Creeps, perms, synths & Robert Stack: the Unsolved Mysteries thread

OG seasons on Amazon Prime & I have been binging the fuck out of season 1... geeked out with some ilxors on ig & fb & figured we needed a dedicated thread

I had only ever watched a few eps, but god this shit is addicting. And well-made: good documentary feel & the re-enactments are not distractingly awful like most re-enactment shows

On camera interviews with irl perps & victim families my favorite thing. Disappearances & murders are my jam. Least favorites: ghosts, treasure, alien abductions, lost inheritances, memorabilia :/

Tell me your favorites!!

Dottie Caylor got me hooked - her husband Jule's on camera was insane. He was so bored & arrogant & dismissive, even of HER

https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/unsolvedmysteries/images/7/73/Jule_Caylor.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170415052642

and i cannot stop thinking about poor sad lonely Gail from Maine who faked her own disappearance & commited suicide in a Mobile AL hotel room

https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/unsolvedmysteries/images/3/38/Gail_DeLano.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170122012853

and I just watched this one

this one is a whole ball of wtf

https://unsolved.com/gallery/michael-rosenblum/

Dottie Caylor for sure.

Also:

Kathy Bonderson
The boys on the tracks
Gail Patrick (a suicide whose story is told with poignancy)
Kurt McFall (Satanic panic!)
Crystal Spencer (one of the most WTF cases)
Beverly McGowan and Elaine Parent (holy fuck -- only in Florida)

and i cannot stop thinking about poor sad lonely Gail from Maine who faked her own disappearance & commited suicide in a Mobile AL hotel room

aw I missed that you had liked the case too

that Kurt McFall case is so intriguing. his father seems like he is in such abject denial; and there's def a gay story btw kurt & the older guy

My theory: the frumpy paganist (who died of AIDS, by the way) made a move, Kurt drove away to the peak, slipped and fell.

Check this out:

http://slopeofhope.com/2013/03/my-youthful-friendship-with-death.html

And this is fascinating:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/5py1qc/what_really_happened_to_kurt_mcfall_died/

i found Jule's Facebook page, he seems to be a boring old Facebook meme guy albeit with a lefty slant.

utah libertarian! he ran for office iirc

xpist wow that reddit thread is a good read. it def feels much more like a slipped & fell than a murder

I just saw the Michaela Garecht abduction in Hayward - sitcomsonline theory is that it may have been creep of creeps Loren Herzog of the Speedfreak Killers

part of me takes it with a grain of salt bcz Wesley Shermantine rivals only Henry Lee Lucas in the race to be the most notorious pathological liar & he's the one who said it was Herzog

but the composite sketch made my blood run cold, the eyes & facial structure look v similar to herzog even later in life

he would have been 18 at the time D:

they dont have any confirmed victims younger thsn teenage, but there's a lot of unconfirmed remains tied to those creeps so who knows

i never knew how much i suuuuuuuuuuuper dont care about psychics until this show

This was on Unsolved Mysteries. It was something I'd referred to on the Stephen King thread, the really brutal murder of my middle school librarian (the nicest lady on the planet iirc) and her husband, just before the beginning of the next school year.

http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Raymond_and_Ruth_Ann_Ritter

I thought the dude was on the lam for a year but it was 3 years, jeez. When you're that age, killers on the run really become these terrifying phantoms. My wife talks about growing up in the San Fernando valley during the time the night stalker was operating. It was horrifying for her.

the theme song is one of the most underrated tv songs OF ALL TIME imo. it really sets the tone and ensures that you're re-pumped with each new episode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnOeIFx3ML8

it's post-john carpenter but pre-goldeneye 64

i like the outro music too

arrested on-camera outfit of choice: head to toe acid wash

i love the reunited family episodes

awesome thread

i grew up watching this

like Veg said, the show has good production value and is well-acted and written as far as these things go.

The producers really had a feel for that tense and gloomy atmosphere

and the best storytellers are often the family & investigators, because they've relived it every day

this has some interesting tidbits

http://mentalfloss.com/article/56073/27-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-unsolved-mysteries

nomar: I remember reading an article about the Ritters in Sassy.

Can we discuss how effective Robert Stack is? At one point he breaks the fourth wall and addresses poor, probably dead Patricia Meehan: "Patricia, you're not in trouble. Your family misses you. Come home." And his lack of affect is devastating.

rosemary, no kidding, i've gotta find that somewhere.

Yeah when they did tbe update on poor Gail he gave very heartfelt condolences to the family to camera

I love Robert Stack - he brings the right level of professional gravitas. It may as well BE elliott ness hosting; that's the seriousness he brings

i dunno how he doesn't go OKAY LOOK FUCK THESE IDIOTS with the stupid psychic segments

I have noticed in S1 that Stack looks even more handsome when he wears dark colored suits

He brings a disturbing blend of (affectlessness and inner turmoil breaking through/pulled back into the white eyes, for a while) to Douglas Sirk's Written On The Wind and Tarnished Angels, teamed with Rock Hudson and Dorothy Malone in both.

So disturbia he still messes up my punctuation, but I'll prob try this show, thanks. What do yall think of John Walsh and America's Most Wanted? I've rarely seen it.

Matter of fact I think the only way I've seen it is as clips in the Mia Zapata/Gits documentary (DVD is amazing).

Walsh channelling his personal tragedy into the show is prob the most interesting aspect for me. Hard for me to view it on the same level as Unsolved Mysteries tho.

plus AMW is hard to watch a lot of; it's depressingly un-varied, unlike unsolved mysteries

america's most wanted is strictly on the escaped criminals tip, Walsh's backstory makes him a more intense figure and justifiably so. Stack brings this Rod Serling like quality to his hosting.

man this show scared the hell out of me as a kid, just hearing the theme still gives me the cold chills. would prob love it now.

I was absolutely loved this as a kid, and was terrified of it at the same time. And I admit, I loved when "The Unexplained" flashed up on screen - I just ate that stuff up. A paranormal-exclusive variant, Sightings, was a weekly tune-in as well.

One case that really stuck in my head for a long time was the man who jumped onto a plane just as it was taking off, held on for several minutes, then fell to his death. He was eventually identified years later - horribly tragic stuff.

A Season 1 episode!

I always liked the reunited family updates.

i dunno how he doesn't go OKAY LOOK FUCK THESE IDIOTS with the stupid psychic segments

― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, July 30, 2017 1

He does in a Season Five segment set in a haunted northern California hotel. Stack, stopping himself from blowing a raspberry, says, 'Now, we and the crew have been here awhile, and we've seen no evidence of ghosts. However..."

Fabulous 90-minute interview w/Robert Stack shot in 1999. His memory is crisp and he doesn't take himself the least bit seriously. Here he tells a story of how Ava Gardner conspired to rob him of the Academy Award in 1957. "She wasn't the most avuncular person..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tLswHlf610

oooooh thx Alfred :D

boy what a great interview, i could listen to him talk forever.

Veg, have you gotten to Wanda Jean Mays yet? Yeesh.

What season is she? I have only just now finished s1

She's the nurse who disappeared w/out a trace on her way to a bus stop. Then in the late '80s these mysterious notes appeared in shopping malls ostensibly written by the killer in broken English.

They are now single story episodes
No host
But interviews are still great quality with sparse, tactfully deployed reenactments

And the theme song is very close to original.

So far, I am sated. Hope the series stays current, so many of these ppl’s cases deserve national attention

One of the exec producers is the cocreator of the original series. So it has legitimacy

I watched the first episode last night and laughed out loud when only 4 minutes in they introduced "Porter Stansbury"...the name was enough but "financial services guy" and "former water-polo teammate"...like, mystery solved!

Watched the great barrington ufo one last night. It was great.

I like this!

The production values are solid, and the lack of a narrator doesn't hiner it.

hinder

Exactly!

Episode 1: Rey
1) I think the hole was already there.
No way he falls vertically through that hole and somehow ends up in a classic deadman prone position.
2) GET ME STANSBERRY.
3) also what if the “note” was maybe just a document to store passwords? feels like a red herring.

Episode 2: Patrice
1) i will stake money on the theory that the husband already had the body at the house the day he changed the locks. & he brought her to the dump site some time after that (and probably visited the dump site more than once). that’s why he had such connection to the bones & wanted them laid out.
2) even if he didn’t kill her at all, he is a diabolical piece of crap for treating his stepson that way. Just awful.

Ep 3House of Horrors
Look I dont want to make light of this awful tragedy but only the Count’s super-rich idiot friends would get a letter saying “Dear Blah; Goodbye Forever I am Going To Be an Undercover Drug Spy for the DEA, love The Count” and they all say “Eh. but of course” Like WTF that letter made the Nigerian Prince scam look like “The Remains of the Day”.

Whole case is so strange & awful... but the story itself seemed eerily lacking in emotion.

Ep4 Alonzo
Man this story fucked me up.
That poor family, being forced to wonder what his last hours were like, and being manipulated by the perpetrators in such a callous way.

That whole town is a closed circle. They know exactly who did it, how, where they kept his body & when to put it where the family would find it. That really is upsetting. Like it’s just so fucked up & cruel, and manipulative.

Also: Excuse me “friends”. you take your black friend to a party in a deeply rural area you have never been to and you all just fuckin BOUNCE?
His friend Robert was right to be pissed because seriously who the fuck does that.

Episode 5: Berskshire UFO

This was so good! the number of sightings by so many different people, and ~groups~ of people is really intriguing

Honestly, I think more sightings should be handled like this. I’m not even a big UFO nut, but just letting people tell their story without voiceover or experts confirming or denying - just let them talk on camera, let the viewers take these stories as they are, that’s where the power is.

Also the lack of newspaper coverage & police reports really made me think about how so many things go undocumented bc the person in charge feels like they are smarter & know better.

But also:

https://images1.houstonpress.com/imager/u/blog/11110182/close_encounters_richard_dreyfuss.jpg

Episode 6 Lena

This is like a southern Gothic murder novel but that it’s so real is just terrifying to me. Those poor sisters, having such a fucked-up Mom. And it’s not like the surviving girl are any more safe; the more they dig in their heels & stand up to her, the more they put themselves in harm’s way. They know that; going on this show is just pure bravery.

All of it is so unbelievable. That a family could be dragged through so many horrors.

Having Lena help scatter Gary’s remains...just fucking stunned. Talk about depravity of a parent. Not even parenting at that point, just pure self-preservation. Making her daughter an accomplice & she’s what, 13? My god.

And when the other sister told that story of being taken out in the truck & her stepdad pointing the gun at her, I cried. What a total betrayal, as a parent conspiring to do that to her own child.

And god only knows what kind of poisonous lies Sandy is feeding to that poor boy now. Killing her own daughter & then for all intents & purposes stealing her child.

I cannot even

Oh and here’s the Salem News investigative story about Lena https://www.thesalemnewsonline.com/news/article_5c50244a-da37-11e5-9200-33fc9d2ba192.html

Literally just finished Lena episode one minute ago

Fucccccck
God dammit

Brandi and robin are heroic

completely

Just watched all of these. Some of the policework seems a little lackadaisical to say the least. In the first one where he speculates whether the guy could have jumped that far from the roof, idk maybe try and work it out, it's not that hard. And did they examine debris in the room to see if it was caused by him falling through or not? Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, would be nice to know. Seems even worse in the case of Lena: two missing person cases, one if not both of them probably murder with a prime suspect and they seemingly don't bother to forensically examine either of her properties? And what's all the stuff about people "lawyering up"? Can they not be interviewed anyway - is it a crime to refuse to cooperate in a murder investigation?

🚨season 2 now up on Netfllix🚨

😃

:D

there’s an episode about ghost sightings from the 2011 tsunami in japan & man, it is so haunting & sad

oh man i have read about that case
too sad

welp i finished the whole season LOL

ama?

are there still idiot cops

yes!

will watch

the norwegian investigator dude in the oslo hotel suicide episode has to be a cousin of lars ulrich's, there's no way he's not

lol

first one, sad story but not much mystery.

second one, lot of reaching going on here.

watching the original series, a little way into s2

in the roswell incident section, the group of folks who allegedly found the alien bodies -- a soil scientist and a team fresh from a local archeological dig -- are mostly kitted out with pith helmets, a detail that seems to be pure goofy invention (they say these ppl have never been tracked down identified or interviewed)

also i watched an eye-rollingly boring section on the wooden crucified jesus in a philadelphia church that may or may have closed its eyes (it as not declared an official miracle)

reminds me of the icon that is supposedly hanging on the wall of a church somewhere without any actual physical means of support. of course you can't actually look behind it.

the truth is back there

actor playing rudolf hess wearing immense stick-on black bushy eyebrows

My intro to the dude.

i guess the story is abt doubles so maybe this is realism and the guy pretending to be rudolf hess also wore fake eyebrows

section on crop circles lol

"circle investigator/dowser" uh-huh

(i was interrupted watching this bit yesterday)

"you just can't believe it"

you're a dowser!!

strand on reincarnation:

"i don't buy the reincarnation but she has some kind of power, some power of knowing what happened in the past. i don't know what the power would be but she has it"

"under ordinary circumstances we would not film a recreation of the murder of a united states senator"

ok so this lady's "supernatural power" is sticking gold foil to her face

who am i to scoff

"here we have something which is a medical marvel"

watching a segment on amelia earhart: typed "was amelia earhart — " into google for an update on whether or not a body was ever found at which point google offered me two completed questions

i: "was amelia earhart a lesbian?"
ii: "was amelia earhart eaten by crabs?"

unsolved mysteries answers neither of these qeries

john wilkes booth yet lives

the actor playing the corpse has a very fake mustache

Just watched that one a couple of weeks ago, ha

alamo edn, but it's abt buried treasure in an old well and whether or not davey crockett (= king of the wild frontier) surrendered

update: there was no buried treasure

The Mary Ellen Perez case gets me: single mom in Carter-era America goes to bar in Louisiana, gets kidnapped by man + wife who both come on to her, probably kill her.

*Mary Ann Perez