Unsolved News Global Round-up 20.9.20
All your unsolved mystery, true crime and cold case news in one handy spot
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Africa
🇬🇭Ghana: Contract killers regularly getting away with murder, say academics
Professor Emmanuel Yaw Benneh, a law professor at the University of Ghana was murdered on or around 13th September and 4 suspects have been arrested, however many prominent figures deaths have gone unsolved and it is believed they were killed at the hands of contract killers. More here.
🇰🇪Kenya: The notorious murderer of Tom Mboya was spotted alive, despite being put to death
In 1969, Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge was charged, sentenced to death and hanged for the murder of independence activist & Cabinet Minister Tom Mboya. However, it was widely reported the killer was spotted a year after his ‘death’ in Zambia. The mystery has never been solved. More here.
🇲🇦Morocco: Increase in assaults & murders of children anger Moroccans in calls for death penalty
Recent rapes and the brutal murder of an 11-year-old boy have lead to calls from the community of the death penalty. The country has seen an increase in crimes against children in recent times and investigators are unsure what to do. More here.
Asia
🇮🇳India: Mystery in murder of 27-year-old Thai national may involve friend
Wanida Bousorn, was drinking with a friend on the night of her death investigators suspect the friend, who is reportedly a gambling addict, may have had something to do with her death. CCTV footage shows the friend leaving Wanida’s residence and returning around 4.45am in the morning. No one has been charged with her death. More here.
Europe
🇫🇮Finland: Finnish police “solve” 1987 Viking Sally cruise murder, but no arrests made. Klaus Herman Schelkle & Bettina Taxis were a young, fun-loving couple from what wa then West Germany enjoying a holiday cruising around the Nordics when they were attacked in the night travelling toward Turku, Finland from Stockholm, Sweden. Klaus died from his injuries. The murder was the second to take place aboard the ship within a year. Finnish police, have this month sent a prosecution request to the prosecutors, an arrest has not been made and the suspect has not been made public but investigators believe the crime is ‘solved’. More here.
🇵🇹Portugal: Suspect in Madeleine McCann murder investigated in unsolved rape
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B investigated over unsolved rape of tour rep in Portugal. He has already been convicted in December of raping a woman, 72, in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2005. More here.
🇸🇪Sweden: Man on trial for 2004 random murders in small Swedish town
Daniel Nyqvist, who was 21 at the time, admitted to obsessive thoughts about killing and that he chose his victims randomly. Nyqvist who first stabbed an 8-year-old boy and then a 56-year-old woman was found through familial DNA. More here.
🇬🇧United Kingdom: Parents of a man who went missing in 1992, arrested
Steven Clark disappeared in 1992 after going into a public toilet on a family trip to the seaside. His parents Doris and his dad Charles have been arrested on suspicion of murder following a cold case review. More here.
North America
🥇California: 1980 murdered finally solved through DNA
What some have dubbed “the season of justice” continues to reap rewards for cold case investigators as new DNA techniques solve colder than cold crimes. Michelle Jones was just 18 when she was murdered, now, 66-year-old Leonard Nash is being charged with her murder. Nash was dating Michelle’s older sister at the time of the killing, the victim’s siblings never gave up on hope for answers to their sister’s murder. More here.
☀️Florida: Man freed after 37 years behind bars, wrongly convicted of rape & murder
Robert DuBoise, 55, was convicted in the 1983 murder of 19-year-old Barbara Grams. She had been raped and beaten while walking home from her job at a Tampa mall. He was initially sentenced to death, then re-sentenced to life in prison. DNA evidence has finally exonerated him, showing two other unknown suspects. The case is unsolved. More here.
⚜️Louisiana: Long-forgotten mass murder gets new attention with book
The 1973 arson attack on the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans’s French Quarter killed 31 men and one woman in one of the largest unsolved murders targeting the LGBTQ+ community in recent history. Robert W. Fieseler has sought to tell the victim’s untold stories in his new book Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation. More here.
⚓ Massachusetts: Delta Airlines honour $250,000 reward in 1992 murder of employee
On September 14, 1992 27-year-old Susan Taraskiewicz was found in dead in the trunk of a car in Revere, she had been beaten and stabbed to death. Susan was one of the first women ever to land a ground crew chief supervisor’s job at Logan Airport, this seemed to cause dissent with her male co-workers as she faced continued harassment. Further suspicious activity involving co-workers has lead Susan’s mother, Marlene to suspect the murderers were closely associated with Susan. More here.
🛩️Ohio: New Cold Case team Investigation Unit established
The new section of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation will reinvestigate rapes and murders across the state in the hopes of bringing them to a close. 2,169 unsolved homicides are reportedly unsolved currently and the news comes as welcome news to families who have lost loved ones. More here.
Oceania
🇦🇺Australia: 1996 murder of Queensland man sees an arrest
Gregory James Thurlow was a tradie who went missing in 1996. A man has been charged with his murder less than a month after Queensland police offered $500,000 for information into the cold case. More here.
South America
🇨🇴Brazil: Horrific video of murder goes viral
The axe murder of a Brazilian woman went viral under the false belief it was filmed in India. More here.
🇨🇱Chile: Family fight for answers in US teachers murder
Erica Faith Hagan was a 22-year-old Georgetown graduate student teaching children how to speak English in Chile when she was found beaten to death in her on-campus apartment. Six years later, her murder remains unsolved. More here.
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