Famous Unsolved Crimes

Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Mary Higgens Clark-they all have contributed significantly to the mystery genre of literature, weaving fascinating tales of criminals and their crimes. But murders, kidnappings, and jewelry heists aren’t just captivating in fiction; there are dozens of crimes in real life that have drawn the interest of millions of people, and some of those crimes have remained unsolved, even after several decades. Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot sport impressive records for solving cases they are presented with, but it’s possible that not even they could have cracked these famous cases.

Murder of JonBenét Ramsey

One of the most famous murders in American history, at the age of just six years old, JonBenét Ramsey was discovered dead in the basement of her home the day after Christmas in 1996. The young girl was born to wealthy parents and had already won multiple beauty pageants before she was murdered. An investigation determined that JonBenét was strangled and had received trauma to the head. A ransom note, long and handwritten, was found next to her body, and demanded $118,000 dollars, as it was originally believed that the girl had been kidnapped.

The case still has not been solved today, largely because it was not handled properly. Evidence was contaminated, as was the crime scene, and JonBenét’s body was even moved from where it had been found. Interviews were not conducted in the right way, and multiple types of DNA were found at the crime scene. The evidence that was collected seemed to point to the Ramsey parents, but they were never convicted of any crimes.

Madeleine McCann’s Disappearance

In 2007, Madeleine McCann and her family, along with many of the family’s friends, went on vacation to Portugal from their homes in England. On May 3, 2007, Madeleine and her siblings were left in a hotel room while their parents ate dinner in a nearby restaurant. When Madeleine’s mother went to check on the girl at eleven at night, she found that Madeleine was missing. The police were called, and the missing-person protocol was begun in the next few hours. However, just like with JonBenét Ramsey’s murder, mistakes were made at the beginning of the case.

DNA and other kinds of evidence were not handled properly, and information about Madeleine’s disappearance was not distributed as quickly as it could have been. Nearly thirteen years later, Madeleine still has not been found; her fate is still unknown. The Tanner Sighting and the Smith sighting, along with dozens of other possible Madeleine sightings, provided brief leads, but nothing has come of them in the long run. The McCann parents, like the Ramsey parents, were considered suspects for a long while, but there is still no conclusive answer as to what happened to Madeleine McCann.

D.B. Cooper’s Scheme

The Boeing 727 flight out of the Portland International Airport on November 24, 1971 seemed to be a routine flight, until a man going by the name of “Dan Cooper” handed a note to a flight attendant. The flight attendant was told by the mysterious man that he had a bomb in his briefcase, viewed the bomb herself, and then listened to his requests: he wanted $200,000, worth roughly $1,260,000 today, four parachutes, and a fuel tank waiting when the plane arrived in Seattle. The pilot and law officials in Seattle were informed of the hijacker’s demands, then stalled to give those in Seattle time to assemble everything the so-called “D.B. Cooper” had wanted.

The flight attendant and other crew members and passengers mentioned that D.B. Cooper had seemed polite and calm; not at all like many criminals act. When the plane arrived in Seattle, the rest of the passengers were released, and Cooper was given his money and parachutes, while the plane was given more fuel. Cooper wanted to take the plane to Mexico City but agreed to stop in Reno to refuel again.

However, by the time the plane had stopped in Reno, D.B. Cooper, a nickname given to the man by the media, was gone, as was the money and two of the parachutes. No one had seen him jump, and still today, no one knows who he was. The money was never used, but part of it was found in Oregon, and a possible body of Cooper was never found, either.

With new technology for determining perpetrators of crimes, like DNA testing and security cameras, the probability of getting away with a crime or never finding out who committed one has gone down tremendously, and likely will continue to do so. However, there will always be a few crimes like the three above, where it is impossible to figure out who was responsible.