On July 30th, 1985, Nicole Morin, 8, made plans to meet her friend Jen and go swimming. Though she was only heading down to the lobby of her apartment building to meet Jen, she vanished before making it there.
u/WinnieBean33 — 2 days ago
r/OldestColdCases
In 1998, Josh Phillips (14) murdered his neighbour, Maddie Clifton (8), and slept above her body he hid under his bed for six days
On November 3rd 1998 in Florida, 14-year-old Josh Phillips murdered his 8-year-old neighbour Maddie Clifton. He hid her body under his bed frame, sleeping above her until his mother made the discovery in his room six days later.
On the morning of the 3rd, Maddie asked Josh to play baseball with her in his front yard while his parents were not home. They usually played together so this was not out of the ordinary. Josh states at some point he accidentally hit the baseball into Maddie's eye, causing her to cry loudly, resulting in his panic and striking her in the head with the baseball bat. He then dragged Maddie into his house and hid her under his mattress. After his parents had arrived home, Josh realised Maddie was conscious and moaning, so he used the knife of a Leatherman multi-tool to slit her throat and stab her in the chest seven times.
Maddie was reported missing by her parents at 5pm the same day when she failed to return home by dinner. Josh participated in search efforts alongside his family, police, volunteers and Maddie's family who had believed he was innocent. Six days later, Josh's mother discovered Maddie's body and immediately contacted police. Josh was arrested at school and later confessed to the murder.
Josh claims he murdered Maddie out of fear that his strict father would find out she had come to play while he was not present, violating a rule he imposed. Josh and his mother reportedly lived in fear of his father, who was violent and struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.
During the trial, it was believed Josh had a sexual motive after it was discovered he frequently watched dominant aggressive-style pornography on the family computer while home alone. The pornography was ruled inadmissible in court by the judge. Additionally, Maddie was found nude below her waist and her shirt was rolled up, potentially indicating sexual intent, though Josh claims her clothes came off while he was dragging her through the house. He had also previously spoken about sexual topics with Jessie Clifton, Maddie's older sister, who prosecutors suggest he had a fixation on. Josh denied any sexual motive and no physical evidence of sexual assault was found during the autopsy.
In 1999, Josh was tried as an adult and was convicted of first degree murder, receiving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He was ineligible for the death penalty as he was under the age of 16.
In 2002, Josh's mother sought a new trial for her son stating she thought his young age should have carried more weight in his sentence. In 2008, two officials most responsible for Josh's life sentence admitted to having second thoughts, regretting not offering a second degree murder plea. In 2016, Josh's attorneys successfully appealed for a new sentencing hearing, during which Maddie's mother requested his sentence be upheld. He was re-sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of sentence review beginning in 2023.
While in prison, Josh completed his GED, took college classes, and now works as a paralegal assisting other inmates with their appeals. In 2025, Josh began the process for a sentence review; however, on May 6th 2026, he withdrew his bid for sentence review stating that he needed professional counselling.
u/_sunny_angel_ — 5 days ago
In 1992, 13-year-old Leigh Occhi vanished from her Tupelo home while blood covered the walls. Her mother failed three polygraph tests and was never charged. Someone later mailed Leigh’s glasses back to the house. She has never been found.
Leigh Occhi was 13 years old when she vanished from 105 Honey Locust Drive in Tupelo, Mississippi, on August 27, 1992.
She and her mother Vicky had breakfast together that morning and made plans for the evening before Vicky left for work at 7:35 AM.
When Vicky returned less than two hours later, the front door she had locked was open and blood covered the bedroom, hallway, and living room floor. source
u/Important-Self-1179 — 5 days ago
I've been researching the Mary Bell case for a video and I cant stop thinking about her mother
Quick summary:
Mary Bell was an 11 year old girl in Newcastle who strangled two little boys in 1968, four year old Martin Brown in May and three year old Brian Howe nine weeks later. She was the youngest female killer in British history and was diagnosed as a psychopath by four court appointed psychiatrists at her trial. What I cant get past is that none of those psychiatrists ever heard about what her mother had been doing to her since she was four years old, and the defence never put it in front of the court. Im posting because Im genuinely curious what this sub thinks about how that gap played out.
May 1968 in Newcastle upon Tyne, a 4 year old boy named Martin Brown walks to a sweet shop near his home, buys a piece of candy, and starts walking back. About fifteen minutes later three older boys looking for scrap wood climb into an abandoned house on St Margarets Road and find him on the floor of an upstairs bedroom. Hes on his back, arms above his head, blood and saliva running from the corner of his mouth. A workman tries CPR, but it's already too late.
The pathologist who examined Martin the next day, a guy named Bernard Knight who would later become one of the most respected forensic pathologists in the UK, couldnt find any sign of violence on the body. He couldnt determine a cause of death at all. Martin Brown was buried, by the official record, as a child who died of "nothing in particular".
In reality, he had been strangled. The girl who killed him was so small, and so practiced at hiding it, that the British medical system didnt realise a child had been murdered.
Two days after Martins funeral, the local day nursery on Woodland Crescent is broken into overnight. The intruders peel slate tiles off the roof to get inside. They smear ink and poster paint across the floor and leave four handwritten notes scattered around the building, written in childish printing, alternating between two different handwritings.
The first note reads: "I murder so that I may come back."
The second: "We did murder Martin Brown."
The third: "Watch out, there are murderers about."
The Newcastle police find these four notes, written in clear handwriting that any forensic document examiner could analyze in an afternoon, and they conclude it was a sick prank by older children. They installed a burglar alarm at the nursery and moved on. They dont connect it to Martins death.
Two days after the notes were written, an 11 year old girl from the same neighbourhood knocks on the front door of Martins mothers house. The mother, June Brown, opens the door. The girl smiles at her and asks if she can see Martin. June tells her that Martin is dead. The girl, still smiling, says: "oh I know hes dead. I wanted to see him in his coffin."
June Brown slams the door.
Nine weeks later, a 3 year old boy named Brian Howe walks out of his front door to play. He is last seen in the street with his older sister, the family dog, and the same 11 year old girl who knocked on June Browns door. Hes found seven hours later between two large concrete blocks on waste ground near the railway - strangled with one hand pinching his nostrils shut and the other gripping his throat. With puncture wounds on his legs, hair cut off in sections and genitals partially mutilated. And on his stomach, scratched in with a razor blade, the letter "M".
The lead detective figures out shes the killer the next day when she slips up about a pair of broken scissors that nobody outside the police knew existed.
Her name was Mary Bell. She was 11 years old. She was, and still is, Britains youngest female killer.
In December 1968 she goes on trial at Newcastle Assizes. Four court appointed psychiatrists examine her and diagnose her with psychopathic personality disorder. An 11 year old psychopath. The judge, when asked whether there was any facility anywhere in the United Kingdom equipped to treat a child like her, hears the answer "No", calls this unhappy, and sentences her to detention at her majestys pleasure. She gets sent to a young offenders unit in Lancashire where shes the only female among 24 boys. Twenty five years later, the same unit will house Jon Venables, one of the two boys who killed James Bulger.
What bothers me is what the four psychiatrists who diagnosed an 11 year old as a psychopath never heard. Because the defence chose not to introduce it and the family chose not to come forward.
Mary Bells mother was a woman named Betty McCrickett. She was 17 when Mary was born. According to Marys aunt who was present at the hospital, in the minutes after Mary was born the staff tried to place the baby in Bettys arms and Betty pushed her away and shouted six words. Take the thing away from me.
Around 1960, when Mary was three, Betty dropped her from a first floor window and on a separate occasion she gave Mary a quantity of sleeping pills that a three year old should not have been able to survive. On a third occasion she sold Mary through an adoption agency to a mentally unstable woman who couldnt have her own children, and Marys older sister Catherine had to travel alone across Newcastle to retrieve her and bring her home. Marys family repeatedly offered to take custody of her but Betty refused every time.
And from somewhere around the age of four, according to Mary herself in interviews she gave decades later, her mother began allowing her clients to sexually abuse her. Mary states her mother actively participated in some of those sessions. By the time she was 8, this had been her life for four years.
But none of this was introduced as evidence at the 1968 trial. The four psychiatrists who diagnosed an 11 year old psychopath did so based on her behaviour during interviews and on the facts of the killings. They had no access to her family history.
The defence apparently decided that putting Betty McCrickett on the stand was unworkable, so they made a calculation. And Betty sat in the public gallery during the entire trial sobbing loudly while reporters noted that she was selling stories about Mary to the British and German tabloid press during and after the proceedings.
Theres a journalist named Gitta Sereny who covered that trial and never let it go. She wrote two books on the case, 26 years apart. The second one was based on over 70 hours of interviews she conducted with Mary as an adult. And theres a sentence in that second book, said by Mary herself.
Reflecting on the killings decades later she said: I didnt know I had intended for them to be dead. Dead forever. Dead for me then did not mean forever.
An 11 year old, who had been told from infancy that her own life didnt matter, did not understand that other lives could end. The court never knew that. Because the court never asked.
Im not trying to excuse what she did. Two little boys are dead. Martin Browns mother lived the rest of her life feeling phantom tugs at the back pocket of her trousers, expecting to turn around and see him. None of what I just wrote brings either of them back.
In 1993, twenty five years later, two ten year old boys would walk a toddler named James Bulger out of a shopping centre in Liverpool and kill him. Britain learned nothing in those 25 years.
Couple of things Id genuinely want to hear takes on:
Was the defence right not to put Betty McCrickett on the stand? They apparently decided it was unworkable. But the consequence was an 11 year old getting diagnosed as a psychopath without anyone in the room knowing what shed survived.
Should psychiatric evaluations of child defendants legally require family history access? The four psychiatrists worked entirely off interviews and the killings themselves. In 1968 that was standard. Is it still defensible now.
Sources:
BBC News, 17 December 1968 trial coverage — http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/17/newsid_3261000/3261087.stm
The Guardian archive, original 1968 trial reporting — https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1968/dec/18/ukcrime.childprotection
Gitta Sereny - The Case of Mary Bell (1972)
Gitta Sereny - Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill (1998)
Crime and Investigation UK case file — https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/mary-bell
u/_sunny_angel_ — 5 days ago
New York Jane Doe (May 5, 1994) (Unidentified For 32 Years)
New York Jane Doe (May 5, 1994)
On May 5, 1994, the decomposed body of a woman was found under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, New York. She was thought have been deceased for days prior to being found. She was given the placeholder name New York Jane Doe (May 5, 1994).
Physical Description
• Sex: Female
• Race: White/Hispanic
• Age: 20-40 Years Old
• Height: 5'3"
• Weight: 95 Pounds
• Hair: 6 Inch Straight, Dark Brown
• Eye Color: Brown
Distinguishing Marks/Features
• Possibly Nail Biter
Clothing & Accessories
• Red And Black Long-Sleeved Plaid Shirt
• White T-Shirt
Exclusions (People She Is Not)
• Nadine Timm
• Patricia Schmidt
If you have any information contact
Agency Name: Office of Chief Medical Examiner New York City
Agency Contact Person: N/A
Agency Phone Number: (212) 447-2030
Agency Case Number: M94-03351
NamUs Case Number: 7801
This is a new reconstruction of this Jane Doe and the first one she has ever had. It took 32 years but she now finally had gotten this new recently released reconstruction. Im posting this in hopes that many new eyes see her picture and might just recognize her. If you can then please share her picture out to others. The more eyes the better. I hope this lady gets her name someday.
LINKS
u/BitterSweet_Beauty — 5 days ago
Suffolk County John Doe (May 1998) (Unidentified For 27 Years) (Teenager Found Deceased Behind An Elementary School)
Suffolk County John Doe (May 1998)
On May 20, 1998, a custodian picking up garbage behind a supply building discovered the skeletal remains of a teenage boy in an overgrown sump adjacent to a chain link fence behind Freshmen Center Elementary School in Brentwood, New York. He was thought to have been deceased 6 months prior to being found. He was given the placeholder name Suffolk County John Doe (May 1998).
Physical Description
• Sex: Male
• Race: White/Hispanic
• Age: 15-17 Years Old
• Height: 5'7"
• Nothing More Could Be Determined
Clothing & Accessories
• Green And Black Starter Jacket With "Alliance Down" Written On It, Size XL
• Shirt With "Chicago" Written On It
• White Boxers With Blue Vertical Stripes
• White Socks
• Black Buffalo Hiking Boots, Size 8.5
• Yellow Metal Stud Earring With Green Stone
• Belt With A Boy Scout Buckle
• White Plastic Rosary Beads
• Iridescent Green Plastic Key Ring Inscribed With "Hands of Gold Jewerly"
• Blanket With A Knot Loop Around Neck
According To Namus, He Has 0 Exclusions.
If you have any information contact
Agency Name: Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office
Agency Contact Person: N/A
Agency Phone Number: (631) 853-5555
Agency Case Number: 98-1701
NamUs Case Number: 2925
LINKS
u/BitterSweet_Beauty — 5 days ago
Harrison County Jane Doe Identified as Cheryl Lanier
After 53 years She finally has her name back !!! May she rest in peace
Edit: I just realized that I put Harrison , and it’s Harris County . Sorry for the error
u/_sunny_angel_ — 11 days ago
▲ 18 r/OldestColdCases
Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
On Sunday morning, August 12, 1984, 13-year-old Eugene Martin left his home at approximately 5 a.m. to deliver the Des Moines Register newspaper in the Des Moines area. He wore blue jeans, a red shirt, and a gray pullover.
Eugene normally delivered the papers with his older stepbrother, but on this day went alone. The Iowa State Fair was in town, and Eugene — who in his free time enjoyed football, fishing, skating, video games, and TV — wanted to make some extra money.
Witnesses said they saw Martin talking to a clean-cut white male in his 30s sometime between 5 and 5:45 a.m. at Southwest 12th Street and Highview Drive. Some stated the two appeared to be engaged in a friendly “father-son” sort of conversation, and others recalled seeing the teen folding papers and talking to the man sometime between 5:45 and 6:05. At a.m.approximately 8:40 a.m., the search for Eugene began. He has not been seen since. Federal agents said at the time there might be a “definite connection” to the disappearance of another Des Moines paper carrier — 12-year-old Johnny Gosch, who disappeared two years earlier on September 5, 1982 — and described the suspect as a “loner.”
u/Sudden_Quality_9001 — 10 days ago
▲ 17 r/OldestColdCases
Jane Arna and Grant Beaumont (the Beaumont children)
The Beaumont children—Jane (9), Arnna (7), and Grant (4)—who vanished from Glenelg Beach in Adelaide, Australia, on January 26, 1966.The case remains one of Australia's most enduring unsolved mysteries, with no arrests ever made.Despite numerous searches and investigations over the past 60 years, no trace of the children was ever found.The children's mother, Nancy Beaumont, passed away in 2019 at the age of 92 without knowing what happened to her children.
u/Sudden_Quality_9001 — 12 days ago
▲ 20 r/OldestColdCases
Louis Mackerley
Seven-year-old Louis was last seen on June 7, 1984 in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
After coming home from school that afternoon, Louis told his babysitter that he was going to walk two doors from his house to play with friends. Witnesses last observed him walking between Fourth Street and Gordon Street about a block from his second-floor apartment on Chew Street.
The owner of a local hot dog stand, Marco's Doggie Shop stated that Louis came into the store at 4:00 p.m., spending approximately 45 minutes browsing around. Louis told the owner that he was in the store to avoid two teenage boys who were chasing him. At 4:45, he left the store and walked east on Gordon Street. The teenage boys chasing him were questioned by the police, but they are not considered suspects in Louis' case.
Louis' parents believe that he might've been headed towards the home of an elderly woman who lived on Chew Street that he liked to visit.
A witness claimed to have seen Louis speaking with an unidentified man and woman in a park near Jordan Creek (located approximately one block away from Louis' home); however, the story was not confirmed.
Louis' parents didn't report him missing until 11:10 that evening; Louis enjoyed staying out late and usually didn't come home until about 9:30 p.m. At the time of his disappearance, his mom was in the hospital undergoing surgery and Louis was staying with an aunt. His parents have been ruled out as suspects in his case.
In January of 1984, Louis told his parents, his school's nurse and a psychologist that he was molested by a couple named Frank and Elizabeth. His accounts of the alleged incident vary from being molested on the railroad tracks near Jordan Street & the Lehigh River and being driven to an apartment in Allentown by the couple where he was molested before he was returned to his neighborhood.
The police were notified about what happened to Louis, but they were unable to find enough evidence to start an investigation because Louis was unable to provide any last names or addresses in his accounts of the molestation.
1988, a man named David Riggs (who was a self-proclaimed private investigator from New York who claimed to have founded an organization called Search Seven to search for Louis and other missing kids) was arrested in West Virginia after accosting five young boys and offering to pay them money to pose them in bikini underwear; the boys turned down the offer.
Riggs pled guilty to two counts of attempted child abduction and one count of sexual abuse in connection with the incidents and was sentenced to a year in prison. Investigators looked into the possibility of Riggs being involved with Louis' case, but didn't find any evidence connecting him to it and he was ruled out a suspect.
u/Sudden_Quality_9001 — 14 days ago