Index · Solved
Solved
Files that finally closed — and what it took to close them.
Files on record
Solved
The Golden State Killer, and the Family Tree That Caught Him
For forty years he was three different monsters with three different names, and no one could prove they were one man. He was finally found not by a witness, not by a confession, but by the DNA of relatives he had never met.
Crimes 1974–1986 · Arrested 24 April 201812 min readClosed
Solved
The King Under the Car Park
The last English king to die in battle vanished from the record for five centuries. He was found in the first trench of a long-shot dig, under a painted letter R in a municipal car park.
Died 22 August 1485 · Found September 201211 min readClosed
Solved
The Somerton Man, Named at Last
A well-dressed man was found dead on an Australian beach with no identity, every clothing label cut away, and a scrap of Persian poetry sewn into a hidden pocket. It took seventy-four years to learn his name — and the answer was stranger for how ordinary it was.
Died 1 December 1948 · Named 202212 min readClosed