Mental Illness
Cases where a diagnosed mental illness shaped the crime or the verdict.
15 cases
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.
Written in Blue Ink
Nine-year-old Elizabeth Olten set off on the four-house walk home from a neighbor's in tiny St. Martin, Missouri, and never arrived — and her cell phone signal pointed hundreds of searchers into the dark woods directly behind their homes.
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.
Divine Justice
In a Pacific Northwest decade haunted by vanishing girls — several later confirmed as Ted Bundy victims — fourteen-year-old Kathy Devine's 1973 disappearance near Olympia sat unsolved for decades, filed under the wrong killer.
The Amish Killer
Ed Gingerich never fit the plain, machine-less life of his Old Order Amish community, so Bishop Rudy Shetler arranged a marriage to his niece Katie — a match that ended in the tragedy of March 18, 1993, one so dark much of Rockdale Township's Amish moved away.
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 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.
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.
Twisted Triangle
Karen and Kraig Kahler had the marriage other couples tried to emulate. Then, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a neighbor in Burlingame, Kansas, watched a man park a red SUV outside great-grandmother Dorothy Wight's farmhouse and stomp toward the porch carrying something large.
Tennessee
Algebra teacher Colleen Ritzer stayed after class at Danvers High School to help any student who needed it. On October 22, 2013, fourteen-year-old Philip Chism — a quiet newcomer from Tennessee — was in her final class of the day.
Mother's Day
In the months before Mother's Day 2017, Joshua Webb of Colton, Oregon, told friends that a black box in his garage was recording him and that voices in his head were growing louder. What he carried into an Estacada grocery store that day defied belief.
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 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.
Voices and Violence
In an Idaho Falls group home for men rebuilding their lives, German-born Hans Woerrlein — 'extremely smart, super sweet' — was paired with a quiet new roommate named Douglass Taylor. Their late-night talks about religion and secret societies took a dark turn in March 2020.
The Shadow Brother
Carole Sund planned every detail of her February 1999 trip to Yosemite with daughter Juli and Argentine exchange student Silvina Pelosso. When the three vanished with their rented red Pontiac, the search led to a man no one suspected.
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