Unsolved
1483 · United Kingdom
Princes in the Tower
In 1483 a twelve-year-old king and his brother vanished inside the Tower of London and their uncle took the crown. What became of them is still debated.
Kind of crime
Unsolved
Cases no court ever closed. Theories are presented as theories.
20 cases0 solved14 unsolved1483–1949
Unsolved
Disputed verdict
1811 · United Kingdom
Ratcliff Highway murders
Seven people killed in two East London households twelve days apart in 1811. The suspect hanged himself before trial, and doubts have outlived him.
Unsolved
1833 · Germany
Kaspar Hauser
A foundling who claimed a childhood in a dark cell, rumours of a stolen prince, and a stab wound in an Ansbach park in 1833. Murder or self-inflicted?
Unsolved
1841–1842 · New Jersey
Mary Rogers
In 1841 New York's 'beautiful cigar girl' was found dead in the Hudson. Her death was never solved, and it gave Edgar Allan Poe a detective story.
Acquitted
1857 · United Kingdom
Madeleine Smith
A Glasgow architect's daughter, a secret lover, his bundle of letters and three purchases of arsenic. In 1857 the jury said: not proven.
Unsolved
1874–1875 · Pennsylvania
Charley Ross
In 1874 two men lured a four-year-old into a buggy in Germantown and demanded $20,000. Charley Ross was never found, and America learned to fear strangers.
Acquitted
1886 · United Kingdom
Adelaide Bartlett
A London grocer died on New Year's Day 1886 with liquid chloroform in his stomach and no burns in his throat. His wife was tried for murder and acquitted.
Unsolved
1888 · United Kingdom
Jack the Ripper
Five women killed in ten weeks in London's East End in 1888, a name invented in a letter, and a killer the police never identified.
Acquitted
1892–1893 · Massachusetts
Lizzie Borden
Andrew and Abby Borden were killed in their Fall River home in 1892. A jury took barely an hour to acquit his daughter Lizzie. No one else was charged.
Unsolved
1907–1908 · Ireland
Irish Crown Jewels theft
Days before a royal visit in July 1907, the diamond regalia of the Order of St Patrick vanished from a safe in Dublin Castle. They have never been found.
Unsolved
1912–1917 · Iowa
Villisca axe murders
Eight people, six of them children, were killed in one house in a small Iowa town in June 1912. Two men faced the law. Neither was convicted.
Unsolved
1918–1919 · Louisiana
Axeman of New Orleans
In 1918-19 an intruder with an axe terrorized New Orleans, above all its Italian grocers. He was never caught, and his famous jazz letter may be a hoax.
Acquitted
1922–1926 · New Jersey
Hall-Mills murder
A New Jersey rector and his choir singer were found shot under a crab apple tree in 1922. His rich widow and her brothers were tried in 1926 and acquitted.
Unsolved
1922–1955 · Germany
Hinterkaifeck
Six people were killed on a lonely Bavarian farm in 1922, and someone kept feeding the cattle for days afterwards. A century later no one has been charged.
Unsolved
1922 · California
William Desmond Taylor
A leading Hollywood director was shot in his bungalow in 1922. The suspects included two film stars and a stage mother, and the case files later vanished.
Unsolved
1929–1931 · Illinois
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Seven men lined against a garage wall in Chicago, 1929. Gunmen dressed as police. Capone blamed by everyone, charged with nothing. Nobody was ever tried.
Unsolved
1930–1979 · New York City
Judge Crater
On 6 August 1930 a New York judge left a Midtown chophouse and was never seen again. The 'missingest man in America' and the Tammany scandal around him.
Disputed verdict
1931 · United Kingdom
William Herbert Wallace
A phone message sent a Liverpool insurance man to an address that did not exist. He came home to find his wife dead, and was sentenced to hang.
Unsolved
1934 · Belgium
Ghent Altarpiece theft
In April 1934 a panel of van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece was stolen and held to ransom. The man who seemed to know where it was died before he could say.
Unsolved
1947–1949 · California
Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short, 22, was murdered in Los Angeles in January 1947. Hundreds confessed, dozens were suspected, and no one was ever charged.