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Unsolved Murders.

Unsolved Murders.

By: Popular Culture and Religion.
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Unsolved Murders comprise thousands of historically infamous cold cases and recent homicides that continue to baffle investigators. While modern DNA and genetic genealogy frequently solve decades-old cold cases, many prominent mysteries—such as the Zodiac Killer and the Setagaya family murders—remain unresolved.
This lists of Unsolved Murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances.Copyright Popular Culture and Religion.
Episodes
  • 08 - National Airlines Flight 2511.

    08 - National Airlines Flight 2511.
    Jun 29 2026
    National Airlines Flight 2511. National Airlines Flight 2511 was a United States domestic passenger flight from New York City to Miami, Florida. On January 6, 1960, the Douglas DC-6 serving the flight exploded in midair. The National Airlines aircraft was carrying 5 crew members and 29 passengers, all of whom perished. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation concluded that the plane was brought down by a bomb made of dynamite. No criminal charges were ever filed, nor was the blame for the bombing ever determined, though a suicide bombing is suspected. The investigation remains open. One of the victims was retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Edward Orrick McDonnell, a Medal of Honor recipient and veteran of both World Wars. Flight history. National Airlines' New York-Miami route was usually flown by a Boeing 707 as Flight 601. On January 5, 1960, the 707 aircraft scheduled to fly to Miami was grounded due to cracks that were discovered in the cockpit windshield. The windshield replacement procedure would take eight hours to perform, so National Airlines transferred the passengers of Flight 601 to two propliner aircraft it had in reserve. Passengers were boarded on these two replacement planes on a first-come, first-served basis. Seventy-six passengers boarded a Lockheed L-188 Electra. This aircraft flew to Miami and arrived safely. The remaining 29 passengers boarded a Douglas DC-6B, which departed Idlewild Airport for Miami as Flight 2511. The crew consisted of stewardesses Mary O'Dell (24) and Valery Stewart (25), pilot Dale Southard (45), copilot Richard L. Hentzel (31), and flight engineer Robert R. Halleckson (34). The plane departed New York at 11:52 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Miami at 4:36 a.m. on January 6. The aircraft, registration N8225H, was described as being in good condition. It had four Pratt and Whitney R-2800 CB-16 engines and had accumulated 24,836 hours of flight time. 2511's flight plan called for it to fly south from New York to Wilmington, North Carolina, where it would continue south over the Atlantic Ocean. It would fly south 550 miles (890 km) over the ocean to Palm Beach, Florida. The crew maintained radio contact with National Airlines' radio controllers and air traffic control, reporting clouds and instrument flying conditions. The crew checked in with Wilmington Airport at 2:07 a.m., and later reported flying over the Carolina Beach radio beacon at 2:31 a.m. This was the last radio contact with the airplane. Crash and recovery. After losing contact with the DC-6 aircraft, National Airlines, the United States Coast Guard, and the United States Navy began an intensive search along the southeastern coast of the United States. The search was called off the following day, when National Airlines received word that there was a plane down in North Carolina. At about 2:45 a.m. a farmer, Richard Randolph, heard the sound of an engine cutting in and out, followed by tearing metal and an explosion. Later that morning, after his teenage son McArthur Randolph found airplane wreckage in one of his father's fields, Richard Randolph drove to Bolivia, North Carolina, which had the nearest phone. He called Wilmington Airport to report the downed plane at approximately 7:00 a.m. When Highway Patrol officers responded, he led them to the crash site. Bodies and wreckage were scattered over an area of 20 acres (8 ha) covering farm fields, marshland, and pine forests. During the first day of search and rescue, investigators located 32 bodies of the 34 persons on board. One of the missing bodies was later found at the main crash site. The remaining body was found at Snow's Marsh, approximately 16 miles (26 km) from the main site. Initial reports speculated that the aircraft had disintegrated in mid-flight. One newspaper reporter indicated that the largest piece of wreckage he observed was a portion of the wing. A fragment of aluminum, believed to be a piece of the airplane's skin, was found on Kure Beach, 25 miles (40 km) from the rest of the wreckage. Investigations. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), part of the Department of Transportation, were the primary investigators into the crash of Flight 2511. The wreckage of the DC-6 was taken to a hangar at nearby Wilmington Airport, where the fuselage was reassembled on a wood-and-chicken-wire frame. Investigators recovered approximately 90% of the fuselage, which was then assembled on the frame in the Wilmington hangar. Investigators identified the point of origin of the disintegration as an area immediately ahead of the leading edge of the aircraft's right wing. The material recovered from Kure Beach, including a portion of the wing fillet, was from this general area. Investigators did not recover material from an irregular, triangularly shaped area positioned above the leading edge and extending forward ahead of the wing. The bodies were taken to the local high school gymnasium to await autopsy and ...
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    16 mins
  • 07 - Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore.

    07 - Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore.
    Jun 29 2026
    Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore. Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette V. S. Moore, were pioneer activists and leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement in the United States and became the first martyrs of the movement. On the night of Christmas, December 25, 1951, a bomb that had been planted under the bedroom floor of the Moores' home in Mims, Florida, exploded. They had celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary earlier that day. Harry died in the ambulance in transit from the attack, and Harriette died from her injuries nine days later, on January 3, 1952. Their deaths were the first assassination of any activist to occur during the Civil Rights Movement and the only time that a husband and wife were killed during the history of the movement. Background. Harry Moore and Harriette Simms married on December 25, 1926, and moved into the Simms' family home the following fall. Harry was an educator, and Harriette was a former teacher turned insurance broker. In 1927, Harry was promoted to the position of principal at the local Titusville Colored School. The city's school system was racially segregated, like many others in the country at the time. Harry taught the school's ninth grade (the school taught grades one to nine), and he also supervised the team of teachers at the school. The school was closed early his first year by the local school board just six months into the year, as part of the local school system's systemic discrimination against black children. The Moores had their first daughter in 1928 and moved into their own home with an acre of land given to them by Harriette's parents. They gave birth to their second daughter in 1930. Harriette returned to her career in education the following year and later began working as a teacher for the same school as Harry. In 1934, Harry founded the Brevard County, Florida, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter. He later served as the NAACP's first Executive Secretary in the state of Florida. The NAACP chapter worked towards achieving equal pay for equal work for teachers of any race, fought to get lynchings prosecuted, and attempted to register black voters in the region. Moore's activism was highly controversial in the local white-dominated county. In 1946, it resulted in the firings of Harry and Harriette from their teaching jobs by state authorities. Harry then became a full-time employee of the NAACP. Murder. On the night of December 25, 1951, the Moores finished celebrating Christmas and their 25th wedding anniversary. When they later retired to their bedroom for the evening, a bomb exploded, injuring Harry and Harriette but leaving their daughter (who was at home at the time, the other being in a different location) unharmed. The improvised explosive device, which was made from dynamite, had been placed directly under the Moores' bedroom floor. The Moores were rushed to the nearest hospital that would treat African-Americans in Sanford, Florida, a 29.8 miles (48.0 km) drive by car. Harry died while being transported; his wife, Harriette, lived to see her husband buried before she died nine days later from her injuries. Investigations and motive. Over the years, a number of motives have been suggested for the Moores' deaths. All of them share a common theme — retribution against Harry Moore for his civil rights activities. — Charlie Crist, 35th Attorney General of the State of Florida. Since the night of the explosion in 1951, five separate criminal investigations have been initiated and completed. The first investigation was headed by the FBI, began on the night of the explosion, and concluded in 1955. The second investigation was a joint investigation by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and Brevard County State Attorney's Office in 1978. The third investigation took place in 1991 by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). In 2004, a fourth investigation was commenced by the Florida Attorney General's Office of Civil Rights. In 2008, the FBI again investigated the Moore homicides as part of the Department of Justice's "Cold Case Initiative". In total, the five criminal investigations revealed evidence implicating four subjects in the bombing. The four subjects were known to be high-ranking members within the Ku Klux Klan in the central region of Florida. The first of the four, Earl J. Brooklyn, was a Klansman with a reputation for being exceedingly violent and described as "a renegade" after being expelled from a Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia for engaging in unsanctioned acts of violence. Brooklyn reportedly was in possession of floor plans of the Moore home and was said to be recruiting volunteers to assist in the bombing. The second subject, Tillman H. "Curley" Belvin, was also reported to be a violent member of the Klan and a close friend of Brooklyn. Joseph N. Cox, another Klansman, was implicated in the bombing by a fourth co-conspirator, Edward L. ...
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    9 mins
  • 06 - Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher.

    06 - Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher.
    Jun 29 2026
    Arthur "Buddy" Schumacher.
    Arthur Louis "Buddy" Schumacher (September 2, 1916 – July 1925) was an 8-year-old from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, who was murdered in 1925. His body was discovered on September 12, 1925. Two suspects were interviewed in connection with the case, but it remains unsolved.

    Early life.
    Buddy was born on September 2, 1916, to Arthur "Art" Schumacher and Florence May Zapp (Armstrong) Schumacher. He had an older sister, Jeanette Alice, who was born on April 11, 1915. Buddy attended Lincoln Elementary School in Wauwatosa.

    Disappearance.
    Schumacher went missing on July 24, 1925. He left his house with some neighborhood boys about 9 a.m. and never returned. He was last seen by three of his friends after they hopped off a freight train they had jumped to get a ride to a nearby swimming hole. For seven weeks, the community and state searched desperately to find the boy until his body was found just a mile from his house with his clothing torn and a handkerchief shoved down his throat. The police pursued several promising leads, but to no avail.
    In September 1925, two of Schumacher's friends identified Edward Vreeland as a man who had chased them on the day of Schumacher's disappearance. The two boys said they ran away, but Buddy remained. He was never seen alive again after that day. Vreeland had been arrested as a vagrant two days after Schumacher disappeared, taken into custody in the woods where the boy was last seen. He was questioned at the time in relation to the disappearance of the boy but professed ignorance of any connection with the case. In November 1925, 21-year-old William Brandt, who was serving time at the Minnesota State Prison for murdering a young boy in St. Paul under similar circumstances, confessed to the killing of Schumacher, but there were discrepancies between known facts and the statements he made. During their investigation, detectives discovered that at least four other children had been molested or attacked near Wauwatosa.

    Aftermath.
    Buddy was the subject of a nonfiction book, Murder in Wauwatosa: The Mysterious Death of Buddy Schumacher, written by former Wauwatosa resident Paul J. Hoffman that was published in 2012 by The History Press. Hoffman's father, Raymond Hoffman, purchased a house at 8118 Hillcrest Drive in Wauwatosa in 1969 from Buddy's father that the Schumachers had moved into about two years after Buddy died. Raymond Hoffman owned the house until 2004.


    Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

    This episode includes AI-generated content.
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    3 mins
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