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Kerry Max Cook
Kerry Max Cook (born 1956) is an American former death row inmate who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 21-year-old Linda Jo Edwards in 1977. On June 19, 2024, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals determined that he was actually innocent, citing a litany of prosecutorial misconduct and errors.
Year unknown · MissouriUnsolved
Ken McElroy
Kenneth Rex McElroy (June 16, 1934 – July 10, 1981) was an American criminal, convicted attempted murderer and child rapist who resided in Skidmore, Missouri. He was known as "the town bully", and his unsolved killing became the focus of international attention. Over the course of his life, McElroy was accused of dozens of felonies, including assault, child molestation, statutory rape, arson, animal cruelty, hog and…
2006MissingJoe Pichler
Joseph David Wolfgang Pichler (born February 14, 1987) is an American former child actor. He is best known for his roles in Varsity Blues (1999), Beethoven's 3rd (2000) and Beethoven's 4th (2001). Pichler's last film credit was in the independent drama Children on Their Birthdays (2002).
1896 · New MexicoMissing
Albert Jennings Fountain
Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain (October 23, 1838 – disappeared February 1, 1896) was an American attorney who served in the Texas Senate and the New Mexico House of Representatives. Following a purge of corruption among cattle rustlers that Fountain investigated and prosecuted, his eight-year-old son Henry and he disappeared near White Sands, New Mexico Territory. Their bloodstained wagon and other evidence of an…
1983OverturnedAnthony Porter
Anthony Porter (December 14, 1954 – July 5, 2021) was a Chicago resident convicted and sentenced to death in 1983 for the murder of two teenagers on the South Side of the city. He served 16 years on death row before he was exonerated in 1999 after new evidence was uncovered by Northwestern University professors and students from the Medill School of Journalism as part of their investigation for the school's…
1987 · North CarolinaOverturnedDarryl Hunt
Darryl Hunt (February 24, 1965 – March 13, 2016) was an African-American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who, in 1984, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and the murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper copy editor. After being convicted in that case, Hunt was tried in 1987 for the 1983 murder of Arthur Wilson, a 57-year-old black man of Winston-Salem. Both…
1968Missing
Licorice McKechnie
Christina "Licorice" McKechnie (born 2 October 1945) is a Scottish musician. She was a singer and songwriter in the Incredible String Band between 1968 and 1972.
1976OverturnedRandall Dale Adams
Randall Dale Adams (December 17, 1948 – October 30, 2010) was an American man wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death after the 1976 shooting of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood. His conviction was overturned in 1989. Adams staunchly maintained his innocence throughout.
2003Overturned
Michael Peterson trial
Michael Iver Peterson (born October 23, 1943) is an American novelist who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, on December 9, 2001. In 2011, after eight years in prison, Peterson was released from prison after being granted a new trial. In a review of an appeal, the judge had ruled that a critical prosecution witness in the first trial gave misleading testimony.
Year unknown · District of ColumbiaUnsolved
Alma Preinkert
Alma Preinkert (October 22, 1895 – February 28, 1954) was the registrar at the University of Maryland before being murdered by an intruder at her Washington, D.C. home. A Maryland alumna and a beloved figure in the university community, her murder sent shockwaves through the area. Although a large investigation ensued, her attacker was never identified.
2015MissingDefense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office
The Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), as part of the United States Department of Defense, was an organization that reported to the under secretary of defense for policy through the assistant secretary of defense (international security affairs). DPMO provided centralized management of prisoner of war/missing personnel (POW/MP) affairs within the Department of Defense. On January 30, 2015,…
1995Overturned
Johnson Chesnut Whittaker
Johnson Chesnut Whittaker (August 23, 1858 – January 14, 1931) was one of the first black men to win an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. When at the academy, he was brutally assaulted and then expelled after being falsely accused and convicted of faking the incident. Over sixty years after his death, his name was formally cleared when he was posthumously commissioned by President Bill…
1979MissingIan Mackintosh
Lieutenant Commander Hamish Ian Mackintosh, (26 July 1940 – disappeared 7 July 1979) was a Scottish Royal Navy officer, a writer of thriller novels, and a screenwriter for British television.
1928 · ColoradoMissing
Disappearance of Glen and Bessie Hyde
Glen and Bessie Hyde were newlyweds who disappeared while attempting to run the rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, Arizona, in 1928. Had the couple succeeded, Bessie Hyde would have been the first woman known to accomplish this feat. Despite lengthy investigation, no conclusive evidence of the Hydes' fate has been discovered.
1983OverturnedEdwin P. Wilson
Edwin Paul Wilson (May 3, 1928 – September 10, 2012) was a former CIA and Office of Naval Intelligence officer who was convicted in 1983 of illegally selling weapons to Libya. It was later found that the United States Department of Justice had relied on a false affidavit when prosecuting Wilson; as a result, Wilson's convictions were overturned in 2003 and he was freed the following year.
1885 · CaliforniaUnsolved
Huang Yuanyong
Huang Yuanyong (黃遠庸), (Pen name: Huang Yuansheng 黃遠生, Wade-Giles: "Huang Yüan-yung") (15 January 1885 – 25 December 1915) was a renowned Chinese author and journalist during the late Qing dynasty (清朝) and early Republic of China (民國初年). Huang made significant contributions to journalism and literacy in China, particularly as an innovator in both journalistic methodology and writing style. His unsolved assassination…
1955MissingWeldon Kees
Harry Weldon Kees (February 24, 1914 – disappeared July 18, 1955) was an American poet, librarian, painter, literary critic, novelist, playwright, jazz pianist, short story writer, and filmmaker. Despite his brief career, Kees is considered an important mid-twentieth-century poet of the Beat generation, and peer of John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, and Robert Lowell. His work has been immensely influential on…
Year unknownUnsolvedGary Driscoll
John Gary Driscoll (April 18, 1946 – June 8, 1987) was an American R&B-style rock drummer who performed in a number of successful bands from the 1960s until his unsolved murder.
1972 · AlaskaMissing
Nick Begich Sr.
Nicholas Joseph Begich Sr. (born April 6, 1932 – disappeared October 16, 1972; declared dead December 29, 1972) was an American politician, school counselor, and school administrator. He served in the Alaska state senate for eight years before being elected in 1970 as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Alaska.
1974 · CaliforniaUnsolvedMurder of Betty Van Patter
Betty Louise Van Patter (née Floyd; October 12, 1929 – c. December 13, 1974) was a bookkeeper for the Black Panther Party, although she herself was white. Van Patter was murdered, a crime which remains unsolved.
1954Overturned
Sam Sheppard
Samuel Holmes Sheppard ((1923-12-29)December 29, 1923 – (1970-04-06)April 6, 1970) was an American osteopathic physician. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966.
Year unknown · OhioUnsolved
Cleveland Torso Murderer
The Cleveland Torso Murderer, also known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, was an unidentified serial killer who operated in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, during the 1930s. The killings were characterized by the dismemberment of thirteen known victims and the disposal of their remains in the impoverished neighborhood of Kingsbury Run. Most victims came from an area east of Kingsbury Run called "The Roaring…
1885 · CaliforniaUnsolved
Jane Stanford
Jane Elizabeth Lathrop Stanford (August 25, 1828 – February 28, 1905) was an American philanthropist and co-founder in 1885 of Stanford University (opened 1891) with her husband Leland Stanford, in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who died of typhoid fever in 1884 at age 15. After her husband's death in 1893, Jane Stanford funded and operated the university almost single-handedly until her unsolved…
2007Missing
Jim Gray
James Nicholas Gray (1944 – declared dead in absentia 2012) was an American computer scientist who received the Turing Award in 1998 "for seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation". Gray disappeared under strange circumstances in 2007.