Top 20 Major Crimes Solved By Normal People
#20: Victim’s Friend Cracks a Cold Case
In 1984, Angela Samota, a student at Southern Methodist University, was assaulted and stabbed multiple times, leading to her death. With few suspects, the case quickly went cold until 2004, when Samota’s best friend Sheila Wysocki, claimed to have seen her ghost and was compelled to solve it. She hounded the police with calls, but with no detective assigned to the case, barely any progress was made. Wysocki began studying and earned a certification as a private investigator. As a result, she was able to look at the case more closely and eventually helped police find related DNA evidence. This was linked to Donald Bess, a career criminal who was ultimately convicted and handed the death sentence.
#19: The Identification of the “Grateful Doe”
Top 10 Major Crimes Solved By Normal People
It was a mystery that left police puzzled for two decades. In June 1995, two men lost their lives in a car crash in Greensville County, Virginia. While the driver of the vehicle was quickly identified, the passenger’s identity remained an enigma. Due to the Grateful Dead concert tickets found on him, he was nicknamed “Grateful Doe”. Authorities later released composite sketches of the passenger’s face, which were widely circulated by internet sleuth groups. As a result of this heavy campaign, the images were recognized by two people who claimed to be the passenger’s former roommate and mother. After DNA tests were carried out, he was positively identified as 19-year-old Jason Callahan, who left home in 1995 and never returned.
#18: The Death of Paulette Jaster
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Paulette Jaster was a young woman who disappeared from her town in Michigan in 1979. Apparently, Jaster had traveled miles away from home to Texas, where she was sadly killed the following year in a hit-and-run. With no form of identification found on her, police were unable to figure out who she was. At the same time, her family, hundreds of miles away, were left puzzled over her whereabouts. Her identity remained unsolved until 2014, when an internet user pointed forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick in the direction of Jaster’s family. Using her old pictures, Derrick was able to confirm Jaster’s identity with three distinctive freckles on her cheek, closing a case that had been cold for over three decades.
#17: Margaret Davis Solves Her Son’s Murder
A mother’s love can certainly be the greatest love of all. English software engineer Steven Davis was murdered by gunmen in his Makati, Philippines apartment in July 2002. His mother, Margaret, had a hunch that her son’s wife, Evelyn, was somehow involved in his death. While the police investigation stalled and eventually turned cold, Margaret spent thousands of dollars hiring a private investigator. With all the evidence gathered from Margaret’s investigation, the police gave the case a second look. It was ultimately discovered that Evelyn was having an affair with one of the gunmen and had masterminded the plot to have Steven killed. This resulted in the conviction of Evelyn and all three gunmen in 2004.
#16: Jessica Maple & the Burglars
After her late great-grandmother’s house was burgled and robbed of nearly all its furniture, 12-year-old Jessica Maple cracked the case by finding key clues the police completely missed. Although officers had concluded that the burglar must have had a key to enter the house, Jessica discovered broken garage windows covered in multiple fingerprints when she returned to the crime scene with her mom. Her investigation also turned up all of the missing furniture at a nearby pawn shop, whose owner identified the men who’d brought them in. Miss Maple didn’t just stop there. She tracked down one of the burglars and got him to confess to the robbery! Talk about giving the cops a run for their money.
#15: Susan Galbreath Takes On a Brutal Murder
To solve the vicious murder of Jessica Currin, Kentucky resident Susan Galbreath first sent letters to several celebrities and journalists. She was, however, only able to grab the attention of BBC reporter Tom Mangold. Mangold traveled down to Kentucky and paired up with Galbreath. Their investigation soon led them to Quincy Cross, who Galbreath actually questioned, but was unable to get a confession from. While Mangold eventually returned home, Galbreath created a MySpace page, hoping to get information from the public. Soon after, a woman named Victoria Caldwell reached out to her and confessed to being an accomplice to Currin’s murder. Caldwell reached a plea deal with the authorities, in which she named Cross as the killer and only spent six months in prison.
#14: The Hit and Run of Carolee Ashby
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On Halloween night 1968, young Carolee Ashby was crossing the road in Fulton, New York when she was run over by a car. The driver refused to stop and disappeared into the night, never to be identified for decades. Fast forward to 2013, a retired Fulton detective put up a Facebook post about the cold case. This eventually reached a woman who recalled being asked to provide a false alibi for one Douglas Parkhurst back in 1968. After being provided with this information, police questioned Parkhurst and he confessed to the crime, but was spared of any charges as the statute of limitations had passed. In a sick twist of fate, Parkhurst was killed five years later by another hit-and-run driver.
#13: Car Enthusiasts Solve a Hit-and-Run
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The community of readers on the automobile blogging site Jalopnik put their expansive car knowledge to the ultimate test in April 2012, when 57-year-old Betty Wheeler lost her life in a hit-and-run. Hoping to get some help from the online community, police uploaded a picture of a small piece of metal they believed had broken off the vehicle in the collision. And Jalopnik readers got right on it. They linked the metal to an early-2000s Ford F-150 pickup in a matter of hours. They gave the police a piece of information that was critical in identifying the driver and passenger of the catastrophic vehicle. Both men were later arrested and convicted of felony hit-and-run.
#12: Yaakov German Tracks Down a Kidnapper & Killer
The disappearance of the young Leiby Kletzky sent shockwaves through his Orthodox Jewish New York neighborhood. Those waves were certainly felt by Yaakov German, a property manager who took it upon himself to find the missing boy. Yaakov traced Leiby’s movements using surveillance footage from stores and houses on his school route. This ended with footage from a car-leasing company showing Leiby getting picked up by Levi Aron, a man from the same neighborhood. Yaakov’s efforts led the police to the perpetrator. Sadly, police found only remains upon Aron’s arrest.
#11: A Klansman Gets His Comeuppance
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In 1964, two 19-year-old African American students in Mississippi, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, were abducted and drowned by members of the KKK. The police investigation was allegedly clouded by their prejudice and the case was closed after a few months. Some forty years later, Moore’s brother, Thomas teamed up with a documentary filmmaker. They tracked down the man responsible for the killings, James Ford Seale, who was initially reported dead. Thomas’ and producer David Ridgen’s discovery allowed the case to be reopened, resulting in Seale’s arrest and conviction by a federal jury. He was sentenced to three consecutive life terms and died in prison in 2011.
#10: The Murder of Maribel Ramos
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36-year-old Maribel Ramos was an Iraq War veteran living in Santa Ana, California with her roommate K.C. Joy. Ramos disappeared on May 2nd 2013 and was reported missing by her loved ones the next day. While police investigated her disappearance, a friend posted details of the case on Yelp, asking users for any information. A few days later, Ramos’ roommate, Joy, supposedly left a comment in the thread, in which he referred to the Army vet in the past tense. As if to suggest his possible involvement in the disappearance, one user in particular voiced out suspicions about Joy. Those suspicions came true in the following days, as Ramos’ body was found, and Joy was later arrested and convicted of her murder.
#9: Ellen Leach Helps Identify Greg May’s Remains
Greg May was a Civil War antique collector who shared an apartment with Doug DeBruin. May disappeared in 2001 and his antiques popped up afterwards at an auction house. This led police to arrest DeBruin who, it was revealed, had been selling off May’s collection. But with no sign of a body, prosecutors knew they didn’t have a solid case against him. Then, in 2005, a skull was found all the way in Missouri that puzzled authorities. They put together a facial sculpture from the skull, which was later matched with May’s missing person’s poster by Ellen Leach, a Home Depot cashier and online sleuth. With this, prosecutors were able to build an airtight case against DeBruin and eventually convicted him of the murder.
#8: Celia Blay Catches an Internet Predator
William Melchert-Dinkel, a 47-year-old nurse from Minnesota, frequently posed as a twenty-something year old woman in online chatrooms. He encouraged young, depressed adults to take their own lives, sometimes for his viewing pleasure. William’s scheme was discovered by Celia Blay, a pensioner from England. Blay struck up a conversation with a teenager online and learned that she was being goaded by William. Celia devised a plan with the teenager and was able to collect evidence against William, with which she convinced US authorities to lay charges. He was stripped of his nursing license and sentenced to jail time for assisting and attempting to assist in the deaths of two people.
#7: Bradley Willman & the Predatory Judge
In the late 1990s, Canadian private investigator Bradley Willman developed a Trojan horse disguised as a picture-file, which he posted on several websites frequented by predators. Once downloaded, the file gave him unfettered access to the individual’s computer. This allowed him to pore over their emails and other documents, then turn over important information to watchdog groups. His work culminated in the arrest of Ronald Kline, a California Superior Court Judge who had an abundance of damning evidence on his computer. Kline was disbarred and sentenced to 27 months in prison.
#6: The Exoneration of Valentino Dixon
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In 1991, Valentino Dixon was arrested and charged with the fatal shooting of a man in Buffalo, New York. Although the actual shooter was said to have confessed and eight eyewitnesses reportedly absolved Dixon of the crime, he was eventually convicted and given a lengthy sentence. While in prison, Dixon began drawing golf courses and soon got noticed by a golf magazine journalist named Max Adler. Adler published an article on Dixon’s ordeal that in turn caught the attention of Marty Tankleff, a Georgetown University law professor who decided to take up his case alongside his students. The class was able to poke holes in Dixon’s original trial and helped secure him a new trial that ended in his exoneration.
#5: The Murder of Abraham Shakespeare
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For Abraham Shakespeare, winning a $30 million lottery was unfortunately the beginning of his troubles. He started a private business with Dorice “Dee Dee” More, who took control of his finances. A few months later, Moore killed Shakespeare and buried him under a concrete slab behind her house. As the case garnered attention, users of the internet crime forum, Websleuths started digging. They found that Moore had opened a fake account on the website to divert suspicion away from herself. The amateur sleuths were able to trace the IP address of the fake account back to Moore’s personal computer, aiding investigators. Moore was found guilty of killing Shakespeare and received a life sentence.
#4: A True Crime Writer Solves a 50-Year-Old Case
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In 2016, Monica Weller released “Injured Parties: Solving The Murder Of Dr Helen Davidson”. The book details her seven-year journey of apparently closing a 50-year-old case. Back in 1966, Davidson was found dead close to her home in Buckinghamshire after going birdwatching. Despite an extensive investigation, police were unable to come up with anything concrete and eventually ruled the crime a “random, motiveless killing”. Weller, however, carried out painstaking research and soon concluded that the perpetrator was George Garbett, a gardener who worked in the area. Although Garbett took his own life five years after the incident, Weller theorized that he had killed Davidson after she spotted him with a male lover. This was at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in England.
#3: The Murder of Jacob Wetterling
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In October 1989, Jacob Wetterling was abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota and never returned. The case bore similarities to the earlier abduction and assault of one Jared Scheierl, who was ultimately freed. Wetterling’s case grew cold over the years, until 2013 when Scheierl teamed up with Joy Baker, a blogger, to solve it. Baker unearthed a string of similar assaults that occurred in nearby Paynesville, and was convinced that they were all likely committed by the same person. Although police reportedly discredited their theory at first, they eventually looked at the case keenly and zeroed in on Danny Heinrich. Heinrich, who was actually an early suspect in all aforementioned cases, led police to Wetterling’s remains and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
#2: Michelle McNamara’s Hunt for the Golden State Killer
Joseph James DeAngelo, infamously known as the Golden State Killer, was responsible for the deaths of at least 13 people. However, the hunt for his identity would go on to claim one more life - that of Michelle McNamara. McNamara, a true crime writer, grew up fascinated with unsolved mysteries and later zeroed in on a string of cold cases that took place in California in the 70s and 80s. Her unyielding investigation turned up a library’s worth of evidence. To deal with the stress, she started taking a cocktail of prescription drugs, which led to her accidental death. However, her work revived interest in the case and ultimately led law enforcement to DeAngelo.
#1: The Murder of Jun Lin
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Before this case became about the murder of Jun Lin, it revolved around a couple of Facebook videos that portrayed acts of animal cruelty carried out by an unidentified man. A group of online sleuths began investigating and were able to identify the man in the videos as Luka Magnotta. Magnotta later lured Lin, a university student in Canada, over to his apartment where he murdered him and uploaded a video online. The sleuth group was able to link that video to the ones involving animals and share their information with the authorities. A few weeks later, Magnotta was arrested.