Latest news with #unsolvedmystery
Daily Mail
31-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
The chilling final two words uttered by teenager on the phone to his parents while walking home in the dark - before he vanished forever
A teenager who mysteriously disappeared after getting lost in the dark while driving home said two final chilling words to his parents on the phone before the line went dead. Brandon Swanson, from Marshall, Minnesota, started walking home after his car got stuck in a ditch after taking a wrong turn on a country road while on the way home from an end-of-semester spring party in 2008. Just before 2am, the 19-year-old rang his parents to come and pick him up, but was so lost he sent them in the wrong direction. Trying to find somewhere they would both know, Brandon told them he thought he could see the lights of Lynd, a nearby town, and decided to take a shortcut through an abandoned farm field. There, while still on the phone to his parents, Brandon uttered his final words - 'oh s***' - before the line went dead, and he was never seen again. Brandon's parents and friends searched throughout the night while ringing his phone, but there was no answer. His mother, Annette, reported him missing to police next morning. Sniffer dogs led police towards the Yellow Medicine River but lost the scent. His case has become one of America's greatest unsolved mysteries and, while some believe he fell into the river and died, his body and belongings were never discovered. Brandon's evening started in the nearby town of Lynd, about seven miles southwest of his home in Marshall. After leaving the party early, he headed 35 miles north west toward Canby to meet another friend. It was a route Brandon had driven every day to college, but this time it was believed he decided to take the back roads instead as he'd been drinking at the party. However, his friends confirmed they didn't believe he'd been overly intoxicated. If he had taken the main highway, it should have taken just 30 to 40 minutes to get home. After he getting lost in the backroads and subsequently stuck in the ditch, Brandon told his parents he was somewhere on the road between Lynd and Marshall - although it's now believed he was around 25 miles away. When his father Brian and mother Annette arrived, they couldn't see his car. Still on the phone, they flashed their headlights and, although Brandon said he was doing the same back at them, it remained pitch black. Getting increasingly desperate to get home safe, Brandon started honking his car horn - which again, couldn't be heard by his parents except through the phone. Frustrated, Brendan decided to abandon his car and walk to what he thought was a nearby town and they all agreed to meet in one of the bar's car park. Brain stayed on the phone to his son for 47 minutes as he made his way through fields, over fences and along streams of water. At around 2.30am, Brandon suddenly yelled 'oh s***!' and the phone disconnected. Brian immediately called Brandon back six times in a row, with each getting no answer. His parents continued looking for their son until the next morning when they were able to report him missing to police, who initially dismissed their claims and said 'teenage boys go missing all the time'. According to Annette, one officer said directly 'as an adult Brandon has a right to be missing if he wants to be'. It took hours of Annette pleading with officers before they would take Brandon's disappearance seriously. Authorities managed to track his phone and it turned out Brandon was 25 miles away, between the towns of Porter and Taunton, from where his parents were searching. Moving the search to the Taunton area, authorities quickly located Brandon's abandoned car which was in a ditch on the side of the road, just as he said. Ground and air searches took places over the next few days for Brandon and rescue dogs were brought in to track Brandon's scent from his car. The dogs followed his trail across an abandoned farm, and then along the Yellow Medicine River, at the river's edge, the dogs lost Brandon's scent, which indicated he may have gone in the water. However the dogs did pick his trail back up on the other side, which suggested he got back out. After the initial response to her son's disappearance, Annette successfully campaigned for the introduction of 'Brandon's Law' in the state. Brandon's Law was passed in Minnesota later that year in 2008 and it requires police to begin an immediate search for missing adults under 21, as well as older adults who are missing under suspicious circumstances. If you have any information, please contact Lincoln County Sheriff's Office 507-694-1664.
The Sun
26-05-2025
- The Sun
Three of my family died in string of unsolved murders that also claimed child, 12… sick killer is still free 40 years on
WHEN 27-year-old Adam Janus woke up for work feeling under the weather, he did what many of us would naturally do and popped a couple of painkillers. Hours later he was dead, having collapsed at his home in Chicago from a suspected heart attack. 21 21 21 It left his devastated family baffled, but there was more heartbreak in store. That afternoon Adam's brother Stanley, then 25, and his wife Theresa, 20, visited his house and, both feeling unwell, reached for the bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol painkillers Adam had taken that morning. Shortly afterwards, horror unfolded before the family's eyes as the newlywed couple collapsed, foaming at the mouth. Within hours they too had died - with the finger of blame eventually pointed at the Tylenol. Samples of the victims' blood - which also included that of a local 12-year-old girl who died in similar circumstances on that same day in September 1982 - revealed cyanide poisoning, with cops deducing the pills had been contaminated. But the culprit was never found, and now a new Netflix documentary - Cold Case: The Tylenol murders - examines alarming theories behind the chilling unsolved killings. Speaking in the show, Adam and Stanley's brother Joseph Janus recalls the harrowing moment Stanley collapsed. "We were sitting on the couch. Stanley stood up and said a couple of words. And then he fell down,' he says. 'White foam was coming out of his mouth, and he started shaking. His eyes turned white." For the second time that day, emergency service Chuck Kramer was called to the address. True story behind the Tylenol murders after chief suspect James Lewis dies leaving behind a chilling 40-year mystery 21 21 21 He could immediately tell that Stanley was dying - and as his wife screamed for help, she too suddenly keeled over. Chuck recalls: 'I knelt down and I turned her over, and as soon as I did, I looked into her eyes and they were fixed. 'Her pupils were dilated and her breathing was rapid and shallow, the same as [Adam] earlier and her husband." Recounting the bizarre cases back at the office, Chuck's colleague told him about Mary Kellerman, a 12-year-old who had also died that day after taking Tylenol for cold symptoms. Moments after taking the pills her parents heard a loud thud in the bathroom - and Mary never got up. Dr Thomas Kim of Northwest Community Hospital was the first to indicate cyanide poisoning as a possible cause of death. He says in the film: "I was pacing in the room looking through the pharmacological books, and that's when I thought about cyanide poison, like in the spy movies when someone would bite on the tablet and they're instantly dead." I was pacing in the room looking through the pharmacological books, and that's when I thought about cyanide poison, like in the spy movies when someone would bite on the tablet and they're instantly dead Dr Thomas Kim Blood samples confirmed Dr Kim's worst fears, and the following day the medical examiner's office scrambled to put out a press conference to warn the public. That warning came too late for 27-year-old Mary Reiner, who had just given birth to her fourth child. Her then eight-year-old daughter Michelle Ronsen returned home from school to find her mother gravely unwell. Michelle says in the documentary: "Her breathing was erratic - It was hard. 'I still remember the breathing and her eyes and how scared she looked. "And the next I know is I'm watching my mum go out on a stretcher. I didn't realise she had died." Mary McFarland, 31, became the sixth victim, after taking the capsules when she fell ill at work. 21 21 21 The growing death toll sent detectives scrambling to get to the bottom of the case. Meanwhile poison control centres were inundated with calls from concerned people and volunteers went from door-to-door warning people about taking the drugs. Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, who was among the officials handling the case, says: "The general population of the Chicago metropolitan area was about six million people. "Six million terrified people, all wondering if the next thing I put in my mouth is going to be contaminated, and am I going to die? 'And there was terror. There was fear." I still remember the breathing and her eyes and how scared she looked. And the next I know is I'm watching my mum go out on a stretcher. I didn't realise she had died Michelle Ronsen Investigators theorised that the capsules, which had two parts, were being pulled apart, emptied and refilled with cyanide, then put back together and placed back on the shelves. An estimated 25-30 million bottles of Tylenol bottles were recalled, the largest in American history, while authorities launched an investigation into parent company Johnson & Johnson's plants in Pennsylvania and Texas. It was quickly ruled out that the poison came from the factories, and with no crime scene, investigative leads or witnesses, cops were at a standstill. Meanwhile the death toll continued to rise. On October 1, 1982, 35-year-old flight attendant became the seventh victim. Her friend Jean Leavengood, who found her in her apartment, tells the documentary: "The policeman asked us [if] we tried to resuscitate her. And we said no. "He said, 'There's so much cyanide on her lips that if you had tried, you might have ended up dead'." When CCTV emerged showing her buying a bottle of Tylenol, cops zoned in on a man in the store staring intensely at Paula as she picked up the capsules. They finally had a suspect. Chilling warning 21 21 21 A week after the killings began, a sinister letter landed on the desk of the Tylenol makers, warning more people would die unless demands were met - one being a $1million transfer to a Continental Bank account. The trail soon veered towards Robert Richardson, a Chicago man whose handwriting matched the extortionist letter, and whose face looked eerily like the one seen eyeing Paula at the store. Police plastered his face across the country, and it emerged Richardson and his wife Nancy - who also used the names James and Leann Lewis - had fled Kansas City, where he had been charged with murder and extortion after the body of a colleague, Raymond West, was found dismembered and 'semi-mummified' in Mr West's attic. The charges were later dropped when the victim's cause of death couldn't be determined. James Lewis became the prime suspect in what became one of America's most chilling unsolved cases. He appears in the documentary, insisting: "They make it look like I'm the world's most horrible, dangerous person ever,' before chuckling: "I wouldn't hurt anybody." But his past was anything but squeaky clean. 21 21 In 1981 Lewis was linked to credit card fraud and identity theft. A raid uncovered notebooks detailing scams and a book about poisoning. Police issued a warrant, but Lewis and his wife had already gone on the run. Lewis was found guilty of extortion in October 1983 and jailed for 10 years, but his lawyer argued he'd written the letter to get back at his wife's former employer. In it, Lewis had requested the ransom money be placed in a nonactive account belonging to his wife's former boss, the New York Times reported at the time. Lewis repeatedly denied that he was the killer, but police continued to question him for decades, with investigators talking to him at least 34 times from when officials re-opened the case in 2006. Cops could never place Lewis in Chicago shortly before the murders and had trouble identifying a timeline of when Lewis wrote the letter to Johnson & Johnson. In the documentary Lewis claims he 'did not consider it an extortion letter' because 'I did not actually have access to making any money from the letter'. "I was trying to do something good but I got it all screwed up,' he adds. 'It was just a piece of paper. It couldn't hurt anyone. Maybe get a paper cut." Damage control 21 21 Johnson & Johnson worked hard to restore public trust, relaunching Tylenol with press conferences, flashy ads and new tamper-proof seals on every bottle. It seemed the horror was behind them - until 1986. In New York, 23-year-old Diane Elsroth died after taking extra-strength Tylenol laced with cyanide at her boyfriend's home. Two more tainted bottles were found on shelves. A killer was clearly still at large, but still, no suspect. More troubling revelations emerged. The day before the first deaths in 1982, cops had found several opened Tylenol capsules outside a diner. One officer who handled them later suffered painful symptoms and the capsules were meant to be sent to a state crime lab, but never made it. Superintendent Brzeczek says: "It seems like that's almost a forgotten issue. That could have very well been the weapons of the Tylenol murderer." Roger Arnold became another suspect in 1982 after ranting in a bar about poisons. A police raid on his home turned up lab gear, gunpowder and a manual on making poisons, but no cyanide. Paranoid and humiliated, Arnold snapped and shot dead 46-year-old John Stanisha, wrongly believing he'd tipped off the cops. He was convicted of murder in 1984 and served 15 years of his 30-year sentence. He died in 2008, and two years later his body was exhumed for DNA testing in an attempt to link him to the Tylenol case - but he wasn't a match either. Michelle Rosen, whose mum died in the poisonings, remains deeply suspicious of Johnson & Johnson. 21 21 With 22 million bottles destroyed by the company, only a tiny sample was ever tested. Michelle says: "I think we would've found a lot more poisoned capsules in those bottles." Initially the firm claimed there was no cyanide on site. But Nicholas Mennuti, who investigated the case, says: "They were using it at McNeil, but it wasn't locked up and almost anyone could walk into the room where they were keeping it." Author Gardiner Harris adds: "Certainly from a corporate perspective, there was no deliberate effort on the part of Johnson & Johnson to distribute contaminated Tylenol. "But there might have been some kind of problem either at their two manufacturing facilities or anywhere along the distribution chain." Blasting the original probe, he adds: "The investigation was problematic from the start. Would you let a suspect perform their own investigation? No." The investigation was problematic from the start. Would you let a suspect perform their own investigation? No. Gardiner Harris Even Lewis pointed the finger at Johnson & Johnson, claiming: "Only a mass murderer would want to destroy all the evidence. 'You're behaving in a way that seems to implicate you in the murders themselves." In 1983, families of the Chicago victims dragged Johnson & Johnson to court claiming it knew its Tylenol bottles were laced with poison. The company settled the lawsuits for a reported $50million, but never admitted any wrongdoing. After the suit, the firm said: 'Though there is no way we could have anticipated a criminal tampering with our product or prevented it, we wanted to do something for the families and finally get this tragic event behind us.' Lewis died in 2023, and Richard Brzeczek is one of the few law enforcement officers who believe he wasn't guilty of the poisonings. "James Lewis is an as***le, but he is not the Tylenol killer,' he says. "Why the FBI expended resources that they did in trying to tie him to the Tylenol murders, I do not know." Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders drops on Netflix on Monday 26 May. 21 21 21
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Daily Mail
The disturbing unsolved story of Fred West 'victim' Mary Bastholm who he brutally confessed to murdering
More than 50 years on, 15-year-old Mary Bastholm's ominous disappearance remains unsolved - despite a confession from her killer. Mary, who is believed to be one of Fred West's first victims, vanished into thin air on January 6, 1968, while waiting to catch a bus to her boyfriend's house in Gloucester. The young cafe worker, clad in a blue coat and blue and white dress - never saw Tim Merritt again, with her disappearance on the cold winter day remaining a mystery for more than half a century as her body is still undiscovered to this day. A breakthrough in her case in 2021, however, led police to become convinced Mary was another victim of the serial killer - among the worst that Britain has ever seen - whose murderous rampage was ongoing at the time of her abduction. Herefordshire-born builder Fred West married Rose in 1972 - a nuptial that would become a death sentence for at least a dozen women, including two of the couple's children, who were brutally murdered and buried in their back garden. At least eight of those were raped, tortured and mutilated by West, who has since become known as one of Britain's most notorious serial killers. Mary is thought to be among many additional victims whose cases were never officially solved. Nine of his victims were discovered buried in the back garden of the Wests' home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester, in 1994 - although Mary's was not one of them. For years, police had suspected that West was also behind her disappearance, as he was believed to have been a regular visitor to the café she worked at, now known as The Clean Plate. Another of the killer's victims, Anne McFall, was also known for having worked at the same eatery. Around the time West was first arrested in 1995, his son, Stephen, claimed his father had confessed to killing Mary - along with another 20 or 30 other women - but investigators 'brushed off' his information at the time. In 2021, as the police continued to probe Mary's disappearance, a source told MailOnline that Stephen explained he had given the information to chief superintendent John Bennett, the now-retired officer who led the murder investigation into his father and mother, Rose West, back in 1994, but was not believed. The same year, unearthed tapes seemingly containing West's confession of her murder, were discovered during the making of a Channel 5 documentary. West, who had never previously confessed to police about the murder despite Stephen's insistence, was heard in the recording saying: 'The girl, Mary Bastholm, remember I said that to you in the car. I had to go back and give her a f***ing sorting out.' It is unclear in the recording who he is talking to or whether he is recalling a conversation with his wife, Rose, who was convicted of 10 murders. However Leo Goatley, lawyer for Rose West, said that the serial killer - who killed himself while awaiting trial at Birmingham's Winson Green prison - was notorious for not telling the truth. He told the documentary: 'Fred West was a prolific liar. I'm quite sure that he did kill Mary Bastholm, but trying to extract the remote strands of truth from Fred's fantasies and lies was very difficult.' While filming the Channel 5 documentary, production crew - with the blessing of Mary's family and the cafe she worked at - drilled into the floor themselves and then put an endoscope camera down the hole. In what they thought might be crucial evidence in the case, they captured what they believed were images of blue material matching the coat the girl had been wearing when she went missing - and contacted the police. The areas dug up were identified by a team of expert forensic archaeologists and anthropologists ahead of the excavation work, with experts working out the remaining parts of the cellar had been undisturbed since prior to 1968, when Mary disappeared. Following discoveries, police relaunched the search for Mary's body, shelling out more than £55,000 to excavate The Clean Plate café - previously the Pop-In cafe - where she worked as a waitress and that West was known to frequent. Her then boyfriend, Merritt, said he wasn't convinced that the search would bring anything new to light. Before the search, he told the BBC: 'I really don't think anything will come of this. She left the café for the day, went home and changed before going to the bus stop to come and see me. Why would she be back at the café? Despite renewed effort to find Mary's body, a full excavation of the premises failed to uncover her remains - with officers believing 'evidence' presented to them was detritus from a pipe accidentally drilled though by the show's producers. The failed search left Gloucestershire Police having to defend their actions after no trace of Mary was found as they promised to review how the force had acted with the TV crew. Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden said he thought the pictures showed wreckage from a pipe they had drilled through that simply appeared blue through the imaging technology. He said: 'Everybody working on this is disappointed that we didn't find Mary. Allowing her family to finally lay Mary to rest after 50 years was absolutely the most important reason for this excavation. 'The family had been contacted by the production company and the owners of the café and they were working together and the family were hugely supportive of the work of the production company. 'New information had come to light that we felt it was appropriate to assess. The new material was predominantly that there was a blue material in a void in the ground under the café. 'The information that was presented to us by the production company on May 7 was significant.' The family of Mary said they are 'still very sad' that her body was not recovered during the Clean Plate café excavation, but continued to 'hold out some hope that one day Mary will be found'. They said that they had been hopeful that the excavation would give them answers to the fate of their relative, adding that they had remained open minded throughout. Speaking at the time, they described the teenager as 'a strong-willed, happy-go-lucky teenager dearly loved by her parents and two brothers.' 'She enjoyed life and was just coming into her own when her life was tragically cut short. 'Her parents and two brothers were never the same after she went missing. 'They have now sadly passed away without ever knowing what happened to their loving daughter and sister.' In 1994, West admitted to killing his daughter, Heather, marking a turning point in the previously unsolved murders of at least 12 women. The confession led to police searching his property, 25 Cromwell Street, where the remains of nine girls and women were uncovered. Mary's body was not found among those discovered during the 1994 excavation of the Wests' home, now known as the House of Horrors. West and his wife, Rose, were both charged with nine murders, with him receiving an additional three counts Fred West hanged himself on New Year's Day 1995 while awaiting trial for the murders of 12 women. He was never investigated over Mary's disappearance but has always been the prime suspect. His wife was left to face the courts alone and was later jailed that year the murder, later becoming known as one of the most most notorious female mass killers in Britain.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Yahoo
Do you recognize this man? PBSO seeking to identify victim in 1979 cold-case homicide
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County are offering a $3,000 reward for information leading to the identity of a man who was killed 46 years ago in a homicide in The Glades. The agency released an artist's rendering of the man on May 8, describing him as 5-foot-6 and 180 pounds and having brown hair. It is believed he was under the age of 40, the sheriff's office said. On April 13, 1979, unidentified human remains were found floating in the New River Canal, about 11 miles from South Bay. Medical examiners ruled the death a homicide. The man was clothed in Canadian labeled jeans and Arthur Ashe-style white sneakers, the sheriff's office said. Investigators did not say whether he had been shot or died by some other means. Anyone with information about his identity is asked to call Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County at 800-458-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted to Detective John Cogburn of the PBSO Cold Case Unit at 561-688-4063, or cogburnj@ Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@ and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Cold case: PBSO seeking to identify victim in 1979 homicide in Glades
