From dedicated internet sleuths to concerned neighbors, ordinary citizens have played crucial roles in cracking major criminal cases. Join us as we explore remarkable stories of everyday heroes who helped bring justice to victims through determination, keen observation, and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time.
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00:00There were a group of undergraduate students at Georgetown University who saw your story in
00:06Golf Digest, took up your cause, and eventually helped to exonerate you.
00:10Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at 30 major true crimes that were cracked by
00:15everyday citizens and amateur sleuths. This is the story of how blogger Joy Baker and
00:20survivor Jared Shirell never gave up. Bonnie Haim is found by her son.
00:25On one hand, Bonnie's own parents believe that she was unhappily married and willfully abandoned
00:30Michael and her son, and yet some members of Michael's family are convinced that Bonnie is dead,
00:36murdered by Michael Haim.
00:37In 1993, Bonnie Haim disappeared from her Jacksonville home after a fight with her
00:42abusive husband Michael. She had been planning to leave him, and had secretly arranged a new life
00:46for herself and their three-year-old son Aaron. Various belongings were found, but Bonnie herself
00:51was never seen again. Fast forward 20 years to 2014, when Aaron, now an adult, was renovating
00:58his childhood home. After demolishing the backyard pool, he discovered a plastic bag containing a
01:03human skull. Authorities dug up further remains and confirmed they were those of his late mother.
01:08Now, with a body and new forensic technology, investigators conclusively linked the crime to
01:13Michael Haim. He was arrested, tried, and ultimately sentenced to life in prison for his wife's murder.
01:19Through his attorney, Michael Haim declined our request for an interview. He has not been formally
01:24charged with any crime. However, authorities still consider him to be the prime suspect in
01:29Bonnie's disappearance.
01:30Todd Matthews identifies the tent girl.
01:32Whether it was the dreams or his determination, Todd eventually identified tent girl as Barbara
01:39Hackman Taylor, 11 years after he first heard about her and 30 years after her murder.
01:45On May 17, 1968, Wilbur Riddle was looking for scrap along a Kentucky highway when he stumbled across
01:52the body of a young woman wrapped in canvas. No one came forward to claim her body, and she quickly
01:57faded into history as tent girl. In the 1980s, Riddle's daughter married Todd Matthews, and he became
02:03deeply intrigued by the mystery. When the internet appeared, Matthews scoured forums and found a missing
02:09person's post for one Barbara Ann Hackman Taylor, who disappeared in Lexington in 1967. He found and
02:15reached out to Barbara's sister, and she agreed to a DNA test. The DNA was a familial match to tent girl,
02:21finally identifying her as the long-missing Barbara Taylor.
02:24Once there was an announcement that this was indeed the tent girl, and I'll always remember those words,
02:29the tent girl is indeed Barbara Hackman Taylor. You know, that was just chilling.
02:35Reddit helped solve the hit-and-run of Susan Rainwater
02:3866-year-old Susan Rainwater was struck and killed while cycling in Eatonville, Washington.
02:43With no eyewitnesses and minimal evidence, the Washington State Patrol had little to go on.
02:48The only physical clue was a small piece of black plastic found at the scene,
02:53a photo of which was shared on Reddit. One user quickly identified it as a headlight bezel from a
02:58late-80s Chevrolet Silverado. State troopers then received a tip describing a black pickup with
03:03front-end damage consistent with a collision. The truck? A 1986 Chevrolet K10.
03:09The Reddit post helped verify the tip, and police quickly found the truck and arrested its owner,
03:13Jeremy Simon. He was given a 53-month sentence as part of a drug offender sentencing alternative.
03:19A biochemist solves a medical mystery.
03:21The diagnosis, however, was stunning. Ryan had apparently been poisoned.
03:27Ryan Stallings was pronounced dead after suffering from a bizarre but serious illness.
03:31Toxicology tests revealed high levels of ethylene glycol, a chemical found in antifreeze.
03:37Naturally, medical personnel suspected poisoning, and his mother Patricia was arrested and sentenced to life.
03:43While awaiting trial, Stallings gave birth to another son.
03:46He also grew sick and showed symptoms similar to Ryan, but he was diagnosed with methylmalonic acidemia,
03:52or MMA, a rare disorder that mimics the biological symptoms of antifreeze poisoning.
03:57Their story was shown on Unsolved Mysteries and was seen by biochemist William Sly.
04:02He agreed to test Ryan's blood, and with the help of James Shoemaker, found that Ryan also had MMA.
04:08With this shocking new revelation, Patricia was released from prison.
04:12Unfortunately, we can't undo the suffering that the Stallings have endured during this entire ordeal.
04:19And I apologize to them both personally and for the state of Missouri.
04:24The Internet Finds the Kitten Kicker
04:25Back in August of 2013, a video was uploaded to Vine showing a person violently kicking a kitten off their porch.
04:32The video gained significant attention when it was shared on Reddit and 4chan,
04:36and users vowed to hunt down the unknown kitten kicker.
04:39So, that's exactly what they did.
04:41They quickly uncovered and disseminated the uploader's personal information,
04:45including his home address and phone number.
04:47They were identified as a teenager from South Carolina named Walter Easley,
04:52and he was arrested and charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty.
04:56He was sentenced to a pretrial intervention program, the details of which remain sealed.
05:00Twitter Solves a Hate Crime
05:02Police say social media is helping them in their effort to identify the suspects
05:06wanted in the attack of a same-sex couple in Center City.
05:10Social media can be a curse for investigators, but it can also be a blessing.
05:14Even back in 2014, police were turning to social media for help,
05:18like when they uploaded surveillance footage of a large group attacking two gay men in Philadelphia.
05:23User Greg Bennett quickly found photos of the group and deduced that they had been eating at a nearby restaurant.
05:28That's when a local sports commentator named Fan Since09 took over.
05:32He and his followers banded together and used public photos on Facebook to track the assailants to a restaurant near Rittenhouse Square.
05:39Fan Since09 then sent this info to the detective working the case,
05:42and they were successful in tracking down the suspects.
05:45But it was a picture of some of the potential suspects taken inside a Center City restaurant
05:50that led one man on Twitter to begin to put the pieces together to help identify the suspects.
05:56An events manager finds a kidnapping victim.
05:58She was in good health, but living in a backyard for the past 18 years does take its toll.
06:03In June 1991, 11-year-old JC Dugard was abducted in California and later had two children with her kidnapper,
06:10Philip Garrido. Fast forward to August 24th, 2009, when Garrido brought the girls to UC Berkeley for a religious event.
06:18He and the girls went to the office of events manager Lisa Campbell, who found their behavior troubling.
06:23Garrido was, quote, erratic, and the girls, quote, sullen and submissive.
06:27She asked Garrido to return the next day and took down his name.
06:31Campbell then alerted campus police, who ran a background check and discovered Garrido was a registered sex offender on parole.
06:37Authorities investigated further, and Dugard, now 29, was discovered living in Garrido's captivity.
06:43She was finally reunited with her family, and Garrido and his wife were arrested.
06:48This was JC Lee Dugard when her childhood was stolen.
06:52This was JC Lee Dugard five years ago when she talked to me after her rescue.
06:57My world changed in an instant.
06:59A passing neighbor helps solve a major kidnapping.
07:02So, we kicked the bottom, and she comes out with a little girl, and she says,
07:06call 911. My name is Amanda Berry.
07:09Imagine walking down the street when a woman starts screaming at you from a house,
07:13claiming that she has been abducted. That's what happened to Charles Ramsey.
07:17Between 2002 and 2004, three teenagers were kidnapped by Ariel Castro and held captive in his Cleveland home.
07:24On the morning of May 6th, 2013, Castro left the home without properly securing the girls.
07:30Amanda Berry made her way to the bolted front door, where she screamed for help.
07:34Ramsey heard the screams and came running, and both he and Berry were able to kick out the door's bottom panel.
07:40Ramsey called 911 after securing Berry, and responding officers found the other two survivors inside the house.
07:46Castro was arrested and later took his own life in prison.
07:49Ariel Castro found dead in his jail cell. ABC's Alex Perez has all the latest. Good morning, Alex.
07:54An amateur sketch artist identifies the Callie Doe.
07:57I feel like Tammy ran away. She wanted to start a new life.
08:02For 35 years, Tammy Alexander was known as Callie Doe after her murdered body was found in Caledonia in 1979.
08:10In 2013, her former classmate, Laurel Nowell, tried to reconnect.
08:14She contacted Tammy's half-sister, Pamela Dyson, who hadn't heard from Tammy since the late 70s.
08:19As their upbringing was tumultuous, she believed that Tammy had run away to start anew.
08:24Realizing that Tammy had never been reported missing, the two filed a report.
08:28As it happened, amateur sketch artist Carl Koppelman had recently created a facial reconstruction of Callie Doe.
08:34When he saw Tammy's missing persons report, he noticed a striking resemblance to Callie Doe and alerted authorities.
08:41Investigators contacted Dyson, collected her DNA, and confirmed that Callie Doe was her half-sister Tammy.
08:47This case could have been solved long ago, had she had a parent, had she had a family, that cared enough to want to even make a missing persons report.
08:57Liz Carmichael is found thanks to a TV viewer.
09:00Liz Carmichael's car, the Dale, turned out to be a sham.
09:04Was this a case of someone simply failing to live up to their dreams?
09:08Or did Liz Carmichael deliberately set out to swindle millions from naive investors?
09:12Throughout the 1970s, America was going through a major oil crisis.
09:16So, Liz Carmichael promoted the Dale, a fuel-efficient and affordable vehicle that would help people get through the turbulent times.
09:23But the car was a giant scam, and Carmichael was charged with fraud.
09:27She skipped bail and disappeared before she could be prosecuted, and later appeared on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
09:33A viewer in Dale, Texas, immediately recognized her as a local flower vendor named Katherine Johnson.
09:39He contacted the show's tip line, and investigators were sent out.
09:42They deduced that Katherine was actually the missing Liz, and she was taken back to California.
09:47She was ultimately found guilty of her crimes and served two and a half years in prison.
09:51Within minutes of our broadcast, our telecenter received a tip from a viewer who recognized Liz Carmichael as a flower vendor named Katherine Johnson.
10:01Curiously, she had chosen the small community of Dale, Texas, as her new home.
10:05Victim's Friend Cracks a Cold Case
10:07In 1984, Angela Samota, a student at Southern Methodist University, was assaulted and stabbed multiple times, leading to her death.
10:16The man knocked at the door, and he asked to use her restroom and her phone.
10:21She let him in.
10:22She called her boyfriend, and he knew something was wrong.
10:25With few suspects, the case quickly went cold until 2004, when Samota's best friend, Sheila Wysocki, claimed to have seen her ghost and was compelled to solve it.
10:36She hounded police with calls, but with no detective assigned to the case, barely any progress was made.
10:41They were not receptive to me at all.
10:44I actually was very harassing to them, and they did not welcome me at all with open arms.
10:50Wysocki began studying and earned a certification as a private investigator.
10:54As a result, she was able to look at the case more closely, and eventually helped police find related DNA evidence.
11:01This was linked to Donald Bess, a career criminal who was ultimately convicted and handed the death sentence.
11:07The people that talk about closure, they've really never been through something like that.
11:14So, the fact that people are like, don't you feel better?
11:18Don't you feel some accomplishment?
11:23No, she's still dead.
11:24The identification of the grateful doe.
11:27It was a mystery that left police puzzled for two decades.
11:31In June 1995, two men lost their lives in a car crash in Greensville County, Virginia.
11:36A young man was killed in a car crash in Emporia, Virginia in June of 1995.
11:43The only clues to his identity were a Grateful Dead t-shirt he was wearing, two tickets to a Grateful Dead concert, and a note written to a Jason.
11:52While the driver of the vehicle was quickly identified, the passenger's identity remained an enigma.
11:58Due to the Grateful Dead concert tickets found on him, he was nicknamed Grateful Doe.
12:02Authorities later released composite sketches of the passenger's face, which were widely circulated by internet sleuth groups.
12:09After this composite was released, photos of a man named Jason were recently posted to the Grateful Doe Facebook page in hopes of identifying him.
12:18As a result of this heavy campaign, the images were recognized by two people who claimed to be the passenger's former roommate and mother.
12:26After DNA tests were carried out, he was positively identified as 19-year-old Jason Callahan.
12:32Who left home in 1995 and never returned.
12:35We were friends.
12:36We were always on a pleasant, hello, how you doing?
12:39What's going on?
12:40What you been up to lately?
12:41The death of Paulette Jaster.
12:43Paulette Jaster was a young woman who disappeared from her town in Michigan in 1979.
12:48Apparently, Jaster had traveled miles away from home to Texas, where she was sadly killed the following year in a hit-and-run.
12:56With no form of identification found on her, police were unable to figure out who she was.
13:01At the same time, her family, hundreds of miles away, were left puzzled over her whereabouts.
13:07Her identity remained unsolved until 2014, when an internet user pointed forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick in the direction of Jaster's family.
13:16Using her old pictures, Derrick was able to confirm Jaster's identity with three distinctive freckles on her cheek, closing a case that had been cold for over three decades.
13:25Margaret Davis solves her son's murder.
13:28Only a mother will know what it feels like to lose a child.
13:32There's part of your soul that just goes out like that, and it's just filled with pain.
13:37English software engineer Stephen Davis was murdered by gunmen in his Makati, Philippines apartment in July 2002.
13:45His mother, Margaret, had a hunch that her son's wife, Evelyn, was somehow involved in his death.
13:50While the police investigation stalled and eventually turned cold, Margaret spent thousands of dollars hiring a private investigator.
13:58With all the evidence gathered from Margaret's investigation, the police gave the case a second look.
14:03Margaret's investigator carried out 24-hour surveillance on Evelyn.
14:08There were two men who paid regular visits to her home.
14:12One was Evelyn's lover.
14:14The other, his friend, another security man.
14:16It was ultimately discovered that Evelyn was having an affair with one of the gunmen, and had masterminded the plot to have Stephen killed.
14:24This resulted in the conviction of Evelyn and all three gunmen in 2004.
14:29I loved you.
14:30That's you.
14:31I loved you.
14:32We loved you.
14:32Your children loved you.
14:33And look what's happened.
14:35I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't see you.
14:37It's Stephen.
14:38Jessica Maple and the Burglars
14:40After her late great-grandmother's house was burgled and robbed of nearly all its furniture, 12-year-old Jessica Maple cracked the case by finding key clues the police completely missed.
14:52Although officers had concluded that the burglar must have had a key to enter the house, Jessica discovered broken garage windows covered in multiple fingerprints when she returned to the crime scene with her mom.
15:03Her investigation also turned up all of the missing furniture at a nearby pawn shop, whose owner identified the men who'd brought them in.
15:11Why would you go to the pawn shop?
15:12Why would you go to the pawn shop?
15:13Well, I thought to myself, since it's a bad economy, people are going to want money.
15:17So instead of keeping the furniture, pawn shops, they give you money for selling them their stuff.
15:22Miss Maple didn't just stop there.
15:24She tracked down one of the burglars and got him to confess to the robbery.
15:28Talk about giving the cops a run for their money.
15:30Susan Galbraith takes on a brutal murder.
15:34To solve the vicious murder of Jessica Curran, Kentucky resident Susan Galbraith first sent letters to several celebrities and journalists.
15:42She was, however, only able to grab the attention of BBC reporter Tom Mangold.
15:47Mangold traveled down to Kentucky and paired up with Galbraith.
15:50Their investigation soon led them to Quincy Cross, who Galbraith actually questioned, but was unable to get a confession from.
15:57When Mangold eventually returned home, Galbraith created a MySpace page, hoping to get information from the public.
16:04Soon after, a woman named Victoria Caldwell reached out to her and confessed to being an accomplice to Curran's murder.
16:10Caldwell reached a plea deal with the authorities, in which she named Cross as the killer, and only spent six months in prison.
16:17The hit-and-run of Carolee Ashby
16:19On Halloween night 1968, young Carolee Ashby was crossing the road in Fulton, New York, when she was run over by a car.
16:27My mom had a horrible life of grief and pain because of all of this.
16:33The driver refused to stop and disappeared into the night, never to be identified for decades.
16:39Fast forward to 2013.
16:42A retired Fulton detective put up a Facebook post about the cold case.
16:45This eventually reached a woman who recalled being asked to provide a false alibi for one Douglas Parkhurst back in 1968.
16:52Parkhurst was questioned by investigators back then, but it wasn't until recently that police say he admitted to driving drunk.
16:59After being provided with this information, police questioned Parkhurst, and he confessed to the crime, but was spared of any charges as the statute of limitations had passed.
17:08Parkhurst will not be in court since the statute of limitations on most charges has long expired.
17:14The only criminal aspect would be an intentional act, and we have no information, no evidence to support that this was an intentional act.
17:23In a sick twist of fate, Parkhurst was killed five years later by another hit-and-run driver.
17:29Car enthusiasts solve a hit-and-run.
17:31The community of readers on the automobile blogging site Jalopnik put their expansive car knowledge to the ultimate test in April of 2012,
17:40when 57-year-old Betty Wheeler lost her life in a hit-and-run.
17:44Hoping to get some help from the online community, police uploaded a picture of a small piece of metal they believed had broken off the vehicle in the collision.
17:53And Jalopnik readers got right on it.
17:56They linked the metal to an early-2000s Ford F-150 pickup in a matter of hours.
18:02They gave police a piece of information that was critical in identifying the driver and passenger of the vehicle.
18:07Both men were later arrested and convicted of felony hit-and-run.
18:12Yakov German tracks down a kidnapper and killer.
18:15The disappearance of the young Libby Kletzky sent shockwaves through his Orthodox Jewish New York neighborhood.
18:21This is every parent's nightmare, but this type of incident is extremely rare.
18:26Those waves were certainly felt by Yakov German, a property manager who took it upon himself to find the missing boy.
18:33Yakov traced Libby's movements using surveillance footage from stores and houses on his school route.
18:38This ended with footage from a car leasing company showing Libby getting picked up by Levy Aaron, a man from the same neighborhood.
18:47We see somebody opening a door, a kid going in, closing the door, a gold car.
18:52We see him from the other camera, going back to the front of the car, going into a seat, and we see the car going out.
18:57Yakov's efforts led the police to the perpetrator.
19:00Police found only remains upon Aaron's arrest.
19:03At 35 years old, Aaron still lived in his parents' home.
19:06A plumbing store clerk, he was religious.
19:09A Klansman gets his comeuppance.
19:11In 1964, two 19-year-old African-American students in Mississippi, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah D.,
19:18were abducted and drowned by members of the KKK.
19:22The police investigation was allegedly clouded by their prejudice, and the case was closed after a few months.
19:28Some 40 years later, Moore's brother Thomas teamed up with a documentary filmmaker.
19:33They tracked down the man responsible for the killings, James Ford Seale, who was initially reported dead.
19:40Their case did not come to the forefront like the New Yorkers, civil rights workers.
19:45Ben Cheney was also amongst them, but the people they really wanted to solve the crime for was Schwerner and Goodman.
19:53The Dean Moore case didn't have the benefit of those people associated with the case.
19:57So I took it up and found Thomas after about a year of looking for him.
20:02Thomas' and producer David Ridgen's discovery allowed the case to be reopened, resulting in Seale's arrest and conviction by a federal jury.
20:10He was sentenced to three consecutive life terms and died in prison in 2011.
20:16The murder of Maribel Ramos
20:1836-year-old Maribel Ramos was an Iraq War veteran living in Santa Ana, California with her roommate K.C. Joy.
20:25Ramos disappeared on May 2, 2013, and was reported missing by her loved ones the next day.
20:31While police investigated her disappearance, a friend posted details of the case on Yelp, asking users for any information.
20:39A few days later, Ramos' roommate Joy supposedly left a comment in the thread, in which he referred to the Army vet in the past tense.
20:48As if to suggest his possible involvement in the disappearance, one user in particular voiced suspicions about Joy.
20:55Those suspicions came true in the following days, as Ramos' body was found, and Joy was later arrested and convicted of her murder.
21:03Ellen Leach helps identify Greg May's remains.
21:06Greg May was a Civil War antique collector who shared an apartment with Doug DeBruin.
21:12May disappeared in 2001, and his antiques popped up afterwards at an auction house.
21:17This led police to arrest DeBruin, who, it was revealed, had been selling off May's collection.
21:23But with no sign of a body, prosecutors knew they didn't have a solid case against him.
21:28Then, in 2005, a skull was found all the way in Missouri that puzzled authorities.
21:33They put together a facial sculpture from the skull, which was later matched with May's missing persons poster by Ellen Leach, a Home Depot cashier and online sleuth.
21:44I have solved eight cases to date.
21:48The first one was in 2005, which was Greg May.
21:52With this, prosecutors were able to build an airtight case against DeBruin and eventually convicted him of the murder.
21:59Celia Blay catches an internet predator.
22:02William Melchert Dinkle, a 47-year-old nurse from Minnesota, frequently posed as a 20-something-year-old woman in online chat rooms.
22:10He encouraged young, depressed adults to take their own lives, sometimes for his viewing pleasure.
22:17William's scheme was discovered by Celia Blay, a pensioner from England.
22:22Blay struck up a conversation with a teenager online and learned that she was being goaded by William.
22:27Sometimes it's a serious and helpful and supportive site.
22:32Other times, there are people deliberately trying to push others over the edge.
22:37Celia devised a plan with the teenager and was able to collect evidence against William, with which she convinced U.S. authorities to lay charges.
22:45He was stripped of his nursing license and sentenced to jail time for assisting and attempting to assist in the deaths of two people.
22:54William Melchert Dinkle had to come to this courthouse five minutes from his house to face the allegations.
23:00All because a woman thousands of miles away wouldn't give up.
23:04Bradley Willman and the predatory judge.
23:06In the late 1990s, Canadian private investigator Bradley Willman developed a Trojan horse disguised as a picture file,
23:14which he posted on several websites frequented by predators.
23:18Once downloaded, the file gave him unfettered access to the individual's computer.
23:22This allowed him to pore over their emails and other documents, then turn over important information to watchdog groups.
23:29His work culminated in the arrest of Ronald Klein, a California Superior Court judge who had an abundance of damning evidence on his computer.
23:38Klein was disbarred and sentenced to 27 months in prison.
23:43The Exoneration of Valentino Dixon
23:45In 1991, Valentino Dixon was arrested and charged with the fatal shooting of a man in Buffalo, New York.
23:52There's nothing quite like a fresh start.
23:55Thank you!
23:56Just ask Valentino Dixon.
23:58Although the actual shooter was said to have confessed, and eight eyewitnesses reportedly absolved Dixon of the crime,
24:04he was eventually convicted and given a lengthy sentence.
24:08While in prison, Dixon began drawing golf courses, and soon got noticed by a golf magazine journalist named Max Adler.
24:15I'm glad that resonated with him, with what he was feeling, and that he had the audacity to reach out to me,
24:23and I'm just so thankful I got that letter.
24:24Adler published an article on Dixon's ordeal that in turn caught the attention of Marty Tankliff,
24:29a Georgetown University law professor who decided to take up his case alongside his students.
24:35The class was able to poke holes in Dixon's original trial,
24:38and helped secure him a new trial that ended in his exoneration.
24:41It's indescribable.
24:43I'm so grateful for the support and the love.
24:47You know, I never knew that I had this much support.
24:50When I walked out of that courtroom and everybody was there,
24:53I had some support, but I didn't know it was this huge.
24:56The murder of Abraham Shakespeare.
24:58For Abraham Shakespeare, winning a $30 million lottery was unfortunately the beginning of his troubles.
25:05Shakespeare bought himself that new car, a fancy new house, and lots more.
25:10But as so often happens, this lotto winner's drama didn't stick to the script.
25:15That's because the money also brought unwanted attention.
25:19He started a private business with Dereese Dee Dee Moore, who took control of his finances.
25:24A few months later, Moore killed Shakespeare and buried him under a concrete slab behind her house.
25:30As the case garnered attention, users of the internet crime forum WebSleuths started digging.
25:36In the beginning, we thought he was missing, that he was hiding away.
25:40As the investigation continues, the evidence mounts that he could have died because of sinister means.
25:49Murder, we're talking here.
25:50Could be.
25:51They found that Moore had opened a fake account on the website to divert suspicion away from herself.
25:56The amateur sleuths were able to trace the IP address of the fake account back to Moore's personal computer, aiding investigators.
26:04Moore was found guilty of killing Shakespeare and received a life sentence.
26:09Cold, calculated, cruel.
26:11They all apply.
26:13Manipulative.
26:14Probably the most manipulative person that this court has seen.
26:18A true crime writer solves a 50-year-old case.
26:21In 2016, Monica Weller released Injured Parties, solving the murder of Dr. Helen Davidson.
26:28The book details her seven-year journey of apparently closing a 50-year-old case.
26:33Back in 1966, Davidson was found dead close to her home in Buckinghamshire after going birdwatching.
26:39Despite an extensive investigation, police were unable to come up with anything concrete and eventually ruled the crime a, quote,
26:46random motiveless killing.
26:48Weller, however, carried out painstaking research and soon concluded that the perpetrator was George Garbutt, a gardener who worked in the area.
26:56Although Garbutt took his own life five years after the incident, Weller theorized that he had killed Davidson after she spotted him with a male lover.
27:04This was at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in England.
27:08The murder of Jacob Wetterling
27:10In October 1989, Jacob Wetterling was abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota and never returned.
27:16These are happy thoughts, but when you stop to think about how much time has gone by, it's kind of hard to swallow.
27:30The case bore similarities to the earlier abduction and assault of one Jared Shirell, who was ultimately freed.
27:36Wetterling's case grew cold over the years, until 2013, when Shirell teamed up with Joy Baker, a blogger, to solve it.
27:44This morning, Patty Wetterling finally knows what happened to her son Jacob.
27:49Baker unearthed a string of similar assaults that occurred in nearby Painesville, and was convinced that they were all likely committed by the same person.
27:56Although police reportedly discredited their theory at first, they eventually looked at the case keenly and zeroed in on Danny Heinrich.
28:05You had the theory, and everybody told you that theory was wrong.
28:09Yeah, that's true. And it was disheartening.
28:12Heinrich, who was actually an early suspect in all aforementioned cases, led police to Wetterling's remains, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
28:22Michelle McNamara's hunt for the Golden State Killer
28:24He was like a Hannibal Lecter. Highly intelligent, highly sadistic, master manipulator.
28:30Joseph James D'Angelo, infamously known as the Golden State Killer, was responsible for the deaths of at least 13 people.
28:38However, the hunt for his identity would go on to claim one more life, that of Michelle McNamara.
28:44McNamara, a true crime writer, grew up fascinated with unsolved mysteries,
28:48and later zeroed in on a string of cold cases that took place in California in the 70s and 80s.
28:54Her unyielding investigation turned up a library's worth of evidence.
28:58I'm so sad and full of self-doubt, and then I'm not. Where, where can this all lead?
29:07To deal with the stress, she started taking a cocktail of prescription drugs, which led to her accidental death.
29:14However, her work revived interest in the case, and ultimately led law enforcement to D'Angelo.
29:20Police say the 72-year-old appeared surprised when they swarmed his home Tuesday evening.
29:25No incident, he didn't say it wasn't me, or anything like that.
29:30No, really no, really no conversation at all.
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29:50The murder of Jun Lin
29:51Before this case became about the murder of Jun Lin, it revolved around a couple of Facebook videos that portrayed acts of animal cruelty carried out by an unidentified man.
30:01And so I was on Facebook one day, and I found a post.
30:06A lot of people have been feverishly posting about a video that was online.
30:11A group of online sleuths began investigating, and were able to identify the man in the videos as Luca Magnata.
30:19Magnata later lured Lin, a university student in Canada, over to his apartment, where he murdered him and uploaded a video online.
30:28It was no longer a game of online, this was real world.
30:32The sleuth group was able to link that video to the ones involving animals, and share their information with the authorities.
30:38A few weeks later, Magnata was arrested.
30:42They finally caught him.
30:44And it was just like the perfect way for Luca to go down.
30:48Luca was caught in an internet cafe because he couldn't stay away from his vanity.
30:55What do you think of their deductive skills?
30:57Let us know in the comments below.
30:58Some people believe her husband knows more about Bonnie's fate than he is saying.