Suspicious Deaths
Deaths whose cause or manner is disputed, including some officially ruled accidental or self-inflicted. ColdCaseIndex documents 33 cases of this type, of which 18 are recorded as unsolved.
- Unsolved 18 (55%)
- Partly resolved 3 (9%)
- Charges or trial pending 1 (3%)
- Solved or convicted 5 (15%)
- Closed without conviction 6 (18%)
By state or country
All 33 cases
Caleb Harris
Caleb Harris, a 21-year-old Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi student, vanished from his apartment complex on Ennis Joslin Road in the early morning hours of March 4, 2024, leaving behind his truck, wallet, and keys.
Dau Mabil
Dau Mabil, a 33-year-old Sudanese refugee and one of the 'Lost Boys' resettled in Jackson, Mississippi, vanished during a midday walk near his Belhaven-area home on March 25, 2024.
Elijah Vue
Three-year-old Elijah Vue was reported missing from Two Rivers, Wisconsin, on February 20, 2024, and his remains were found in a wooded area on September 7, 2024.
Riley Strain
University of Missouri senior Riley Strain disappeared on Nashville's Broadway after being kicked out of a bar. His body was found in the Cumberland River two weeks later. His death was ruled accidental drowning.
Nicola Bulley
Nicola Bulley vanished while walking her dog by the River Wyre in Lancashire, England. Her body was found in the river three weeks later. The case drew massive attention and amateur sleuthing.
Lauren Smith-Fields
Lauren Smith-Fields, 23, was found dead in her Bridgeport, Connecticut apartment on December 12, 2021 after a first date with a man she met on a dating app.
Gloria Satterfield
Murdaugh family housekeeper Gloria Satterfield died after a fall at the Murdaugh home. Alex Murdaugh collected $4.3 million in insurance but stole the money from her sons.
Tamla Horsford
Tamla Horsford, a Black mother of five, was found dead at a sleepover party at a white friend's home in Cumming, Georgia. Her death was ruled accidental but her family disputes this.
Otto Warmbier
American student Otto Warmbier was detained in North Korea for 17 months and returned to the U.S. in a vegetative state. He died days later. North Korea claimed he contracted botulism.
Freddie Gray
Freddie Gray died of spinal cord injuries sustained while in Baltimore police custody. Six officers were charged but all were acquitted or had charges dropped. His death sparked the 2015 Baltimore uprising.
Sandra Bland
Sandra Bland, 28, was found dead in her Waller County, Texas, jail cell on July 13, 2015, three days after her arrest during a traffic stop. Her death was ruled a suicide by hanging, a finding her family has disputed.
Avonte Oquendo
Fourteen-year-old Avonte Oquendo, a nonverbal autistic student, walked out of his Long Island City, Queens, school on October 4, 2013. His remains were found along the East River in January 2014.
Elisa Lam
Canadian tourist Elisa Lam was found dead in a rooftop water tank at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Eerie elevator surveillance footage showed her behaving oddly before her disappearance.
Rebecca Zahau
Rebecca Zahau, 32, was found dead at the Spreckels Mansion in Coronado, California, on July 13, 2011, bound and hanging from a balcony.
Lori Erica Ruff
A Texas woman known as Lori Erica Ruff died by suicide on Christmas Eve, leaving behind evidence she had been living under a stolen identity for decades.
Shannan Gilbert
Shannan Gilbert disappeared at Oak Beach, Long Island on May 1, 2010; the search for her led to the discovery of the Gilgo Beach victims. Her remains were found in December 2011 and her cause of death is officially undetermined.
Jamison Family
Bobby Jamison, 44, his wife Sherilynn, 40, and their six-year-old daughter Madyson vanished on October 8, 2009, after traveling from their Eufaula home to look at rural land near Red Oak, Oklahoma.
Kathleen Peterson
Kathleen Peterson, 48, was found dead at the foot of a staircase in her Durham, North Carolina, home on December 9, 2001. Her husband, novelist Michael Peterson, said she fell; he was convicted of first-degree murder in 2003…
Danny Casolaro
Freelance journalist Joseph Daniel "Danny" Casolaro, 44, was found dead on August 10, 1991, in the bathtub of Room 517 at the Sheraton hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, with cuts to his wrists.
Yuba County Five
Five young men from the Yuba City area disappeared after attending a basketball game in Chico in February 1978. Their car was found abandoned on a remote mountain road in Plumas National Forest.
Charles Morgan
Escrow company president Charles Morgan was found shot dead in the desert near Tucson wearing a bulletproof vest and with a map to a motel. He had reported being stalked and had painted his car to avoid detection.
Circleville Letter Writer
From 1977 residents of Circleville, Ohio, received hundreds of anonymous threatening letters, many aimed at school bus driver Mary Gillispie. Her husband Ron died in an August 1977 crash that the coroner ruled an accident.
Karen Silkwood
Karen Silkwood, 28, a technician and union activist at Kerr-McGee's plutonium plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, died in a single-car crash on November 13, 1974, while driving to meet a New York Times reporter.
Isdal Woman
A partially burned female body was found in Isdalen Valley near Bergen, Norway surrounded by sleeping pills, bottles of liquor, and evidence of a deliberately concealed identity.
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.
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.
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…
Frank Olson
Army biochemist Frank Olson, 43, died on November 28, 1953, after falling from a window of the Hotel Statler in New York, nine days after CIA colleagues gave him LSD without his knowledge. The death was treated as a suicide.
Somerton Man
An unidentified man was found dead on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia with a scrap of paper reading 'Tamám Shud' (meaning 'ended' in Persian) hidden in his pocket.
Thelma Todd
Film actress Thelma Todd, 29, was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in her car inside a Pacific Palisades garage on December 16, 1935.
Paul Bern
MGM producer Paul Bern, 42, was found dead of a gunshot wound at his Beverly Hills home on September 5, 1932, two months after marrying actress Jean Harlow. A note was found and a coroner's jury ruled the death a suicide.
Starr Faithfull
Starr Faithfull, 25, was found dead on the beach at Long Beach, New York, on June 8, 1931, three days after leaving her family's Manhattan apartment. An autopsy found she had drowned and had bruises and a sedative in her system.
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.