Cold Cases in Chicago, Illinois
ColdCaseIndex documents 12 cases in Chicago, Illinois, dated 1911 to 2025. 6 are recorded as unsolved. The earliest is Elsie Paroubek (1911) and the most recent is Chicago River North Mass Shooting Victims (2025).
- Unsolved 6 (50%)
- Solved or convicted 6 (50%)
By type
All 12 cases
Chicago River North Mass Shooting Victims
On the night of July 2, 2025, occupants of a dark-colored vehicle opened fire on a crowd leaving an album release party outside Artis Restaurant and Lounge in Chicago's River North neighborhood, killing four people and wounding…
Kierra Coles
Kierra Coles, a 26-year-old U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who was about three months pregnant, vanished from Chicago's South Side in October 2018.
Laquan McDonald
Seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke on October 20, 2014. Dashboard camera footage was withheld for 13 months until a court ordered its release.
Darnell Donerson, Jason Hudson & Julian King
Actress Jennifer Hudson's mother Darnell Donerson and brother Jason Hudson were shot to death in their Chicago home on October 24, 2008; her seven-year-old nephew Julian King was found shot dead three days later in an abandoned…
Chicago Tylenol Murders Victims
Seven people in Chicago died after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in 1982. The deaths prompted a nationwide recall and led to tamper-resistant packaging regulations. James W.
John Wayne Gacy Victims
John Wayne Gacy tortured and murdered 33 young men and boys, burying 26 under his house. He was convicted in 1980 and executed in 1994. After his execution, investigators used DNA to identify unknown victims.
Richard Speck Victims
Richard Speck broke into a Chicago townhouse and methodically murdered eight student nurses. Corazon Amurao survived by hiding under a bed and later identified Speck.
Barbara & Patricia Grimes
Sisters Barbara, 15, and Patricia Grimes, 12, vanished on December 28, 1956, after going to see an Elvis Presley film at Chicago's Brighton Theater.
Suzanne Degnan
Six-year-old Suzanne Degnan was abducted from her bedroom in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood on January 7, 1946, and killed. William Heirens, 17, pleaded guilty in September 1946 to her murder and two others and received three…
Mary Agnes Moroney
Two-year-old Mary Agnes Moroney was taken from her family's South Side Chicago apartment on May 15, 1930 by a woman using the name Julia Otis and was never returned.
Bobby Franks
Fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks was abducted and killed in Chicago on May 21, 1924, by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two wealthy students.
Elsie Paroubek
Elsie Paroubek, a Chicago girl of four or five, disappeared on April 8, 1911, while walking to her aunt's house. A month later her body was recovered from the drainage canal near Lockport, about 35 miles away.