Top 3 Mysterious Police cases in the World

Here are the top 3 mysterious police cases:

1) The Black Dahlia Murder - The 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, also known as the "Black Dahlia," remains one of the most infamous and unsolved cases in American history.

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On the morning of January 15, 1947, a mother taking her child for a walk in a Los Angeles neighborhood stumbled upon a gruesome sight: the body of a young naked woman sliced clean in half at the waist.

The body was just a few feet from the sidewalk and posed in such a way that the mother reportedly thought it was a mannequin at first glance.

Despite the extensive mutilation and cuts on the body, there wasn’t a drop of blood at the scene, indicating that the young woman had been killed elsewhere.

The ensuing investigation was led by the L.A. Police Department. The FBI was asked to help, and it quickly identified the body—just 56 minutes, in fact, after getting blurred fingerprints via “Soundphoto” (a primitive fax machine used by news services) from Los Angeles.

The young woman turned out to be a 22-year-old Hollywood hopeful named Elizabeth Short—later dubbed the “Black Dahlia” by the press for her rumored penchant for sheer black clothes and for the Blue Dahlia movie out at that time.

Short’s prints actually appeared twice in the FBI’s massive collection (more than 100 million were on file at the time).

First, she had applied for a job as a clerk at the commissary of the Army’s Camp Cooke in California in January 1943.

Second, she had been arrested by the Santa Barbara police for underage drinking seven months later. The Bureau also had her “mug shot” in its files and provided it to the press.

In support of L.A. police, the FBI ran records checks on potential suspects and conducted interviews across the nation.

Based on early suspicions that the murderer may have had skills in dissection because the body was so cleanly cut, agents were also asked to check out a group of students at the University of Southern California Medical School.

And, in a tantalizing potential break in the case, the Bureau searched for a match to fingerprints found on an anonymous letter that may have been sent to authorities by the killer, but the prints weren’t in FBI files.

Who killed the Black Dahlia and why? It’s a mystery.

The murderer has never been found, and given how much time has passed, probably never will be.

2) The Zodiac Killer - During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Zodiac Killer murdered at least five people in Northern California and taunted police with letters and cryptic messages. The case remains unsolved to this day.

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To be honest no one exactly knows the answer to this question as his identity is a mystery as of today. All we know is that he was a serial killer who took the responsibility for murdering more than 37 people.

He operated in the Northern California region between 1968 to 1974. The title of Zodiac is a self-title given by the serial killer in the cryptic letters he sent to the press when he was on a killing spree.

The killer used to start his letters by writing “This is the Zodiac speaking,” and contained several texts written in code. The letter used to taunt by giving indirect hint at his planned murders of 12 more citizens.

The majority of his cryptograms are unsolved as of today even though the world has advanced in the field of technology. The letters were signed by the now-infamous “signature”, a circle with a cross running through it.

Victims of the Killer

The killer used to target young couples including a lone male cab driver. The Zodiac himself has confirmed killing 37 victims, and he has been linked to many other pending cases both inside and outside the state.The official records however confirm 7 victims were attacked by him out of which 2 have survived.

David Arthur Faraday(17) and Betty Lou Jensen (16) were shot and killed in 1968, on Lake Herman Road.

Michael Renault Mageau (19) and Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin (22) were shot in 1969 in Vallejo however Mageau survived the attack while Ferrin succumbed to death.

Bryan Calvin Hartnell (20) and Cecelia Ann Shepard (22) were stabbed in 1969 in Napa County. While Hartnell survived the attack Shepard died.

Paul Lee Stine (29) was murdered in 1969 in San Francisco.

Letters

The Zodiac killer used to send cards and letters to regional newspapers and asked them to publish them on the front page or else he would go on a killing spree and bombings. He was of the opinion that when he murders people they will go to heaven and will be his slaves for the afterlife.

He mentioned in one of his letters, “I like killing people because it’s fun. I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me”.

Only 18 ciphers were decoded out of the total 408 ciphers sent by him from 1969 to 1974. One of the letters took more than 5 decades to decode. There have been several conspiracy theories regarding the identity of the killer.

3)The Boy in the Box - In 1957, a young boy's body was found in a box in a wooded area in Philadelphia. Despite extensive investigations, the identity of the boy and the person responsible for his death have never been determined.

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On a cold day in February 1957, a college student found a boy’s body inside a cardboard box in a wooded area of northeast Philadelphia.

The student waited a day to call the police, who immediately went to work to figure out who the boy was, who had killed him and how his body had ended up in a box. It was a mystery that would endure for decades.

The boy, then believed to be between 4 and 6 years old, had been beaten to death, an autopsy later revealed. But clues were scant, and copious efforts over decades to solve the crime proved futile. The unknown victim became known as “The Boy in the Box.” Others called him, more gently, “America’s Unknown Child.”

His name is now known: Joseph Augustus Zarelli. Born on Jan. 13, 1953, he was 4 when he died, Philadelphia police officials said Thursday, at a news conference where they described a breakthrough using DNA and genetic genealogy techniques that have revolutionized cold case work in recent years.

Capt. Jason Smith said officers did not yet know who killed the boy or the circumstances of how he had died, and that investigations would continue.