cold cases

Stories 201 - 220 | << Prev   Next >>

Man Goes to Cops, Says He Killed Wife 13 Years Ago

He said he strangled 'frantic' wife in Missouri

(Newser) - A troubled man walked into a police station in Wisconsin on Sunday and confessed to killing his wife 13 years to the day earlier, police say. According to court papers filed Monday, Keith Comfort told officers that on Aug. 4, 2006, he went to his home in Columbia, Mo., after...

62-Year-Old Arrested for Crime That's Nearly 40 Years Old

North Carolina man Robert James Adkins was hauled in on Friday

(Newser) - A North Carolina man was arrested Friday for allegedly raping and murdering a teenage girl nearly 40 years ago, the Winston-Salem Journal reports. Robert James Adkins, 62, was charged with first-degree forcible rape and first-degree murder of Ronda Mechelle Blaylock, whose partly-clothed body was found in a wooded area in...

Body of 'Miss Molly' Exhumed in Kansas

Police hope DNA will finally ID woman found dead in 1986

(Newser) - Police in Kansas have exhumed the body of a woman killed more than 30 years ago in the hope of arriving at her real name. The partially clothed body of the woman nicknamed " Miss Molly " was found face-down in a creek along Interstate 70 in rural Saline County...

11 Years Later, He&#39;s Charged With Unspeakable Crime
11 Years Later, He's Charged
With Unspeakable Crime
the rundown
Jul 30, 2019 10:30 AM CDT

11 Years Later, He's Charged With Unspeakable Crime

Ohio's Peter Romans accused in arson that killed his wife and 2 children in 2008

(Newser) - An Ohio man was arrested this week and charged with killing his wife and two children by setting fire to their family home. Beyond the heinousness of the alleged crime is this wrinkle—the fire took place in 2008. Peter Romans, 59, is now in jail on three counts of...

Vatican Missing-Girl Mystery Deepens as Bones Are Found

Emanuela Orlandi disappeared in 1983

(Newser) - The mystery of the 1983 disappearance of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee took yet another twist Saturday following excavations this week at a Vatican City cemetery, the AP reports. The Vatican said it had discovered two sets of bones under a stone slab that will be formally opened...

They Opened 2 Tombs to Solve One Mystery, Created a 2nd
Vatican Opens 2 Tombs
in Hunt for Long-Missing Teen
the rundown
Jul 11, 2019 10:45 AM CDT

Vatican Opens 2 Tombs in Hunt for Long-Missing Teen

Remains of Emanuela Orlandi aren't there, and neither are those of original bodies

(Newser) - Emanuela Orlandi is still missing—and now two long-dead princesses are, too. Emanuela was an Italian teenager who disappeared more than 30 years ago, and the Vatican on Thursday opened two 19th-century tombs after the family got a tip she might be buried in one of them. They found nothing,...

Army Vet's Death Raises Question: Is DB Cooper Dead?

Robert Rackstraw was suspected of being the notorious hijacker

(Newser) - A 75-year-old Army vet named Robert Rackstraw died this week in San Diego after years of heart trouble. That would not be making headlines save for one thing: Some think Rackstraw was the infamous parachuting hijacker DB Cooper , reports the San Diego Union-Tribune . In fact, a History Channel documentary in...

TV Show Helps Lead to 84-Year-Old's Arrest for Murder

Norma Allbritton arrested thanks to partnership between authorities, reality show

(Newser) - For decades, the death of Johnnie Allbritton—shot with a 20-gauge shotgun in the chest and back as he entered his Buffalo, Texas, home on May 14, 1984—had remained unsolved. Then, in 2015, Leon County Sheriff Kevin Ellis digitized the files and evidence and sent it all to Cold ...

DNA Pointed to the Same Man. It Took Decades to Get Him
They Had a DNA Match
in 1993. It Wasn't Enough
longform
Jul 2, 2019 12:11 AM CDT

They Had a DNA Match in 1993. It Wasn't Enough

'Mother Jones' looks at the trouble with DNA advances and our statutes of limitations

(Newser) - When law enforcement officials came to Mary-Scott Hunter's door in March 2018 to say the man suspected of raping her was in custody, it wasn't for that crime. She was raped in 1987, when the statute of limitations on rape in Minnesota was just three years. The man...

Newborn Found in 1993. Now, Murder Charges
New Development, Twist in
Mystery of 'Geauga's Child'
in case you missed it
Jun 15, 2019 11:30 AM CDT

New Development, Twist in Mystery of 'Geauga's Child'

Gail Eastwood-Ritchey charged with murder after DNA hunt

(Newser) - It's yet another cold case apparently cracked thanks to an ancestry website that collected people's DNA. This time, it involves a dead newborn found in a trash bag along an Ohio road in 1993. The baby's mother, 49-year-old Gail Eastwood-Ritchey, now faces murder charges, but the case...

A Soldier Was Killed in '87. Now, an Arrest in Her Murder

Colorado's Michael Whyte charged in death of 20-year-old Darlene Krashoc

(Newser) - A suburban Denver man has been arrested in the unsolved slaying of a soldier in Colorado 32 years ago after DNA evidence was used to create an image of what a suspect might look like, authorities said Friday. Civilian and Army investigators arrested Michael Whyte of Thornton in the 1987...

DNA Find Leads to Charges in Horrific 1993 Child Murder

Pedophile Earl Cox was already behind bars

(Newser) - A convicted pedophile who ran an international child pornography ring was charged with the 1993 abduction, rape, and killing of a 9-year-old Missouri girl after previously undetected DNA found on her underwear implicated him in the crime, authorities announced Wednesday. Earl Webster Cox, who has been in custody for years...

Algorithm Finds 51 Eerily Similar Chicago Murders

'It just screams serial killer'

(Newser) - The bodies turned up in some of Chicago's most derelict places: alleys, abandoned buildings, weed-choked lots, and garbage containers, per the AP . The victims were mostly black women who had been strangled or suffocated. Authorities believed many were prostitutes or drug addicts or both. There was evidence of sexual...

Judge Ditches Guidelines, Gives Man Life Over 1993 Killing

He cites toll on son, who witnessed the crime as a toddler

(Newser) - A quarter-century after a toddler told police his father hurt his mother, that man has been locked up. Michael Haim, 52, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for the 1993 murder of his 23-year-old wife, Bonnie. Haim lived for years off Bonnie's life insurance policy before his son...

After 34 Years, Arrest Made in Murder of TV Director

Cops say Edwin Hiatt admitted killing Barry Crane

(Newser) - A man charged with bludgeoning and strangling to death a Hollywood television director more than three decades ago was arrested Thursday in North Carolina after police said DNA and a confession linked him to the crime. Edwin Hiatt was arrested in Burke County for the 1985 death of Barry Crane...

33 Years Later, Hubby Charged in Newlywed's 'Staged' Slaying

John Norton accused of inventing 1985 home invasion

(Newser) - It was long thought that 23-year-old Karen Norton was killed when she interrupted a 1985 home invasion. More than three decades later, authorities in Maryland have offered a different version of events, alleging murder at the hands of the newlywed's husband. Indicted on first-degree murder charges, John Norton, 57,...

Suspect in 1981 Cold Case Nabbed After Asking Question

'Did you find the body?'

(Newser) - There's no body, no DNA evidence, and no confession. The Thursday arrest of the husband of a woman who vanished in Bucks County, Pa., in 1981 instead came after an odd question: "Did you find the body?" William Korzon, who had a history of assaulting his wife, asked...

A Years-Old Used Razor Cracks Cases From the '70s

It contained Arthur Rudy Martinez's DNA

(Newser) - Arthur Rudy Martinez was an early suspect in a pair of murders in Atascadero, Calif., in the late 1970s. It took 41 years to officially name the now-deceased man as the suspect. The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office credits that confirmation to a used razor kept for years...

Man, 80, Arrested for 1973 Double Murder

Police say he killed 2 young women in Virginia

(Newser) - A suspect is in custody almost 46 years after a double murder that horrified Virginia Beach. Lynn Seethaler and Janice Pietropola, two 19-year-old women from Pittsburgh, were found murdered in their room at a seaside motel in June 1973. Pietropola had been raped, strangled, and shot in the head three...

He Told Police, 'Daddy Hurt Her.' Decades Later, He Found Her Body

Bonnie Haim murder trial begins this week in Florida

(Newser) - When Aaron Fraser was 3, his mother disappeared, and the little boy told police he had seen his father shoot and kill her, News4Jax reports. He was removed from his father's Florida home, and eventually adopted by another couple, after his father became the main suspect in his mother'...

Stories 201 - 220 | << Prev   Next >>