Tylenol Tampering

The hardest part about this topic is that there is very little likelihood of finding an actual culprit. That's fine for the informative paper. For the later, argument, we may want to discuss shifting focus to how to prevent tampering.

DB Cooper

A few people have indicated that DB Cooper is a topic of interest.

I think when we get to the argument paper, I'm going to try to steer writers away from "solving" this case simply because I don't think it is solvable. Rather, I think we need to discuss how airlines and the FAA change policies after hijackings

Area 51

Conspiracy theories, couple with actual national security secrets, make this one really hard to "solve," but that's a task for paper 2. Maybe we talk about what kinds of secrets the government really needs to protect.

Gardner Museum Heist

Last remaining mob associate tied to the robbery died in 2021

"Numbers" Stations

How many of you are familiar with the tv series "Lost"? It was inspired at least in part by the mysterious numbers stations.

The "Watcher" House

This is a creepy story, right out of Weird NJ.

That said, there are new owners, and the story hasn't resurfaced with the new residents.

Kenneka Jenkins

Police ineptitude seems to be a common theme from among the cases students have posted about.

This case has garnered a lot of interest from people in the African American community, but not as much among white people.

Dyatlov Pass

Has echoes of the 18th Century US story of the Donner Party

Zodiac Killer

Ever popular (even from when it happened), and often dramatized in movies, which might actually be making it harder to solve.

Circeville Letters

As the student who posted this mentioned - this would be pretty different with modern technology.

Loretto Chapel Staircase

This one is completely new to me. Fascinating.

However, is the staircase really that amazing, or could a well-trained carpenter/building engineer make it? I mean, look at the pyramids, which were constructed so long ago, that they were about as old* to the ancient Romans as ancient Rome is to us now.

* The Great Pyramid was finished in ~2500 BC, and the Parthenon was finished in !430 BC ---> 2100 years. Ancient Rome as we generally think about it (Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra) is ~100 BC to 0AD ---> 2100 years.

Jack the Ripper

Every few years someone has "solved" the murders with yet a different suspect, usually one that had been ruled out or ignored previously.

I am skeptical. I don't think it's possible without time travel. That said, I do think it led to changes in policing, and I think it still provides us lessons for how to get better at investigation almost 140 years in the future.

Edgar Allan Poe

No one has brought up Poe before, but his death is still a mystery, as is the random person now called the Poe Toaster who showed up every year from 1930-2009 to arrange 3 red roses at his grave, drink a toast of cognac, and leave the rest of the bottle.

Madeleine McCann

Unlocked rooms, unsupervised children, and a missing child: all while parents were allegedly too engaged in "swinging" to properly parent

Nanette Hartman

14 yo girl murdered in 1965 in broad daylight at her home right after school.

Case was recently reopened. Police think that a suspect the family has long believed to be responsible may be the murderer, but that person has been dead for many years. I guess my question is why does it matter now? I'm probably just a heartless asshole, but it's the same way I feel about Jack the Ripper or the Black Dahlia murderer. There's no one to hold accountable, so does a solution actually make a difference?

Mary Celeste

The most famous "ghost ship"

Overtoun Bridge

Bridge in rural Scotland where dogs apparently commit suicide

Probably has a more natural cause than the supernatural ideas presented in pop culture

JFK Assassination

I saved this for last because I feel like it opens a huge can of worms. How you feel about the assassination and the subsequent investigations is a litmus test for the human ability to find and make connections, however tenuous, so support their beliefs. I include myself, a lone gunman theory believer, in this. I don't think people who push the conspiracy theories are bad people or anything, but I simply don't believe any of them myself.

I think it was Oswald alone. As a general rule, I do not believe eye witness testimony, and all of the conspiracy theories out there - the grassy knoll in particular - rely on eye witness reports. The truth is that eye witness reports are the least reliable source of investigative information that exists in the criminal justice process.