What really happened to Brian Shaffer?

Hey everyone, thought I'd make one last post before 2018 is over.

Brian Shaffer was just 27 years old when he vanished off the face of the earth during spring break in 2006. 

Shaffer, who was a second year medical student at Ohio state university, went missing after a night of bar hopping with friends on Friday March 31^st. 2006.

Before hitting the town with friends that night, Brian went out to dinner with his dad and brother to celebrate. His father did not notice anything off about his son other than the fact that he seemed fatigued which he thought was probably due to one too many late nights of studying for his final exams. Around 9:50PM Brian made a call to his girlfriend. She had no idea it would be the last time she heard his voice. 

After the meal, at around 10PM, Brian met with a friend named William “Clint” Florence. The two met a local bar named “The ugly tuna saloona”. The bar was on 1546 north High Street in Columbus, but Google it these days and you’ll notice it’s recorded as being permanently closed. 

The Ugly Tuna Saloona has an average rating of 2 out of 5 stars on Yelp- “They have one of, if not the best happy hours on campus being $1 any well drink from 8-10 Monday-Saturday” says one customer. 

“How can you hate a place that sells Jell-o shots in a big plastic syringe and puts a plastic alligator in your huge fishbowl o' alcohol???” another user writes.

From there Brian and Clint visited multiple bars throughout the course of the evening, slamming a shot at each establishment with the aim of ending up at Arena district.  

The Arena district is a neighborhood in Columbus that is easy to walk to on foot. It has everything from bars and restaurants to malls and sports facilities. This video from 2010 describes the area perfectly.

Arena district would be around a 40 minute walk from the Ugly Tuna Saloona in North High Street.

 Brian and Clint reached their destination at around midnight after stopping at various bars along the way. They hitched a ride back with a female friend of Clint named Meredith Reed. The three drove back to the Ugly Tuna and had one last drink together.

Surveillance footage from the bar confirms that the three did indeed go back to the Tuna and they were recorded arriving at 1:15AM.

At some point Clint noticed that Brian was missing. Despite their repeated attempts to call and locate him he was nowhere to be found. Clint and Meredith were eventually ushered out of the bar at closing time, around 2AM. Although they continued to wait for their missing friend outside of the bar, he never showed up.  

They did tell police that Brian went to talk to the live band after they finished their set that night, but the members couldn’t offer up any helpful information. Brian had two sides to him, on one hand he had been training his whole life to become a doctor, and on the other hand he wanted nothing more than to be a musician and song writer. He was a fan of Eddie Vedder and Jimmy Buffett and had a tattoo of the artwork from the Pearl Jam single “Alive”.

Eventually Brian’s friends assumed that he had returned to his apartment in King Avenue without telling them and gave up looking. King Avenue is around 1 hour 40 minutes on foot, but only a 10-12 minute drive by car. Did Brian hail a cab after failing to find his friends? Did someone offer him a ride home? One could reach King Avenue by car via Olentangy River Rd which runs parallel to the river itself.

Shaffer had an important flight to Miami, Florida to catch the following Monday, but after he failed to show up for it he was quickly reported missing.

CCTV footage from outside of the Ugly Tuna revealed that Brian Shaffer was last spotted chatting with 2 women outside of the bar at around 1:55AM before bidding them goodnight and appearing to walk back towards the Ugly Tuna entrance. This footage would go on to inspire many a theory about what happened to Brian that night.

(GIF of the video for your convenience)

How could it be that a man was recorded seemingly entering a building but not leaving?

First of all, the cameras did not exactly record him going into the bar, only in the direction of. Many people assume that he was heading back into the Ugly Tuna as his friends were still inside and the bar was not yet closed. Also, none of the surveillance footage handed into police that night captured Brian in the local area.

There was reportedly a service door which was off limits to general patrons. Brian’s lack of authority to exit the building through a staff-only door would not make it physically impossible for him to do so, which is why many an internet sleuth hypothesizes that taking another exit is exactly what he did. 

The only problem with this theory is that the service door lead out onto a construction site and Brian was not captured on any other surveillance tape in the local area. The local area was plentiful with other bars and restaurants that handed in their CCTV tapes from the night, but there was no sign or Brian on any of them.

He had not returned to his apartment that night and his car was still parked outside.

His apartment was targeted by robbers a month later.

Police did at one point entertain the idea that he could have changed clothes with the intention of voluntarily walking away from his life, however it is unknown if this was the case. His family argues that his life was good and that he had a bright future ahead of him. He was going to be a doctor and was apparently planning on proposing to his girlfriend, Alexis Waggoner (also a medical student); in Miami on a spring break vacation that he had spent “weeks planning to perfection”. In a TV show about the case, Brian’s girlfriend reveals the content of their last phone call on the night that he went missing. Brian apparently told her (in regards to going out that Friday night) "This is my chance to talk about you with the guys, I love you and I'll see you in a couple of days."

Police did an extensive search along with a K9 unit but nothing turned up. They walked the Olentangy River, searched the sewers and even looked through dumpsters in the area.

Eddie Vedder also pitched in on the hunt to find the missing med student and read out a description of him while holding up the missing flyer at a Pearl Jam show not long after Brian went missing.

“Date of Birth: February 11, 1979, 28 years old Height: 6 feet, 2 inches Weight: 160-165 pounds Eyes: Hazel Tattoo: Upper right arm, Pearl Jam symbol Central Ohio Crime Stoppers: 1-877-645-8477” the poster read. It was widely circulated but other than a homeless man who thought he saw him a week after Brian’s initial disappearance, sadly, nothing came of it.

Brian’s family called his cellphone repeatedly and heartbreakingly every day for the next several months after he went missing. The calls went directly to his voicemail. Strangely, on the 23^rd of September when Brian’s girlfriend called his phone, just as she did routinely each night, it rang. It rang several more time, each time going to voicemail when it wasn’t answered. Either the phone was turned on after several months, or it was a temporary malfunction on the providers end.

Everyone who met with Brian that night, including his own father, took and passed a polygraph test- everyone except Clinton (who refused to do so and lawyered up) and the two women he talked to that night at 1:55AM. Although the women were identified they were never asked to sit a lie detector test as investigators likely did not consider them suspects in Brian’s disappearance.

In an interview, Brian’s brother talked of how Clint spoke of his brother in a negative light after he went missing. This coupled with his resistance to taking a polygraph made people suspicious of his involvement. 

Following the death of Brian’s father a comment was posted beneath his online obituary that read “To dad, love Brian”. The comment was later said to be a cruel hoax.  It was signed from the Virgin Islands, but an IP trace debunked the location.

So what really happened to Brian Shaffer?

What really happened to missing teenager Russell Bohling? Satanic cult at RAF Bempton

On the 2^nd of March, 2010, 18 year old student Russell Bohling left his parents’ house in East Riding, Bempton, Yorkshire, never to be seen again.

According to his parents version of events he left the family home at around 8AM and was dressed slightly smarter than usual in a black Ben Sherman jacket, blue jeans and black training shoes. His car was missing from its parking space outside of the house, indicating he had left in it that day.

Russell was doing a course in bricklaying at the nearby Bishop Burton College at the time, but it has never been confirmed if he was supposed to attend any classes on the day he vanished.

(Source)

When Bohling failed to return home that day, his parents reported him missing.

The following morning the teenager’s Renault Clio was found parked near a Cliffside known as “Bempton cliffs’. The vehicle was discovered by one of the employees working on the nature reserve which was (and still is) ran by the RSPB. Bempton cliffs is often visited by those interesting in observing the puffins on the Cliffside and is nearby an abandoned RAF radar station popular with urban explorers.

A parking ticket was displayed on the window of Russell’s car. The time stamp revealed that the ticket had been purchased at 11:30AM on the day that he went missing. The worker noticed that the vehicle was still parked there at 5PM but thought nothing of it until it next day when it was still there.

Russell Bohling’s parents were suspicious that their son had managed to drive from their home in East Riding to Bempton cliffs without using his debit car to fill up the tank. They informed police that he had only 10GBP in cash and under 4 liters of petrol in his tank on the morning that he disappeared. The cliffs are a 45 minute journey one way and they were confident he didn’t have enough cash on his person or enough petrol in his tank to drive there without once stopping to fill up. Russell’s bank informed investigators that no transactions had been made on his account on the day that he went missing.

Russell’s parents did some investigative work of their own and came to the conclusion that their son would have needed to stop at a gas station, likely in Brandersburton, just under halfway to Bempton. They insisted that he would have nowhere near the amount of money to fill up and fully subscribe to the idea that he was not alone on the trip.
They looked to his SATNAV for clues and discovered that leading up to the day of his disappearance he had taken trips to York, Bradford and Bridlington.

York is around 47 miles from Russell’s home in East Riding. It would take him just under an hour and a half one way. Bradford is around 64 miles and just over an hour and a half by car. Bridlington is the closest to his home, around 20miles away and just a 40 minute drive via the A1. He didn’t tell anyone in his family that he had made these trips. He simply left and returned home without mentioning where he had been.

So what exactly was Russell doing at Bempton cliffs?

The police initially believed that he had traveled there to commit suicide as the cliffs are a suicide hotspot, however a body never washed up onto shore.

A user over at reddit /unresolvedmysteries recounted their visit to RAF Bempton and revealed that there was a steep slope leading down to a quick drop off the side of the cliffs and believe that he could of accidentally fell to his death- but again, no body was ever recovered.

The police had found what is mentioned in many online articles as “a suicide tape” in Russell Bohling’s bedroom. When I first read this I imagined they were talking about a video recording, but it turns out it was an audio recording found on a Dictaphone. On the tape, Russell talks about wanting to be buried in the countryside as he believed that he wasn’t intelligent enough and it upset him. The teenager’s mother claims that the recording was made at a time when Russell was stressed out about his GCSE results. He was supposedly 15 years old when he made the tape. His parents insist that the only reason it exists was due to the stress Russell felt when thinking about his future and that with time and confidence his fears for the future faded.

Russell’s parents had a completely different theory for why their son may have visited Bempton cliffs that day- his interest in the nearby disused RAF radar station. They claim that Russell had a particular interest in the bunker, which is popular with urban explorers and hasn’t been open to the public since the early eighties when it was bought by a private owner.

Apparently Russell carried around a USB stick with pictures of the “pornographic and devilish” graffiti that decorates the walls of the abandoned building.

The bunker, which was in operation from the 1940's, has been the subject of sinister rumors since the seventies. Locals believe it was used by a “Satanic cult” and that sacrifices and rituals were performed. There are no articles (that I can find) that mention anything of the sort going on at the disused bunker, but ask a local and they just may tell tales of a devil-worshipping group having orgies and sacrificing animals. Despite the buildings reputation, most locals are generally aware that the cults never existed. Some will offer that the tales are urban legends conjured up after raves and parties were thrown by students from the nearby university many moons ago. Some say they believe the “cult” was just a bunch of squatters who had to be evicted by police in the seventies.  

This album hosted on FLICKR details the artwork inside and includes diagrams and a layout of the building. There are also numerous blog posts online recording peoples visits.

This is one of the more tame examples, click HERE<< to be taken to a forum to see some of the more explicit pieces. 

The “Satanic graffiti” consists of paintings of naked figures in sheels having orgies. The artwork itself is pretty well done, considering. People with devil horns growing out of their heads with their genitals on display dance around the walls of the bunker surrounded by general graffiti tropes commonly found scrawled on the walls of most abandoned buildings, such as “666”, “this way to hell” and the nicknames of visitors.

An article in a local newspaper reports that Russell didn’t find the images of the graffiti online. Apparently the pictures were copied from a USB stick and pasted in a folder on his desktop. I couldn’t find anything about the whereabouts of the memory stick.

Russell’s father, Roger Bohling, suspects that his son was involved with an unknown person linked to the graffiti in the bunker. I assume he doesn’t believe that a satanic cult sacrificed him, rather that Russell may have been in contact with someone who agreed to go visit the bunker with him, but in reality had sinister ulterior motives.

Russell Bohling had speech disorder that his parents believe made him vulnerable. For example, he would have a hard time voicing disagreement and would instead go along with something that he didn’t necessarily want to do.

So what would someone want from Russell? Why him?

Well, apparently Russell Bohling stood to receive a 300,000GBP windfall from his father to start his own business. An article in the Yorkshire post states that the 300,000GBP would be signed over to Russell in the form of a semi-detached house with which he could do whatever he wanted. Russell has two brothers, Nigel (then 23) and Andrew (then 22) and they too were set to inherit the same amount. Russell was scheduled to receive his windfall as soon as he turned 18, but he was yet to receive the property at the time he went missing. Apparently the 18 year old planned to start his own business. Money is always a likely motive for murder as we often times see people disappear or die under suspicious circumstances shortly after taking out life insurance policies. Surely an outsider  would have nothing to gain from the death of Russell as he hadn’t even received his money.

Russell’s parents rule out their son as a walk-away arguing that if he was to voluntarily disappear he surely would have waited for his 300,000GBP windfall before doing so.

Sea, mountain and air searches for the missing 18 year old turned up nothing. It was if he had simply vanished into thin air. Fire and rescue searched the bunker aided with torches and heat sensitive camera equipment. In 2012 they returned to search once again, this time the Bohling family shelled out over 1000GBP to cover the cost of pulling up the concrete that had been laid to keep out addicts. Still, authorities found no trace of Russell.

His parents believe he is no longer alive. They think the answers to what happened to their son that day are in the USB, that whoever gave him those images had some involvement in his death. Russell had indeed searched about the RAF bunker online before his disappearance but that’s no surprise as he already had the images and the intention to visit.

Now, about Roger Bohling. I was honestly shocked to find out the next piece of information.

Russell’s father, Roger, turned his personal computer in to Humberside Police in what an article in the Yorkshire post describes as “a desperate bid to find his son”.

This gesture did not lead police to the missing 18 year old, but instead lead to the discovery of (then) 57 year old Roger Bohling’s child porn stash.

This collection of images consisted of what has been described as 415 pictures of kids in “erotic poses” as well as 3 images of people “engaging in sexual acts with animals”.

Apparently Roger Bohling did not download the images but obtained them via a memory stick from a relative. He then went on to burn the collection of images onto a CD.

These images were officially classed as “low level” CP and were said to be pictures that may have been of children on vacation.

Roger suffers from a degenerative brain issue due to an accident he had years ago and apparently once informed his family that planned to commit suicide on account of the disease. If Russell knew about this, it would have been an extremely difficult and upsetting thought to deal with.

Russell’s parents claimed that a pair of brown steel toe capped boots were missing from their son’s room. Later, a foot laced up into the same type of boot washed up onto shore. Testing proved that the foot did not belong to Russell.

His parents insisted that a certain pair of shoes their son was wearing on the day he disappeared were found in the family summer home in Ravenscar two years after he vanished.

Russell Bohling has never been found.

The unsolved death of Paula Jean Oberbroeckling

The remains of eighteen year old Paula Jean Oberbroeckling were discovered four months after she had went missing in 1970, near the Cedar River, Otis Road, Southeast Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Paula Jean worked at a department store as well as teaching children with special needs and had recently graduated from high school. 

Paula as a bridesmaid.

(from whathappenedtopaula.com)

Her decomposed body was found bound at the wrists and ankles, clad in the blue night dress that she was wearing when she left her apartment in on July 11^th 1970 earlier that year. 

She was seen for the last time after telling her  friend, Debbie Kellogg (who she shared the apartment with) that she would “Be right back” before getting into Debbie’s car and driving off.

 She took nothing and was barefoot when she was found, but according to friends, she generally went out barefoot if running a local errand.

That night she had been out on a date with her boyfriend, Lonnie Bell. According to Bell they had an argument that evening.

Oberbroeckling had one previously known high school boyfriend, Robert Williams. It was unclear if she was still involved with him in any way.

The abandoned car was discovered two miles from her residence the following day. There was no signs of a struggle and the vehicle seemed to be voluntarily left.

(from whathappenedtopaula.com)

Her family suspects that Bell did not want to continue the relationship. Bell was said to search for Oberbroeckling and check out any lead or tip from the numerous prank calls to the missing girl’s family home- to no avail. The nature of the interviews with Oberbroeckling’s parents suggests that they didn’t like Lonnie Bell although her mother claimed she did.

The local authorities refused to accept the case as a missing person’s case and rudely suggested that the girl had gone to a music festival or took off on a road trip without informing anyone. 

Family and friends refused to entertain the idea, as they knew Paula Jean was very reliable and punctual and would call ahead on the rare occasions that she’d be late- especially when it came to work.

The family contacted local journalists and claimed that none of them were interested in a writing a story on the case.

Advanced decomposition meant that the cause of death was inconclusive. It was possible that Oberbroeckling could have been strangled or poisoned as these methods could not be ruled out at the stage her remains were found in. There was no blood on her dress, no sign of damage from knife or gun. The autopsy did state that there were no broken bones or trauma, but investigators claimed they believed foul play was involved.  

She was found curled around a steel pin in the ground. It is unknown if this was her position at death or if she had lived longer and perished due to the elements. Another theory from the police was that she had been thrown from the top of the road and rolled down the steep hill, hitting the steel pin and ended up concealed in the summer foliage (weather or not this story matches up with the autopsy findings remains to be seen)

The nearby sewage treatment plant would have thrown off any passersby when it came to the scent of human decomposition.

The material used to bind Oberbroeckling’s wrists (behind her back) and ankles was described by the medical examiner performing the autopsy (Earl F. Rose, M.D.)  As “types of flexible material, one having the appearance of plastic clothesline and the other of cording.”

(image source right iowa unsolved murders)

She was 1 month pregnant at the time.

There were local rumors that Paula Jean was the victim of a botched abortion. That she believed having a child would ruin her modeling career. 

Some say she was using drugs heavily and that Lonnie was a dealer and the two got mixed up in something. The truth is, nobody knows.

The cause of death officially states”unknown”.

The case remains unsolved.

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Susan Taylor Chehak has written an e-book about the case.

You can read her blog here. [X]

David Lang- the man who fell into time

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If you’re interested in unsolved mysteries you’ve probably heard of David Lang- “The man who fell into time”.

The story goes; he was walking outside in the garden while his wife and kids watched from the kitchen window, when he suddenly vanished into thin air.

The horrified scream of his Lang’s wife drew the attention of a couple of local men who turned to look at the scene and notice that David was suddenly gone. (some stories report that the two men also disappeared)

Allegedly, all that remained was a circle of darkness tinged with yellow that stayed as a permanent shadow for quite some time- a shadow that could not even be faded by nature or time.

Whether this 1880’s tale had any truth to it was unconfirmed for a long time, but it would eventually come to be known as a hoax, conjured up by the imagination of a man called Joseph M. Mulholland (or Mulhatten) , who was infamous for his fictitious fables.

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Where is Emma Fillipoff?

“Home; the only place I where I don’t know how to be, so deep beneath the surface, I cannot breathe”

 

Emma Fillipoff, described by friends and family as a beautiful, creative and private girl, was only 26 years old when she went missing from Victoria, British Columbia on November 28^th 2012.

A surveillance video from earlier that day shows Emma in a convenience store (7-Eleven), pacing around and cupping her hands around the glass door as she looks outside, as though she is being followed. Despite never owning one before, she purchased a pre-paid cell phone and hesitated before leaving. A little later, Emma Fillipoff got into a taxi, instructing the driver to go to the airport. When the driver asked where she was going she replied that she didn’t know. She then got out of the taxi due to insufficient funds for the fare.

Emma had traveled to Victoria in the autumn of 2011 where she worked a seasonal job at a fish and chip shop named “Red Fish Blue Fish” at 1006 Wharf Street on the Victoria inner harbor. She had a diploma in both culinary arts and photojournalism; her computer contained thousands of photographs.  

(Image: redfishbluefish.com)

Fillipoff had been staying in a women’s shelter, known as the Sandy Merriman House, for nine months before her disappearance. The shelter would later decline providing Fillipoff’s mother with information, as they claimed that it would compromise the confidentiality agreement that they had with their often vulnerable tenants.

Emma left the woman’s shelter at around 6pm and returned to the same 7-Eleven as she had been to earlier in the day, this time to purchase a pre-paid credit card at the value of $200. She acted much in the same paranoid manner before exiting the store.

She was last seen between the times of 7:30pm – 8:30pm in front of the Empress Hotel. According to a witness, Dennis Quay (an acquaintance of Fillipoff, who claimed he had only met her once before) Emma seemed confused. He saw her at a zebra crossing, refusing to cross the street. Quay asked her if she was feeling okay, and asked her if she was being followed, due to her paranoid mannerisms. Fillipoff said she was okay, so not knowing what to do; he entered a near-by restaurant and made a phone call to the police, claiming there was a dazed and distressed woman pacing in front of the Empress hotel. He assumed the police would pick her up, however they didn’t.

Police showed up and found her shoeless. They questioned her for a total of 45 minutes, asking if she felt suicidal or homicidal. She answered no to both questions and said she was going through some things, and was taking a walk before going to stay with a friend. 

They left.

Dennis Quay later took a polygraph test during the investigation and was cleared as a suspect.

 Investigators would find her vehicle the following morning; a red Mazda MPV '93 van, parked at Chateau Victoria parking lot, containing all of Fillipoff’s belongings, including her laptop, rented books and identification items such as her passport and library card.

On the 26^th, Emma had contacted her mother back in her hometown in Ontario, asking if she could come back home. Her mother agreed. Later however, according to an episode of the Canadian show “fifth state” titled “Finding Emma Fillipoff” the missing girl’s mother states Emma called back and told her mother “I don’t know if I can face you”.

After much debate her mother made an unannounced trip to Victoria and headed to the Sandy Meriman house. She arrived three hours after Emma vanished.

The first CCTV footage that investigators found was a clip from a local YMCA five days before Emma went missing. In the clip, she walks in and out through the door six times, peering out through the glass.

Journals and writing by Emma Fillipoff suggested that she was depressed. Police unlocked her lap top and found personal entries talking about her parent’s divorce and feelings. She believed that someone was following her, and admitted that she felt stalked, in one passage mentioning a car that seemed to be tailing her. A letter from “Dead Emma” was also found on the computer; however police did not believe it to be a suicide note, as usually Emma wrote in a similar style, poetically and in prose. 

A man named Julian was another suspect. The two had met back in Ontario, where he fell for Emma, however the feelings were unrequited. He continued to pursue her regardless, with phone calls and showing up to places he knew she would be. He too moved to Victoria some months later and inevitably ran into Emma on the street. He claimed that he did not intend to “Stalk her like he did the last time” and that the meeting was a pure coincidence. He was cleared as a suspect after passing a polygraph.  

The cellphone she had purchased at the 7-eleven was never activated; however there was a purchase of cigarettes was made on the credit-card a week later. An investigation revealed that the card had been used by a homeless man. He claimed that he found the card by the side of the road, 20km from the Empress hotel, but due to his alcoholism was unable to recall exactly where. 

Another lead in the case came from a surveillance tape of a small clothing store showing a man in a green T shirt, clutching a missing poster in his first. The cashier reported that the man seemed angry and said that he was sick of seeing Emma’s missing posters in the area. “She’s not even missing” he exclaimed “She’s my girlfriend and she just hates her parents”.

The man could not be traced.

Emma is still missing.

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EDIT: Found this podcast you guys might be interested in listening to:

The disappearance of James Albert Boyd:

Update- -Solved

White admitted to the crime. 

James “Jim” Albert Boyd was an international trader who traveled the world in search of treasures. He dealt in an array of objects, from rare coins, ivory and art, to gold, guns and Nazi paraphernalia.

A private and solitary man, he kept to himself, living simply in his Florida home- but Boyd’s residence was no ordinary abode, it was a windowless building with very elaborate security system installed.

On the 6^th of February 1987, Jim Boyd walked into a St. Petersburg bank. 

He was scheduled to make a trip to South Africa where he was to meet with a very important entrepreneur and bought travelers cards worth $15000.

He never made it to his meeting in South Africa. 

He disappeared the same day along with his vehicle, a Chevrolet El Camino, and was never seen again.

Several days later the bank alerted local police of suspicious activity on Boyds account. $35,000 had been withdrawn by someone posing as James Boyd using a false I.D.

Authorities made a visit to Boyd’s home to find the front door ajar.

Blood and bullet shells were present in many of the rooms and various rare objects had been taken.

It came to light that there was no South African shipping magnate. The entire business deal had been orchestrated by a man named Steven Wayne White.

White was suspected of planning the murder of James Boyd over a period of several months along with Janina Koziej Meylheux, who was an ex-girlfriend of Boyd. The pair were arrested and found with the missing man’s car, as well as a total of $10,000 in cash and .25 caliber handgun- the same type of gun responsible for the spent bullets found scattered around Boyds property. The two were also found in possession of items from James' collection, valued at around $100,000, which they had stored in a warehouse in Atlanta.

Whites finger prints were lifted from the bathroom and he was charged with the murder.

Meylheux was charged with theft and deported back to France.

White’s defense attorney attempted to convince the court that Boyd had voluntarily walked away, implying that he wanted to undergo gender reassignment surgery and live as a woman with a new identity. It was also revealed that Boyd himself didn’t have a clean record, and had once been convicted of murdering one of his ex-wives lovers.

White was convicted of another murder in 1987- the murder of a missing California based dentist in Santa Ana , named Cedric Horn. He allegedly befriended the victim and stole around $60,000 of the man’s money. Due to White’s tendency to lie, investigators were not entirely sure how he got close to the missing dentist, but linked him to the murder via DNA evidence.

Neither Horn or Boyd’s bodies were ever recovered.

 (Left: Boyd, Right: White) 

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Hang Lee:

Seventeen year old Hang Lee was a quiet girl. She loved to read and was an aspiring writer. She had a distinct style and black hair with dyed red bangs. She was also very petite, standing at 5”0 and weighing 90lbs. Hang attended Highland Park High school in Minnesota, where she was a senior, and lived with her parents, who were both refugees and Laos natives.

One evening, on the 12^th of January 1993, between 6 :00 and 7:00pm, Hang left the family apartment with a friend, 18 year old Kia Lee (Also known as “Nikki” to friends)  

Dressed in her Skid Row T-Shirt, black leather jacket, black jeans and sneakers, she told her brother, Koua, in passing “If I don’t come back, look for me, I don’t trust Kia” and with that she left.

She was never seen again.

Despite language difficulties, Hangs parents were able to file a missing persons report a few days later.

The missing teen had left everything she owned behind, including her college savings and most recent paycheck of $100. She also let behind her bag, in which she usually carried various items for protection, such as a small knife.

Kia was questioned during the investigation into Hang Lees disappearance and changed her story multiple times.

When first questioned she claimed that Hang had left with a group of men, before changing her story and telling police that she had fixed Hang up with a job interview with her employer.

Kia’s employer was a man named Mark Steven Wallace, he was 30 years of age at the time, and he owned a painting and decorating business.

Kia claimed that Wallace was to have dropped Hang Lee off outside of “Wong’s Café”, a place where Hang worked as a cashier, just off Rice Street and Wheelock parkway. The Café still stands there to this day.

The last time Kia claimed to see Hang, was when she herself had been dropped off at a gas station, and watched Hang climb from the back seat into the passenger seat of Wallace's car as he pulled away. According to Kia, Wallace had attempted to take both the girls to a casino that night, but they rejected the offer as it was snowing and they had school the next day.

Wallace had originally been driving a white pick-up, but for reasons unknown had switched to a Chevrolet Cavalier before dropping the girls off.

He was a convicted sex offender; with two violent rapes on his record from the late eighties and was suspected of more. He had gotten out of prison just a year and a half prior to disappearance of Hang. In fact, in one of the crimes he was convicted for, was that he had raped a woman at knife point after offering a ride in his car as she stood at a bus stop, and he had also lured another victim with the promise of a job. This information, and the fact that he was apparently the last person to see Hang alive, made him the prime suspect.

He was never charged with the crime.

Following the accusation he hired an attorney and refused to be cooperative with police during the investigation.

In 2009 Police did finally search Wallace’s old home in search of evidence, including drilling up the concrete garage floor after the three cadaver dogs they brought along showed an interest in the area, but didn’t turn up anything.

The disappearance of Hang Lee is still a mystery to this day.

If you have any information, please do not hesitate to contact the St. Paul Police department on 651-266-5612

Charley Project [ X ]

Missing kids[ X ]

Twincities article [ X ] 

Missing in Nepal:

Aubrey Sacco went missing in Nepal in 2010 during a lone trek through the Himalayas.

A self-described artist, traveler and yogi, Aubrey had been traveling alone through Asia and at the request of her friends and family, kept a record of her adventures in her travel blog.

Her couch surfing profile detailed an extreme case of wanderlust, and a project she had in works- a book she was compiling filled with the love stories of fellow travelers. “Tell me your stories!” she would excitedly ask people she met.

Aubrey set off on her journey across India, Sri Lanka and Nepal after finishing college, where she had earned a degree in art and psychology. She traveled to Nepal to volunteer teaching English, Art and yoga at a school.

She never neglected to keep in touch with her family, be it via video chat or email.

Nearing the end of her adventure, she decided to embark on one last trip; a ten day hike though Langtang, passing through villages that have since been wiped off the map at the hands of a devastating earthquake in 2015.

Before the disaster destroyed Langtang, the trek that Aubrey made was very popular among backpackers and travelers, who would walk along the footpaths from village to village, staying at small hotels each night along the way. The experience was a diverse one, and offered picturesque scenery in the form of lush greenery, snow-capped mountains, rope suspension bridges, local flora and fauna and bamboo forests. Certainly, the Langtang trip was on the list of any nearby traveler.

Despite this trip being traveled safely by many before her, Aubrey Sacco was never seen again.

Some theories suggest that Aubrey fell to her death, or possibly suffered at the hands of the young male soldiers who patrol the area and are known for harassing female travelers along the trek.

 Did Aubrey veer off the beaten path along roads less traveled?

Did she take refuge in one of the many monasteries concealed in the Himalayan Mountains during the countries shut down in 2010 due to the Maoist general strike?

The Socco family took to investigating the case themselves, doing investigators jobs for them. They felt the authorities didn’t care to solve the case and missing signs that they had put up along the trail were torn down, probably to protect tourism and local business.

Aubrey has not been located.

If you have any information on this case, please head over to the website. 

Aubrey's Travel blog [ X ]

Aubrey's website (with updates from her family [ X ]

Aubrey's couchsufring profile [ X ]

"Hiker Alert" safety app (in support of Aubrey) [ X ]

 Sources: Daily camera, aubreysacco.com

Who was Peter Bergmann?

I found out about an unknown man today and decided to write a post on him. The case reminded me of one of the earliest cases that got me into these unsolved mysteries: the Somerton man case, or the Taman shud case, as it is also known. (To read my post on the Somerton man click here << )

Both disposed of, or left behind their person items, both were found on a beach, both men are unidentified and were not found in their country of origin, they had both removed the labels out of their clothing. I'm not saying these cases are related in any way, of course.

 This case also reminded me of Lyle Stevik too, as both men checked into a hotel under an alias with the intention of seeing out their final days. (To read my post on Lyle Stevik click here<< )

Before you read this, there is mention of suicide and death. So please do not continue if this is a difficult subject for you to handle. Please alternatively select another post from the navigation bar above. 

If you are having suicidal thoughts, please contact the one following sources of help:

 [ X ] Samaritans (UK)

 [ X ] Papyrus (UK)

 [ X ] List of Hotlines (USA) 

[ X ] List of Hotlines (International)

On the 12^th of June 2009, at around 6:30pm, a slim, tanned man with short grey hair and a deep Germanic accent in his mid-fifties stepped off a bus at Sligo Mac Diarmada station, in County Sligo Ireland.  

He was wearing a black shoulder bag, similar to a laptop carrier and carrying a larger dark luggage bag.

From there, he took a taxi, destination Sligo city hotel, where he would stay for three nights at a cost of €65 per night, which he paid in cash. He had not pre-booked his stay. He filled out the necessary forms to check in, writing down “Peter Bergmann” as his name and “Ainstettersn 15, 4472 Wien, Austria” as his address.

Peter Bergmann would turn out to be an assumed alias and the provided address was nothing but an empty lot.  The name Bergmann is common in the Netherlands and is German or Swedish in origin.

The next morning, the unknown man dropped in at the post office to purchase a book of stamps as well as some air mail stickers. He wrote letters and dropped them into the post box for delivery.

The letters would never be recovered or tracked.

Throughout the duration of his stay at the hotel, the reception staff noticed that he would go out each time carrying a full plastic purple bag and return without it, or possibly concealing it in a pocket having disposed of its contents each day. They reported that he was constantly going in and out of the hotel.

He spoke very little with anyone around him, and kept to himself, usually just gesturing if he wanted something.

The following day, on June 14^th, he was taken by taxi to Rosses Point beach, after asking the driver to suggest a quiet beach that he could take a swim in. After surveying the location, he got back into the taxi and returned to the bus station.

(picture source here)

The next morning, June 15^th, a little after 1pm, Bergmann checked out of the Sligo city hotel. He no longer carried the dark larger luggage bag that CCTV had captured him wearing when he arrived, indicating that he possibly disposed of it and the contents over the course of his stay. He had with him a shoulder bag, a purple plastic bag as usual, and a black carrier bag. Forty minutes later he was captured on CCTV, eating a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and drinking a cappuccino and examining paper from his pocket before eventually boarding the 2:20pm bus to Rosses Point- the same beach the Taxi driver had taken him to the previous day.

Many beach goers noticed him that day. He was fully clothed, wearing a black leather jacket, and dark trousers rolled up to the knee. He was pacing up and down the beach, ankle deep in water, parallel to the ocean. An older couple described how the golden rays of the setting sun shone down on him as he walked. A twenty something couple greeted him later that night, and reported that he simply nodded to them in reply.

On the early morning of June 16^th, Arthur and Brian Kinsella found the man’s body. They were shocked by their discovery but managed to compose themselves and say a prayer for him before contacting the authorities.

The man had no ID, no possessions and the labels on his clothes had all been removed. Despite extensive searches of the local area, including dump sites, none of his discarded possessions turned up.

The autopsy showed signs of drowning. It also noted that unknown man had both prostate cancer and bone tumors, one previously removed kidney. There were no treatment drugs or pain killers in his system.

   

These stills are from a short film about the case, you can watch it here [X]