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Unsolved Murders.

Unsolved Murders.

Written by: Popular Culture and Religion.
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Unsolved Murders comprise thousands of historically infamous cold cases and recent homicides that continue to baffle investigators. While modern DNA and genetic genealogy frequently solve decades-old cold cases, many prominent mysteries—such as the Zodiac Killer and the Setagaya family murders—remain unresolved.
This lists of Unsolved Murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances.Copyright Popular Culture and Religion. Politics & Government True Crime World
Episodes
  • 19 - Mary Rogers.

    19 - Mary Rogers.
    Jul 4 2026
    Mary Rogers.
    Mary Cecilia Rogers (born c. 1820 – found dead July 28, 1841) was an American murder victim whose story became a national sensation.
    Rogers was a noted beauty who worked in a New York tobacco store, which attracted the custom of many distinguished men. When her body was found in the Hudson River, she was assumed to have been the victim of gang violence. However, one witness swore that she was dumped after a failed abortion attempt, and her boyfriend's suicide note suggested possible involvement on his part. Rogers' death remains unexplained. She inspired Edgar Allan Poe's pioneering detective story "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt".

    Early life.
    Mary Rogers was probably born in 1821 in Lyme, Connecticut, though her birth records have not survived. She was a beautiful young woman who grew up as the only child of her widowed mother. At the age of 20, Mary lived in the boarding house that was run by her mother. Her father James Rogers died in a steamboat explosion when she was 17 years old, and she took a job as a clerk in a tobacco shop owned by John Anderson in New York City.
    Anderson paid her a generous wage in part because her physical attractiveness brought in many customers. One customer wrote that he spent an entire afternoon at the store only to exchange "teasing glances" with her. Another admirer published a poem in the New York Herald referring to her heaven-like smile and her star-like eyes. Some of her customers included notable literary figures James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, and Fitz-Greene Halleck.

    First disappearance.
    On October 5, 1838, the newspaper the Sun reported that "Miss Mary Cecilia Rogers" had disappeared from her home. Her mother Phoebe said she found a suicide note which the local coroner analyzed and said revealed a "fixed and unalterable determination to destroy herself". The next day, however, the Times and Commercial Intelligence reported that the disappearance was a hoax and that Rogers only went to visit a friend in Brooklyn. The New York Sun had previously published a story known as the Great Moon Hoax in 1835, causing controversy. Some suggested this return was actually the hoax, evidenced by Rogers' failure to return to work immediately. When she finally resumed working at the tobacco shop, one newspaper suggested the whole event was a publicity stunt managed by Anderson.

    Murder.
    On July 25, 1841, Rogers told her fiancé Daniel Payne that she would be visiting her aunt and other family members. Three days later, on July 28, the police found her corpse floating in the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey. Referred to as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl", the mystery of her death was sensationalized by newspapers and received national attention. The details of the case suggested she was murdered, or dumped by abortionist Madame Restell after a failed procedure. Months later, the inquest still ongoing, her grief-stricken fiancé Daniel Payne committed suicide by overdosing on laudanum during a bout of heavy drinking. A remorseful note was found among the papers on his person where he died near Sybil's Cave on October 7, 1841, reading: "To the World – here I am on the very spot. May God forgive me for my misspent life."
    The story, much publicized by the press, also emphasized the ineptitude and corruption of the city's watchmen system of law enforcement. At the time, New York City's population of 320,000 was served by an archaic force, consisting of one night watch, 100 city marshals, 31 constables, and 51 police officers.
    The popular theory was that Rogers was a victim of gang violence. In November 1842, Frederica Loss came forward and swore that Rogers' death was the result of a failed abortion attempt. Police refused to believe her story, and the case remained unsolved. Interest in the story waned nine weeks later when the press began publicizing a different, unrelated murder case, that of John C. Colt's murder of Samuel Adams.

    In fiction.
    Rogers' story was fictionalized most notably by Edgar Allan Poe as "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842). The action of the story was relocated to Paris and the victim's body found in the River Seine. Poe presented the story as a sequel to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), commonly considered the first modern detective story, and included its main character C. Auguste Dupin. As Poe wrote in a letter: "under the pretense of showing how Dupin... unravelled the mystery of Marie's assassination, I, in fact, enter into a very rigorous analysis of the real tragedy in New York." In the story, Dupin suggests several possible solutions but never actually names the murderer.



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    5 mins
  • 18 - Helen Jewett.

    18 - Helen Jewett.
    Jul 4 2026
    Helen Jewett. Helen Jewett (born Dorcas Doyen; October 18, 1813 – April 10, 1836) was an American prostitute in New York City who was brutally murdered. One of her regular clients, Richard P. Robinson, was tried and sensationally acquitted of her murder. Jewett's murder and Robinson's subsequent trial was one of the first sex scandals to receive detailed press reporting, notably in the New York Herald. Public opinion was divided between those who felt that Jewett had deserved her fate, and others claiming that Robinson had escaped justice through powerful connections. Early history. Jewett was born Dorcas Doyen into a working-class family in Temple, Maine. Her father was an alcoholic; her mother died when Jewett was young. From the age of 12 or 13, Jewett was employed as a servant girl in the home of Chief Justice Nathan Weston of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Upon reaching the age of 18, Jewett left the Weston home at the first opportunity. She moved to Portland, Maine, where she worked as a prostitute under an assumed name. She subsequently moved to Boston and finally New York under a succession of fake names. The murder. Jewett's body was discovered by the matron of the brothel, Rosina Townsend, at 3 a.m. on April 10, 1836. The murder had taken place sometime after midnight. Jewett was struck on the head three times with a sharp object. (The coroner's report called it a 'hatchet'.) Based on the position of the corpse in bed, the coroner concluded that the blows were not expected: there were no signs of struggle. After inflicting the lethal blows, the murderer then set fire to Jewett's bed. Townsend discovered the room full of smoke, and Jewett's body charred on one side. The trial. Based on the testimony of the women who lived in the brothel, the police arrested 19-year-old Richard P. Robinson on suspicion of Jewett's murder. Robinson, a repeat customer of the victim, flatly denied killing her, and did not display much emotion even when confronted with the still warm corpse. Nevertheless, based on the testimony of various witnesses and the recovery of a cloak that resembled Robinson's, the coroner's jury, hastily assembled on the scene and made up of on-lookers, concluded that Jewett met her end "by blows ... inflicted ... with a hatchet by the hand of Richard P. Robinson." This was enough to gain an initial indictment. On June 2, 1836, Robinson's trial for murder began. Ex-D.A. of New York Ogden Hoffman appeared for the defence. After days of testimony from several witnesses, including Rosina Townsend, the judge gave the jury its instructions. As most of the witnesses were other prostitutes, the judge ordered his jury to disregard their testimony. Presented primarily with circumstantial evidence against Robinson, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty in less than a half hour. The press. Jewett's murder excited the press and the public. The coverage of the murder and trial was highly polarized, with reporters either sympathizing with Jewett and vilifying Robinson or attacking Jewett as a seductress who deserved her fate. The New York Herald, edited by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., provided the most complete (if not unbiased) coverage of the sensational murder. Almost from the beginning and throughout the trial, Bennett insisted that Robinson was the innocent victim of a vicious conspiracy launched by the police and Jewett's madam. He also emphasized the sensational nature of the story and worked to exploit the sexual, violent details of Jewett's death. The New York Sun, in contrast, whose readers tended to come from the working class, argued that Robinson was guilty and that he was able to use money and the influence of wealthy relatives and his employer to buy an acquittal. This theory continued to gain traction for many years later. Most notably, the trial was largely responsible for nationwide changes in the approach to sex and scandal coverage by American journalists. Prior to the case, coverage of such topics by major newspapers was nearly nonexistent. Additionally, some historians credit Bennett with the first journalistic interview, namely that of Rosina Townsend. Other historians, however, argue that Bennett never actually talked to Townsend and that his reported interview was a hoax. Post trial. Personal letters of Robinson's that became public after the trial undercut some of his claims and showed him to be capable of vicious and (for the time) deviant sexual behavior and the public turned against him, including some who had been his vocal supporters. Robinson eventually moved to Texas where he became a respected frontier citizen. References in popular culture. Jewett and Robinson are the subject of The Lives of Helen Jewett, And Richard P. Robinson, an 1849 novel by journalist George Wilkes. The novel was originally published in serial form in Wilkes' newspaper the National Police Gazette. This story is a fictionalized narrative based around the ...
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    6 mins
  • 17 - Elijah Parish Lovejoy.

    17 - Elijah Parish Lovejoy.
    Jul 4 2026
    Elijah Parish Lovejoy. Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. After his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery in the United States. He was also hailed as a defender of free speech and freedom of the press. Lovejoy was born in New England and graduated from what is today Colby College. Unsatisfied with a teaching career, he was drawn to journalism and decided to 'go west'. In 1827, he reached St. Louis, Missouri. Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Missouri entered the United States as a slave state. Lovejoy edited a newspaper but returned east for a time to study for the ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. On his return to St. Louis, he founded the St. Louis Observer, in which he became increasingly critical of slavery and the powerful interests protecting slavery. Facing threats and violent attacks, Lovejoy decided to move across the river to Alton in Illinois, a free state. However, Alton was also tied to the Mississippi River economy, easily reachable by anti-Lovejoy Missourians, and badly split over abolitionism. In Alton, Lovejoy was fatally shot during an attack by a pro-slavery mob. The mob was seeking to destroy a warehouse owned by Winthrop Sargent Gilman and Benjamin Godfrey, which held Lovejoy's printing press and abolitionist materials. According to John Quincy Adams, the murder "[gave] a shock as of an earthquake throughout this country." The Boston Recorder wrote that "these events called forth from every part of the land 'a burst of indignation which has not had its parallel in this country since the Battle of Lexington.'" When informed about the murder, John Brown said publicly: "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery." Lovejoy is often seen as a martyr to the abolitionist cause and to a free press. The Lovejoy Monument was erected in Alton in 1897. Early life and education. Elijah Parish Lovejoy was born at his paternal grandparents' frontier farmhouse near Albion, Maine (then part of Massachusetts), the eldest of nine children of Elizabeth (née Pattee) Lovejoy and Daniel Lovejoy. Lovejoy's father was a Congregational preacher and farmer, and his mother was a homemaker and a devout Christian. Daniel Lovejoy named his son in honor of his close friend and mentor, Elijah Parish, a minister who was also involved in politics. Due to his own lack of education, the father encouraged his sons – Elijah, Daniel, Joseph Cammett, Owen, and John – to become educated. Elijah was taught to read the Bible and other religious texts by his mother at an early age. After completing early studies in public schools, Lovejoy attended the private Academy at Monmouth and China Academy. When sufficiently proficient in Latin and mathematics, he enrolled at Waterville College (now Colby College) as a sophomore in 1823. Lovejoy received financial support from minister Benjamin Tappan to continue his studies there. Based on faculty recommendations, from 1824 until his graduation in 1826, he also served as headmaster of Colby's associated high school, the Latin School (later known as the Coburn Classical Institute). In September 1826, Lovejoy graduated cum laude from Waterville, and was class valedictorian. Journey westward. During the winter and spring, he taught at China Academy in Maine. Dissatisfied with teaching, Lovejoy considered moving to the American South or westward to the Northwest Territory. His former teachers at Waterville College advised him that he would best serve God in the West (now considered the American Midwest). In May 1827, he went to Boston to earn money for his journey, having settled on the free state of Illinois as his destination. Unsuccessful at finding work, he started for Illinois by foot. He stopped in New York City in mid-June to try to find work. He eventually landed a position with the Saturday Evening Gazette as a newspaper subscription peddler. For nearly five weeks, he worked to sell subscriptions. Struggling with his finances, he wrote to Jeremiah Chaplin, president of Waterville College, explaining his situation. Chaplin sent the money that his former student needed. Before embarking on his journey westward, Lovejoy wrote a poem which later seemed to prophesy his death: I go to tread, The Western vales, whose gloomy cypress tree, Shall haply, soon be enwreathed upon my bier; Land of my birth! My natal soil, Farewell. —Elijah P. Lovejoy. Career in Missouri. In 1827, Lovejoy arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, a major port in a slave state that shared its longest border with the free state of Illinois. Although it had a large slave market, St. Louis identified itself less with the plantation South and more as the "gateway to the West" and the American "frontier." Lovejoy initially ran a private ...
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    28 mins
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