Tag: unsolved mysteries

4 men arrested after podcast helps solve decades-old murder of teen girl

Louisiana detectives are crediting a local podcast with helping to solve the decades-old rape and murder of a teenage girl. 

Over the past few days, police charged four men with aggravated rape and second-degree murder for killing Roxanne Sharp, 44 years after her body was found in the woods. 

Who killed Roxanne Sharp? 

The backstory:

Sharp was 16 years old in 1982 when she was raped and murdered in the woods in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, about 30 miles north of New Orleans. 

Eventually, the case went cold, remaining unsolved for decades until investigators asked a local media company to produce a podcast about Sharp’s murder. “Who Killed Roxanne Sharp?” went live last year with six episodes. 

What followed were crucial tips from the public and new witnesses contacting investigators. 

What they’re saying:

“It helped our investigators piece together where Roxanne was days before to the time she died, to where we’re at now,” Louisiana State Police spokesperson Marc Gremillion told The Associated Press. “It was a very large help with getting that message out to the public, and then, therefore, those witnesses getting back to us.”

Perry Wayne Taylor, 64; Darrell Dean Spell, 64; Carlos Cooper, 64; and Billy Williams, Jr., 62, have all been charged in connection with Sharp’s death. 

Cooper and Taylor were already in prison on unrelated charges, and Williams and Spell were arrested earlier this week. Police said Sharp knew the four suspects and frequented the neighborhood where they lived. 

Northshore Media Vice President Charles Dowdy, who helped produce the podcast, said his team didn’t think there’d be much interest in the case, but “we were quickly corrected.”

“Cold cases don’t close themselves,” Covington Police Department Chief Michael Ferrell said in a statement. “They close because people show up, year after year, and refuse to quit. That is exactly what our agencies did, and today, Roxanne and her family finally have the justice they have waited so long for.”

Keep reading

Zodiac Killer may be tied to Black Dahlia case after ‘code cracked,’ new suspect emerges

The Zodiac Killer’s cryptic messages weren’t just taunts to police — they were a twisted throwback to his first victim, according to an independent investigator who says he’s cracked the code and uncovered new evidence suggesting the infamous serial killer began his career 23 years earlier with the California murder of Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia.

Alex Baber, co-founder of Cold Case Consultants of America, said that after nine months of work, he cracked a double-layered encryption that involved transposition and substitution in a 2 by 7 grid.

“Currently, for the first time in history, LAPD detectives approached the family of a suspect to obtain DNA,” he told Fox News Digital in an interview on the sidelines of the Hamptons Whodunit event in East Hampton over the weekend. “That’s never happened for the Black Dahlia case… we got a pretty good feeling that we’re sitting in the right seat.”

The Los Angeles Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An FBI spokesperson declined to weigh in.

Baber’s finding, that the Zodiac’s “Z13” cipher depicts the name of a prime suspect in the 1947 Black Dahlia murder, was first revealed in the Daily Mail, and he presented them publicly Saturday at the East Hampton Library.

With help from a proprietary artificial intelligence software and self-taught knowledge of cryptography, he said the 13-character message is decoded to read “Marvin Merrill.” After further digging into social security records, he said he discovered that’s an alias for Marvin Margolis, who he said dated Short in the 1940s and had been on the LAPD’s suspect list after her murder and dismemberment. His AI software flagged the connection between the two cases, he added.

Keep reading

FBI Director Kash Patel Allowing FBI to Bury Seth Rich Case or Does He Even Know What’s Happening?

Attorney Ty Clevenger has been working on the Seth Rich case for a decade.   The Deep State actors running the government continue to stall and defy court orders, and Clevenger continues to demand justice.

It is believed that Seth Rich is a pivotal key to the Russia Collusion coup attempt of the first Trump Administration.

The Deep State DOJ and FBI have gone through extreme efforts to cover up any information they have on Seth Rich.  Rich is who many believe transferred DNC emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.  He was a Bernie fan who worked in the DNC at that time.  He was reportedly upset with what the DNC was doing to Bernie.  On July 10, 2016, Rich was found shot in the back due to what law enforcement labeled a burglary, and yet his wallet, phone, and watch were left on his person.  This is at the time WikiLeaks began dropping damaging DNC emails that showed the inner workings of the Hillary campaign.

It is believed that Seth Rich forwarded emails from Podesta to WikiLeaks. 

We all know without a doubt that it is a lie to claim that the Russians were involved in the transfer of these emails.  There is simply no evidence that Russia was involved, and there never has been evidence that Russia was involved.

Hillary wanted to deflect attention from her email scandal and the contents of her emails.  She also wanted to punish whoever sent those emails to WikiLeaks.  This is why many believe Seth Rich was murdered.

Keep reading

Mystery of scientists dead or missing rises to EIGHT as two more men tied to America’s most coveted secrets join the list

The ominous web of US scientists and lab employees who have died or gone missing continues to grow as two more cases have been linked to the disturbing trend. 

NASA scientist Frank Maiwald reportedly died on July 4, 2024 in Los Angeles at the age of 61, but the cause of death has never been made public and officials confirmed that an autopsy was never performed.

Maiwald had been a prominent researcher at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since 1999 and worked on multiple projects tied to advanced satellite technology that could scan Earth and other planets.

In June 2023, just 13 months before his death, he was the lead researcher on a breakthrough that could help future space missions detect clear signs of life on other worlds, including Jupiter’s moon Europa, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, or the dwarf planet Ceres.

Despite Maiwald being a JPL Principal – an award given to scientists ‘making outstanding individual contributions’ in their fields – NASA has never commented publicly on the scientist’s death, and the only public record marking his passing was an obituary posted online.

Meanwhile, another mysterious disappearance has come to light at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), one of America’s key nuclear research facilities, bringing the total number of unexplained incidents to eight since July 2024.

Anthony Chavez, a former employee at LANL until his retirement in 2017, vanished without a trace on May 4, 2025 – just seven weeks before a key assistant at the same lab disappeared.

The Los Alamos Police Department told the Daily Mail that the search for Chavez, 79, is still ongoing and no new information in the case has emerged, nearly one year later. 

Keep reading

The Life and Mysterious Death of D. Scott Rogo

Although D. Scott Rogo authored or co-authored a total of 30 books on paranormal topics from 1967 to the time of his death in 1990, many of these books have gone out of print over the years and have become difficult to find. He was considered a leading authority in the field of parapsychology. He had written many articles and lectured on the topic at John F. Kennedy University.

Rogo’s work was published in a number of professional journals, including the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and the International Journal of Parapsychology. He served as a visiting research consultant to the Psychical Research Foundation in Durham, North Carolina, in 1973. He was a consulting editor for Fate magazine, where he wrote a regular column. He collaborated with another well-known author, Raymond Bayless, to write Phone Calls From the Dead (see below).

Early Life

Douglas Scott Rogo was born on February 1, 1950, and he lived his entire life in California’s San Fernando Valley. He died in August 1990, at the age of 40. A graduate of California State University, Northridge, he was a musician who also studied the psychology of music. Scott claimed to have had an out-of-body experience as a child, which prompted his lifelong interest in the paranormal.

While still a student at California State at the age of 19, he published his first book, titled NAD: A Study of Unusual Other-World Experiences. NAD in Sanskrit refers to otherworldly sounds or music. This book was later reprinted by Anomalist Books as a two-volume work entitled Paranormal Music Experiences.

A serious student of the paranormal, Scott Rogo’s interests included exposure of fraud in the field. He acknowledged the possibility that some psychic experiences were psychological in origin rather than supernatural. His friend and co-author, Raymond Bayless, said, “He only used scientific methods to determine what caused the phenomena.”

Keep reading

Mystery of five missing scientists sends chill across America. Three are dead. And one troubling link is now under scrutiny in DC

A chilling pattern has emerged after a string of US scientists died or went missing in recent months. 

Retired General William Neil McCasland, 68, and NASA aerospace engineer Monica Jacinto Reza, 60, were both major figures in the Air Force Research Laboratory. The general oversaw Reza’s work on creating a futuristic metal for rocket engines.

Within the span of eight months, both have mysteriously vanished without a trace while allegedly hiking in the Southwest United States.

McCasland’s reported ties to secret UFO programs at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and Reza’s work with space-age technology used for advanced propulsion, have led many to claim without evidence that the pair are fleeing from parties that wish to silence them because of what they know.

Independent researchers and even a member of Congress fear the pattern has grown even darker after three scientists in the fields of chemical biology, nuclear fusion and astrophysics were murdered or found dead in just the last three months.

One of those renowned scientists was working on a breakthrough that could one day revolutionize science, creating an unlimited energy source that may end fossil fuel use as we know it.

Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett told the Daily Mail he saw a clear pattern in these seemingly unrelated deaths and disappearances, noting that the work several of them were doing has been linked to theories about extraterrestrial spacecraft. 

‘There have been several others throughout the country that have disappeared under suspicious circumstances,’ Burchett said. ‘I think we ought to be paying attention to it.’

Keep reading

Mystery of the destruction of ‘America’s Stonehenge’ may finally be solved as conspiracy theories rage

A new investigation into the destruction of a monument dubbed ‘America’s Stonehenge’ has shed light on conspiracy theories about what may have fueled its 2022 bombing.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s six-part podcast, Who Blew Up the Guidestones?, examines why the Georgia Guidestones became a target of fringe speculation over global elites, satanic rituals, and UFOs. 

With so many theories swirling over the supposed nefarious nature of the monument – historians said it was only a matter of time before rampant paranoia would lead to its destruction.  

The 19-foot granite structure near Elberton was destroyed on July 6, 2022, when an explosive device detonated at around 4.30am.

Authorities said ‘unknown individuals’ carried out the attack. Surveillance footage showed a vehicle fleeing the scene, and the remaining slabs were later demolished for safety reasons.

No arrests have been made and the case remains unsolved.

The Guidestones were commissioned in 1979 by an elusive man who wanted to remain anonymous, but went by the pseudonym R.C. Christian. He approached the Elberton Granite Finishing Company with detailed plans for a massive monument.

He told company president Joe H. Fendley Sr. that he represented a group of individuals who shared a philosophy about humanity’s future.

Christian brought the granite company a silver-painted wooden model and precise construction plans, though the total cost was never publicly disclosed. Estimates have placed it in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Keep reading

Video reignites interest in 20-year-old Columbus missing persons case

For nearly 20 years, one question has haunted many people in Columbus: How does someone walk into a building and never walk out? 

The disappearance of 27-year-old Ohio State medical student Brian Shaffer is back in the spotlight as surveillance video from the night he vanished circulates across social media. 

“It’s really important to continue to remind the public that this case exists, and we need the public’s assistance,” retired FBI Agent Harry Trombitas said.

Shaffer was caught on camera walking into the Ugly Tuna Saloon in the early morning of April 1, 2006, but was never recorded leaving. Columbus police said the video circulating is not new, and there’s no new evidence in the case file, but according to experts, this renewed attention could be the key in solving the case. 

“I appreciate whoever on the internet put that video back out on Brian because it gets people talking about it, gets it out in front of people and just the right person may see it and contact law enforcement,” Trombitas said. 

Over the past few days, videos have resurfaced claiming to show the final full hour of surveillance from the bar the night Shaffer went missing. His case, which has captured national attention, has once again exploded across social media. 

Keep reading

5 Lane Bryant Employees Inexplicably Killed in Illinois Store Subject of Documentary 18 Years Later, as $100,000 Reward Remains

Family members of the victims of the Lane Bryant murders are continuing to look for answers.

On Feb. 2, 2008, an unknown suspect entered a Lane Bryant location in Tinley Park, Ill., where four employees were on shift, tending to two customers. The assailant, posing as a delivery driver, entered the store and tied up the six women inside.

Rhoda McFarland, 42; Connie Woolfolk, 37; Jennifer Bishop, 34; Carrie Chiuso, 33; Sarah Szafranski, 22, were all shot execution style and died of their injuries. The sixth woman shot, a part-time employee at the store who survived her injuries, has never been publicly identified by police. One of the women was also sexually assaulted by the suspect, though police have never revealed which of the victims was involved.

The surviving victim was able to relay details to police about the suspect’s appearance, while his voice can be heard on a 911 call reporting the incident.

Keep reading

Police launch new cold case probe into one of UK’s longest running unsolved murders – and hope AI will help finally track down killer of nightclubber Melanie Hall, 25, whose body was only found 13 years later

The mystery behind who killed nightclubber Melanie Hall could finally be solved with the help of AI, as police launch a new review of the cold case 30 years on. 

Melanie, a 25-year-old clerical worker, was last seen sitting on a stool at the edge of the dancefloor speaking with an unidentified man at Cadillacs nightclub in Bath, on June 9, 1996, at about 1.10am. It was the same night England played Switzerland in the opening match of Euro 96. 

Her remains were not found until October 5, 2009, when a workman discovered them 28 miles north from the city, next to a slip road on the M5 near Thornbury, Gloucestershire.

She had suffered a fractured skull, and reportedly had a broken jaw and cheek bone, indicating she had been subjected to a vicious assault. Her body was naked and had been tightly bound in bin bags, secured by thick blue nylon rope.

Three decades on, Melanie’s killer remains on the loose. 

Detectives at Avon and Somerset Police announced this week that have launched Operation Denmark, a fresh investigation into the unsolved murder. They remain hopeful Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology could help provide answers for the young woman’s devastated family.

The contents of 90 crates of evidence are currently being digitised, while police have suggested AI could be deployed to analyse the cold case.

Police previously identified around 100 ‘persons of interest’, which has now been pared down to less than 20, while alibis are being re-examined. 

Keep reading