- 6 weeks ago
These cases will haunt your nightmares... Join us as we count down our picks for the creepiest unsolved disappearances of all time! From mysterious vanishings without a trace to baffling evidence that leads nowhere, these real-life cases continue to perplex investigators and fascinate the public. Which unsolved disappearance do you find most disturbing?
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00:00This video is brought to you by Shelby Oaks, in theaters October 24th.
00:08Even Springfield police were baffled by the disappearance.
00:11Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most frightening and unsettling disappearance cases that remain unsolved to this day.
00:18But investigators aren't giving up.
00:21Benjamin Bathurst.
00:22For centuries now, the disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst was viewed as an almost supernatural occurrence.
00:28The British diplomat was in Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars, traveling with his courier, Herr Krause.
00:33The story goes that Bathurst and Krause stopped at an inn to wait for new horses.
00:38When told that they were ready, Bathurst left the inn, followed shortly behind by Krause.
00:42But when Krause got outside mere seconds later, Bathurst was gone.
00:46His disappearance quickly became fodder for speculative fiction, the sudden nature of it leading to many fanciful ideas.
00:52However, modern historians believe that this story is highly exaggerated and that it's very likely that Bathurst was murdered.
00:59Prussia was plagued by highway thieves at the time, and the diplomat wore expensive clothing.
01:04I think he went back to wherever it was he did come from, because when we got to the top of the hill, he just disappeared.
01:14Shelley Miscavige.
01:15Shelley is the high priestess of Scientology who vanished 13 years ago.
01:22While the church won't speak of it, the belief is Shelley has been banished to this mountain prison by her husband, the leader of the church, the all-powerful David Miscavige.
01:34Back in 1982, Shelley Barnett married David Miscavige, the future leader of the Church of Scientology.
01:40David Miscavige has run the controversial church since 1986, and Shelley often worked behind the scenes as his assistant.
01:47However, she has not been seen since 2007, leading many to believe that something nefarious is going on.
01:54In 2012, attorneys claimed that she was devoting her time to Scientology and no longer wished to appear in public.
02:00And the following year, ex-Scientologist Leah Remini filed a missing persons report,
02:04but it was closed within hours when the LAPD supposedly found and spoke with Miscavige.
02:09Regardless, many continue to question the narrative, and the church has continuously refused to comment on her whereabouts.
02:19I don't know. I mean, that's why I filed a police report, a missing persons report.
02:24It's just, no, you're not getting any answers. We don't have to answer you.
02:28Shelley is fine, and she's alive and well, and that's the PR line.
02:33And do you believe that line?
02:34No, I don't.
02:35The Fort Worth Missing Trio
02:37Rachel Trelisa, Renee Wilson, and Julianne Mosley were Christmas shopping in the Fort Worth, Texas Seminary South Shopping Center when they went missing.
02:45The girls failed to return to their respective homes, prompting their families to conduct a search.
02:50There's something that's happened to them. I know it.
02:52They found Trelisa's car in the parking lot, and it contained multiple gifts, indicating that the girls had returned to the vehicle at some point.
02:59Nevertheless, the trio was nowhere to be seen.
03:03Trelisa's husband later received a letter presumably written by her, stating that they were, quote,
03:08going to Houston to, quote, get away, and they'd be back in about a week.
03:13But they never showed up, and have remained missing ever since.
03:17The families have since cast doubt on the letter's authenticity.
03:20My goal is I would love closure before my mother dies.
03:23Because just like in 1974...
03:25You haven't given up hope, though.
03:26No, huh?
03:27Johnny Gosch
03:28On September 5, 1982, Johnny Gosch, a paperboy in West Des Moines, Iowa, disappeared during his morning paper route.
03:36At first, West Des Moines police treated the disappearance as an abduction and launched a big search that included several law enforcement agencies.
03:43Multiple witnesses reported seeing him speak with a mysterious man in a blue car shortly before he vanished,
03:48while another claimed they saw a silver car speeding away near the spot where Gosch's paper wagon was left.
03:54The case has since gained widespread publicity, but authorities have made no headway in determining who took Gosch or what became of him.
04:01In 1997, his mother, Noreen, alleged that Gosch visited her briefly with an unidentified man, but left without revealing where he was going.
04:09West Des Moines police officer said that Noreen had told similar stories before, only to recant them later.
04:15There were never any witnesses that verified her claim.
04:19The validity of this claim remains in doubt, and despite other unconfirmed sightings, Gosch is still officially missing.
04:26Tara Calico
04:27On June 15, 1989, a woman found a Polaroid photograph at a Florida convenience store.
04:33The nationwide frenzy brings a second family into the spotlight.
04:37The mothers of Mike and Tara were strangers only a week ago.
04:40Now they're brought together in a common cause, a national effort to find their missing children.
04:46The picture showed a young woman and a boy, both bound and gagged, seemingly in the back of a van.
04:52Many believed the woman to be Tara Calico, who had vanished nearly one year earlier during her routine bike ride near her home in Belen, New Mexico.
05:00Neither she nor her bike were found, and authorities only recovered pieces of her Sony Walkman and a cassette tape along the trail.
05:06While Scotland Yard identified the woman in the picture as Calico, an FBI analysis proved inconclusive.
05:12Her whereabouts remain a mystery, but in 2023, the Valencia County Sheriff's Office announced new leads in the case.
05:19Right now, a team is working to go through three decades' worth of police files.
05:24In order to sign off on charges, they have to rule out the laundry list of suspects who were named over the years.
05:31There's no hard timeline on when or if charges will be filed.
05:35Aisha Degree
05:36After putting their daughter Aisha to bed on February 13, 2000, Harold and Aquila Degree woke up the next morning to find her missing.
05:43Investigators at the time had reason to believe that she took some items with her out of the house,
05:51and that she left the house and walked south on Highway 18 toward the city of Shelby.
05:56There were no signs of forced entry, and Aisha's brother O'Brien was asleep in his own bed.
06:01Strangely, it seemed she had packed a bag and simply walked out of the house.
06:05Around 4 a.m., several motorists spotted her walking along a highway alone,
06:10and when one approached her, she fled into the woods, never to be seen again.
06:14Months later, Aisha's bag was found at a construction site, containing items that didn't belong to her.
06:19For years, the case yielded no significant leads, until September 2024, when authorities classified her disappearance as a homicide and named two suspects.
06:30It's important here we know that no one has been charged.
06:32Investigators took DNA from Roy and Connie Dedman.
06:37They also took a green car and several other items, including a camera, computers, and phones.
06:44On February 9, 2004, Murray, a nursing student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,
06:51emailed her professors claiming there'd been a death in the family.
06:54It is a real mystery.
06:57One minute she's here, one minute she's not, and there's just so many theories.
07:01Her parents have since stated that no such death occurred.
07:04She looked into hotels in Vermont, loaded her car with clothing and toiletries,
07:09and packed up her belongings in boxes.
07:10After leaving campus, she purchased alcohol and withdrew $280 from an ATM.
07:16Murray crashed her car around 7 p.m. that night, and when police arrived at 7.45, she was nowhere to be found.
07:23There was no injury, so they searched on foot and in vehicles.
07:26Basically, what they were looking for was A, a person walking, or B, footprints in the snow.
07:31They found none.
07:33The responding officer found a few suspect items in the car,
07:36including driving directions to Vermont, and blank accident report forms.
07:41Of Murray herself, there was, and has been, no trace.
07:45All I have left is the public, because I'm not getting any help anywhere else.
07:52I'm asking if I help my daughter.
07:53The Springfield Three
07:54This missing person's case, in which Cheryl Levitt, Stacey McCall, and Susie Streeter all disappeared,
08:01has remained unsolved since 1992.
08:04The story begins at Levitt's home in Springfield, Missouri,
08:06where the women spent the night after attending high school graduation parties.
08:09The girls leave the party just after 2 a.m.
08:12Cops believe Stacey and Susie walk through the front door of Cheryl's house on Delmar Street about 15 minutes later.
08:19That's where the mystery begins.
08:20When a friend arrived at the house the next morning, all three were missing, despite their cars being parked outside.
08:27Authorities say there was no sign of a struggle.
08:29In fact, the front door was unlocked, the TV was on, their clothes were still there, their purses and personal items untouched.
08:37The friend found a broken porch light, and she reportedly received an obscene phone call while there.
08:42Levitt's dog was also visibly agitated.
08:45When McCall's mother later arrived to investigate, she found a, quote, strange message on the answering machine.
08:51But this was accidentally deleted.
08:53It was a brief call, and the person didn't identify themselves.
08:56It was a male voice that made sexual innuendos, and she hung up,
09:01and immediately received a second call with also making sexual overtones.
09:05Unfortunately, the crime scene was so badly contaminated that it prevented a proper investigation.
09:10But until then, these families will continue to live one day at a time, hoping for the best,
09:16but knowing the worst could be just around the corner.
09:19Amelia Earhart.
09:21If there's one unsolved story more popular than that of D.B. Cooper, it's that of Amelia Earhart.
09:26Earhart was a popular and renowned aviator and the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic.
09:31The magnificent thing about Amelia is that in the eyes of the world, she never died.
09:37Her fear never witnessed.
09:39Her failure never recorded.
09:40In 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan attempted to circumnavigate the globe.
09:45However, they disappeared over the Pacific near Hawaii and were never heard from again.
09:50This grainy film records the last time Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan are ever seen alive.
09:57Countless theories have been put forth regarding their ultimate fate, but no consensus has ever been made.
10:02Not a trace of wreckage was found floating.
10:05There was no mayday call.
10:07There was no distress call.
10:07For 70 years, investigators have been trying to solve the Earhart enigma.
10:12It's most likely that Earhart and Noonan ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific while desperately looking for Howland Island.
10:19It's a boring answer, but the most realistic often are.
10:22The Sauter's, a devastating fire erupted in the Sauter household on Christmas Eve, 1945.
10:29The Sauter parents and four of their nine children escaped, but the other five weren't so lucky.
10:35The easy theory is that the children died in the fire, but the story contains many twists that cast some doubt.
10:41No evidence of the bodies was ever found.
10:44Furthermore, patriarch George Sauter spoke negatively about his then-fascist native Italy,
10:50prompting a theory that the Sicilian mafia had burned the house and kidnapped the children.
10:54Years later, a photo of an older man was mailed to the Sauters, purportedly depicting a now-grown Lewis.
11:01They agreed that the man harbored a resemblance to their missing child, and they both held on to this hope until their deaths.
11:07Which of these cases do you hope gets solved?
11:10Let us know in the comments, and watch Shelby Oaks in theaters October 24th.
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