23 Famous Missing-Persons Cases That Are Still Unsolved
“Oh gosh the news girl, Jodi Huisentruit has always haunted me...where is her body? Why hasn't it been found? Sad. And why are there no suspects?”
1. SARAH & JACOB HOGGLE
“Sarah and Jacob Hoggle. Their mother took them ‘somewhere safe’ and has never told anyone where that was or what happened. She also apparently has paranoid schizophrenia and is not competent to stand trial.”
2. BRANDON LAWSON
“The Brandon Lawson case. Around 2AM he was in a field in Texas and called 911. In the call, it’s hard to hear what he says but he sounds distressed and panicked. He cuts off and that was the last he was heard of. His brother said he called him after but he has yet to be found.
It sounds like said he ran into something and mentions he was chased in the woods. Somewhere else someone edited the audio and it sounds like gunshots in the background of the call. Allegedly at 1:03 of the 911 call you can barely hear a faint ‘help me.’”
3. SUSAN POWELL
“The disappearance of Susan Powell. This one is heart-wrenching. I was so absorbed in it when it was still going on, but it’s been awhile since I looked into it. Apparently Susan went missing and her husband said he took his kids late night camping, leaving in the middle of the night and returning the next day. In the middle of winter. And his wife was gone when he returned. So much points to him murdering her: Her phone and belongings were still at home, her family didn’t hear from her, she had made it clear that if something happened to her, her husband was responsible. He had been abusive and possessive. Oh, and a large wet spot on the carpet with a fan blowing on it when police arrived. Oh, and the kids saying they knew they’d never see their mom again, that she wasn’t around when they were awoken in the middle of the night and put into the front seat of the van to ‘go camping.’
Very, very sad ending, where it came out that the husband’s father was involved with child pornography and the husband never being charged. He moved the kids out of state eventually and exploded the house they were living in, with all three of them inside.
As far as I remember, no closure on Susan being found, no body, no justice, no answers. It baffles me.”
4. JOHNNY GOSCH
Kid gets kidnapped while doing his morning paperboy route and more than likely forced into sex slavery for pedophiles.
Mother claims that Johnny visited her at night 15 years later, talked with her for an hour while another man watched, and then vanished again.
10 years later, a manila envelope shows up on her doorstep with pictures of Johnny bound and gagged.
The rabbit hole goes much deeper (especially if you get into Paul Bonacci and the Franklin cover up), but that’s the skinny.”
5. THE SCHULZE FAMILY
“The Schulze Family from Drage in Lower Saxony. Husband Marco (41 at the time), his wife Sylvia (43 at the time), and their daughter Miriam (12 at the time), went missing from their home in Drage on the 22nd July 2015, nowhere to be found. Marcos body was found a week later in the Elbe (a river), he had a concrete block attached to his legs with a rope. Sylvia and Miriam though remain unfound to this day. Their house was just emptied of all their personal belongings and everything, it will be sold, the money will be put in a secure bank account until they find out who will inherit it. Sylvia can’t be pronounced dead yet, earliest in 8 years from now on, 10 years after her disappearance. Miriam on the other hand can’t be pronounced dead until she is 25, that is the law here in Germany. Many people believe that either the dad killed his wife, daughter, then himself. Others believe mother and daughter are alive. Who knows though, we will may never know.
6. THE MISSING GERMANS IN DEATH VALLEY
“The missing Germans. It’s a long read, but it’s fascinating. Basically some German tourists decided to go on an adventure in Death Valley in a rented mini-van with no real idea how stupid that is. A fellow documents his attempts to find out what happened to them.”
7. HENRY MCCABE
“Pretty famous, but Henry McCabe. The most bizarre thing about his disappearance is the voicemail that was left, though. It had all sorts of noises where people speculate it could have been the sound of waterboarding or getting tased. His family also apparently misled the police a few times and his friends, who were last seen with him, made a series of poor decisions which led to the disappearance. It was also odd that the FBI got involved in all this. As I said earlier, the creepiest thing I find is the voicemail of strange sounds that he left that no one can identify. Apparently there were a few recordings of it posted on the internet, yet no one can find the full audio anymore and only bits and pieces.”
8. KRIS KREMERS & LISANNE FROON
“The two Dutch girls who got lost in the jungle in Panama. Went for a day hike, didn’t turn back and apparently got lost deep in the forest during the rainy season. Creepiest thing is that their phones were discovered in a backpack downriver, fully intact…along with a camera that had photos. Normal, happy photos of them on the trail taken just an hour before their internal phone records showed they started trying to call 911 (or equivalent) for help. And 90 other photos taken in the rainy darkness in the middle of the night, between 1 and 4 a.m., a week after they disappeared, methodically showing a cliff and some bushes and some impromptu markers made of what little things they had brought with them.
Fragments of their bodies (bones, and a boot with a foot still in it) were found a couple months later, but nobody really knows for sure how they died. Accident on the trail? Fell into the rapids? Murdered and then someone was playing with their phones?
Dunno…this story creeped me out big time.”
9. MALAYSIAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 370
“How about that Malaysian Airlines plane that just disafuckingppeared into the depths of the Indian Ocean?”
10. KIMBERLY ANN LANGWELL
“My great aunt Kimberly Ann Langwell. She went missing in Beaumont, Texas in July of 1999. She went to Eckerd’s one night and disappeared. Her car and personal belongings, except for her car keys and purse, were at the scene. No one has seen her since that night.
Please Google her and if you have seen her, please call your local police station. We (the whole family) just want closure.
To her (possible) killer: If you are on here and reading this, please just let us know where to find her. We loved her so much and you took her from us. Please, just tell us where she is.
Aunt Kim: If you are reading this and you’re alive, please just let us know. We love you and miss you.
Norman’s eldest granddaughter.”
11. JODI HUISENTRUIT
“Oh gosh the news girl, Jodi Huisentruit has always haunted me….I mean it’s obvious she was abducted based on the evidence left behind at the scene but—where is her body? Why hasn’t it been found? Sad. And why are there no suspects?”
12. THE OKLAHOMA GIRL SCOUT MURDERS
“The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders. This happened about an hour away from where I live now. Always kinda bothered me that they had one possible suspect and dropped everything to pursue him, then just quit.”
13. DENNIS MARTIN
June 14th, 1969. Dennis was playing hide and seek with some other children while his father watched. Dennis went behind a tree, which his father never took his eyes off of. When the other kids came out, his father went over to find him and we were simply gone.
Things get bizarre with this one.
A nearly 1500 strong search is dispatched
A family named Key’s testimony of possibly seeing Dennis is thrown away for seemingly no reason
The FBI withholds information about the unfolding case from the parents
The Green Berets arrive to search, but no one called them. They are not in the official report of the case
The FBI agent working the case (and others like it) eventually commits suicide
The Key family’s testimony is that they heard a blood curdling scream. At first thought they saw a bear on a ridge across from them, but the father says as they watch, it is clear it’s more like a man, who is intentionally hiding from them. This large hairy man, has an object slung over its shoulder, and carries it away. They heard Dennis was missing after they left the park and returned to tell the story. The FBI agent doesn’t want to see where any of this happened. Without even considering the information/location, he says it’s not possible for Dennis to have gotten that far on his own. It is well within the distance a child of his age could have traveled.”
14. WILLIAM TYRELL
“William Tyrell. This case is the most remarkable disappearance I’ve ever read about/followed. And definitely the one that plays on my mind and every time I see his photo in the paper it hurts my heart.
There have been so many twists and turns, the circumstances of his abduction were hard to understand. No one knew he was there, at his grandma’s house with family home in a quiet dead end street. He and his sister were playing hide and seek. They couldn’t find him and began to worry.
A year or so later a man’s house was searched and sewerage system drained, business searched. Same day, DHS with absolutely no knowledge of what’s going on with the police come to his house and take his grandchildren from his care. Privacy laws prevent the public from knowing.
Then he was charged with two counts of rape from 30 or so years ago when he raped two very young girls. It came out there was a pedophile ring operating in the area under the disguise of a support group for Grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. All members were raising their grandchildren but they actually got together to talk about their stories of sexually assaulting young children. One of these men even said to the media he didn’t do it because he’s only raped one child as if just one was ok.
Bill Spedding, the man whose house was searched and charged with historical sex offences was a part of that group. As was another man, Tony someone, whose been in and out of jail for child sex offences. Was on bail when William went missing.
Then it came up that the Grandmother had called a handyman to fix her washing machine a couple of days before William and his family arrived. He was to come and fix it on Friday. The nana mentioned she needed it working as her young grand kids were coming. Friday comes and just before William is snatched this man calls and says he can’t make it to fix the washing machine. This man was none other than Bill Spedding. It was proven he was with the pedophile Tony that day. They were former neighbors known each other for years.
A car similar to the one Tony owned was seen in the street with the front window half down just opposite the house William was at. Search and rescue went for days.
Williams family have never been allowed to be identified for a reason only police know. Police have said they are not suspects in any way.
There’s too many twists and turns to write it’s easier to google it. Just writing about it makes me so effing angry. He was 3 for Christ sakes and the horror he must have endured is too much to even imagine. It causes me pain and I have never met this boy in my life, my heart breaks for his family.
The circumstances were 1 in a million and there have been so many things that have just made the story even more extraordinary, it’s like a horror movie.
If I was granted one question that I could ask about anything and be given the correct answer, it would be what the hell happened to William Tyrell. Fly high, buddy!”
15. NATALEE HOLLOWAY
“The disappearance of Natalee Holloway. This one was pretty well-known due to all the media attention it got, but it really got to me as I am around the same age as Ms. Holloway. I really do wonder what became of her—I suspect she really was sold into slavery. I live in a state that unfortunately has a reputation for human trafficking, and in a region of said state known as a hotbed for it. So I probably think about it more often than I should.”
16. THE LONERGANS
“The Lonergans…a couple from the States went missing on the barrier reef near Cairns after their dive boat left without them while they were in the water scuba diving…they were only reported missing 2 days later after a crew member on board found their bags and raised the alarm. They’ve never found the bodies.”
17. ROANOKE COLONY
“The Roanoke Colony. Because that has always freaked me right the fuck out. It wasn’t just one or two people dying or going missing but an entire village. 116 people just gone without a trace.”
18. YOKOTA MEGUMI
“Yokota Megumi. Abducted off the streets as a 13-year-old by North Korean agents. The Koreans say she died in Pyongyang in her 50s, but the bones they sent back to her parents weren’t hers. She’s probably still being held somewhere in Pyongyang. She has kids and grandkids there too.”
19. KENNY VEACH
“The disappearance of Kenny Veach. He was a hiker who frequently hiked in the Nevada desert. He claimed to have discovered a cave with an opening the shape of an ‘M’ that affected his body in strange ways, like making him vibrate I believe. This was near the Sheep Mountains north of Las Vegas. He made a YouTube video discussing the ‘M Cave’ and he said he was going to return to look for it and hopefully share what he found. He went looking for it and never returned. His body still hasn’t been found. Most people theorize that he just fell into an abandoned mineshaft or got trapped in a cave resulting in his death, as he wasn’t exactly a safe hiker (he didn’t carry GPS with him), but it’s still creepy as hell.”
20. BRIAN SHAFFER
“The disappearance of Brian Shaffer. Ohio State Med Student is caught on camera walking into a bar, but the footage doesn’t show him leaving the bar, despite there being only one exit.”
21. THE MISSING BOY OF SOMOSIERRA
“‘The Missing Boy of Somosierra’ definitely sticks out in my mind as just bizarre. Basically, one morning in the June of 1986, emergency services respond to an accident on this highway in Spain. The cause of the accident was a truck carrying 20,000 liters of sulfuric acid for commercial use. It had been driving erratically and collided with another vehicle. The truck had overturned and contents of the tank had spilled into the cabin and surrounding area, causing some damage. The man and woman inside were dead. The two bodies were recovered by authorities and identified as a married couple, Andres Martinez and Carmen Gomez. They were apparently the only fatalities. However, when the mother of the wife was notified of their deaths, she replied, ‘And the boy? Please tell me the boy is alright!’
The father, a truck driver, had apparently promised the 10-year-old son, Juan Pedro Martinez, a trip which they could go on after the father completed his delivery. The mother had gone along to watch the boy. There was evidence that the boy had accompanied the two at the beginning of the trip and rescue crew found child’s clothing in the cabin but not the boy. Search groups combed the area in case he had been ejected from the truck or fell underneath the truck when it rolled over. But Juan had vanished.”
22. THE SODDER FAMILY CHILDREN
“The Sodder family kids.
The Sodder family house caught fire under suspicious circumstances. The mother received a strange call Christmas Eve, almost like someone was checking to see if there were people at home. She then went to bed, but heard a strange noise on the roof. Then the fire started and the family was unable to get some of the younger kids out of the house. After the fire, it was discovered that the phone line had been cut. None of the bodies of the kids who supposedly died in the fire were found. Some animal carcasses were later found in the burnt-up rubble of the house. A police man later admitted that he planted the carcasses to give the family closure.
The father had gotten into arguments with members of the local mafia. The family believed the kids were alive and the mother received a strange letter and call from people claiming to be her kids’ years later.
Here’s a podcast that goes into more detail.”
23. AUBREY SACCO
“Aubrey Sacco. Girl I went to high school with disappeared on a mountain trail in Nepal. After her disappearance, it turned out there’s been a pattern of disappearances in that area for years that the Nepalese government was trying to keep quiet. She’s never been found, and all leads and arrests ended up being dead ends.”
