Some mysteries never settle down. The files gather dust & suspects die, yet these stories keep circling back whenever someone digs through old case notes or finds a new lead online. Here are ten unsolved mysteries that still haunt America. Which one do you think is the most important to crack?
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The Springfield Three disappearance
In 1992, three people, Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzie & Suzie’s friend Stacy McCall, vanished from Sherrill’s Springfield home. However, their purses and cars were left untouched. Police searched fields & nearby homes for months, bringing in the FBI to help. In 2007, a tip about a grave site led to a failed dig at a hospital parking lot. More than 30 years later, we still don’t know where they went.
Philadelphia’s “Boy in the Box”
Police called him “America’s Unknown Child.” In 1957, a boy was found beaten & left inside a bassinet box in northeast Philadelphia, and no one could even name him until 2022. That was when DNA finally revealed he was four-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli.
Investigators reopened the case several times, testing DNA & genealogy databases. The boy was reburied with his full name in 2023 at Ivy Hill Cemetery. But even though we know who he was, we still don’t know who killed him, or why.
West Mesa homicides
In 2009, a woman walking her dog on the outskirts of Albuquerque stumbled on a human bone. This led police to the remains of 11 women & one unborn baby. The victims had all gone missing years earlier, many connected to the same part of town, and while investigators have a few suspects, they have made no arrests.
The dig site covered 100 acres of desert, and most victims were last seen between 2001 & 2005. Detectives have tried searching for more graves, but have found no new remains.
Chicago Tylenol poisonings
Seven people around Chicago took Tylenol for minor aches & never woke up, as someone had slipped cyanide into the bottles right on store shelves. This happened during the fall of 1982. Due to this panic, medicine packaging changed forever, but it’s unknown who committed the crime.
Police interviewed hundreds of store employees & reviewed supply chains from suburban stores like Elk Grove Village & Arlington Heights, while Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million bottles. The FBI still lists it as an open case.
The Doodler killings
San Francisco police in the mid-’70s had to deal with a killer who’d sketch his victims before attacking them. Locals called him “the Doodler.” At least six men were stabbed to death, mostly near the city’s gay bars, and a few survivors gave solid descriptions.
Yet they were afraid to testify. Police linked the murders to the Ocean Beach area & Golden Gate Park. Witnesses saw several of the men talking to a man with an artist’s pad. In 2023, SFPD offered a $250,000 reward & released age-progressed images, but to no avail.
Disappearance of Brian Shaffer
Brian Shaffer was a medical student who went out drinking with friends in 2006. He was caught on security footage walking into a bar. But he never came out. Cameras caught every exit of the Ugly Tuna Saloona, yet he just vanished into thin air, with the only lead being that his phone pinged once in 2008.
Detectives reexamined all surveillance angles & sewer lines under the building. One theory is that he may have disguised himself and snuck out of the bar.
Disappearance of Asha Degree
At 9 years old, Asha Degree packed a backpack & walked out into a rainy February night. She never came back. Asha’s family reported her missing early that morning in Shelby, North Carolina. Several drivers saw her along Highway 18, and her bag turned up, buried miles away, years later.
The FBI keeps the reward posted, & her parents still hang green ribbons every Valentine’s Day. In 2020, the FBI renewed the $45,000 reward & Asha’s classmates still leave stuffed animals at a roadside memorial each year.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist
Two men dressed as Boston cops convinced museum guards to let them in the early hours after St. Patrick’s Day, 1990. They tied the guards up & spent 81 minutes cutting paintings, including works by Rembrandt and Vermeer, right out of their frames.
Today, the empty spots are still in the museum. None of the 13 stolen works have ever been found, even after the FBI traced leads to Boston’s organized crime groups and searched homes in Connecticut & Ireland. The museum continues to offer a $10 million reward.
Disappearance of Tara Calico
Tara Calico went for a morning bike ride in Belen, New Mexico, & never came home. Her Walkman was found on the roadside & authorities searched the Valencia County area multiple times. But the trail ended there. Months later, a Polaroid photo turned up in a Florida parking lot showing a young woman & boy bound with tape, with some people thinking it was Tara.
Detectives are still chasing down tips about her & they reexamined the Polaroid through digital forensics. Her mother pushed for new searches until her death in 2006.
The Circleville letters
Beginning in 1977, people in Circleville, Ohio, received threatening letters calling out local scandals. One bus driver, Mary Gillispie, got dozens of them, and then found a booby-trapped box on her route with a loaded gun inside. Her ex-brother-in-law, Paul Freshour, went to prison for it.
Yet the letters kept coming while he was locked up & no one managed to prove who wrote them. Freshour died in 2012. Journalists reviewed the evidence but found no match for the handwriting or fingerprints.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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