There are plenty of famous criminals whose identities remain a secret, and sadly some
of their victims are also yet to be identified.
Some of these unidentified people are particularly strange cases.
These are mysterious people whose identities are still unknown.
Number 5
In June 1990, teenagers looking for berries found the remains of a young woman in a remote
location in Clarion County, Pennsylvania.
More than 30 years later, this strange case still needs to be solved.
The young woman was given the nickname Penny Doe, as she was found with a penny in the
pockets of the jeans she was wearing.
This could have been a calling card from the person who took her life.
Some have suggested it may have been a reference to the Ancient Greek custom of burying bodies
with coins to pay the ferryman.
Others have suggested they could have been a cruel “tip” the criminal left her with.
Or it may just have been two coins left behind when whoever took her life took everything
else from her pockets.
Whatever the case, the pennies gave the young woman a name while investigators try to find
her true identity.
The woman was estimated to be in her late teens or early 20s, though some estimates
have put her at around 40-years-old.
She was found lying face down in a stream near a railway trestle.
She had suffered blunt force trauma to her head which had ultimately claimed her life.
Investigators believe she wasn’t from the area, and had only been in Clarion County
for a month at the most.
However, they believe the person that took her life was local.
The area she was found at was very remote, and investigators believed only someone who
knew the area would have found the location.
It is possible, though, that someone simply passing through would have been able to find
the secluded spot by following the railway lines.
Beyond that, investigators had little else to go on.
Her teeth were in extremely good conditions, leading investigators to believe she may have
grown up somewhere with fluoride in the water.
She had no cavities at all, but one of her teeth was chipped.
It’s possible she may have been in town for a nearby music festival, or may have known
someone at Clarion University.
The college confirmed she wasn’t a student, but someone studying there may have known
her.
In 2003, authorities received an anonymous letter with details about Penny Doe.
They appealed for the author to contact them again, but so far that was the last anybody
heard from them.
The letter itself has never been revealed.
Penny Doe was a white female between 4ft10 and 5ft6in tall with dark brown, shoulder
length.
Number 4
Between December 2020 and February 2021, an unidentified individual robbed six banks in
Arizona.
As suddenly as they began, the robberies stopped after the bandit hit two US Bank branches
in Phoenix in one day.
The robber has been dubbed the Piggy Bank Bandit and could still be at large.
The bandit first struck on the first day of December 2020, hitting a bank in Tempe, Arizona.
They were wearing a beanie hat, black rimmed glasses, and a black face mask that obscured
their face.
The unidentified individual gave the teller a note with their demand for money and indicating
they were carrying a weapon.
Thankfully nobody was hurt in the encounter.
The criminal hit three more banks and credit union branches before the FBI issued an alert
about the individual.
This was when the Piggy Bank Bandit nickname hit news headlines.
The nickname came after the robber took a roll of coins from one of the banks they hit.
Images of the unknown person caught on camera were shared, along with a description taken
from witnesses.
According to the FBI, it wasn’t possible to determine if the bandit was a man or a
woman.
The suspect is white, between 5ft6in and 5ft8in tall and between 25 and 35-years-old.
The most identifying piece of information is that the suspect has a tattoo on the left
side of their neck, though security footage wasn’t of a good enough quality to determine
what exactly the tattoo was of.
It’s believed the suspect fled on foot.
After the FBI issued an appeal for more information, the Piggy Bank Bandit struck again.
On February 26th, they struck at two different bank branches on the same afternoon.
Police haven’t revealed how much money was stolen.
This was the last time the mysterious individual is known to have hit.
Given the sudden appearance and disappearance, it’s possible the Piggy Bank Bandit had
never intended to make a career out of their crimes, and had acquired all the money they
wanted from the robberies.
More likely, the bandit changed up their disguise.
With the added publicity from the FBI appeal, they likely realised they needed to cover
up their tattoo and try something different.
Alternatively, they may have been captured for a different crime.
Law enforcement is still appealing for information, with any tips to be sent to the FBI’s Phoenix
Field Office.
Number 3
Anybody who has ever tried to make it in motorsport will know that reaching the top tiers isn’t
really possible without a lot of experience, and a lot of money.
But one man in the 1980s managed to find his way onto a NASCAR grid for a one-off appearance,
and nobody knows who he was.
L.W. Wright’s racing career began shortly before the 1982 Winston 500, one of the biggest
races on the NASCAR calendar.
The man claimed to be 33-years-old and having competed in 43 races in one of the smaller
NASCAR series.
He approached Bernie Terrell, a PR Man on Music Row in Nashville.
Without any evidence of his credentials, he managed to convince Bernie to advance him
almost $40,000 to support his entry into the race.
According to Wright, music stars Merle Haggard and T.G Sheppard were going to sponsor him.
NASCAR was a little more skeptical about Wright’s past, but he had the money necessary to register
to compete, and they couldn’t legally stop him.
Next, Wright purchased a car from Sterling Marlin, who would in the future go on to race
in the series himself.
At the time he had only competed in lower level classes, but knew his way around the
race paddock.
Sterling worked as Wright’s crew chief, and was prepared to direct him through the
race, but Wright didn’t get that far.
Wright signed checks for everything from a pit crew and mechanics to tyres, but while
at the race track his lies were swiftly uncovered.
He was questioned about the fact nobody had ever heard of him, and admitted he hadn’t
competed in the races he said he had.
However, he did claim to have run in races at the same circuits and had more than enough
experience behind the wheel.
The sponsors he claimed to have signed also had never heard of him.
Sterling noted he apparently had no idea what he was doing at the race track, but still
managed to qualify for the race.
He did crash during qualifying, but was permitted to enter the race, starting from 36th position.
He officially lasted 13 laps during the race before he was given a black flag, meaning
he was disqualified for being too slow.
Wright came into the pits, got out of his car, and walked away.
Wright has been called the D.B Cooper of motorsport, and for good reason.
The checks he had written all bounced, and nobody was able to get hold of him again.
There was little doubt in anybody’s mind that the name he had given was fake.
NASCAR contacted authorities and an arrest warrant was issued, while Bernie hired a private
investigator to try to track him down.
All efforts turned up nothing, though, and the mysterious individual disappeared.
Number 2
This month marks 30 years since a discovery that would lead to one of the most mysterious
John Doe cases England has ever seen.
It was only by chance that the body of an unidentified male was ever discovered on a
dark and cold October evening in 1991.
A local man was travelling home after visiting his son in Cuckfield, a village in Sussex.
While on the road, he stopped near the village of Bolney to relieve himself in some brush
and overgrowth.
That was when he made the strange discovery.
The body of a man had been rolled up in a piece of carpet.
He was missing his head and his forearms.
By the time police arrived, it was dark and pouring with rain, so not much could be gathered
from the crime scene.
Not much could be determined about the man’s identity at the time.
He was described as white, with a protruding belly, and estimated to be about 60 years
of age.
He was dressed in clothes that investigators believed were not his own, cream coloured
trousers and a blue shirt with what was described as a distinctive motif on the pocket.
The nearby villages were quiet places, and such a horrific crime stuck out, but nobody
knew who the unidentified man was.
Police were stumped for clues.
Their first lead came in December that year, when an estate agent contacted them about
an abandoned house.
The luxurious home in Cuckfield was being rented by a German couple who had paid six
months rent up front in September.
They had vanished shortly before the body was found.
An adult magazine with an article about removing limbs from a body was discovered at the house
with numbers scribbled on the pages.
The couple turned out to be Gunter Josef Knieper and his girlfriend.
Knieper was wanted for a multi-million pound business fraud scheme, and was caught in June
1992 living in Spain.
He admitted to having planned a fraud operation in England, but denied any knowledge of the
body.
He claimed to have bought the magazine for contacts for an escort service.
Police were back at square one.
Later advancements in technology allowed more in depth examination of the body.
It was determined the man had grown up in southern Germany or the surrounding area.
Information gleaned from a toe nail revealed he had been in England for the last year of
his life, or possibly living in an area on the border of Germany and France.
It was also revealed he was actually likely in his mid- to late-30s rather than his 60s.
Police went to Germany with this information, putting up billboards with the John Doe’s
information.
There were a few new leads, but they all went nowhere.
As of 2021, police have no idea who the man now referred to as the Bolney Torso was, let
alone who was responsible for taking his life.
Number 1
There is a surprising amount of information regarding the woman known as the El Dorado
Jane Doe, but the one thing we don’t know about her is who she really was.
The young woman went by the name Mercedes most of the time, but had other aliases.
She worked as an exotic dancer and prostitute in Texas and Arkansas.
In 1991, she was living in El Dorado, Arkansas, with her boyfriend and alleged pimp James
McAlphin.
It was far from a happy relationship, and Mercedes had started taking the steps to get
away from him when he took her life on July 10th.
That was when investigators tried to piece together her past.
Police found IDs for a woman named Cheryl Ann Wick among her belongings.
They contacted the family of Ms Wick to inform them of the tragic news, only to discover
the real Cheryl Ann Wick was very much still alive.
She had previously worked as a dancer at a club in Minnesota, where she believes her
ID had been stolen.
She didn’t recognize Mercedes.
Police were able to use arrest records to trace Mercedes history back about six months.
Between December 1990 and May 1991, she had been arrested four times, three times in Texas
and once in Arkansas for crimes like prostitution and writing bad checks.
On each occasion she used an alias, including Cheryl Wick.
Beyond that, investigators had to use testimony from those that knew Mercedes, but that didn’t
clear much up.
She told different people different things.
Sometimes she claimed her father was in the Mafia and she was part of a witness protection
programme.
On other occasions, she said she was on the run for bank robbery.
She also claimed she had been with a black male when he took the life of a truck driver,
and they were on the run for that.
Nobody knew her real name.
McAlpin claims to know the truth.
He denies taking Mercedes’ life, and says she used his weapon to take her own life,
but still pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
He’s still in prison for an unrelated offense.
He told reporters Mercedes had run away from home with a pimp in Dallas.
Then she ran away from him with another pimp, named Tyrone.
She then ran from Tyrone with McAlphin.
The names he used match those she wrote about in a personal diary, but police aren’t convinced
he’s telling the truth.
He also claimed she had two children she left behind, something she had told some friends
before, but the details surrounding those children also changed from telling to telling.
In 2019, investigators made something of a break in the case, when genetic genealogy
was able to identify one of Mercedes’ second cousins.
The relative was a woman in Alabama named Chistina Tilford, and it’s believed she
and Mercedes shared great-grandparents.
Christina said she saw the family resemblance with Mercedes, but nobody in the family knew
who she was.
Mercedes was between 20 and 30-years-old when she passed away.
She had old scars over her right eye, and was about 5ft10in tall and weighed 162 pounds.
Anyone with information that could identify this mysterious individual should contact
El Dorado Crime Stoppers.