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Some crimes haunt us for years — but justice, it turns out, can be patient. Join us as we count down some of the most infamous true crime cases that went unsolved for years, even decades, before finally revealing their dark truths!
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00:00If this individual doesn't care, does that mean he can repeat?
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're taking a look at 10 infamous true crime stories that found closure after years
00:14of mystery.
00:15This surveillance video shows the UBC student acting strangely the night she went missing.
00:19Once again, the LAPD saying the body has just been recovered.
00:24The murder of Brittany Drexel.
00:26Myrtle Beach is a hot spot when it comes to spring breaks and vacations.
00:3017-year-old Brittany Drexel, one of the millions to come here to enjoy the weather.
00:35That was more than 13 years ago.
00:37In 2009, 17-year-old Brittany Drexel vanished while on spring break in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
00:44Surveillance showed her leaving a hotel, then absolutely nothing else.
00:48She also had been texting with her boyfriend, but around 9.15 p.m., Drexel stopped responding.
00:53With no leads, the case went cold, haunting investigators and the public alike.
00:58For years, rumors swirled of trafficking, abduction, even gang involvement.
01:03But in 2022, a stunning breakthrough emerged.
01:07Raymond Moody, a convicted sex offender, confessed to abducting, assaulting, and murdering Drexel back in 2009,
01:13then burying her remains in a wooded area.
01:16He led police directly to her remains, finally bringing an end to a 13-year mystery.
01:21That vehicle right there.
01:24We have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Brittany Drexel is in that vehicle at that time, at this time.
01:29Driving that vehicle is Raymond Moody.
01:31The body in the drum.
01:32But this home, in a quiet, upscale neighborhood in suburban New York, held something more.
01:39In a steel drum, stored in a crawl space, was a secret that someone had hoped would last a lifetime.
01:47On September 2, 1999, a horrifying discovery was made.
01:52Inside the crawl space of a New York house was a 55-gallon drum.
01:56And inside the drum were the mummified remains of a pregnant woman.
01:59Police traced the drum to a company called Melrose Plastics, which was co-owned by the owner of the house,
02:05Howard Elkins.
02:06An address book was also found in the barrel, leading police to Raina Marroquin,
02:10an employee at the factory who had been missing since 1969.
02:14Police interviewed Elkins, and he was uncooperative.
02:17He then took his own life shortly after questioning.
02:20Investigators then confirmed that the fetus inside Marroquin was the biological child of Elkins,
02:25and he likely murdered her after she told his wife of their affair.
02:29A message, possibly from Raina herself, to Howard Elkins.
02:34It said,
02:36Don't be mad.
02:37I told the truth.
02:39Adrian Shelley.
02:40He writes me these spontaneous poems.
02:43Spontaneous poems?
02:44Yes.
02:44They are poems that just occur to him right on the spot.
02:48Last night, he said to me,
02:49Don, your face is a brilliant moon in my empty room.
02:54Huh.
02:54Your love is like a beating drum.
02:57Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum.
02:58An accomplished actress and filmmaker,
03:01Adrian Shelley is perhaps best known for writing, directing, and starring in the 2007 film Waitress.
03:06But the movie was released posthumously.
03:09On November 1st, 2006, Shelley was found dead in her Manhattan office.
03:13The scene strongly suggested that Shelley had taken her own life, and it was officially ruled as such.
03:18But her husband, Andy Ostroy, was unconvinced and begged police to investigate further.
03:23So they did, finding a boot print that matched the construction site downstairs.
03:27The crime was traced to a worker named Diego Pilko, who had followed Shelley back to her office and killed
03:33her in a failed robbery.
03:34He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and will be deported to Ecuador upon his release.
03:39There you are.
03:42Dawn, if I had a penny for everything I loved about you, I would have many pennies.
03:47Elisa Lam.
03:48The body of a Canadian woman who was missing in L.A. has now been found.
03:53Elisa Lam disappeared three weeks ago.
03:56Yesterday, her body was found inside a water tank on top of the hotel where she had been staying.
04:01This story was made into way more than it was.
04:04After Elisa Lam was reported missing, surveillance footage was released showing Lam behaving oddly inside an elevator of the Cecil
04:10Hotel.
04:11Many speculated that she was hiding from someone or experiencing a supernatural encounter, as the Cecil is purported to be
04:18haunted.
04:18A few days later, Lam's body was discovered in the rooftop water tank.
04:22The creepy story captivated the internet, but things slowly fell into place.
04:26It later became apparent that Lam was not taking her bipolar medication, that the hotel rooftop was accessible via a
04:33fire escape, and that the tank lid was left open.
04:36Therefore, it's highly likely that Lam suffered a manic episode and climbed into the tank herself.
04:41She was traveling all by herself, arrived in Los Angeles.
04:44She was in Skid Row, no less.
04:46That was a stressor for her, probably.
04:48And then she wasn't taking her medications properly.
04:51It probably amplified the risk of her essentially having this manic episode.
04:57The McStay family murders.
04:58In your gut, what do you think happened?
05:03I have absolutely no clue.
05:05Back in February of 2010, the McStay family was officially declared missing.
05:09They were not in contact with any family members.
05:12And when Joseph McStay's brother climbed into their Fallbrook house, he found it empty.
05:17There was no sign of foul play, and the family's dogs were still alive in the backyard.
05:22Three long years elapsed with no further word until November 11, 2013, when a motorcyclist found the buried remains of
05:29the McStay family in the Mojave Desert.
05:31It was just one mystery after another.
05:34That is, until the arrest of one Charles Merritt.
05:37Merritt was a business associate of Joseph McStay, and investigators found that he murdered Joseph and his family in order
05:43to steal money from his business account.
05:45Now, he sees a very different Chase Merritt.
05:49To me, it looked like a broken man.
05:51He knew he was done.
05:53BTK.
05:54And it shows here that it was last saved by Dennis.
05:57So somehow a Dennis, who was affiliated with the church or the library, was somehow involved with this document.
06:04Some serial killers are brought down thanks to clever police work.
06:08And some are brought down through sheer hubris.
06:10BTK terrorized the greater Wichita area between 1974 and 1991, murdering at least 10 individuals and taunting the police with
06:19threatening letters.
06:20Despite their best efforts, police were unable to identify BTK, and the case remained a mystery for decades.
06:27But in 2004, BTK once again started corresponding with the media and police, taunting them with decades-old murder cases.
06:34He ultimately sent a floppy disk to the Wichita station KSAS-TV, and police used metadata from the disk to
06:41trace its sender.
06:42And with this, Dennis Rader was caught and identified as BTK.
06:46He was arrested in 2005, 31 years after murdering his first victim.
06:51On the table before them, the computer disk traced back to Rader.
06:56Anyway, you can get out of the DNA, right?
06:59You can't get out of your DNA unless you've had a total blood transfer and lost every organ.
07:03It's there.
07:05He knew that DNA was...
07:06He had studied enough that he knew that that was going to be it.
07:12The Long Island Serial Killer.
07:13It was one of the most absorbing mysteries of the early 21st century.
07:17Who killed all those women in New York?
07:19The Long Island Serial Killer murdered at least 11 victims since the early 1990s,
07:24and disposed of most of their bodies throughout the Gilgo Beach area.
07:28Four of them now officially listed as victims of this serial killer that's been dubbed the Long Island Ripper.
07:36The killings remained a mystery until the summer of 2023,
07:39when a 59-year-old architect named Rex Andrew Heuerman was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree
07:45murder.
07:46This is the man police have taken into custody.
07:49DNA has officially linked Heuerman to many of the victims.
07:52He's been charged with six of the murders and is currently pleading not guilty.
07:56His court-appointed attorney entering a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
08:00The death of Jin Lin.
08:02His mother still worried about him living in a big foreign city.
08:05So he'd walk the streets with his cell phone and stream images back to her.
08:10His message to her and their daily conversations was always the same.
08:14Don't worry, he told her.
08:16I'm safe.
08:17One of the most notorious videos in the history of the internet was uploaded on May 25th, 2012.
08:23Titled One Lunatic, One Ice Pick,
08:26it depicts an Asian male getting killed and dismembered by an unidentified figure.
08:30So you could see that clearly the murder happened on the bed.
08:37Various body parts were then sent to schools and federal offices across Canada.
08:41And these remains were linked to the man who was killed in the video.
08:44The case made international headlines and remained a mystery for several days.
08:49But investigators quickly traced the grisly homicide to a man named Luca Magnata,
08:54who had already fled the country.
08:56An international manhunt ensued.
08:58And Magnata was finally captured in Berlin on June 4th,
09:02about a week and a half after uploading the infamous video.
09:05Luca Rocco Magnata, who's been the focus of an international manhunt since fleeing Canada last week,
09:10was arrested by police at an internet company.
09:17The Golden State Killer.
09:18One of the most notorious criminals in American history.
09:22The Golden State Killer has gone by many names.
09:24He terrorized California throughout the 70s and 80s.
09:28Sexually assaulting at least 51 women.
09:30Burglarizing over 100 homes.
09:33And murdering 13 people.
09:34He was given different names in different areas.
09:37Including the Visalia Ransacker and the Night Stalker.
09:41Only with time did it become apparent that these crime sprees were the work of one person.
09:46The name Golden State Killer was coined in 2013 by crime writer Michelle McNamara.
09:51The case helped inspire the creation of California's DNA database.
09:54And it was DNA evidence that eventually nabbed Joseph James D'Angelo in 2018.
10:00Who by then was 72 years old.
10:03He was sentenced to life in prison.
10:05I think we all had come to terms that we would never see justice in this case.
10:08Neither one of them in any way, shape or form should have ever died this way.
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10:28A Zodiac Cipher is Finally Cracked
10:30The story of the Zodiac Killer continues to intrigue owing to his elusive nature and the bizarre ciphers he produced.
10:37The Zodiac made four of these cryptograms.
10:39And before 2020, only one had been solved.
10:43The first was quickly cracked back in 1969.
10:45But for the next several decades, the remaining three continued to stump even the most professional code breakers.
10:52That is, until December 2020, when another cipher was solved by private citizens.
10:57Dubbed Z340, the puzzle was originally sent on November 8th, 1969, and references the Zodiac's welcoming of death.
11:05It reads in part,
11:06I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me.
11:10He claims that his new life will be an easy one in paradise,
11:13and that he is not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send him to paradise all the sooner.
11:18There are still two remaining ciphers from Zodiac that have yet to be decoded.
11:23What true crime story are you hoping becomes solved?
11:26Let us know in the comments.
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