This article is written by Vanya Verma from Alliance University, Bengaluru. This article contains the most thrilling and bizarre murder incidents that shook the world. Later this article also covers the most famous murder cases that occurred in India.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Nothing is more chilling than an unsolved murder case, and the world has plenty of them. Even when the court has given its verdict in some circumstances, it is difficult for us to accept it. This article consists of some of the most well-known murder cases that shook the world. In some of the cases, murderers have been identified, tried, and punished. While other cases remain open and may never be solved. 

Famous murder cases around the world

Dennis Nilsen 

Dennis Nilsen was a serial killer who killed six people in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He would pick up young men at London bars and then take them home to strangle them. He would also bathe and dress the bodies, frequently keeping them for weeks or even months, and talk to and have sex with them before eventually burning or flushing them down the toilet. He was only apprehended because “the leftover parts of the human he had tried to flush away were stuck in a drain outside his home.”

Download Now

Dorothy Stratten

Dorothy Stratten was an ordinary 18-year-old girl working at a Dairy Queen in British Columbia, Canada when she met Paul Snider. He wooed her with sweet words and assured her that she would be a superstar. Snider encouraged Stratten to pursue modelling and even persuaded her to relocate to Los Angeles to compete in Playboy’s 25th Anniversary Great Playmate Hunt. Snider snatched her away and planned to make money off of her. Hugh Hefner spotted Stratten’s potential and predicted that she would be the next Marilyn Monroe. Stratten first appeared in the film Playboy in the role of Miss August 1979, and then went on to star in films such as Buck Rogers, Fantasy Island, and Galaxina.

Stratten was rapidly rising the Hollywood ladder. She was already being dubbed as “one of the few budding goddesses of the new decade” by the press.

Stratten was cast opposite Audrey Hepburn in the film. She developed a love affair with the film’s director, Peter Bogdanovich while filming in New York.

Snider became suspicious of Stratten and hired a private eye to follow her around. When she went home, however, she revealed the truth to her husband: she was in love with Bogdanovich and wanted a divorce.

Snider didn’t speak much, at least not in front of her. But, according to his buddies, once Stratten called it off, he developed an unusual interest in guns and hunting. He bought a 12-gauge shotgun, took a few shooting courses, and began whispering in people’s ears that Playboy had a policy of not printing nude images of women who were slain.

Stratten paid a visit to Snider at his house on Aug. 14, 1980, to negotiate a property settlement she had promised him in the divorce. Snider, on the other hand, would take advantage of the fact that they were alone to make his move.

Snider shot Stratten in the eye with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing her. He then turned the shotgun on himself after raping his dead wife’s body.

Stratten was once poised to be one of the next big Hollywood stars, but now her name is instead forever attached to her famous murder.

Diane Downs

Diane Downs shot her three children and drove them to the hospital in 1983. One of her daughters died on the way to the hospital, another had a stroke, and her son was paralysed from the waist down. Diane stated that a “strange man” attempted to take her car and then began firing on everyone. Her secret diary, however, was eventually discovered by the authorities, and it “described her obsession with a married man who did not want kids.” Her arrest occurred as a result of this. She was given a life sentence of 50 years in jail.

Sharon Tate

For decades, Hollywood and the rest of America have been scared by actress Sharon Tate’s horrible murder by the Manson Family while she was more than eight months pregnant.

Tate was at home with pals Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring on the night of August 8, 1969. Her spouse, director Roman Polanski, was filming a picture out of the country.

At the time, the couple was renting a posh home in Los Angeles’ Benedict Canyon neighbourhood, which would later become the site of the heinous killings.

Charles Manson, the infamous cult leader, ordered a couple of his faithful followers to break into the house and kill everyone inside “as gruesomely as you can.”

The cult members assassinated 18-year-old Steven Parent, who was visiting the estate’s caretaker, as soon as they entered the premises. Then they went inside, their sights set on the people who lived there.

They rounded up the four people and tied them up in the living room. Sebring objected, claiming that the eight-months-pregnant Tate was being tormented badly. But all he got was a bullet in the chest, a foot in the face, and a knife after a knife driven into his body until he died.

Folger and Frykowski managed to liberate themselves from their shackles and attempted to flee. The attempt to flee was unsuccessful. They were pursued by the killers, who savagely stabbed them dozens of times.

Tate was the only one who had survived. She begged her captors to let her live so that her unborn child may live. The Manson Family, on the other hand, was unmoved. They stabbed her to death and drew the word “Pig” on the front door with her blood.

The house itself was Manson’s purpose for the attack. Manson wanted vengeance on the previous renter, music producer Terry Melcher, who had denied him a record deal.

All of the assaults from that night, as well as Manson himself, were apprehended by the end of the year. They were given the death penalty and were sentenced to life in prison. Every plea for parole has been turned down.

Katherine Knight

Katherine Knight was the first woman in Australia to be sentenced to life in jail without parole. She skinned her husband, John Price, after stabbing him to death. Soon after, she skinned him and fried various parts of his body, intending to feed them to her clueless children. She even arranged the table and used place cards to direct the kids to their seats.

Gianni Versace

The public continues to be baffled by the shooting of fashion superstar Gianni Versace in broad daylight in front of his mansion in Miami’s South Beach.

Versace was a well-known fashion designer and the founder of the Versace fashion house at the time of his death. In the fashion industry, he was a sensation, dressing celebrities such as Princess Diana of Wales.

But, Versace was behaving strangely on the morning of July 15, 1997. Witnesses claim he went down to a nearby cafe, passed the entrance, and then circled back to enter minutes before his death. Later, a hostess noted that it appeared as if he was being followed.

Versace then went out and got a newspaper before returning to his multimillion-dollar Mediterranean villa, but he never made it past the front door.

How the murder occurred is unknown. A young man in his twenties approached Versace from behind and shot him twice in the head, according to some witnesses. Others claimed the males appeared to know each other and they were fighting over a bag when a gunshot rang out. Regardless of how it happened, one of the world’s most recognisable fashion designers has passed away.

Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year-old male, was the offender. In the local gay community, he had a reputation as a flamboyant gold digger who preyed on older guys for free trips and expensive stuff. Many individuals, however, referred to Cunanan as unhinged.

Cunanan killed four other men throughout the country in the three months leading up to the murder of Versace, landing him on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Cunanan, on the other hand, refused to take responsibility for his actions or identify his purpose for killing Versace. Shortly after Versace’s murder, he committed suicide aboard a Miami houseboat, leaving no note and but just a few belongings.

Issei Sagawa

Issei Sagawa fatally shot a woman in his residence in 1981. He consumed various parts of her body over two days to “absorb her beauty.” He had intercourse with her body as well. Later, Sagawa attempted to dispose of the remnants in a lake near his home in France. After two years of waiting for his trial, he was judged insane and the allegations against him were withdrawn. He eventually gained prominence in Japan and became a mini-celebrity there, where he could not be lawfully jailed, and he has remained free to this day.

Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. “The Black Dahlia”

Elizabeth Short, often known as the “Black Dahlia,” was an aspiring actress who desired fame above all. She could never have anticipated how she would earn it, as the victim of a heinous crime that has haunted America for decades.

On Jan. 15, 1947, a young mother and her three-year-old daughter came across the body of Elizabeth Short, who was 22 years old at the time. Her body had been entirely sliced in half and lay brutally disfigured in the grass of a Los Angeles suburban area.

Her body was split into two pieces roughly a foot apart. Her intestines had been removed, folded, and then reinserted into her stomach. Her wrists had ligature marks, pieces of her skin had been removed, and her entire body had been drained of blood.

Her face, though, was perhaps the worst aspect. The killer had slashed it open from the corners of both sides of her lips to her ears, leaving a Joker-like smile on her face.

An editor at the Los Angeles Examiner got a call from someone claiming to be the murderer a week later. He’d kept souvenirs and would be sending them over in the mail, he claimed.

He followed through on his promise. A postal worker brought out a letter addressed to the Examiner four days later. Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate, business cards, pictures, and contact book were all included.

But, as with so many previous well-known murders, the accompanying media circus merely served to bewilder the inquiry. The authorities were inundated with tips, making it difficult to separate the truth from the lies. They interrogated 12 potential suspects and listened to more than 60 persons who claimed to be the killers, but they were unable to make any arrests.

Carl Panzram

Carl Panzram is known as “America’s most repulsive serial killer.” Throughout the 1920s, he admitted that he killed 21 individuals (though not all have been confirmed) and sexually assaulted over 1,000 boys and men. Once  Panzram hired six men to work on a boat alongside him, shot them, and then fed them to crocodiles, this is one of his most heinous crimes. “For all of these things, I am not the least bit sorry.”

Kitty Genovese

The public was shocked by Kitty Genovese’s murder, which took place outside her apartment in front of many of her neighbours.

The young woman was brutally murdered while crying for help, and the neighbours who heard her screams did nothing to aid her. The psychologists wondered how could someone observe an attack or observe a crime taking place and do nothing?

The phrase “bystander effect” was coined by psychologists, and it now appears in almost every psychology textbook.

On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese drove home to her apartment in Kew Gardens around 2:30 a.m. from the bar she worked at in Hollis, Queens. She didn’t notice the automobile that followed her all the way home from a nearby parking lot.

Genovese parked her car at the train station and began walking 100 feet to her apartment complex. That’s when Winston Moseley attacked her.

As he stabbed her, Genovese screamed. Her shouts for aid were loud enough to arouse her neighbours at 3:15 a.m. However, none of them rushed to her rescue.

One man shouted: “Leave that girl alone!” It was enough to scare Moseley away, but even with him gone, nobody helped Genovese back to her feet. For ten minutes, she crawled across the ground, slowly bleeding out, no one helping her. And then Moseley came back.

He stabbed Genovese several times more before raping and robbing her and then fled. Neighbours didn’t notify the cops until after 4 a.m., over an hour after she was assaulted. It was too late by then. Genovese had already passed away.

A few witnesses said that they dialed 911 but that their calls were not prioritised. Others simply said that they presumed someone else would have done it instead. The behaviour of Genovese’s neighbours cost the young woman her life.

The Lizzie Borden killings

Andrew and Abby Borden’s deaths are undoubtedly two of the most well-known murders in American history.

August 4, 1892, for the Borden family, began like any other day. Andrew went into town for some business in the morning, leaving his 32-year-old Sunday school teacher Lizzie at home with his wife, Abby, and the family’s housekeeper, Bridget Sullivan.

Andrew arrived later that day to find his wife had disappeared. Lizzie informed him that Abby had received a note and had gone to see a friend.

Abby, on the other hand, had not gone anywhere. She was just upstairs, dead in a pool of her blood, at that specific moment.

Lizzie helped her father in relaxing and sleeping on the couch. She tried to persuade Bridget to leave the house by telling her about a nearby department store sale, but Bridget refused. She informed Lizzie she wasn’t feeling well. Instead, she walked to her bedroom, sat down, and dozed off. With a fit of yells and shouts, Sullivan’s relaxation was cut short. Lizzie screamed that her father had been murdered. Andrew was found dead on the couch, covered in blood, as Sullivan ran out. His face had been severely deformed to the point of being unidentifiable.

Lizzie realised in a panic that her stepmother, Abby, should have returned home by now.

She requested Sullivan to look upstairs for her. The search, on the other hand, was quick. Sullivan had only made it halfway up the stairs when she discovered her, murdered with a hatchet.

Abby had been attacked with a hatchet 19 times, while her husband had been hit 11 times. Lizzie was initially not a suspect, but she was arrested and put on trial for the murders after a friend spotted her burning one of her dresses because it was stained.

The charges against Lizzie were eventually dropped by the court. They couldn’t believe the female Sunday school teacher could ever be capable of such crimes because there wasn’t enough concrete evidence against her, the defence provided witnesses who gave Borden an alibi.

Countless possibilities have been suggested as to what might have happened. Some accuse Lizzie Borden, others Sullivan and still others claim that the girls were all involved in the murders. However, the mystery has remained unanswered for over a century.

The Hello Kitty murder

Fan Man-yee, a 23-year-old nightclub waitress, was abducted in 1999 by three men. They tormented her for a month before she died, though it’s unclear whether the men were to blame for her death or if it was due to a drug overdose. The men decapitated her and stuffed her skull into a huge Hello Kitty doll when she died. The three men were all found guilty of manslaughter. The Hello Kitty Murder is widely regarded as one of the cruellest and most ruthless cases to ever come before a Hong Kong court.

Edmund Kemper, aka the “Co-ed Killer”

Edmund Kemper murdered ten people, including his paternal grandparents and mother, brutally. Kemper killed six students, beheaded them, and had sex with their corpses during an 11-month killing spree in the early 1970s in the California highlands. He also used a claw hammer to kill his mother, decapitated her head, and had sex with it before calling the cops to turn himself in.

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman

One of the most well-known trials in American history occurred after the famous killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Brown was the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, a well-known football star. The couple married in 1985 and had two children, but their marriage was tumultuous and filled with physical abuse. Brown filed for divorce in 1992, after seven years of marriage.

Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman were brutally killed outside Nicole’s Brentwood, California home on June 12, 1994.

Nicole was stabbed five times in the neck, and later they were both stabbed to death. Her throat was slashed down to the spinal cord, according to court testimony. The leading suspect was Nicole’s ex-husband.

O.J. agreed to bring himself in, but on June 17, he and his companion A.C. Cowlings made a run for it. O.J. led police on a chase across Los Angeles with a gun to his head, threatening to murder himself. He eventually gave himself in.

During the trial, there was a huge pile of evidence against O.J. for the crime. O.J. ‘s blood was discovered at the crime scene, Nicole and Goldman’s DNA was discovered in his car and home, a pair of O.J.’s gloves were discovered on Nicole’s property, and a bloody footprint at the crime scene matched his shoe.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, O.J. was acquitted of the killings of his ex-wife and Goldman. However, in the Civil Court, he was found guilty of the offences and compelled to compensate the families for $33.5 million.

Lindbergh Baby

The tragic kidnapping and killing of 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. have become one of America’s most well-known murders.

On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Sr., a well-known aviator who rose to fame after flying solo over the Atlantic, heard a noise from his kitchen that sounded like a wooden container cracking shut. The Lindbergh infant vanished from his crib just minutes afterward dialed, according to the family’s nurse.

When Lindbergh Sr. visited his son’s room, he discovered a ransom letter on the windowsill and a broken ladder outside. In exchange for his son’s safe return, the note requested $50,000.

The Lindbergh family desperately searched for the lost baby for the next three months, with the help of the FBI. Lindbergh Sr. even paid the huge ransom demanded by the kidnapper of his son. The kidnapper, on the other hand, never kept his word. Charles Lindbergh Sr. was never going to see his son again.

The Lindbergh baby’s little body was discovered dead just over a mile from his family’s estate on May 12, 1932, after more than two months he originally went missing.

The boy had been missing for at least two months and is thought to have died on the day he was stolen.

His skull had a hole in it, and his bones had been fractured multiple times. The child’s body parts had been eaten off in several places. It appeared like animals had gotten to the body first.

Richard Hauptmann, a German immigrant with a criminal record, was eventually named as the official perpetrator. Hauptmann was arrested after he had used part of the ransom money.

The Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping and following trial drew a lot of media interest. Hauptmann was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death in what was nicknamed the “Trial of the Century.” On April 3, 1936, Hauptmann died in the electric chair.

The Lindbergh infant case prompted Congress to establish the Federal Kidnapping Act,1932, making it illegal to transport a kidnap victim beyond state lines. The law is commonly referred to as the “Lindbergh Law.”

The Boy in the Box

We’re still no closer to uncovering the mystery of the Boy in the Box even after 60 years.

It all began on a freezing February day in 1957, on a roadway just outside of Philadelphia. While checking his traps, a young muskrat hunter came across a cardboard box in the woods, the body of a little child, stripped naked and mangled, was found within it.

The muskrat hunter kept his secret to himself. He was afraid that if he told anyone, the cops would come after him for his unlawful traps. So, until a braver soul discovered him, the boy’s body sat cold and rotting in the woods for days.

The kid was between the age of three and seven, and he had been mistreated horribly. He appeared weak, malnourished, and unkempt. His hair had been chopped shortly before he died, and clumps of it stuck to his body. Small scars covered his entire body, particularly on his foot, groin, and chin.

Only one modest act of kindness had been shown to the kid who had been left alone in the box. He had been wrapped in a blanket and left to rot by whoever had slain him. It was the only sign of affection he’d received.

The police took the boy’s fingerprints in the hopes of discovering a match, but nothing was found. Hundreds of thousands of flyers were sent around the neighbourhood, requesting information about the unnamed boy, but no one responded. His parents never claimed him as one of their children.

The investigators did everything they could to solve the case. They looked at everything from the cardboard box to the blanket he was wrapped in at the crime site. Every trail they took, however, led to a fresh dead end.

One of America’s most famous murders has remained unsolved for more than 60 years. Nobody knows who the youngster was or how he wound up nude and mutilated in a box in the woods. Tragically, after all these years, the world will probably never even learn the name of “America’s Unknown Child.”

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

With the deaths of seven men in the late 1920s, Chicago’s gang war reached a climax. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was a terrible scene that would live on in infamy.

Al “Scarface” Capone planned this heinous mob killing to finally eliminate his competitor George “Bugs” Moran and establish himself as the Chicago mob’s top dog.

Four of Capone’s men arrived at Moran’s warehouse on the morning of Feb. 14, 1929, where he illegally sold whiskey. Capone is thought to have persuaded Moran to the warehouse by claiming that one of his bootlegging operations in Canada needed assistance.

Five of Moran’s men, accompanied by two auto mechanics, responded to Capone’s call. They filed into the warehouse, oblivious to the fact that Capone’s men were waiting for them.

Albert Weinshank, the last of Moran’s men to arrive, was confronted by two police officers as he exited his Cadillac sedan on the street and made his way inside the warehouse. Moran’s men, fearful of being apprehended, formed a line against the wall, their backs to the cops, and remained silent so as not to expose their leader.

The individuals who had stopped them, on the other hand, were not police officials. They were Capone’s men in disguise.

Two more of Capone’s men, dressed in civilian clothing and with submachine guns, stepped inside after Moran’s men were lined up against the wall. The men were showered with gunshots. Six of them died instantly, but one endured terrible agony for hours before succumbing to his injuries in a hospital bed.

Bugs Moran, the plan’s original target, was never found. Weinshank had been mistaken for Moran by the men, a mistake that saved Bugs Moran’s life.

Capone was the most obvious suspect, yet he managed to escape detection. No one has ever been charged with the murders. Capone never claimed responsibility for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre’s brutality and bloodshed.

JonBenét Ramsey

For more than two decades, the terrible unsolved murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey had enthralled the country.

JonBenét Ramsey was a well-known beauty queen who lived in Boulder, Colorado, with her parents, Patricia and John Ramsey, and her nine-year-old brother, Burke.

The Ramsey family’s lives were turned upside down the morning after Christmas in 1996. Patsy dialled 911 in a panic, claiming she had discovered a ransom letter for their daughter. The three-page note sought $118,000 from the wealthy Ramsey family in exchange for JonBenét’s safe return.

But JonBenét hadn’t been kidnapped in the normal sense. Her body was discovered inside the family’s house just hours afterward. Following a thorough examination of the body, it was discovered that JonBenét had been sexually abused and had suffered a skull fracture. A device built from one of her mother’s paintbrushes had also strangled the six-year-old.

JonBenét’s killing was ruled a homicide, but police mistakes at the crime scene made finding the culprit extremely impossible.

Because of contradicting stories and the fact that the ransom note was written on house paper, the Ramsey family was questioned, although John and Patsy were never charged with the crime (while Burke has also been suspected by some).

Police questioned and investigated plenty of additional suspects, but none yielded any results. JonBenét Ramsey’s sad death remains unsolved to this day.

The Zodiac killer

Most criminals keep their misdeeds hidden, but “Zodiac,” as he called himself, was different from such criminals. He terrorised San Francisco with his murder spree from 1968 to 1969, teasing the cops with coded messages to the local paper. Although he claims to have killed 37 people, he was directly linked to at least five murders. When Betty Lou Jensen, 16, and David Arthur Faraday, 17, were discovered lying outside of their bullet-riddled automobile, he was terrified. Jensen died of five gunshot wounds to her back at the scene, while Faraday died of a bullet wound to the head en route to the hospital.

A half-year later, a couple who had parked their car four miles away from the crime scene was similarly gunned down, with one person injured and the other murdered. Michael Mageau, a survivor, was able to describe the killer. He described himself as a 5’8″ Caucasian male with a heavy build. The remaining evidence would be given to the police by the Zodiac killer himself.

Police got an odd call at 12:48 a.m. the same night:

I wish to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot with a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye.”  

The first letter from the Zodiac killer was delivered to the media a month later. He threatened to go on a murdering spree unless the letter was published on the main page. The murders were described in the letter, which was written in cryptic cyphers that appeared to constitute a code. This was a recurring subject in his subsequent letters, which were all signed with a crossed-circle symbol. A high-school instructor and his wife decoded one of these letters. It said:

 “I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FOREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI.

The Zodiac killer continued to kill and leave police with frustrating evidence– coded messages, anonymous phone calls, the crossed-circle scribbled on victims’ automobiles, sending over blood-stained clothing, and testimonies from survivors– but they never caught him.  

The Taman Shud case

The Zodiac Killer wasn’t the only one who liked to play with codes. A body was discovered on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia, on December 1st, 1948. The man’s body was in excellent shape, with no visible injuries. He was well-dressed, however, all of his clothing labels were missing. He had a railway ticket to Henley Beach in his pocket, which he had never used. They discovered a bag related to him at Adelaide Railroad Station a month later. Its label, as well as the labels on the clothing within, were removed.

Unfortunately, it yielded no results, just as his autopsy revealed no foreign substance in his body that may be linked to the poisoning. A month later, they discovered the most important but perplexing evidence in a hidden pocket in the man’s slacks. “Taman Shud,” it said.

Officials from the public library were summoned to translate the sentence. They deduced that it meant “completed” or “ending,” which they discovered in Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, a collection of poems. Police immediately began a nationwide search for the book from which the scraps were torn.

A man claimed that he discovered the book in the backseat of his open car a week or two before the body was discovered. An odd code was scratched out in pencil on the back of it. A nurse’s phone number was also obtained, though the nurse claimed to have delivered a copy of the Rubaiyat to an army officer called Alfred Boxall. The man who discovered the book, as well as the nurse, denied any link to the deceased guy. They never followed up on the case, however many believe it was a suicide because the book’s theme was about having no regrets when one’s life came to an end. Others believe he is a spy. And his grave will continue to read till there are any breaks in the case- “Here lies the unknown man who was found at Somerton Beach 1st Dec. 1948.”

Tara Calico case 

Tara Calico went for a ride on her mother’s pink bicycle. She had planned to play tennis later that afternoon and had asked her mother to bring her out in case she suffered a flat tyre and didn’t return home by noon. She never came back. Every lead led nowhere until a year later, when a photo of a young woman her age and a lost boy, both gagged, was discovered.  

The Polaroid image was discovered in the parking lot of a Florida Junior Food Store. Michael Henley, nine years old at the time, went missing while hunting turkeys with his father in the same area as Calico in April of 1988. They appeared to be in the back of a vehicle, with a copy of one of Calico’s favourite authors, V.C. Andrews, laying next to the girl. Tara’s mother didn’t believe the girl was her at first, but the girl in the photo had a scar that looked exactly like Calico’s. Despite this, many experts dismiss the photograph due to a lack of evidence.

Michael Henley’s body was discovered in the Zuni Mountains in 1990, where he was hunting, putting an end to the hypothesis that the two were kidnapped and transferred to Florida. Calico’s parents died without ever learning who kidnapped their daughter.

The severed feet mystery

In 2007, a young woman was walking along a beach in British Columbia when she came across a shoe. As she opened the sock, she was horrified to discover a human foot inside. A lot of severed feet have washed up on the beach since then. Five men, one woman, and three males of unknown gender have been linked to the feet. With a hoax foot thrown in here and there over the years, the case has never been closed, and numerous theories as to who the feet belonged to have circulated.

In 2008, Vancouver police were able to identify one foot by matching its DNA to that of a suicidal guy. They were able to connect two more feet to a woman who was likewise thought to have committed suicide later on. Because of these results, many people believe that the feet belong to people who died by jumping off a bridge. However, because only feet were found with no other body parts, others speculate that the feet were linked to a plane disaster on a nearby island. Others speculate that they were victims of the Asian Tsunami in 2004 because the shoes were all made before that year. Whatever origins these feet may have, they have mystified the world for years.

The dead woman who named her killer

Although the case was solved, how it was solved remains a mystery. A Chicago respiratory therapist was murdered in her residence in 1977. Teresita Basa was discovered with a butcher knife buried in her chest under a blazing mattress. Police tried to locate her stolen jewellery but were not successful. They were also unable to connect any of the suspects to the crime. It appeared hard to discover the offender until Remy Chua, a coworker who hardly knew the victim, became an unexpected source of information.

Chua began to have images and dreams about Basa regularly. It all started in her workplace’s locker room, where she saw a man’s face behind Basa. This would happen again and again in her dreams. Chua then began communicating with her husband while channelling Basa’s spirit. Chua told her husband the entire storey of Basa’s murder while channelling Basa’s spirit. She alleged that an elderly person at the hospital called Alan Showery molested her while assisting Basa with her television. He then murdered her and set fire to her mattress. Showery’s common-law wife received her jewellery, and the spirit was able to provide specifics about what happened to it. Mr. Chua persuaded his wife to share these things with the police.

The police were initially doubtful, but after seeing Basa’s jewellery on Showery’s wife (which Basa’s cousin was able to confirm precisely as the spirit claimed she could), the guy was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Unfortunately, the evidence was insufficient to convict him any longer. Was it, however, Basa’s ghost that identified her assailant? Maybe Chua knew something about the case and hid it behind the guise of a spirit controlling her. What brought authorities to the murderer is still a mystery.    

The Jeanette Depalma case 

Normally, people associate witches with Salem, Massachusetts, but in this case, the witches were located in Springfield, New Jersey. It all began in 1972 when a dog returned home with a decomposed forearm. A police search ensued, and a body was shortly discovered atop a cliff in Springfield. Jeanette DePalmer, a 16-year-old who had been missing for six weeks, was recognised as the body. Immediately, stories about the reason for her death began to circulate. Many people believe her body was placed on a makeshift altar on the hill where she was discovered, which was covered with occult markings.

Many residents, including some police officers, believe DePalma was used as a human sacrifice by a coven of witches known as Satanists. Much of the case’s information has been lost as a result of a flood. However, according to some local newspaper sources, due to her partially decayed body, investigators were unable to ascertain the cause of death. They also looked into a local homeless man who was a prime candidate but found no evidence linking him to the murder. In terms of the occult theory, many believe DePalma provoked a group of Satan-worshiping teenagers at her high school while attempting to preach to them. She was a member of a group that assisted drug users by restoring their faith in Christ.

The preacher who ran the organisation theorised that she was selected as a sacrifice to the organisation because of this. Was she a victim of human sacrifice? Or did these suspicions aid in the concealment of the true assailant? No one may ever know.

The Glico-Morinaga case

Brace yourselves, for this case, is as bizarre as a TV crime drama. It works with the Japanese company Ezaki Glico that was well known for its Morinaga and Pocky snacks. Two armed men in masks stormed into CEO Katsuhisa Ezaki’s mother’s house in 1984 and tied her, stealing the Glico CEO’s house key. When they broke into his home, they also arrested his wife and daughter. Mrs.was Ezaki attempted to bargain with the guys about money, but they were looking for something else. They had cut the phone connections and then invaded the bathroom, where Ezaki and his other two children were hiding. They kidnapped Ezaki and locked him in a warehouse. They demanded 1 billion yen and 100 kg of gold bars in exchange for their release. When Ezaki managed to flee three days later, their plans were revealed.

Vehicles in the parking area of the firm’s headquarters were set on fire a few weeks later, just when the company felt it had escaped extortion. Then, in Ibaraki, where the warehouse was located, a container of hydrochloric acid and a threatening letter addressed to Glico were discovered. This was the first of a series of letters from “The Monster with 21 Faces,” a person or group named after a monster in a Japanese detective series. The letters claimed that the company’s candies were contaminated with potassium cyanide soda, and threatened the company’s products. Glico had no choice but to remove the products from the shelves, resulting in a $21 million loss and the termination of 450 part-time employees. 

The Monster with 21 Faces decided to have some fun somewhere else after months of tormenting Glico. “We forgive Glico!” they wrote in their farewell letter to the business. They turned their attention to food corporations Marudai Ham, House Foods Corporation, and Fujiya after that abrupt end. One of its employees planned to hand them ransom money on a train in exchange for ending their harassment of Marudai. The leading suspect, known as the “Fox-Eyed Man,” was seen by an investigator who disguised himself as an employee. The man was well-built, his hair was short and permed, and he had “fox eyes”. He and another detective attempted to track down the Fox-Eyed Man after dropping the ransom as directed, but they were unsuccessful. They’d get another chance later, but he’d eluded them once more.

After continuing to annoy authorities, Police Superintendent Yamamoto committed suicide by burning himself on fire a year later, humiliated by his failure to apprehend the Fox-Eyed Man. The Monster with 21 Faces released its final letter to the media five days after its death:

Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture Police died. How stupid of him! We’ve got no friends or a secret hiding place in Shiga. It’s Yoshino or Shikata who should have died. What have they been doing for as long as one year and five months? Don’t let bad guys like us get away with it. Many more fools want to copy us. No-career Yamamoto died like a man. So we decided to give our condolences. We decided to forget about torturing food-making companies. If anyone blackmails any of the food-making companies, it’s not us but someone copying us. We are bad guys. That means we’ve got more to do other than bullying companies. It’s fun to lead a bad man’s life. Monster with 21 Faces.”

The Monster with 21 Faces disappeared with that final sentence, never to be seen or heard from again.

SS Ourang Medan case

Ghost ships aren’t merely depicted in myths and films like The Pirates of the Caribbean. The entire crew inexplicably died in this actual incident. It all began in 1947, when ships passing through the Malacca Straits (which connect Sumatra and Malaysia) heard a distress call: “All officers, including the captain, are dead, lying in the chartroom and bridge. The entire crew may be dead. The transmission was followed by some incomprehensible Morse code before dying.”

The Silver Star, an American ship, responded to the distress call and located the Ourang Medan, but there were no signs of the crew on the deck, despite several attempts to contact them. So they boarded the ship, only to be greeted by a terrifying spectacle. The bodies of the Dutchmen were scattered around the deck, their faces twisted in such a way that one would suppose they had witnessed something terrible before their deaths. The dog was likewise dead, its face distorted in agony. The communication officer was still at his position, his cold fingers pressing the telegraph when the captain’s body was discovered on the bridge. A similar situation awaited the American crew on the boiler deck. Even though it was well over 100 degrees down there, a cold shiver came over them.

As they returned to their ship, they decided to tow the Ourang Medan to port. However, as soon as the tow line was attached, smoke began to billow from the ship. It burst a few moments later, sinking into its watery grave and taking all of its secrets with it. What did the crew witness that was so heinous? Some speculate that it was the work of the supernatural. Perhaps the ship was raided by a band of ghost pirates, or aliens decided to visit. Unprecedented events do occur, as a firefighter and EMT Mick Mayers have discovered in his firehouse. Others, on the other hand, have stronger scientific justifications.

Many people believe the Dutch ship was transporting dangerous chemicals like potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin. Seawater may have come into contact with the cargo, releasing hazardous fumes that poisoned the crew. The explosion would eventually be caused by nitroglycerin. Perhaps there was a problem in the boiler room, and carbon monoxide killed the crew, and a fire erupted, destroying the ship. The fact that, even though the Silver Star is undoubtedly real, there are no registration documents for the ship is the most concerning aspect. Is this a true story about a ship that never existed, or is it just a sailor’s tale? 

Most famous murder cases in India

Telangana Vet rape and murder case

A veterinary doctor parked her scooter near the Shamdabad toll plaza and took a taxi to a dermatologist’s office on November 27, 2019, at about 6:15 p.m. Four lorry drivers who were monitoring her, punctured her scooter’s tyre while she was gone. She observed the flat tyre after arriving at about 9:15 p.m. and sought assistance. Those four men arrived to assist her, and the doctor called her sister to inform her that she was not feeling well. The strangers ambushed her, forced her to drink alcohol, and then sexually assaulted her in turn. She was then suffocated and her body wrapped in a blanket. They burned her body under a bridge using diesel and petrol they bought on the way.

Unnao rape case

On the 5th of December, a woman from Unnao was set on fire while on her way to court to fight a rape charge. A group of five males set her on fire after thrashing and stabbing her. The woman screamed for aid and raced like a flame, according to witnesses. She was taken to Delhi, where she died, with about 90% of her body burned. The heinous crime, on the other hand, has a long history. The primary accused in the case, Shivam Trivedi, promised her marriage but held her in captivity as a sex slave. According to reports, Shivam comes from an affluent family, with her mother serving as a three-time gram pradhan.

Shivam and his brother Shubham were said to have taken her to a temple in Unnao and promised her that they would marry there. She was, however, raped at gunpoint.

She confronted Shivam on January 19, 2018, and inquired if he would marry her or not, according to the FIR. She was taken to Rae Bareli and kept for two months in a rented room. She wasn’t even permitted to leave the house. If she complained, she was threatened that her videos would be released. She stated in the FIR that Raebareli police refused to allow her to file a complaint.

After the court intervened, the FIR was finally filed. Shivam was released on bail in November after surrendering in September.

Divya Bharti

The death of Bollywood actress Divya Bharti has long been a topic of debate in India, and no one truly knows what caused her death. Many conspiracy theories surround her death; some claim she died by falling from her balcony after drinking too much alcohol, while others claim it was an accident.

The more serious claims include her then-husband Sajid Nadiadwala’s involvement, as well as the underworld mafia. Though the majority of people still believe it was a suicide. 

Amar Singh Chamkila

Amar Singh Chamkila was a well-known Punjabi singer, songwriter, guitarist, and composer in his native Punjab. Amar and his wife, Amarjot (who was also his singing partner), were assassinated, along with two members of their band, on March 8, 1988, allegedly by a group of unknown youngsters. Common themes of his songs included extramarital affairs, coming of age, drinking, drug usage, and the fierce tempers of Punjabi males.

As a result, he became a controversial figure, with many detractors who thought his music was vulgar. Both Amar and Amarjot were killed at 2 p.m. when he and his band went to Mehsampur, Punjab, for a show.

Several bullets were shot by a group of motorcyclists, fatally wounding the couple and other members of the entourage. Even though they were murdered in broad daylight, no arrests have been made, and the case remains unsolved. 

Sunanda Pushkar

Sunanda Pushkar, the late wife of a diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor, died in 2014 under unknown circumstances. A series of intimate texts allegedly sent by Pakistani journalist Mehar Tarar to Shashi Tharoor was released on his Twitter account two days before her death. Her account had been hacked, according to Mehar. Sunanda, on the other hand, claimed the account had not been hacked and that she had sent the texts to expose Mehar’s stalking of Shashi. Sunanda also accused Mehar of working with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The next day, Shashi Tharoor’s Facebook page posted a remark labelled “a joint statement by Sunanda and Shashi Tharoor.”

Sunanda had been hospitalised after becoming ill, and she was looking for relaxation, according to the note. She was discovered dead in her hotel room in New Delhi on January 17th, 2014. No arrest has been made yet.

Aarushi Talwar

This is certainly one of India’s most sensational murder mysteries that is yet to be solved. Aarushi Talwar, 14, and Hemraj Banjade, 45, a domestic worker employed by her family in Noida, were killed on the night of the 15th (or 16th) of May 2008. The case sparked a lot of public curiosity and gained a lot of media attention. Unfortunately, the news was full of slanderous and character-assassinating claims levelled against Aarushi and her parents, which many criticised as a media trial.

The CBI suspected the family’s three domestic staff, but they were released owing to a lack of evidence, and the inquiry was passed over to a new team. The team named Aarushi’s father Rajesh Talwar as the sole suspect based on circumstantial evidence but refused to charge him due to a lack of concrete proof. This allegation was met with strong opposition from the parents. However, a court dismissed the CBI’s allegation that there was insufficient evidence and ordered the Talwars to face charges. The parents were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in November 2013. Many critics said that the judgment was based on weak evidence, and the Talwars had appealed to the Allahabad High Court. Arushi’s parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were acquitted on appeal on 12 October 2017 after spending four years in prison in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Two Hindi films, a book, and a podcast have all been made based on this case.   

Scarlett Keeling

Scarlett Keeling, a British adolescent, was discovered injured and half-naked on Anjuna Beach in Goa in 2008. When this tragedy occurred, Scarlett was on a six-month tour to India with her extended family. The 15-year-old had gone to Anjuna for a Valentine’s Day celebration and was discovered drowned on the beach a few days later.

Two Indian males, Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho were charged with culpable homicide and sexual assault however were found not guilty in 2016 due to a lack of evidence and the refusal of a key eyewitness to testify in court.

Stoneman

Calcutta’s popular English-language print media coined the term “The Stoneman” to describe an unnamed serial killer who murdered at least 13 homeless persons in the city while they slept in 1989.

The murders purportedly occurred over six months (the first in June 1989), although it was never determined whether they were carried out by a single person or a gang, or if they were a series of copycat murders. No one has ever been convicted for these crimes, making it one of India’s oldest mysteries. There were also two films made about this subject.

Adnan Patrawala

Adnan Patrawala was the teenage son of Mumbai businessman Aslam Patrawala. Adnan was kidnapped for a ransom of Rs. 2 crores on August 18, 2007. When the kidnapping became public the next day, he was murdered.

Four of the five suspects were acquitted by a Mumbai Sessions Court on January 30, 2012, after the prosecution failed to prove its case. Afterward, Adnan’s father stated that he will file an appeal with a higher court.

Pradyuman Thakur, Ryan International School

In September 2017 a Class II student, Pradyuman Thakur at Gurgaon’s Ryan International School was discovered dead in the washroom. The innocent child, who appeared to have caused no harm to anyone, was initially considered to have been murdered in a sexual assault incident, which led to the arrest of a bus conductor.

However, a rumour recently surfaced claiming that a Class XI student murdered him to postpone the exams. As the picture became murkier, many people wondered how the bus conductor got involved in the first place. 

Jessica Lal

The Jessica Lal case is well-known to everyone who grew up or lived in Delhi in the 1990s. In 1999, most newspaper headlines said, “No one killed Jessica.” Eyewitnesses had amnesia, and just a few people came forward to describe how the aspiring model was killed. Finally, it was revealed that Jessica was shot by billionaire Manu Sharma after she refused to serve him alcohol. 

Sheena Bora  

Sheena Bora‘s gruesome death shook the nation. The arrest of her mother, Indrani Mukerjea, for allegedly plotting her assassination was even more stunning. Mukerjea said Sheena was her sister and never admitted to having two children. The murder brought attention to Indrani and her husband Peter Mukerjea’s shady business operations.

Pramod Mahajan

Mahajan well-known for his glamorous lifestyle and his son, who has recently appeared in various television shows, however, have we made peace with his murder mystery? The politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party was assassinated in broad daylight inside his home. On April 6, 2006, Pramod was fatally shot by his younger brother, Pravin, who promptly walked to the nearest police station and confessed. “My name is Pravin, and I shot Pramod,” he said. Many people were taken aback by his brother’s outspokenness about the murder. Pravin was sentenced to life in prison and died of a suspected brain haemorrhage in March 2010.

Nithari Kaand

In 2007, Indians were shocked by the discovery of bodies of deceased children and adults in the house of Moninder Sinh Pandher in Noida’s Nithari village. When the investigation began, it was discovered that Pandher’s servant, Surender Koli, had been raping and killing women, sometimes minors, and had even eaten their body parts, in one case even cooking them. Pandher was acquitted of charges in one case in 2009, but he remained co-accused in another, and his death sentence was overturned. Kohli has been found guilty in five of the fifteen cases. Meanwhile, the Allahabad high court remitted his death sentence to life imprisonment.

Charles Sobhraj – The suave ‘Bikini Killer’

Despite his infamy, Charles Sobhraj is considered one of the most “famous” murderers in the world. He assassinated roughly 12 persons in Southeast Asia between 1975 and 1976. Sobhraj, unlike most other serial killers, had a goal in mind: to rob his victims to support his extravagant lifestyle. His customary strategy was to earn the trust of tourists and potential victims by first rescuing them from troubles he had created, and then cheating them. Sobhraj earned the nickname ‘Bikini Killer’ when two of the ladies he killed were discovered wearing floral bikinis. He was arrested and imprisoned in India from 1976 until 1997, after which he moved to Paris. He was even approached for book and movie rights, for which he demanded exorbitant fees. In 2004, he went to Nepal and was arrested once more. He has now been sentenced to second life imprisonment.

Beer mankiller

This may be the strangest case on the list. Six persons were killed in Mumbai between October 2006 and January 2007, and in each case, cops discovered a beer can alongside the victim’s body. This led them to believe he was a serial killer. Ravindra Kantrole was convicted of the seventh murder in January 2008, and two more Beer Man murders were later linked to him. However, due to a lack of evidence, he was cleared of all charges in 2009. While the Beer Man case remains unresolved, he currently operates a restaurant in Mumbai.

Jaishankar – The killer with a machete

M Jaishankar had been charged with 30 rapes, 15 murders, and a prison break after being arrested. All of his victims were women, and he is reported to have stabbed them with a machete, according to reports. He was re-arrested and is now serving a ten-year term while awaiting trial in 20 additional cases involving crimes committed between 2006 and 2009 in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Darbara Singh – The ‘Baby Killer’

Darbara Singh was known as the ‘Baby Killer’ after killing 15 girls and two boys between April and September 2004. When he was arrested in 2004, he was given a death sentence, which has now been converted to life imprisonment. So far, he’s been convicted in five cases and is facing prosecution in the others. Slicing the throats of his victims was his technique of murder.

Amardeep Sada – India’s youngest serial killer

Amardeep Sada is India’s youngest serial killer, which is hard to accept. He was eight years old when he was arrested in Begusarai, Bihar, for the murder of three small children: his six-month-old cousin, his eight-month-old sister, and a neighbour’s six-month-old daughter, Khushboo in 2007. His family was allegedly aware of the first two murders however chose not to notify the authorities to keep the subject ‘in the family.’ The cops were alerted after Amardeep killed the neighbour’s daughter. When questioned why he killed the youngsters in the police station, Amardeep simply smiled.

Chacko case

This is the case of 1984. Chacko’s fault was that he looked similar to Sukumara Kurup. He was assassinated by the latter to collect an insurance payout of Rs 8,00,000. According to reports, Chacko was strangled and burned inside Sukumara Kurup’s automobile.

Sukumara, who is now one of Kerala’s most sought criminals, is alleged to have escaped to another country, and his whereabouts are unknown. This unsolved murder case is one of Kerala’s oldest unresolved cases.

Sharath

In 2017, a 19-year-old son of an Income Tax Officer in Bangalore was murdered in what appears to be a kidnapping gone wrong. His remains were discovered bound together near Ramohalli lake on the outskirts of the city. The kidnappers strangled him to death and discarded his body on the same day he was kidnapped, as it turned out.

The story took a turn when the cops discovered that the kidnappers were his friends. Vishal, the victim’s close friend, was the mastermind behind the murder and kidnapping. Sharath, a 19-year-old engineering student, was assassinated by his friends to repay a loan.

Rizwanur Rehman

Rizwanur Rehman was discovered dead near railway lines on September 21, 2007, only weeks after marrying Priyanka, the daughter of Lux Hosiery Group CEO Ashok Todi.

Rizwan and Priyanka had kept their families in the dark since they expected strong opposition, especially from Priyanka’s family. On the advice of a friend, the couple notified the Commissioner of Police, the DC (south), and the Karaya police station about their marriage and requested police protection. Then, over the phone, Priyanka informed her father Ashok Todi about her marriage to Rizwan. Her family, particularly her father, was heartbroken.

Ashok Todi attempted to persuade the cops by requesting that the couple be separated. Rizwanur was forced to send his wife Priyanka to her father’s house and was afterward barred from communicating with her. His body was discovered on a railway track in Kolkata on September 21, 2007. The incident was dismissed as a suicide attempt.

Todi, his relatives, and a few police officers, on the other hand, were accused of aiding and abetting suicide. The Supreme Court of India stopped all proceedings in the case on October 13, 2008,  till the Calcutta high court decided Ashok Todi’s petition challenging CBI’s charge-sheet against him.

The Priyadarshini Mattoo case

Priyadarshini Mattoo, a law student, was discovered dead at her uncle’s home in New Delhi on January 23, 1996.

Santosh Kumar Singh, her senior, was designated the major offender after stalking and tormenting her for years. Santosh, the son of a powerful IPS officer, strangled her by wrapping an electric wire around her neck. He repeatedly smacked her in the face with a helmet, rendering her face unrecognisable.

On October 30, 2006, the Delhi High Court sentenced him to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.

Neeraj Grover murder case

Neeraj Grover, a Mumbai-based television executive, was chopped off, placed into three bags, and set on fire in a jungle. It was discovered that Maria Susairaj, a struggling Kannada actress, was involved in his murder fourteen days after she filed a complaint with the Malad police claiming her friend had gone missing after leaving her residence on May 7, 2008. Emile Jerome, Maria’s fiance, and a navy lieutenant killed Neeraj in a rage.

The reason behind the murder was that Grover had remained in Susairaj’s place, Jerome discovered on May 6, 2008. He flew down to Mumbai from Cochin, suspicious that the two were having an affair, and found Grover with his fiancée.

Jerome murdered Neeraj in anger, then proceeded to a neighbouring mall, bought a chopper, and disposed of the body with Maria’s help.

Both Jerome and Maria got off easy. He was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, but she was let off and was found guilty only for destroying evidence.

Hathras rape case 

In Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras area, a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped by four men in September. Two weeks later, the woman died of her injuries in a Delhi hospital. While the death of the victim and the crime generated suspicions, it was what happened after the death that shook the country. District officials swiftly incinerated the body in the middle of the night, denying the family a final goodbye and even claimed there was no rape.

The insensitivity of officials provoked countrywide demonstrations, and the UP administration was criticized by numerous political parties for its handling of the case. The Supreme Court too came into the picture. The CBI issued a charge sheet charging four men of rape and murder, as well as the UP Police, of serious failures.

Ballabgarh daylight murder

The brutal murder of Nikita Tomar, a 20-year-old B.Com student from Haryana’s Ballabgarh, in broad daylight outside her college in October reignited the ‘love jihad’ debate in India.

Tomar had just finished her exam and walked out of her institution when two men pulled up alongside her. They started dragging Nikita into the car, a Hyundai i20. One of the accused pulled out a handgun and fired one cartridge at Nikita while she resisted the kidnapping. She died as a result of the gunshot. The crime’s images went viral on social media.

The accused, named Tausif, was reported to have previously harassed the victim, but the case was quickly dismissed. The victim’s family stated that the accused was pressuring their daughter to convert and marry him, which she refused on several occasions.

Nirbhaya gang-rape case

It is India’s most well-known case. The event occurred when a 23-year-old student was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured while travelling on a private bus with a buddy. The woman was raped and her buddy was beaten by six other people on the bus, including the driver. The young lady died as a result of her injuries. The incident drew widespread condemnation and national and international media attention. Meanwhile, all four prisoners have been sentenced to death, and the accused have been denied respite by the Supreme Court.

Kathua rape case

Six persons were found guilty in the 2018 rape and murder of an 8-year-old tribal girl in a Kathua village. In October, a Jammu court ordered the police to file an FIR against six members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was investigating the case, for allegedly torturing and coercing witnesses to make false statements.

On an application by Sachin Sharma, Neeraj Sharma, and Sahil Sharma, who were witnesses in the case, Judicial Magistrate Prem Sagar directed the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Jammu to issue the order, stating that cognizable offences have been made out against the six.

District and Sessions Judge Tejwinder Singh sentenced three of the major defendants to life in prison, while three others were sentenced to five years in prison for destroying evidence in the case that shook the nation.

After lawyers in Kathua attempted to prevent the charge sheet from being filed in court, the Supreme Court ordered the trial to be moved to Pathankot, Punjab. For a year, a day-to-day in-camera trial was held.

The girl, who was kidnapped, was allegedly raped in captivity at a small village temple in the area after being sedated for four days before being beaten to death, according to the charge sheet.

The kidnapping, rape, and murder of the youngster were all part of a strategy to drive out the area’s minority nomadic community, according to the report.

Geeta Chopra

When this case occurred, it shocked the nation’s capital. Ranga, also known as Kuljeet Singh, and Billa, also known as Jasbir, were sentenced to death in 1978 for the dramatic kidnapping and murder of two siblings in Delhi. Ranga and Billa had kidnapped Geeta Chopra and her brother Sanjay Chopra for ransom after they were released from the Arthur Road prison in Mumbai.

Ranga and Billa panicked when they learned that the kidnapped children’s father was a navy officer, and they brutally murdered them. Geeta had been raped by the duo before the murder. They were sentenced to death and executed on January 31, 1982.

Shabnam case: The first woman who could be hanged to death

The tragedy occurred in 2008, when Shabnam, together with her lover Saleem, murdered seven members of her family on the night of April 14/15. Shabnam used to live in Amroha with her family. Shabnam and Saleem had been having an affair and were planning to marry. Shabnam’s family, on the other hand, as opposed to their marriage, so the couple plotted a brutal murder.

She and her lover Salim were arrested on April 19, 2008, five days after the horrific murders. When she was arrested, she was seven weeks pregnant. In December 2008, she gave birth to a child.

During the inquiry, it was discovered that Shabnam helped Saleem commit the crime by forcing her family members to drink sedative-laced milk before hacking them to death. She didn’t even spare her young nephew, who died from strangulation. The court heard testimony from as many as 29 witnesses on the day of the verdict. After all the witnesses were required to answer 649 questions on the case, the 160-page order was passed.

On July 14, 2010, the District and Sessions Court sentenced the two to death. In 2010, the couple challenged the verdict of the Sessions court in the Allahabad High Court. The death penalty was maintained by the HC as well.

Shabnam and Saleem then went to the Supreme Court, but the death sentence was upheld in 2015. After exhausting all legal alternatives, Shabnam submitted a mercy petition before then-President Pranab Mukherjee, which was also denied. 

Auto Shankar 

Born Gowri Shankar, he made a name for himself as an illegal arrack (coconut liquor) transporter who was also involved in the local flesh trade. His killing spree in the 1980s, It is the most infamous case in India. Shankar’s power peaked in the mid-1980s and lasted only a few years before his murders were discovered. Shankar’s first publicly known victim, according to the police, was a young woman named Lalitha in 1987. She was a member of his inner circle who fled with Sudalaimuthu, one of his close associates, but they were apprehended and returned to Periyar Nagar. Sudalaimuthu was set on fire and his remains were put in a blanket and discarded in the Bay of Bengal, while Lalitha was clubbed to death and buried in an empty plot in Periyar Nagar. Lalitha’s remains were not discovered until nearly 15 months later.

This earns him a place on our list as one of India’s most prominent serial killers. Auto Shankar abducted and murdered nine adolescent girls from Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai, over six months in 1988. Though he initially blamed everything on the influence of the movie, a month before his execution, he admitted to murdering the abducted teenage girls for some politicians who had raped them.

Cyanide Mohan

Cyanide (Mohan Kumar) Mohan used to seduce unmarried girls into having sex with him, then dupe them into swallowing cyanide pills as contraceptives. He murdered 20 women between 2005 and 2009. He used to be a physical education teacher at a primary school before going on this deadly rampage. He was also suspected of participating in bank robberies and other financial forgeries. In December 2013, he was sentenced to death.

Devendra Sharma – the doctor turned killer

Devendra Sharma was an Ayurvedic medicine doctor who was quite successful, however, he also had a dark side. He was only interested in making quick cash by boosting cars, and he was unconcerned about the bloodshed that came with it. He stole automobiles and killed drivers in and around UP, Gurgaon, and Rajasthan between 2002 and 2004. According to his confession, he killed 30-40 guys, all of them were drivers. In 2008, he was sentenced to death.

Andhra Pradesh: three days with the body

In Hyderabad, a 20-year-old woman allegedly murdered her mother with the help of her boyfriend and spent three days with him next to the body. On October 25, a week after Rajitha disappeared, a body was discovered near the Ramannapet railway track in a completely decomposed form. As per the police, the incident happened on October 19 when Keerthy Reddy and her boyfriend, Chanti alias Sashi, killed Ranjitha by strangling her. They then spent three days with the body before being compelled to dump it on railway lines due to the awful smell of the decomposing body.

She confessed to the crime and disclosed that she had relations with two men who her mother did not approve of during interrogation. She admitted to holding a grudge against her mother for opposing her relationship with her partner.

The Tandoor murder case

In 2003, Sushil Sharma, the former president of the Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress, was found guilty of the murder of his wife Naina Sahni, a former Mahila Congress functionary in Delhi.

In July of 1995, a murder occurred. Sharma had been in a live-in relationship with Naina for a while before they married, and he chose to keep the wedding a secret. Sharma allegedly noticed Naina on the phone when he entered the house on July 2, 1995.

She hung up, but when he pressed the redial button, the call was answered by a former classmate and Congress colleague of Naina’s.

Enraged, he shot her with his pistol, then brought her body to the restaurant, where he chopped it off and attempted to burn it in the tandoor.

The matter went to trial later that year, with the verdict in the so-called “Tandoor Murder Case” arriving in 2003, when he was sentenced to death. In 2013, the Supreme Court modified his death sentence to a life sentence.

The Shakereh Khaleeli murder

In the 1990s, the Shakereh Khaleeli murder case shocked Bangalore and the country. Shakereh, a descendant of Mysore’s diwan Sir Mirza Ismail, married diplomat Akbar Mirza Khaleeli, who served as India’s ambassador to Iran, Italy, and Australia.

They were the parents of four girls. She divorced her husband and married Murali Manohar Mishra, also known as Swami Shradhananda, a self-styled godman. In 1991, she vanished. Shakereh’s remains were discovered buried in the courtyard of her home by Karnataka police in May 1994.

After being drugged, she was buried alive in a coffin. Mishra was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.

Conclusion

Most of these remain unsolved to date. These murder mysteries have been astonishing people from case to case, people have been wondering and building theories on their suspicion in most of the cases.

References

This article is written by Vanya Verma from Alliance University, Bengaluru. This article contains the most thrilling and bizarre murder incidents that shook the world. Later this article also covers the most famous murder cases that occurred in India.

Introduction

Nothing is more chilling than an unsolved murder case, and the world has plenty of them. Even when the court has given its verdict in some circumstances, it is difficult for us to accept it. This article consists of some of the most well-known murder cases that shook the world. In some of the cases, murderers have been identified, tried, and punished. While other cases remain open and may never be solved.

Famous murder cases around the world

Dennis Nilsen

Dennis Nilsen was a serial killer who killed six people in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He would pick up young men at London bars and then take them home to strangle them. He would also bathe and dress the bodies, frequently keeping them for weeks or even months, and talk to and have sex with them before eventually burning or flushing them down the toilet. He was only apprehended because “the leftover parts of the human he had tried to flush away were stuck in a drain outside his home.”

Dorothy Stratten

Dorothy Stratten was an ordinary 18-year-old girl working at a Dairy Queen in British Columbia, Canada when she met Paul Snider. He wooed her with sweet words and assured her that she would be a superstar. Snider encouraged Stratten to pursue modelling and even persuaded her to relocate to Los Angeles to compete in Playboy’s 25th Anniversary Great Playmate Hunt. Snider snatched her away and planned to make money off of her. Hugh Hefner spotted Stratten’s potential and predicted that she would be the next Marilyn Monroe. Stratten first appeared in the film Playboy in the role of Miss August 1979, and then went on to star in films such as Buck Rogers, Fantasy Island, and Galaxina.

Stratten was rapidly rising the Hollywood ladder. She was already being dubbed as “one of the few budding goddesses of the new decade” by the press.

Stratten was cast opposite Audrey Hepburn in the film. She developed a love affair with the film’s director, Peter Bogdanovich while filming in New York.

Snider became suspicious of Stratten and hired a private eye to follow her around. When she went home, however, she revealed the truth to her husband: she was in love with Bogdanovich and wanted a divorce.

Snider didn’t speak much, at least not in front of her. But, according to his buddies, once Stratten called it off, he developed an unusual interest in guns and hunting. He bought a 12-gauge shotgun, took a few shooting courses, and began whispering in people’s ears that Playboy had a policy of not printing nude images of women who were slain.

Stratten paid a visit to Snider at his house on Aug. 14, 1980, to negotiate a property settlement she had promised him in the divorce. Snider, on the other hand, would take advantage of the fact that they were alone to make his move.

Snider shot Stratten in the eye with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing her. He then turned the shotgun on himself after raping his dead wife’s body.

Stratten was once poised to be one of the next big Hollywood stars, but now her name is instead forever attached to her famous murder.

Diane Downs

Diane Downs shot her three children and drove them to the hospital in 1983. One of her daughters died on the way to the hospital, another had a stroke, and her son was paralysed from the waist down. Diane stated that a “strange man” attempted to take her car and then began firing on everyone. Her secret diary, however, was eventually discovered by the authorities, and it “described her obsession with a married man who did not want kids.” Her arrest occurred as a result of this. She was given a life sentence of 50 years in jail.

Sharon Tate

For decades, Hollywood and the rest of America have been scared by actress Sharon Tate’s horrible murder by the Manson Family while she was more than eight months pregnant.

Tate was at home with pals Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring on the night of August 8, 1969. Her spouse, director Roman Polanski, was filming a picture out of the country.

At the time, the couple was renting a posh home in Los Angeles’ Benedict Canyon neighbourhood, which would later become the site of the heinous killings.

Charles Manson, the infamous cult leader, ordered a couple of his faithful followers to break into the house and kill everyone inside “as gruesomely as you can.”

The cult members assassinated 18-year-old Steven Parent, who was visiting the estate’s caretaker, as soon as they entered the premises. Then they went inside, their sights set on the people who lived there.

They rounded up the four people and tied them up in the living room. Sebring objected, claiming that the eight-months-pregnant Tate was being tormented badly. But all he got was a bullet in the chest, a foot in the face, and a knife after a knife driven into his body until he died.

Folger and Frykowski managed to liberate themselves from their shackles and attempted to flee. The attempt to flee was unsuccessful. They were pursued by the killers, who savagely stabbed them dozens of times.

Tate was the only one who had survived. She begged her captors to let her live so that her unborn child may live. The Manson Family, on the other hand, was unmoved. They stabbed her to death and drew the word “Pig” on the front door with her blood.

The house itself was Manson’s purpose for the attack. Manson wanted vengeance on the previous renter, music producer Terry Melcher, who had denied him a record deal.

All of the assaults from that night, as well as Manson himself, were apprehended by the end of the year. They were given the death penalty and were sentenced to life in prison. Every plea for parole has been turned down.

Katherine Knight

Katherine Knight was the first woman in Australia to be sentenced to life in jail without parole. She skinned her husband, John Price, after stabbing him to death. Soon after, she skinned him and fried various parts of his body, intending to feed them to her clueless children. She even arranged the table and used place cards to direct the kids to their seats.

Gianni Versace

The public continues to be baffled by the shooting of fashion superstar Gianni Versace in broad daylight in front of his mansion in Miami’s South Beach.

Versace was a well-known fashion designer and the founder of the Versace fashion house at the time of his death. In the fashion industry, he was a sensation, dressing celebrities such as Princess Diana of Wales.

But, Versace was behaving strangely on the morning of July 15, 1997. Witnesses claim he went down to a nearby cafe, passed the entrance, and then circled back to enter minutes before his death. Later, a hostess noted that it appeared as if he was being followed.

Versace then went out and got a newspaper before returning to his multimillion-dollar Mediterranean villa, but he never made it past the front door.

How the murder occurred is unknown. A young man in his twenties approached Versace from behind and shot him twice in the head, according to some witnesses. Others claimed the males appeared to know each other and they were fighting over a bag when a gunshot rang out. Regardless of how it happened, one of the world’s most recognisable fashion designers has passed away.

Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year-old male, was the offender. In the local gay community, he had a reputation as a flamboyant gold digger who preyed on older guys for free trips and expensive stuff. Many individuals, however, referred to Cunanan as unhinged.

Cunanan killed four other men throughout the country in the three months leading up to the murder of Versace, landing him on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Cunanan, on the other hand, refused to take responsibility for his actions or identify his purpose for killing Versace. Shortly after Versace’s murder, he committed suicide aboard a Miami houseboat, leaving no note and but just a few belongings.

Issei Sagawa

Issei Sagawa fatally shot a woman in his residence in 1981. He consumed various parts of her body over two days to “absorb her beauty.” He had intercourse with her body as well. Later, Sagawa attempted to dispose of the remnants in a lake near his home in France. After two years of waiting for his trial, he was judged insane and the allegations against him were withdrawn. He eventually gained prominence in Japan and became a mini-celebrity there, where he could not be lawfully jailed, and he has remained free to this day.

Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. “The Black Dahlia”

Elizabeth Short, often known as the “Black Dahlia,” was an aspiring actress who desired fame above all. She could never have anticipated how she would earn it, as the victim of a heinous crime that has haunted America for decades.

On Jan. 15, 1947, a young mother and her three-year-old daughter came across the body of Elizabeth Short, who was 22 years old at the time. Her body had been entirely sliced in half and lay brutally disfigured in the grass of a Los Angeles suburban area.

Her body was split into two pieces roughly a foot apart. Her intestines had been removed, folded, and then reinserted into her stomach. Her wrists had ligature marks, pieces of her skin had been removed, and her entire body had been drained of blood.

Her face, though, was perhaps the worst aspect. The killer had slashed it open from the corners of both sides of her lips to her ears, leaving a Joker-like smile on her face.

An editor at the Los Angeles Examiner got a call from someone claiming to be the murderer a week later. He’d kept souvenirs and would be sending them over in the mail, he claimed.

He followed through on his promise. A postal worker brought out a letter addressed to the Examiner four days later. Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate, business cards, pictures, and contact book were all included.

But, as with so many previous well-known murders, the accompanying media circus merely served to bewilder the inquiry. The authorities were inundated with tips, making it difficult to separate the truth from the lies. They interrogated 12 potential suspects and listened to more than 60 persons who claimed to be the killers, but they were unable to make any arrests.

Carl Panzram

Carl Panzram is known as “America’s most repulsive serial killer.” Throughout the 1920s, he admitted that he killed 21 individuals (though not all have been confirmed) and sexually assaulted over 1,000 boys and men. Once  Panzram hired six men to work on a boat alongside him, shot them, and then fed them to crocodiles, this is one of his most heinous crimes. “For all of these things, I am not the least bit sorry.”

Kitty Genovese

The public was shocked by Kitty Genovese’s murder, which took place outside her apartment in front of many of her neighbours.

The young woman was brutally murdered while crying for help, and the neighbours who heard her screams did nothing to aid her. The psychologists wondered how could someone observe an attack or observe a crime taking place and do nothing?

The phrase “bystander effect” was coined by psychologists, and it now appears in almost every psychology textbook.

On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese drove home to her apartment in Kew Gardens around 2:30 a.m. from the bar she worked at in Hollis, Queens. She didn’t notice the automobile that followed her all the way home from a nearby parking lot.

Genovese parked her car at the train station and began walking 100 feet to her apartment complex. That’s when Winston Moseley attacked her.

As he stabbed her, Genovese screamed. Her shouts for aid were loud enough to arouse her neighbours at 3:15 a.m. However, none of them rushed to her rescue.

One man shouted: “Leave that girl alone!” It was enough to scare Moseley away, but even with him gone, nobody helped Genovese back to her feet. For ten minutes, she crawled across the ground, slowly bleeding out, no one helping her. And then Moseley came back.

He stabbed Genovese several times more before raping and robbing her and then fled. Neighbours didn’t notify the cops until after 4 a.m., over an hour after she was assaulted. It was too late by then. Genovese had already passed away.

A few witnesses said that they dialed 911 but that their calls were not prioritised. Others simply said that they presumed someone else would have done it instead. The behaviour of Genovese’s neighbours cost the young woman her life.

The Lizzie Borden killings

Andrew and Abby Borden’s deaths are undoubtedly two of the most well-known murders in American history.

August 4, 1892, for the Borden family, began like any other day. Andrew went into town for some business in the morning, leaving his 32-year-old Sunday school teacher Lizzie at home with his wife, Abby, and the family’s housekeeper, Bridget Sullivan.

Andrew arrived later that day to find his wife had disappeared. Lizzie informed him that Abby had received a note and had gone to see a friend.

Abby, on the other hand, had not gone anywhere. She was just upstairs, dead in a pool of her blood, at that specific moment.

Lizzie helped her father in relaxing and sleeping on the couch. She tried to persuade Bridget to leave the house by telling her about a nearby department store sale, but Bridget refused. She informed Lizzie she wasn’t feeling well. Instead, she walked to her bedroom, sat down, and dozed off. With a fit of yells and shouts, Sullivan’s relaxation was cut short. Lizzie screamed that her father had been murdered. Andrew was found dead on the couch, covered in blood, as Sullivan ran out. His face had been severely deformed to the point of being unidentifiable.

Lizzie realised in a panic that her stepmother, Abby, should have returned home by now.

She requested Sullivan to look upstairs for her. The search, on the other hand, was quick. Sullivan had only made it halfway up the stairs when she discovered her, murdered with a hatchet.

Abby had been attacked with a hatchet 19 times, while her husband had been hit 11 times. Lizzie was initially not a suspect, but she was arrested and put on trial for the murders after a friend spotted her burning one of her dresses because it was stained.

The charges against Lizzie were eventually dropped by the court. They couldn’t believe the female Sunday school teacher could ever be capable of such crimes because there wasn’t enough concrete evidence against her, the defence provided witnesses who gave Borden an alibi.

Countless possibilities have been suggested as to what might have happened. Some accuse Lizzie Borden, others Sullivan and still others claim that the girls were all involved in the murders. However, the mystery has remained unanswered for over a century.

The Hello Kitty murder

Fan Man-yee, a 23-year-old nightclub waitress, was abducted in 1999 by three men. They tormented her for a month before she died, though it’s unclear whether the men were to blame for her death or if it was due to a drug overdose. The men decapitated her and stuffed her skull into a huge Hello Kitty doll when she died. The three men were all found guilty of manslaughter. The Hello Kitty Murder is widely regarded as one of the cruellest and most ruthless cases to ever come before a Hong Kong court.

Edmund Kemper, aka the “Co-ed Killer”

Edmund Kemper murdered ten people, including his paternal grandparents and mother, brutally. Kemper killed six students, beheaded them, and had sex with their corpses during an 11-month killing spree in the early 1970s in the California highlands. He also used a claw hammer to kill his mother, decapitated her head, and had sex with it before calling the cops to turn himself in.

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman

One of the most well-known trials in American history occurred after the famous killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Brown was the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, a well-known football star. The couple married in 1985 and had two children, but their marriage was tumultuous and filled with physical abuse. Brown filed for divorce in 1992, after seven years of marriage.

Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman were brutally killed outside Nicole’s Brentwood, California home on June 12, 1994.

Nicole was stabbed five times in the neck, and later they were both stabbed to death. Her throat was slashed down to the spinal cord, according to court testimony. The leading suspect was Nicole’s ex-husband.

O.J. agreed to bring himself in, but on June 17, he and his companion A.C. Cowlings made a run for it. O.J. led police on a chase across Los Angeles with a gun to his head, threatening to murder himself. He eventually gave himself in.

During the trial, there was a huge pile of evidence against O.J. for the crime. O.J. ‘s blood was discovered at the crime scene, Nicole and Goldman’s DNA was discovered in his car and home, a pair of O.J.’s gloves were discovered on Nicole’s property, and a bloody footprint at the crime scene matched his shoe.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, O.J. was acquitted of the killings of his ex-wife and Goldman. However, in the Civil Court, he was found guilty of the offences and compelled to compensate the families for $33.5 million.

Lindbergh Baby

The tragic kidnapping and killing of 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. have become one of America’s most well-known murders.

On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Sr., a well-known aviator who rose to fame after flying solo over the Atlantic, heard a noise from his kitchen that sounded like a wooden container cracking shut. The Lindbergh infant vanished from his crib just minutes afterward dialed, according to the family’s nurse.

When Lindbergh Sr. visited his son’s room, he discovered a ransom letter on the windowsill and a broken ladder outside. In exchange for his son’s safe return, the note requested $50,000.

The Lindbergh family desperately searched for the lost baby for the next three months, with the help of the FBI. Lindbergh Sr. even paid the huge ransom demanded by the kidnapper of his son. The kidnapper, on the other hand, never kept his word. Charles Lindbergh Sr. was never going to see his son again.

The Lindbergh baby’s little body was discovered dead just over a mile from his family’s estate on May 12, 1932, after more than two months he originally went missing.

The boy had been missing for at least two months and is thought to have died on the day he was stolen.

His skull had a hole in it, and his bones had been fractured multiple times. The child’s body parts had been eaten off in several places. It appeared like animals had gotten to the body first.

Richard Hauptmann, a German immigrant with a criminal record, was eventually named as the official perpetrator. Hauptmann was arrested after he had used part of the ransom money.

The Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping and following trial drew a lot of media interest. Hauptmann was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death in what was nicknamed the “Trial of the Century.” On April 3, 1936, Hauptmann died in the electric chair.

The Lindbergh infant case prompted Congress to establish the Federal Kidnapping Act,1932, making it illegal to transport a kidnap victim beyond state lines. The law is commonly referred to as the “Lindbergh Law.”

The Boy in the Box

We’re still no closer to uncovering the mystery of the Boy in the Box even after 60 years.

It all began on a freezing February day in 1957, on a roadway just outside of Philadelphia. While checking his traps, a young muskrat hunter came across a cardboard box in the woods, the body of a little child, stripped naked and mangled, was found within it.

The muskrat hunter kept his secret to himself. He was afraid that if he told anyone, the cops would come after him for his unlawful traps. So, until a braver soul discovered him, the boy’s body sat cold and rotting in the woods for days.

The kid was between the age of three and seven, and he had been mistreated horribly. He appeared weak, malnourished, and unkempt. His hair had been chopped shortly before he died, and clumps of it stuck to his body. Small scars covered his entire body, particularly on his foot, groin, and chin.

Only one modest act of kindness had been shown to the kid who had been left alone in the box. He had been wrapped in a blanket and left to rot by whoever had slain him. It was the only sign of affection he’d received.

The police took the boy’s fingerprints in the hopes of discovering a match, but nothing was found. Hundreds of thousands of flyers were sent around the neighbourhood, requesting information about the unnamed boy, but no one responded. His parents never claimed him as one of their children.

The investigators did everything they could to solve the case. They looked at everything from the cardboard box to the blanket he was wrapped in at the crime site. Every trail they took, however, led to a fresh dead end.

One of America’s most famous murders has remained unsolved for more than 60 years. Nobody knows who the youngster was or how he wound up nude and mutilated in a box in the woods. Tragically, after all these years, the world will probably never even learn the name of “America’s Unknown Child.”

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

With the deaths of seven men in the late 1920s, Chicago’s gang war reached a climax. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was a terrible scene that would live on in infamy.

Al “Scarface” Capone planned this heinous mob killing to finally eliminate his competitor George “Bugs” Moran and establish himself as the Chicago mob’s top dog.

Four of Capone’s men arrived at Moran’s warehouse on the morning of Feb. 14, 1929, where he illegally sold whiskey. Capone is thought to have persuaded Moran to the warehouse by claiming that one of his bootlegging operations in Canada needed assistance.

Five of Moran’s men, accompanied by two auto mechanics, responded to Capone’s call. They filed into the warehouse, oblivious to the fact that Capone’s men were waiting for them.

Albert Weinshank, the last of Moran’s men to arrive, was confronted by two police officers as he exited his Cadillac sedan on the street and made his way inside the warehouse. Moran’s men, fearful of being apprehended, formed a line against the wall, their backs to the cops, and remained silent so as not to expose their leader.

The individuals who had stopped them, on the other hand, were not police officials. They were Capone’s men in disguise.

Two more of Capone’s men, dressed in civilian clothing and with submachine guns, stepped inside after Moran’s men were lined up against the wall. The men were showered with gunshots. Six of them died instantly, but one endured terrible agony for hours before succumbing to his injuries in a hospital bed.

Bugs Moran, the plan’s original target, was never found. Weinshank had been mistaken for Moran by the men, a mistake that saved Bugs Moran’s life.

Capone was the most obvious suspect, yet he managed to escape detection. No one has ever been charged with the murders. Capone never claimed responsibility for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre’s brutality and bloodshed.

JonBenét Ramsey

For more than two decades, the terrible unsolved murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey had enthralled the country.

JonBenét Ramsey was a well-known beauty queen who lived in Boulder, Colorado, with her parents, Patricia and John Ramsey, and her nine-year-old brother, Burke.

The Ramsey family’s lives were turned upside down the morning after Christmas in 1996. Patsy dialled 911 in a panic, claiming she had discovered a ransom letter for their daughter. The three-page note sought $118,000 from the wealthy Ramsey family in exchange for JonBenét’s safe return.

But JonBenét hadn’t been kidnapped in the normal sense. Her body was discovered inside the family’s house just hours afterward. Following a thorough examination of the body, it was discovered that JonBenét had been sexually abused and had suffered a skull fracture. A device built from one of her mother’s paintbrushes had also strangled the six-year-old.

JonBenét’s killing was ruled a homicide, but police mistakes at the crime scene made finding the culprit extremely impossible.

Because of contradicting stories and the fact that the ransom note was written on house paper, the Ramsey family was questioned, although John and Patsy were never charged with the crime (while Burke has also been suspected by some).

Police questioned and investigated plenty of additional suspects, but none yielded any results. JonBenét Ramsey’s sad death remains unsolved to this day.

The Zodiac killer

Most criminals keep their misdeeds hidden, but “Zodiac,” as he called himself, was different from such criminals. He terrorised San Francisco with his murder spree from 1968 to 1969, teasing the cops with coded messages to the local paper. Although he claims to have killed 37 people, he was directly linked to at least five murders. When Betty Lou Jensen, 16, and David Arthur Faraday, 17, were discovered lying outside of their bullet-riddled automobile, he was terrified. Jensen died of five gunshot wounds to her back at the scene, while Faraday died of a bullet wound to the head en route to the hospital.

A half-year later, a couple who had parked their car four miles away from the crime scene was similarly gunned down, with one person injured and the other murdered. Michael Mageau, a survivor, was able to describe the killer. He described himself as a 5’8″ Caucasian male with a heavy build. The remaining evidence would be given to the police by the Zodiac killer himself.

Police got an odd call at 12:48 a.m. the same night:

I wish to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot with a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye.

The first letter from the Zodiac killer was delivered to the media a month later. He threatened to go on a murdering spree unless the letter was published on the main page. The murders were described in the letter, which was written in cryptic cyphers that appeared to constitute a code. This was a recurring subject in his subsequent letters, which were all signed with a crossed-circle symbol. A high-school instructor and his wife decoded one of these letters. It said:

I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FOREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI.

The Zodiac killer continued to kill and leave police with frustrating evidence– coded messages, anonymous phone calls, the crossed-circle scribbled on victims’ automobiles, sending over blood-stained clothing, and testimonies from survivors– but they never caught him.

The Taman Shud case

The Zodiac Killer wasn’t the only one who liked to play with codes. A body was discovered on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia, on December 1st, 1948. The man’s body was in excellent shape, with no visible injuries. He was well-dressed, however, all of his clothing labels were missing. He had a railway ticket to Henley Beach in his pocket, which he had never used. They discovered a bag related to him at Adelaide Railroad Station a month later. Its label, as well as the labels on the clothing within, were removed.

Unfortunately, it yielded no results, just as his autopsy revealed no foreign substance in his body that may be linked to the poisoning. A month later, they discovered the most important but perplexing evidence in a hidden pocket in the man’s slacks. “Taman Shud,” it said.

Officials from the public library were summoned to translate the sentence. They deduced that it meant “completed” or “ending,” which they discovered in Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, a collection of poems. Police immediately began a nationwide search for the book from which the scraps were torn.

A man claimed that he discovered the book in the backseat of his open car a week or two before the body was discovered. An odd code was scratched out in pencil on the back of it. A nurse’s phone number was also obtained, though the nurse claimed to have delivered a copy of the Rubaiyat to an army officer called Alfred Boxall. The man who discovered the book, as well as the nurse, denied any link to the deceased guy. They never followed up on the case, however many believe it was a suicide because the book’s theme was about having no regrets when one’s life came to an end. Others believe he is a spy. And his grave will continue to read till there are any breaks in the case- “Here lies the unknown man who was found at Somerton Beach 1st Dec. 1948.”

Tara Calico case

Tara Calico went for a ride on her mother’s pink bicycle. She had planned to play tennis later that afternoon and had asked her mother to bring her out in case she suffered a flat tyre and didn’t return home by noon. She never came back. Every lead led nowhere until a year later, when a photo of a young woman her age and a lost boy, both gagged, was discovered.

The Polaroid image was discovered in the parking lot of a Florida Junior Food Store. Michael Henley, nine years old at the time, went missing while hunting turkeys with his father in the same area as Calico in April of 1988. They appeared to be in the back of a vehicle, with a copy of one of Calico’s favourite authors, V.C. Andrews, laying next to the girl. Tara’s mother didn’t believe the girl was her at first, but the girl in the photo had a scar that looked exactly like Calico’s. Despite this, many experts dismiss the photograph due to a lack of evidence.

Michael Henley’s body was discovered in the Zuni Mountains in 1990, where he was hunting, putting an end to the hypothesis that the two were kidnapped and transferred to Florida. Calico’s parents died without ever learning who kidnapped their daughter.

The severed feet mystery

In 2007, a young woman was walking along a beach in British Columbia when she came across a shoe. As she opened the sock, she was horrified to discover a human foot inside. A lot of severed feet have washed up on the beach since then. Five men, one woman, and three males of unknown gender have been linked to the feet. With a hoax foot thrown in here and there over the years, the case has never been closed, and numerous theories as to who the feet belonged to have circulated.

In 2008, Vancouver police were able to identify one foot by matching its DNA to that of a suicidal guy. They were able to connect two more feet to a woman who was likewise thought to have committed suicide later on. Because of these results, many people believe that the feet belong to people who died by jumping off a bridge. However, because only feet were found with no other body parts, others speculate that the feet were linked to a plane disaster on a nearby island. Others speculate that they were victims of the Asian Tsunami in 2004 because the shoes were all made before that year. Whatever origins these feet may have, they have mystified the world for years.

The dead woman who named her killer

Although the case was solved, how it was solved remains a mystery. A Chicago respiratory therapist was murdered in her residence in 1977. Teresita Basa was discovered with a butcher knife buried in her chest under a blazing mattress. Police tried to locate her stolen jewellery but were not successful. They were also unable to connect any of the suspects to the crime. It appeared hard to discover the offender until Remy Chua, a coworker who hardly knew the victim, became an unexpected source of information.

Chua began to have images and dreams about Basa regularly. It all started in her workplace’s locker room, where she saw a man’s face behind Basa. This would happen again and again in her dreams. Chua then began communicating with her husband while channelling Basa’s spirit. Chua told her husband the entire storey of Basa’s murder while channelling Basa’s spirit. She alleged that an elderly person at the hospital called Alan Showery molested her while assisting Basa with her television. He then murdered her and set fire to her mattress. Showery’s common-law wife received her jewellery, and the spirit was able to provide specifics about what happened to it. Mr. Chua persuaded his wife to share these things with the police.

The police were initially doubtful, but after seeing Basa’s jewellery on Showery’s wife (which Basa’s cousin was able to confirm precisely as the spirit claimed she could), the guy was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Unfortunately, the evidence was insufficient to convict him any longer. Was it, however, Basa’s ghost that identified her assailant? Maybe Chua knew something about the case and hid it behind the guise of a spirit controlling her. What brought authorities to the murderer is still a mystery.

The Jeanette Depalma case

Normally, people associate witches with Salem, Massachusetts, but in this case, the witches were located in Springfield, New Jersey. It all began in 1972 when a dog returned home with a decomposed forearm. A police search ensued, and a body was shortly discovered atop a cliff in Springfield. Jeanette DePalmer, a 16-year-old who had been missing for six weeks, was recognised as the body. Immediately, stories about the reason for her death began to circulate. Many people believe her body was placed on a makeshift altar on the hill where she was discovered, which was covered with occult markings.

Many residents, including some police officers, believe DePalma was used as a human sacrifice by a coven of witches known as Satanists. Much of the case’s information has been lost as a result of a flood. However, according to some local newspaper sources, due to her partially decayed body, investigators were unable to ascertain the cause of death. They also looked into a local homeless man who was a prime candidate but found no evidence linking him to the murder. In terms of the occult theory, many believe DePalma provoked a group of Satan-worshiping teenagers at her high school while attempting to preach to them. She was a member of a group that assisted drug users by restoring their faith in Christ.

The preacher who ran the organisation theorised that she was selected as a sacrifice to the organisation because of this. Was she a victim of human sacrifice? Or did these suspicions aid in the concealment of the true assailant? No one may ever know.

The Glico-Morinaga case

Brace yourselves, for this case, is as bizarre as a TV crime drama. It works with the Japanese company Ezaki Glico that was well known for its Morinaga and Pocky snacks. Two armed men in masks stormed into CEO Katsuhisa Ezaki’s mother’s house in 1984 and tied her, stealing the Glico CEO’s house key. When they broke into his home, they also arrested his wife and daughter. Mrs.was Ezaki attempted to bargain with the guys about money, but they were looking for something else. They had cut the phone connections and then invaded the bathroom, where Ezaki and his other two children were hiding. They kidnapped Ezaki and locked him in a warehouse. They demanded 1 billion yen and 100 kg of gold bars in exchange for their release. When Ezaki managed to flee three days later, their plans were revealed.

Vehicles in the parking area of the firm’s headquarters were set on fire a few weeks later, just when the company felt it had escaped extortion. Then, in Ibaraki, where the warehouse was located, a container of hydrochloric acid and a threatening letter addressed to Glico were discovered. This was the first of a series of letters from “The Monster with 21 Faces,” a person or group named after a monster in a Japanese detective series. The letters claimed that the company’s candies were contaminated with potassium cyanide soda, and threatened the company’s products. Glico had no choice but to remove the products from the shelves, resulting in a $21 million loss and the termination of 450 part-time employees.

The Monster with 21 Faces decided to have some fun somewhere else after months of tormenting Glico. “We forgive Glico!” they wrote in their farewell letter to the business. They turned their attention to food corporations Marudai Ham, House Foods Corporation, and Fujiya after that abrupt end. One of its employees planned to hand them ransom money on a train in exchange for ending their harassment of Marudai. The leading suspect, known as the “Fox-Eyed Man,” was seen by an investigator who disguised himself as an employee. The man was well-built, his hair was short and permed, and he had “fox eyes”. He and another detective attempted to track down the Fox-Eyed Man after dropping the ransom as directed, but they were unsuccessful. They’d get another chance later, but he’d eluded them once more.

After continuing to annoy authorities, Police Superintendent Yamamoto committed suicide by burning himself on fire a year later, humiliated by his failure to apprehend the Fox-Eyed Man. The Monster with 21 Faces released its final letter to the media five days after its death:

Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture Police died. How stupid of him! We’ve got no friends or a secret hiding place in Shiga. It’s Yoshino or Shikata who should have died. What have they been doing for as long as one year and five months? Don’t let bad guys like us get away with it. Many more fools want to copy us. No-career Yamamoto died like a man. So we decided to give our condolences. We decided to forget about torturing food-making companies. If anyone blackmails any of the food-making companies, it’s not us but someone copying us. We are bad guys. That means we’ve got more to do other than bullying companies. It’s fun to lead a bad man’s life. Monster with 21 Faces.”

The Monster with 21 Faces disappeared with that final sentence, never to be seen or heard from again.

SS Ourang Medan case

Ghost ships aren’t merely depicted in myths and films like The Pirates of the Caribbean. The entire crew inexplicably died in this actual incident. It all began in 1947, when ships passing through the Malacca Straits (which connect Sumatra and Malaysia) heard a distress call: “All officers, including the captain, are dead, lying in the chartroom and bridge. The entire crew may be dead. The transmission was followed by some incomprehensible Morse code before dying.”

The Silver Star, an American ship, responded to the distress call and located the Ourang Medan, but there were no signs of the crew on the deck, despite several attempts to contact them. So they boarded the ship, only to be greeted by a terrifying spectacle. The bodies of the Dutchmen were scattered around the deck, their faces twisted in such a way that one would suppose they had witnessed something terrible before their deaths. The dog was likewise dead, its face distorted in agony. The communication officer was still at his position, his cold fingers pressing the telegraph when the captain’s body was discovered on the bridge. A similar situation awaited the American crew on the boiler deck. Even though it was well over 100 degrees down there, a cold shiver came over them.

As they returned to their ship, they decided to tow the Ourang Medan to port. However, as soon as the tow line was attached, smoke began to billow from the ship. It burst a few moments later, sinking into its watery grave and taking all of its secrets with it. What did the crew witness that was so heinous? Some speculate that it was the work of the supernatural. Perhaps the ship was raided by a band of ghost pirates, or aliens decided to visit. Unprecedented events do occur, as a firefighter and EMT Mick Mayers have discovered in his firehouse. Others, on the other hand, have stronger scientific justifications.

Many people believe the Dutch ship was transporting dangerous chemicals like potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin. Seawater may have come into contact with the cargo, releasing hazardous fumes that poisoned the crew. The explosion would eventually be caused by nitroglycerin. Perhaps there was a problem in the boiler room, and carbon monoxide killed the crew, and a fire erupted, destroying the ship. The fact that, even though the Silver Star is undoubtedly real, there are no registration documents for the ship is the most concerning aspect. Is this a true story about a ship that never existed, or is it just a sailor’s tale?

Most famous murder cases in India

Telangana Vet rape and murder case

A veterinary doctor parked her scooter near the Shamdabad toll plaza and took a taxi to a dermatologist’s office on November 27, 2019, at about 6:15 p.m. Four lorry drivers who were monitoring her, punctured her scooter’s tyre while she was gone. She observed the flat tyre after arriving at about 9:15 p.m. and sought assistance. Those four men arrived to assist her, and the doctor called her sister to inform her that she was not feeling well. The strangers ambushed her, forced her to drink alcohol, and then sexually assaulted her in turn. She was then suffocated and her body wrapped in a blanket. They burned her body under a bridge using diesel and petrol they bought on the way.

Unnao rape case

On the 5th of December, a woman from Unnao was set on fire while on her way to court to fight a rape charge. A group of five males set her on fire after thrashing and stabbing her. The woman screamed for aid and raced like a flame, according to witnesses. She was taken to Delhi, where she died, with about 90% of her body burned. The heinous crime, on the other hand, has a long history. The primary accused in the case, Shivam Trivedi, promised her marriage but held her in captivity as a sex slave. According to reports, Shivam comes from an affluent family, with her mother serving as a three-time gram pradhan.

Shivam and his brother Shubham were said to have taken her to a temple in Unnao and promised her that they would marry there. She was, however, raped at gunpoint.

She confronted Shivam on January 19, 2018, and inquired if he would marry her or not, according to the FIR. She was taken to Rae Bareli and kept for two months in a rented room. She wasn’t even permitted to leave the house. If she complained, she was threatened that her videos would be released. She stated in the FIR that Raebareli police refused to allow her to file a complaint.

After the court intervened, the FIR was finally filed. Shivam was released on bail in November after surrendering in September.

Divya Bharti

The death of Bollywood actress Divya Bharti has long been a topic of debate in India, and no one truly knows what caused her death. Many conspiracy theories surround her death; some claim she died by falling from her balcony after drinking too much alcohol, while others claim it was an accident.

The more serious claims include her then-husband Sajid Nadiadwala’s involvement, as well as the underworld mafia. Though the majority of people still believe it was a suicide.

Amar Singh Chamkila

Amar Singh Chamkila was a well-known Punjabi singer, songwriter, guitarist, and composer in his native Punjab. Amar and his wife, Amarjot (who was also his singing partner), were assassinated, along with two members of their band, on March 8, 1988, allegedly by a group of unknown youngsters. Common themes of his songs included extramarital affairs, coming of age, drinking, drug usage, and the fierce tempers of Punjabi males.

As a result, he became a controversial figure, with many detractors who thought his music was vulgar. Both Amar and Amarjot were killed at 2 p.m. when he and his band went to Mehsampur, Punjab, for a show.

Several bullets were shot by a group of motorcyclists, fatally wounding the couple and other members of the entourage. Even though they were murdered in broad daylight, no arrests have been made, and the case remains unsolved.

Sunanda Pushkar

Sunanda Pushkar, the late wife of a diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor, died in 2014 under unknown circumstances. A series of intimate texts allegedly sent by Pakistani journalist Mehar Tarar to Shashi Tharoor was released on his Twitter account two days before her death. Her account had been hacked, according to Mehar. Sunanda, on the other hand, claimed the account had not been hacked and that she had sent the texts to expose Mehar’s stalking of Shashi. Sunanda also accused Mehar of working with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The next day, Shashi Tharoor’s Facebook page posted a remark labelled “a joint statement by Sunanda and Shashi Tharoor.”

Sunanda had been hospitalised after becoming ill, and she was looking for relaxation, according to the note. She was discovered dead in her hotel room in New Delhi on January 17th, 2014. No arrest has been made yet.

Aarushi Talwar

This is certainly one of India’s most sensational murder mysteries that is yet to be solved. Aarushi Talwar, 14, and Hemraj Banjade, 45, a domestic worker employed by her family in Noida, were killed on the night of the 15th (or 16th) of May 2008. The case sparked a lot of public curiosity and gained a lot of media attention. Unfortunately, the news was full of slanderous and character-assassinating claims levelled against Aarushi and her parents, which many criticised as a media trial.

The CBI suspected the family’s three domestic staff, but they were released owing to a lack of evidence, and the inquiry was passed over to a new team. The team named Aarushi’s father Rajesh Talwar as the sole suspect based on circumstantial evidence but refused to charge him due to a lack of concrete proof. This allegation was met with strong opposition from the parents. However, a court dismissed the CBI’s allegation that there was insufficient evidence and ordered the Talwars to face charges. The parents were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in November 2013. Many critics said that the judgment was based on weak evidence, and the Talwars had appealed to the Allahabad High Court. Arushi’s parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were acquitted on appeal on 12 October 2017 after spending four years in prison in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Two Hindi films, a book, and a podcast have all been made based on this case.

Scarlett Keeling

Scarlett Keeling, a British adolescent, was discovered injured and half-naked on Anjuna Beach in Goa in 2008. When this tragedy occurred, Scarlett was on a six-month tour to India with her extended family. The 15-year-old had gone to Anjuna for a Valentine’s Day celebration and was discovered drowned on the beach a few days later.

Two Indian males, Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho were charged with culpable homicide and sexual assault however were found not guilty in 2016 due to a lack of evidence and the refusal of a key eyewitness to testify in court.

Stoneman

Calcutta’s popular English-language print media coined the term “The Stoneman” to describe an unnamed serial killer who murdered at least 13 homeless persons in the city while they slept in 1989.

The murders purportedly occurred over six months (the first in June 1989), although it was never determined whether they were carried out by a single person or a gang, or if they were a series of copycat murders. No one has ever been convicted for these crimes, making it one of India’s oldest mysteries. There were also two films made about this subject.

Adnan Patrawala

Adnan Patrawala was the teenage son of Mumbai businessman Aslam Patrawala. Adnan was kidnapped for a ransom of Rs. 2 crores on August 18, 2007. When the kidnapping became public the next day, he was murdered.

Four of the five suspects were acquitted by a Mumbai Sessions Court on January 30, 2012, after the prosecution failed to prove its case. Afterward, Adnan’s father stated that he will file an appeal with a higher court.

Pradyuman Thakur, Ryan International School

In September 2017 a Class II student, Pradyuman Thakur at Gurgaon’s Ryan International School was discovered dead in the washroom. The innocent child, who appeared to have caused no harm to anyone, was initially considered to have been murdered in a sexual assault incident, which led to the arrest of a bus conductor.

However, a rumour recently surfaced claiming that a Class XI student murdered him to postpone the exams. As the picture became murkier, many people wondered how the bus conductor got involved in the first place.

Jessica Lal

The Jessica Lal case is well-known to everyone who grew up or lived in Delhi in the 1990s. In 1999, most newspaper headlines said, “No one killed Jessica.” Eyewitnesses had amnesia, and just a few people came forward to describe how the aspiring model was killed. Finally, it was revealed that Jessica was shot by billionaire Manu Sharma after she refused to serve him alcohol.

Sheena Bora

Sheena Bora‘s gruesome death shook the nation. The arrest of her mother, Indrani Mukerjea, for allegedly plotting her assassination was even more stunning. Mukerjea said Sheena was her sister and never admitted to having two children. The murder brought attention to Indrani and her husband Peter Mukerjea’s shady business operations.

Pramod Mahajan

Mahajan well-known for his glamorous lifestyle and his son, who has recently appeared in various television shows, however, have we made peace with his murder mystery? The politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party was assassinated in broad daylight inside his home. On April 6, 2006, Pramod was fatally shot by his younger brother, Pravin, who promptly walked to the nearest police station and confessed. “My name is Pravin, and I shot Pramod,” he said. Many people were taken aback by his brother’s outspokenness about the murder. Pravin was sentenced to life in prison and died of a suspected brain haemorrhage in March 2010.

Nithari Kaand

In 2007, Indians were shocked by the discovery of bodies of deceased children and adults in the house of Moninder Sinh Pandher in Noida’s Nithari village. When the investigation began, it was discovered that Pandher’s servant, Surender Koli, had been raping and killing women, sometimes minors, and had even eaten their body parts, in one case even cooking them. Pandher was acquitted of charges in one case in 2009, but he remained co-accused in another, and his death sentence was overturned. Kohli has been found guilty in five of the fifteen cases. Meanwhile, the Allahabad high court remitted his death sentence to life imprisonment.

Charles Sobhraj – The suave ‘Bikini Killer’

Despite his infamy, Charles Sobhraj is considered one of the most “famous” murderers in the world. He assassinated roughly 12 persons in Southeast Asia between 1975 and 1976. Sobhraj, unlike most other serial killers, had a goal in mind: to rob his victims to support his extravagant lifestyle. His customary strategy was to earn the trust of tourists and potential victims by first rescuing them from troubles he had created, and then cheating them. Sobhraj earned the nickname ‘Bikini Killer’ when two of the ladies he killed were discovered wearing floral bikinis. He was arrested and imprisoned in India from 1976 until 1997, after which he moved to Paris. He was even approached for book and movie rights, for which he demanded exorbitant fees. In 2004, he went to Nepal and was arrested once more. He has now been sentenced to second life imprisonment.

Beer mankiller

This may be the strangest case on the list. Six persons were killed in Mumbai between October 2006 and January 2007, and in each case, cops discovered a beer can alongside the victim’s body. This led them to believe he was a serial killer. Ravindra Kantrole was convicted of the seventh murder in January 2008, and two more Beer Man murders were later linked to him. However, due to a lack of evidence, he was cleared of all charges in 2009. While the Beer Man case remains unresolved, he currently operates a restaurant in Mumbai.

Jaishankar – The killer with a machete

M Jaishankar had been charged with 30 rapes, 15 murders, and a prison break after being arrested. All of his victims were women, and he is reported to have stabbed them with a machete, according to reports. He was re-arrested and is now serving a ten-year term while awaiting trial in 20 additional cases involving crimes committed between 2006 and 2009 in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Darbara Singh – The ‘Baby Killer’

Darbara Singh was known as the ‘Baby Killer’ after killing 15 girls and two boys between April and September 2004. When he was arrested in 2004, he was given a death sentence, which has now been converted to life imprisonment. So far, he’s been convicted in five cases and is facing prosecution in the others. Slicing the throats of his victims was his technique of murder.

Amardeep Sada – India’s youngest serial killer

Amardeep Sada is India’s youngest serial killer, which is hard to accept. He was eight years old when he was arrested in Begusarai, Bihar, for the murder of three small children: his six-month-old cousin, his eight-month-old sister, and a neighbour’s six-month-old daughter, Khushboo in 2007. His family was allegedly aware of the first two murders however chose not to notify the authorities to keep the subject ‘in the family.’ The cops were alerted after Amardeep killed the neighbour’s daughter. When questioned why he killed the youngsters in the police station, Amardeep simply smiled.

Chacko case

This is the case of 1984. Chacko’s fault was that he looked similar to Sukumara Kurup. He was assassinated by the latter to collect an insurance payout of Rs 8,00,000. According to reports, Chacko was strangled and burned inside Sukumara Kurup’s automobile.

Sukumara, who is now one of Kerala’s most sought criminals, is alleged to have escaped to another country, and his whereabouts are unknown. This unsolved murder case is one of Kerala’s oldest unresolved cases.

Sharath

In 2017, a 19-year-old son of an Income Tax Officer in Bangalore was murdered in what appears to be a kidnapping gone wrong. His remains were discovered bound together near Ramohalli lake on the outskirts of the city. The kidnappers strangled him to death and discarded his body on the same day he was kidnapped, as it turned out.

The story took a turn when the cops discovered that the kidnappers were his friends. Vishal, the victim’s close friend, was the mastermind behind the murder and kidnapping. Sharath, a 19-year-old engineering student, was assassinated by his friends to repay a loan.

Rizwanur Rehman

Rizwanur Rehman was discovered dead near railway lines on September 21, 2007, only weeks after marrying Priyanka, the daughter of Lux Hosiery Group CEO Ashok Todi.

Rizwan and Priyanka had kept their families in the dark since they expected strong opposition, especially from Priyanka’s family. On the advice of a friend, the couple notified the Commissioner of Police, the DC (south), and the Karaya police station about their marriage and requested police protection. Then, over the phone, Priyanka informed her father Ashok Todi about her marriage to Rizwan. Her family, particularly her father, was heartbroken.

Ashok Todi attempted to persuade the cops by requesting that the couple be separated. Rizwanur was forced to send his wife Priyanka to her father’s house and was afterward barred from communicating with her. His body was discovered on a railway track in Kolkata on September 21, 2007. The incident was dismissed as a suicide attempt.

Todi, his relatives, and a few police officers, on the other hand, were accused of aiding and abetting suicide. The Supreme Court of India stopped all proceedings in the case on October 13, 2008,  till the Calcutta high court decided Ashok Todi’s petition challenging CBI’s charge-sheet against him.

The Priyadarshini Mattoo case

Priyadarshini Mattoo, a law student, was discovered dead at her uncle’s home in New Delhi on January 23, 1996.

Santosh Kumar Singh, her senior, was designated the major offender after stalking and tormenting her for years. Santosh, the son of a powerful IPS officer, strangled her by wrapping an electric wire around her neck. He repeatedly smacked her in the face with a helmet, rendering her face unrecognisable.

On October 30, 2006, the Delhi High Court sentenced him to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.

Neeraj Grover murder case

Neeraj Grover, a Mumbai-based television executive, was chopped off, placed into three bags, and set on fire in a jungle. It was discovered that Maria Susairaj, a struggling Kannada actress, was involved in his murder fourteen days after she filed a complaint with the Malad police claiming her friend had gone missing after leaving her residence on May 7, 2008. Emile Jerome, Maria’s fiance, and a navy lieutenant killed Neeraj in a rage.

The reason behind the murder was that Grover had remained in Susairaj’s place, Jerome discovered on May 6, 2008. He flew down to Mumbai from Cochin, suspicious that the two were having an affair, and found Grover with his fiancée.

Jerome murdered Neeraj in anger, then proceeded to a neighbouring mall, bought a chopper, and disposed of the body with Maria’s help.

Both Jerome and Maria got off easy. He was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, but she was let off and was found guilty only for destroying evidence.

Hathras rape case

In Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras area, a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped by four men in September. Two weeks later, the woman died of her injuries in a Delhi hospital. While the death of the victim and the crime generated suspicions, it was what happened after the death that shook the country. District officials swiftly incinerated the body in the middle of the night, denying the family a final goodbye and even claimed there was no rape.

The insensitivity of officials provoked countrywide demonstrations, and the UP administration was criticized by numerous political parties for its handling of the case. The Supreme Court too came into the picture. The CBI issued a charge sheet charging four men of rape and murder, as well as the UP Police, of serious failures.

Ballabgarh daylight murder

The brutal murder of Nikita Tomar, a 20-year-old B.Com student from Haryana’s Ballabgarh, in broad daylight outside her college in October reignited the ‘love jihad’ debate in India.

Tomar had just finished her exam and walked out of her institution when two men pulled up alongside her. They started dragging Nikita into the car, a Hyundai i20. One of the accused pulled out a handgun and fired one cartridge at Nikita while she resisted the kidnapping. She died as a result of the gunshot. The crime’s images went viral on social media.

The accused, named Tausif, was reported to have previously harassed the victim, but the case was quickly dismissed. The victim’s family stated that the accused was pressuring their daughter to convert and marry him, which she refused on several occasions.

Nirbhaya gang-rape case

It is India’s most well-known case. The event occurred when a 23-year-old student was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured while travelling on a private bus with a buddy. The woman was raped and her buddy was beaten by six other people on the bus, including the driver. The young lady died as a result of her injuries. The incident drew widespread condemnation and national and international media attention. Meanwhile, all four prisoners have been sentenced to death, and the accused have been denied respite by the Supreme Court.

Kathua rape case

Six persons were found guilty in the 2018 rape and murder of an 8-year-old tribal girl in a Kathua village. In October, a Jammu court ordered the police to file an FIR against six members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was investigating the case, for allegedly torturing and coercing witnesses to make false statements.

On an application by Sachin Sharma, Neeraj Sharma, and Sahil Sharma, who were witnesses in the case, Judicial Magistrate Prem Sagar directed the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Jammu to issue the order, stating that cognizable offences have been made out against the six.

District and Sessions Judge Tejwinder Singh sentenced three of the major defendants to life in prison, while three others were sentenced to five years in prison for destroying evidence in the case that shook the nation.

After lawyers in Kathua attempted to prevent the charge sheet from being filed in court, the Supreme Court ordered the trial to be moved to Pathankot, Punjab. For a year, a day-to-day in-camera trial was held.

The girl, who was kidnapped, was allegedly raped in captivity at a small village temple in the area after being sedated for four days before being beaten to death, according to the charge sheet.

The kidnapping, rape, and murder of the youngster were all part of a strategy to drive out the area’s minority nomadic community, according to the report.

Geeta Chopra

When this case occurred, it shocked the nation’s capital. Ranga, also known as Kuljeet Singh, and Billa, also known as Jasbir, were sentenced to death in 1978 for the dramatic kidnapping and murder of two siblings in Delhi. Ranga and Billa had kidnapped Geeta Chopra and her brother Sanjay Chopra for ransom after they were released from the Arthur Road prison in Mumbai.

Ranga and Billa panicked when they learned that the kidnapped children’s father was a navy officer, and they brutally murdered them. Geeta had been raped by the duo before the murder. They were sentenced to death and executed on January 31, 1982.

Shabnam case: The first woman who could be hanged to death

The tragedy occurred in 2008, when Shabnam, together with her lover Saleem, murdered seven members of her family on the night of April 14/15. Shabnam used to live in Amroha with her family. Shabnam and Saleem had been having an affair and were planning to marry. Shabnam’s family, on the other hand, as opposed to their marriage, so the couple plotted a brutal murder.

She and her lover Salim were arrested on April 19, 2008, five days after the horrific murders. When she was arrested, she was seven weeks pregnant. In December 2008, she gave birth to a child.

During the inquiry, it was discovered that Shabnam helped Saleem commit the crime by forcing her family members to drink sedative-laced milk before hacking them to death. She didn’t even spare her young nephew, who died from strangulation. The court heard testimony from as many as 29 witnesses on the day of the verdict. After all the witnesses were required to answer 649 questions on the case, the 160-page order was passed.

On July 14, 2010, the District and Sessions Court sentenced the two to death. In 2010, the couple challenged the verdict of the Sessions court in the Allahabad High Court. The death penalty was maintained by the HC as well.

Shabnam and Saleem then went to the Supreme Court, but the death sentence was upheld in 2015. After exhausting all legal alternatives, Shabnam submitted a mercy petition before then-President Pranab Mukherjee, which was also denied.

Auto Shankar

Born Gowri Shankar, he made a name for himself as an illegal arrack (coconut liquor) transporter who was also involved in the local flesh trade. His killing spree in the 1980s, It is the most infamous case in India. Shankar’s power peaked in the mid-1980s and lasted only a few years before his murders were discovered. Shankar’s first publicly known victim, according to the police, was a young woman named Lalitha in 1987. She was a member of his inner circle who fled with Sudalaimuthu, one of his close associates, but they were apprehended and returned to Periyar Nagar. Sudalaimuthu was set on fire and his remains were put in a blanket and discarded in the Bay of Bengal, while Lalitha was clubbed to death and buried in an empty plot in Periyar Nagar. Lalitha’s remains were not discovered until nearly 15 months later.

This earns him a place on our list as one of India’s most prominent serial killers. Auto Shankar abducted and murdered nine adolescent girls from Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai, over six months in 1988. Though he initially blamed everything on the influence of the movie, a month before his execution, he admitted to murdering the abducted teenage girls for some politicians who had raped them.

Cyanide Mohan

Cyanide (Mohan Kumar) Mohan used to seduce unmarried girls into having sex with him, then dupe them into swallowing cyanide pills as contraceptives. He murdered 20 women between 2005 and 2009. He used to be a physical education teacher at a primary school before going on this deadly rampage. He was also suspected of participating in bank robberies and other financial forgeries. In December 2013, he was sentenced to death.

Devendra Sharma – the doctor turned killer

Devendra Sharma was an Ayurvedic medicine doctor who was quite successful, however, he also had a dark side. He was only interested in making quick cash by boosting cars, and he was unconcerned about the bloodshed that came with it. He stole automobiles and killed drivers in and around UP, Gurgaon, and Rajasthan between 2002 and 2004. According to his confession, he killed 30-40 guys, all of them were drivers. In 2008, he was sentenced to death.

Andhra Pradesh: three days with the body

In Hyderabad, a 20-year-old woman allegedly murdered her mother with the help of her boyfriend and spent three days with him next to the body. On October 25, a week after Rajitha disappeared, a body was discovered near the Ramannapet railway track in a completely decomposed form. As per the police, the incident happened on October 19 when Keerthy Reddy and her boyfriend, Chanti alias Sashi, killed Ranjitha by strangling her. They then spent three days with the body before being compelled to dump it on railway lines due to the awful smell of the decomposing body.

She confessed to the crime and disclosed that she had relations with two men who her mother did not approve of during interrogation. She admitted to holding a grudge against her mother for opposing her relationship with her partner.

The Tandoor murder case

In 2003, Sushil Sharma, the former president of the Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress, was found guilty of the murder of his wife Naina Sahni, a former Mahila Congress functionary in Delhi.

In July of 1995, a murder occurred. Sharma had been in a live-in relationship with Naina for a while before they married, and he chose to keep the wedding a secret. Sharma allegedly noticed Naina on the phone when he entered the house on July 2, 1995.

She hung up, but when he pressed the redial button, the call was answered by a former classmate and Congress colleague of Naina’s.

Enraged, he shot her with his pistol, then brought her body to the restaurant, where he chopped it off and attempted to burn it in the tandoor.

The matter went to trial later that year, with the verdict in the so-called “Tandoor Murder Case” arriving in 2003, when he was sentenced to death. In 2013, the Supreme Court modified his death sentence to a life sentence.

The Shakereh Khaleeli murder

In the 1990s, the Shakereh Khaleeli murder case shocked Bangalore and the country. Shakereh, a descendant of Mysore’s diwan Sir Mirza Ismail, married diplomat Akbar Mirza Khaleeli, who served as India’s ambassador to Iran, Italy, and Australia.

They were the parents of four girls. She divorced her husband and married Murali Manohar Mishra, also known as Swami Shradhananda, a self-styled godman. In 1991, she vanished. Shakereh’s remains were discovered buried in the courtyard of her home by Karnataka police in May 1994.

After being drugged, she was buried alive in a coffin. Mishra was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.

Conclusion

Most of these remain unsolved to date. These murder mysteries have been astonishing people from case to case, people have been wondering and building theories on their suspicion in most of the cases.

References

This article is written by Vanya Verma from Alliance University, Bengaluru. This article contains the most thrilling and bizarre murder incidents that shook the world. Later this article also covers the most famous murder cases that occurred in India.

Introduction

Nothing is more chilling than an unsolved murder case, and the world has plenty of them. Even when the court has given its verdict in some circumstances, it is difficult for us to accept it. This article consists of some of the most well-known murder cases that shook the world. In some of the cases, murderers have been identified, tried, and punished. While other cases remain open and may never be solved.

Famous murder cases around the world

Dennis Nilsen

Dennis Nilsen was a serial killer who killed six people in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He would pick up young men at London bars and then take them home to strangle them. He would also bathe and dress the bodies, frequently keeping them for weeks or even months, and talk to and have sex with them before eventually burning or flushing them down the toilet. He was only apprehended because “the leftover parts of the human he had tried to flush away were stuck in a drain outside his home.”

Dorothy Stratten

Dorothy Stratten was an ordinary 18-year-old girl working at a Dairy Queen in British Columbia, Canada when she met Paul Snider. He wooed her with sweet words and assured her that she would be a superstar. Snider encouraged Stratten to pursue modelling and even persuaded her to relocate to Los Angeles to compete in Playboy’s 25th Anniversary Great Playmate Hunt. Snider snatched her away and planned to make money off of her. Hugh Hefner spotted Stratten’s potential and predicted that she would be the next Marilyn Monroe. Stratten first appeared in the film Playboy in the role of Miss August 1979, and then went on to star in films such as Buck Rogers, Fantasy Island, and Galaxina.

Stratten was rapidly rising the Hollywood ladder. She was already being dubbed as “one of the few budding goddesses of the new decade” by the press.

Stratten was cast opposite Audrey Hepburn in the film. She developed a love affair with the film’s director, Peter Bogdanovich while filming in New York.

Snider became suspicious of Stratten and hired a private eye to follow her around. When she went home, however, she revealed the truth to her husband: she was in love with Bogdanovich and wanted a divorce.

Snider didn’t speak much, at least not in front of her. But, according to his buddies, once Stratten called it off, he developed an unusual interest in guns and hunting. He bought a 12-gauge shotgun, took a few shooting courses, and began whispering in people’s ears that Playboy had a policy of not printing nude images of women who were slain.

Stratten paid a visit to Snider at his house on Aug. 14, 1980, to negotiate a property settlement she had promised him in the divorce. Snider, on the other hand, would take advantage of the fact that they were alone to make his move.

Snider shot Stratten in the eye with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing her. He then turned the shotgun on himself after raping his dead wife’s body.

Stratten was once poised to be one of the next big Hollywood stars, but now her name is instead forever attached to her famous murder.

Diane Downs

Diane Downs shot her three children and drove them to the hospital in 1983. One of her daughters died on the way to the hospital, another had a stroke, and her son was paralysed from the waist down. Diane stated that a “strange man” attempted to take her car and then began firing on everyone. Her secret diary, however, was eventually discovered by the authorities, and it “described her obsession with a married man who did not want kids.” Her arrest occurred as a result of this. She was given a life sentence of 50 years in jail.

Sharon Tate

For decades, Hollywood and the rest of America have been scared by actress Sharon Tate’s horrible murder by the Manson Family while she was more than eight months pregnant.

Tate was at home with pals Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring on the night of August 8, 1969. Her spouse, director Roman Polanski, was filming a picture out of the country.

At the time, the couple was renting a posh home in Los Angeles’ Benedict Canyon neighbourhood, which would later become the site of the heinous killings.

Charles Manson, the infamous cult leader, ordered a couple of his faithful followers to break into the house and kill everyone inside “as gruesomely as you can.”

The cult members assassinated 18-year-old Steven Parent, who was visiting the estate’s caretaker, as soon as they entered the premises. Then they went inside, their sights set on the people who lived there.

They rounded up the four people and tied them up in the living room. Sebring objected, claiming that the eight-months-pregnant Tate was being tormented badly. But all he got was a bullet in the chest, a foot in the face, and a knife after a knife driven into his body until he died.

Folger and Frykowski managed to liberate themselves from their shackles and attempted to flee. The attempt to flee was unsuccessful. They were pursued by the killers, who savagely stabbed them dozens of times.

Tate was the only one who had survived. She begged her captors to let her live so that her unborn child may live. The Manson Family, on the other hand, was unmoved. They stabbed her to death and drew the word “Pig” on the front door with her blood.

The house itself was Manson’s purpose for the attack. Manson wanted vengeance on the previous renter, music producer Terry Melcher, who had denied him a record deal.

All of the assaults from that night, as well as Manson himself, were apprehended by the end of the year. They were given the death penalty and were sentenced to life in prison. Every plea for parole has been turned down.

Katherine Knight

Katherine Knight was the first woman in Australia to be sentenced to life in jail without parole. She skinned her husband, John Price, after stabbing him to death. Soon after, she skinned him and fried various parts of his body, intending to feed them to her clueless children. She even arranged the table and used place cards to direct the kids to their seats.

Gianni Versace

The public continues to be baffled by the shooting of fashion superstar Gianni Versace in broad daylight in front of his mansion in Miami’s South Beach.

Versace was a well-known fashion designer and the founder of the Versace fashion house at the time of his death. In the fashion industry, he was a sensation, dressing celebrities such as Princess Diana of Wales.

But, Versace was behaving strangely on the morning of July 15, 1997. Witnesses claim he went down to a nearby cafe, passed the entrance, and then circled back to enter minutes before his death. Later, a hostess noted that it appeared as if he was being followed.

Versace then went out and got a newspaper before returning to his multimillion-dollar Mediterranean villa, but he never made it past the front door.

How the murder occurred is unknown. A young man in his twenties approached Versace from behind and shot him twice in the head, according to some witnesses. Others claimed the males appeared to know each other and they were fighting over a bag when a gunshot rang out. Regardless of how it happened, one of the world’s most recognisable fashion designers has passed away.

Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year-old male, was the offender. In the local gay community, he had a reputation as a flamboyant gold digger who preyed on older guys for free trips and expensive stuff. Many individuals, however, referred to Cunanan as unhinged.

Cunanan killed four other men throughout the country in the three months leading up to the murder of Versace, landing him on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Cunanan, on the other hand, refused to take responsibility for his actions or identify his purpose for killing Versace. Shortly after Versace’s murder, he committed suicide aboard a Miami houseboat, leaving no note and but just a few belongings.

Issei Sagawa

Issei Sagawa fatally shot a woman in his residence in 1981. He consumed various parts of her body over two days to “absorb her beauty.” He had intercourse with her body as well. Later, Sagawa attempted to dispose of the remnants in a lake near his home in France. After two years of waiting for his trial, he was judged insane and the allegations against him were withdrawn. He eventually gained prominence in Japan and became a mini-celebrity there, where he could not be lawfully jailed, and he has remained free to this day.

Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. “The Black Dahlia”

Elizabeth Short, often known as the “Black Dahlia,” was an aspiring actress who desired fame above all. She could never have anticipated how she would earn it, as the victim of a heinous crime that has haunted America for decades.

On Jan. 15, 1947, a young mother and her three-year-old daughter came across the body of Elizabeth Short, who was 22 years old at the time. Her body had been entirely sliced in half and lay brutally disfigured in the grass of a Los Angeles suburban area.

Her body was split into two pieces roughly a foot apart. Her intestines had been removed, folded, and then reinserted into her stomach. Her wrists had ligature marks, pieces of her skin had been removed, and her entire body had been drained of blood.

Her face, though, was perhaps the worst aspect. The killer had slashed it open from the corners of both sides of her lips to her ears, leaving a Joker-like smile on her face.

An editor at the Los Angeles Examiner got a call from someone claiming to be the murderer a week later. He’d kept souvenirs and would be sending them over in the mail, he claimed.

He followed through on his promise. A postal worker brought out a letter addressed to the Examiner four days later. Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate, business cards, pictures, and contact book were all included.

But, as with so many previous well-known murders, the accompanying media circus merely served to bewilder the inquiry. The authorities were inundated with tips, making it difficult to separate the truth from the lies. They interrogated 12 potential suspects and listened to more than 60 persons who claimed to be the killers, but they were unable to make any arrests.

Carl Panzram

Carl Panzram is known as “America’s most repulsive serial killer.” Throughout the 1920s, he admitted that he killed 21 individuals (though not all have been confirmed) and sexually assaulted over 1,000 boys and men. Once  Panzram hired six men to work on a boat alongside him, shot them, and then fed them to crocodiles, this is one of his most heinous crimes. “For all of these things, I am not the least bit sorry.”

Kitty Genovese

The public was shocked by Kitty Genovese’s murder, which took place outside her apartment in front of many of her neighbours.

The young woman was brutally murdered while crying for help, and the neighbours who heard her screams did nothing to aid her. The psychologists wondered how could someone observe an attack or observe a crime taking place and do nothing?

The phrase “bystander effect” was coined by psychologists, and it now appears in almost every psychology textbook.

On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese drove home to her apartment in Kew Gardens around 2:30 a.m. from the bar she worked at in Hollis, Queens. She didn’t notice the automobile that followed her all the way home from a nearby parking lot.

Genovese parked her car at the train station and began walking 100 feet to her apartment complex. That’s when Winston Moseley attacked her.

As he stabbed her, Genovese screamed. Her shouts for aid were loud enough to arouse her neighbours at 3:15 a.m. However, none of them rushed to her rescue.

One man shouted: “Leave that girl alone!” It was enough to scare Moseley away, but even with him gone, nobody helped Genovese back to her feet. For ten minutes, she crawled across the ground, slowly bleeding out, no one helping her. And then Moseley came back.

He stabbed Genovese several times more before raping and robbing her and then fled. Neighbours didn’t notify the cops until after 4 a.m., over an hour after she was assaulted. It was too late by then. Genovese had already passed away.

A few witnesses said that they dialed 911 but that their calls were not prioritised. Others simply said that they presumed someone else would have done it instead. The behaviour of Genovese’s neighbours cost the young woman her life.

The Lizzie Borden killings

Andrew and Abby Borden’s deaths are undoubtedly two of the most well-known murders in American history.

August 4, 1892, for the Borden family, began like any other day. Andrew went into town for some business in the morning, leaving his 32-year-old Sunday school teacher Lizzie at home with his wife, Abby, and the family’s housekeeper, Bridget Sullivan.

Andrew arrived later that day to find his wife had disappeared. Lizzie informed him that Abby had received a note and had gone to see a friend.

Abby, on the other hand, had not gone anywhere. She was just upstairs, dead in a pool of her blood, at that specific moment.

Lizzie helped her father in relaxing and sleeping on the couch. She tried to persuade Bridget to leave the house by telling her about a nearby department store sale, but Bridget refused. She informed Lizzie she wasn’t feeling well. Instead, she walked to her bedroom, sat down, and dozed off. With a fit of yells and shouts, Sullivan’s relaxation was cut short. Lizzie screamed that her father had been murdered. Andrew was found dead on the couch, covered in blood, as Sullivan ran out. His face had been severely deformed to the point of being unidentifiable.

Lizzie realised in a panic that her stepmother, Abby, should have returned home by now.

She requested Sullivan to look upstairs for her. The search, on the other hand, was quick. Sullivan had only made it halfway up the stairs when she discovered her, murdered with a hatchet.

Abby had been attacked with a hatchet 19 times, while her husband had been hit 11 times. Lizzie was initially not a suspect, but she was arrested and put on trial for the murders after a friend spotted her burning one of her dresses because it was stained.

The charges against Lizzie were eventually dropped by the court. They couldn’t believe the female Sunday school teacher could ever be capable of such crimes because there wasn’t enough concrete evidence against her, the defence provided witnesses who gave Borden an alibi.

Countless possibilities have been suggested as to what might have happened. Some accuse Lizzie Borden, others Sullivan and still others claim that the girls were all involved in the murders. However, the mystery has remained unanswered for over a century.

The Hello Kitty murder

Fan Man-yee, a 23-year-old nightclub waitress, was abducted in 1999 by three men. They tormented her for a month before she died, though it’s unclear whether the men were to blame for her death or if it was due to a drug overdose. The men decapitated her and stuffed her skull into a huge Hello Kitty doll when she died. The three men were all found guilty of manslaughter. The Hello Kitty Murder is widely regarded as one of the cruellest and most ruthless cases to ever come before a Hong Kong court.

Edmund Kemper, aka the “Co-ed Killer”

Edmund Kemper murdered ten people, including his paternal grandparents and mother, brutally. Kemper killed six students, beheaded them, and had sex with their corpses during an 11-month killing spree in the early 1970s in the California highlands. He also used a claw hammer to kill his mother, decapitated her head, and had sex with it before calling the cops to turn himself in.

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman

One of the most well-known trials in American history occurred after the famous killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Brown was the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, a well-known football star. The couple married in 1985 and had two children, but their marriage was tumultuous and filled with physical abuse. Brown filed for divorce in 1992, after seven years of marriage.

Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman were brutally killed outside Nicole’s Brentwood, California home on June 12, 1994.

Nicole was stabbed five times in the neck, and later they were both stabbed to death. Her throat was slashed down to the spinal cord, according to court testimony. The leading suspect was Nicole’s ex-husband.

O.J. agreed to bring himself in, but on June 17, he and his companion A.C. Cowlings made a run for it. O.J. led police on a chase across Los Angeles with a gun to his head, threatening to murder himself. He eventually gave himself in.

During the trial, there was a huge pile of evidence against O.J. for the crime. O.J. ‘s blood was discovered at the crime scene, Nicole and Goldman’s DNA was discovered in his car and home, a pair of O.J.’s gloves were discovered on Nicole’s property, and a bloody footprint at the crime scene matched his shoe.

Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, O.J. was acquitted of the killings of his ex-wife and Goldman. However, in the Civil Court, he was found guilty of the offences and compelled to compensate the families for $33.5 million.

Lindbergh Baby

The tragic kidnapping and killing of 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. have become one of America’s most well-known murders.

On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Sr., a well-known aviator who rose to fame after flying solo over the Atlantic, heard a noise from his kitchen that sounded like a wooden container cracking shut. The Lindbergh infant vanished from his crib just minutes afterward dialed, according to the family’s nurse.

When Lindbergh Sr. visited his son’s room, he discovered a ransom letter on the windowsill and a broken ladder outside. In exchange for his son’s safe return, the note requested $50,000.

The Lindbergh family desperately searched for the lost baby for the next three months, with the help of the FBI. Lindbergh Sr. even paid the huge ransom demanded by the kidnapper of his son. The kidnapper, on the other hand, never kept his word. Charles Lindbergh Sr. was never going to see his son again.

The Lindbergh baby’s little body was discovered dead just over a mile from his family’s estate on May 12, 1932, after more than two months he originally went missing.

The boy had been missing for at least two months and is thought to have died on the day he was stolen.

His skull had a hole in it, and his bones had been fractured multiple times. The child’s body parts had been eaten off in several places. It appeared like animals had gotten to the body first.

Richard Hauptmann, a German immigrant with a criminal record, was eventually named as the official perpetrator. Hauptmann was arrested after he had used part of the ransom money.

The Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping and following trial drew a lot of media interest. Hauptmann was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death in what was nicknamed the “Trial of the Century.” On April 3, 1936, Hauptmann died in the electric chair.

The Lindbergh infant case prompted Congress to establish the Federal Kidnapping Act,1932, making it illegal to transport a kidnap victim beyond state lines. The law is commonly referred to as the “Lindbergh Law.”

The Boy in the Box

We’re still no closer to uncovering the mystery of the Boy in the Box even after 60 years.

It all began on a freezing February day in 1957, on a roadway just outside of Philadelphia. While checking his traps, a young muskrat hunter came across a cardboard box in the woods, the body of a little child, stripped naked and mangled, was found within it.

The muskrat hunter kept his secret to himself. He was afraid that if he told anyone, the cops would come after him for his unlawful traps. So, until a braver soul discovered him, the boy’s body sat cold and rotting in the woods for days.

The kid was between the age of three and seven, and he had been mistreated horribly. He appeared weak, malnourished, and unkempt. His hair had been chopped shortly before he died, and clumps of it stuck to his body. Small scars covered his entire body, particularly on his foot, groin, and chin.

Only one modest act of kindness had been shown to the kid who had been left alone in the box. He had been wrapped in a blanket and left to rot by whoever had slain him. It was the only sign of affection he’d received.

The police took the boy’s fingerprints in the hopes of discovering a match, but nothing was found. Hundreds of thousands of flyers were sent around the neighbourhood, requesting information about the unnamed boy, but no one responded. His parents never claimed him as one of their children.

The investigators did everything they could to solve the case. They looked at everything from the cardboard box to the blanket he was wrapped in at the crime site. Every trail they took, however, led to a fresh dead end.

One of America’s most famous murders has remained unsolved for more than 60 years. Nobody knows who the youngster was or how he wound up nude and mutilated in a box in the woods. Tragically, after all these years, the world will probably never even learn the name of “America’s Unknown Child.”

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

With the deaths of seven men in the late 1920s, Chicago’s gang war reached a climax. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was a terrible scene that would live on in infamy.

Al “Scarface” Capone planned this heinous mob killing to finally eliminate his competitor George “Bugs” Moran and establish himself as the Chicago mob’s top dog.

Four of Capone’s men arrived at Moran’s warehouse on the morning of Feb. 14, 1929, where he illegally sold whiskey. Capone is thought to have persuaded Moran to the warehouse by claiming that one of his bootlegging operations in Canada needed assistance.

Five of Moran’s men, accompanied by two auto mechanics, responded to Capone’s call. They filed into the warehouse, oblivious to the fact that Capone’s men were waiting for them.

Albert Weinshank, the last of Moran’s men to arrive, was confronted by two police officers as he exited his Cadillac sedan on the street and made his way inside the warehouse. Moran’s men, fearful of being apprehended, formed a line against the wall, their backs to the cops, and remained silent so as not to expose their leader.

The individuals who had stopped them, on the other hand, were not police officials. They were Capone’s men in disguise.

Two more of Capone’s men, dressed in civilian clothing and with submachine guns, stepped inside after Moran’s men were lined up against the wall. The men were showered with gunshots. Six of them died instantly, but one endured terrible agony for hours before succumbing to his injuries in a hospital bed.

Bugs Moran, the plan’s original target, was never found. Weinshank had been mistaken for Moran by the men, a mistake that saved Bugs Moran’s life.

Capone was the most obvious suspect, yet he managed to escape detection. No one has ever been charged with the murders. Capone never claimed responsibility for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre’s brutality and bloodshed.

JonBenét Ramsey

For more than two decades, the terrible unsolved murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey had enthralled the country.

JonBenét Ramsey was a well-known beauty queen who lived in Boulder, Colorado, with her parents, Patricia and John Ramsey, and her nine-year-old brother, Burke.

The Ramsey family’s lives were turned upside down the morning after Christmas in 1996. Patsy dialled 911 in a panic, claiming she had discovered a ransom letter for their daughter. The three-page note sought $118,000 from the wealthy Ramsey family in exchange for JonBenét’s safe return.

But JonBenét hadn’t been kidnapped in the normal sense. Her body was discovered inside the family’s house just hours afterward. Following a thorough examination of the body, it was discovered that JonBenét had been sexually abused and had suffered a skull fracture. A device built from one of her mother’s paintbrushes had also strangled the six-year-old.

JonBenét’s killing was ruled a homicide, but police mistakes at the crime scene made finding the culprit extremely impossible.

Because of contradicting stories and the fact that the ransom note was written on house paper, the Ramsey family was questioned, although John and Patsy were never charged with the crime (while Burke has also been suspected by some).

Police questioned and investigated plenty of additional suspects, but none yielded any results. JonBenét Ramsey’s sad death remains unsolved to this day.

The Zodiac killer

Most criminals keep their misdeeds hidden, but “Zodiac,” as he called himself, was different from such criminals. He terrorised San Francisco with his murder spree from 1968 to 1969, teasing the cops with coded messages to the local paper. Although he claims to have killed 37 people, he was directly linked to at least five murders. When Betty Lou Jensen, 16, and David Arthur Faraday, 17, were discovered lying outside of their bullet-riddled automobile, he was terrified. Jensen died of five gunshot wounds to her back at the scene, while Faraday died of a bullet wound to the head en route to the hospital.

A half-year later, a couple who had parked their car four miles away from the crime scene was similarly gunned down, with one person injured and the other murdered. Michael Mageau, a survivor, was able to describe the killer. He described himself as a 5’8″ Caucasian male with a heavy build. The remaining evidence would be given to the police by the Zodiac killer himself.

Police got an odd call at 12:48 a.m. the same night:

I wish to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to a public park, you will find the kids in a brown car. They have been shot with a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Good-bye.

The first letter from the Zodiac killer was delivered to the media a month later. He threatened to go on a murdering spree unless the letter was published on the main page. The murders were described in the letter, which was written in cryptic cyphers that appeared to constitute a code. This was a recurring subject in his subsequent letters, which were all signed with a crossed-circle symbol. A high-school instructor and his wife decoded one of these letters. It said:

I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FOREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAE WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND THEI HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOI DOWN OR ATOP MY COLLECTIOG OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI.

The Zodiac killer continued to kill and leave police with frustrating evidence– coded messages, anonymous phone calls, the crossed-circle scribbled on victims’ automobiles, sending over blood-stained clothing, and testimonies from survivors– but they never caught him.

The Taman Shud case

The Zodiac Killer wasn’t the only one who liked to play with codes. A body was discovered on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia, on December 1st, 1948. The man’s body was in excellent shape, with no visible injuries. He was well-dressed, however, all of his clothing labels were missing. He had a railway ticket to Henley Beach in his pocket, which he had never used. They discovered a bag related to him at Adelaide Railroad Station a month later. Its label, as well as the labels on the clothing within, were removed.

Unfortunately, it yielded no results, just as his autopsy revealed no foreign substance in his body that may be linked to the poisoning. A month later, they discovered the most important but perplexing evidence in a hidden pocket in the man’s slacks. “Taman Shud,” it said.

Officials from the public library were summoned to translate the sentence. They deduced that it meant “completed” or “ending,” which they discovered in Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, a collection of poems. Police immediately began a nationwide search for the book from which the scraps were torn.

A man claimed that he discovered the book in the backseat of his open car a week or two before the body was discovered. An odd code was scratched out in pencil on the back of it. A nurse’s phone number was also obtained, though the nurse claimed to have delivered a copy of the Rubaiyat to an army officer called Alfred Boxall. The man who discovered the book, as well as the nurse, denied any link to the deceased guy. They never followed up on the case, however many believe it was a suicide because the book’s theme was about having no regrets when one’s life came to an end. Others believe he is a spy. And his grave will continue to read till there are any breaks in the case- “Here lies the unknown man who was found at Somerton Beach 1st Dec. 1948.”

Tara Calico case

Tara Calico went for a ride on her mother’s pink bicycle. She had planned to play tennis later that afternoon and had asked her mother to bring her out in case she suffered a flat tyre and didn’t return home by noon. She never came back. Every lead led nowhere until a year later, when a photo of a young woman her age and a lost boy, both gagged, was discovered.

The Polaroid image was discovered in the parking lot of a Florida Junior Food Store. Michael Henley, nine years old at the time, went missing while hunting turkeys with his father in the same area as Calico in April of 1988. They appeared to be in the back of a vehicle, with a copy of one of Calico’s favourite authors, V.C. Andrews, laying next to the girl. Tara’s mother didn’t believe the girl was her at first, but the girl in the photo had a scar that looked exactly like Calico’s. Despite this, many experts dismiss the photograph due to a lack of evidence.

Michael Henley’s body was discovered in the Zuni Mountains in 1990, where he was hunting, putting an end to the hypothesis that the two were kidnapped and transferred to Florida. Calico’s parents died without ever learning who kidnapped their daughter.

The severed feet mystery

In 2007, a young woman was walking along a beach in British Columbia when she came across a shoe. As she opened the sock, she was horrified to discover a human foot inside. A lot of severed feet have washed up on the beach since then. Five men, one woman, and three males of unknown gender have been linked to the feet. With a hoax foot thrown in here and there over the years, the case has never been closed, and numerous theories as to who the feet belonged to have circulated.

In 2008, Vancouver police were able to identify one foot by matching its DNA to that of a suicidal guy. They were able to connect two more feet to a woman who was likewise thought to have committed suicide later on. Because of these results, many people believe that the feet belong to people who died by jumping off a bridge. However, because only feet were found with no other body parts, others speculate that the feet were linked to a plane disaster on a nearby island. Others speculate that they were victims of the Asian Tsunami in 2004 because the shoes were all made before that year. Whatever origins these feet may have, they have mystified the world for years.

The dead woman who named her killer

Although the case was solved, how it was solved remains a mystery. A Chicago respiratory therapist was murdered in her residence in 1977. Teresita Basa was discovered with a butcher knife buried in her chest under a blazing mattress. Police tried to locate her stolen jewellery but were not successful. They were also unable to connect any of the suspects to the crime. It appeared hard to discover the offender until Remy Chua, a coworker who hardly knew the victim, became an unexpected source of information.

Chua began to have images and dreams about Basa regularly. It all started in her workplace’s locker room, where she saw a man’s face behind Basa. This would happen again and again in her dreams. Chua then began communicating with her husband while channelling Basa’s spirit. Chua told her husband the entire storey of Basa’s murder while channelling Basa’s spirit. She alleged that an elderly person at the hospital called Alan Showery molested her while assisting Basa with her television. He then murdered her and set fire to her mattress. Showery’s common-law wife received her jewellery, and the spirit was able to provide specifics about what happened to it. Mr. Chua persuaded his wife to share these things with the police.

The police were initially doubtful, but after seeing Basa’s jewellery on Showery’s wife (which Basa’s cousin was able to confirm precisely as the spirit claimed she could), the guy was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Unfortunately, the evidence was insufficient to convict him any longer. Was it, however, Basa’s ghost that identified her assailant? Maybe Chua knew something about the case and hid it behind the guise of a spirit controlling her. What brought authorities to the murderer is still a mystery.

The Jeanette Depalma case

Normally, people associate witches with Salem, Massachusetts, but in this case, the witches were located in Springfield, New Jersey. It all began in 1972 when a dog returned home with a decomposed forearm. A police search ensued, and a body was shortly discovered atop a cliff in Springfield. Jeanette DePalmer, a 16-year-old who had been missing for six weeks, was recognised as the body. Immediately, stories about the reason for her death began to circulate. Many people believe her body was placed on a makeshift altar on the hill where she was discovered, which was covered with occult markings.

Many residents, including some police officers, believe DePalma was used as a human sacrifice by a coven of witches known as Satanists. Much of the case’s information has been lost as a result of a flood. However, according to some local newspaper sources, due to her partially decayed body, investigators were unable to ascertain the cause of death. They also looked into a local homeless man who was a prime candidate but found no evidence linking him to the murder. In terms of the occult theory, many believe DePalma provoked a group of Satan-worshiping teenagers at her high school while attempting to preach to them. She was a member of a group that assisted drug users by restoring their faith in Christ.

The preacher who ran the organisation theorised that she was selected as a sacrifice to the organisation because of this. Was she a victim of human sacrifice? Or did these suspicions aid in the concealment of the true assailant? No one may ever know.

The Glico-Morinaga case

Brace yourselves, for this case, is as bizarre as a TV crime drama. It works with the Japanese company Ezaki Glico that was well known for its Morinaga and Pocky snacks. Two armed men in masks stormed into CEO Katsuhisa Ezaki’s mother’s house in 1984 and tied her, stealing the Glico CEO’s house key. When they broke into his home, they also arrested his wife and daughter. Mrs.was Ezaki attempted to bargain with the guys about money, but they were looking for something else. They had cut the phone connections and then invaded the bathroom, where Ezaki and his other two children were hiding. They kidnapped Ezaki and locked him in a warehouse. They demanded 1 billion yen and 100 kg of gold bars in exchange for their release. When Ezaki managed to flee three days later, their plans were revealed.

Vehicles in the parking area of the firm’s headquarters were set on fire a few weeks later, just when the company felt it had escaped extortion. Then, in Ibaraki, where the warehouse was located, a container of hydrochloric acid and a threatening letter addressed to Glico were discovered. This was the first of a series of letters from “The Monster with 21 Faces,” a person or group named after a monster in a Japanese detective series. The letters claimed that the company’s candies were contaminated with potassium cyanide soda, and threatened the company’s products. Glico had no choice but to remove the products from the shelves, resulting in a $21 million loss and the termination of 450 part-time employees.

The Monster with 21 Faces decided to have some fun somewhere else after months of tormenting Glico. “We forgive Glico!” they wrote in their farewell letter to the business. They turned their attention to food corporations Marudai Ham, House Foods Corporation, and Fujiya after that abrupt end. One of its employees planned to hand them ransom money on a train in exchange for ending their harassment of Marudai. The leading suspect, known as the “Fox-Eyed Man,” was seen by an investigator who disguised himself as an employee. The man was well-built, his hair was short and permed, and he had “fox eyes”. He and another detective attempted to track down the Fox-Eyed Man after dropping the ransom as directed, but they were unsuccessful. They’d get another chance later, but he’d eluded them once more.

After continuing to annoy authorities, Police Superintendent Yamamoto committed suicide by burning himself on fire a year later, humiliated by his failure to apprehend the Fox-Eyed Man. The Monster with 21 Faces released its final letter to the media five days after its death:

Yamamoto of Shiga Prefecture Police died. How stupid of him! We’ve got no friends or a secret hiding place in Shiga. It’s Yoshino or Shikata who should have died. What have they been doing for as long as one year and five months? Don’t let bad guys like us get away with it. Many more fools want to copy us. No-career Yamamoto died like a man. So we decided to give our condolences. We decided to forget about torturing food-making companies. If anyone blackmails any of the food-making companies, it’s not us but someone copying us. We are bad guys. That means we’ve got more to do other than bullying companies. It’s fun to lead a bad man’s life. Monster with 21 Faces.”

The Monster with 21 Faces disappeared with that final sentence, never to be seen or heard from again.

SS Ourang Medan case

Ghost ships aren’t merely depicted in myths and films like The Pirates of the Caribbean. The entire crew inexplicably died in this actual incident. It all began in 1947, when ships passing through the Malacca Straits (which connect Sumatra and Malaysia) heard a distress call: “All officers, including the captain, are dead, lying in the chartroom and bridge. The entire crew may be dead. The transmission was followed by some incomprehensible Morse code before dying.”

The Silver Star, an American ship, responded to the distress call and located the Ourang Medan, but there were no signs of the crew on the deck, despite several attempts to contact them. So they boarded the ship, only to be greeted by a terrifying spectacle. The bodies of the Dutchmen were scattered around the deck, their faces twisted in such a way that one would suppose they had witnessed something terrible before their deaths. The dog was likewise dead, its face distorted in agony. The communication officer was still at his position, his cold fingers pressing the telegraph when the captain’s body was discovered on the bridge. A similar situation awaited the American crew on the boiler deck. Even though it was well over 100 degrees down there, a cold shiver came over them.

As they returned to their ship, they decided to tow the Ourang Medan to port. However, as soon as the tow line was attached, smoke began to billow from the ship. It burst a few moments later, sinking into its watery grave and taking all of its secrets with it. What did the crew witness that was so heinous? Some speculate that it was the work of the supernatural. Perhaps the ship was raided by a band of ghost pirates, or aliens decided to visit. Unprecedented events do occur, as a firefighter and EMT Mick Mayers have discovered in his firehouse. Others, on the other hand, have stronger scientific justifications.

Many people believe the Dutch ship was transporting dangerous chemicals like potassium cyanide and nitroglycerin. Seawater may have come into contact with the cargo, releasing hazardous fumes that poisoned the crew. The explosion would eventually be caused by nitroglycerin. Perhaps there was a problem in the boiler room, and carbon monoxide killed the crew, and a fire erupted, destroying the ship. The fact that, even though the Silver Star is undoubtedly real, there are no registration documents for the ship is the most concerning aspect. Is this a true story about a ship that never existed, or is it just a sailor’s tale?

Most famous murder cases in India

Telangana Vet rape and murder case

A veterinary doctor parked her scooter near the Shamdabad toll plaza and took a taxi to a dermatologist’s office on November 27, 2019, at about 6:15 p.m. Four lorry drivers who were monitoring her, punctured her scooter’s tyre while she was gone. She observed the flat tyre after arriving at about 9:15 p.m. and sought assistance. Those four men arrived to assist her, and the doctor called her sister to inform her that she was not feeling well. The strangers ambushed her, forced her to drink alcohol, and then sexually assaulted her in turn. She was then suffocated and her body wrapped in a blanket. They burned her body under a bridge using diesel and petrol they bought on the way.

Unnao rape case

On the 5th of December, a woman from Unnao was set on fire while on her way to court to fight a rape charge. A group of five males set her on fire after thrashing and stabbing her. The woman screamed for aid and raced like a flame, according to witnesses. She was taken to Delhi, where she died, with about 90% of her body burned. The heinous crime, on the other hand, has a long history. The primary accused in the case, Shivam Trivedi, promised her marriage but held her in captivity as a sex slave. According to reports, Shivam comes from an affluent family, with her mother serving as a three-time gram pradhan.

Shivam and his brother Shubham were said to have taken her to a temple in Unnao and promised her that they would marry there. She was, however, raped at gunpoint.

She confronted Shivam on January 19, 2018, and inquired if he would marry her or not, according to the FIR. She was taken to Rae Bareli and kept for two months in a rented room. She wasn’t even permitted to leave the house. If she complained, she was threatened that her videos would be released. She stated in the FIR that Raebareli police refused to allow her to file a complaint.

After the court intervened, the FIR was finally filed. Shivam was released on bail in November after surrendering in September.

Divya Bharti

The death of Bollywood actress Divya Bharti has long been a topic of debate in India, and no one truly knows what caused her death. Many conspiracy theories surround her death; some claim she died by falling from her balcony after drinking too much alcohol, while others claim it was an accident.

The more serious claims include her then-husband Sajid Nadiadwala’s involvement, as well as the underworld mafia. Though the majority of people still believe it was a suicide.

Amar Singh Chamkila

Amar Singh Chamkila was a well-known Punjabi singer, songwriter, guitarist, and composer in his native Punjab. Amar and his wife, Amarjot (who was also his singing partner), were assassinated, along with two members of their band, on March 8, 1988, allegedly by a group of unknown youngsters. Common themes of his songs included extramarital affairs, coming of age, drinking, drug usage, and the fierce tempers of Punjabi males.

As a result, he became a controversial figure, with many detractors who thought his music was vulgar. Both Amar and Amarjot were killed at 2 p.m. when he and his band went to Mehsampur, Punjab, for a show.

Several bullets were shot by a group of motorcyclists, fatally wounding the couple and other members of the entourage. Even though they were murdered in broad daylight, no arrests have been made, and the case remains unsolved.

Sunanda Pushkar

Sunanda Pushkar, the late wife of a diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor, died in 2014 under unknown circumstances. A series of intimate texts allegedly sent by Pakistani journalist Mehar Tarar to Shashi Tharoor was released on his Twitter account two days before her death. Her account had been hacked, according to Mehar. Sunanda, on the other hand, claimed the account had not been hacked and that she had sent the texts to expose Mehar’s stalking of Shashi. Sunanda also accused Mehar of working with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The next day, Shashi Tharoor’s Facebook page posted a remark labelled “a joint statement by Sunanda and Shashi Tharoor.”

Sunanda had been hospitalised after becoming ill, and she was looking for relaxation, according to the note. She was discovered dead in her hotel room in New Delhi on January 17th, 2014. No arrest has been made yet.

Aarushi Talwar

This is certainly one of India’s most sensational murder mysteries that is yet to be solved. Aarushi Talwar, 14, and Hemraj Banjade, 45, a domestic worker employed by her family in Noida, were killed on the night of the 15th (or 16th) of May 2008. The case sparked a lot of public curiosity and gained a lot of media attention. Unfortunately, the news was full of slanderous and character-assassinating claims levelled against Aarushi and her parents, which many criticised as a media trial.

The CBI suspected the family’s three domestic staff, but they were released owing to a lack of evidence, and the inquiry was passed over to a new team. The team named Aarushi’s father Rajesh Talwar as the sole suspect based on circumstantial evidence but refused to charge him due to a lack of concrete proof. This allegation was met with strong opposition from the parents. However, a court dismissed the CBI’s allegation that there was insufficient evidence and ordered the Talwars to face charges. The parents were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in November 2013. Many critics said that the judgment was based on weak evidence, and the Talwars had appealed to the Allahabad High Court. Arushi’s parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were acquitted on appeal on 12 October 2017 after spending four years in prison in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Two Hindi films, a book, and a podcast have all been made based on this case.

Scarlett Keeling

Scarlett Keeling, a British adolescent, was discovered injured and half-naked on Anjuna Beach in Goa in 2008. When this tragedy occurred, Scarlett was on a six-month tour to India with her extended family. The 15-year-old had gone to Anjuna for a Valentine’s Day celebration and was discovered drowned on the beach a few days later.

Two Indian males, Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho were charged with culpable homicide and sexual assault however were found not guilty in 2016 due to a lack of evidence and the refusal of a key eyewitness to testify in court.

Stoneman

Calcutta’s popular English-language print media coined the term “The Stoneman” to describe an unnamed serial killer who murdered at least 13 homeless persons in the city while they slept in 1989.

The murders purportedly occurred over six months (the first in June 1989), although it was never determined whether they were carried out by a single person or a gang, or if they were a series of copycat murders. No one has ever been convicted for these crimes, making it one of India’s oldest mysteries. There were also two films made about this subject.

Adnan Patrawala

Adnan Patrawala was the teenage son of Mumbai businessman Aslam Patrawala. Adnan was kidnapped for a ransom of Rs. 2 crores on August 18, 2007. When the kidnapping became public the next day, he was murdered.

Four of the five suspects were acquitted by a Mumbai Sessions Court on January 30, 2012, after the prosecution failed to prove its case. Afterward, Adnan’s father stated that he will file an appeal with a higher court.

Pradyuman Thakur, Ryan International School

In September 2017 a Class II student, Pradyuman Thakur at Gurgaon’s Ryan International School was discovered dead in the washroom. The innocent child, who appeared to have caused no harm to anyone, was initially considered to have been murdered in a sexual assault incident, which led to the arrest of a bus conductor.

However, a rumour recently surfaced claiming that a Class XI student murdered him to postpone the exams. As the picture became murkier, many people wondered how the bus conductor got involved in the first place.

Jessica Lal

The Jessica Lal case is well-known to everyone who grew up or lived in Delhi in the 1990s. In 1999, most newspaper headlines said, “No one killed Jessica.” Eyewitnesses had amnesia, and just a few people came forward to describe how the aspiring model was killed. Finally, it was revealed that Jessica was shot by billionaire Manu Sharma after she refused to serve him alcohol.

Sheena Bora

Sheena Bora‘s gruesome death shook the nation. The arrest of her mother, Indrani Mukerjea, for allegedly plotting her assassination was even more stunning. Mukerjea said Sheena was her sister and never admitted to having two children. The murder brought attention to Indrani and her husband Peter Mukerjea’s shady business operations.

Pramod Mahajan

Mahajan well-known for his glamorous lifestyle and his son, who has recently appeared in various television shows, however, have we made peace with his murder mystery? The politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party was assassinated in broad daylight inside his home. On April 6, 2006, Pramod was fatally shot by his younger brother, Pravin, who promptly walked to the nearest police station and confessed. “My name is Pravin, and I shot Pramod,” he said. Many people were taken aback by his brother’s outspokenness about the murder. Pravin was sentenced to life in prison and died of a suspected brain haemorrhage in March 2010.

Nithari Kaand

In 2007, Indians were shocked by the discovery of bodies of deceased children and adults in the house of Moninder Sinh Pandher in Noida’s Nithari village. When the investigation began, it was discovered that Pandher’s servant, Surender Koli, had been raping and killing women, sometimes minors, and had even eaten their body parts, in one case even cooking them. Pandher was acquitted of charges in one case in 2009, but he remained co-accused in another, and his death sentence was overturned. Kohli has been found guilty in five of the fifteen cases. Meanwhile, the Allahabad high court remitted his death sentence to life imprisonment.

Charles Sobhraj – The suave ‘Bikini Killer’

Despite his infamy, Charles Sobhraj is considered one of the most “famous” murderers in the world. He assassinated roughly 12 persons in Southeast Asia between 1975 and 1976. Sobhraj, unlike most other serial killers, had a goal in mind: to rob his victims to support his extravagant lifestyle. His customary strategy was to earn the trust of tourists and potential victims by first rescuing them from troubles he had created, and then cheating them. Sobhraj earned the nickname ‘Bikini Killer’ when two of the ladies he killed were discovered wearing floral bikinis. He was arrested and imprisoned in India from 1976 until 1997, after which he moved to Paris. He was even approached for book and movie rights, for which he demanded exorbitant fees. In 2004, he went to Nepal and was arrested once more. He has now been sentenced to second life imprisonment.

Beer mankiller

This may be the strangest case on the list. Six persons were killed in Mumbai between October 2006 and January 2007, and in each case, cops discovered a beer can alongside the victim’s body. This led them to believe he was a serial killer. Ravindra Kantrole was convicted of the seventh murder in January 2008, and two more Beer Man murders were later linked to him. However, due to a lack of evidence, he was cleared of all charges in 2009. While the Beer Man case remains unresolved, he currently operates a restaurant in Mumbai.

Jaishankar – The killer with a machete

M Jaishankar had been charged with 30 rapes, 15 murders, and a prison break after being arrested. All of his victims were women, and he is reported to have stabbed them with a machete, according to reports. He was re-arrested and is now serving a ten-year term while awaiting trial in 20 additional cases involving crimes committed between 2006 and 2009 in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Darbara Singh – The ‘Baby Killer’

Darbara Singh was known as the ‘Baby Killer’ after killing 15 girls and two boys between April and September 2004. When he was arrested in 2004, he was given a death sentence, which has now been converted to life imprisonment. So far, he’s been convicted in five cases and is facing prosecution in the others. Slicing the throats of his victims was his technique of murder.

Amardeep Sada – India’s youngest serial killer

Amardeep Sada is India’s youngest serial killer, which is hard to accept. He was eight years old when he was arrested in Begusarai, Bihar, for the murder of three small children: his six-month-old cousin, his eight-month-old sister, and a neighbour’s six-month-old daughter, Khushboo in 2007. His family was allegedly aware of the first two murders however chose not to notify the authorities to keep the subject ‘in the family.’ The cops were alerted after Amardeep killed the neighbour’s daughter. When questioned why he killed the youngsters in the police station, Amardeep simply smiled.

Chacko case

This is the case of 1984. Chacko’s fault was that he looked similar to Sukumara Kurup. He was assassinated by the latter to collect an insurance payout of Rs 8,00,000. According to reports, Chacko was strangled and burned inside Sukumara Kurup’s automobile.

Sukumara, who is now one of Kerala’s most sought criminals, is alleged to have escaped to another country, and his whereabouts are unknown. This unsolved murder case is one of Kerala’s oldest unresolved cases.

Sharath

In 2017, a 19-year-old son of an Income Tax Officer in Bangalore was murdered in what appears to be a kidnapping gone wrong. His remains were discovered bound together near Ramohalli lake on the outskirts of the city. The kidnappers strangled him to death and discarded his body on the same day he was kidnapped, as it turned out.

The story took a turn when the cops discovered that the kidnappers were his friends. Vishal, the victim’s close friend, was the mastermind behind the murder and kidnapping. Sharath, a 19-year-old engineering student, was assassinated by his friends to repay a loan.

Rizwanur Rehman

Rizwanur Rehman was discovered dead near railway lines on September 21, 2007, only weeks after marrying Priyanka, the daughter of Lux Hosiery Group CEO Ashok Todi.

Rizwan and Priyanka had kept their families in the dark since they expected strong opposition, especially from Priyanka’s family. On the advice of a friend, the couple notified the Commissioner of Police, the DC (south), and the Karaya police station about their marriage and requested police protection. Then, over the phone, Priyanka informed her father Ashok Todi about her marriage to Rizwan. Her family, particularly her father, was heartbroken.

Ashok Todi attempted to persuade the cops by requesting that the couple be separated. Rizwanur was forced to send his wife Priyanka to her father’s house and was afterward barred from communicating with her. His body was discovered on a railway track in Kolkata on September 21, 2007. The incident was dismissed as a suicide attempt.

Todi, his relatives, and a few police officers, on the other hand, were accused of aiding and abetting suicide. The Supreme Court of India stopped all proceedings in the case on October 13, 2008,  till the Calcutta high court decided Ashok Todi’s petition challenging CBI’s charge-sheet against him.

The Priyadarshini Mattoo case

Priyadarshini Mattoo, a law student, was discovered dead at her uncle’s home in New Delhi on January 23, 1996.

Santosh Kumar Singh, her senior, was designated the major offender after stalking and tormenting her for years. Santosh, the son of a powerful IPS officer, strangled her by wrapping an electric wire around her neck. He repeatedly smacked her in the face with a helmet, rendering her face unrecognisable.

On October 30, 2006, the Delhi High Court sentenced him to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.

Neeraj Grover murder case

Neeraj Grover, a Mumbai-based television executive, was chopped off, placed into three bags, and set on fire in a jungle. It was discovered that Maria Susairaj, a struggling Kannada actress, was involved in his murder fourteen days after she filed a complaint with the Malad police claiming her friend had gone missing after leaving her residence on May 7, 2008. Emile Jerome, Maria’s fiance, and a navy lieutenant killed Neeraj in a rage.

The reason behind the murder was that Grover had remained in Susairaj’s place, Jerome discovered on May 6, 2008. He flew down to Mumbai from Cochin, suspicious that the two were having an affair, and found Grover with his fiancée.

Jerome murdered Neeraj in anger, then proceeded to a neighbouring mall, bought a chopper, and disposed of the body with Maria’s help.

Both Jerome and Maria got off easy. He was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, but she was let off and was found guilty only for destroying evidence.

Hathras rape case

In Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras area, a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped by four men in September. Two weeks later, the woman died of her injuries in a Delhi hospital. While the death of the victim and the crime generated suspicions, it was what happened after the death that shook the country. District officials swiftly incinerated the body in the middle of the night, denying the family a final goodbye and even claimed there was no rape.

The insensitivity of officials provoked countrywide demonstrations, and the UP administration was criticized by numerous political parties for its handling of the case. The Supreme Court too came into the picture. The CBI issued a charge sheet charging four men of rape and murder, as well as the UP Police, of serious failures.

Ballabgarh daylight murder

The brutal murder of Nikita Tomar, a 20-year-old B.Com student from Haryana’s Ballabgarh, in broad daylight outside her college in October reignited the ‘love jihad’ debate in India.

Tomar had just finished her exam and walked out of her institution when two men pulled up alongside her. They started dragging Nikita into the car, a Hyundai i20. One of the accused pulled out a handgun and fired one cartridge at Nikita while she resisted the kidnapping. She died as a result of the gunshot. The crime’s images went viral on social media.

The accused, named Tausif, was reported to have previously harassed the victim, but the case was quickly dismissed. The victim’s family stated that the accused was pressuring their daughter to convert and marry him, which she refused on several occasions.

Nirbhaya gang-rape case

It is India’s most well-known case. The event occurred when a 23-year-old student was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured while travelling on a private bus with a buddy. The woman was raped and her buddy was beaten by six other people on the bus, including the driver. The young lady died as a result of her injuries. The incident drew widespread condemnation and national and international media attention. Meanwhile, all four prisoners have been sentenced to death, and the accused have been denied respite by the Supreme Court.

Kathua rape case

Six persons were found guilty in the 2018 rape and murder of an 8-year-old tribal girl in a Kathua village. In October, a Jammu court ordered the police to file an FIR against six members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was investigating the case, for allegedly torturing and coercing witnesses to make false statements.

On an application by Sachin Sharma, Neeraj Sharma, and Sahil Sharma, who were witnesses in the case, Judicial Magistrate Prem Sagar directed the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Jammu to issue the order, stating that cognizable offences have been made out against the six.

District and Sessions Judge Tejwinder Singh sentenced three of the major defendants to life in prison, while three others were sentenced to five years in prison for destroying evidence in the case that shook the nation.

After lawyers in Kathua attempted to prevent the charge sheet from being filed in court, the Supreme Court ordered the trial to be moved to Pathankot, Punjab. For a year, a day-to-day in-camera trial was held.

The girl, who was kidnapped, was allegedly raped in captivity at a small village temple in the area after being sedated for four days before being beaten to death, according to the charge sheet.

The kidnapping, rape, and murder of the youngster were all part of a strategy to drive out the area’s minority nomadic community, according to the report.

Geeta Chopra

When this case occurred, it shocked the nation’s capital. Ranga, also known as Kuljeet Singh, and Billa, also known as Jasbir, were sentenced to death in 1978 for the dramatic kidnapping and murder of two siblings in Delhi. Ranga and Billa had kidnapped Geeta Chopra and her brother Sanjay Chopra for ransom after they were released from the Arthur Road prison in Mumbai.

Ranga and Billa panicked when they learned that the kidnapped children’s father was a navy officer, and they brutally murdered them. Geeta had been raped by the duo before the murder. They were sentenced to death and executed on January 31, 1982.

Shabnam case: The first woman who could be hanged to death

The tragedy occurred in 2008, when Shabnam, together with her lover Saleem, murdered seven members of her family on the night of April 14/15. Shabnam used to live in Amroha with her family. Shabnam and Saleem had been having an affair and were planning to marry. Shabnam’s family, on the other hand, as opposed to their marriage, so the couple plotted a brutal murder.

She and her lover Salim were arrested on April 19, 2008, five days after the horrific murders. When she was arrested, she was seven weeks pregnant. In December 2008, she gave birth to a child.

During the inquiry, it was discovered that Shabnam helped Saleem commit the crime by forcing her family members to drink sedative-laced milk before hacking them to death. She didn’t even spare her young nephew, who died from strangulation. The court heard testimony from as many as 29 witnesses on the day of the verdict. After all the witnesses were required to answer 649 questions on the case, the 160-page order was passed.

On July 14, 2010, the District and Sessions Court sentenced the two to death. In 2010, the couple challenged the verdict of the Sessions court in the Allahabad High Court. The death penalty was maintained by the HC as well.

Shabnam and Saleem then went to the Supreme Court, but the death sentence was upheld in 2015. After exhausting all legal alternatives, Shabnam submitted a mercy petition before then-President Pranab Mukherjee, which was also denied.

Auto Shankar

Born Gowri Shankar, he made a name for himself as an illegal arrack (coconut liquor) transporter who was also involved in the local flesh trade. His killing spree in the 1980s, It is the most infamous case in India. Shankar’s power peaked in the mid-1980s and lasted only a few years before his murders were discovered. Shankar’s first publicly known victim, according to the police, was a young woman named Lalitha in 1987. She was a member of his inner circle who fled with Sudalaimuthu, one of his close associates, but they were apprehended and returned to Periyar Nagar. Sudalaimuthu was set on fire and his remains were put in a blanket and discarded in the Bay of Bengal, while Lalitha was clubbed to death and buried in an empty plot in Periyar Nagar. Lalitha’s remains were not discovered until nearly 15 months later.

This earns him a place on our list as one of India’s most prominent serial killers. Auto Shankar abducted and murdered nine adolescent girls from Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai, over six months in 1988. Though he initially blamed everything on the influence of the movie, a month before his execution, he admitted to murdering the abducted teenage girls for some politicians who had raped them.

Cyanide Mohan

Cyanide (Mohan Kumar) Mohan used to seduce unmarried girls into having sex with him, then dupe them into swallowing cyanide pills as contraceptives. He murdered 20 women between 2005 and 2009. He used to be a physical education teacher at a primary school before going on this deadly rampage. He was also suspected of participating in bank robberies and other financial forgeries. In December 2013, he was sentenced to death.

Devendra Sharma – the doctor turned killer

Devendra Sharma was an Ayurvedic medicine doctor who was quite successful, however, he also had a dark side. He was only interested in making quick cash by boosting cars, and he was unconcerned about the bloodshed that came with it. He stole automobiles and killed drivers in and around UP, Gurgaon, and Rajasthan between 2002 and 2004. According to his confession, he killed 30-40 guys, all of them were drivers. In 2008, he was sentenced to death.

Andhra Pradesh: three days with the body

In Hyderabad, a 20-year-old woman allegedly murdered her mother with the help of her boyfriend and spent three days with him next to the body. On October 25, a week after Rajitha disappeared, a body was discovered near the Ramannapet railway track in a completely decomposed form. As per the police, the incident happened on October 19 when Keerthy Reddy and her boyfriend, Chanti alias Sashi, killed Ranjitha by strangling her. They then spent three days with the body before being compelled to dump it on railway lines due to the awful smell of the decomposing body.

She confessed to the crime and disclosed that she had relations with two men who her mother did not approve of during interrogation. She admitted to holding a grudge against her mother for opposing her relationship with her partner.

The Tandoor murder case

In 2003, Sushil Sharma, the former president of the Delhi Pradesh Youth Congress, was found guilty of the murder of his wife Naina Sahni, a former Mahila Congress functionary in Delhi.

In July of 1995, a murder occurred. Sharma had been in a live-in relationship with Naina for a while before they married, and he chose to keep the wedding a secret. Sharma allegedly noticed Naina on the phone when he entered the house on July 2, 1995.

She hung up, but when he pressed the redial button, the call was answered by a former classmate and Congress colleague of Naina’s.

Enraged, he shot her with his pistol, then brought her body to the restaurant, where he chopped it off and attempted to burn it in the tandoor.

The matter went to trial later that year, with the verdict in the so-called “Tandoor Murder Case” arriving in 2003, when he was sentenced to death. In 2013, the Supreme Court modified his death sentence to a life sentence.

The Shakereh Khaleeli murder

In the 1990s, the Shakereh Khaleeli murder case shocked Bangalore and the country. Shakereh, a descendant of Mysore’s diwan Sir Mirza Ismail, married diplomat Akbar Mirza Khaleeli, who served as India’s ambassador to Iran, Italy, and Australia.

They were the parents of four girls. She divorced her husband and married Murali Manohar Mishra, also known as Swami Shradhananda, a self-styled godman. In 1991, she vanished. Shakereh’s remains were discovered buried in the courtyard of her home by Karnataka police in May 1994.

After being drugged, she was buried alive in a coffin. Mishra was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court.

Conclusion

Most of these remain unsolved to date. These murder mysteries have been astonishing people from case to case, people have been wondering and building theories on their suspicion in most of the cases.

References


Students of Lawsikho courses regularly produce writing assignments and work on practical exercises as a part of their coursework and develop themselves in real-life practical skills.

LawSikho has created a telegram group for exchanging legal knowledge, referrals, and various opportunities. You can click on this link and join:

https://t.me/lawyerscommunity

Follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more amazing legal content.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here