Random International Unsolved Crimes That Most Americans Have Never Heard Of (11 items)

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  (#8) Mormon Missionary David Sneddon May Have Been Kidnapped And Taken To North Korea

  David Sneddon, a Mormon missionary studying Chinese and traveling as a tourist in Yunnan Province, was 24 years old when he disappeared in 2004. Local Chinese authorities asserted he likely fell into a popular canyon and drowned, but no body was ever located. His parents traveled to China and located several witnesses who credibly claimed they had interacted with David long after he traversed the gorge and that he had been seen near the China-Burma border.

  For 12 years, the Sneddon family maintained they did not believe David was dead. In September 2016, Choi Sung-yong, the head of the South Korean Abductees' Family Union, said he had information claiming Sneddon is currently living in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. Allegedly, Sneddon is married to a Korean woman, has two children, and is an English teacher. Sung-yong maintains then-Korean leader Kim Jong-il issued Sneddon’s kidnapping to have him tutor his son, Kim Jong-un, in English since Sneddon was fluent in Korean. Reportedly, a Korean woman in Beijing approached him, inquiring if he could tutor her children.

  North Korea has a history of abducting foreign nationals, including numerous Japanese couples who the country forced to remain in North Korea and tutor government officials in the Japanese language and culture. In 2016, a spokesperson for the North Korean foreign ministry vehemently denied the Sneddon kidnapping allegations.

  On June 29, 2021, David's brother, James Sneddon, gave an address to the United Nations claiming that he had evidence proving his brother had not died while hiking as the Chinese government had claimed, though he did not disclose the evidence in question.
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  (#6) The Murder Of Television Journalist Jill Dando Shocked The UK, But It's Still A Mystery

  Jill Dando was a British BBC television journalist and on-camera broadcaster. An unknown assailant shot her to death outside her home on April 26, 1999. One of Britain's most recognizable television personalities, she hosted the program Crimewatch, which coincidentally broadcasted information about unsolved crimes.

  After leaving her boyfriend's home on the morning of April 26, she arrived at her own home in suburban London. As she was opening her front door, an assailant grabbed her, wrestled her to the ground, and shot her once through the temple, killing her instantly. A neighbor observed a 6-foot-tall white man rapidly leaving the vicinity but did not connect him to the incident until later, having heard nothing.

  After a year-long investigation, police arrested a man with a criminal history of stalking and inappropriate sexual behavior named Barry George. Initially convicted and given a life sentence, the courts eventually dismissed the conviction on appeal. The courts retried George and acquitted him. George eventually won several libel lawsuits against a number of British tabloids.

  Some have claimed Dando was murdered by someone with a Yugoslav or Serbian connection as revenge for a NATO bombing, which killed 16 employees of a Serbian TV station. According to The Mirror, “Jill had fronted a TV appeal for Kosovan-Albanian refugees just weeks before her death, which is believed to have enraged Serb paramilitaries.”

  In 2019, BBC interviewed the case's lead detective, Hamish Campbell, who stated he didn't think Dando's murder would ever be solved. He also claimed they investigated 2,000 suspects over the course of the investigation, but no new names have been added to the list in years. “Sometimes I felt we were a day away from solving it,” Campbell said of the case.
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  (#3) The Tragic Murder Of The Al-Hilli Family In The French Alps Is Still Unsolved Years Later

  On September 5, 2012, an unknown assailant shot and killed four people near the French Alpine town of Chevaline, near Lake Annecy. The murders took place in a small parking area at the end of a remote 3 km-long road.

  Three victims were members of the al-Hilli family: Saad, 50, an Iraqi-born British citizen; his wife Iqbal, 47; and her mother-in-law, Suhaila al-Allaf, 74. Authorities also found the body of a local French cyclist, Sylvain Mollier, 45. Another cyclist discovered the bodies after seeing al-Hilli's 7-year-old daughter stumbling around the parking lot before she collapsed. The unknown attacker had shot the girl in the shoulder, then pistol-whipped her. Her 4-year-old sister, who authorities did not find until hours later, had hidden underneath her mother's skirt, physically unscathed but nonetheless traumatized by the incident.

  Initially, police suspected an estranged brother, Zaid al-Hilli, committed the crimes over a dispute involving their father's estate, but French investigators did not charge him due to lack of evidence. Speculations that al-Hilli possibly had connections to bank accounts linked to Saddam Hussein, that his wife had a secret ex-husband in the US who died on the same day as she did, and that al-Hilli was involved in complex security technology have only added to the mystery surrounding the case.

  The media have discussed several potential suspects, including Michael Hecht, a Belgian suspected of a similar 30-year-old murder in Brittany, and Nordahl Lelandais, an ex-soldier. In January 2022, a man was arrested in connection with the case, but police eventually determined he was not a suspect. Authorities did say in February 2022 that they felt closer to solving the case than ever.
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  (#4) The Lead Masks Case Of Vintem Hill, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, May Somehow Be Tied To Aliens

  In August 1966, a person was flying a kite on Vintem Hill in Brazil when he found the dead bodies of two adult males. The men, who were later identified as Miguel Viana and Manuel Pereira da Cruz, were dressed in suits and raincoats, with crude lead masks covering their eyes. Police noted an empty water bottle nearby and a small notebook containing a cryptic message in Portuguese: "16:30 be at the agreed place. 18:30 swallow capsules, after effect protect metals wait for mask sign.”

  An autopsy turned up no trace of anything suspicious; however, the delay that occurred before the autopsy may have invalidated the testing. Further investigation turned up the fact that both men were UFO enthusiasts and clearly were on the verge of ingesting something that might be dangerous. Rumors of UFO sightings were circulating around the area, which might explain what drew the men there. The masks turned out to be homemade by the men themselves.

  Brazilian authorities never solved the case, and the circumstances surrounding the two men’s deaths remain unknown.
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  (#5) Amy Lynn Bradley Disappeared From A Caribbean Cruise Ship And Has Never Been Found

  On March 24, 1998, on a cruise ship sailing from Aruba to Curaçao, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley left her cabin in the early morning hours, intent on smoking a cigarette. The ship was on the verge of docking, and her father saw her sleeping in the family cabin at 5:30 am. When the entire family awoke at 6 am, Bradley had vanished, having left her cabin barefoot with only her lighter and cigarettes.

  While the family began a frantic search, cruise ship management refused to stop passengers from disembarking and also refused to alert the other passengers to Bradley's disappearance. Several crew members had previously interacted with Bradley in the ship's nightclub and expressed an inordinate amount of interest in her during the cruise.

  Authorities never found Bradley, and despite an FBI investigation into her and her family's background, they were unable to continue an investigation in an international jurisdiction. The FBI received several credible tips from people who correctly identified her tattoos; one such tipster indicated unknown perpetrators were holding her against her will in a Curaçao brothel.

  Con artists claiming to be ex-Navy Seals who knew Bradley's whereabouts offered to stage an armed intervention and successfully extorted $200,000 dollars from the Bradley family until the ringleader was unmasked and prosecuted. An adult website emailed Bradley's parents a photo of a woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to her and implied the individual in the photo was not there willingly. In 2005, an individual claimed to have spotted Bradley in Barbados.

  Although Natalee Holloway's similar vanishing in 2005 rekindled interest in Bradley's disappearance, she has never been located. As of 2018 - 20 years after Bradley's family last saw her - the FBI offers a reward of $25,000 for concrete tips.
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  (#11) Julie Ward Was Murdered On A Safari In Kenya, But The Culprit Has Never Been Identified

  Julie Ward was on a photo safari in the Masai Mara game preserve when she disappeared in September 1988. Circumstances left her stranded by herself in a remote area of the national park. When she failed to appear for a social appointment in Nairobi the night before she was supposed to fly home, her father, John Ward, traveled to Kenya from Great Britain.

  Ward, along with a park ranger, discovered Julie’s burnt, dismembered remains, and Ward became skeptical when a government autopsy claimed she had been attacked by animals or hit by lightning. Subsequently, Kenyan officials admitted an unknown assailant attacked her and burned her body in an attempt to destroy evidence.

  Various witnesses have come forward to claim Julie was abducted, raped, and then killed, but the Kenyan government resisted a thorough investigation. Authorities ultimately prosecuted three people for Julie Ward's murder: two game wardens in 1992 and the park warden in 1998. The courts acquitted all three. 

  Julie's father alleged the Kenyan government covered up the crime, enabled by the British Home Office. He has spent two million pounds of his own money in an attempt to identify his daughter's killers.

  In August 2020, John Ward stated that new evidence suggested that Jonathan Moi, the son of Kenya's president at the time, murdered Julie Ward. Moi died in 2019, and Ward claimed that witnesses began contacting him, adding credibility to his theory of a government cover-up.

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