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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…
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…
2003 · PennsylvaniaOverturned
Nick Yarris
Nicholas James Yarris (born May 18, 1961) is an American writer and storyteller who spent 22 years on death row in Pennsylvania after being wrongfully convicted of rape and murder. Yarris was exonerated by DNA testing in 2003. He was released from prison in 2004 after a separate 30-year sentence he received in Florida for lesser crimes committed after he escaped from custody in 1985 was reduced to time served.
1976 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedRay Krone
Ray Krone (born January 19, 1957) is an American who was wrongfully convicted of murder. He was the 100th inmate exonerated from death row since the death penalty in the United States was reinstated in 1976. Krone was born and raised in Dover Township, York County, Pennsylvania and graduated from Dover Area High School in 1974.
2005 · PennsylvaniaMissingRay Gricar
Ray Frank Gricar (; born October 9, 1945, missing since April 15, 2005) was an American lawyer who served as the district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania, from 1985 until 2005. On April 15, 2005, Gricar went missing under mysterious circumstances and has not been heard from since. After he had been missing for years with no trace of his whereabouts, Centre County authorities declared Gricar legally dead on…
1872 · PennsylvaniaMissingJohn V. Creely
John Vauclain Creely (November 14, 1839 – disappeared August 1872, pronounced dead September 28, 1900) was an American attorney and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A Republican, he was most notable for his service as a member of the Philadelphia Common Council from 1867 to 1870 and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1871 to 1873. Creely disappeared in late 1872; subsequent…
1986 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedJay C. Smith
Jay C. Smith (June 5, 1928 – May 12, 2009) was an American high school principal in Pennsylvania who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986 for the 1979 murder of one of his school's teachers, Susan Reinert, and her two children, Karen and Michael. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1992, based on findings of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. Smith subsequently filed…
2025 · Bethlehem, PennsylvaniaMissingTyler Gualano
Tyler Gualano, 32 at the time, was last known to be in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on July 16, 2025. NamUs case MP153271.
2026 · Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaUnidentifiedUnidentified man, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2026)
An unidentified man was found in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 8, 2026. No name has been established. NamUs case UP162556.
1970 · PennsylvaniaUnsolvedMurder of Terry Bowers Jr.
Terrence J. Bowers Jr. (Nov 23, 1958 – April 26, 1970) was an American child who was murdered on the grounds of St. Basil The Great Roman Catholic Church in Kimberton, Chester County, PA while camping with his Boy Scout Troop in 1970.
1938 · PennsylvaniaMissing
Disappearance of Marjorie West
Marjorie West was a four-year-old American child who went missing from McKean County, Pennsylvania on May 8, 1938. Her disappearance was heavily covered by both local and national media, but her whereabouts have never been ascertained. In 2018, The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit organization established by the United States Congress,…
2009 · PennsylvaniaMissingDisappearance of Toni Sharpless
In the early hours of August 23, 2009, Toni Sharpless (born December 27, 1979) and her friend Crystal Johns left a party at the home of Philadelphia 76er Willie Green in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, United States. Not long after leaving, Johns suggested to Sharpless, whose erratic and combative behavior had led Green to ask that they leave, that she was not sober enough to drive; in response, Sharpless pulled over and…
1988 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedWalter Ogrod case
Walter Ogrod is an American man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 12, 1988, sexual assault and murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to police, Ogrod confessed to Horn's murder four years after it occurred, but in 2020 the "confession" was recognized to be false. On June 5 of that year, Ogrod's conviction was vacated by the Philadelphia Court of Common…
1982 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedLewis Fogle
Lewis "Jim" Fogle is an American man who was wrongly convicted in 1982 for the murder of a 15-year-old girl. Fogle's conviction was vacated on DNA evidence in 2015, after he was forced to spend 34 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In July 1975, 15-year-old Deann Katherine "Kathy" Long, of Cherry Tree, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, was raped and murdered by shooting of a firearm, in the head.
1976 · PennsylvaniaUnsolvedMurder of Evelyn Colon
Evelyn Colon (previously known as Beth Doe; (1961-04-17)April 17, 1961 – December 1976) was a formerly unidentified American teenager from New Jersey who was found murdered and dismembered in three suitcases along with her unborn daughter on December 20, 1976, in White Haven, Pennsylvania. The brutality of the crime, the fact that she was pregnant when she was killed and the length of time that she remained…
1954 · PennsylvaniaUnsolvedMurder of Carolyn Wasilewski
Carolyn Loretta Wasilewski (June 12, 1940 – November 8, 1954) was the 14-year-old victim of an unsolved murder that made national headlines during an intensive search for suspects near her home in Baltimore, Maryland. Her remains were discovered in a rail yard by an engineer on a Pennsy express train bound to Baltimore from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on the morning of November 9, 1954.
1985 · PennsylvaniaMissingDisappearance of Cherrie Mahan
Cherrie Ann Mahan (August 14, 1976 – disappeared February 22, 1985; declared legally dead November 5, 1998) was an eight-year-old American girl who disappeared on February 22, 1985, after disembarking a school bus approximately fifty feet from the base of the driveway to her home in rural Winfield Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania. She was declared legally dead in November 1998. Mahan's abduction is strongly…
1856 · PennsylvaniaMissing
Lost Children of the Alleghenies
The Lost Children of the Alleghenies were two missing brothers from the Appalachia region of the United States. George and Joseph Cox, then aged seven and five respectively, disappeared from their Spruce Hollow home near Lovely and Pavia, Pennsylvania, on April 24, 1856. Their dead bodies were found several days later in the surrounding woods and were buried in the Mount Union cemetery near their home in Pavia.
1969 · PennsylvaniaUnsolved
Murder of Betsy Aardsma
The murder of Betsy Aardsma is an American murder case dating from November 1969, in which a 22-year-old graduate student was murdered by a single stab wound inside the Pattee Library at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in University Park, Pennsylvania. Though Aardsma's murder remains officially unsolved, local investigative journalists and two independent authors have published testimony and reports…
1985 · PennsylvaniaUnsolvedFrankford Slasher
The Frankford Slasher is the name given by the media to a possible serial killer who operated in and around the neighborhood of Frankford in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1985 to 1990. Leonard Christopher was convicted in the murder of one of the nine supposedly linked victims, but the others remain unsolved. All of the victims were sexually assaulted and stabbed to death.
2026 · Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaUnidentifiedUnidentified man, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2026)
An unidentified man was found in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 4, 2026. No name has been established. NamUs case UP161561.
2020 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2020Termaine Hicks
In 2002, Termaine Hicks was wrongly convicted of a sexual assault he did not commit in Philadelphia. He was exonerated in 2020.
2025 · Harrisburg, PennsylvaniaUnidentifiedUnidentified woman, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (2025)
An unidentified woman was found in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on February 4, 2025. No name has been established. NamUs case UP154231.
2026 · Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaMissingC Alexander
C Alexander, 66 at the time, was last known to be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 18, 2026. NamUs case MP162545.