10 Unsolved Celebrity Deaths That Still Haunt Us Today

Unfortunately, some celebrities were taken from us all too soon. There are plenty of actors and other celebrities whose deaths are still unexplained years later. Some are homicide cases where all the trails have gone cold, while others have plenty of evidence that points to a certain suspect but not enough to make a conviction. A few may not have been murdered at all –- though we can never know for sure.

These celebrities come from all walks of life: Actors and music artists, models and journalists, Oscar winners and Oscar campaigners. There's even an actress whose death may possibly be connected to a star of "The Sopranos." Whether these deaths remain a mystery due to a lack of witnesses, a botched investigation, or a cover-up, we will probably never know how these celebrities died. Still, if you want to put on your true crime hat, let's explore these 10 unsolved celebrity deaths.

You probably know the story: The actress and model was found dead in her bedroom, still holding the receiver of her phone. The official explanation for Marilyn Monroe's death was either suicide or an accidental overdose of barbiturates. But given that Robert Kennedy had met with Monroe the day of her death, and Monroe was likely in a sexual relationship with him (and possibly John F. Kennedy), it's easy to see why many people suspect murder. Witness accounts and recordings from hidden microphones indicate that Monroe was upset that Robert Kennedy was trying to cut ties with her and threatened to reveal their affair to the public, which makes her death even more suspicious.

Curiously, some reports say that an ambulance was dispatched after Monroe was already proclaimed dead. Others say that Monroe was still alive when the ambulance arrived and she died on the way to the hospital. Observers have pointed out it's strange that drugs were detected in Monroe's blood but no pill residue was discovered in her stomach. Some witnesses claim Peter Lawford (JFK's brother-in-law at the time), destroyed a note that Monroe had left behind after her death, though it's unclear if the note in question was evidence that she was murdered or was simply proof that she'd had an affair with one of the Kennedys. 

Marilyn Monroe biographer James Spada believes that all the suspicious occurrences surrounding her death were the Kennedys covering up her relationship with them, not covering up her murder. Exactly how she died, however, we will probably never know.

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The death of "Superman" actor George Reeves is still a mystery. Reeves was found naked on his bed with a fatal gunshot wound and a gun at his feet. At a glance, it would seem like suicide, and that was what police quickly concluded. However, those close to Reeves find it hard to believe he would've been suicidal. Besides, some details of the case make no sense.

The position of the shell-casings found at the scene of the crime did not necessarily indicate Reeves shot himself in the head. As well, police found two gunshot holes in the floor, despite witnesses saying they heard only one shot. His fiancée, Leonore Lemmon, claimed it was from an accidental discharge days earlier, an explanation that seems awfully convenient. Equally convenient is Lemmon's decision to leave town soon after her fiancé's death, using money that Reeves had reportedly set aside for a honeymoon.

Of course, another theory is that Toni Mannix, a former lover of Reeves still upset he left her for Lemmon, had Reeves murdered with the help of her husband, who reputedly had connections to the mob. One Hollywood publicist claims that he overheard Mannix confessing to her priest that she ordered the killing of Reeves.

Strangest of all, according to the guests who were there that night (via The Guardian), is that Lemmon seemingly predicted what Reeves would do. After Reeves had gone upstairs, Lemmon declared, "He is going to shoot himself." When the guests heard a noise upstairs that sounded like a bedside drawer opening, she added, "He is getting the gun out now and he is going to shoot himself." That was when the fatal shot rang out.

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Musician (and former member of the Rolling Stones) Brian Jones was found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool, thus joining the 27 Club. Officially, it was ruled "death by misadventure," with authorities speculating he drowned under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The autopsy revealed an enlarged liver and his friends recalled him taking sleeping pills – both of which certainly point to a drug-induced accident.

The police report said only three other people were present when he died -– his girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, his friend Janet Lawson, and a contractor named Frank Thorogood who was renovating the musician's home. However, some accounts say there were at least a few other people present. According to some reports, Jones had fired Thorogood and his colleagues the previous day, yet the contractor and his friends were still on the musician's property even after their termination. This, combined with rumors of a pay dispute, suggests that Thorogood had a motive for murder. Meanwhile, Lawson later recalled that Thorogood was acting strange and speculated that perhaps he played too rough with Jones in the pool, not realizing the guitarist was drowning until it was too late.

Thorogood was found to be carrying illegal drugs and was likely supplying them to Jones, but this information was withheld from the coroner and the police chose not to press drug charges. There is evidence to suggest that the police failed to pursue some obvious leads in the investigation and even received orders from their superiors to abandon manslaughter charges, sparking theories of a possible cover-up.

One of the biggest unsolved celebrity deaths is the murder of hip-hop artist Christopher Wallace (aka The Notorious B.I.G, aka Biggie Smalls). As Smalls was leaving the Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles, the killer pulled up in a vehicle and shot him. His killing came only six months on the heels of the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. And many believe the former was retaliation for the latter.

There is no shortage of theories about his death. Maybe the murder was fueled by the rivalry between hip-hop record companies Death Row Records and Bad Boy Entertainment. It's rumored that Marion "Suge" Knight of Death Row blamed Biggie of Bad Boy for the murder of Tupac Shakur. Another theory posits that a couple of Los Angeles cops arranged the killing and the rest of the Los Angeles Police Department tried to cover it up. After all, there is a lot of evidence to suggest the police were not investigating all possible leads and were perhaps even turning a blind eye. 

Maybe it was a combination of these, according to Phil Carson, a retired FBI agent who has worked the case. Carson believes that a man named Amir Muhammad carried out the murder on the orders of Knight and with the aid of corrupt cops. Of course, Smalls may not have even been the intended target.

Funnily enough, Detective Russell Poole died under sudden circumstances while trying to investigate the rapper's death. Officially, his cause of death was a heart attack, but some suspect Poole was murdered.

Barbara Colby is best known as an actress who guest-starred on "Columbo" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." In 1975, Colby and her friend James Kiernan had just left an acting class and were hanging out in the parking lot when they were both shot, with Colby dying instantly. Kiernan was still alive when he was taken to the hospital, and he managed to give a description of the attackers before succumbing to his wounds in the hospital. According to Kiernan, the killers had approached in a van and then immediately started firing. Yet these men (whom Kiernan didn't recognize) made no attempt to rob Colby or Kiernan, which makes their murder even more mysterious.

Strangely enough, there were multiple other similar crimes happening in the same region of Los Angeles, all within the same hour that night. One Santa Monica woman named Gloria Witte had been murdered after she tried to flee during an attempted robbery. Several others in the same area were threatened or robbed that night, and witnesses recall the attackers fleeing in a van. But it's unclear if the crimes were connected, especially since Colby's killer didn't seem interested in money or any of her possessions. Authorities later arrested the youths who killed Witte, but they could find no link to Colby's murder.

Christa Helm was an actress who had gotten small roles in films and shows in the 1970s like "Wonder Woman" and "Let's Go for Broke." Helm was attempting to visit the home of music agent Sandy Smith late at night when she was stabbed outside his home and left to die under a parked car.

There are plenty of theories about Helm's death, but no solid answers. Helm was known to have kept a "sex diary" of her relationships with various high-profile celebrities, including Warren Beatty and the Shah of Iran, and it went missing after the murder. Plenty of folks could have wanted her dead to stop her from sharing the contents of that diary. Some investigators also wonder if her killing might have been connected to other murders, including a murder that happened the same night five miles away and one that had happened on that same day exactly one year earlier.

Another suspect was Tony Sirico, an actor with a criminal record who was rumored to have mob ties and would later go on to portray a mobster in "The Sopranos." Reportedly, Sirico went to Helm's apartment after her death and left with several of her belongings, including some of her sex tapes. Of course, authorities have speculated that Sirico was not involved in the murder and that Helm's friend Lennie Barin had simply sent Sirico to safely remove her sex tapes and any of her personal belongings that might sully her memory if they were leaked to the tabloids.

Jill Dando was a British TV journalist who hosted several BBC news shows as well as "Crimewatch." In a shocking turn of events, she was shot in broad daylight on her front doorstep on April 26, 1999. The public was eager to help solve the murder, with about 2,000 people calling with possible tip-offs, yet authorities got no closer to finding the culprit.

At first, police arrested Barry George, a man who lived nearby and seemed to have gunshot residue on his coat linking him to the crime scene. However, after spending eight years in prison, George was released, on the grounds that the evidence may not have been sufficient. Critics believe that the investigation wasted precious time and resources pursuing George, and many people are calling to reopen the investigation.

Given how little is actually known for certain about her death, there are all sorts of possible explanations for her murder. Was it a stalker obsessed with her? A Serbian hitman retaliating against Dando after she covered the Kosovo War and advocated on behalf of Kosovan refugees? A criminal who had been arrested after Dando asked the public for tip-offs on "Crimewatch"? Her brother Nigel Dando has his own theory. He told BBC that he suspected the murder wasn't premeditated, but instead was just committed by a passerby who happened to recognize her and, as Nigel phrased it, "perhaps thought he or she could get five minutes of notoriety by shooting her."

After surviving the Cambodian Genocide, Haing S. Ngor fled to the United States. Later, he won an Oscar for portraying a character who survived that same genocide in "The Killing Fields" (one of the best war movies of all time). As well, he used his celebrity to raise awareness of the atrocities that had been committed by the Khmer Rouge. Yet in 1996, Ngor was brutally murdered as he was stepping outside his car. The police arrested the culprits who likely pulled the trigger: Three teenagers who belonged to the gang Oriental Lazy Boyz. However, many suspect that Cambodian dictator Pol Pot ordered his murder.

Initially, authorities assumed it was nothing more than a robbery gone wrong. Yet the gang members took only his watch and a gold locket that held a picture of Ngor's late wife, not bothering to take his money or his expensive Mercedes. Furthermore, witnesses recalled the killers driving away almost immediately, which sounds more like an assassination than a robbery. What's more, at least one insider in the Khmer Rouge regime claims it was a hit. When prison warden Comrade Duch was called to the stands during a 2009 tribunal examining the war crimes of the Khmer Rouge, he declared that Pol Pot had arranged the assassination.

However, some historians are skeptical that the Khmer Rouge had such a long reach. And even after the tribunal, the FBI said they had no intentions of reopening the case. Instead, authorities continued to insist that this crime was an isolated incident with no connection to the Khmer Rouge.

Ronni Chasen was a Hollywood publicist who helped orchestrate several successful Oscar campaigns, including "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King." Chasen was driving through Beverly Hills when someone fired shots into her car, ultimately killing her. The Beverly Hills Police Department (BHPD) soon concluded that it had been a botched robbery committed by a man named Harold Martin Smith, whom they claim acted alone.

Yet some things don't add up. Some critics, including documentarian Ryan Katzenbach, have accused the BHPD of botching the investigation or even withholding key information. Looking back, the ballistics tests that the police used to identify Smith were not conclusive proof that he had done it. The police claimed his motive was that he was desperate for cash, but the notion that Smith would travel several miles out of his way to a Beverly Hills neighborhood looking for a potential target, and then manage to leave the crime scene without being noticed by anyone, seems extremely implausible –- especially since police claim Smith somehow did all this on a bicycle. 

The only thing linking Smith to the murder was a tip from his neighbor, who recalled the suspect saying that he had to collect his bike from where he left it in Beverly Hills. And since Smith died, allegedly shooting himself when the police approached him for questioning, we will never hear his account of events.

In 1981, "West Side Story" star Natalie Wood died while her newest movie was still in production. She was last seen on a boat with her husband, Robert Wagner, and her friend Christopher Walken. The police initially assumed it was an accident, concluding that Wood (who couldn't swim) had fallen into the water and drowned. However, witnesses recalled a heated argument between Wagner and Walken in which the former accused the latter of having an affair with Wood. And Wagner only alerted authorities at 1:30 a.m., more than an hour after his wife had likely gone missing and more than two hours after witnesses on a nearby boat heard cries for help.

What's more, a closer examination of the autopsy report reveals tragic things about Natalie Wood's death. The bruises on her body certainly suggest she was assaulted. In fact, the bruises on the actor's legs would have only made sense if she had been pushed or held down. An intern at the L.A. Coroner's Office at the time believed the authorities didn't pay attention to these bruises or might have tried to cover them up.

Perhaps most damningly, Natalie's sister Lana Wood told CBS that captain Dennis Davern, who had been on the boat that night, phoned her more than a decade after the murder with a crucial story he hadn't disclosed before. Davern reportedly saw Wagner shove his wife so hard she accidentally fell overboard –- and that Wagner had refused to help her out of the water, hoping to "teach her a lesson." There's an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest foul play, but not enough to convict anyone, meaning this celebrity death will still haunt us even decades later.