Cold Cases We Were Surprised And Relieved To See Finally Solved

May 17, 2001, was Alissa Turney's last day at Paradise Valley High in Phoenix, AZ. The 17-year-old did not return home. Her family found a note saying she ran to California. At that time, her younger half-sister Sarah was 12.

The note read.:

Dad and Sarah. When you dropped me off at school today, I decided I really am going to California. Sarah, you said you really wanted me gone—now you have it. Dad, I took $300 from you. That’s why I saved my money.

Alissa's stepfather, Michael Turney, who adopted her, said he picked up Alissa around 11 am for lunch. They argued. When they got home, Alissa went to her room. Michael left to run errands and pick Sarah up from her field trip. They found Alissa's note.

Sarah did not believe the story. She quickly started a website to find her sister. She moved to social media, then TikTok over the years. Sarah's efforts failed; the case went cold in 2006 when a man confessed to killing Alissa. The confession was false, but it made authorities re-examine the case. Now, with no sign of Alissa, authorities began investigating with more focus, suspecting foul play.

In 2008, police searched the house Alissa vanished from. They found a huge stash of weapons, guns, and ammo, including 26 pipe bombs.The Arizona RepublicThe Phoenix Police Department found the largest stockpile of explosives ever. Turney got arrested for illegal explosives and served ten years in federal prison in 2010. He left prison in 2017.

In 2019, Sarah launched a TikTok channel.Voices for JusticeThe channel got many followers. Growing interest in the case and new evidence led Phoenix police to send Alissa's case to the prosecutor's office for charges against Michael Turney in June 2020.

On August 19, 2020,a grand jury indicted him for second-degree murder, and Michael Turney was arrested the next day. Sarah announced this on her social media. A 19-year-old murder—ended by a determined sister on TikTok.

On August 10, 1998,11-year-old Nicky Verstappendisappeared from a summer camp in Brunssum, Limburg, Netherlands. A day later, he was found dead in a pine grove in Landgraaf, about 1.2 km (0.75 miles) from the camp. He was naked from the waist up, and his body showed signs of abuse.

For 20 years, the investigation moved slowly. Suspects were named, but no DNA linked them to the murder or the scene. Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries got involved and raised money to double the 25,000 guilders offered by the public prosecutor's office. He also became a spokesperson for the Verstappen family, who needed answers.

In 2018, Dutch police asked people near Limburg to offer their DNA. They needed relatives of the killer. Over 14,000 DNA samples came in. One sample yielded a result.

The sample came from a relative of 55-year-old Joseph Theresia Johannes "Jos" Brech, a known sex offender. Authorities found Brech's DNA in personal items. This matched the foreign DNA found on the Verstappen's body.

Authorities traced Brech, a survivalist, to a tent in the woods near Castelltercol, north of Barcelona, Spain, after a tip. They arrested him in August 2018 in Spain and brought him to the Netherlands on September 6, 2018. The court sentenced him in November 2020 to12 and a half years in prison for kidnappingand other terrible crimes.

Brech denied harming the boy. He claimed he found the body in the woods andHe only straightened his clothesBecause of his sex offender record, Brech said he quietly left. He did not report the body because people would not believe him.

Brech and the prosecutors appealed the case. In January 2022, the Dutch court confirmed the previous convictions. The court also found Brechguilty of manslaughter, adding 16 more years to his sentence.

On December 19, 1979, Michelle Martinko left her choir banquet. She went to Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids, IA. The 18-year-old was going to get a coat her mother saved for her. She was 18 and had $186 for the coat, but she changed her mind. She never returned home.

The next day, her body appeared in the family car, a 1972 Buick Electra, in the same mall parking lot.She was stabbed and cut 29 times. Nearly every police officer in Cedar Rapids investigated the scene. Detective Harvey Denlinger was among them.

Police collected and kept evidence from the scene. This included blood spots on the steering wheel and her dress. There was no DNA testing then. Police focused on suspects, including an ex-boyfriend, Andy Seidel. The couple had broken up, but Seidel was upset and allegedly still wanted her back, obsessing over who she was with. Authorities found no proof against Seidel after many years.

DNA entered the scene in 2005. Doug Larison, a police detective and Martinko's former classmate, was in charge. Two blood smears—one from her dress and one from the steering wheel—showed male DNA. Further testing confirmed it was not Seidel's.

Another ten years passed in frustration until finally,Harvey Denlinger's son Matt took overMatt Denlinger led the investigation as lead detective in 2015. DNA technology improved again. Det. Matt Denlinger sent the DNA profile to Virginia's Parabon NanoLabs. They made a composite sketch using the genetic traits. Then, he used genetic genealogy to match the suspect's DNA profile through GEDmatch, a public DNA database. This search found a female relative. Denlinger spent two more years building the complete family tree.

Denlinger contacted Parabon NanoLabs again. They narrowed the search to three brothers from Iowa. Detectives gathered DNA from trash. They finally got a match. Jerry Burns matched the DNA, and his younger picture looked exactly like the DNA-guided sketch.

After an arrest and trial, Burns, a father of three, got found guilty and received a life sentence without parole. Burns claims he did not commit the crime.

Michaela Garecht, age 9, vanished in broad daylight on November 19, 1988, in Hayward, CA. She and a friend rode scooters to Rainbow Grocery on Mission Boulevard for snacks. The kidnapper grabbed Garecht from the parking lot, moving her scooter behind a car to isolate her before taking her and leaving a palm print.

Her friendKatrina Rodriguez was the only witness to the abduction.She ran inside to tell the clerk, who called the police. Garecht's abduction became major news. Her photo appeared on milk cartons and in TV shows featuring episodes about her, all to get information from the public. The case went cold.

Still, detailed investigations continued for years. These efforts finally led police to focus onDavid Misch, a 59-year-old convicted killer.Misch was in prison since 1989 for a different murder charge. Authorities linked him as a suspect in Garecht's kidnapping using a palm print on the scooter. At his arrest, palm prints were not part of the procedure; they were taken much later.

Misch faced charges for Garecht's kidnapping and murder.In December 2020, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley charged him, though the girl's remains remain unfound.

July 1989. Fawn Cox, a 16-year-old cashier at Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, MO, returned at 11 pm on July 26 and went straight to bed.

The next morning, her alarm rang constantly. Her sister and mother tried to wake her, but she was already gone. Cox was assaulted and murdered in her own bed. No one in her family heard anything because the air conditioning was on.

The family sought answers for years, including DNA testing for the murders. Kansas City police said this was too costly. The family held fundraisers and offered to pay the bill. In 2020,The FBI covered the cost for DNA testing of the evidence..

The killer was finally identified asDonald Cox, Jr., her cousinHe could not face trial. He died years ago from a drug overdose.

Scott Johnson, an American math prodigy, moved to Australia for his Ph.D. at the Australian National University. He worked with musicologist Michael Noone. He moved to Australia to be near his partner.

On December 10, 1988, Johnson's unclothed body was found on rocks by cliffs at Blue Fish Point, New South Wales. His clothes and belongings rested at the top of the cliff. Authorities first ruled his death a suicide.

His brother Steve Johnson challenged this ruling immediately. Steve felt the authorities botched the investigation by calling the death site "not a gay beat." That location served as a place for gay men to socialize and meet partners. Gangs also used it to beat and kill homosexuals.

Steve Johnson started a fight for his brother's justice. In 2012, his self-funded inquest resulted in an open finding. A third inquest in 2017 saw state coroner Michael Barnes state Johnson was likely "pushed, hounded or frightened off the cliff," even though NSW police asked for another open finding.

After Scott Johnson's death came under the gay hate crime label, NSW police opened a new investigation. Commissioner Mick Fuller and Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans led this effort.A $1 million reward appeared in 2018.Police offered a $1 million reward for information about the case. The reward grew to $2 million after Steve Johnson matched the amount.

Authorities arrested Scott White in 2020.On January 13th, 2022,White finally said what Scott Johnson's family wanted to hear: "Guilty, I am guilty, guilty."

This murder belongs to many that happened in Australia from the 1960s to the '80s. During that time, gangs of homophobic men targeted homosexuals. One gang called itself theAlexandria Eight.This gang beat gay men and pushed them off cliffs to die.

On August 12, 1986, Lisa Holstead left her boyfriend's car late one night. She left between 1:30 and 2 am at Mason and Taylor streets in Green Bay, WI.

Twelve hours later, people reported Alexandria missing. Authorities found her body within an hour at the Ken Eures Nature Area in Green Bay. Holstead was 22.a mother to a little boy.

Green Bay police kept the case open for years. Fortunately, they collected much DNA evidence. They sent the DNA to an advanced lab. Genetic genealogy developed a family tree. This helped them find the criminal's heritage and narrow it to a few relatives.

They sought family members in Wisconsin. They found a name: Lou Archie Griffin. Authorities searched his location, gathering DNA from discarded cigarette butts and beer cans. They found a match.

Green Bay's oldest cold case closed. The 65-year-old Griffin was arrested and charged withFirst-degree intentional homicide.The crime happened on October 28, 2020. He had a criminal record, buthis DNA did not appear in records..

Gladys Arellano was last seen at her Boyle Heights home in Los Angeles on January 28, 1996. She vanished soon after, and her family told police.The search stopped on January 30.It involved the grisly discovery of her partially clothed body, 30 feet off the main road in a ravine in Topanga Canyon near Malibu.

An autopsy showed the 17-year-old was assaulted before being thrown out. The Los Angeles Police Department gathered all serology evidence. They put the DNA into state and federal databases, but no match appeared. The case went cold.

On November 10, 2019,Jose Luis Garcia, age 42, was arrestedPolice collected and entered the DNA from a domestic violence arrest into the system. It matched the DNA from Arellano's body. By December 2019, cold-case detectives had a lead. Garcia was 19 during Arellano's rape and murder. Police found no link between Garcia and Arellano, but they lived near each other.

Investigators found Garcia's Fontana home. He moved to Dallas. He was arrested and sent back to California, where he faced arraignment in October 2020. Garcia pleaded not guilty. A trial is pending.

Sometime between the late hours of August 3 and the early morning of August 4, 1981,Sylvia Quayle was assaulted and murdered.in her Cherry Hills Village, CO home. She spoke to her younger sister that evening. In the morning, her father found her body in the living room.

The phone line was cut. A bathroom window screen sat far from her home. A pry mark on the window frame showed forced entry.

Years passed. The search for her killer yielded no results despite DNA evidence at the scene. In 2000, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation sent the DNA sample to the FBI Combined DNA Index System. No match surfaced. In 2020, the Cherry Hills Village Police Department began working with aGenetic genealogy firm, United Data Connect.after they solved a similar cold case.

UDC analyzed the DNA. They found two likely matches after uploading it to GED Match and Family Tree DNA databases. In early 2021, a UDC investigator traveled to Cozad, NE, to collect DNA from the more likely suspect. The investigator recovered 15 items from the trash; four went for actual testing.

Finally, on January 29, 2021,DNA from a Vanilla Coke can matched crime scene evidence, leading to the arrest of 62-year-old Nebraska resident David Anderson. His court case is pending.DNA from a Vanilla Coke can matched the crime scene evidence, leading to the arrest of 62-year-old Nebraska resident David Anderson. His court case is pending.

From March 2011 to September 2012, about 30 women, aged 75 to 90, died in Russia's Tatarstan region. All lived alone in low-cost housing apartments calledKhrushchyovkaThe killer operated along the banks of the Volga River.

The killer strangled the women with belts or simply by using his hands. Because theThis was the modus operandi.pattern was the same in every case. Authorities started thinking a single serial killer did this, who became known as theThe Volga Maniac..

In December 2020, Russian law enforcement finally arrested 38-year-old locksmith Radik Tagirov in Kazan. They used DNA and shoeprint evidence. Tagirov had two children and a live-in girlfriend then; media reports say he confessed to the murders.

Tagirov claimed he needed food and survival, so he decided to rob the helpless. Tagirov said he chose to murder elderly women so they couldn't identify them. He also claimed strangling them was a painless way for them to die, althoughExperts refute his claims..

On February 28, 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, leader of Sweden's Social Democratic party, left a cinema with his wife Lisbeth and was shot in the back at close range. Sweden had little political violence then, and Palme often went out without bodyguards.

Olof was on one of Stockholm's busiest streets, Sveavägen, when the gunman fired. Olof died at the Sabbatsberg Hospital. A second bullet grazed Lisbeth's back, but she was not badly hurt.

Investigations found four suspects. Lisbeth named one, Christer Pettersson, a known criminal, and he was convicted of the killing in 1989. Later, his conviction fell because proof was missing. Another suspect moved to the US, and police focused on two others, "Skandia Man" and "GH," but neither faced charges.

Investigators interviewed thousands of people. They found no DNA evidence or a murder weapon, so the investigation did not lead to a conviction.

In July 2020, Sweden's Chief Prosecutor Krister Petersson announcedthey were dropping the investigationbecause the chief suspect was dead. Petersson named Stig Engström as the main suspect; Engström was also known as Skandia Man because he worked for the Skandia Insurance Company.

Engström held right-wing views and strongly opposed Palme's left-wing thinking. He possessed guns. Engström was one of the first "witnesses" at Palme's assassination. Petersson stated the prosecution knew Engström lied about his location during the assassination. Authorities dropped the investigation because they could not question him. Engström ended his own life in 2000. In a 2017 interview, his ex-wife said.Suspicion of his guilt is impossible. He was too much of a coward.

A Netflix documentary suggested Engström committed the murder, butMany people disagree.The Olof Palme assassination appears on the list 'Cold Cases We Were Surprised And Relieved To See Finally Solved'.