They say a crime is committed every few seconds, but for every case that’s solved there are hundreds more that remain mysteries. Today we’re going to look at ten of the creepiest, most bone-chilling unsolved crimes from around the world.
10. The BC Feet Mystery
The GuardianImagine going to the beach for a dip and finding a severed foot washed up on the shore. That’s exactly how some unlucky locals felt when they visited a beach in British Columbia.
This wasn’t an isolated incident either. For years severed feet mysteriously washed up along the same coastline. Almost all of them wore running shoes, but only two of them were part of a pair!
Authorities are unsure where the feet came from or who they once belonged to. Some theorise that they were from victims of plane or boating accidents. Others say they separated from the rotting corpses of drowning victims and floated off.
And then there are those who believe that a psychotic killer with a dismemberment fetish is running amok somewhere in British Columbia. Unless the rest of the remains turn up, we may never know what happened…
9. The Tylenol Killer
PatchIn 1982, seven Chicago residents died after unwittingly taking Tylenol laced with cyanide. One of these victims was twelve-year-old Mary Kellerman, who only took the Tylenol to get over her cold.
Once the discovery was made, Chicago police issued a state of emergency. They quarantined all Tylenol products until they could guarantee they hadn’t been tampered with.
After an exhaustive investigation, authorities determined that the contaminated bottles had come from totally different production plants. This meant the person responsible wasn’t a disgruntled pharmaceutical employee; they were just some random lunatic tampering with pharmaceutical goods with the intent to hurt people.
Unfortunately, the person responsible was never caught. The case also inspired a slew of copycat killers.
8. The Phantom Barber
Obscurban LegendIn 1942, a string of bizarre crimes occurred in a small town in Mississippi. For two months a mysterious individual broke into people’s homes and cut off locks of their hair while they slept.
This ‘Phantom Barber’ never physically hurt their victims, nor did they steal anything – other than their victims’ hair, that is. But locals were still on edge at the thought of someone sneaking into their homes.
Eventually, the crime was linked to a man named Dolan – no, not that Dolan! William Dolan was convicted for an unrelated attempted murder. So, naturally, locals assumed he was also the one terrorising the town with a pair of shears.
Unfortunately Dolan was completed exonerated by a lie detector test, which means the sneaking scissor-wielder is still out there…
7. The Taman Shud Case
ODDXThis one’s a real head-scratcher. In 1984, a man was found dead under a street lamp near Australia’s Somerton Beach. There were no signs of a struggle, which led authorities to believe he’d been poisoned or had died from a heart attack. But an autopsy revealed the man had exceptional health and no traces of poison in his body.
What’s stranger still is the man had no identification whatsoever. His fingerprints and dental records had no matches, and even his clothes had been stripped of all identifying marks. After a thorough search, police eventually found a strange scrap of paper hidden inside a secret pocket in his pants. The paper had the words ‘Tamam Shud’ printed on it, which is a Persian phrase meaning ‘finished’.
After an Australia-wide search police found the exact book the scrap of paper had been torn from. It was an obscure collection of Persian poems. At the back of the book, police found another strange code – this time with five sets of seemingly random letters. Scotland Yard were called in to assist, but even then the authorities couldn’t crack the code or figure out what had happened to this mysterious man.
6. The Jamison Family
Parkaman MagazineIn 2009, all three members of the Jamison family vanished from their truck during a trip to buy land outside of Oklahoma. Days later, authorities found their truck abandoned on the side of a highway. Inside were their IDs, phones, GPS and $32,000 in cash. Their pet dog was also found in the truck, abandoned and starving.
The family’s whereabouts were a complete mystery for four years. Finally, in November 2013, locals chanced upon the family’s remains just three miles from where their truck had been discovered.
No one knows what caused this family to suddenly abandon their possessions, but some believe they committed group suicide or became the victims of a violent cult. To further complicate things, the Jamisons once told their pastor that their home was being haunted by malevolent spirits. Apparently they were so desperate to get rid of them that they’d even tried performing occult rituals. When authorities searched their property after their initial disappearance, they found a strange shipping container with cryptic satanic messages written all over it. Very creepy!
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