The Most Terrifying Unsolved Crimes Around The World

The world is full of unanswered questions and mysteries that have lost all hope of ever being solved. Despite all we think we might know, there will always be riddles the solutions to which will keep us guessing until the very end. Some riddles, like how the Bermuda Triangle spirits away its victims or how Stonehenge ever came to be, are mind-bending to think about but harmlessly fun to speculate on. Some, however, like a murder that goes unsolved for years, can haunt a person. Lives are changed in the aftermath of such brutality, and life itself takes on a far darker colour for it. Society at large is left wondering how such evil can come to be.

Fair warning: the items below are just some of the most terrifying unsolved murders from around the globe. Consider yourselves lucky that these are only words on a page to you, and not your reality — but remember that it’s a painful reality for the surviving loved ones of these victims.

JAPAN
The Setagaya Family Murders

In Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, in a particularly quiet area of the district, lived the Miyazawa family. Mikio was the father, easy-going and cordial. His wife, Yasuko, was a teacher who doted on their two children, 8-year-old Niina, and 6-year-old Rei. They were a typical family, comfortably middle-class and happy with their lives, by all accounts. Unfortunately, on the evening of December 30th, 2000, those lives would be cut short.

Yasuko’s mother, who lived next door in an offshoot of the family home, discovered the bodies the morning after the murders had taken place. Mikio, Yasuko and Niina had all been stabbed to death, while Rei had been strangled in his bed. The killer had been as bold as to leave the murder weapon and items of his own clothing in the house. He’d also spent several hours in the house after the murders, eating food from the family’s fridge and napping alongside the bodies of his victims.

Much has been determined about the killer — he’s possibly mixed-race, with a mother of possible European descent and a father of possible East Asian descent. Analysis of the sand found inside the bag he left behind was determined to come from the area of Edwards Air Force Base in California, indicating he could be military, or part of a military family. He has no criminal record, and yet the brutality and scale of this crime makes it unlikely it was his first. Despite the abundance of clues and DNA found scattered around the house, his identity remains a mystery, and after over 2 decades, it perhaps always will.

If you have any information regarding the murders of the Miyazawa family, please call 03–3482–3829.

GERMANY
The Murder of Tristan Brübach

Tristan Brübach was a 13-year-old German boy. He lived in a suburban neighbourhood on the outskirts of Frankfurt and spent a lot of his time walking the streets of that neighbourhood. Consequently, despite being relatively reserved, he was streetwise and could handle himself. One particular about Tristan was his love of animals. He had no issues approaching people walking their dogs in order to fuss over and chat about their pets.

So it seems Tristan lived a typical life, and yet the details of his murder are some of the most grisly. His body was discovered by schoolchildren at Bruno-Asch-Anlage, a park next to Frankfurt-Hochst railway station, specifically in a pedestrian tunnel. It was around 3:00 in the afternoon. The cause of death was a slash across the neck, but Tristan had also been beaten unconscious and suffered injuries to his genitals. His murder had actually been witnessed by a group of nearby teenagers but at the time, they’d had no idea of what they were seeing.

Eyewitness descriptions of the perpetrator abounded, and a composite sketch was promptly drawn up. He was believed to be a male between 20 and 30 years of age, with what appeared to be a cleft lip or a scar on his upper lip. One witness reported he was wearing a hat and had a ponytail, and a woman who tutored Tristan privately also reported that she had seen Tristan in the company of such a man shortly before his murder. There are some eyewitness accounts of various men seen hanging around Tristan at the park that day, but as yet, no suspects have been identified.

The only tangible clue came in the form of Tristan’s school rucksack, which was found abandoned a year after his murder in a wooded area in Niedernhausen. This area is 15 miles from the crime scene. The rucksack also contained a Czech-language road atlas, for which Tristan would have had no business owning as he didn’t speak Czech. From this, we can theorise that perhaps the perpetrator is Czech-speaking or from the Czech Republic itself, and is maybe a drifter, moving about the country or between various countries. While many people have confessed to the murder, no charges have ever been filed, and the case remains cold.

If you have any information regarding the murder of Tristan Bürbach, please contact the Frankfurt police at 069–755–51108 or 069–755–53111.

USA
The Girl Scout Murders

In late spring, 1977, a counsellor at Camp Scott in Oklahoma discovered a hand-written note among her ransacked belongings. The note warned, chillingly, that three campers would be murdered. The note was considered a prank and swiftly discarded, but the writer would be true to their word. A couple of months later, between the evening of 12th June and the morning of the 13th, three girls who had arrived for Camp Scott’s summer camp program were brutally killed in the middle of the night.

Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michele Heather Guse, 9, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, were just 3 of 140 girls attending the summer camp program, hoping to make new friends, learn new skills and spend time in the beautiful Ozark Hills of Oklahoma. Lori, Michele and Doris were given tent 8 to sleep in, a tent set slightly apart from the others and partially hidden behind the shower block. Throughout the night of the murders, several noises were reported — a low, intermittent moaning, a single scream, and a girl crying for her mother. The girls in tent 7 claimed a man had opened the door to their tent and shone a flashlight in, before quickly leaving.

Early that morning, one of the counsellors stumbled upon the bodies of the girls, left out on the trail. All three girls had been bound, bludgeoned with a flashlight left behind by the killer, and strangled, their bodies dragged about 150 yards from their tent. Several clues were found in the ensuing investigation, including a fingerprint on the lens of the flashlight, a size 9.5 footprint in the girls’ blood, and a hair not belonging to any of the victims.

A local criminal named Gene Leroy Hart, who had previous rape and burglary convictions, was tried for the murders but ultimately acquitted because of some glaring inconsistencies. His shoe size was 11, not 9.5, and the fingerprint on the flashlight didn’t match his. There are theories that Hart didn’t commit the murders alone, but nothing has been proven. Whatever secrets Hart might have harboured regarding the case, he took them to his grave in 1979, and there are no other suspects or leads to speak of.

SCOTLAND
Bible John

In the late 60s, a spate of murders in Glasgow, Scotland, stood out as being the work of a single serial killer. The first victim was Patricia Docker, a 25-year-old nurse and mother. Her body was found only yards from her home, the morning after a night out at Barrowland Ballroom, a famous dance hall. 32-year-old Jemima McDonald was the second victim, killed a few months after Patricia under similar circumstances. The final victim attributed to Bible John was Helen Puttock, 29-years-old, found in the backyard of her own home. All three women had been beaten, raped, strangled with their own stockings, and were missing their handbags. All had met their killer at the Barrowland Ballroom, and left with him.

The man seen leaving with Jemima was described as young, well-dressed, well-spoken, and about 6ft in height. He quoted the Bible in casual conversation, hence the name Bible John. However, it was Helen’s sister, Jean, who provided the police with most of the details they’d receive. The sisters left the Barrowlands with two men the night of Helen’s murder, one of them being Bible John. Jean described him as teetotal, a self-righteous man who quoted the Old Testament and voiced his disapproval of adultery. He gave his name as either John Templeton, John Sempleson, or John Emerson. She could even recall the make of his coat and the brand of cigarettes he smoked.

The investigation led to one of the biggest manhunts in Scottish criminal history, with a composite based on witness descriptions drawn up and circulated by the press. There have been suspects over the years, the most notable being the convicted serial killer Peter Tobin, but DNA has since ruled him out. Nobody has ever been charged, and no other murders in Glasgow or elsewhere have ever been attributed to Bible John.

BRAZIL
The Witches of Guaratuba

Throughout the 80s and 90s, in Guaratuba and in many other areas of the world, a Satanic panic was building. It came to a head in Brazil with the disappearance of 6-year-old Evandro Ramos Caetano, who vanished on his way home from school in April, 1992. Days later, his body was found in a thicket. His throat had been slashed, he’d been beaten, but worse, his eyes, ears, genitals and hands had been cut off, and he was missing his intestines, liver and heart. These gruesome details, along with the moral attitude at the time, led investigators and the public alike to believe the murder had been satanic in nature.

Sure enough, the relative who ID’d Evandro’s body pointed the finger at the wife and daughter of the mayor of Guaratuba, Celina Abagge and Beatriz Cordeiro Abagge, respectively. He claimed the women, in order to become financially and politically successful, had hired a witch to perform a ritual, one which would require a human sacrifice. According to him, Evandro had been that sacrifice.

It’s unclear what evidence the police had against these women but when questioned, they confessed to the murder, and were indicted along with 5 other men, all of whom were accused of playing a part in the crime. Collectively they became known as the Witches of Guaratuba in the highly sensationalised media reports, but despite their initial confessions, the women later recanted and claimed they’d only confessed under torture by the police. Either way, they were found not guilty in the first trial, and despite Beatriz being found guilty in a 2011 retrial, her sentence was pardoned in 2016.

So while some people might consider this a solved and closed case, for the majority it remains far from settled. There are questions as to whether the body found was really Evandro’s, as well as the extent to which the Satanic panic at the time skewed the investigation. As such, the guilt of the two women charged is still up for debate, and it’s a debate that by now will likely never reach a solid conclusion.

AUSTRALIA
The Albury Pyjama Girl

In September 1934, on a lonely stretch of road outside Albury, Australia, the corpse of a young woman was found. Her body was badly burnt, with her head beaten in and a bullet lodged in her throat. She was found in a large hessian bag, a towel wrapped around her head. The savage beating she had endured, and the resulting injuries to her brain, were determined to be the cause of death. The only clothing found on her were a few scraps of white and yellow silk pyjamas, hence the name, Pyjama Girl.

A sketch of what she might have looked like while alive was circulated in the newspapers, and eventually, in a further effort to identify her, her body was put on public display in Sydney. No real leads would crop up, however, until a decade later in 1944, when a man named Antonio Agostini confessed to killing his wife 10 years earlier, around the time Pyjama Girl was found. He claimed he’d accidentally shot her and, not knowing what else to do, driven her to Albury before dousing her in petrol and setting her alight. Consequently, the Pyjama Girl of Albury was identified as Linda Agostini, and Antonio Agostini was found guilty. Case closed?

Not quite. While it’s considered officially solved, there are some glaring inconsistencies in the case. First, Antonio never mentioned beating Linda, which was a significant part of Pyjama Girl’s murder. Second, he claimed he’d doused her in petrol when it had actually been kerosene. He gave the wrong directions to where her body was found, said he’d shot her with a revolver when the bullet found in Pyjama Girl’s throat had actually come from a pistol, and was vague about key details. Not only that, but Linda’s eyes were brown, whereas Pyjama Girl’s were blue. Their nose and bust sizes also didn’t match up.

Granted, it had been 10 years since the murder. Perhaps Antonio was simply fuzzy on some of the details. But despite the formal identification and guilty conviction of Antonio, plenty of people aren’t convinced that Pyjama Girl really is Linda Agostini. Ultimately, it’s a question of whether the police got it right, or whether they simply took the opportunity to do away with an old case that desperately needed solving.

SOUTH AFRICA
The Murders of Gert van Rooyen

In January 1990, a 16-year-old girl by the name of Joan Booysen reported her own kidnapping to the Pretoria police. She was bedraggled, unkempt, and rightly traumatised by the drugging and sexual assaults she had endured at the hands of her kidnappers. The details of her escape are unclear, but she was able to lead police straight to the door of the perpetrator. Unfortunately, upon facing arrest, Gert van Rooyen shot and killed his partner and accomplice, Joey Haarhoff, before committing suicide himself.

Across Eastern South Africa, from 1988 to 1990, a string of young girls between the ages of 9 and 16 began disappearing. After the death of van Rooyen and Haarhoff, and their connection to the abduction of Joan Booysen, police began linking these disappearances to the duo. The mystery isn’t whether or not van Rooyen had committed any other abductions — after all, he had a history of kidnapping and sexually assaulting underage girls — but rather, the mystery lies in the scale of van Rooyen’s criminal life, and the whereabouts of his victims.

Since his death, however, no full-scale investigation has been started, and answers as to the question of van Rooyen’s crimes are scarce. Witness statements and forensic evidence have linked him and Haarhoff to the disappearances of at least 9 girls, and the murder of at least 6, although the real number could be much higher. Certain personal effects belonging to some of the victims were found in van Rooyen’s home, like house keys, a backpack, and several slips of paper upon which was writing confirmed to be from one of the victims. Despite the demolishing of his house in an effort to locate DNA evidence, no remains of any of the girls have ever been found.

If you have any information regarding this case, please contact Don Chandler at gvrplus@protonmail.com.