06-04-2025
People Are Sharing The True Crime Stories They Still Think About Years Later, And I'm Actually Terrified
After watching the documentary about Gabby Petito, I've been thinking about her story a lot.
It stuck with me for days, and I started to wonder about other true crime cases — so much so that I asked the BuzzFeed Community to share the cases they often think about, too.
Here are 22 true crime cases that people are fixated on, years later:
1. " Sierra LaMar went missing in 2012 in Morgan Hill, CA. A man was convicted of her abduction and murder, but her body was never found. Super sad story."
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"Also, Pearl Pinson, who was abducted on her way to school in Vallejo, CA. There were a lot of witnesses, and the police found the guy who took her the next day but had a shootout with him, and he died. Pearl has never been found. I think about both of those girls and their families a lot."
– jeanie
2. " Jason Landry!! He disappeared from my college on the way home for winter break in Lulling and has never been found. There are so many versions of the story, and that an off-duty firefighter found his car well off the normal path, he'd take to get home to Houston, TX, from San Marcos, TX."
"It has just never sat right with me that no one could find him in the woods or anything but were able to find the clothes he was wearing that night in the woods, and his car and all his belongings. So bizarre."
– metallicraptor44
3. "Always the John List murders. Listen to the podcast Father Wants Us Dead. It goes into way more detail than just an average Google will do."
"The mother he murdered is buried in my in-laws' hometown, and, per her headstone, it looks like she's got an empty grave next to her, but we're all quite certain he's buried next to her in an unmarked grave (his body was claimed after he died and he's in no prison burial records — where else could he be, you know?). Gives me the creeps wondering if she's buried next to the man that killed her and his family and went on the run for the next 18 years."
– thegassygoose
4. "I'll never forget about Maddie Clifton. She was 8 when Joshua Phillips took her life. He hit her with a baseball bat and used a knife. He killed her on November 3, 1998, and hid her body under his waterbed. He was apprehended on November 10, 1998. The fact he slept for a week over her body always stuck with me. It happened in my hometown."
5. "Back in the early days of DNA evidence, law enforcement was hunting for a perpetrator that had committed dozens of crimes all across Europe."
"There wasn't a pattern to their misdeeds and the few witness accounts of the thief/murderer/petty criminal/felon contradicted each other. After years of chasing this phantom criminal (whose DNA indicated was female), someone realized that the only thing all the crime scenes had in common was their evidence retrieval swab manufacturer. Sure enough, the 'criminal' police across Europe had been tracking for decades was a grandmother who worked in the factory that produced the crime scene kits and was accidentally contaminating them with her own DNA."
– sparklyshark64
6. " The Yogurt Shop Murders. In 1991, four teenage girls were murdered at an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas. Several men were arrested, and I believe two were convicted, but the convictions were overturned. It's so sad — two of the girls were sisters, and all were under the age of 18. They deserve justice!"
– shabooshabah
7. "The murder of Chuckie Mauk. Warner Robins, GA, in 1986. The kid was out riding his bike and went to a corner store and was shot and killed. The killer was never found. I grew up there and remember this happening and how scared and upset everyone was. I was only a year older than him. There's a reward for information, but it's still unsolved."
– octopuslasers
8. " The Rhonda Hinson case in rural North Carolina. She was a young woman who was shot and killed on her way home from a Christmas party in 1981."
"No one was ever charged or has come forward with any definite information. It is the MOST famous and investigated case in Burke County history and yet unsolved due to the suspected perpetrators being well known in the community and no concrete evidence linking anyone to the crime. It has been televised on a few small shows here and there, and there is an awesome Facebook group dedicated to the case that works alongside her family. Still, without some serious attention from the media, her family very well may pass away without ever getting any closure."
– gatitathecat
9. "The murder of Georgia Leah Moses. She was 12 years old but had a lot of responsibilities placed on her. Her 7-year-old sister reported her missing eight days after the last time she was seen."
– candilove81
10. " The Zodiac Killer. I love the mystery around it. There was a recent documentary that came out on Netflix about it where we are now pretty sure who he was, and I find it so believable."
–Portia, Idaho, 23 years
11. ''The Girl From Saskatoon.' I sat behind Alexandra Wiwcharuk in grade 10. She was lovely, vivacious, and sparkling with many friends. We didn't envy her; we just wanted to be her!"
"Alex became a nurse, and one night during a May long weekend 1964, she was murdered. Before her evening shift, she borrowed her roommate's blouse and went to sit on the riverbank, not far from the city hospital where she worked. Her body was found buried on that bank a few days later. Her skull had been impacted by a rock, but she was still alive when buried. Before her death, Johnny Cash had appeared in town. Alex was selected as 'The Girl From Saskatoon.' She appeared onstage with him. Apparently ,he never played that song again after hearing of her murder. To me, it's apparent that she was meeting someone on the riverbank — girls will borrow a clothing item if they want to look really good. Her murder is unsolved. Alex was my friend, and I grieve for her. Look her up to see how beautiful she was!"
–Katherine, British Columbia, Canada, 85 years
13. "One that I find myself thinking about from time to time is the case of Karena McClerkin. She was 18 when she went missing in 2016 in Kokomo, Indiana. I knew her when we were kids. She had family that lived in the same neighborhood as my family, and we'd play sometimes. For almost six years her family had no answers as to where she was."
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"In 2022, police had arrested a man in July in connection with her murder as remains had been found in a different county. They were confirmed to be her remains. The wildest part of all of this was the suspect (Robert Farmer) had his home searched when she FIRST WENT MISSING because her family suspected she was last seen with him. But nothing came of it. They found nothing at the time that tied him to her disappearance. And it felt like the police just gave up on her faster than they started investigating her disappearance. So, now a mother is left without a daughter, her siblings are left without her, and grandparents are left without a granddaughter because the system failed her."
–Ariesgirl
14. " Jeffrey Willis. He was a serial killer in my area nobody knew about. Police didn't even connect the crimes he committed until he was arrested. In 2016, a teenager escaped the mini-van of her abductor. The security camera of a local blueberry farm got an image of a silver minivan, which led to its owner, Jeffrey Willis. A search of that vehicle, his house, and property revealed that this man had been 'hunting' in my area for years."
"A file on his computer labeled 'Vics' connected him to the 2013 disappearance of Jessica Heeringa, who went missing while working at a gas station, and the unsolved murder of Rebekah Bletsch, who was shot and killed while out for a run. Not all of the evidence is public, but Willis was convicted of first-degree murder of Heeringa with no remains ever found. Willis is also suspected in the 1996 unsolved murder of a 15-year-old girl. What bothers me the most about the case is that this was a normal guy to most people who knew him, but his minivan was a mobile kidnap, assault, and murder vehicle."
–Jen, Michigan, 35 years
15. "I think about Bob Crane's murder. It was never solved. Riddled with potential suspects. One stood out. He was possibly bludgeoned to death with a camera tripod for his sexploits that recorded all of his sexual encounters without the knowledge of his partners. The DNA evidence found was all used, and the case will never be closed."
–LRC, Louisiana, 43 years
16. "The unsolved Hinterkaifeck murders. I think about it all the time. The murders were horrendous in and of themselves — a family lured out to the barn one by one to be killed is the stuff horror films are made of."
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"But there were so many other weird details — the dad finding one set of footprints coming from the woods to the house, strange sounds coming from the attic, the housekeeper quitting because she believed the house was haunted, the killer remaining at the house for days after the murders to tend to the farm. All of it gives me goosebumps."
–Lauren, Washington, 39 years
17. "The story of Brian Shaffer, who went into a bar and disappeared!! Where did he go, what happened to him, and why is there NO evidence?!"
–Anonymous
18. "The death of 12-year-old Sara Keesling in Riverside, CA, in 1988. She was reported missing by her mother, and her body was found two weeks later. There were a couple of brief mentions in the local newspaper at the time about her body being found and identified, but 35+ years later, her death remains unsolved."
–Anonymous, California
19. "The Miyazawa family murders in Japan, 2000. The killer breaks into a family house and brutally slays four family members. Despite a vast amount of evidence left by the killer, the suspect has yet to be found."
–R, UK, 26 years
20. "A classmate of mine, Chris Jenkins, disappeared on Halloween night in 2003 from a bar in Minneapolis. His body was found in the Mississippi River the following April. The police tried to pass it off as Chris deciding to take a drunken swim and drowning. BS. The bar was NOT within walking distance of the river. Any local knows that NO ONE swims the Mississippi River, drunk or sober. Everyone knew Chris met a sinister end. His parents have spent a fortune to prove he was murdered. The Minneapolis police refuse to use the evidence to investigate further."
"There has been talk that Chris was murdered in an attempted robbery or possibly a hate crime (he was wearing a culturally insensitive costume and we grew up in a white, privileged suburb). However, there is speculation that his then-girlfriend was having an affair with a Minneapolis officer (even incorporating said officer's jacket in her Halloween costume). Since Chris's disappearance, the corruption of the MPS has come to light. My partner worked for them when we met. He can corroborate but won't since he's a person of color and fears for our lives if he says anything. So, it could very well be that Chris was a victim of an MPS officer."
–EPHS, class of 1999, Minneapolis
21. " Amber Lynn Smith, Texas, 2006. Her children were found alone in her home the morning she was reported missing. Her body was found under a bridge about 10 miles away, weeks later."
–Anonymous
22. "I often think about the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, and the fact that her likely killer was given such preferential treatment because his father was a judge. The other case I think about is the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, just because I doubt her poor family will ever get closure one way or another. That investigation was completely botched from the start."
–Pat, 31 years, Pennsylvania
