BROWSE THE ARCHIVE
Stories in this collection: 18
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, ..
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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 ..
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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. ..
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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 ..
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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, ..
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Caitlin Walch Tracey (1988–2024)Case at a GlancePersonCaitlin Tracey, 36Discovery dateOctober 27, 2024LocationSouth Loop high-rise, 1200 block of South Prairie Avenue, Chicago, IllinoisCase statusAdam Beckerink has pleaded not guilty; the murder case remains pending.Latest reported developmentA dispute over proposed DNA testing was reported September 30, 2026; Beckerink was due back in court in ..
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Linda Goldstone (1948–1978)Case at a GlancePersonLinda GoldstoneIncidentAbduction, rape, and murder after approximately 36 hours of captivityDateMarch 30–April 1, 1978LocationChicago, IllinoisLegal outcomeHernando Williams pleaded guilty, received a death sentence, and was executed in 1995CategoryChicago Crime HistoryIn the spring of 1978, Linda Goldstone left home to teach a childbirth class in..
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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..
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Darnell Donerson, 57; Jason Hudson, 29; and Julian King, 7 — victims of the 2008 Chicago case.Case at a GlanceDateOctober 24–27, 2008LocationEnglewood, Chicago, IllinoisVictimsDarnell Donerson, Jason Hudson, and Julian KingCase outcomeWilliam Balfour was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder on May 11, 2012Jennifer Hudson Family Murders: The 2008 Chicago CaseOn the morning of October ..
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Joe Aiello — 1930On the evening of October 23, 1930, Joe Aiello walked out of a West Side apartment building in Chicago and into a planned crossfire. He was a Sicilian-born bootlegger and one of Al Capone's most persistent enemies. Police and newspapers immediately suspected Capone's organization. No one was ever convicted, and the documented record does not establish who fired the guns or who g..
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