Unsolved Criminal Mysteries of the 20th Century

Statistically, most murders are solved quickly; 90% of missing persons are found alive or dead after some time. But some cases from the last century remain unsolved and remain in the minds of investigators.

The Hinterkaifeck Farm Murders

On the night of March 31 to April 1, 1922, six people were brutally murdered in the village of Hinterkaifeck (Germany) near Munich. The victims were a couple Andreas and Cecilia Gruber, their children - Victoria, Joseph, Cecilia and the maid Maria Baumgartner. All six were hit in the head with a sharp object. Despite the fact that about 100 people were questioned in this case, it was not possible to identify the suspect or the motive for the murder.

According to one theory, the killer could have been a vagrant who broke in and committed the crime; according to another, the killer could have been Victoria Gruber's ex-husband, who was believed to have died on the battlefield. In 2007, students at the Police Academy in Fürstenfeldbruck said they could use modern investigative techniques to identify the killer. But in the end, they were unable to solve the case.

(Illustration: Russian7).

The Death of the "Black Dahlia"

On January 15, 1947, the remains of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short were found in an abandoned lot near Los Angeles. Her body had been cut in half. Elizabeth worked as a waitress and dreamed of becoming an actress. She loved wearing black dresses, which earned her the nickname Black Dahlia.

Elizabeth was last seen on January 9, 1947, in the lobby of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. Twenty-two people have at various times been named as suspects in the crime, and about 60 have confessed to the murder. But police have been unable to find any evidence to prove the guilt of any of them.

"The Man from Somerton"

On the morning of December 1, 1948, the body of a well-dressed man, about 45 years old, was found on Somerton Beach in the city of Adelaide, Australia. There were no signs of violence or injury on the victim's body. An autopsy revealed that the victim's stomach was full of blood. Experts believed that the cause of death was poisoning, but no traces of poison were found in the body.

Police were surprised to find that the deceased had no money and all the tags on his clothes had been cut off. It appeared that someone did not want the police to identify him. It was later discovered that on 30 November of the same year, someone had deposited an unmarked suitcase in a locker at Adelaide Station. The suitcase contained clothes that were the correct size for the 'man from Somerton', and the tags were also torn.

Although the three items still bore the name 'T. Kin' and showed traces of chemical washing, this information did not contribute to the investigation. In his secret pocket was a folded page bearing the words ' Tamam Shud' . It was torn from the 'Rubai' collection - poems by the famous Persian poet Omar Khayyam. In Persian, tamam shud means 'end' or 'completion'.

A copy of Rubayev's book, the last page torn out, was found in the possession of a doctor living in Glenelg. The doctor said that on November 30, he found a copy of the book on the front seat of his car. Forensics determined that the page had been torn out. The book was examined carefully, and there were pencil marks on the back that looked like a code. The phone number of a woman named Jessica Powell was also found on the book.

The woman said that the book had belonged to her but in 1945 she had given it to her friend Lieutenant Alfred Boxall. The police found Boxall, but he had shown them a perfectly intact copy of 'Rubai'! Over time, there was a theory that the 'man from Somerton' was a Soviet spy. Not far from where his body was found, there was a large missile launch site.

In November 2013, the daughter of the deceased Jessica Powell told television reporters that her mother was a Soviet intelligence agent. It is possible that she killed the 'man from Somerton' , using a poison that left no trace on his body. Curiously, most of the evidence in the Somerton case was lost or destroyed.

The disappearance of the Beaumont children

Another mysterious crime in the Adelaide suburbs occurred on 26 January 1966. On that day, Jim and Nancy Beaumont's three children – Jane, 9, Arnna, 7, and Grant, 4 – went to the beach at Glenelg. They had not returned by midday by bus, which was a 10-minute bus ride from their home. By evening, the parents had reported the matter to the police. A 74-year-old woman said she had seen the children playing in the fountain with a young man.

Thousands of volunteers joined the search. Newspapers and television also helped, but to no avail. A few years ago, a book was published in Australia, 'The Satin Man' , in which the author claimed that his father, businessman Harry Phipps, who died in 2004, was a paedophile and that he had killed the Beaumont children.

After the book was published, the two men contacted the police, saying that one day in the summer of 1966, Phipps had hired them to dig a two-metre-deep hole in the yard of the New Castalloy factory he owned. The assumption immediately arose that the remains of the missing children were buried there. The police decided to excavate, and scientists from Flinders University also participated. Bones of various animals were found, but no human remains. The hope of solving one of the 'mysteries of the century' was never realized.