1 Introduction

In the annals of criminal history, most cases are open and shut. A crime takes place, the police investigate, an arrest is made, and the accused is either acquitted or convicted of said crime. Some criminal cases make for interesting prime time specials or cable network documentaries, but few invoke mysteries that persist for any length of time.

But some crimes are so puzzling and perplexing that the mystery surrounding them takes on a life of its own. It is these mysterious crimes that often have the greatest impact on all involved. Crime in general has profound effects on the victims specifically and the greater society in general. Murders, in particular, leave behind gaping psychological wounds that often only begin to heal when the perpetrator is caught and convicted for his/her crimes.

But what happens when the murderer is never identified? Or worse yet, what happens when the victim is never found, as if the person vanished into thin air?

These are the type of crimes that tear at the social fabric of a community more than any other – crimes where a suspect is never identified, a body is never found, or a reason for the crime is never determined.

The world is full of many mysteries and within the pages of this book you will be introduced to twelve of the most intriguing and amazing mysteries in modern criminal history. Some of the cases here involve multiple crimes where coincidences seem to link what are otherwise unrelated cases. Investigation of these cases reveals that sometimes although events may be creepy, they are in fact coincidences; while in other cases the jury is still out.

A number of high-profile disappearances are also given consideration in the following pages. While a mysterious fog of uncertainty still hangs over one of these cases, excellent police work and modern science helped locate other missing individuals.

Finally, this book considers a number of unsolved murder cases that were all but forgotten about and went "cold," only to heat up and get resolved years, even decades, later through advances in science and new eyewitness testimony. The world is truly and amazing place full of many mysteries, which includes the criminal world as you will see in this intriguing and exciting book.