The FBI recently closed the unsolved case of the 1971 DB Cooper Skyjacking after 45 years. The case will go down in books as the only unsolved case of skyjacking in the history of USA.
DB Cooper, who allegedly jumped out of a Mexico-bound flight after extorting $2,00,000 in cash from the airline, was never found or identified by the police. Some of his money has been found over the years, and many have claimed to be a relative of Cooper. But DNA tests pointed towards inconsistencies, and his identity was never established.
Apart from this one, there have been many other such cases of crimes which have gone unsolved over the years. With the closure of the DB Cooper case, unsolved, we put together a list of some of the most famous unsolved crimes in history.
One of the most notorious criminals ever, Jack the Ripper became famous in London’s East End in 1888 for killing 5 prostitutes in 4 months, and then carving their entrails out. He left their mutilated bodies along with notes, which he sometimes mailed to the police to frustrate them. Once, he had actually mailed a murdered woman’s kidneys to the police to taunt them. A
The case has inspired countless films, books, plays, parodies and adaptations, and the Ripper remains one of the most popular serial killers in history. Nobody was ever charged with the crime, and the identity of Jack the Ripper remains as good as anybody’s guess.
One of the most famous Hollywood murders is that of actress Elizabeth Short in 1947. The 22-year old was found in Leimart Park in Los Angeles, cut in half a with a gash cut through her lips, like Batman’s Joker. Short was allegedly grieving the death of her true love, but she also had many male friends with whom she frequented jazz clubs. It is possible that one of these men was the murderer who killed her out of jealousy, but it is impossible to zero down which one of them it was. Speculation is all that we can do, considering the police never found any leads. Though some early confessions were made, by the end, no arrests were made due to lack of conclusive evidence.
3. The Axeman From New Orleans
Yet another famous serial killer who got lost in oblivion was the ‘Boogeyman’ from New Orleans. The man grabbed eyeballs when he hacked a grocer and his wife in their bed in New Orleans, left a note claiming responsibility for it and also the bloodied axe he had used for the act. After committing 8 murders, the Axeman disappeared, never to surface again. The police could never zero in on the real identity of the man.
The mystery of the floating feet has been growing incessantly as it’s still going on! Basically, in 2007, dismembered feet clad in sneakers started washing up in British Canada, via the Salish Sea.
What was really strange is that these feet were clad in running sneakers. From 2007, 16 severed feet cloaked in sneakers have washed up in the area. The explanations range from remains of drowners, or of those who committed suicide. But the high possibility of a serial killing cannot be ruled out.
Named after explorer Teddy Tucker who found it, the Tucker Cross was fished out of the remains of the San Pedro shipwreck, which sank due to a hurricane off the Florida Keys in US. The medieval cross, made of pure gold and studded with large emeralds, was sold to the Bermuda Museum, where it was on display till 1975, when it disappeared mysteriously from the premises, substituted with cheap replica of the cross, never to be seen again.
To this day, investigators have no clue as to who took the cross or where it went, with many concluding that it was melted and sold separately to avoid detection.