut for the summer. The famous photo shows a child with a short, yes, almost 80s hair style. There's still little to no forensic evidence that Eleanor Cook was Little Miss 1565. Dental records don't match.