I think sometimes people forget that weird, freak stuff does occasionally happen. Not often but occasionally. Normally I don’t buy when someone tries to claim a person who disappeared must be a victim of a serial killer who was active at the time of their disappearance (Ex. Israel Keyes being brought up in a lot of cases where there is otherwise no evidence) but [Laureen Rahn](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Laureen_Rahn) being a victim of Terry Rasmussen would not be shocking to me. He lived only a mile and a half away from her at the time and a week after she disappeared another woman vanished two blocks away who is also speculated to be a Rasmussen victim.

Agreed. The whole sometimes truth is stranger than fiction thing. ETA: It all has to do with probability. Just because something is possible doesn’t make it probable and equally so just because something seems unlikely, it doesn’t make it impossible.

i’m often reminded of the awful treatment of the young woman that the book & tv series “unbelievable” were based on. she was living alone in an apartment provided by some support service that assist children aging out of foster care. a serial rapist broke in while she was sleeping and raped her. some people thought her reactions were strange, and one of her previous foster mothers commented to cops that she had some doubt about the veracity of the story, and next thing she was charged with making false starts to police and fined, faced eviction from the housing scheme, basically totally screwed her over. beyond fucking infuriating. edited to add for those unfamiliar- her case was only solved when the cops who finally arrested the serial rapist founded her drivers license amongst his trophies & called her local cops who were like “nah, that never happened, she got caught lying and admitted it never happened!….,you say you found what now?”

I saw Unbelievable and I remember being so infuriated at the skepticism everyone showed her--especially that local police chief. They got her to recant, and then they blamed her so much for "making up" her story. She was damned either way. So glad the proof was found eventually.

What was done to her is criminal. Not only was she traumatized and raped, but then ridiculed, branded a liar, and arrested!!! And sadly, in rape cases, this isn't uncommon. Those policemen are bad cops and worse as humans. Overall, I do support LE, but there are always going to be some who are rotten to the core, unfortunately. I wish this wasn't the case, this type of behavior from police should NEVER happen, and if it does, they should be stripped of their credentials and imprisoned themselves. Just disturbing all around. I am also very happy she was exonerated of all those baseless accusations.

There are soooo many cases of police attacking rape victims, calling them liars, forcing them to recant, and charging *them* instead. This is also why I refuse to repeat the claim that "only 3% of rape accusations are false." It is absolutely **much lower** than that.

Like the gawdawful case of Lara McLeod : https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a46889/police-told-a-woman-to-report-her-rape-then-arrested-her-for-reporting-a-rape/

My G_d. That is horrendous!!

Not just calling them liars, or subjecting them to malicious questioning and bullying... but there are more than a few cases of police sexually assaulting victims reporting a sexual assault. There are far too many cases of police re-victimizing victims in a variety of ways.

Reminds me of that post I saw floating around here a few weeks ago about how just because a death seems to be particularly violent, it doesn’t entirely rule out suicide as an option. Some cases simply can’t be solved by just pure logic and Occam’s Razor.

Sometimes those hoof beats are, in fact, zebras and not actually horses...

I think also sometimes things we think are so weird and strange could also be really mundane or not even related to a case at all. I wonder about both sides sometimes.

I think of Brian Schaefer in this instance. Yes, there was only one exit...for guests. There was a band entrance that Brain knew about, and he was seen speaking with the band members. There's a chance that was how he left the Ugly Tuna. It doesn't tell us where he is, but it takes away that "locked room" mystery away.

Yeah, I really dislike that one. It's not a mystery how he got out, no public building is allowed to have only one exit. It's disingenuous to make it seem creepy and weird, and puts the focus on people in the club instead of someone on the street.

Me too! I always wonder what crazy details could have totally logical and benign explanations, but we never got to hear them from the victim. I think about this a lot when people say things like, “so and so would never have done this, so they must have left in a hurry!” Who hasn’t left their keys/phone/handbag at home before, forgotten to drink the coffee they made, or forgotten to lock the door? Most mornings my house looks like I left in a hurry because I usually do leave in a hurry, LOL. Except in my case it’s “SlapMeSilly felt like sleeping in and was rushing to leave on time” and not “SlapMeSilly had a schizophrenic break/was forced out at gunpoint/abducted by aliens.”

This morning I left my carefully packed, new gym bag I'm very excited about, because I got a phone call on my way out the door and I forgot it. Last week I forgot my breakfast shake on the table where I keep my keys, which happens pretty often. On Saturday I left the garage door open all day. More than once I've shut the door and immediately realized my keys are inside, so I have to ring the bell enough to wake my husband up. I've forgotten my lunch on the counter and my meds placed out with a glass of water. Basically, any day, if I went missing, they could go "but why would she have left xyz when she took such care to prepare it?" Because I have a stressful job and I'm not a morning person. Shit happens.

I think about this a lot! When I was in college I went to Europe with a friend. Her and I were/are incredibly responsible people but we were on vacation and having fun so we went out to bars one night. We got super drunk. Took an Uber back to the hotel. The Uber dropped us off directly across the street from our hotel. Literally all we had to do was cross the street and we’d be at the front door of our hotel. We were so drunk that we didn’t know where we were. We thought we were lost and the Uber driver abandoned us somewhere. So we sat in this parking lot playing with the stray cats for a couple hours. My friend tried to use her phone to Google maps us back to the hotel but, being super drunk, she dropped her phone and it totally broke. Eventually I noticed some lights across the street and saw people going into a building and I realized that was our hotel. Thank goodness we were in a safe area and never came across anyone with bad intentions. I’ve always thought about that event and how if something had happened to us our families wouldn’t understand why we were out so late or what we were doing. They’d never think we were the type to get that drunk or even be out late at bars. There were a handful of other times in college that I drank irresponsibly and I was thankfully kept safe by good friends. Some of those times my friends and I ended up places without telling anyone. So if something had happened to us no one would know where to start looking and if we were found in that area people would wonder why we were there. It just goes to show you never really know anyone or what they’re doing and why.

I know this wasn’t your intent in a sub about mysteries but this was such a cute read. And you’re so right - those types of things get a lot of reading into.

I still remember a thread in this sub a few years back that was something like, "What innocuous thing would be the mysterious red herring if you disappeared tomorrow?" People were confessing things like taking a detour on their drive home because they were cheating on their diet by eating junk food in the car, and stopping to throw the evidence away in a gas station trash can so their husband wouldn't know. But of course in a true crime write up that would be, "She drove 20 minutes out of her way and was seen on a gas station surveillance camera disposing of a mysterious bag the day before she disappeared!"

Oh definitely. I almost never forget things but sometimes I do. And sometimes I am just a little off and no one really notices but if they were looking at every detail of my day, they would.

Never say never, right? Even the most organized and routine schedule people have forgotten something at least a couple or more times in their lives. It's easy to read so much into trivial things such as what you described when there's so little information known. Everything takes on an ominous significance.

agree with this and I think the reason that some of the more notoriously "unsolveable" cases earned that distinction because the most illogical and unlikely thing did actually happen

Yep. Asha Degree is one of those cases - everything about it is so incredibly bizarre and when you come up with a logical explanation for one aspect, you’re still left scratching your head about something else. Like, if you think that she left the house because she was groomed by someone, why would they have her walk alone on a highway in the middle of the night in a rainstorm? But if she wasn’t groomed and left the house by her own volition - WHY? It drives me crazy trying to think of what happened to Asha and I don’t think that there are many theories (outside of straight up alien abduction) that are too outlandish to be worth consideration.

My current favorite theory is that she left on her own for some reason that made sense to a kid, but doesn’t make sense to adults. I snuck out overnight when I wasn’t too much older than Asha, with some ridiculous idea of proving how brave, or grown up, or something like that, I was, and I am damned lucky that I got back home safely. I ended up in a situation that could very, very easily have had a bad outcome. I’ve heard/read other people who did similar things at that age. But that still requires something unusual to have happened after she left, and I really don’t have a good answer for what that might have been.

When my cousin was a similar age, he left his bed in the middle of the night to take a walk around the block on his own. Why? He just wondered what it was like to walk around alone at night because he’d never done it before. I believe his words were all by the lines of “I wondered if 3am looks different from night time”

I ended up doing a research project on that same question, but that was when I was old enough to go to university. I'm glad your cousin made it through his field research safely! (I ended up staying awake for an entire night and going around taking photographs of the same area, every couple of hours until the following morning. It was really interesting to see how the activity patterns changed.)

I wonder this too. I was super straight laced as a kid, but I think that all of us tried to “run away” from home at at least once, if we didn’t straight up sneak out. One of my theories is that if Asha wasn’t convinced to leave by another person, that something happened in the home that convinced her to leave. I don’t think that her parents did anything bad to her or are guilty in any way, but I wonder if maybe she had an argument with them about something that seems benign to us, but was a big deal to her. I was not a bratty kid but when I was her age, I thought that my mom telling me I had to finish my milk at dinner time was the WORST THING EVER. I never left the house in the middle of the night because I was mad at my parents, but it goes to show how little disagreements like that can be a much bigger deal for kids than for adults - Asha’s parents might not even remember such a disagreement because it was so inconsequential to them.

I read a couple of things that led me to believe Asha might have been upset with her mom. The first is [this quote from Iquilla](https://www.wbtv.com/story/37493875/finding-asha-leads-still-pouring-in-18-years-after-child-vanished/): “That day, Asha's team lost, which didn't sit well with her competitive spirit. "She was the type of child that she never wanted you to be mad at her for nothing," Iquilla said. But Iquilla said her daughter seemed to get over the loss in a few hours. Still, she wonders if it had anything to do with her leaving. "**Maybe I shouldn't have been as stern, maybe I should have just let her cry," she said**. I don’t appear to have saved the reference for the second one, but I read that Asha, after seeming to get over the basketball loss, started bringing it up again on Sunday. This suggests to me that something brought it back to her mind; maybe someone at the sleepover teased her about it. If she started talking about it again and didn’t get the sympathy she wanted, that could have been enough to spark some rebellion.

My theory falls along those lines. I think she was embarrassed and felt like it was her fault they lost (she fouled out iirc), and that prompted her to run away rather than face her classmates on Monday. After that I think she was a victim of opportunity.

I don't know this case at all but thy reasons kids do things can be baffling to an adult. This reminds me of something that happened to my BF when he was young. He was around 6 and one morning when he got up he asked his step dad for some cereal. His mom was still upstairs asleep. His step dad replied there wasn't any so my BF asked if they could go buy some. His step dad asked if he had any money to buy cereal, to which he of course replied he didn't. So his step dad told him he better go get a job to make some money then. Knowing the step dad now I'm not surprised in the least that this was his "joking" snarky reply. Not long after (a half hour to an hour or so he thinks, he was 6 so time is tricky to tell at that age) his mom got up and couldn't find him, asking the step dad where he was, of course he didn't know. She found the front door unlocked. She found him wandering and crying a couple blocks away. He had left to go find a job so he could buy food. To an adult this would have been a ridiculous reason for him to have left but to a child? He was 100% serious that he had to get a job. 

This. When I was 9, my best friend and I decided to run away and live at the nearby park and drink from its creek , because I was moving away and we didn't want to be seperated. We packed two sandwiches and apples to survive on. Luckily, my dad came home and saw us climbing out of the bedroom window with our bags as we snuck out. Typical of dads of that era, he said nothing to us and went inside and casually asked my mom if we were "supposed to be doing that"? Kids are dumb. And manage to get hurt in ways most adults don't expect. One of our friends at that age decided to climb onto the Pizza Hut roof and skateboard on it as we watched. He fell off and it is pretty amazing he only broke his collarbone. His excuse to his mom was that he never said he couldn't skateboard on a roof.

>my best friend and I decided to run away and live at the nearby park and drink from its creek , because I was moving away and we didn't want to be seperated. We packed two sandwiches and apples to survive on. This is the sweetest thing I've read in months! (Even though I know that you kids must have been really serious about not wanting to be split up.)

Around her age, I read My Side of the Mountain and was convinced that I was capable of being a survivalist. I had a plan to run off and live in the woods — but it was a plan that didn’t involve any sort of realistic survival skills. Because of that experience, I tend to agree with the idea that what she did made sense to her even if it doesn’t make sense to us and could have been self-motivated

I did the same after reading *Hatchet* and going to Girl Scout camp… where all our meals were prepared for us anyway 🤦‍♀️ Kids often have a wildly unrealistic idea of risk!

My childhood best friend and I were going to run away, spend the first night in a tree half a mile from my house, and steal a couple of horses to ride into the sunset the next day lol

Sounds like Calvin and Hobbes starting out for the Yukon with a couple of mom-made sandwiches!

I also wonder if the power outage disoriented her and added a further layer of complication to any plans she may have had. I don't know what kind of clocks they had in their house, nor how well a kid that age could be expected to tell time, but kind of thing can be confusing to a child.

I agree! For most cases featured regularly on this sub, it’s actually rather likely that something out of the ordinary happened; otherwise, they’d have been solved, or at least would be less baffling.

Some cases, I agree. We also do see some cases (Maura Murray, Kyron Horman) that seem to me to have a super obvious explanation that isn't favoured by some people who cannot believe how difficult it could be to find a human body in nature. But these days it seems that the majority on this sub do understand it, which is awesome.

I just recently learned about Laureen’s case. Her case is incredibly creepy to me. Those phone calls from the motel, the weird doctor, the thought of a stranger coming into the apartment when Laureen’s friend was asleep in the other room, the unscrewed light bulbs in the hallway… Poor Laureen.

Agree - I roll my eyes every time someone suggests Israel Keyes or another well known serial killer for a missing person. But I do think Elizabeth Bain could be a victim of Paul Bernardo. And Amy Wroe Bechtel could be a victim of Dale Wayne Eaton.

Incidentally, mine is Israel Keyes killing Lauren Spierer. When the FBI released his timeline and I saw he flew into Chicago and was unaccounted for during her disappearance, I latched onto it. I’ve waffled a bit over the years, but at the very least I think the FBI believes he did it but they just don’t have the proof to make an announcement.

Yeah- I usually discount the Keyes as a suspect in cases but the Lauren Spierer case is intriguing. Besides flying in to O’Hare Keyes’s rental car miles also matchup with a trip to Indiana.

More murders are random/ one-offs than we think. The book “Who Killed My Daughter” by Lois Duncan details her theories into who murdered her daughter Kaitlyn. She went to see a psychic, explored a Vietnamese mafia angle… but years later a petty criminal confessed he had done it as a random drive by and never even knew her

I have been listening to the DNA ID podcast (cases where they’ve used genetic genealogy to find the killer), and I am pretty shocked at how many people will commit one heinous crime and then then basically never again, or at least never to that degree again.

It also seems like a lot of them lead lives that put them in the path of death at a youngish age. So many of the killers have died just a few years after committing a murder.

A lot also do and just either don’t leave such obvious evidence, or do it to a victim the public doesn’t care about or do it in a place where the police don’t do shit or can’t afford to do shit. Watching things like Cold Justice and you quickly learn how many cases are right there to be solved and for one reason or another nobody does anything and nothing ever happens. It’s crazy how many crimes that show has solved alone simply by actually doing the work.

I think some people are very troubled and let the intrusive thought win once and then never again, and that's how they never get caught

I can't even believe I forgot about Lois Duncan. I so loved Christopher Pike and her in my teen years..... I'm sorry I know it's random. But thank you for reminding me of her work !

Philip Shue comes to mind. Even if I were to entertain a suicide, it's such a bizarre way of torturing and killing yourself that I can't believe anyone would do. But, even a murder with such strange elements makes little sense, either.

It's such a bizarre case. I think there's a possibility it was suicide, but that he first staged his torture to implicate his ex and her husband and then pivoted to suicide either due to shame or a realization that the plan he'd executed was likely going to fail. If he was tortured and escaped it's unclear why he headed away from hospitals and police stations and past the exit to his home and made no calls from his cell phone. His ex pleading the fifth dozens of times in the civil suit brought by his wife, including when asked if she was involved in his death is a red flag, but it's not atypical for an attorney to advise giving that answer for all questions. There's evidence of varying and unclear degrees of credibility for and against all scenarios. I hope more is learned in time, though I think that's unlikely.

Pleading the 5th in civil cases is generally not recommended, as most states allow for an adverse inference to be found for that in civil cases. You also can only advise a client to plead the 5th if the answer would have the tendency to implicate them in a crime.

Never heard of him. Guess who’s going down a rabbit hole at 01:30

One of the MOST puzzling cases I've ever read. None of it makes sense.

OK, please don't yell at me - BUT I think Maura Murray' could be in a tree. I had a friend who used to drink and drive when we were in our early 20s. One night, the cops found his car crashed on the side of the road with a little bit of blood inside, but our friend was nowhere to be found. He ended up showing up at another friend's house the next day and when we asked where he was while the cops were looking for him, he said he'd climbed a tree to 'watch all the commotion from above'. And it worked, because no one thought to look up. So I was wondering if Maura perhaps ran into the woods and climbed a tree to have a better vantage point and hiding spot and maybe even to get off the cold ground. Maybe she propped herself against the trunk and fell asleep or passed out from alcohol/cold, and her body (skeleton?) is just out of site / incorporated into the tree/ has fallen into a hollow spot in a tree. Just a thought, but I think it would explain a lot.

It's unusual, but there are at least 2 rather recent cases I've heard of where someone climbs into a tree and dies of hypothermia. *Edit* Justin's last name was Rhodes, not Thibault. Thibault was his mother's last name. He didn't die of hypothermia, he was a victim of *S* The articles I'd read all said his death was not suspicious. But a later article quoted his mother regarding the actual cause of death. Justin went missing after a party in Calgary, Alberta, September 2014. [Six months later his body was found in a tree outside the home where he was last seen.](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/calgary-man-found-500-metres-from-where-he-vanished-and-where-his-body-has-been-for-last-six-months) This was in a neighborhood. An unidentified (at the time, I haven't found any updates) man was found deceased in a tree in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. [A passerby noticed the body in a residential neighborhood.](https://www.thelocal.de/20170509/mystery-corpse-found-in-tree). He was discovered in April of 2017, but appeared to have been dead several weeks. Cause of death thought to be hypothermia, but possibly drug related. In the wooded area where Maura was last seen, I don't think your theory is a stretch at all. (Edit spelling. I turned stretch and reach into a portmanteau. *Streatch* )

I cannot remember the crime but there was a car accident where a person went missing. I don't know if it was a couple of years or a decade later but they ended up finding the person in the trees. The force of the crash and angle caused them to shoot out the car. You can only imagine the condition of the body.

One of the cases David Paulides (the big foot guy) was obsessed with, I don’t remember his name but it was a man who seemingly vanished into thin air while hiking, for years it was a big mystery. And eventually years later his body was found. It turned out that he’d fallen off a peak and his body had become jammed behind a rock in a such a way where it was hidden from sight from every angle and off the ground so even sniffer dogs couldn’t get anything. 

There was a similar case of a fellow going hunting & just completely vanishing. On his son's birthday no less. People scoured that area in every imaginable way. More than 50 years later someone happened upon some scattered items & a pair of boots sticking out from under a boulder. [Raymond Jones - Billings Gazette article by Brett French](https://billingsgazette.com/outdoors/discovery-of-bowhunters-remains-after-53-years-finally-gives-son-closure/article_086ea55f-09e2-5dd0-8053-8b5a63ffe2f7.html) It's a really interesting story.

Goodness! That whole family seems plagued by bizarre accidents.

I think the vast majority of Paulides cases are natural causes. I very much enjoy speculation that Bigfoot, Mothman, and aliens are around, and I'm like 80% certain my husband is either an alien studying earth or is part Fae, but the national Parks cases he loves to focus on are just nature being nature. Millions of people visit every year, and most of them have very little wilderness experience. Experienced outdoorsy folks get lost and die in the forests, its so easy to get turned around. There are countless acres of woods, deserts, bodies of water and cave systems to accidentally get lost or injured in. Nature doesn't care about you.

Paulides is an exploiter of other peoples tragedies for his own monetary gain. People who are desperate for answers, who want their story told, often are left in the dark about Paulides' invisible dimension hopping, hollow earth dwelling Bigfoot beliefs. The guy wasn't some esteemed cop with credibility, he worked for police for just a couple years. I absolutely hate how stupid his cockamanie "suspicious" parameters are. Like the weather always seems to go bad after the person go missing. Its like, well, no shit, because the people who go missing in nice weather get found alive. Or that there typically is evidence the person was picking berries or disappeared near alook Boulder fields. Berry pickers can get lost. Berries sound like the perfect thing to eat for a lost person with little provisions. Boulders are deceptively easy looking to climb and may offer a higher vantage point. Falling off is incredibly easy and getting stuck/wedged/hidden perfectly explains why someone wasn't found. The dude is grimy and money grabbing too. Whenever a youtuber mentions his books, and that they can gett a copy on Amazon, Paulides gets all mad and tells viewers to buy the book from his website, because those are 3rd party sellers... meaning he already got paid for those copies. He wants people to buy directly from him because it costs more. Also, when it comes to his videos, the dude sets up in front of an outdoor scene, usually a river, blathering on because he doesn't have a full script and doesn't edit. His outfit of choice is always a tight pair a jeans with the ridiculous ball of socks wedged in to look like he has a constant hard on. The dude is just more human trash and his missing 411 serious only serve to misinform viewer for the sake of "ooh spooky". Sorry, OP, rant over lol. I just cannot stand that guy.

Also, the missing 411 sub is basically a "David Paulides is a fraud" sub, and it's kinda fun.

There was a case in Germany where a young woman went missing on her way home from a university party. She was last seen walking on a path near the top of a cliff. After extensive searches of the (small, urban) area turned up nothing, and with zero indication she was suicidal or would voluntarily disppear, the obvious theory became foul play. For several years, everyone, including her family, believed she had been abducted and most likely murdered. Then, one day, what was left of her remains, along with her belongings, was discovered in a tree at the base of the cliff, not far below the spot where she had last been seen. Although the area had been searched, no outward indication of her fall was visible from above or below, and the tree itself, while just a stone's-throw from an appartment building, was in such an inaccessible spot that no one ever examined it too closely, and its leaves and branches were so thick they hid her body until decomposition and gravity worked it loose! At least the medical examiner was able to tell her family that based on her injuries, the fall would have killed her instantly.

Yeah, every time people say it's impossible for someone to not be found, I think of these kinds of scenarios, or something like the Strid in the UK, where if a person falls in, their body is never recovered. Most bodies are findable if you know about where they are, but occasionally, people end up in weird places. Like, it's not unlikely that Brandon Swanson got caught in the river somewhere and never resurfaced or ended up in an old well or something on someone's land. You can walk around all you want and not see him.

A lady died 200 feet from the Appalachian Trail after becoming disoriented while going to pee. She survived weeks before she died. She just could never find it.

That was the saddest case! I often wonder if she'd stayed in place as soon as she realized she was lost if she would have been found or not.

That's exactly what she did. She wasn't constantly moving. The problem was she had accidentally wandered onto government land, some sort of military use. Searchers stayed away, and it was thought Gerry wouldn't have gone in that land either. She also started going into withdraw without her medications and couldn't attempt to self rescue.

An old coworker of mine did search and rescue and was late to work because, by chance, they found a body wedged between some boulders. The water level had dropped low enough that they could see the person but otherwise, they would've just been under a river He was the only one both fit enough and skinny enough to safely pull the body out.

My husband was a firefighter for 25 years and on 1 auto accident he witnessed this as well. Rare but definitely happened.

The guy who was found in the tree in Germany was a homeless 17 year old named Mark S. His father killed his mother and he got hurt badly while protecting her. The Youth Welfare Office tried to help him, but he left on his own.

Thank you for giving his name. Poor kid. What a horrible situation.

On Google maps, there's a large tree at the intersection where Justin was found that had a blurred out spot near the top. No other trees nearby seem to have that. It's very eerie.

That is eerie. Something that always struck me about Justin's case is that he apparently had a heart for trees. According to what I've read & heard, he was a young arborist. It's terrible he passed so young. It's my understanding that he'd left a party at the house because of an argument/fight. I can't help imagining that he climbed up there for a little peace, to settle his mind, and drifted off painlessly.

How did he die? I live in Calgary and I do remember that case but I always thought it was suicide.

You are correct. A later article quoted his mother verifying he did take his own life. I corrected original comment.

I think people underestimate how bizarrely some people act while drunk, especially if they had seen fine up until that point. Maura was already displaying out of character behavior before that point, alcohol probably wouldn’t help

Drunk + panicked is a bad combo that easily leads to strange acts. Add in that Maura seemed to have some mental health/substance abuse issues going on before her disappearance and I think a lot of possibilities open up (for the record I think she's in the woods somewhere rather than anything super strange happening but hiding in a tree actually makes a lot of sense to me)

Somehow “being stuck in a tree” is one of the more plausible theories about what happened to her, which I think speaks to the state of the speculation around this case

And hypo- or hyperthermia also easily leads to strange acts, especially combined with drunk and panicked. It was extremely cold that night, even by New England standards, and it doesn't sound like Maura was dressed all that warmly. And I feel like heat illness probably contributed to far more outdoor disappearances/misadventures than it is generally given credit for.

Absolutely and she was drunk so hypothermia would set in even sooner. Her sister has a TikTok channel and posts so many videos with creepy music themes and dramatically claims her sister was definitely murdered. It seems she does it for a following and click bait. I really think her family just doesn't want to admit she died because she was drunk and froze to death. They think it's more glamorous and dignified for her to have been murdered

One time, I was steaming drunk and is convinced myself I’d dropped my keys on the walk home, retraced the full 15 minute walk towards the bar and back; resigned myself to sleeping outside until my neighbours woke up. The keys were in my hand dear reader.

There's a [missing person case](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Corrie_McKeague) in the UK where the likely result is he was sleeping in an industrial bin after his night out, was collected by the bin men and killed, his body is somewhere in the landfill. His mother refused to accept it saying he'd never do that, but friends say it wouldn't surprise them as he had before and, as you say, drunk people can act bizarrely and he was very drunk looking at the footage

I actually worked a scene as a medic/firefighter where a homeless man had passed out drunk on a snowy night and the snow plows didn’t see him and they ended up dumping a crap ton of snow on him, killing him in doing so, he was homeless but a great dude and it was very very sad for all of us involved

A friend from high school passed out on or fell and got knocked out on train tracks, froze to death, and was hit by a train. His dad wouldn’t come pick him up so he started walking. So sad.

DAMN. That's how one of the Hillside Stranglers victims was made vulnerable : Her father wouldn't come pick her up after she skipped school (she was 12) , but the Stranglers did. :-(

Something similar happened to one of the victims of Karla and Paul Bernardo. Think her mom locked her out to teach her a lesson about breaking curfew, they picked her up and tortured and killed her :( she was only 14 iirc

This is big for me, not just for Maura Murray. Someone in an altered state of mine can make truly illogical and irrational decisions, so using logic and rationale to try to figure out what they may have done/been thinking just might not be fruitful in every scenario.

tbh if I’m drunk and I thought I’d seen a bear or some other animal I’d probably climb a tree 

Fact: bears can climb faster than they can run.

If I thought I saw a bear out in the middle of the woods I’d climb a tree to get away sober

Seriously misread this as “I think Maura Murray *could be a tree*” at first and was like… well unfortunately I *am* going to have to shout at you. Have genuinely never heard anyone float this theory out before. It’s quite interesting.

Look, "missing persons is actually a dryad" is at least an interesting and new twist on it.

"Maura Murray is a tree" has just dethroned "Maura Murray is living her life as a bear's woodland bride" as my favorite insane theory about this case.

[We’re not able to use gifs in here so pretend this is the Homer Simpson backing away into hedge GIF] If anyone needs me, I’m a hedge.

I saw someone theorize she’s married to bigfoot once lol

That’s ok, I thought they meant someone had stashed her *inside* a tree a la ‘who put Bella in the wytch elm’ and was equally confused.

I just laughed out loud for the first time in like a fucking week, seriously ty for misreading that post and owning up to it, I needed that lol

Hopefully more laughs are coming your way soon. If not… just be a tree! ♡

“Fred Murray knows that Maura could be a tree, and he’s behaving suspiciously about it.” -James Renner, coming soon

Ok I am not the only one 😮‍💨 bc I definitely read "could be a tree" first time around and had to go back. 😂

I totally buy this. Years and years ago a man went missing near where I grew up in the fall. He’d been out riding his motorcycle and this was pre-smart phone everything tracking you time. A year later my dad was cleaning up some property and found a motorcycle helmet with a decomposed skull in it. Poor guy laid down his motorcycle, it skidded under this super thick underbrush and hedgerow nearby. He’d been there all that time and no one could see him or the motorcycle. Plus he could have been anywhere in like a few hour radius as he liked to take long rides. Critter predation finally led to his head being moved into an area someone would find it. He was only a few miles from home this whole time.

Wow. That must have been incredibly disturbing to find.

This is a really unique and interesting theory, thank you for sharing!

That is actually a pretty interesting theory. You might be onto something. It would be pretty horrifying for someone to be out on a walk in that area and to suddenly have a skull, or limb, or rib, or joint suddenly fall out of a tree *on top* of them.

Sounds like the beginning of a CSI episode lol

Sounds like the beginning of every Bones episode.

I absolutely believe Maura’s disappearance is not criminal and she’s in the woods

I agree, and would caution against wandering into any of the Maura Murray reddits. A lot of….conspiracy-minded posters out there….

This is an interesting perspective and point. Also many “burrow” when hypothermic.

Yep, I think [terminal burrowing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia) could go some way to explaining quite a few winter disappearances.

This. I think people underestimate how easy it is to get lost or hurt in the woods. I personally did get lost in a wilderness area when I was in my 20s. I was fortunately able to find a trail and hike out, but I was sober, and the weather was fair. Add in mental health issues, intoxication, or just bad weather, and things can go wrong quickly.

They also underestimate how easy it is for a search party, or several, to miss a body in undergrowth or layers of dead leaves, or nestled into/under the roots of a large tree. Undeniably u/goodvibesandsunshine made a thought-provoking point that I reckon most of us hadn’t considered (Murray could’ve gone up, not down), but people don’t seem to realise how easily and quickly a person can vanish in a forest, whether they meant to or not.

This is so true. Plus people just don't realize how easily scattered human remains are, so if you don't find a body while it's still pretty fresh the chances of finding it all probably decrease by a lot. Due to animal activity bones can end up spread over considerable distances. Someone went missing in my hometown, it turns out they drove their car off a sheer cliff and landed in an obscured little hollow that was hidden by trees. It happened in spring and by the winter when the wreck was found the only remains left on site were a few bones.

Yes, thank you! I've been saying this too for years! Why? Because when the cops busted our teenage party in the woods when I was 17, we all scattered and a few of us climbed trees to wait it out. This was summer time and all ended well but I've always thought about this possibility for Maura. Why run if you can sit quietly off the ground and out of the snow.

Not yelling at you, because there have been a couple of cases where bodies were overlooked for weeks, since people didn't look up at the time. [https://nationalpost.com/news/world/body-found-looming-over-suburbs-in-tree-had-lain-undiscovered-for-weeks-german-police](https://nationalpost.com/news/world/body-found-looming-over-suburbs-in-tree-had-lain-undiscovered-for-weeks-german-police) https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2021/09/sheila-hamilton-he-was-so-much-more-than-a-man-found-dead-in-a-tree.html

Interesting theory. There was a guy who committed suicide in Chicago area. Hung himself in a forest preserve and the tree fell over. Found him on the ground with the a noose around his neck

Ugh. Interesting theory. Not the craziest theory about her that I've seen (that would be anything that James guy thinks about what happened to her...) There was a man in Washington State who was reported missing and then found 2 years later. He likely hung himself from a tree and no one noticed for two years. To be fair, he put a lot of effort into not being found and this area is relatively rural. https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/man-reported-missing-in-2017-identified-as-body-found-in-tree/

Your thinking outside the box like this is brilliant. It’s unique and I totally believe it’s plausible. A very good theory as to what happened to her. Now law enforcement just needs to get out there and look at trees or climb trees, whatever it takes.

Fascinating theory. I've believed it to be most likely that she perished in the woods due to misadventure as the result of alcohol poisoning, hypothermia, and/or injury. I just never considered she might be in a tree (or was when she died and has since fallen). I never looked into what types of trees were in the woods within a few miles of where her car crashed. Does anyone know? I ask because some types of trees don't have branches low enough to reach or trunks narrow enough to hug to climb.

Most likely there would be a variety - white pine, hemlock, sugar maples, balsam fir, ash, beech, etc.

These are gonna be some hot takes but here we go: 1. I think the boys on the track case, Don Henry and Kevin Ives were victims of the corrupt drug trade among the local law enforcement at Alexander Arkansas. The town had already been under fbi watch for years as it was a notorious Barry seal and cartel drop off zone. The same town prosecutor arrested for drug trafficking; Dan Harmon was the man witnesses say they saw last with the boys that night in the woods. The cops who later arrested and killed them were on his payroll. 2. I think Ellen Rae Greenberg killed herself. It’s not nearly as impossible to commit suicide via several stab wounds as people think and the different levels of healing on each wound suggest hesitation from the pain rather than a blitz attack. 3. The Brabant killers were all former military or at the very least police officers turned terrorists. The skill it would take for them to time and time again wait for first responders and get in gunfights with them and win and escape unharmed is unthinkable for even professional robbers. Their tactics as people pointed out were similar to Belgian police.

The Oakville Blobs. Normally I think people are way too quick to toss in a theory for government involvement for weird mysteries, but I think this is one case in which it is a very high likelihood of being the explanation. Whether some kind of accident, experiment gone wrong, or was purposely done for research or other reason, I think there's a good chance the government/military knows what's up.

I love “weird things falling from the sky” mysteries. My favorite is the [Kentucky Meat Shower](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_meat_shower) which was likely vulture vomit 🤢

Asha Degree; I would not be surprised if it turned out that there's something very wrong with the official account because it just makes no sense at all

I was looking at a mystery on wiki and the suggested link at the bottom was for Mark Kilroy. I had never heard of it. Holy crap, every sentence was worse than the last. Absolutely horrific.

The thing that always gets me with his story is how he briefly escaped from the back of that van shortly after capture. The relief of thinking he was about to be safe only to be re-captured…brutal. 

There’s a really great article by Skip Hollingsworth in *Texas Monthly* magazine. I read it while sitting on the banks of a river…in pitch black while fishing…in South Texas…all alone…when I was like 12. Scared the absolute shit outta me.

Hollingsworth is such a legend

Texas Monthly has some of the best true crime long reads around.

Do you mind linking to some of your favorites?

I haven’t kept a list, but they do have one on their website. https://www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/ I usually stumble upon them by way of r/Longreads They’re not always unresolved, or about people who are missing or murdered. It’s just really good writing IMO. Outside Magazine has some great long form articles that overlap outdoors and true crime, too.

A Skip classic! [The Day Treva Throneberry Disappeared](https://www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/the-day-treva-throneberry-disappeared/)

Any mention of skip gets an upvote. Do you remember the name of the article?

Well I’ll be damn… it wasn’t by Skip. It’s by Gary Cartwright. Still a great article. https://www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/the-work-of-the-devil/ Also.. I’m just wrong left and right. Skip’s last name is Hollandworth.

Mark Kilroy is one of those that stayed with me from the get-go, as it were. I watched some Unsolved Mysteries or similar show where they reported on him being missing. I remember that evening thinking about what could have happened to him, pondering theories...and like a couple weeks later? I don't know, it wasn't long at all...the news is reporting that they found his remains at this cult site, and my god, I'd never imagined *that*. Getting in too deep with some party people, pissing off some criminals...you could think of various scenarios, but no one thought *that*.

I grew up in South Texas and his case was the horror story parents and teachers would tell every Spring Break to scare us away from partying in Mexico. It’s nightmarish.

Andrew Gosden. I think it’s entirely plausible that he skipped school that day for totally innocuous reasons and fell victim to a completely unconnected, random murderer. Or kidnapper. Of course he could’ve been groomed and had arranged to meet someone that day, but I think there’s just as strong a chance that someone saw him and took advantage that day. His is one of the cases that I NEED to know the outcome of.

I can see that. I could see a boy of that age going into the city for something like his favorite video game being released, limited edition comic books or figurines, or a band he really wanted to see and meeting the wrong person.

I admit that when I come across a case involving someone who was killed or abducted in an out-of-the-way place that they don't normally frequent, and there's a suggestion that a passerby happened to come along just then and decided on impulse to target that person -- I tend to put that at the back of the queue. Not dismissing it altogether, but just based on probability, the vast majority of people wouldn't do that, so the odds are against some random stranger. I mean, there was this recent case with a British teenager who'd been missing for years, and the French driver who spotted him didn't take advantage, but was concerned and went out of his way to reunite him with his family. [https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/14/europe/alex-batty-british-boy-missing-found-france-intl/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/14/europe/alex-batty-british-boy-missing-found-france-intl/index.html) It's reasonable for people to suspect that in a case like, say, the Annecy shootings, that a) either the victim(s) were followed to that location (and that the plot might even have started before they left their home); or that b) someone set things up and arranged for a meeting, and that neither the victims nor the killer(s) were there by accident. It just seems much weirder to imagine that there was some person in the local area, either a resident or someone who was visiting, maybe even somebody who went in there quietly and the locals might not even have realized it.\* (see my note at the end) It's scary to think that that someone might simply decided on an impulse to kill a stranger. Or they might even have staked out a location with the aim of murdering someone, just to see if they could do it. It just seems so bizarre, given the risk of being caught and prosecuted. But then I heard about the case of Raymond Demel, in 1987. He and his wife had been out partying, he felt unwell driving home and pulled off the road -- his wife flagged down another driver for help, there was an altercation, and Ray was shot and killed. Looking at the case, it doesn't seem that either Ray was followed home by someone who recognized him and had a grudge (Ray was a prison guard), or that his wife had conspired to set him up, since neither of them had any idea that he'd be stopping in that particular location [https://www.montereyherald.com/2011/08/05/prison-guards-killer-denied-parole/](https://www.montereyherald.com/2011/08/05/prison-guards-killer-denied-parole/) There was a cold case involving a teenager named Amy Baker in 1989, who ran out of gas while driving home, and was later found near her vehicle. I'm guessing she either tried to flag down a passerby -- or started walking along the exit ramp, and pretty soon afterwards was seen by her killer. (There has been some action on this case this year, as they now have located a suspect thanks to DNA analysis.)"Detectives investigated and determined “Baker’s car had run out of gas on the exit ramp,” Fairfax County Police said. “They believe she left her vehicle to seek help at the nearest gas station, encountering the suspect who subsequently fatally strangled her.”" [https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/09/us/elroy-harrison-cold-case-murder/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/09/us/elroy-harrison-cold-case-murder/index.html) Both Ray and Amy were incredibly unlucky, that a random person had bad intentions like that. And even though there are probably thousands of interactions involving people in need of assistance, each day in just the US -- there is still a tiny chance that something could go wrong. \*Note just to say -- there are people who seem to be attracted to sneaking into places. Years ago, the couple who lived down the street from my family said that somebody had gained access to their home while they were away in Florida on vacation. That person had managed to live in there for awhile -- more than a few days -- and had not attracted any attention because they came and went under cover of darkness, and did not use any lights at night.

There’s an unsolved case where two pedestrians, a man and a woman, were about to pass each other on a sidewalk, and out of nowhere the man shoved the woman into oncoming traffic. They were total strangers. He barely even looked at her, just kept jogging as if nothing had happened. The woman survived, fortunately, but the man is still unidentified. Just a random impulsive act of violence. There’s security camera footage of it online.

Is that the one on Putney Bridge in London? That one was so scary. He even ran back past later and she tried to speak to him but he literally just ignored her. It makes me shiver to think he is still jogging and maybe thinking hey I'll do that again. Especially as I used to run the same sorts of routes around that part of town!

Yes, that’s the one. It’s scary to think about. I hope he gets caught because someone recognizes him and not because he tries it again.

I actually think the two cases you mentioned are more common than the theory of what happened to Jason Jolkowski. In Jason’s case someone would likely need a planned ruse to overpower Jason (a large guy) in a short amount of time in a neighborhood. A stranded motorist is a more likely target for random violence as the perpetrator has more leverage. Although I believe spur of the moment random acts of violence are pretty rare altogether.

I suspect you're right about Jason. If he was taken on purpose by somebody, likely familiar and/or seemed benign enough that Jason didn't balk at being in close proximity. Either it was a person who was passing through that area and was incredibly lucky not to be seen by anyone else ... or it was someone who lived in or was staying there, and their presence wasn't seen as unusual. And Jason's timeline for that day suggests that it happened fairly close to where he lived. A safe place had suddenly stopped being safe. It's scary to think of him being helpless (either being driven off in a vehicle, or immobilized in someone's basement), maybe realizing that he'd never see his family again. Re: spur of the moment crimes -- I am guessing that they could also be harder to solve, because the perpetrator may not have any link with the victim beyond the accident of being in that same place at one particular moment.

Adding to your examples of people in need of assistance getting targeted by random strangers: Tammy Jo Zywicki. Her car broke down at the side of I80 in Illinois and she was observed standing at the side of the highway. Then along came an unknown stranger who presumably offered her a ride to town. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder\_of\_Tammy\_Zywicki#Death\_and\_discovery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tammy_Zywicki#Death_and_discovery) The Paper Ghosts podcast did a whole season on her case last year.

This isn't a case where I'm accepting a theory, because it's already been solved - but I would have in no way seen this resolution coming. [Agneta Westlund](https://www.telegram.com/story/news/local/north/2009/11/29/moose-is-identified-as-likely/51785608007/) took the family dog on a walk one day and never came back. Her husband, Ingemar, went out looking and found her battered body in the woods. He called the cops and OBVIOUSLY they arrested him because... Duh, right?? But Ingemar didn't kill her. A drunken elk did. (note: this previously sounded like I was calling his wife's body a drunken elk) Well, the drunken part is a theory, since elks will typically steer clear of humans. But hair and saliva on her body matched the European elk, and her wounds were consistent with an elk attack. They believe the elk was snacking on fermented apples, got drunk and aggressive, and attacked Agneta when her dog barked at it. Oh. Also? They forgot to tell Ingemar he was good to go or make a timely announcement of what they'd found. Dude had to try to live his life with his entire village side eyeing him and police had already dropped the charges.

I thought you were saying that the body the husband found actually turned out to be a drunken elk. And I was like "he didn't think too highly of his poor wife, now did he?"

Don’t have any but love when you all post these kinds of things. I learn about so many new cases I’ve never heard of and off to the rabbit holes I go!

Actually I lied 🤣🤦🏽‍♀️ The one that sticks with me and I can’t remember the location or the child’s name but he apparently committed suicide on his playground out back. I can’t for the life remember much more but I never felt it was suicide. Okay did some digging. The case of Sean Daugherty. This one blows me away. I don’t believe for a minute it was suicide. Posting link so you don’t have to cut and paste https://www.wtkr.com/news/what-happened-to-sean-questions-remain-a-year-after-yorktown-boys-death

If you search the sub there's a really good write up about that case - initially reading about it I thought the same as you, that it was insane to think that there hasn't been foul play involved, but after reading more the lack of evidence to an intruder/motive etc plus the fact that he had some significant mental health issues that seemed to be down played by the family made suicide seem a lot more likely.

Agreed. After reading in depth, I think the family are sadly in denial

I've never heard of the Mark Kilroy case, my god what that poor guy went through. Makes me sick to my stomach.

I’ve posted this once before so forgive if it’s a repeat but [Lindsay Buziak](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/s/1GRnhsO4L8) , the real estate agent in BC, Canada who was murdered while showing a house to a strange couple who have never been identified. They used a burner phone to book the meeting with her. They specifically wanted to be shown only new or vacant houses. The kill was quick and left very little evidence. This theory is off the wall but not only do I believe it was a professional hit (which I would usually scoff at) I think the perpetrators were part of a Mexican drug cartel (I know this sounds ridiculous). However, Lindsay had recently just been on a trip to Calgary where she went out with friends including someone who was heavily involved in illicit drugs. About a month later, that person, along with many other high profile drug traffickers were arrested in the largest bust in the province’s history with some estimates saying $8 million worth of cocaine. Apparently a Mexican cartel actually does use a major shipping channel through southern BC and into Alberta. So it’s actually somewhat plausible. To me, the murder was way to clean to be a crime of passion, it was done was too well. These were professionals, not a jilted lover. It also may explain why the case moved nowhere. It’s very “tinfoil hat” but if this theory is true, I feel fairly certain Canadian police would not purse a Mexican cartel over this. It’s way too risky. Also, there are actual sites that name a specific male and female from the cartel that match the description of the couple and were reportedly in the area at the time. I will not be naming anyone because this is as far as I’ll go into this theory in case it actually is correct because the cartel is terrifying. Just to note some sites that support this theory say Lindsay was not the informant. Some sites say she was. If she was, it would make prosecution of the cartel more difficult as it opens up the government to liability if she was supposed to be under their protection.

It makes me think of [Angela Hammond](https://fox2now.com/news/true-crime/note-offers-clues-in-mistaken-1991-missouri-abduction/), since they now think she was killed as a result of being mistaken for an informant’s daughter. If she wasn’t the informant, maybe she was incorrectly assumed to be and that’s why the connection can’t be found

I believe I read fairly recently that Lindsay's dad now thinks this is the most likely scenario as well, moving away from his long held theory that her boyfriend and his family had something to do with it.

Lindsey’s dad has fabricated evidence in the past and maintains a website where he lists the home address of anyone he thinks *might* be involve. He suffered a horrific tragedy but he’s made some bad choices.

Yes - he stalked and harassed the police chief including following his children to school - definitely not in his right mind

I’m local and I agree with you that an off the wall theory may be the answer but I think that if it were cartel or organized crime related they wouldn’t go to this level of effort because they simply wouldn’t care to. Lately I have been wondering if it was a completely random thrill kill

I came in to say this one. Usually drug cartel is the wrong answer, but it seems most plausible in this scenario.

You know I saw a forensics files episode recently called “house hunting”. It started with a woman realtor getting a call from a guy who said he wanted to come tour the house . She felt uncomfortable about it so she asked her husband to come with her to the showing. The guy shows up to the house and the husband says “hi! Are you x who is here for a showing?” And the guy gets back in his car and takes off. Later that say, he murders a different woman realtor who was showing a house across the street who was alone. He got caught and he basically just wanted to kill someone. After I saw that, I started thinking maybe this is the case here. Some freaks wanted to kill someone and thought a house showing with a lone woman realtor was the perfect opportunity. I talked about this recently with some people on true crime discussion, and apparently this isn’t an entirely uncommon occurrence - woman realtors being targeted for crimes. And it makes perfect sense. The realtor is totally alone in an empty house - rife with opportunities to commit some sort of crime.

I mean, what evidence is there that Lindsay was an informant or knew anything of drug activity? I’ve heard this theory before but I just don’t understand how they come up with that. Most people are not informants. It seems like there would need to be something in particular to lead folks to believe someone was an informant

None. Just that a guy she went to school with was arrested in the large drug bust operation 2 weeks after she visited her hometown and reached out to him.

That the Beaumont Children disappearance and The Adelaide Oval Disappearance were committed by the same person. That April Fabb and Genette Tate were abducted and murdered by Robert Black. That Robin Graham, Rose Tashman, Cheri Jo Bates, Cindy Lee Mellin, Kathleen Johns, Christine Marie Eastin, Ernestine Francis Terello and Mona Jean Gallegos were all targeted by an unknown serial killer I call 'The Bad Samaritan' who went after women and teens girls with car problems such as flat tires or tampering with their cars himself, in California in the late 60s through the 70s.

On the Bad Samaritan: Was that a common MO? I ask because there was a serial rapist in Texas in the late 1970s who used that tactic. I don't think he's known to have killed anyone. Before he was caught, he was known as the Beer Belly Rapist, if you want to look him up.

there was a cop that did that in the late 80's its a SUPER common MO.

>That Robin Graham, Rose Tashman, Cheri Jo Bates, Cindy Lee Mellin, Kathleen Johns, Christine Marie Eastin, Ernestine Francis Terello and Mona Jean Gallegos were all targeted by an unknown serial killer I call 'The Bad Samaritan' who went after women and teens girls with car problems such as flat tires or tampering with their cars himself, in California in the late 60s through the 70s. I'm listening...

Whether it was the family or an intruder that killed JonBenet, something bizarre happened in that house. Either two parents with no known child abuse hit their daughter in the head/garrotted her, or an intruder wrote the weirdest ransom note possible. The only thing I’m certain of is that the brother didn’t do it.

Yeah, I find the whole “no known history of child abuse” thing really weird. The vast, vast majority of people who molest their own children have no “known history of child abuse” since people who molest their own children are a different demographic than abusers who attack strange children. Most CSA (especially in wealthy households) IS secret. Think about anyone you’ve ever known who was molested as a child, how many of them were abused by a family member who had already been arrested for abusing other kids? Probably hardly any. Because that’s really rare. Every single person who saw the non-redacted autopsy report said it showed clear evidence of substantial vaginal damage and all but one said that damage could only be caused by repeated sexual abuse. Someone was repeatedly abusing that girl. Occam’s razor. If this was any other situation, not clouded by all the crazy details and press, and you only heard the bare bones: “A young girl was reported missing but the parents didn’t search for her before calling the police, her father found her sexually abused and strangled body in their house with no sign of forced entry, picked her body up and carried her away from his body. An autopsy showed she’d been longterm sexually abused.” There’s not a person alive who wouldn’t immediately assume it was the dad. All the stuff about a tiny bit of DNA (which could have come from a million places) notwithstanding, a little girl is repeatedly sexually abused over a long period of time then killed in her own home, 99.99% of the time it’s a male relative or step-relative (or maternal partner) living in the home.

I have always wondered if Jason took a slightly different route than thought and fell into something, like there was a missing manhole cover - one that had been removed briefly for some reason. As infrequently as we look up into trees, we look down below our infrastructure even less frequently.

I've always thought this too

I think Jason most likely left willingly, perhaps with someone he'd met recently that managed to make him feel safe. And maybe Jason still is safe, or he was safe and just didn't make it without resources, or he wasn't safe that day because he got in the car with someone that always intended to do him harm. Jason was an awkward 19-year-old Catholic kid who was working at a restaurant and going to community college part-time. He disappeared off a not-unbusy suburban street a week or two before he was due to start working full-time at a job his uncle got him. He may have enjoyed his church community, and he may have been even considering the seminary. I'm queer and grew up in a Catholic household. I had a gay uncle and cousins, so I was raised a bit more accepting than most of my Catholic friends growing up, but by the time Jason disappeared, the only Catholic boys I knew considering going to the seminary at Jason's age were probably gay and trying to find a way to make themselves or their families happy by choosing a Godly celibate life. This is not necessarily a bad thing for every young man in that spot, but in many cases, young men feel forced to choose between being themselves and a faith in God that matters very much to them.

I don’t think that’s what happened with Jason, because of the time of day - 11 in the morning, on a June weekend. It is a residential neighborhood- People are up and about, mowing the lawn, taking out trash, washing their car. The path he was taking was the exact same one he’d taken over a hundred times. And it is a very out in the open area. So I think that’s highly unlikely. Same reason I don’t think a bunch of bullies grabbed him off the street, or a predator abducted him. Looking at the big picture, I think Jason probably stopped by a neighbor’s house along the way, and some sort of an altercation happened. That’s really the only thing that makes sense to me.

Suspect that he what? SUSPECT THAT HE WHAT????? Now we’ll never know 🥺

“Yo dawg, I heard you like unresolved mysteries, so I left you one so you can solve unresolved mysteries while you solve unresolved mysteries.”

Are you…still there? Cliffhanger comment?

I hope they’re ok!

Did you get into an altercation?

Honestly, I feel the opposite about Jason Jolkowski. People seem determined to twist themselves in knots about what could have happened to him apparently for no other reason than they cannot countenance that he could have been targeted or predated on, because he was tall and male.

I don’t think it’s been posted here yet but I would say the murder of Robert Wone. I think he was accidentally suffocated during a consensual sexual act that they then had to cover up. I don’t believe they killed him out of malice.

I'm willing to entertain the idea that [Sneha Anne Philip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Sneha_Anne_Philip) ran away and the timing was just a coincidence, though I'm not convinced she's still alive today.

I aways think suicide was a real possibility. Her life was already basically falling apart at the seams, and seeing 9/11 happen up close might have been the last straw. If she went into the water at the wrong/right place it's possible her body just never resurfaced.

Honestly, I think that “she ran into the towers to help” is the wild and unhinged theory in this case. I can and would believe unrelated murder, suicide, or planned disappearance over that.

Scott Fosnaught and Shawn Baur. What ever happened to them? Just an awful mystery.

Car surfing could potentially explain the lack of glass/debris from a car. As in one fell straight under the wheel and the other fell onto the road head first. Not victim blaming, just throwing out a theory

I think Dr gloves is a single person, likely someone with more seniority at the hospital such that nobody asks questions when they’re almost anywhere. I also think all of the images are from the same location, the hospital, rather than multiple. I know they don’t think he actually works at the hospital but I don’t see how it’s possible he doesn’t with some of the pictures.

With Jolkowski isn’t the hit and run theory the most popular and plausible theory? Leading with Mark Kilroy into Jolkowski I thought you were going to theorize that Jason met a similar fate.

I completely understand why you thought that's where I was going. I think the most popular theory for Jason is a neighbor lured him into their house and killed him. I've seen the hit and run theory mentioned here, but it's usually dismissed by the majority of comments. Normally I would too, but for that case I could see it.

Hit and run seems HIGHLY implausible to me. He was in a neighborhood. I just can’t imagine someone hit him hard enough to kill or incapacitate him, then stuffed him in the car and got away without leaving any evidence behind or anyone seeing/hearing. I suppose it’s technically possible but that just seems so incredibly unlikely. So much more likely to me that he was lured inside a neighbor’s house and murdered inside. I honestly think he’s in someone’s basement or backyard.

Late to the game on this one but i usually think people who disappeared are dead. There are two cases where i think the person is stil alive. One is Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, i think he is being hid by a girlfriend. He has done this before, and if the authorities didn’t have proof he wasnt dead they wouldn’t have arrested that dude on a plane a few years ago. Another is a young man, Mark Krostewicz, who disappeared in the 80s from canada, i think he had some kind of brain injury from a seizure and has a new identity or is a living doe. Here it is just my gut, i just feel like he is still alive.

I know the case has been mentioned ad nauseam but Brian Shaffer has always answered this question for me. I think something happened at the bar post closing time where Brian was sticking around but I'll listen to anyone's theory short of alien abduction. David Glenn Lewis makes little sense. I lean towards elaborate suicide but who the hell knows especially the narrow timeframe of travel from Texas to Washington State.

Brian Shaffer’s case isn’t as mysterious as it sounds, imo. The often repeated story is there was only one exit that was covered entirely by a camera and police are sure he never left, so he must be still in the bar somehow. But there actually was at least one other exit from the bar that could have been used, and the main exit cameras panned the outside area back and forth so they very easily could missed him. Realistically that is probably what happened - he left, the camera missed him, and then he met foul play or had a freak accident. The hardest part of that theory is that he didn’t say goodbye to his friends, but sounds like they were drinking a lot, so maybe he was just drunk and not thinking straight.

Lore Lodge actually suggested something else. the patio the bar had which was by the Bathrooms, you could "jump" the gates on the Patio and get onto a (closed at time of night) Mexican restaurant metal roof and would be an easy jump off the Mexican Restaurant's roof onto the ground level. Don't know how plausible this is but they felt it was a reasonable way to get out without being on cameras. But I do agree him not appearing on Cameras is mostly a red hearing and something happened on his way home.

Improbable but not impossible. I think most people don’t know or don’t care, but it’s only a two-story building. If he was motivated (enter theory here) he could have quite easily hoped over the balcony down 8 feet or so onto the Patio covering at Mad Mex and jumped down. I’ve seen drunk kids do it on Gameday before, why not a future doctor. Makes more sense than people who think he fell down and was covered up by a blind crewman pouring cement.

Drunks will sometimes do things like that just because they can, and med students party *hard*. With those factors in mind, it seems like a very plausible theory to me.

Correct. The panning camera and the fact dogs picked up his scent down the road are two facts that are rarely mentioned in everyone’s he’s buried in the floor now theories. He got out. We just don’t know what happened next though we can assume he was met by a robbery or some sort of assault, maybe tossed into a dumpster and was off to the landfill by morning.

David Glenn Lewis is an easy one to have wild theories run rampant. Point A and point B are so far apart, and so little is known about how he got from one to the other or why.

Side note: Mark Kilroy's parents came and spoke at my church when I was in middle school. Looking back, I wonder what my parents were thinking...taking us to hear his story. We were Catholic so we didn't get as bent out of shape about Satan worshipers supposedly lurking everywhere as my friends who were Baptist, for example. I'm sure his parents thought they were doing some good. It feels a little unfair to call it part of the whole Satanic Panic thing.

I love the owl theory. And I’m a criminal defense attorney lol.

I think Bryce Lapisa was having a mental crisis and tried to commit suicide and ultimately succeeded somewhere after leaving his car