The case doesn't end when the video does.
Case files for the This Happened videos: the full timeline, the investigation, how it ended, the sources, and what the video couldn't fit.
44 case files336 cited sourcesreviewed Oct 6, 2026
Day -32013-01-28
She checks into the Cecil Hotel and is assigned a shared room on the fifth floor. After her roommates complain, the hotel moves her to a private room two days later.
Day 002013-01-31 · Night
An elevator security camera records her alone, pressing floor buttons, stepping out, looking down the hallway and moving her hands. She walks out of frame. It is the last known footage of her.
UndatedEarly February 2013
Police search her room and bring dogs through the building, including the roof. The dogs find nothing. The rooftop water tanks are not searched.
Day 132013-02-13
The LAPD releases the elevator footage to the public. It spreads worldwide within days.
Day 192013-02-19
Following complaints about low pressure and strange-tasting water, a maintenance worker checks the roof tanks and finds her body. The tank has to be drained and cut open to recover her.
Every image on this page is an illustrated recreation.
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The videos keep their own colour. Everything filed below is graded to the archive.
Latest case files
All 44 casesNight of October 30–31, 1981; found Halloween morning
Sister Tadea Benz and the DNA from a different case
Her fellow sisters didn't suspect murder, and she was taken to a funeral home before a broken window brought police. The DNA that later raised doubts came from a different murder.
October 31, 2021, about 7:55–7:58 p.m.
The Keio Line Halloween train attack
Disappeared October 31, 1974; found November 27, 1974
Laura Aime and the evidence that outlived Ted Bundy
- 1011Ashley FlynnTipp City, Miami County, OhioConvicted
- 1010Martha MoxleyBelle Haven, Greenwich, ConnecticutUnsolved
- 1009Rebekah GayColdwater Road, Isabella County, near Mount Pleasant, MichiganConvicted
- 1008Peter BraunsteinWest 24th Street, Chelsea, ManhattanConvicted
- 1007Debra JacksonInterstate 35, north of Georgetown, Williamson County, TexasUnsolved
- 1006Chelsea BruckEpisodeFrenchtown Township, Monroe County, MichiganConvicted
What the videos couldn't include
The confession the jury couldn't weigh
The unsigned statement was used only to challenge Garrett's credibility. The Texas appeals court noted that jurors were told they could not treat it as evidence of guilt.
Sister Tadea Benz File 1014A small fire, a real danger
The fire burned a small patch of floor, about 0.09 square meters. None of the ten passengers named in the arson counts suffered burns or had their clothing catch fire, but the court found they had been in real danger.
Kyota Hattori File 1013Dramatic on screen. Careful on the page.
The episodes use illustrated recreations and squeeze real timelines into a couple of minutes. The case files work the other way. They lay the whole timeline out, cite where each fact comes from, and mark every key moment from the video as documented, reconstructed, compressed or dramatized.
Case files last reviewed October 6, 2026
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