All open cases
Everything in the index. Search it, filter it, or open any case and start reading.
Alexander McClay Williams
Alexander McClay Williams (July 23, 1914 – June 8, 1931) was an African-American teenager wrongfully convicted and executed for the 1930 murder of 33-year-old Vida Robare, a matron of the Glen Mills reform school he attended, in Pennsylvania. Williams confessed to the murder during an interrogation in which neither a parent nor an attorney was present. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania wrongfully executed Williams…
1991Overturned
Christopher Dunn
Christopher Dunn (born 1971) is an African American man who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1991 and exonerated in 2024.
1923 · New YorkUnsolved
Killing of Dot King
On the morning of March 15, 1923, the body of Dorothy King, 29, (born Anna Marie Keenan) was found in her apartment at 144 West 57th Street in the Manhattan borough of New York City, United States. King was a model, actress, and demimondaine whom the press dubbed "The Broadway Butterfly". Her still-unsolved murder was a press sensation at the time it occurred.
1971 · IowaUnsolvedWaverly stranglings
The Waverly stranglings refers to three unsolved murders committed from 1971 to 1976, with the victims being a teenage girl and two young women who lived in Waverly, Iowa. Due to the fact that all victims were killed in similar circumstances, news media has speculated that this possibly was the work of a serial killer. To this day, the murders remain cold cases, with nobody having been arrested or charged in…
1979 · HawaiiMissingDisappearance of the Sarah Joe
The disappearance of the Sarah Joe was a maritime mystery involving a 17-foot Boston Whaler fishing boat and its five-man crew, who disappeared off the coast of Maui in Hawaii on 11 February 1979. After an extensive search failed to locate the vessel, the case remained unsolved for nearly a decade. In 1988, the boat was discovered on the uninhabited Taongi Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 2,054 miles (3,306 km) from…
1982 · PennsylvaniaOverturned
Imprisonment of Subramanyam Vedam
Subramanyam "Subu" Vedam, an Indian-American man from State College, Pennsylvania, was arrested in 1982 at 19 for the fatal shooting of his friend, 19-year-old Thomas Kinser from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. He was wrongfully convicted of murder by the Centre County Court of Common Pleas and sentenced to life in prison in 1983. After being incarcerated for 43 years at SCI Huntingdon, Vedam was exonerated of first-degree…
1953 · TexasOverturnedTommy Lee Walker
Tommy Lee Walker was an African-American man who was wrongfully convicted and executed by the state of Texas for the 1953 rape and murder of Venice Parker, a 31-year-old white woman from Dallas. Walker's conviction heavily relied upon a dubious confession he made to police under duress, which he later recanted. In January, 2026, nearly 70 years after his execution, Dallas County unanimously passed a resolution…
1990 · New YorkOverturnedMurder of Chaskel Werzberger
On February 8, 1990, Chaskel Werzberger, a 56-year-old rabbi, was shot and killed in Brooklyn, New York. David Ranta was wrongfully convicted of the murder, and served 23 years in prison before being released in 2013.
2005 · West VirginiaUnsolvedHuntington, West Virginia prom night murders
The Prom Night Murders is an unsolved homicide case that occurred on May 22, 2005, in Huntington, West Virginia, when four teenagers, 16-year-old Megan Poston, 17-year-old Michael Dillon, 18-year-old Eddrick Clark, and 19-year-old Donté Ward, were shot and killed on their prom night, on Charleston Avenue. Despite an extensive investigation, no suspect has been identified, and the case remains unsolved. Police…
2003 · OhioUnsolved2003 Columbus, Ohio arson
On 13 April 2003, a fire was set at a house in the University District of Columbus, Ohio, killing five university students (two from Ohio State University and three from Ohio University). Despite an arrest early on, the murders have remained unsolved.
1983 · FloridaOverturnedRobert DuBoise
Robert Earl DuBoise (born October 1964) is an American who was wrongfully convicted in 1983 for the rape and murder of 19-year-old Barbara Grams in Tampa, Florida. He spent nearly 37 years in prison, including three years on death row, before being exonerated in August 2020 through DNA evidence facilitated by the Innocence Project and the Hillsborough County Conviction Review Unit. In 2024, DuBoise received a $14…
2003 · South CarolinaUnsolved
Blue Ridge Savings Bank murders
The Blue Ridge Savings Bank murders, also known as the Greer bank murders, is an unsolved armed robbery and triple homicide that occurred on May 16, 2003, at the Blue Ridge Savings Bank in Greer, South Carolina.
1982 · MissouriUnsolvedMissouri River Killer
The Missouri River Killer is an unidentified American serial killer who committed the murders of seven women and girls in the Kansas City metro area between 1982 and 1994. The victims varied in ages between 13 and 36 and all were found floating in the Missouri River, with several of them having had their legs severed by the perpetrator. Beginning in the late 1980s, law enforcement agencies in western Missouri…
1895 · UtahUnsolvedPelican Point Murders
The Pelican Point murders refer to the 1895 killings of three cousins and ranch hands: Albert Enstrom (age 24), Andrew Johnson (22), and Alfred Nelson (15). Their bodies were discovered in Utah Lake near Pelican Point, Utah County, Utah, following an extensive disappearance. Despite a high-profile trial and a subsequent gubernatorial pardon, the case remains one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in Utah's…
1997 · AlabamaOverturnedJames Willie "Bo" Cochran
James Willie "Bo" Cochran (November 29, 1942 - July 12, 2016) was an African-American man from Bessemer, Alabama, who is known for his false conviction and later acquittal as a part of a robbery and murder of a store clerk in Jefferson County, Alabama. Cochran was sentenced to death and held on the state's death row for 19 years before finally being released in 1997. Cochran is also notable for appearances in media…
1984 · New YorkUnsolvedNassau County serial murders
The Nassau County serial murders were a series of murders of young women committed between 1984 and 1989 in Nassau County, New York. All the victims had been involved in prostitution or had drug addictions, and the perpetrator, a possible serial killer, was never apprehended. These murders were the first possible instance of a serial killer operating in the Long Island area, as in the following decades, at least…
1971 · FloridaUnsolvedGulf Killer
The Gulf Killer is the nickname given to a possible serial killer who was active in the Pasco County and the wider Tampa Bay area of Florida, United States. A group of unsolved murders of fourteen women and two men were committed between 1971 and 1978. While the victims were grouped together differently at various points, nine were attributed, dubiously, to a single killer.
1930Overturned
Pep
Pep (c. 1923 – 1930) was a black Labrador Retriever who was falsely accused of murdering a cat. On August 31, 1924, Pep was sent to the Eastern State Penitentiary where he received inmate number C-2559 and had his mugshot and paw prints taken.
1999 · TexasOverturned
1999 Tulia drug arrests
A total of 47 individuals, the majority of whom were African American, were arrested in 1999 in Tulia, Texas on charges of cocaine dealing as a result of an undercover operation carried out by agent Tom Coleman. Coleman's testimony was crucial in the convictions of 38 of the 47. Years later, 35 of the 38 incarcerated were pardoned by Texas governor Rick Perry.
2008 · MassachusettsUnsolvedMain South Woodsman
The Main South Woodsman is an unidentified serial killer who murdered between three and five prostitutes in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 2002 to 2007. His nickname derives from the Main South neighborhood, where he picked up most of his victims. The prime suspect in the murders, Alex Scesny, was identified in 2008, due to the fact he had a history of sexual abuse and was suspected in the murder of a sex worker.
1911UnsolvedBilly the Axeman
Billy the Axeman (also referred to as the Ax-Man, the Midwest Axeman, and the Man from the Train) was the name of a suspected serial killer thought to be responsible for a series of family murders that occurred mainly in the U.S. Midwest between September 1911 and June 1912. Attacks attributed to this killer are characterized by the slaying of a whole family in their beds by crushing their skulls with a blunt…
1983 · WyomingUnsolvedGreat Basin Murders
The Great Basin Murders is the name given to a series of murders of at least nine women committed between 1983 and 1997 across the states of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. It is named after the Great Basin geographical area since most of the victims had their bodies dumped near interstate highways that traverse through it. Most victims were teenage or adult females who were sexually assaulted then murdered –…
2012 · TexasUnidentified
Smurfette Jane Doe
Smurfette Jane Doe is the nickname given to an unidentified teenaged girl who was found dead by a driver in Houston, Texas on October 16, 2012. The decedent derived this nickname from the distinctive shirt she was discovered in, which bore an image of the cartoon character Smurfette. The decedent was found concealed in a black plastic garbage bag on the side of a busy road, beside a gravel road leading to an oil…
1967 · North CarolinaOverturnedHenry McCollum and Leon Brown
Henry Lee McCollum (born March 26, 1964) and Leon Brown (born November 24, 1967) are two African American men who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for a murder they did not commit. McCollum and Brown were two intellectually disabled teenage brothers, 19 and 15 years old respectively, when a local of Robeson County, North Carolina, implicated them in the 1983 rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina…