Globally, hundreds of people go missing every day – and these are only the reported ones.
But even among the reported cases, a lot remain unsolved to this day.
From mind-boggling to downright chilling, here are the 8 Most Mysterious Missing Person Cases Ever!
What’s up, fact-natics! This is Discovery Amuse,
serving up your daily dose of the most outrageous, outlandish, and out-of-this-world fun facts!
Watch till the end because our top pick involves a hiker and a strange discovery
that led to his disappearance! You don’t wanna miss that one!
Let’s get to it.
#8: Walter Collins and the Wineville Murders
March 10, 1928, was the day Christine Collins last saw her 9-year-old son,
Walter. The police initially dismissed it as a runaway case,
but Christine insisted that the police investigate it as a kidnapping.
Five months later, the LA police informed Christine that they found
Walter in Illinois and brought him back to her shortly. However,
on the day of their reunion, Christine immediately asserted that it wasn’t her son.
Cop: Aren’t you gonna… Christine: That’s not my son.
Accused of trying to abandon his boy, Christine was committed to a mental institution against
her will. There, she suffered ill-treatment at the hospital and was only released when the
boy admitted that he was not Walter Collins, but actually a kid named Arthur Hutchins Jr.
In the same year, gruesome child murders in Wineville, California, were reported,
in what was later dubbed as the Wineville Murders, for which a man named Gordon Stewart Northcott
and his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott were arrested. This led to the discovery
human remains in the Northcotts’ chicken ranch, which allegedly included parts of Walter’s body.
However, the evidences were inconclusive,
and Christine held on to the belief that her son was still alive for the remainder of her life.
Christine: Maybe Walter’s having the same fears that he did,
afraid to come home and identify himself or afraid he’ll get into trouble.
And yeah, that’s Angelina Jolie playing Christine Collins in the
2008 film about the Wineville Murders titled “Changeling.”
Keep watching because our top pick seriously defies
logic that it might just remain a mystery forever.
#7: Lord Lucan and the Belgravia Murder
The disappearance of Richard John Bingham, more popularly known as
Lord Lucan, has been one of Britain’s most riveting mysteries during its darkest age.
Lord Lucan was known to have led a delinquent adult life where he eventually got mixed up
in high stakes gambling as a member of The Clermont Club with other elite and rich men.
In 1963, he married Lady Veronica Duncan but the couple’s relationship soon became sour
because of Lord Lucan’s lifestyle, which led to Lady Lucan falling for Lord Lucan’s
fellow Clermont Club member Greville Howard. Lord Lucan grew mor nd more violent towards his wife,
and Lady Lucan said he tried to kill her in more than one occasion.
Lady Lucan: He didn’t think he had to be nice to me anymore.
I was there but I wasn’t there ot be nice to him.
With the threat of being torn away from his children,
Lord Lucan allegedly hatched a plan to murder his wife. On the night of November 7, 1974,
he executed this plan, bludgeoning a woman in their home in the affluent Belgravia district.
However, the woman turned out to not be his wife, but the children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett.
Lad Lucan: I asked where’s Sandra and he said, she’s dead, don’t look.
Lord Lucan fled the scene, and a highly publicized investigation
of the case followed along with an extensive manhunt for Lord Lucan.
man: I wish to interview him as soon as possible and if any person is helping
him or assisting him or having any knowledge of his whereabouts would like them to let us know.
It was alleged that his pals at The Clermont Club helped him
flee. But fearing he might come back and divulge information incriminating them,
the theory is that the elite club had him assassinated.
#6: Larry Hillblom: The Shadow Billionnaire
Man: Cash, crime and ****, thse are the 3Cs.
Clearly the Larry Hillblom story incorporated all three elements.
Larry Lee Hillblom was the co-founder of logistics giant DHL Worldwide Express. He was
considered a genius in business, but alongside that was his well-chronicled dark lifestyle.
After turning DHL into a multi-billion dollar company,
he moved to Saipan in the 1980s to effectively evade taxation. Through the years,
he made Southeast Asia a playground for his addiction to drugs, sex, and underage girls.
Man: He was always interested in young ladies that were from
the farm. People from the back parts of the Philippines or Palau.
But on the fateful day of May 21, 1995, when he boarded a World War II vintage
aircraft from Pagan Island, the seaplane crashed and the bodies of the pilot and his
business partner were eventually found. However, Larry Hillblom’s remains were never discovered.
#5: Jimmy Hoffa and The Irishman
In 1975, labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
And it was only 25 years later that authorities were able to shed some light on his death.
Hoffa served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
from 1957 to 1971. During this term, he had faced several investigations for being involved in
organized crimes. Hoffa was convicted in 1964 and was released in 1971. Since then, he fought
to regain leadership of the union to no success, and the mobs feared Hoffa might incriminate them.
Soon after, he disappeared on the fateful day of July 30,
1975 after his supposed meeting with known Mafia figures Anthony Giacalone
and Anthony Provenzano. Tony: Don’t forget your
people got you where you are. Jimmy: Oh don’t tell me that.
Tony: That’s your problem Jimmy. Jimmy: Your problem is you’re a piece of shit.
One of the prime suspects to his murder was Frank Sheeran--yes, THE Irishman in that 2019
Martin Scorsese flick--who was a known Mafia hitman closely linked to the Bufalino crime
family. This was after Sheeran confessed the murder to his lawyer Charles Brandt in 2003,
saying Russel Bufalino assigned him to do the hit. Brandt: Sheeran said to me, “You don’t say no.
You don’t say no to Russel Bufalino about anything. If I would’ve said no to Russel,
Jimmy would’ve been just as dead, and I would’ve gone to Australia with him.”
FYI, by “going to Australia,” Brandt meant going down under. But despite
the confession, the FBI continues to confirm Sheeran’s involvement,
especially since the DNA found in the supposed murder scene wasn’t found to be Hoffa’s.
#4: Lars Mittank’s Disappearance
In recent years, so-called web sleuths have been trying to piece together the
curious case of a 28-year-old German guy named Lars Mittank who’s still missing to this day.
Girl: this case is so incredibly bizarre… Man: There’s multiple witnesses,
there’s so much information… Woman: This story is very very foggy…
On June 30, 2014, Lars was in Bulgaria with his friends vacationing at the Golden Sands resort.
During their stay there, he got into a fight with four other men about
soccer, which resulted in a ruptured eardrum. He was then advised not to fly
back to Germany with his friends at the end of their trip due to his ear injury.
After his friends left, he transferred to the Hotel Color in Varna. And that’s when he started
showing erratic behavior, appearing endlessly paranoid and frightened. He called his mother,
Sandra Mittank, from this hotel several times, telling her that
he thinks four men were coming to kill him. On July 8, 2014, he headed to Varna Airport
for his flight. During his consultation with the airport doctor, he abruptly sprinted away
and fled from the airport building. The security cam footage shows that he left
all his bags when he fled the airport. Outside, his pace slows down as he continues to move to
the parking lot, and then he climbed over the fence and into nearby patch of woods.
Conspiracists say that he might have been used unwillingly as a drug mule that’s why he escaped,
while other speculate he suffered a psychotic episode
due to the antibiotics prescribed to him for his eardrum.
#3: Emanuela Orlandi and the Vatican
In 2018, human bones were discovered while the Vatican’s embassy to Italy was being renovated.
This led to the Italian media speculating whether they might actually be the remains
of a 15-year-old Italian girl who’s been missing for 35 years.
Italian teenager Emanuela Orlandi was the daughter of a prominent Vatican employee
who worked as a clerk in the pontiff’s household.
One summer night in 1983, Emanuela Orlandi packed her flute for her music lessons. She walked out of
her family home inside the walls of Vatican City. It was the last time they ever saw the girl. Her
family started receiving mysterious calls, but nothing led to her being found. Pope John Paul II
even pleaded for her return after a public prayer, saying that he was close to the Orlandi family.
Fast forward to 2018 and the remains from the renovation site were proven to
not be Emanuela’s. In 2019, the Vatican authorized the opening of two tombs in
the Teutonic Cemetery based off of a tip the Orlandis received. But any trace of Emanuela
in those tombs weren’t found either. #2: The Vanishing of Madeleine McCann
It’s considered one of the most baffling missing child cases in recent history.
And to this day, the whole world is keeping a close eye on every
new detail that might lead to finding Madeleine McCann.
The 3-year-old British lass went on a holiday trip with her family and
some family friends in Portugal’s Algarve region in 2007. On the evening of May 3rd,
her parents went out for dinner with a group of friends in Praia da Luz, the resort where
they were staying at. They devised a system to check on all their children during the evening,
where they would alternate going to their rooms. When it was Kate McCann’s turn,
she discovered that her daughter was gone. Police were immediately called,
and the resort staff and guests searched for her until morning. Man: When the investigation began,
hours had already passed. I don’t know if 7,8. And this is enough for evidence to vanish. If she
was abducted in those 6-7 hours, they had time to take her to Spain or put her in a plane or a boat.
Borders and airports were alerted and hundreds more volunteered to help search for Madeleine.
Days soon turned into years of costly police operation, but still,
no substantial clues about her disappearance surfaced.
In June of 2020, police named a 43-year-old German prisoner and
paedophile identified as Christian Brueckner as the prime suspect.
Brueckner was confirmed to be in Praia de Luz at the time of Maddie’s disappearance, but the
authorities have yet to file charges against him. Man: We don’t have the body and no parts of
the body but we have enough evidence to say our suspect killed Madeleine McCann.
Before we go to our number 1 pick, do us a solid and make sure to smash the subscribe button and
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life-changing, boredom-busting content! And of course, be sure to turn on notifications
in your app’s settings! #1: Kenny Veach
Kenny Veach was a Las Vegas resident and an avid hiker. In October of 2014,
he posted a YouTube video claiming that he found a hidden cave near the Nellis Air Force Base. Its
entrance was a perfect capital letter M, but he instantly felt something weird about it.
Kenny: Something about that cave just spooked me out of al the caves I’ve ever gone in.
This one just made my body vibrate. The closer I get, the crazier my body felt.
On November 10, 2014, he set out on a hike to look for the cave once again. But this time, he never
came back. Search and rescue volunteers found Veach’s cell phone within the proximity of an
abandoned mine shaft. After this, however, the search trail has gone cold. Several
years later and his disappearance still poses a lot of questions.
So, which of these mysteries had your investigative gears turning?
Let us know in the comments section below.
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Now let’s lighten up the mood a bit and discover the 10 craziest
World records Ever! This one’s a doozy!
‘Til then, stay vigilant, fact-natics! And see you in the next video!