Cold Cases of the 1920s
7 documented cases in which the crime or disappearance took place between 1920 and 1929. 4 are recorded as unsolved.
- Unsolved 4 (57%)
- Solved or convicted 1 (14%)
- Closed without conviction 2 (29%)
By type
All 7 cases
Glen & Bessie Hyde
Newlyweds Glen and Bessie Hyde disappeared while attempting to run the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon on a homemade scow. Their boat was found intact but the couple was never seen again.
Percy Fawcett Expedition
British explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett, his son Jack, and friend Raleigh Rimmell disappeared in the Brazilian Amazon while searching for a lost city Fawcett called 'Z.' Despite over 100 rescue and investigative expeditions…
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.
Hall–Mills Murders
Episcopal priest Edward Wheeler Hall and choir singer Eleanor Mills, who were having an affair, were found shot to death in a field near New Brunswick, New Jersey, in September 1922.
Hinterkaifeck Farm Victims
Six people, including two children, were beaten to death with a mattock at the isolated Hinterkaifeck farmstead near Waidhofen, Bavaria, on the night of March 31, 1922.
William Desmond Taylor
Film director William Desmond Taylor, 49, was shot in the back at his bungalow in the Alvarado Court Apartments in Los Angeles on the evening of February 1, 1922; his body was found the next morning.
Virginia Rappe
Actress Virginia Rappe died in San Francisco on September 9, 1921, of peritonitis from a ruptured bladder, four days after falling ill at a Labor Day party in Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's suite at the St. Francis Hotel.