20 Best Unsolved Mysteries Episodes

"For every mystery, someone, somewhere knows the truth. Perhaps that someone is watching. Perhaps it's you."

This invitation from trenchcoat-clad "Unsolved Mysteries" host Robert Stack cast a spell on audiences for decades. An infamous, entrancing theme song and a dark, ominous setting for the openers helped, too. What started as a series of NBC TV specials in 1987 became a full-fledged series a year later. Stack presented four or more tales per episode, diving into unsolved murders, missing person cases, wanted criminals at large, conspiracy theories, hauntings, UFO sightings, unexplained phenomena, and even reuniting long-lost family members.

The landmark show by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer, which moved channels several times, was later hosted by Dennis Farina, Raymond Burr, and Karl Malden. It was revived at Netflix (sans host) in 2020. It has profiled over 1,300 mysteries, and, thanks to tips from viewers, solved 260 of them, even exonerating seven wrongly accused people. It spawned a podcast and even a line of merch. Meurer told the L.A. Times that "the beauty of the franchise is that there's something for everyone."

However, some episodes stand out more than others, and through chilling re-enactments using local actors and even real people involved with the mystery itself, some are loaded with the best of everything for everyone. We present to you the best of the best: the 20 best "Unsolved Mysteries" episodes.

Robert Stack leads with super-spooky haunted stories aboard a decommissioned 1930s ocean liner nicknamed the "Grey Ghost." The ship is docked in Long Beach, California, and has been turned into a tourist attraction (and a well-used filming location). Visitors and employees of the ship claimed to have witnessed strange phenomena on the ship: ghostly coffee drinkers, swimmers in monochrome, and strange noises in the hull. As Stack said, "Whatever the explanation, the 'Queen Mary' seems to be inhabited by something ethereal that has been seen and heard, but not explained." The show sent paranormal experts in to investigate. 

Later in the episode, they sought out the whereabouts of Joe Shepherd, a man wanted in the murders of teenagers Roxanne Woodson and Kathy Clowers. He had actually been caught, but escaped, and was on the run for 10 years until he was spotted by viewers and sent back to jail.

Another missing person case presented was that of a lonely woman from Wiscasset, Maine, who found that the bucolic "vacation paradise was a prison." Gail DeLano went missing after seeking companionship through personal ads. "Unsolved Mysteries" viewers helped wrap up this one: in a sad and shocking twist, she staged her own disappearance and took her life in an Alabama hotel.

In this episode, Stack and Unsolved Mysteries shed new light on "one of the most baffling cases of this [the 20th] century." In 1971, a man who went by the alias Dan Cooper hijacked a plane and held its passengers for ransom at a Seattle airport. Once he received his demands—$200,000—he forced the plane to take off, then parachuted from the back and into infamy. FBI Agent Ralph Himmelsbach speculated that Cooper "may have lost his life," adding that "none of the money, not one bill has ever turned up in circulation." In 2016, the FBI closed the case.

The episode also delved into the unexplained deaths of Arkansas best friends Don Henry and Kevin Ives, which left their parents reeling for answers. The two teens reportedly smoked "20 marijuana cigarettes," laid motionless on a railroad track, and were killed when an approaching train couldn't stop. Their deaths were initially ruled suicides, but signs pointed to foul play. In 2018, a former wrestler came forward to admit he witnessed their murder, which came about over a drug money dispute.

Lastly, the episode touched on Dennis Walker, who became a big-time sports memorabilia collector with many investors aiding his pursuits. When authorities accused him of fraud, he packed up his assets and disappeared with them. Sixteen months later, Walker was found dead in Las Vegas. Most of his collection was never seen again, although his Babe Ruth uniform did resurface... only to go missing once more.

Founded in 1704, The General Wayne Inn in Pennsylvania has some guests who never checked out. Hessian mercenaries are said to haunt the inn, with the manager asserting that they "have no other place to go, and they might as well have a little fun." The Inn has since been inhabited by a different spiritual entity, becoming The Chabad Center for Jewish Life at the General Wayne Inn.

Gretchen Burford was an attorney who "fell victim to the same type of street criminal she once vigorously defended." One night she was abducted and stabbed to death. The killer fled but left behind a paisley hat. Flash forward 20 years later, and DNA from that hat matched that of Tyrone Hamel, who was already serving time.

In the previous episode, the show examined the Son of San murders that gripped New York City in the summer of 1976, and how David Berkowitz may have not acted alone. This episode includes a follow-up examination of journalist Maury Terry's theory that Berkowitz and neighbors John and Michael Carr were a part of a satanic cult that carried out the murders. Both Carr brothers died under mysterious circumstances. 

A Mississippian millionaire's wife, Annie Laurie Hearin, was kidnapped and the ransom required her husband to pay off 12 people. One of them, Newton Alfred Winn, turned out to be the perpetrator. He was convicted of conspiracy to kidnap, extortion, and perjury. Sadly, Mrs. Hearin's body was never found.

For a special 90-minute episode, Robert Stack held court at Alcatraz prison, which "stands in the middle of San Francisco's icy cold bay, a treacherous moat that was the best guarantee that nobody would successfully escape. And nobody did until June the 11th, 1962."

The show treated viewers to a brief overview of The Rock's history and some of its more notorious inhabitants, but attention quickly turned to escapes. Stack mentioned that 14 failed, "10 men died, and all the rest were captured, except three." The three men were Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin. Aided by tools and intel from other inmates, including previous escapee Clarence Carnes, the three masterminded the impossible. Over nine long months, they plotted, leaving dummy heads in their beds while they quietly dug out the rear of their cells. They eventually escaped from the roof and "saw the moon for the first time in decades." With prison-made rafts and life preservers in hand, they jumped into the 54-degree water and were free.

The following day, the manhunt was on, but the only items found were remnants of their raft and some personal effects. Most believe they died at sea, but the episode gave credence to tales and theories of them surviving. "Unsolved Mysteries" tried to replicate their two possible escape options, reaching shore on a similar makeshift raft, and then tapping "Escape from the Rock" triathlete Dave Horning to attempt the frigid swim. Their results showed it was possible.

In the second season premiere, Stack roamed the "Unsolved Mysteries" phone banks, telling us that 34 cases profiled on the show had been solved, including that of a child molester who'd been on the run for 3 years, Charles Mule.

The episode then pivoted to American helicopter pilot Jim Meade Jr., who was shot down three times in Vietnam. His final crash fractured his skull, shattered his legs, and left him in a coma. As his father said, his body was "tore all to hell." Recovery looked impossible, but thanks to a caring nurse, he was soon on the mend. The nurse left the army before he walked again. He'd long wanted to see her and thank her. Karen Stephens Nelson happened to be watching the episode and they were reunited, which she said "will stand out as one of the most exciting days of my life."

Later, the episode told the tale of a New Mexican rancher, who, in 1947, stumbled upon the remnants of a mysterious craft. This marked "the most astounding discovery of the century." When the military got involved, they initially confirmed the findings were not of this earth, but later backtracked, claiming it was a downed Army weather balloon. The government may have concealed what actually happened near Roswell, but both civilian and military eyewitnesses have worked hard to uncover the truth. In recent years, the Pentagon has admitted to testing UFO wreckage material, which may include that from the Roswell site.

Cindy Anderson was plagued by vivid dreams of being murdered. In reality, creepy personalized graffiti and frightening phone calls disturbed her. Shockingly, her worst nightmares may have come true, as she disappeared. Her body was never found and the case remains unresolved, but "authorities suspect Cindy was murdered after she overheard incriminating comments from a ring of drug traffickers."

Fifteen members of an always-punctual choir group all happened to be tardy for a night of practice on March 1, 1950. The excuses ran from homework to a stalled car to being glued to a radio broadcast. Luckily, all of these heavenly singers avoided the accidental explosion of the West End Baptist Church. Stack said, "to some, it was simply a remarkable coincidence, but others believe it was a careful design of a greater power." The Beatrice, Nebraska church has since been rebuilt, and the congregation continues to grow.

A student at Brandeis traded in her books to become a crook in 1970. Katherine Ann Power and some revolutionary associates robbed a bank, leaving a police officer dead upon their escape. Everyone was eventually apprehended except for her. After years on the lam, she surrendered to police in 1993 and served time. She now embraces peaceful activism.

In the final segment, three ATV riders in Tennessee turned up dead in what one authority called the "most brutal, uncalled-for murders ever." The 1988 case remained cold for almost a decade before Frank Casteel was caught and convicted. He eventually died in prison.

Due to renewed interest in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968 based on reporter Dan Moldea's findings, "Unsolved Mysteries" fanned the conspiratorial flames. Moldea had interviewed eyewitnesses and agents of the law. Inconsistent reports of bullet counts led him to believe that Sirhan Sirhan did not act alone. Years later, Moldea debunked his own theory. Moldea said, "As long as people like me continued to put forth supposed new evidence, he [Sirhan] still had a chance to experience freedom."

In one of the most memorable segments in the history of the show, the murdered Teresita Basa appeared as a spirit to one of her coworkers. She also later possessed her coworker's body to help point the way to her killer. Basa apparently relayed the information that her killer gave her jewelry to his girlfriend. When this proved true, it provided the evidential link to charge Allan Showery with the crime. Showery's attorney said, "Police have never before been informed of a criminal's name by a voice from the grave."

In yet another case of a wounded Vietnam veteran seeking out the nurse who helped him, Jim Baczkowski was finally reunited with Linda Sharp Caldwell. Caldwell didn't realize what an impact she had on his life, and the reunion represented for Baczkowski the "final step" in his healing.

The episode closed with a brutal multiple-homicide at a Las Cruces, New Mexico bowling alley, with the murderers still at large.

Teen Kari Lynn Nixon disappeared without a trace, but hope arrived in the form of a New Kids on the Block concert video, which appeared to have an audience member who looked like her. The New Kids themselves offered a plea, telling her or anyone else with information to come forward. The update at the end sadly confirmed it wasn't her: Kari Lynn Nixon was actually raped and murdered by Robert Anthony Jones, who eventually led authorities to her remains.

Most accept that aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were lost at sea during their 1937 attempt to fly around the world. Some believe the two were actually captured by the Japanese, held as prisoners on Saipan, and then executed. When the U.S. military took control of the island in 1944, one soldier recalled seeing Earhart's plane in a hangar, which was then burned. Another soldier claimed to have found her papers in a safe. The show even tracked down an islander native who claimed to have seen her execution, which led to an excavation that recovered a blindfold. Stack closed the segment by saying that Earhart is "a hero suspended in time at the apex of an unsolved mystery."

The episode covered two other wanted cases. In the first, a jealous ex murdered his former girlfriend's parents and almost her and her brother, went on the run, found a job as a waiter, and ended up being caught by a detective whom he was serving. The other covered a large FBI sting operation of Colombian drug cartels in Florida. The op resulted in 93 indictments, but some perps are still on the run, including Jesus Penalver.

On the 25th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination by James Earl Ray, "Unsolved Mysteries" opens up the possibility of a conspiracy at work. Ray was a petty crook and poor shot, and after initially pleading guilty, he long maintained his innocence. Ray pointed to a mysterious associate named "Raoul" who gave him odd jobs in exchange for money and travel documents. The two crisscrossed America before landing in Memphis on that fateful day. Was it a government conspiracy or just a lone gunman doing the unthinkable? King's own family believed in Ray's innocence, even if no evidence proved otherwise.

Later, the episode delved into Harry A. Young, who died at war. When the time came to collect his benefits, two women attempted to claim them — his legal wife and a second woman, who gave birth to his daughter. This family secret was kept from all of Young's children. Thanks to the show, the half-siblings met.

Long before he was an Oscar-winning actor, Matthew McConaughey made his screen debut as "the guy who got shot while mowing [the] grass." That guy was Larry Dickens, who was attempting to stop Edward Harold Bell from exposing himself to children. Bell murdered Dickens and remained on the run for 16 years. Thanks to McConaughey's work, he was caught in Panama City, and later died in prison.

Robert Stack introduced the 1947 murder of actress/prostitute Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, as "one of the most celebrated murder investigations in American history." Her body was sexually mutilated, severed in half, gutted, and drained of blood. Some theorize that Short's killer was the Cleveland torso murderer (covered in Episode 19 of Season 3). When the killings in Cleveland stopped, they started up in Los Angeles, with a similar M.O. While Cleveland PD investigator Eliot Ness had a suspect in mind for the torso slayer, that killer and the Dahlia's remain unknown.

Sixteen-year-old Brenda Merrill was left in charge of her siblings while her mother went off to earn a living. Eventually, Brenda and her brothers and sisters were all separated from one another and sent to live with foster families. Thanks to the show, Brenda and two of her siblings were able to reunite with the others they hadn't seen in 30 years in "the best Christmas gift."

Seth Bullock was a lawman who brought order to Deadwood, South Dakota. He founded his own hotel in 1895 and later haunted its halls. He also apparently warned English psychic Sandy Bullock (no relation) of upcoming trouble in modern-day Deadwood. Robert Stack left it as a wait-and-see possibility. We're still waiting.

In the final segment, Dede Rosenthal went missing, with one barkeep claiming she twice saw someone who resembled her. Alas, it was not her, as Rosenthal was murdered by the maintenance man of her apartment building, Charles Reddish. Her body was never found.

Don Decker was incarcerated but allowed a furlough to attend his grandfather's funeral. Decker had been abused by his grandfather. After the funeral, strange things occurred. Decker would fall into trance-like states and rain would appear indoors, with water falling from the ceiling and dripping down the walls. Nine eyewitnesses saw this occur on multiple occasions. An eventual exorcism by a prison chaplain put an end to "rain boy." One skeptic recently opined, "it is beyond belief that no one took photos."

Michael Hunter went for a night motorcycle ride and later collapsed at a gas station, with three gunshots leaving him dead. Police theorize robbery was a motive, but the case remains unsolved.

A man by the name of Tom Hughes arrived at a hospital in cardiac arrest and died. It turned out that wasn't his name. The show theorized that this man was a habitual malingerer in it for the pain pills who always skipped out before the bill came. The show's update told us the man was Thomas Patrick White, who may have suffered from Munchausen syndrome, where a healthy person seeks constant medical attention. 

Irene Love found out that her parents weren't actually her birth parents and that her childhood best friend Dolores was actually her sister. By the time she knew all of this, Dolores and their parents had moved away. Irene has felt "an emptiness [...] inside," and still hopes to be reunited with Dolores.

Frank Hansen came into possession of a sideshow attraction that left ticket buyers and scientists both curious and baffled: a half-man, half-ape–like creature encased in a block of ice. Known as the Minnesota Iceman, Hansen toured his oddity around the country at carnivals and state fairs. When police became curious if it was actually a cadaver, he swapped it out with a replica. The whereabouts of the Iceman were unknown at the time of taping, but it has found a new home at Austin, Texas' Museum of the Weird.

Tom and Brendan Vaughn (no relation) were once inseparable, growing up together at a Catholic children's home... until they went off to live with new families. Tom had been looking for Brendan ever since, and thanks to the show, the pair were reunited.

The CIA has had a checkered past of abuse and experimentation. In the case of germ warfare scientist Frank Olson, the agency dosed him with LSD without his knowledge. Ten days later, he reportedly committed suicide by jumping out of a New York City hotel window. The Olson family didn't buy the explanation and suspected foul play to keep their father from exposing greater truths. This story was later explored at great length in Errol Morris' 2017 docuseries "Wormwood."

Abusive husband Larry Donald George, who killed two of his neighbors and paralyzed his wife, was finally caught thanks to viewers. He is currently on death row in Alabama.

In one incredible episode, we are treated to stories of near-death experiences and contact from beyond the grave.

Dannion Brinkley was struck by lightning and saw his entire life flash before him. This included every person he had ever wronged. He returned to the world of the living wanting to be a better man. He had also received visions from 13 beings about future events, like the election of Ronald Reagan and the fall of the Soviet Union. Brinkley wrote about his experiences in "Saved by the Light," and even used his gift to solve a murder mystery.

Karen Walker and her parents thought they'd always be together. When Karen died of cancer, according to her parents and fiancé, she contacted them from beyond to let them know that everything was OK, even helping her mother Jeanne write the book "Always, Karen."

A little Georgian girl by the name of Heidi Wyrick could communicate with the dead, namely two friendly local men, James Gordy and Lon Batchelor. However, there were also unfriendly spirits, who apparently clawed both Heidi and her father in the middle of the night. She has had her story turned into a book and a movie. She still has visions to this day.

The Circleville Letters were sharply penned threats that began in 1976. They led to one person's murder, and almost another's by a booby-trapped gun. The would-be victim's former brother-in-law was sent to prison for the crimes. The writer's poisonous pen even tried to dissuade the "Unsolved Mysteries" from doing a story, to which Robert Stack said, "It's not often we became a part of a story we're investigating, but in this case it didn't come as a total surprise."

In a case that seems torn right out of an Agatha Christie novel, Agatha Christie herself once went missing for 11 days for reasons fully unknown. This sent the media into a tizzy. Was she despondent from her mother's death or her husband's infidelity? Was it simply amnesia? Christie never explained the incident, not even in her autobiography. The segment featured a brief appearance by Academy Award nominee Jack "Artful Dodger" Wild.

The death of college student Tommy Burkett was ruled a suicide, but his parents wouldn't accept such a conclusion, particularly given its questionable circumstances. Tom and Beth Burkett came to their own conclusion that he may have been a DEA informant involved in something way over his head.

The legend of five chests of gold, apparently a gift to the Confederacy from Napoleon Bonaparte III, has caused numerous fortune-seekers to dig deep near Poverty Island, Michigan. All have come up empty-handed.

This episode celebrated their 200th mystery solved (the reunion of two Vietnam veterans, Mitchell Shigemoto and James Pearson), and was so juicy it was later the inspiration of a special "Drunk Mystery" episode of "Drunk History."

In a special "Mysteries of Alien Beings"-themed episode, close encounters of the third and terrifying fourth kind are shared, making one afraid to even look up into the night sky.

Robert Stack gives a brief overview of UFO sightings past (with pilot Kenneth Anderson's in 1947 giving rise to the term "flying saucers") and present, letting the believers and doubters both have their say. One astronomer was curious as to how aliens always seem to clean up so well before leaving earth.

Five seasons after delving into the alien goings-on in Roswell (see Season 2, Episode 1), a new yarn unravels involving a mortician assistant, Glenn Davis. The airbase had asked him about making small caskets for bodies. Later on the base, he saw strange wreckage, encountered panicked humans, and witnessed doctors coughing from noxious fumes. A nurse he knew later spoke to him about a partial autopsy of otherworldly beings. This hearsay became his say.

Four friends went on a trip to the Maine wilderness, but years later, they were all haunted by nightmares of feeling helpless and being violated. Through hypnosis, the Allagash four revealed that they were abducted by aliens, examined, dissected, and violated before having their memories wiped and being returned to their lives. The hypnosis recordings were aired, with one of the four saying, "I don't like these things. I don't care where they come from. They shouldn't be doing this to people."

While many are skeptical of these encounters (including one of the four abductees above), psychiatrist and author John E. Mack wondered why these people would lie, as "this is not a club anyone wants to belong to."

This episode was a special report from Oklahoma City, 10 months after the terrorist bombing of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Robert Stack recounted "a scene of cruel tragedy and remarkable heroism." Duane Miller survived the attack and was saved by two men whom he never got to thank. "Unsolved Mysteries" tried to help, but Miller passed away in 2011 without them stepping forward.

"Unsolved" team member Keely Shaye Smith (the future Mrs. Pierce Brosnan) followed up on Michelle Neal-Arkin's search for her birth mother, who happened to live only 10 miles from her. She was not only reunited with her mother but also her long-lost siblings.

After robbing a grocery store, the thieves killed a police officer and later escaped from jail. Thanks to a tip, Sam Wodke was recaptured and eventually died in jail. His partner, Rusty Corvette, was shot dead three months after being paroled.

Next is the controversial suicide of Bill Clinton's friend and White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. He was found in a park dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound. Four days later, an unsigned suicide note surfaced that handwriting experts claimed was a forgery. Foster was a central figure in the Whitewater scandal, and his death reeked of foul play to some.

Writer James Ellroy explained how the rape and murder of his mother Jean in 1958 was the "moment" of his true birth, "because it's the genesis of [his] detectives' obsessions with the murders that they ultimately become consumed by" in his best-selling novels. Ellroy reexamined the case files and hoped someone knew of a blonde woman who was seen with his mother and the "swarthy man" on the night in question.

Robert Stack returned to San Francisco for a "stunning special report," where two investigative sleuths separately surmised that the Zodiac Killer and the Unabomber are one and the same. Mike Rusconi and Doug Oswell's theory is that when the Bay Area Zodiac killer changed his modus operandi from killing with knives and guns to making bomb threats, he eventually made good on them a decade later as the Unabomber. The duo postulated that his true identity, Theodore J. Kaczynski, could possibly even have been hidden within one of Zodiac's ciphers. The SFPD closed the Zodiac case in 2004 with no one ever charged.

Tim Harrell was told he was a baby abandoned in a trash can and raised by the nurse who found him. Eventually, he learned his birth mother was actually the niece of his adopted mother. "Unsolved Mysteries" helped to bring them back together. Harrell's birth mother, Muriel Gartner, said the empty hole in her life "is starting to fill in now."

The missing cases of students April Gregory and Kristin Smart were unrelated but left both their families desperate for answers. Gregory's killer was later revealed as a boyfriend, while the last person seen with Smart, Paul Flores, was arrested in 2021.

Trish Zemba fell from a horse and developed reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome, leaving her in excruciating pain. While all medical options failed to help her, the family's faith never wavered, and she had a miraculous recovery that defies explanation.

Two fugitives took James Rouse Jr. hostage, then marched him into the woods, where they killed him. They were both captured, but William Junior Jordan later escaped and is still at large as one of the FBI's most wanted.

Two masked men robbed and terrorized Becky Wood. They seemed to know an awful lot about their victim, her possessions, and her home. Turns out Ted Noble had worked for the Woods years prior. He and his brother Gary became the suspects when stolen jewelry turned up at a pawn shop. The brothers went on the run but were eventually captured.

Steve Newton was a new father who was left drowning after a motorcycle crash. A good Samaritan saved his life but left before they could be identified. Luckily, "Unsolved Mysteries" closed the case on this one: his rescuer was Tammy Dotson, who, when meeting Newton, said she had "never been called angel before — far from it."

After her father's passing, Virginia Burns learned that he was previously married and had another daughter, but never saw them again. Burns took up the search herself and "Unsolved Mysteries" helped connect her with her half-sister, Susan King.

In tackling cases of spontaneous human combustion, "Unsolved Mysteries" brought great conflagration to several tales: Kay Y. Fletcher and the smoke that billowed from her back, George Mott being reduced to ashes in bed, and Dr. John Irving Bentley befalling a similar fate in his bathroom, even burning a hole through the floor.

When Tupac Shakur was gunned down (a death that was foreshadowed in a music video) on the Las Vegas strip in 1996, everyone wanted to know the identity of the murderer and their motive. Since the killer remains unknown (one eyewitness was later murdered), "Unsolved Mysteries" examined the possible motives, including a fight in a casino or West Coast vs. East Coast beef with fellow rapper Biggie Smalls. 

The very first Netflix episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" took a fresh look at the questionable 2006 disappearance and death of Rey Rivera. Rivera was a man with Hollywood dreams living in Baltimore, working for an old high school friend. While his wife Allison was out of town, a houseguest heard Rey answer a call and hurriedly run out of the house in flip-flops. He vanished, leaving friends and family puzzled. His car eventually turned up, and then his body, somehow thrown off a hard-to-access rooftop and fallen through a closed-off part of a hotel.

While the police saw it as an open-and-shut case of suicide, the medical examiner didn't find enough evidence to rule it as such, especially since he had other injuries unrelated to the fall. Allison listed all the oddities related to his death: alarms going off in their home before his death, his fear of heights, and a strange typed letter from her husband that mentioned movies he loved, acquaintances, and Freemason sayings. Rivera's friend and employer, Porter Stansberry, was mum after his body was discovered, leading viewers to suspect him. After the episode aired, Stansberry told the Baltimore Sun, "The reason I've never commented about Rey's death publicly first and foremost is because I never thought there was any mystery about why or how he died." The mystery remains unsolved. 

"Unsolved Mysteries" never had a problem traveling far and wide to cover any topic. In the Netflix series, with a wider, more international audience, they went abroad for the first time. The "House of Terror" episode took us on a trip to Nantes, France, where the fate of the picture-perfect Dupont de Ligonnès family shocked family, friends, a community, and then the whole world. 

In 2011, the Dupont de Ligonnès family, including three sons and a daughter, vanished from their home. Soon, their friends received an ominous letter saying they'd been recruited to work for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and not to worry about their whereabouts and well-being. Numerous police welfare checks of the home later revealed the buried bodies of all the family members except that of the patriarch, Xavier Pierre Marie Dupont de Ligonnès. Due to the delay of the discovery, Xavier had a head start on fleeing, but wasn't exactly discreet about doing so. He finally left his car behind at a hotel in the south of France and walked away from the parking lot never to be seen again (although there have been many claims of sightings since).

If you have tips on any of the cases discussed above, please contact Unsolved Mysteries.