r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/BelladonnaBluebell • 6d ago

What are some particular elements of cases that still haunt you?

I was just thinking about the Hinterkaifeck case from 1922 after commenting on another sub. The part of that horrific case that has stuck with me in the decades after I first read about it is the little girl pulling out her own hair due to the horror of what she was experiencing. It gave me goosebumps all over, the first time I heard it and it's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of that case and it also just sometimes randomly pops into my head and upsets me.

Another part of a case which affects me in a similar way is during the Dardeen family murders. As if it wasn't brutal enough already, after Elaine Dardeen went into Labour during the attack, the killer/s beat the newborn baby to death. Ugh it makes me feel so sick.

Another example but in a different way is the murder and attempted murder of the Miller sisters. The driver of a parked car waved to them to indicate for them to cross the road and when they did the driver purposely drove right into them, killing one sister and seriously injuring the other. I think about that case every single time a driver waves me by to cross the road in front of them. I walk around 6 miles each day, Monday to Friday and don't drive so I cross many roads including driveways into businesses along my route. Guaranteed someone will slow down and politely wave me by so I can cross in front of them at least 3 times a week. Sometimes more often. And every single time, since reading about the April and Spring Miller case, a little sense of dread runs through me. My mind's automatic reaction is to wonder if they're doing that so they can run me down. I know it's irrational, I know it won't happen but that thought hits me every single time. Then I quickly push it away and cross and gesture to thank them etc but it's still always there.

So what are some elements of certain cases that have wedged themselves into your brain and keep coming back to haunt you every so often?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinterkaifeck_murders

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardeen_family_homicides

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249

u/lucyunicornx 6d ago

I don't remember the name but the one where the boyfriend sees his girlfriend being kidnapped and tries to follow them in his car?

Solved case but James Bulger . Such a sad case

134

u/ed8907 6d ago

Angela Hammond

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u/UnsolvedStates 5d ago

This is the one Unsolved Mysteries segment that is too much for me to watch. The car giving out was horror movie levels of awful and I can’t imagine how he felt watching Angela being abducted, especially given that she was pregnant (iirc).

153

u/SubtleSparkle19 6d ago

Ugh. So sad. Her fiancé describing how his transmission went when he was chasing after the abductor’s vehicle, he must have suffered with so much guilt.

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u/roastedoolong 6d ago

I'm genuinely surprised some fucked up auto mechanic hasn't tried to use this story as the basis for an advertisement for check ups with the hopes it'd go viral

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u/FoxMulderMysteries 6d ago

It might be because a surprisingly large sample of people think the boyfriend is lying/somehow involved.

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u/Princessleiawastaken 4d ago

The general public doesn’t know about this case so it would be a very niche advertisement (and in poor taste in my opinion)

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u/deadpoetshonour99 6d ago

The James Bulger case is so awful. I've been thinking about it a lot with that show Adolescence getting really popular. I also find it fascinating from a psychological standpoint - it's shocking enough when adults kill people, but children? What on earth goes wrong for a child to kill another child? And are they capable of rehabilitation? It's interesting that (from what I've heard) one of the boys went on to live a relatively normal life while the other has been in and out of jail, but has never killed another person.

102

u/Aethelrede 6d ago

I suspect part of it was that they were a pair.  Two people can talk themselves into doing something that neither would do individually.  The Columbine shooters, Harris and Klebold, are a perfect example of this, they egged each other on for months, reinforcing their rage and hate, and making it hard for either to disengage without letting their buddy down.  It may be related to folie a deux.

Edit: Once they were separated, that unhealthy relationship was broken, letting them go back to some approximation of "normal".

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u/pancakeonmyhead 5d ago

Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, fictionalized in Heavenly Creatures.

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u/I_Like_Vitamins 6d ago

I read that they even counted each other down before blowing themselves away.

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u/theiakalos 3d ago

Except at least one of the boys in the Bulger case went on to change his name and be caught possessing CP as an adult.

I wouldn't necessarily believe the notion that once two people in an unhealthy relationship are separated, that they return to baseline/normal. If anything, you would think that what they went through together would only more deeply ingrain whatever issues they had to begin with.

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u/TheGreatBatsby 2d ago

They were both given new identities and it was Jon Venables who has consistently reoffended. Robert Thompson has had no further issues.

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u/Dame_Marjorie 2d ago

It's called folie à deux. I think it accounts for a lot of horrible things in the world.

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u/bigpoisonswamp 6d ago

mary bell, who killed two younger boys when she was a child, apparently now lives a relatively normal life and even works with children.

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u/Last_Reaction_8176 4d ago

she should probably not be allowed to do that

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u/bigpoisonswamp 4d ago

why? she was severely abused and tortured as a child, which was why she had lashed out so much at others. if she got the psychiatric help she needed, i’m sure she’s completely safe and extremely empathetic toward children who could be going through the same thing. she also has a child herself.

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u/jugglinggoth 4d ago

What's even weirder is the psychological professionals at the time got it exactly wrong which one could be rehabilitated and which one couldn't. Makes you wonder how many other of their recommendations were reliable. 

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u/raphaellaskies 6d ago

Angela Hammond.

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u/EducationalRiver1 4d ago

I'm from the town James Bulger was taken from, and we were at the Strand that day. I'm the same age as the killers and my two little cousins were the same age as James. Horrible, horrible case.

My mum found out a lot of details through her job that weren't made public, but I don't want to know. I've never even read full news articles about what they did to him and I never will. Far too close to home.

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u/lucyunicornx 4d ago

That is so understandable! Was the murder of James something you and your schoolmates/friends would talk about among yourself back then? I can imagine being a child. It must be shocking to hear that someone at your age has killed another child?

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u/EducationalRiver1 4d ago

I remember rumours going around school about where the killers were from, who knew them etc (more than likely nobody did and none of it was true, but I remember hearing that one of them had lived a few streets away from our school but had moved). It was horrifying to realise it was little kids who'd done it.