International
Cases from outside the United States.
82 cases
The Gorton Confession
On an April afternoon in 1996, forty-eight-year-old James Patterson Smith calmly walked into a Manchester police station to report that his teenage girlfriend, Kelly Anne Bates, had drowned in his bathtub — but the crime scene brought seasoned officers to tears.
Master and Slave
Elaine O'Hara vanished near Dublin in August 2012, the day after her release from a psychiatric hospital — and the investigation that unfolded over the next three years exposed one of the most shocking crimes in Irish history.
A Doctor's Blood
On Halloween night 1992 in tiny Kipling, Saskatchewan, a distraught young mother sought help from the town's beloved Dr. John Schneeberger — and what she remembered from that examination room would pit her word against his DNA.
Rat Alley
In Newcastle's crumbling Scotswood slums in 1968, four-year-old Martin Brown was found dead in a derelict house — and the trail led police to Mary Bell, a ten-year-old girl the neighborhood children already feared.
The Dexter Wannabe
A first date arranged on plentyoffish.com came with strange instructions — sneak in under the half-open garage door — and Gilles Tetreault stumbled out of that dark garage having barely escaped a man in a hockey mask following a script.
Interpol's Most Wanted
In July 1996, a fishing trawler off Southwest England hauled up the fully clothed body of a man wearing a Rolex — and the watch's stopped hands, along with a maple leaf tattoo, began unraveling an international deception.
The Photo Shoot
Jamie Reynolds told seventeen-year-old Georgia Williams he needed a model for a 'fake hanging' photo shoot at his Wellington, England home — an art project he had carefully planned for while his parents were away in Italy.
The Green Chain Killer
When Pauline Lasham told police her son Robert Napper had confessed to a rape near Plumstead Common, they checked their records, found nothing, and let it go — while the attacks along London's Green Chain Walk were only beginning.
The Coffee Killer
Jessica Wongso arrived oddly early at Jakarta's trendy Olivier restaurant and ordered a Vietnamese iced coffee for her old college friend Mirna Salihin — a drink investigators would later determine contained a lethal dose of cyanide.
Captain Cash
London heroin dealer Ken Avery — 'Captain Cash' to the underworld — lost everything when he turned informant, so he changed his name to Ken Regan and fixed his ambitions on a wealthy Heathrow freight importer named Amarjit 'Neil' Chohan.
The Oxford Murder
Oxford student Rachel McLean met charming bartender John Tanner one Blackpool summer, and his stream of love letters grew as intense as his frustration with the distance — then Rachel missed an appointment she never would have missed.
The Canal Killer
In February 2001, two boys fishing in London's Regent's Canal snagged a duffel bag weighted with bricks — the first of six bags divers would recover, holding a woman whose missing head, hands, and feet made her nearly impossible to identify.
The Head in the Bucket
A canal-side duffel bag in London, and a Vancouver murder that took years to answer for.
The Lady Killer
Neville Heath charmed postwar England posing as a decorated airman with aristocratic names — but when Margery Gardner was found dead in a London hotel room, the trail led to the crowded seaside resort of Bournemouth, where Heath was already courting someone new.
The Body in the Bag
Will Matheson grew up in a chaotic Sydney hoarder house shadowed by tragedy and developed a deep fixation with death — years before anyone thought to look inside the oversized cricket bag that was far too heavy to lift.
The Tiger Parents
Hann and Bich Pan pushed their daughter Jennifer toward perfection at any cost — and when she told police three armed men had burst into the family's Toronto-area home, investigators noticed her story didn't quite add up.
The Kičevo Monster
In sleepy Kičevo, Macedonia, three older women were beaten and strangled between 2005 and 2008 — and mild-mannered local journalist Vlado Taneski covered the murders with an uncanny eye for details no reporter should have known.
The Submarine Case
Journalist Kim Wall skipped her own going-away party for a two-hour ride on inventor 'Rocket' Peter Madsen's homemade submarine, the UC3 Nautilus — and by the next day the sub was at the bottom of Copenhagen harbor and Madsen's story was already shifting.
Coercive Control
Sally Challen was fifteen when she fell for car dealer Richard Challen, and she stayed devoted through four decades of his cruelty and control — until a Saturday lunch at their Surrey home ended with the hammer she had carried in her handbag.
The Black Widow
Lonely widower Fred Weeks proposed within days of white-haired, rosy-cheeked 'Millie' knocking on his Nova Scotia door — and on the honeymoon ferry to Newfoundland, he suddenly couldn't remember how to start his own car.
The Crossbow Killer
Behind the Versace wardrobe and the nice car, Scarborough house painter Brett Ryan was drowning in sixty thousand dollars of debt — but Brett had a plan, one that began at a Toronto bank counter and later involved a youth-model crossbow.
The Darlington Cannibal
When Julie Paterson vanished after a trip to a Darlington pub in April 1998, her boyfriend Alan knew she would never miss a visit with her daughter — and weeks later, a police dog led its handler into the overgrown garden of a house that wasn't abandoned after all.
The Family Murders
In 1972, Bevan Spencer von Einem was hailed a hero for rescuing two men thrown into Adelaide's River Torrens. Seven years later, sixteen-year-old Alan Barnes stuck out his thumb on Grand Junction Road to hitch a ride home — and never arrived.
The Musclebound Murderer
Signal box operator Gary Vinter stabbed co-worker Carl Edon thirty-seven times in a trackside workshop, then calmly returned to his post. Years later, released from prison a second time, the six-foot-seven Vinter had a new bride — one who already knew she'd made a terrible mistake.
The Piggy Palace
Women had been vanishing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside since 1983 — so many, and so invisible, that authorities took nearly a decade to notice. The trail eventually led out of the city to a pig farm and a man named Robert 'Willy' Pickton.
A Tragic December
On a snowy December Friday in 2010, Joanna Yeates kissed her boyfriend goodbye at the Bristol train station, had drinks with coworkers, and bought a pizza for her first night alone in their basement flat. She never answered another of his calls.
Angelic
In 2008, Karlie Pearce-Stevenson left remote Alice Springs with her toddler, Khandalyce, and a boyfriend fifteen years her senior, Daniel Holdom. A year later her calls and texts home stopped — though her bank account stayed strangely active.
A Sad Holiday Season
Sixteen-year-old Leanne Tiernan said goodbye to her best friend after a day of Christmas shopping in Leeds and took the unlit shortcut through Houghley Gill. Police searched 1,400 houses, drained three miles of canals, and questioned 140 men — and found no trace of her.
A Perfect Holiday
Failed stage hypnotist Martin Smith controlled every corner of Lianne's life — even after his crimes surfaced and the family fled Britain for Spain under false names. For her children, Rebecca and Daniel, the perfect holiday their mother promised would be their last.
They Got in the Way
Louise Porton had been an angry outsider since childhood near Birmingham, England; by eighteen she was openly selling sex and bragging about the money. Motherhood arrived in the form of two little daughters — and Louise came to see them as obstacles.
Room 3109
By the time British banker Rurik Jutting reached Hong Kong — a vice president who cried at his desk and snorted cocaine through the workday — the boy raised to believe he was a 'great one' was unraveling. Room 3109 was waiting.
The Kuwaiti Wedding
Nasra al-Enezi's mental illness went undiagnosed her whole life in Kuwait, where stigma kept her suffering in silence as she raised two special-needs sons. When her husband Zayed decided to take a second wife, the wedding celebration ended in catastrophe.
The Crossword Murder
Seven-year-old Lars Bense set off through the snow to meet friends at the cinema in Halle-Neustadt, East Germany — a planned city of numbered concrete blocks with no street names. He vanished in the final few hundred feet, and the strangest clue would be a crossword puzzle.
The Groomer
'Hi, how are you? I've seen your picture. You're very pretty.' The Facebook message that reached fifteen-year-old Kayleigh Haywood on Halloween 2015 came from twenty-seven-year-old Luke Harlow — and thirteen days of hidden messages convinced her she was loved.
Tony the Pervert
Three-year-old Rosie Palmer bought an ice pop from the ice cream van outside her Hartlepool, England home and vanished within the hour. Police went door to door; a few houses away, Shaun 'Tony' Armstrong told them he hadn't seen her, and they moved on.
The Ice Cream Killer
Since age seven, Esti Carranza had soothed herself with vivid fantasies of killing her abusive father. Years later, she and her husband Holger opened the Schleckeria, a Vienna ice cream shop with a cellar below — and a marriage curdling behind the counter.
The Creepy Uncle
Fifteen-year-old Danielle Jones left for her school bus stop in East Tilbury, Essex, and vanished. Witnesses saw a girl in uniform arguing with a man in a blue van — a van that belonged to her own uncle, Stuart Campbell.
The Beauty Queen
Anita Cobby, a Sydney nurse who once won the Miss Western Suburbs beauty pageant, was walking home from a night out with friends in February 1986 when a carload of five men pulled alongside her — igniting one of Australia's most infamous manhunts.
Mr. Big
Thirteen-year-old Daniel Morcombe stood beneath a Queensland overpass in December 2003, waiting for a bus that had broken down. When the next bus arrived ten minutes later, Daniel — and the man seen lingering behind him — had vanished.
The River Brent Killer
On a warm August afternoon in 2014, fourteen-year-old Alice Gross texted her father that she was heading home along West London's canal towpath. Dinner came and went, and Alice never arrived — and the search would lead police to a Latvian immigrant with a dark past.
Room 308
Twenty-one-year-old British backpacker Grace Millane was partway through her round-the-world gap year when she matched with a man named Jesse on Tinder in Auckland. On December 1, 2018, she agreed to meet him for drinks — and was never seen again.
Collateral Damage
Five-year-old Nathan O'Brien begged to sleep over at his grandparents' Calgary home the night of their estate sale in June 2014. When his mother returned the next morning, Nathan, Alvin, and Kathy Liknes were gone — and the house told a grim story.
The Sacrificial Shack
Pre-med student Mark Kilroy and three childhood friends made their third annual spring-break trip to South Padre Island in March 1989. One night across the border in Matamoros, Mark stepped away from his friends — and vanished into something far darker than anyone imagined.
The Griekwastad Farm Murders
On Good Friday 2012, fifteen-year-old Don Steenkamp burst into the Griekwastad police station drenched in blood, telling officers he had found his parents and sister shot on the family farm. The question was what had really happened inside that farmhouse.
The Demon
Sasha Marsden of the quiet village of Staining, England, was known for spontaneous dance moves and an infectious sense of humor. In nearby Blackpool, a hotel job offer from a man named David Minto was waiting — an offer that concealed something monstrous.
A Killer Breakthrough
Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann took the Black Pad footpath to a babysitting job in Narborough, England, one November evening in 1983 and never came home. Solving her murder — and a second one nearby — would require a scientific technique no police force had ever used.
Loved It to Death
Donna Jones had everything but love: a civil-service career in Ottawa, her own home, and friends who adored her. Then she met Mark Hutt — and the sunny, bubbly Donna her friends knew slowly began to disappear.
The French Nanny
Sabrina Kouider craved fame and glamour long before she and her partner Sam Medouni brought a shy French au pair named Sophie Lionnet into their London home to care for the children. Behind that front door, Sophie's life became a nightmare no one outside could see.
The Highway of Tears
On a snowy November night in 2010, an RCMP officer watched a black pickup fishtail out of a deserted logging road near British Columbia's infamous Highway of Tears. The young driver, Cody Legebokoff, had blood on his face — and a story that didn't add up.
The Frankston Serial Killer
In the winter of 1993, the seaside Melbourne suburb of Frankston lived in terror as three young women — a student, a new mother out buying milk, a girl taking a shortcut home — were murdered in a matter of weeks. A yellow Toyota spotted near a bike path changed everything.
The Butcher of Aberdeen
On the last day of February 2000, coal miner John Price told coworkers in Aberdeen, Australia, 'If I'm not here tomorrow, it's because Kath killed me.' Hours earlier, he had taken out a restraining order against his partner, Katherine Knight.
Langworthy Road
Two motorists on a country lane outside Manchester stopped for a horribly burned girl staggering toward the road. 'Help me. I'm Suzanne Capper,' she rasped — then named every one of her tormentors, exposing a week of horror at 97 Langworthy Road.
Child of Chaos
Lorraine Thorpe was fifteen, drifting between squalid flats, and caring for her alcoholic father among Ipswich's forgotten street drinkers in the summer of 2009. What unfolded inside that hidden world would force Britain to confront an almost unimaginable case.
The Millionaire
Millionaire Christopher Foster spent August 25, 2008, shooting clay pigeons and relaxing at a neighbor's barbecue with his wife Jill and daughter Kirstie. By sunrise, their Shropshire mansion, Osbaston House, was a smoldering ruin concealing the truth of his collapsing empire.
Shared Psychosis
Swedish twins Ursula and Sabina Eriksson lived quiet, unremarkable lives an ocean apart for forty years. Then, in May 2008, within hours of reuniting in Ireland, something shifted — setting off one of the most bizarre and baffling cases ever caught on camera.
The Trainspotter
Estate agent Stephanie Slater left her Birmingham office in January 1992 to show a house to a client who had booked by letter. Hours later, a chillingly calm voice phoned her office: 'I have your employee... it will cost you £175,000.'
The Second Chance
Louise Ellis set off from Ottawa for a weekend getaway in Quebec's Gatineau Hills in April 1995 and never arrived. Her boyfriend Brett Morgan reported her missing — after her distinctive Suzuki Sidekick turned up abandoned and locked on a rural roadside.
The Greek Pilot
Helicopter pilot Babis Anagnostopoulos wooed teenage Caroline Crouch on the idyllic Greek island of Alonnisos, buzzing her schoolyard to impress her. Years later, he would tell police a harrowing story about a home invasion — a story technology would put to the test.
The Limburg Schoolgirl Murders
Best friends Jasmin and Yvonne, both sixteen, left a German discotheque at 3:00 a.m. in October 1994 and accepted a ride from a friendly middle-aged couple — a motherly woman and her quiet husband. Neither girl made it home to Limburg.
The House of Secrets
When police knocked on the door of 7 Pump Hill in Great Baddow, Essex, for a routine welfare check, Virginia McCullough had been waiting four years, three months, and twenty-eight days for that moment — and for what lay hidden behind the walls.
The Crown Hill Murder
Sixteen-year-old Becky Watts was home alone in Bristol's Crown Hill neighborhood on an ordinary Thursday in February 2015. By evening she had vanished — and the search would lead somewhere her family never imagined.
The Salt Creek Monster
A fishing family on a remote South Australian beach heard the screaming first — a bloodied Brazilian backpacker named Beatriz bursting from the Salt Creek scrubland, begging them to save her friend Lena from the man still out there.
The Body in the Garden
Leigh Ann Sabine always joked that the wrapped bundle on her patio was a medical skeleton — and asked her neighbors to use it as a prank after she died. When they cut through forty-one layers of plastic, the joke ended.
The Perfect Murder
Mushroom foragers in a Bavarian forest near Regensburg found bones fused with hardened quicklime — remains someone had tried to chemically erase. Christian F. believed he had committed the perfect murder.
Two Hundred Feet Below
In 1988, the body of brilliant American mathematician Scott Johnson was found at the base of the cliffs near Manly, Australia. Police called it a suicide — a story that would take three decades to undo.
For You, Anna
In Germany's medieval city of Lübeck, barmaid Marianne Bachmeier raised her daughter Anna between the tables of her pub. What Klaus Grabowski took from her — and what she did about it in a courtroom — divided a nation.
The Port Arthur Massacre
Martin Bryant, a jobless young millionaire with a childlike smile, set an alarm for the first time in his life on April 27, 1996 — then loaded an AR-15 into his yellow Volvo and drove toward Port Arthur, Tasmania.
Mad Blood
Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon were first cousins of Queen Elizabeth II — two disabled sisters whose family declared them dead while they were still alive inside the Royal Earlswood asylum.
Amok
Polish ad-agency owner Dariusz Janiszewski walked out to meet a mystery client in Wrocław in November 2000 and never returned — and the strangest clue would surface years later in a novel written by Krystian Bala.
Vigilante Killer
Born on a Brazilian farm with a dent in his skull from his father's boot, Pedro Rodrigues Filho — 'Pedrinho Matador' — grew into a killer who claimed his victims deserved it, and whose count defied belief.
The Long Ride Home
Nineteen-year-old psychology student Özgecan Aslan boarded a minibus home from campus in Mersin, Turkey — a ride that would end in the hills and ignite protests across the entire country.
The Beast of Buckland
For two years a predator the papers called the Beast of Buckland stalked the women of Portsmouth after dark. Then 24-year-old barmaid Linda Cook took the short way home — and police fixed on the wrong man.
What the Garden Knew
Allison Baden-Clay spoke six languages, raised three daughters, and was married to a Brisbane real estate agent carrying the famous Baden-Powell name. When she vanished from their Brookfield home in 2012, the garden held the first clue.
Three Bags of Sugar
Corinna Smith had never been in trouble in fifty-eight years — a charity volunteer caring for her ailing 80-year-old husband Michael in Neston, England. Then came the night involving a bucket and three bags of sugar.
The Monster of Worcester
In 1972, truck driver Clive Ralph and his wife Elsie trusted their lodger, David McGreavy, to babysit their three small children while Elsie worked the pub's evening shift. What happened on Gillam Street horrified all of Britain.
What Have You Got There?
Albert Alfonso and Paul Longworth had spent twenty quiet years together in Shepherd's Bush when Colombian adult-film performer Yostin Mosquera came to stay in June 2024 — weeks before a suitcase turned up at Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Hello Kitty Murder
In 1999 Hong Kong, young mother Fan Man-yee owed triad member Chan Man-lok a debt she had already repaid — but in his telling it kept growing, until his followers came to take her from her home.
The Engagement Ring
Michelina Lewandowska followed her fiancé Marcin Kasprzak from Poland to Huddersfield, England, and kept wearing his ring long after the engagement died. One May morning in 2011, he smiled and said he had something to show her.
A Fatal Lie
On Anzac Day 1999, Keith Hibbins and his partner took an evening stroll through Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens — just as a crying woman on the park's edge told six young men from the football a story that wasn't true.
The Skull
Dr. David Birkett, a respected Middlesbrough dermatologist who collected ancient skulls, got a handwritten note about a parcel from a courier company called Demon Despatch. The company didn't exist, and the phone number led to a man waiting beside a booth.
Killing a Dead Man
Lindsay Jellett, a gentle, well-loved man of forty-one, left his Ararat care home for his daily walk on a cold May evening in 1994 and never came back for dinner. What was done to him defied belief twice over.
Hurtcore
Behind a closed bedroom door in suburban Melbourne, a quiet former babysitter named Matthew Graham ran the dark web's most notorious child-abuse network under the name Lux — until investigators on three continents started pulling the thread.
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