10 Creepiest Mysteries Solved By Normal People
10 Creepiest Mysteries Solved by Normal People
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at ten unsettling mysteries that were finally cracked by everyday people unaffiliated with law enforcement.
The Biochemist & The TV Show
Back in 1989, infant Ryan Stallings grew horribly sick and tests revealed high levels of ethylene glycol, which is the main ingredient in antifreeze. Investigators deduced that he had been poisoned, and his mother, Patricia Stallings, was charged with murder after Ryan tragically died. Her story later appeared on an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries,” and it caught the attention of a biochemist named William Sly. Sly recognized that Ryan’s symptoms matched a rare genetic disorder called methylmalonic acidemia, or MMA, which can mimic antifreeze poisoning in lab tests. Sly helped push for further analysis, which confirmed that Ryan indeed had MMA and that his mother had been wrongfully accused. Stallings was exonerated, and she won a large settlement from the lab that tested Ryan’s blood.
Yaakov German Plays Detective
In July of 2011, eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky went missing while walking home from day camp. Yaakov German, a retired plumbing contractor from Brooklyn, took it upon himself to find the missing boy. German volunteered to help by reviewing hours of surveillance footage taken from businesses throughout Borough Park. Using his observational skills, German found Leiby and noticed that he was walking with a man later identified as Levi Aron. German carefully tracked the boy’s movements from camera to camera, narrowing down the search path and providing detectives with crucial leads. His persistence helped police identify the suspect’s car and apartment, but unfortunately, this only led to the tragic discovery of Leiby’s remains. Aron pled guilty and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
A Fitting Place for a King
Richard III died on August 22, 1485, felled during the Battle of Bosworth Field. And then he just sort of…disappeared. For centuries, his remains were considered missing, resulting in one of England’s most famous and enduring mysteries. However, they were finally unearthed in 2012, and not in some grand fashion fit for a king, but in a parking lot. Researchers at the University of Leicester combined forces with the Leicester City Council to finally find the missing king. Guided by historical maps and ground-penetrating radar, the excavation began in the seemingly unremarkable parking lot, and Richard’s skeleton was quickly discovered. The site had once been the Greyfriars friary, where historical sources had long suggested that Richard was buried
Todd Matthews Finds The Tent Girl
Online sleuthing doesn’t often come to much. But there are exceptions. Todd Matthews played a key role in solving the decades-old mystery of The Tent Girl, an unidentified Kentucky woman whose body was found wrapped in canvas in 1968. Matthews, fascinated by the case ever since marrying the daughter of the man who discovered the body, spent years poring over missing persons reports. In the 1990s, as the internet grew and proliferated, Matthews scoured online forums and databases. His persistence and skillful sleuthing led him to a missing persons notice that matched the Tent Girl’s description - that of Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor, a young mother who had disappeared in 1967. Authorities were alerted, and in 1998, DNA testing confirmed the identity.
A Dinner to Remember
Charles Ramsey was eating dinner at his Cleveland home when he heard screams for help coming from a neighboring house. Suspicious, he went outside and found a woman trying to break through the house’s locked front door. Ramsey rushed over, helped kick in the bottom panel, and pulled the woman and her young daughter to safety. The disheveled woman then told Ramsey that she and two other women had been held captive in the house for nearly a decade. Berry herself called 911, and police promptly arrived to free the others. And with that, Ramsey finally found the missing Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight. His willingness to respond to Berry’s cries played a crucial role in ending their long and horrific ordeal.
Carol Identifies Pierre April
Amnesia is a weird thing. In May of 1992, a man woke up in a California ditch knowing absolutely nothing about his own life. All he had was a blue duffel bag, $17 in cash, and a library card with the name Pierre April. A bus driver took him to a shelter, and he was diagnosed with trauma-induced amnesia. The man’s story was featured on “Unsolved Mysteries,” and they brought in a sketch artist to work with the man. He recalled a co-worker named Carol, and the show aired her sketch. Funnily enough, that very same Carol happened to be watching the episode, and she called the show’s tipline to identify him. With his identity known, April’s parents were contacted, and his memory slowly returned.
A Professor Solves the Famous Somerton Man
A world-famous mystery for over half a century, The Somerton Man was an unidentified corpse that was found on Somerton Beach, Australia, in 1948. He carried no ID, his clothing tags were removed, and a tiny scrap of paper with the words “Tamám Shud” was hidden in his pocket, sparking decades of speculation about espionage and poisoning. Despite extensive investigation, his identity remained a mystery for over seventy years. And it wasn’t the police who finally solved it, but University of Adelaide professor Derek Abbott. He and genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick pursued the magic of forensic genealogy, constructing the man’s family tree from his DNA. In 2022, they identified the Somerton Man as a Melbourne electrical engineer named Carl Webb.
A Sketch Artist Finds the Cali Doe
In 1979, the body of the unidentified Cali Doe was discovered in Caledonia, New York. Fast forward to 2014, when Laurel Nowell tried getting in contact with her old classmate, Tammy Alexander. Nowell found Alexander’s half-sister, Pamela Dyson, who said that she hadn’t seen Alexander in decades, believing that she had simply started a new life. The two realized that Alexander had never been reported missing, so they filed one. This caught the attention of amateur forensic artist Carl Koppelman, who by chance had recently finished a facial reconstruction of the Cali Doe. He realized that Alexander bore a striking resemblance to his Cali Doe reconstruction and alerted the authorities. They gathered DNA from Dyson and confirmed that the Cali Doe was her missing half-sister.
An Events Manager Helps Find Jaycee Dugard
On June 10, 1991, eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was abducted in Meyers, California, and she wasn’t seen again for nearly twenty years. In August of 2009, a man named Phillip Garrido visited the campus of UC Berkeley with two young girls. His unusual behavior, combined with the girls’ odd mannerisms, concerned Special Events Manager Lisa Campbell, who informed Officer Ally Jacobs of the UC Berkeley Police Department. Jacobs ran a background check and discovered that Garrido was a registered sex offender on parole. She alerted parole officers and an investigation into Garrido was launched. It ultimately led to Dugard, who had been imprisoned by Garrido and his wife for eighteen years. The two suspicious girls with Garrido were found to be his daughters with Dugard.
The Zodiac Ciphers
Many things about the Zodiac have entered the pop culture consciousness, including his use of creepy ciphers, which he sent to the media and law enforcement agencies. The first cipher was cracked very quickly, but funnily enough, not by professionals. Despite the combined efforts of the FBI and CIA, it was a couple from Salinas who finally cracked the code, having found it in the newspaper. Despite the excitement, the cipher revealed little meaningful information. And then that was it until 2020, when an international team composed of a mathematician, a programmer, and a software developer finally cracked the Z340 cipher after half a century. Again, no meaningful information, and the other two ciphers - named Z13 and Z32 - remain unsolved. Maybe one day…
Do you think you could have solved these crimes? Let us know in the comments below!