Free Republic

Authorities have finally identified the remains of a New York City teenager coined "Midtown Jane Doe," after her grisly murder spawned a decadeslong cold case investigation. A recent breakthrough owed to advanced forensics linked her DNA to the mother of a woman killed on 9/11. Jane Doe was identified as Patricia Kathleen McGlone, who was just 16 at the time of her death and had previously lived and attended school in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Investigators believe she was murdered during the latter half of 1969, or, potentially, at some point in early 1970, said Detective Ryan Glas...

Fifty-six years after a Florida milkman vanished after doing his route, the mystery of his murder has been solved, closing one of the oldest cold casesA murderous mystery has finally been solved as fifty-six years after the truth behind a Florida milkman's death has been uncovered. The man failed to return home after his rounds, and now the mystery has been solved, closing the oldest cold case in Indian River County Sheriff’s Office history. Two people who say the suspect confessed to them helped investigators finally understand who killed Hiram “Ross” Grayam, a decorated World War II veteran who...

Emerging clues may shine a new light on Hollywood’s darkest tale: the shocking 1947 death of Elizabeth Short. On January 15, 1947, an aspiring 22-year-old actress named Elizabeth Short was found brutally murdered in a vacant lot near Leimert Park in Los Angeles, California, her nude, posed body cut in half and severely mutilated. “It was pretty gruesome,” Brian Carr, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department who worked on Short’s case, later said. It was an understatement; Short’s killer had also drained her corpse of blood and scrubbed it clean. “I just can’t imagine someone doing that to...

In December 1980, the remains of an unidentified man were discovered in Pomona Park, a city in Putnam County, Florida. During a routine patrol, a deputy found the body of a partially-buried individual near Sisco Road and Broward Lake Roan. It was determined that the remains were that of a male estimated to be 5' 6" tall and approximately 160 pounds. The man died from a gunshot wound to the neck about two to three weeks before his body was discovered. The man had no identification on him and through interviews it was believed that he was a migrant worker....

Barry Lee Whelpley died this weekend behind bars – while awaiting trial for the murder of a Naperville teenager more than 50 years ago. Now, the family of Julie Ann Hanson will never learn if a jury of his peers would have found Whelpley guilty of her murder. Two and a half years after his arrest, a trial date still has not been set. A series of setbacks and legal hurdles for prosecutors helped the case drag on – and now, it is a trial that will never happen. Four days after the Fourth of July in 1972, the 15-year-old...

Fred Cain III, 69, appeared in Solano County courtroom on Thursday after being brought from Oregon to face numerous felony charges in connection with the 1987 kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Jeremy Stoner. Stoner disappeared from his Vallejo neighborhood on Feb. 21, 1987, officials said. His body was found four days later on Sherman Island in Sacramento County. Investigators said he had been sexually assaulted. "This death of Jeremy Stoner rocked this entire community," Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams said. The Solano County District Attorney's cold case unit opened the case in Oct. 2022 and tested DNA from Stoner's...

When a man came forward two years ago confessing to three cold case murders, Albuquerque Police called it a ‘gift’ to victims’ families. However, how those confessions were obtained could be thrown out in court. KRQE Investigates has been following the case of accused serial killer, Paul Apodaca, and has the latest from Wednesday’s court hearing. “In a way, that was a gift from the Albuquerque Police Department to her on her birthday that somebody who killed her 33 years later, was charged,” said APD Chief Harold Medina in August of 2021. Two years ago, Chief Medina announced an end...

More than four decades since law enforcement found the remains of a young woman on the side of a Texas highway, her remains have been identified, Bastrop County Sheriff's Office announced at a news conference on Thursday. The woman was found in Elgin, Texas, when law enforcement was driving by. She was wearing a white shirt with red neck trim and dark blue jeans, according to DNA Solves, which helps crowdfund identification investigations. Her name was Kathy Ann Smith. She was just 22 years old, almost 23, at the time of her murder, the sheriff's office said. Investigators at the...

A woman has admitted to dressing up as a clown and fatally shooting her husband's first wife at the victim's Florida home more than 30 years ago, though her attorney still maintains her innocence. Sheila Keen Warren, 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Palm Beach County court on Tuesday as part of a plea deal reached weeks before her trial was set to begin. She was arrested in 2017 for the murder of Marlene Warren, who was shot in the face after opening the front door of her home in Wellington in 1990 and died two days later....

More than six decades since an unidentified boy was found dead and abandoned in Philadelphia, police have identified the child and are set to reveal the boy's name next week, sources confirmed with NBC10. On February 25, 1957, a boy between the ages of 3 and 7, was found dead, naked and severely beaten in a cardboard box on the side of Susquehanna Road in Philadelphia’s Fox Chase neighborhood.

The Boston Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Office of the Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe, the Provincetown Police Department, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, are announcing that after nearly a half-century, the oldest, unidentified homicide victim in Massachusetts, dubbed the “Lady of the Dunes,” has been identified as Ruth Marie Terry of Tennessee.

The Sebastopol-based DNA Doe Project, which uses cutting edge science to solve cold cases, has entered “a multiyear partnership” with the Sonoma County Coroner Unit to investigate up to 20 unsolved cases in the area. The announcement comes as the organization ramps up its nationwide outreach. In April, DNA Doe Project co-founder Margaret Press and some fellow members left their comfort zone and went to Las Vegas, where they set up their booth at Crime Con, a convention devoted to true crime. “We were a little nervous,” she recalled. “We thought we’d be the geeks in the room.” The DNA...

A South Carolina couple has been arrested in connection with a grisly cold-case murder of a 19-year-old college student, whose body was found in a culvert in rural Kansas in 2010. The Butler County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday announced the arrests of Kristopher Valadez and Candace Valadez, both 32, in Simpsonville, South Carolina, in the killing of German Clerici. According to the law enforcement agency, in early February 2010, Clerici’s mother reported the college student missing after not hearing from him in several days.

Genealogy IDs Teen Murdered in 1974, Could be ‘Killer Cop’ Victim June 03, 2022 Michelle Taylor Editor-in-Chief Share Email 586882.jpg LEFT: A facial reconstruction of then-unidentified Suzanne Poole by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. RIGHT: Photo of Poole. Credit: Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Othram and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office have identified a 1974 teen homicide victim that investigators think could have been murdered by serial killer Gerard John Schaefer, also known as the “Killer Cop.” The murder of now-identified 15-year-old Suzanne Gale Poole is shockingly similar to Schaefer’s modus operandi, including how and where the victim’s...

A woman who claimed an intruder busted into her California apartment and killed her boyfriend more than two decades ago has been charged in the cold-case slaying after an anonymous letter was sent to investigators, police said. Jade Benning, who was living in Santa Ana in January 1996, told cops a black suspect forced his way into the apartment she shared with her 22-year-old boyfriend, Christopher Hervey, and stabbed her partner several times during a 3 a.m. attack, killing him, cops said Tuesday. Benning, also 22 at the time, gave “general statements” to investigators about the alleged break-in — during...

A 1997 cold case involving the murder of Sonya Dockery could be one step closer to being solved. There are new developments in a Detroit cold case from 1997 when a woman was found strangled to death on the city's west side. Now, 25-years later, there has been an arrest in the case. On Friday the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Officer announced that 51-year old Johnny Yenshaw of Detroit was charged in connection with Dockery’s homicide. She was just 33-years old.

A 4-year-old girl who went missing in New Mexico nearly 62 years ago has been identified as "Little Miss Nobody," a previously unidentified girl whose remains were discovered in Arizona, police announced Tuesday. Authorities identified the victim as Sharon Lee Gallegos, who was abducted on July 21, 1960. Police said Gallegos was abducted by a man and a woman while she was playing with other children in an alley behind her grandmother's house in Alamogordo, New Mexico. According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the couple had been stalking the girl for several days. Gallegos was dragged into...

Body identified as Sharon Lee Gallegos of New Mexico YAVAPAI COUNTY, AZ — Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office has released the identity of “Little Miss Nobody,” a young girl who remained nameless for more than six decades after her killing. The formerly nameless homicide victim whose body was found 62 years ago, was identified as Sharon Lee Gallegos of New Mexico, officials said Tuesday morning at a press conference in Prescott. Gallegos had reportedly been abducted from the alley behind her home in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 21, 1960, when she was 4 years old.

PRESCOTT, ARIZONA – (March 11, 2022) – Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office and partners including the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children (NCMEC); the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS); Othram, the laboratory that conducted the DNA analysis; and a long list of others over the years, have finally identified the little girl whose remains were found in the desert in Yavapai County in 1960. The unidentified little girl who won the hearts of Yavapai County in 1960 and who occupied the minds and time of YCSO and partners for 62 years, will now rightfully be given her name...

Edward Morgan, 60, is charged with capital murder after DNA testing confirmed he matched the swab taken in the 1984 autopsy.After 38 years, an arrest has been made in the murder of a 21-year-old Cheektowaga woman. Mary Jane Thompson graduated from Cleveland Hill High School and moved to Dallas, TX to pursue her dreams. "She wanted to be a model," said Mary Jane's sister Donna Book. On February 13, 1984, her family said Mary Jane was going to a clinic for medical treatment in Dallas. "When she got there they were closed and then she had taken the bus back...