Cold Cases of the 1960s
48 documented cases in which the crime or disappearance took place between 1960 and 1969. 24 are recorded as unsolved.
- Unsolved 24 (50%)
- Partly resolved 6 (12%)
- Charges or trial pending 1 (2%)
- Solved or convicted 14 (29%)
- Closed without conviction 3 (6%)
By type
All 48 cases
Betsy Aardsma
Graduate student Betsy Aardsma was stabbed to death in the stacks of Penn State's Pattee Library on the day after Thanksgiving 1969. Despite a massive investigation, her killer was never identified.
Bryan Hartnell & Cecelia Shepard
College students Cecelia Shepard, 22, and Bryan Hartnell, 20, were tied up and stabbed by a hooded man on the shore of Lake Berryessa in Napa County, California, on September 27, 1969.
Catherine Cesnik
Sister Catherine Cesnik, a 26-year-old Baltimore nun and teacher, vanished in November 1969 and was found bludgeoned to death months later.
Charles Manson Victims
Charles Manson directed his followers to commit a series of brutal murders in Los Angeles on August 9-10, 1969, killing seven people including actress Sharon Tate.
Dennis Lloyd Martin
Dennis Lloyd Martin, a 6-year-old boy from Knoxville, Tennessee, vanished on June 14, 1969, while playing with other children at Spence Field in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during a Father's Day weekend camping trip.
Jane Britton
Jane Britton, 23, a Harvard graduate student in anthropology, was sexually assaulted and beaten to death in her Cambridge apartment on January 7, 1969.
Mary Jo Kopechne
Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, died when a car driven by Senator Edward Kennedy went off Dike Bridge into Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island late on July 18, 1969. Her death was attributed to drowning.
Paul Stine
Cab driver and graduate student Paul Lee Stine, 29, was shot in the head by a passenger at Washington and Cherry streets in San Francisco's Presidio Heights on October 11, 1969.
Reet Jurvetson
Reet Jurvetson, a 19-year-old from Montreal, was found stabbed to death off Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles in November 1969 and remained unidentified as 'Jane Doe 59' for 46 years.
Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor ("Tent Girl")
On May 17, 1968, a well digger found the decomposing body of a young woman wrapped in a green canvas tarp along U.S. Route 25 near Georgetown, Kentucky.
Barbara Jane Mackle
Barbara Jane Mackle, 20, an Emory University student, was abducted at gunpoint from a Decatur, Georgia, motel on December 17, 1968, and buried in a ventilated box while a $500,000 ransom was demanded.
Bible John Victims
Three young women were strangled after leaving the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow between 1968 and 1969. The suspect, nicknamed 'Bible John' for quoting scripture, was never identified despite being Scotland's most famous serial…
David Faraday & Betty Lou Jensen
David Faraday, 17, and Betty Lou Jensen, 16, were shot with a .22-caliber pistol at a turnout on Lake Herman Road, just outside Benicia, California, late on December 20, 1968.
Jane Durrua
Jane Durrua, 13, of Keansburg, New Jersey, disappeared on November 4, 1968, and was found dead in a field in Middletown the next morning.
Monster of Florence Victims
Sixteen people were killed in eight double shootings in the countryside around Florence, Italy, between 1968 and 1985, most of them couples in parked cars.
Robert F. Kennedy Assassination
Senator Robert F. Kennedy, 42, was shot in the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, after winning the California Democratic primary; he died on June 6.
Zodiac Killer Victims
At least five confirmed victims were killed by an unidentified serial killer in Northern California between 1968 and 1969. The killer taunted police and newspapers with cryptic letters and ciphers signed with a crosshair symbol.
Wharlest Jackson
Wharlest Jackson, treasurer of the Natchez NAACP and a 12-year employee of the Armstrong Rubber and Tire Company, was killed on February 27, 1967, when a bomb planted under his pickup truck exploded as he drove home from work.
Beaumont Children
Three siblings—Jane (9), Arnna (7), and Grant Beaumont (4)—vanished from Glenelg Beach in Adelaide, Australia on Australia Day 1966.
Cheri Jo Bates
Cheri Jo Bates, 18, a Riverside City College freshman, was stabbed to death near the campus library on the night of October 30, 1966; her body was found the next morning.
Moors Murders Victims
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley killed five children and teenagers in the Manchester area between July 1963 and October 1965, burying four of them on Saddleworth Moor.
Nancy Leichner & Pamela Nater
Nancy Leichner, 21, and Pamela Nater, 20, vanished on October 2, 1966, during a skin-diving club picnic at Alexander Springs in Florida's Ocala National Forest, leaving their belongings on a picnic table.
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.
Valerie Percy
Valerie Percy, 21, daughter of U.S. Senate candidate Charles Percy, was beaten and stabbed in her bedroom at the family's lakefront home in Kenilworth, Illinois, early on September 18, 1966.
Alice Crimmins
Eddie Crimmins Jr., 5, and his sister Alice Marie "Missy" Crimmins, 4, were reported missing from their Queens apartment on July 14, 1965, and were found dead five days apart.
Christine Sharrock & Marianne Schmidt
Fifteen-year-old friends Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt of West Ryde were killed at Wanda Beach, near Cronulla in Sydney, on January 11, 1965. Their bodies were found partly buried in the sandhills the next day.
Dorothy Kilgallen
Journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, who was investigating the JFK assassination, was found dead in her New York townhouse. Her death was ruled an overdose but many believe she was murdered.
Jimmie Lee Jackson
Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26, a church deacon and voting rights activist, was shot by Alabama state trooper James Bonard Fowler in Marion on February 18, 1965, and died eight days later.
Mary Ellen Deener
Mary Ellen Deener, 14, was murdered in Mansfield, Ohio, on November 14, 1965, while walking to a laundromat. Lester Eubanks was convicted in May 1966 and sentenced to death, later commuted to life.
Mary Shotwell Little
Mary Shotwell Little, a 25-year-old newlywed bank secretary, vanished on October 14, 1965, from the Lenox Square shopping center in Atlanta.
Frank Morris
Frank Morris, a Black shoe-shop owner in Ferriday, Louisiana, was fatally burned in the early hours of December 10, 1964, when two white men set fire to his store and, according to FBI records, one of them blocked his escape…
Jack the Stripper Victims
Six women, all sex workers, were found murdered in or near the Thames in west London between 1964 and 1965. The killer, dubbed 'Jack the Stripper' by the media, was never identified despite a massive police investigation led by…
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman & Michael Schwerner
Civil rights workers James Chaney, 21, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, were killed by Ku Klux Klan members in Neshoba County, Mississippi, on June 21, 1964. Their bodies were found 44 days later.
Kitty Genovese
Kitty Genovese, 28, was stabbed to death near her apartment in Kew Gardens, Queens, early on March 13, 1964. Winston Moseley confessed, was convicted of murder that June and died in prison in 2016.
Mary Pinchot Meyer
Mary Pinchot Meyer, a Washington socialite and former mistress of President John F. Kennedy, was shot to death while walking along the C&O Canal towpath in Georgetown. Raymond Crump Jr.
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing Victims
A dynamite bomb planted by Ku Klux Klan members killed Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14, and Denise McNair, 11, at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963.
Frank Sinatra Jr. Kidnapping
Singer Frank Sinatra Jr., 19, was abducted at gunpoint from Harrah's Club Lodge at Lake Tahoe on December 8, 1963. His father paid a $240,000 ransom and he was freed unharmed in Los Angeles on December 11.
John F. Kennedy Assassination
President John F. Kennedy, 46, was shot dead in his motorcade in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged but was killed by Jack Ruby two days later and never tried.
Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers, 37, the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, was shot in the back outside his Jackson home shortly after midnight on June 12, 1963, and died within the hour.
Boston Strangler Victims
Thirteen women were strangled in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964. Albert DeSalvo confessed to all 13 murders but was never tried for them. DNA evidence collected in 2013 linked DeSalvo to the last victim, Mary Sullivan.
William 'Billy' Jones Jr.
Three-year-old William "Billy" Jones Jr. disappeared on December 17, 1962, while playing outside with his younger sister in Vineland, New Jersey. He was last seen near a neighbor's house at about 11:45 a.m.
Ann Marie Burr
Eight-year-old Ann Marie Burr vanished from her Tacoma, Washington home. Serial killer Ted Bundy, who lived nearby as a teenager, has been speculated as a suspect but the connection was never proven.
Dag Hammarskjöld
UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, 56, and 15 others died when their DC-6 crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), shortly after midnight on September 18, 1961, as he travelled to ceasefire talks in the Congo…
Joan Risch
Joan Risch vanished from her Lincoln, Massachusetts home, leaving behind a trail of blood and signs of a violent struggle. She had recently checked out several library books about disappearances. She has never been found.
Michael Rockefeller
Michael Rockefeller, son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared off the coast of southwestern New Guinea while on an art-collecting expedition.
Henry Lee Lucas Victims
Henry Lee Lucas confessed to hundreds of murders but most were unverifiable. He was confirmed in several cases including the murder of his mother and with accomplice Ottis Toole.
James Kinne
James Kinne, a 25-year-old electronics engineer, was fatally shot in the back of the head at his Independence, Missouri home on March 19, 1960; his death was initially ruled accidental after his wife Sharon said their toddler…
Sharon Lee Gallegos
The remains of a young girl were found near Congress, Arizona in 1960. Known as 'Little Miss Nobody' for over 60 years, she was identified in 2022 as Sharon Lee Gallegos, a child who had been abducted from New Mexico.