1) Beaumont children disappearance
It was 1966, a gorgeous Australia Day in the suburbs of Adelaide, when nine-year-old Jane Beaumont and her siblings, seven-year-old Arnna and four-year-old Grant vanished seemingly into thin air. The kids hopped a bus for what should have been a five-minute ride to Glenelg Beach, a popular spot they visited often. Hours later, they failed to return home, setting into motion one of Australia's most sensational mysteries — and even today, one of its most prominent cold cases.
2) Michael Rockefeller disappearance
What happened to eager young Michael Rockefeller, who vanished while collecting indigenous art among the Asmat tribe of what was then Netherlands New Guinea? Though his father, New York State governor and future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, had the means and clout to launch a formidable search, no trace of the 23-year-old recent Harvard grad was ever found.
3) Murder of Ken Rex McEllroy
(...) It weaves the incredible tale of a Missouri town rising up to take down the man who was regarded as the local bully, a violent man who committed crime after crime (including child molestation) but always escaping serious jail time. Ken Rex McElroy's murder took place (as the MacLean book's title suggests) in the middle of the day, in the middle of town. Like Wild West vigilantes, MacLean suggests that those who were involved have upheld a code of secrecy that's been kept for over 30 years.
4) Murder of William Desmond Taylor
Hollywood enters this list with a scandal that rocked the movie biz in 1922: The untimely death of successful silent-film directorWilliam Desmond Taylor. He perished in his own home of at least one gunshot wound to his back; since he was carrying cash and wearing a diamond ring, robbery didn't seem to be a motive. The case grabbed headlines as a voluminous list of suspects entered the fray.
5) Axeman of New Orleans
All serial killers are creepy. But have you heard the one about the still-unidentified chap who roamed New Orleans circa 1918-1919, chopping up unfortunate parties (eight in total) with an axe ... usually an axe plucked from the victim's own home?
6) Cleveland Torso Murderer
The more alarming nickname for this never-caught killer is "the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," who gruesomely beheaded and dismembered at least 12 people in the 1930s. That would be enough to elevate the case into the annals of "most intriguing unsolved crimes," but the fact that future "Untouchable" Eliot Ness was working in Cleveland law enforcement at the time adds a little extra true-crime varnish to the story.
7) Keddie Murders
This brutal mass murder took place in a seemingly bucolic cabin community in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. Its details are so haunting there's a highly thoroughwebsite dedicated to every aspect of the case; you'll want to explore it yourself after hearing the bare-bones details. The victims (a 36-year-old mother, her 15-year-old son, and his 17-year-old friend) were beaten with a claw hammer. In the room next door, unharmed: two younger sons and their friend. In the cabin next door, unharmed: the woman's older daughter. Missing: a 12-year-old daughter whose skull was recovered in 1984, three years after the brutal crime.
8) Villisca Axe Murders
In keeping with the axe/hammer theme that's emerging ... on June 10, 1912, in a small town in Iowa, two adults and six children were killed in their sleep by someone or someones unknown (suspects included an Iowa state senator, a "cocaine fiend and serial killer," and a traveling preacher).