The case archive behind the This Happened true-crime videos. Real cases with the full timeline, the investigation, the outcome, the sources, and what the video could not fit.https://thishappenedstories.comen-ushttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/samantha-stiteshttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/samantha-stitesSamantha Stites was abducted from her home in northern Michigan on October 7, 2022, by Christopher Blaine Thomas, a man who had stalked her since they met at a college student group in 2011. He held her for nearly fourteen hours in a storage unit he had soundproofed and fitted with wall hooks. She persuaded him to release her by promising not to report him, went straight to police, and described the route well enough that officers found the unit and arrested him that night. Thomas pleaded guilty to kidnapping, torture and aggravated stalking and was sentenced to 40 to 60 years.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12StalkingKidnappingCaptivityhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/elisa-lam-cecil-hotelhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/elisa-lam-cecil-hotelElisa Lam, a 21-year-old university student from Vancouver, was last seen at the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on January 31, 2013. After guests complained about weak water pressure and water that tasted strange, a maintenance worker found her body on February 19 inside one of four water tanks on the hotel roof. The coroner ruled her death an accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder listed as a significant contributing condition.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Unexplained deathMissing personhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/liese-doddhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/liese-doddLiese Dodd, 22, was eight months pregnant when she was killed in her upstairs apartment on Bolivar Street in Alton, Illinois, on the night of June 8, 2022. Surveillance video showed her entering the building with her on-and-off boyfriend, Deundrea Holloway, at 9:11 p.m., and Holloway leaving alone with a white laundry basket at 11:57 p.m. Her mother found her body the next morning. Holloway pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January 2025 to 60 years in prison.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderDomestic violencehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/annie-lehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/annie-leOn September 8, 2009, Annie Le, a 24-year-old doctoral student in pharmacology at the Yale School of Medicine, left her purse and phone in her office and walked to her lab building at 10 Amistad Street in New Haven, Connecticut. Security cameras recorded her entering just after 10 a.m. None recorded her leaving. After a five-day search, investigators found her body hidden in a mechanical chase behind a basement wall on September 13, the day she was to be married. Key-card records, a bloody sock hidden in a ceiling and a green pen found beneath her led police to Raymond Clark III, a 24-year-old animal technician who worked in the building. In March 2011 he pleaded guilty to her murder and entered an Alford plea to attempted sexual assault. He was sentenced to 44 years in prison.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Murderhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/somerton-manhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/somerton-manOn the morning of December 1, 1948, a well-dressed man was found dead against the seawall on Somerton Park beach in Adelaide, South Australia. The labels had been removed from his clothes, and he carried no identification. An autopsy suggested poison, but tests found none. A tiny scrap of paper in a hidden trouser pocket read "Tamám Shud," torn from the last page of a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The book itself turned up with a nurse's phone number and a string of letters that looked like a code. For more than 70 years he was the Unknown Man. His body was exhumed in 2021, and in July 2022 researchers Derek Abbott and Colleen Fitzpatrick announced that DNA from hair in his plaster death mask pointed to Carl "Charles" Webb, a Melbourne electrical engineer born in 1905. As of July 2026, South Australia Police had not completed their report to the coroner, and the identification had not been officially confirmed.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Unexplained deathUnidentified personCold casehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/black-dahlia-elizabeth-shorthttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/black-dahlia-elizabeth-shortElizabeth Short, 22, was found murdered in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. Robert Manley, a salesman she had been traveling with, said he had left her at the Biltmore Hotel downtown six days earlier. The FBI identified her from fingerprints within an hour of receiving them. Newspapers named her the Black Dahlia and built a lurid legend around her. On January 24 an envelope arrived containing her birth certificate, address book and other papers, with a pasted-up message: "Here is Dahlia's belongings, letter to follow." More notes followed, including a promise to surrender that no one kept. The Los Angeles Police Department questioned more than 150 suspects and received hundreds of confessions. No one was ever charged, and the case remains unsolved.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderCold casehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/kimberly-sullivanhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/kimberly-sullivanOn February 17, 2025, firefighters were called to a house fire at 2 Blake Street in Waterbury, Connecticut. Inside they found a 31-year-old man, 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing about 68 pounds, who told first responders he had set the fire on purpose because he wanted his freedom. He told police his stepmother, Kimberly Sullivan, had kept him locked in a small room for most of two decades, since he was about 11, with little food or water. Sullivan was arrested on March 12, 2025, and charged with kidnapping, assault, unlawful restraint and cruelty. She has pleaded not guilty, denies ever locking him in, and is free on bond. In September 2026 she rejected a plea offer, and the case is headed to a jury trial. The man, who goes by "S," has said he will testify.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12KidnappingCaptivityhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/kelsey-berrethhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/kelsey-berrethKelsey Berreth, 29, a flight instructor and mother of a 1-year-old, was last seen on surveillance video at a Safeway in Woodland Park, Colorado, on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2018. On November 25 her employer got a text from her phone saying she would miss work that week, and the phone was tracked near Gooding, Idaho. Her mother reported her missing on December 2. Her fiancé, Patrick Frazee, was arrested that month. His former girlfriend, Krystal Lee Kenney, a nurse from Idaho, pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and testified that Frazee killed Berreth, that she cleaned the townhome, that he burned the body, and that she carried the phone to Idaho and sent the texts. In November 2019 a jury convicted Frazee of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life without parole plus 156 years. Berreth's remains have never been found.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderDomestic violencehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/negasi-zuberihttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/negasi-zuberiOn July 15, 2023, Negasi Zuberi posed as an undercover police officer in Seattle, handcuffed a woman, put her in leg irons and drove her about 450 miles to his rented home in Klamath Falls, Oregon, sexually assaulting her on the way. He locked her in a cell he had built from cinder blocks in his garage, with a metal door installed in reverse. When he left, she banged on the door until it broke open, took a handgun from his car and flagged down a passing driver. He was arrested the next day in Reno, Nevada. Investigators linked him to an earlier kidnapping in Klamath Falls and found handwritten notes that officials said pointed to plans for more attacks. A federal jury convicted him in October 2024, and he was sentenced to life in prison in January 2025.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12KidnappingCaptivityhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/heather-pressdeehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/heather-pressdeeHeather Pressdee, a registered nurse from Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, gave lethal or potentially lethal doses of insulin to 22 patients at five care facilities in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler and Westmoreland counties between October 2020 and May 2023, prosecutors said. Seventeen of those patients died. Some were not diabetic. She was arrested in May 2023 over two deaths at a nursing home in Chicora, and the case grew from there. On May 2, 2024, she pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and 19 counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole, plus 380 to 760 years.Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderHealthcare killingSerial killinghttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/sydney-sutherlandhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/sydney-sutherlandSydney Sutherland, a 25-year-old nurse at a hospital in Newport, Arkansas, left home for a run on a rural road on the afternoon of August 19, 2020, and did not come back. Police, federal agencies and volunteers searched the farmland around Newport. Her phone was found near the road the next day, and her body was found buried on farmland north of her home on August 21. That day Quake Lewellyn, 28, a local farmer who had joined the search effort, went to Arkansas State Police with his father and confessed. In October 2021 he pleaded guilty to capital murder and rape and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Murderhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/canning-town-freezer-murdershttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/canning-town-freezer-murdersOn April 27, 2019, police went to Zahid Younis's flat in Vandome Close, Canning Town, east London, on a welfare check. He was not there. An officer noticed flies around a padlocked chest freezer and forced it open, finding a woman's body. An X-ray of the freezer later revealed a second body beneath the first. The women were Henriett Szucs, a Hungarian woman last seen in 2016, and Mihrican "Jan" Mustafa, a mother of three last heard from in May 2018. Younis, a convicted sex offender, was found guilty of both murders in September 2020 and sentenced to life with a minimum of 38 years. A later BBC investigation found missed chances to stop him.Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Murderhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/john-gaither-gulfporthttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/john-gaither-gulfportJohn Allen Gaither, 42, lived with his mother, Jerri Lynn Roby, in Gulfport, Mississippi. In late December 2023 his brother told police no one had heard from him in about a week. Roby said he had taken an Uber to Louisiana, but his account showed no such trip, and relatives began receiving letters, calls and texts that claimed to be from him. On January 18, 2024, detectives searching the house found a false wall built across the front of the home, with a wooden box behind it holding Gaither's body. He had been shot in the back of the head. Roby, who had a prior murder conviction, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced in July 2026 to life in prison.Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderMissing personhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/smiths-falls-kelly-jordan-roadhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/smiths-falls-kelly-jordan-roadOn a roughly 40-acre residential property on Kelly Jordan Road near Smiths Falls, Ontario, provincial police have found the remains of three men who had been reported missing. Robbie Thomson, 34, missing since October 2023, was found in late October 2025, as three people were charged with first-degree murder in his death. Robert Lambert, 75, who bought the land in 2004 and was last seen in July 2018, was found on July 20, 2026. Lawrence Bertrim, 42, missing from downtown Smiths Falls since September 2022, was found on August 6, 2026. No one has been charged in Lambert's or Bertrim's deaths, and police say they cannot yet confirm any connection between the cases.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderMissing personCold casehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/colie-lee-danielhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/colie-lee-danielOn March 28, 2026, a passerby in the undeveloped area of Palm Bay, Florida, known as the Compound saw vultures circling and found human remains in a suitcase. Police found more remains nearby, along with Amazon packaging addressed to Lucas S. Jones, 19, of Indialantic. The remains were those of Colie Lee Daniel, 28, whose parents had reported him missing a week earlier. Prosecutors say Jones found Daniel on the local sex offender registry, met him through dating apps, lured him to his house and killed him. A Brevard County grand jury indicted Jones on May 19, 2026, for first-degree premeditated murder and related charges. He has not been tried.Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Murderhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/diana-roman-nazimovahttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/diana-roman-nazimovaDiana Nazimova, 22, and her brother Roman, 17, Russians who lived with their mother near Pattaya in Thailand's Chonburi province, left home on a motorcycle around 4 a.m. and were reported missing on July 26, 2026. Their motorcycle was found dismantled and buried. On July 31, police arrested Thana Kerdthong, 43, a recently released prisoner, and Thongchai Srinil, 39, who confessed, according to police and Thai media, to stopping the siblings while posing as police, shooting Roman and beating Diana to death. Searchers also found the bodies of a Thai family of three who had been reported missing in June. Thailand's prime minister apologized.Sun, 06 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Murderhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/milford-home-invasionhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/milford-home-invasionJust before 3 a.m. on June 3, 2026, two men entered a home on East Broadway in Milford, Connecticut, through a rear sliding door and shot the couple asleep inside. Frederick Werner, 69, died at the scene. Sandra Cooper, 69, was shot once in the head, called 911 and survived. Police called it a targeted attack. License plate readers and camera footage led investigators to two suspects, Stuar Lopez-Reyes, 25, and Ivan Barias-Florimon, 24, who were arrested in late July and early August 2026 and charged with murder and other felonies. They have not been tried.Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderHome invasionhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/patrick-dearthhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/patrick-dearthPatrick Orville Dearth was 34 when his family reported him missing to Fairbanks police in November 1993. The case went cold for more than three decades. On January 22, 2025, Alaska State Troopers received an anonymous tip from someone who claimed to have committed a murder in the Fairbanks area in 1993. In May 2025 troopers found human remains inside a barrel down a steep embankment near Mile 47 of the Steese Highway, and the State Medical Examiner identified them as Dearth. Troopers say the tipster was Christopher Popps, 54, a former coworker. A Fairbanks grand jury indicted Popps on two counts of second-degree murder in June 2026, and he was arrested in Michigan in July 2026. He has not been convicted.Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderCold caseMissing personhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/kim-wallhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/kim-wallKim Wall, a 30-year-old Swedish freelance journalist, boarded inventor Peter Madsen's homemade submarine, the UC3 Nautilus, in Copenhagen on the evening of August 10, 2017, to interview him. The submarine did not return. It sank in Køge Bay the next morning, and Madsen, who was rescued, first said he had dropped Wall ashore. Parts of her body were found between August and November. Madsen's accounts changed several times. In April 2018 Copenhagen City Court convicted him of murder, sexual assault and indecent handling of a corpse and sentenced him to life in prison.Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12Murderhttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/angela-craighttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/angela-craigAngela Craig, 43, a mother of six in suburban Denver, died in March 2023 during her third hospital stay that month, after symptoms her doctors could not explain. Toxicology showed poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline. Her husband of 23 years, dentist James Craig, was charged with murder. Prosecutors said he poisoned her protein shakes over about 10 days and then gave her a fatal dose of cyanide through her IV in the hospital. In July 2025 a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and of trying to fake evidence and have the lead detective killed. He was sentenced to life without parole.Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderPoisoninghttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/sarah-boonehttps://thishappenedstories.com/cases/sarah-booneOn the night of February 23, 2020, Sarah Boone zipped her boyfriend, Jorge Torres Jr., 42, into a suitcase in their Winter Park, Florida, apartment and went to bed. He was dead the next morning. Boone told police they had been drinking and playing hide-and-seek, but her phone held two videos from that night showing Torres pleading to be let out while she laughed. A jury convicted her of second-degree murder in October 2024, and she was sentenced to life in prison. Her appeal was still pending in 2026.Tue, 01 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT2026-09-12MurderDomestic violence