Random Mysteries We Just Learned About In 2022 (12 items)

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  (#4) The Unknown Culprit Behind The Hinterkaifeck Slayings May Have Been Living In The Victims' Home

  On March 31, 1922, six people were slain at the Hinterkaifeck Bavarian homestead in Germany. This included the five members of the Gruber family - Andreas, his wife Cäzilia, their widowed daughter Viktoria, and her two children, Cäzilia and Josef - as well as their maid, Maria Baumgartner. 

  A week earlier, Andreas had noticed footprints leading toward the farm from the woods, but no returning prints. Previously, he had complained to friends and neighbors for months about hearing creaking and footsteps in the attic, as well as finding a newspaper in his home that he hadn't purchased. He also revealed the keys to his tool shed had gone missing, which happened to be the place his pickax - which eventually became the murder weapon - was stored. 

  Months prior to the slaying, the Grubers' previous maid had quit, claiming the house was haunted by ghosts after she heard mysterious voices and footsteps.

  Not until April 4, after young Cäzilia was absent from school and the mailman reported the mail piling up, were the police told to check on the Hinterkaifeck farm. Investigators interviewed more than 100 suspects, some as recently as 1986, and eventually came to the conclusion that the culprit was likely living in their house for at least six months prior to the slayings. There was never enough conclusive evidence to close the case, so almost a century later, it remains unsolved.

  Perhaps even more unsettling is the fact that livestock were still being fed, and neighbors saw smoke coming from the chimney from March 31 to April 4, indicating the culprit remained in the house for a few days after doing away with the family.
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  (#5) A Murder Investigation Went Cold Until A Family Found A Drifter In Their Attic

  In the fall of 1941, while his wife Helen was recovering in the hospital from a broken hip, Philip Peters returned home to find a man going through his icebox. He confronted the man, and was promptly beaten to death by the intruder with a cast-iron stove shaker. Worried neighbors came to check on Philip that evening, as they usually saw him every day; that's when they discovered his body. 

  No evidence was present at the scene, dumbfounding police. Even more mind-boggling were the calls from neighbors - and even Helen, once she returned home - insisting they heard someone in the house, or telling of odd smells. Every time officers responded, they found nothing suspicious. Helen eventually moved out and the house stayed vacant, yet calls from the neighbors continued.

  Police finally caught a break when two officers stationed in front of the house spotted a man inside. They rushed in just in time to see a pair of spindly legs disappearing into an attic trapdoor. The suspect, Theodore Coneys, was apprehended and confessed to murdering Philip Peters. Upon viewing the filthy, cramped quarters Coneys had been living in for months, Officer Fred Zarnow declared, "A man would have to be a spider to stand it long up there." And so began the legend of "The Denver Spider Man."
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  (#6) The Apparent Poisoning Of A Child Proved To Be A Medical Condition

  In 1989, Patricia “Patty” Stallings was detained under allegations that she had poisoned her son, Ryan Stallings. She had her son admitted to the hospital when she noticed he was ill. After running tests, doctors concluded he had high levels of a substance known as ethylene glycol in his blood, a compound most commonly found in antifreeze. Patty and her husband David were questioned, but they both profusely denied allegations of poisoning their son.

  After two weeks, Ryan was released but placed in foster care, where Patty and David were allowed to visit him for only an hour a week. But during the sixth week, when Patty spent a short time alone with her son, he became sick again and was rushed to the hospital; doctors believed he was allegedly poisoned again. This evidence allowed police to make an arrest, and two days later, Ryan succumbed to his illness. Despite Patty's claims of innocence, doctors and police were adamant that she was responsible.

  While awaiting trial in prison, Patty gave birth to her second child, who also became sick and had symptoms similar to Ryan's. The baby was diagnosed with a rare condition called methylmalonic acidemia, which causes a toxic build-up of methylmalonic acid, due to the body having trouble metabolizing certain proteins and fats. This chemical is very similar to ethylene glycol. Despite this finding, Patty was still convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1991.

  However, a few years later, the charges were dismissed when renowned scientists investigating the case revealed their findings. They deemed her innocent after they proved Ryan also had methylmalonic acidemia.
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  (#3) A Missing Young Woman Was Finally Found When Her Kidnapper Went Out With Their Children

  Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped in 1991, but the mystery of her whereabouts wasn't solved until 2009, when she was rescued from her kidnappers, Phillip and Nancy Garrido.

  Dugard was 11 when the couple kidnapped her as she walked to the school bus stop in her neighborhood in Meyers, CA, near South Lake Tahoe. Philip and Nancy (a certified nursing assistant) held her in captivity in a labyrinth of sheds and outbuildings Philip had built in their backyard. He regularly sexually assaulted Dugard and forced her to raise the two daughters she had with him.

  In August 2009, Phillip went to UC Berkeley to inquire about hosting religious events on the campus and brought along the girls. A campus staff member, Lisa Campbell, immediately became suspicious of him and requested a background check, which revealed Phillip was a registered sex offender. He was required to attend a parole meeting, where authorities uncovered that the children were Dugard's, and she was the girl who had been kidnapped in 1991.

  Shortly afterward, police raided the Garrido home and arrested Phillip and Nancy, charging them collectively with 29 felony counts. Phillip was sentenced to 431 years in prison, while Nancy received 36 years to life. Dugard was reunited with her family, and has since published two memoirs.
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  (#8) Bobby Dunbar Was Kidnapped, Then Supposedly Found, But The Boy Who Returned Wasn't Actually Bobby

  In the summer heat of August 23, 1912, the Dunbar family decided to cool off with a vacation to Swayze Lake in Louisiana. More swamp than lake, it was full of alligators. At some point in the night when the family was asleep in their tents, Bobby Dunbar, the family's 4-year-old son, wandered off and disappeared, launching an eight-month-long search.

  A Louisiana newspaper from the time, The Caldwell Watchman, covered the search: 

  When [Bobby] was missed, a search traced him to the banks of Lake Swayze... At first, it was feared that he [had] drowned, but the lake failed to give up the body and the little boy’s hat was found some distance from the lake a day or so later.

  With hope of finding Bobby waning, the town continued to search for the boy, offering cash rewards equivalent to $125,000 today to anyone who could lead authorities to him.

  On April 13, 1913, police finally thought they found little Bobby Dunbar alive, traveling with a drifter named William Cantwell Walters in Mississippi. The only problem? The Dunbars didn't recognize him. 

  Regardless of the less-than-ideal reaction from the family, police matched up identifying markers like birthmarks to prove the boy was Bobby. The town celebrated his arrival, despite the Dunbars' doubts.  

  Meanwhile, accused kidnapper Walters protested his arrest from jail, claiming the boy was the illegitimate son of his brother and his servant. Julia Anderson (pictured), the woman who claimed to be the boy's real mother, paid a visit to the Dunbars to claim her alleged son, Bruce Anderson. After seeing him, she claimed he was, in fact, Bruce, not Bobby. A public trial decided that the Dunbars would keep Bobby, and Julia Anderson would return to Mississippi. 

  Years later, “Bobby's” granddaughter, Margaret Dunbar Cutright, received a scrapbook of articles about the mystery of her grandfather's identity. She allied with Linda Traver, granddaughter of Julia Anderson, and the two began searching for the truth. After uncovering letters and court documents, Cutright persuaded her father to give a DNA sample to finally end the mystery. The DNA was compared to “Bobby's” younger brother Alonzo. The test proved the present-day "Bobby Dunbar" was not the same boy who went missing in the swamp in 1912. He was Bruce, the son of Julia Anderson all along.

  What happened to the real Bobby Dunbar is still a mystery, as is the question of whether or not his parents knew the boy was not really theirs.
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  (#2) A Perplexing Suicide Note Led Police To Discover Pots Of Body Parts In A Kitchen

  On an October night in 2006 in New Orleans, the body of Zachary Bowen, an Iraq War veteran who was just 28 years old, was found on top of a parking garage. In his pocket, police discovered his dog tags, a suicide note, and a key to his girlfriend's apartment. The note read: 

  This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took. If you send a patrol car to 826 N. Rampart, you will find the dismembered corpse of my girlfriend Addie in the oven, on the stove, and in the fridge and a full signed confession from myself... Zack Bowen.

  When police arrived at Addie Hall's apartment, that is exactly what they found. Her head was in a pot on the stove, as were her hands and feet, and her legs and arms were covered with seasoning salt on a roasting pan in the oven. Upon further searches of the scene, police found Bowen's journal, in which he calmly described how he strangled Hall to death and, not surprised that he had no remorse for the act, decided it was time to leave this world.

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