10 Most Infamous Cold Cases of this Century (So Far)
These unsolved cases continue to baffle investigators. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re taking a look at the most notorious unsolved crimes from the year 2000 onward.
Transcript
00:00There are two murderers running wild, and these two murderers are people that shot a
00:05kid in the back.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're taking a look at the most notorious unsolved crimes
00:11from the year 2000 onward.
00:12Out of respect for those involved, this video is unranked.
00:14Please note that all entries to follow are listed in chronological order.
00:18Due to the sensitive nature of the events depicted, viewer discretion is strongly advised.
00:22They say that the man here, Tadashev, was actually filling out a confession, had been
00:27cooperative, then all of a sudden he turned and attacked the FBI agent.
00:32Zeb Quinn
00:33Cheryl, any new developments in the Zeb Quinn case?
00:36No, no new leads have developed for years in this case, but the teenager's mother is
00:42holding out hope that someday she'll have some answers.
00:45When a cold case reaches a legal conclusion, it isn't necessarily a relief to those affected
00:49by it.
00:50Eighteen-year-old Asheville, North Carolina native Quinn went missing just after the first
00:53New Year's Day of the millennium.
00:55Quinn, a Walmart employee, had coordinated with Robert Owens, a friend and co-worker,
00:59to buy a new car in neighboring Leicester.
01:00However, they never made it as planned.
01:02Owens claimed that Quinn began acting erratically and left, never to be seen again.
01:06There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Zeb and wonder where he is.
01:13Owens was indicted for Quinn's murder in 2017, but has since asserted that his late uncle
01:17had been paid off to kill Quinn.
01:18The party who supposedly hired Owens' uncle has yet to be brought up on charges.
01:22Since we've never found his body, there's, in the back of my mind, there's always the
01:27possibility.
01:29Anthrax attacks.
01:30A Florida man has contracted a very rare and potentially deadly form of anthrax.
01:36Rare inhaled form of anthrax.
01:38Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson calls it an isolated case and says
01:42there was no threat of terrorism.
01:44The tragic events of the 9-11 attacks in New York City ushered in an entirely new American
01:48age, rife with widespread paranoia, escalating tension, and a heightened focus on improving
01:53security measures in anticipation of possible future attacks.
01:56No one could have predicted, however, just how soon those attacks would come.
01:59Now to the home front and those concerns over anthrax in Florida.
02:03After one man died from the illness and his co-worker was contaminated, the FBI has taken
02:08over the investigation.
02:09On September 18th, 2001, the first of several waves of envelopes containing deadly anthrax
02:14spores arrived at the offices of two U.S. Senators as well as news media headquarters,
02:19leading to five deaths.
02:20Welcome back, everybody.
02:21It certainly has been a tough day and days for all of us at NBC News because, of course,
02:26the press conference that announced yesterday that an NBC News staff member actually had
02:30been tested positive for anthrax.
02:32The perpetrators have never been identified.
02:34In 2008, the FBI and DOJ concluded that Bruce Ivins, a U.S. Army biodefense researcher,
02:40was responsible, a controversial conclusion that is widely disputed to this day.
02:44He's a scientist who took his own life rather than face charges of hatching the diabolical
02:492001 anthrax attacks.
02:51Chandra Levy.
02:52The story was a congressman with an intern.
02:55It wasn't the story about this poor girl being missing and all these families being destroyed
02:59over this.
03:00Levy's case is intricate and multifaceted, filled with numerous complexities.
03:04An intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., Levy vanished on May
03:081st, 2001.
03:09Her family later disclosed to authorities her affair with Democratic Congressman Gary
03:13Condit, who represented their electoral district.
03:16Congressman Condit, do you know what happened to Chandra Levy?
03:19No, I do not.
03:21Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?
03:23No, I didn't.
03:25Did you kill Chandra Levy?
03:26I did not.
03:27We had a close relationship.
03:28An FBI informant alleged that Ingmar Guandique, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador,
03:34was hired by Condit to silence Levy.
03:36Guandique was convicted in 2010 and deported in 2017.
03:39However, it should be noted that in 2016, the charges against Guandique were dropped
03:43due to insufficient evidence.
03:44The FBI largely dismissed the Condit angle, citing Guandique's prior confessions to other
03:49assaults.
03:50The representative was never officially a suspect.
03:52The congressman was not a suspect before the meeting, he was not a suspect during the meeting,
03:57and he is not a suspect since the meeting.
03:59Elliott Smith
04:00Something's happening, don't speak too soon.
04:04The widely beloved indie folk singer-songwriter was known for incorporating dark themes into
04:08his work.
04:09Smith had long struggled with substance use and his often fragile mental health.
04:18His October 21, 2003 death, the result of a knife wound to the chest, has been classified
04:23as a suicide.
04:24Some may find this conclusion understandable given the consistently raw, vulnerable tone
04:28of his music.
04:29However, record producer and Smith archivist Larry Crane, along with Jennifer Chiba, Smith's
04:33then-girlfriend who discovered him dying, have expressed doubts.
04:45They point to Smith's improved mental state and excitement about working on new music
04:48at the time as factors that don't align with suicide.
04:51The Los Angeles Police Department has never formally closed Smith's case.
05:02The Jamison Family
05:03Jamison family lived here near Lake Eufaula, but Bobby's mom says they were looking to
05:08move to the mountains.
05:09In early October of 2009, they made the hour-long drive to Latimer County to look for property,
05:15but were never seen again.
05:17How does a family of three people simply vanish off of the face of the earth with no trace
05:21of what happened to them?
05:22That's what officials involved in the Jamison family disappearance wondered in October 2009,
05:27after the Eufaula, Oklahoma, natives' pickup truck turned up abandoned save for the family
05:31dog and, crucially, IDs, phones, and over $30,000 in cash.
05:48Four years later, in November 2013, the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office confirmed that the
05:52family's remains had been located, but was unable to determine a specific cause of death.
05:57There's just partial skeletal remains and some clothing like shoes, things like that.
06:02Speculation persists as to why of it all, with theories including a family feud, a drug
06:07deal gone wrong, or a fear of evil spirits.
06:09Kyron Horman
06:10Yeah, Kyron Horman was last seen here at Skyline Elementary on June 4th, 2010.
06:16His mom drives up to the Portland area at least once a year, if not more, to work with
06:20law enforcement to keep this case active and to bring him home.
06:23Seven-year-old Portland, Oregon native Horman was last seen attending an early morning science
06:27fair chaperoned by his stepmother, Terri.
06:30After being informed by the school that he had been marked absent for the day after failing
06:33to appear in his first class, he was reported missing.
06:36The 10-day search for him was the largest ever of its kind in the history of the state.
06:40My life didn't really move on.
06:42My mission stays the same, and until I get to bring Kyron home, I just keep fighting
06:49for him.
06:50In a shocking development, investigators considered the possibility that Terri had conspired with
06:54a close friend of hers to orchestrate Kyron's kidnapping.
06:57A lawsuit filed by Desiree Young, Kyron's biological mother, against Terri was dropped
07:02in 2013 to avoid conflict with the ongoing investigation.
07:05No new developments in the case have emerged since 2018.
07:08It has been nearly 13 years since Kyron Horman disappeared.
07:12His mom has not given up her search since the then-seven-year-old went missing from
07:17his elementary school in Portland.
07:18Waltham triple murder
07:20They say that the man here, Tata Chef, was actually filling out a confession, had been
07:24cooperative, then all of a sudden he turned and attacked the FBI agent.
07:29The circumstances surrounding this particularly gruesome case in the greater Boston area tend
07:33to raise more questions than answers.
07:35On September 12, 2011, the nearly decapitated bodies of Brendan Mess, Eric Weissman, and
07:40Raphael Tekin were found at Mess' apartment covered in $5,000 in cash, as well as several
07:45thousand dollars' worth of cannabis.
07:47He just knew him.
07:48While living in Boston, his friends confirmed Tata Chef met bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev
07:53through MMA fighting, but did not share his ideology.
07:57Even more disturbing is the alleged involvement of brothers Tamerlan and Zakhar Tsarnaev,
08:01the terrorists responsible for the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
08:05The former was described as having an extremely close, though fraught, friendship with the
08:08deceased Brendan Mess.
08:10Ibrahim Todeshev, an associate of Tamerlan's, was fatally shot by the FBI in Orlando in
08:15May 2013 during questioning about the Waltham case and Boston bombing.
08:19He felt like there was going to be set up.
08:21He felt like there was going to be set up, bad set up against him, you know what I mean?
08:25Because he felt, he told me, they're making up such crazy stuff, I don't know why they're
08:29doing it.
08:30Keith Ratliff.
08:31Our current president made a remark that he'd like to renew the assault weapons ban, and
08:35based on previous conversations he had prior to being elected and while being a community
08:40organizer in Chicago.
08:42An employee of the now-defunct YouTube channel FPS Russia, Ratliff was discovered at his
08:46Carnesville, Georgia home on January 3rd, 2013, dead from a gunshot to the head.
08:51Thirty-three-year-old Ratliff co-owned FPS Industries, described by the Anderson Independent
08:56Mail as being concerned with the development and production of firearms and related items.
09:00So they're a channel that's among the top ten in most subscribed.
09:04So it's obviously huge, and they use a lot of weapons, and they show you how to use the
09:08weapons.
09:09One of the things they were proud of, of this guy who got killed, was that he could procure
09:13really exotic weapons.
09:15The deceased was in charge of securing the weapons that appeared in FPS Russia YouTube
09:20videos.
09:21Mike Ayers, Georgia Bureau of Investigation's agent in charge, stated in March 2013 that
09:25it is the policy of the GBI that homicide investigations remain open and active until
09:30they're solved.
09:31Despite this, no potential assailants have been identified in the years since Ratliff's
09:34death.
09:35I was watching movies with my pistol in my pocket the whole time I was praying that somebody
09:41would try to pull a Batman.
09:42Seth Rich
09:43It's been more than six months since Seth Rich was murdered.
09:46While the family grieves the loss of their son, they're also dealing with pressures out
09:50of their control.
09:52It's definitely not a cold case, nor will it ever be.
09:54The events surrounding 27-year-old Rich's 2016 murder have been widely scrutinized,
09:58analyzed, and pored over.
10:00Omaha, Nebraska native Rich lived and worked in Washington, D.C. at the time of his death.
10:04He was employed as the Voter Expansion Data Director of the Democratic National Convention.
10:08On July 10th, Rich's life was ended by two gunshots to the back, in D.C.'s Columbia Heights
10:13neighborhood where he lived.
10:14There are two murderers running wild, and these two murderers are people that shot a
10:19kid in the back.
10:21Rich's killers haven't been brought to justice, and according to local police, they may have
10:24been attempting to rob him.
10:25Debunked social media posts and baseless conspiracy theories speculated that Rich's death was
10:30actually a political assassination, retaliation for supposedly leaking classified documents.
10:36There is no good, strong evidence it was four in the morning, and not people walking by.
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11:00Barry and Honey Sherman
11:01There's not a shred of doubt about the generosity of the Shermans.
11:05It is estimated they donated more than $100 million to various causes, and their daughter
11:10wants that work to continue.
11:12The founder and CEO of Canadian pharmaceutical giant Apotex, Toronto philanthropist Barry
11:17Sherman and Honey, his wife of 46 years, were found dead next to their pool by cleaning
11:22staff on December 15th, 2017.
11:24A reportedly unscrupulous businessman who had been routinely accused of unethical practices,
11:29even Sherman himself had publicly mused that his own murder wouldn't come as a surprise.
11:33It's definitely a big struggle.
11:37All my siblings and I have been struggling since, you know, for the past 18 months.
11:41For me personally, it comes in waves.
11:44Apotex had a reputation for its litigiousness, not only toward government regulators, but
11:48also its own competitors.
11:50Barry was also embroiled in a legal battle with his cousins, the Winters, over unpaid
11:54royalties.
11:55He was reportedly also $1 billion in debt at the time of his death.
11:58The Toronto Police Service has confirmed that the investigation remains active.
12:02Did you mention anything about the investigation itself?
12:05Because that's still the big question mark here.
12:07Well, they wouldn't talk.
12:08As a family, they haven't spoken about the investigation, and that was certainly a ground
12:11rule going into the interview.