BROWSE THE ARCHIVE
Stories in this collection: 14
Jesse Warren Ross, who went missing in Chicago, 2006.Jesse Warren Ross was 19 years old when he walked out of a late-night meeting room in downtown Chicago in the early hours of November 21, 2006. He was a college sophomore attending a Model United Nations conference. He has not been seen since, and no one has publicly established what happened to him. Police have reportedly favored one theory, ..
Read the story
Kevin Clewer (1972 - 2004)Kevin Clewer was 31 when he was found stabbed to death in his Chicago apartment in March 2004. More than two decades later, no one has been convicted, and the reviewed sources report no current charges or resolution.The case has moved through an early arrest warrant that ended in a release, a sketch of a man known as "Fernando," a podcast, a police cold-case video, and ..
Read the story
Katherine Moroney with her daughter, Mary Agnes, in 1928.Mary Agnes Moroney was born in Chicago on May 10, 1928, and taken from her family’s home on May 15, 1930, when she was two years old. For nearly 93 years her whereabouts were unknown. In February 2023, familial DNA comparisons strongly linked Mary Agnes’s relatives to the family of Jeanette Burchard, who died in Florida in 2003 at age 75. ..
Read the story
Elsie Paroubek (1906 – 1911)In April 1911, a small girl left her family's home on Chicago's West Side to visit an aunt around the corner and was never seen alive again. Her body was found a month later in a drainage canal near Lockport. The search for Elsie Paroubek drew in police, politicians, immigrant societies and thousands of schoolchildren, and the Chicago newspapers followed it daily. No ..
Read the story
Ioan Petru Culianu or Couliano (5 January 1950 – 21 May 1991)On May 21, 1991, Ioan Petru Culianu, a 41-year-old Romanian-born historian of religions, was shot dead in a restroom at the University of Chicago Divinity School. More than three decades later, no one has been identified as the killer and no motive has been established. The case has drawn theories involving Romanian security services, ..
Read the story
Illustrative depiction of a Chicago residential street. This is not an actual photograph of Carol Novak's home or the crime scene. Carol Novak, 35, was killed in her North Side Chicago home in October 1981. The case went cold, and it was not solved until DNA from evidence the police had kept for three decades pointed to a man already in prison. That man, Eugene Booker, was convicted of first-deg..
Read the story
Ranko Carol Yamada (left) and Evelyn Okubo.In July 1970, two young women from Stockton, California, went to Chicago for a Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) convention. One of them, 18-year-old Evelyn Okubo, did not leave the Palmer House hotel alive. Her roommate, 17-year-old Ranko Carol Yamada, survived with a slashed throat.More than half a century later, no one has been convicted of th..
Read the story
On July 6, 2001, two sisters, 10-year-old Tionda Bradley and 3-year-old Diamond Bradley, were reported missing in Chicago. More than two decades later, no public record explains what happened to them. Their mother reported that a note in Tionda's handwriting said the girls had gone to the store and the school playground, and an enormous search found nothing. No one has been publicly charged. Pol..
Read the story
Image of Clem Graver from newspaperOn the night of June 11, 1953, an Illinois state representative pulled his car toward a garage on Chicago's West Side. A sedan stopped in front of it. Moments later he was gone. More than seven decades later, no one has been charged and his body has never been found. The abduction itself is the best-documented part of the story. Almost everything else is disput..
Read the story
The Disappearance of Kierra Coles: The Unsolved Case of a Pregnant Chicago Postal WorkerKierra Coles photo.On Oct. 2, 2018, Kierra Coles, a 26-year-old U.S. Postal Service employee who was about three months pregnant, vanished from Chicago's South Side. Her car was found outside her apartment, with her purse, cell phone and a packed lunch still inside. More than eight years later, no arrest has ..
Read the story