Most interesting unsolved non-serial killer cases

[glyn]

Whether you believe they were guilty or not (and I'm in the "not" camp), the trial was a joke.

The trial certainly wasnt everything it should have been I agree,but I cant go along with the popularly held view in some quarters that the State railroaded 3 innocent men (boys),based on the fact that Damien Echolls was a heavy metal fan and a Wiccan.To me ,the evidence was patchy maybe, the confession questionable as to detail,but what stood out for me was the defendants demeanour,it didnt marry up with expected demeanours of 3 innocents...quite the reverse in fact.Im grateful I wasnt on the jury,Id have had to vote innocent all the while believing them to be guilty as hell.if that makes sense.

[Magpie]

The trial certainly wasnt everything it should have been I agree,but I cant go along with the popularly held view in some quarters that the State railroaded 3 innocent men (boys),based on the fact that Damien Echolls was a heavy metal fan and a Wiccan.

I agree that's an oversimplification. Mostly it's because Echolls parole officer hated his guts and was willing to lie about him, while an ambitious prosecutor and a lazy police force couldn't bring themselves to dismiss this bozo.

To me ,the evidence was patchy maybe,

If by "patchy" you mean "non-existent", I'd agree

the confession questionable as to detail

Do you mean the confession from Miskelley that wasn't admissable in Echolls trial but that somehow the jury was given a copy of? Or the "confession" of Echolls at the baseball game where the only testifying witness told three different versions and has since admitted that she invented the entire incident?

",but what stood out for me was the defendants demeanour,it didnt marry up with expected demeanours of 3 innocents...quite the reverse in fact.

Agreed, Echolls came across as a total ****wit during the trial. But think about this: you're 16, on trial for something that you know you didn't do. You got this idiot parol officer on the stand spewing the same crap about you that he's been telling everyone for years--only now people are actually listening to him. You got everyone you were on bearly noddingn acquaitanceship with in your town claiming that you were pouring out your deepest secrets to them. You got zero physical evidence against you. and to cap it all off some idiot gave you this uber-goth haircut minutes before your first court appearance. The temptation to treat this like some absurd joke that simply cannot be taken seriously has to be there--especially if you're a teenage-angsty loner with a need for attention.

Echolls admits he was an idiot, admits he didn't take the court case seriously, and admits that he presented a terrible image in court

You can't execute teenagers for being...well...teenagers--however tempting it may seem, sometimes

Im grateful I wasnt on the jury,Id have had to vote innocent all the while believing them to be guilty as hell.if that makes sense.

Unfortunately the good citizens of West Memphis didn't share your admirable principles

[sdreid]

I would hate to vote not guilty when I thought the person committed the murder and the case wasn't proven against them but that's what I'd do of course. Here however, I don't think I'd be all that bothered voting not guilty.

[glyn]

Magpie,
Much of what you said has a basis in truth.But to say there was NO evidence against them isnt true....there was circumstancial evidence,a fair bit of it,issues regarding Echols mental problems,Misskellys confession,and more besides....conclusive evidence? of course not,so one has to deal with what there is.Abscence of conclusive evidence doesnt necessarilly mean innocence.But I guess we will have to agree to differ on that one.

[sdreid]

Since I first read about it, the Spyglass Murder Case has been a minor fascination to me. On July 23 of 1956, 50-year-old Margaret Gallagher was sunbathing in Chicago's Lincoln Park along the lakefront when she was attacked, strangled and beaten to death. The crime got its name because a resident in a nearby high rise actually witnessed the slaying through a telescope. A man named Barry Zander Cook was charged with the killing but a jury was unconvinced and he was found not guilty leaving the crime unsolved officially.

Since he appears to have been engaged in some voyeurism, I'm actually surprised that the witness came forward. It must have been embarrassing for him. I don't know but I'm assuming it was a man.

[Ausgirl]

I noticed a few mentions of the 'Cabin 28' murders, aka the Keddie murders. I've been researching this case pretty heavily for the past year or so and even helped turn up some info on one of the suspects.

There's been a lot of new developments in the past year, and there's a new discussion board free of a lot of the vitriol and misdirection present in the old one: http://keddiemurdersfilm.com/forum/index.php

It really is a mystery, and quite a convoluted one because the crime scene on close inspection makes -no- sense (we've found there's evidence it was staged after the murders for reasons we cannot yet discern), there's a deal of evidence that the cops and DoJ buried the crime early on in the investigation, and the main suspects who really should have been arrested - one confessed, even - never were (one was linked via the message board members' research to mob crime and bank robberies in Chicago and Indiana, and who was a protoge of Jim Rini, the guy who claimed involvement the Molly Zelko case, another fascinating unsolved crime).

It's a labyrinth of hearsay and misdirection, and my suspicion is that the Keddie murders were not directly drug related, but perpetrated by men involved in a local drug trade which included county officials and their friends, and who were possibly also police informers - and thus, they sailed free into the sunset and the investigation stalled at every turn.

The murders themselves are really odd - we discovered the bodies were bound both pre- and post-mortem, for example, and the body of Sue Sharp arranged to suggest a rape that never happened. And of course, little Tina Sharp was abducted from the scene - her skeletal remains were found three years later and some 65 miles away in Butte County. Apparently the Butte county cops received a call some weeks before the body was found, stating that they'd soon find Tina - the call was ignored, as the cops in Butte had no idea what the guy was talking about.

Anyhow, I do think it's fascinating, and it also sparked me to look into the Molly Zelko case which is equally interesting.

Apparently Jim Rini had Bobby Kennedy and a pile of FBI agents out digging up an orchard in search of Molly's body, which wasn't found. Rini (who later recanted and claimed no knowledge of the crime) boasted that Kennedy took a swing at him with a shovel in sheer frustration.

[sdreid]

Hi Ausgirl:

Both those cases are very interesting and I've discussed the Zelko disappearance recently over on websleuths.com

I was surprised that her estate was only something like $36,000 which, even in 1957, seems quite meager for a supposedly successful single woman in her late 40s.

[sdreid]

Over there on that site, I have Zelko at #84 on my list of top 200 most interesting classic (more than 20 years old) unsolved murder cases. Cabin 28 is #81.

[Ausgirl]

sdreid - funny how both cases are linked, then, even if indirectly.

I am currently so excited - we have a pile of new information coming in about one of the perps in the Keddie case. There was no new information at all on this case for many years, and this past year there's been an absolute avalanche of it - so many things to slot into place! Tiny pieces of the puzzle, though, and few of them join up neatly but we can hope at least to figure out some of the picture of why those people were murdered. Having surviving family members and people who lived in the area being involved with the board has made this very personal - hard to see it as just another case.

[louisa]

"I was surprised that her estate was only something like $36,000 which, even in 1957, seems quite meager for a supposedly successful single woman in her late 40s"

I think that $36,000 was a huge sum for an individual to have in those days.

I don't know what the exchange rate was like back then, but I know that in Britain the average annual salary (before tax) was around £650.


My favourite cases:

The Croydon Poisonings
The Dominici Affair
The A6 Murder (James Hanratty)
The Wallace Case

[sdreid]

Before the Pound was devalued in the mid-1960s, $36,000 would have been equal to about 8,000 Pounds.

Amelia Zelko had a huge diamond ring and a relatively new luxury car. Those two things alone should have totaled up to about $36,000 so she had absolutely nothing else?

[E.J.H.]

That's a great thread. Aside Jack the Ripper, Jack the Stripper, The Texarkana's one and of course Zodiac, I didn't know that there was so much cases ... I'll check on them.

[Mayerling]

Death of a Victim's father today.

It is not quite the same as the rest of this thread, but I saw in the New York Times obituraries that former Illinois Senator (and Presidential possibility) Charles Percy died. He had been suffering from Altzheimer's disease for several years. As you may remember, in 1966 (when he was in his first U.S. Senatorial contest) Percy's daughter Valerie was bludgeoned to death in their home. Nobody was ever arrested or tried or even openly suspected of the murder (although the authorities insisted it was not a burglary murder). So it remains, fifty five years afterwards, an unsolved crime. Her twin sister eventually married Senator Rockefellerof West Virginia.

Jeff

[HollyDolly]

Most Interesting unsolved non-serial killer cases

Just dug out the story - chap 11 "the dark age killer" - in "From the X Files of Murder" 1996 by Mike James, The True Crime Library ( the publishers of True Detective etc mags in the UK).

July 1929 in Detroit, Beniamino Evangelista a contractor is found beheaded in his office over a copy of an occult book he was writing, upstairs his wife and 4 kids similarly beheaded. Several links on line about the case.

Talk of occultism, cults and other crazy **** of that ilk....

http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detr...=4&siarticle=3

I believe Jay Robert nash has this in a book he wrote about unsolved murders,forgot the title to it right now.

[sdreid]

I remember that one real time Jeff.

Was that Open Files Holly?