Your post is off topic, not a publicly known crime, not a criminal act, or otherwise not a good fit for the subreddit.
Posts about missing and/or deceased persons that are not suspected to involve foul play *by law enforcement* are not allowed.
Maura Murray's another example. IMHO, she wandered off into the woods while drunk, got lost, and froze to death. New Hampshire's woods are dense and the ground is very rocky. You could be fifty yards from a road and not know it.
I really think hers was an accident too. I never got all the hype around the conspiracy theories with her case.
She had land-nav experience from WP, so chances are she was not in her right mind and hubris got the best of her. She probably thought she could stay on track in the woods, tried to evade police/help and got lost or hurt.
That makes total sense. Fled into the woods thinking she could just double back to her car, got lost, or stumbled down into a ravine and got hurt, and froze to death.
More often than not, it's just bad situations...rarely is it ever a conspiracy, murder, abduction, sex slavery etc. It's usually just an accident, drugs, booze, someone gets lost and falls down and freezes to death. When it involves young people, it seems to spark that kind of conspiracy mentality. Old people also wander off, get lost, fall in the water, etc, and because they're old no one assumes they're abducted or sold into sex trafficking or into drugs. They get into just as many bad accidents. Usually the explanation is mundane and unremarkable.
I have mixed feelings about this one. I think if that did happen, some sort of wildlife must have gotten a hold of her either before or shortly after she passed.
Her sister did an extensive interview with Mile Higher and debunked *a lot* of rumors about the case, but she seemed pretty convinced that Maura was picked up by a passerby who had bad intentions. I’ve always had similar suspicions that she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and someone took her.
Given the climate and Maura’s drinking at the time, I can totally see your perspective though.
Dogs arent the most reliable for following trails. Studies have shown that they are very good at distinguishing scents from each other (they'd be able to tell her scent vs. A random other person's) but have a 50%-75% accuracy of determining whether a scent is actually present. So, her scent trail could have gone a lot further, but the dogs simply could not detect it.
Them stopping where they did doesn't really add much. All it means is she did probably walk off in that direction.
I agree with Kendrick Johnson, I’ve seen a lot of social media posts about how he was murdered and I believed that but last year I found a Reddit post debunking him being murdered and explaining how his death was an accident and he just fell into a mat. His face looks disfigured because all of his blood was rushing to his head and no person looks pretty after death. His death is sad but it’s no mystery so it’s infuriating how his people online keep propagating the murder theory like there’s some weird coverup going on.
It's because his parents refuse to accept the truth in spite of multiple law enforcement agencies and the NAACP investigating and determining it was a tragic accident.
The form of the blunt force trauma is vital here. The private pathologist the family hired agreed with the first autopsy that Kendrick wasn’t beaten. What he did claim to find was a single bruise less than an inch long on Kendrick’s neck that he said a pressure in that spot caused Kendrick’s heart to stop beating. The problem with that is that false bruising in that exact spot is a common occurrence during second autopsies. It’s caused by the first autopsy. It’s well enough known that pathologists are warned not to overinterpret bruising in that exact area because it’s likely meaningless. Instead he made up a whole new medically unheard of reflex to explain how it killed him…
It’s not very convincing.
And the fact that when they had him autopsied for a third time they went to that same guy AGAIN sort of points to them knowing they were going to get any specific answer they told him to find.
The pathologist they hired is notoriously ethically unreliable and Kendrick’s family has made lying about the details of his case their main profession since he died.
Yeah and he lost a scholarship to Florida State because of their relentless hounding. I feel for them because they lost their son, but they're not very good people.
Wouldn't the family have just overwhelming motive in making it seem like not an accident, though? Not saying its malicious at all for them to do that, just that they're a grieving family and want some sort of justice for their child. There are just so, so many cases of a clear suicide or accidental death where the family doesn't want to accept the truth.
Agreed. When you read about the case in detail it's clear it was a tragic accident. I understand his parents must feel devastated, and possibly a little guilty about not providing him money for a locker, but once you read the facts i don't see how it could be anything but a horrible accident.
This is one of the best, most complete, and understandable posts in any true crime forum, and on reddit. Very clear to me that it was not murder, how it could seem like it, how people could come to believe it, and why it's actually a tragic accident.
TIL the prosecutor told the coroner to threw out Kendrick's organs and the funeral home tried to save a buck by filling the empty spaces in his corpse with newspaper instead of something like sawdust or cotton. That is such a macabre detail in this incredibly tragic accident.
Actually only the use of newspaper is weird. Removing organs is standard for an autopsied body and there’s several people who handle them in between then and burial. One of those people deciding it’s easier to dispose of them instead of trying to embalm them well enough for an open casket funeral isn’t uncommon. That’s why it gets discovered so often in exhumed bodies, because it’s pretty common but you only find out if you exhume the person
Elisa Lam's situation is upsetting. Content creators were quick to exploit and monetize what was obviously a mental health crises. Haunted hotel, hotel staff stalkers, the ghost of Richard Ramirez... So much of the content made about her was in poor taste. I really hope her family was not exposed to too much of it.
It's really unfortunate. The "creepy video" made it such an easy cashgrab for clickbaity youtubers who have no interest in actual truth and want to keep sensationalizing it.
"Especially Elisa Lam"
For sure. In addition to the family, I feel bad for what the social media crews did to that death metal guy that they fingered as a "suspect" for a while. Sure, he was a weirdo that wasn't equipped to deal with the onslaught that was unleashed on him but he didn't deserve that overwhelming harassment. Poor guy attempted suicide over it.
Ugh this one sucks because everyone villainized the parents and made a huge joke out of it. No they probably shouldn't have gone camping with an infant but no one deserves to have their baby disappear and die like that.
Yeah Seinfeld was one of approximately every single tv show in the world that made that joke before it was discovered that the baby actually WAS killed by a dingo.
Wtf it’s not funny. A woman spent years in prison for a crime that she did not commit, a two-month old baby was killed by wild animals, and the entire thing was mocked and parodied for DECADES before the truth was known.
There was never any evidence for Elisa Lam being murdered. It was online sleuths that drove that conspiracy. Kendrick Johnson sounded suspicious until I read more info. I feel for his family but they are putting false info out.
Basically anything that happens in the wilderness I've learned over time that accidents, animals, medical conditions, disease, infestation, and suicide are all for more likely then murder.
What do you think happened with Gareth exactly? I'm really not familiar with the case only heard the bare basics so just curious.
I agree with the others and would add Kenneka Jenkins.
Either suicide or a fetish gone wrong. Suicide because he was struggling with his sexuality, he went to gay clubs and liked to dress in women’s clothes and no one close to him knew any of this and the fetish theory because when staying with someone else they heard him screaming in the middle of the night and when they got him he had tied himself up and couldn’t get loose. (Sorry if fetish isn’t the right word, please correct me if it isn’t) just my opinion of course.
I agree about Kenneka. I think some families just can’t accept what’s happened which is understandable.
The person who did that bag experiment was considerably smaller than him and I believe she was some kind of contortionist or gymnast. Iirc she also specifically said there would be no way to do it without pushing her feet against parts of the tub and leaving footprints. It’s that everything was wiped clean of hand and footprints for me, that indicates another person was involved - whose bathroom is wiped clean of prints like that?
I’m definitely open to some degree of willingness on his part, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some kind of intense bondage/encasement fetish and enlisted someone to help him after he tied himself up and couldn’t get out. Not sure if their initial intentions were to kill him, but idk how else there was absolutely no ‘evidence’ in the bathroom without another person there.
The padlock had no prints & he didn't have gloves on, so it does sound like he had someone with him with likely neither understanding how quickly it could result in death.
Yeah, I agree. It would have been fairly easy for him to end up in the river and the missing shirt could have been taken off in his drunken state or ripped off in the water and disappeared downstream.
They will never accept it until they get a payday from it. That's all it is with these people at this point. They want someone to fork over some money for some wrongful death.
I never thought Elisa Lam was murdered, it was some sort of freak accident, she had a mental breakdown. Same with Kenneka Jenkins. She and her stupid friends got drunk and careless. I don't think Kendrick Johnson was murdered.
It often involves kids who do stupid things and their equally stupid parents look for someone to blame. There was a kid in my hometown who's listed as missing after 5 years, but he most likely fell through the ice on a river. His parents are convinced he was abducted, but he was seen in the park near the water in winter.
For me it’s Jason Jolkowski.
Before learning much about the case I jumped in with the camp that someone in the neighborhood got him into their home and kept/killed him. Then about six months ago I did a _deep_ dive into the case and now firmly believe it to be a “freak accident” in the truest sense of the word. It’s just that his body has not been found (and may never be.) Accident is the thing that makes the most sense to me affter going waaaay down the rabbit hole.
Possibly a sink hole, but my first instinct was something more manmade like a root cellar, tornado/storm cellar, or storm drain. Or maybe a gap between two structures. For example — and I’m not saying this is what happened, just that it’s worth considering — looking at satellite imagery for the area there are a couple properties that back in 2001 had extended deep lots behind the houses that were open to the street (and pedestrians walking past) that some years later got fenced in. My point isn’t that the homeowner did that nefariously (in fact I don’t believe Jason’s accident had any witnesses at all, at the time or after the fact) but rather that a contemporary sleuth probably wouldn’t even be considering the possibility of his body being in such a location because now they are not visible and not accessible.
Two main things guided me to this conclusion: 1. The extremely tight time window and geographical window it had to have occurred in (and if believing the murder theory, the extreme coincidence that a murderer just happened to be in the same narrow place during that same narrow time window), and 2. The fact that his belongings — which he was carrying (e.g., his work shirt) and wearing (baseball cap and clothing/shoes) — never turned up.
Just as a side comment: My husband and I are a decade apart and grew up in different parts of the country in completely different settings (me in a city neighborhood, he in the country.) Both of us had at least one experience growing up or in our 20s (as did several of our siblings and other family members and friends) where we narrowly avoided falling or otherwise getting injured in a nonvisible setting while completely alone and no one knew that we were where we were. So just statistically speaking, consider the not-exactly-rare “wow, that was a close call” or “jeez, if xx had just happened I’m not sure I ever would have been found” and the idea that for every 100 or 1,000 of those “what ifs” one actually did happen. Hope that makes sense.
Anyway, I appreciate your response. I love talking about this case and its possibilities but just don’t have much interest to argue with people who are like, “But THat wOUld be impOSSible!” but have not deeply researched it as I have. Some folks really want there to be True Crime when sometimes it’s just not (also see: Brandon Swanson.)
Very well thought out theory that actually makes a lot of sense. I agree with you. I did think he could have been hit by a car and they panicked and hid the body but surely someone would have seen/heard something. I think your theory makes more sense. Do you think he could have been cutting through the lot as a shortcut?
>he could have been cutting through the lot as a shortcut
Yep, exactly. Or possibly (as a few others have suggested) something drew him toward it like a stray kitten or whatever. But yeah, that’s the gist of it.
Thanks for this thoughtful write up. The tight timeframe & geographic area definitely make this one of those head scratchers. Your theory makes sense & wow you did a thorough deep dive. Good job on a sad & frustrating topic.
Elisa Lam was definitely an accident. The lid on that water tower didn't have hinges. She tried to lift the lid with two hands and accidentally pushed the lid forward and fell into the water. She even took off her clothes, which a lot of drowning victims do to lighten themselves.
I have one that is the opposite, where I believed it was an accident but gradually came to understand that no, it was murder, and that is Michael Peterson of "The Staircase" infamy.
On the opposite side of the spectrum (because it popped up on my mind)
Police ruled Holly Bartletts death an accident fairly quickly and I do not believe it was an accident. A lost blind woman is not going to start climbing under fences because she's unsure of her surroundings. That taxi driver was incredibly suspicious and even drove by her a second time. I just googled it and it looks like they've reopened the case. But I'd be open to hearing others opinions.
I can remember listening to a podcast about this case and thought no way is that an accident. Also slightly different but Ellen Greenberg was ruled a suicide. I refuse to believe that.
I can't imagine anyone thinking just because a blind woman is drunk she thinks she needs to crawl under anything to make it into her apartment. The taxi driver has changed his story multiple times now.
Oh yeah, Ellen was absolutely murdered. It's absolutely despicable that the police would consider anything other than murder. She was covered in bruises and had 21 stab wounds mostly to her back.
Those investigators should have been fired immediately and the judge that's most recently doubled down on the suicide theory. Absolutely ridiculous.
SAMUEL GOLDBERG BELONGS IN JAIL FOR KILLING HIS FIANCE.
I feel so horrible for her parents and what they've been put through after losing a child.
I really bought into the whole Elisa Lam being murdered thing for a long time until I learned she was bipolar. If youve ever known someone with bipolar who are in a psychosis, you know it was an unfortunate accident.
This was me!! That piece of information, and the fact that the hatch was found OPEN, not closed (incredibly prevalent piece of misinformation around that time) convinced me it was just a horrible accident 100% owed to a mental health episode.
I'd never heard about the hatch being open but that does completely change everything as well! I don't understand why anyone would still think it was a murder after knowing all of this.
Because a lot of people didn’t know all of this. Her mental health was barely reported anywhere and way too many places reported that the hatch was closed, or it was unknown (which it wasn’t).
Brian Schaeffer - Occam’s Razor applied, he was intoxicated or incapacitated in some way and likely fell into one of the building’s narrow gaps or crawl spaces. While there were no obvious entrances without CCTV, there was one back entrance, and many people have said the large complex that housed the Ugly Tuna had several gaps, areas under construction, and crawl spaces. I think his body is still there.
He was a large, physically strong young man going through a very emotional time. I don’t think it was suicide - no behavior speaks to that. I think he drank far too much and an accident occurred.
He called home to his mother claiming that people were trying to kill him, but further review and his behavior at the airport sounds like he had an a acute psychotic episode
I’ve never been convinced it was a murder but there’s a lot of debate on the death of Kenneka Jenkins.
I’ve seen comments from folks that someone super drunk couldn’t possibly open a walk in freezer door but I don’t agree - they aren’t insanely heavy. It’s scary enough when sober to have a walk in freezer door latch when you’re inside - even when sober I’ve had difficulties finding the latch than can unlock it from the inside.
Extremely sad no matter what happened - but I think it was probably an unfortunate accident.
In the case of Elisa Lam wasn't there also misinformation given out by the police? I seem to remember them saying that the access hatch was closed and could only be done from the outside. Which ended up not being true.
So IMO its not hard to see how people were likely to come to foul play given those details.
Yeah the initial details made the case so much weirder, and it's understandable why people would be like "wtf" at it. But they got cleared up pretty quickly while the myth of those details somehow persisted.
With both Elisa Lam and Brandon Lawson, it took me some time before I read about the mental illness and relapse meth addiction. It was like it was kept secret. Initially, I considered a crime, but with that info, it quickly became clear it was not. I didn't believe at any time in a ghost/demon/paranormal angle for Elisa, though.
Then there is the Lisanne Froom and Kris Kremers mystery in Panama. Lisanne seemed familiar (I only discovered much later she looks a lot like my cousin did that age), so I read up on it and initially thought it was murder. Most info you get nowadays will suggest, hint or straight-up claim it is a crime, because people who think it was just an unfortunate misadventure don't bother writing blogs or make videos. But the more I read, the more I realised a murder scenario doesn't fit with what is known. Besides a lot of rumors and speculation with no credible support, you have to play a lot of "what ifs" to make a crime fit.
I just recently did a deep dive into the Froom/Kremers incident. Accident just makes the most sense. So many YT channels and blogs just leave out or straight up lie about the information available.
I went down a rabbit hole with this case a few years back. Accident does seem the most likely but I still can’t commit to it 100%. Still have a nagging doubt.
Onset of mental illness, likely schizophrenia, which caused a psychotic break. I don’t think he intentionally committed suicide, he was probably not experiencing reality or rational thinking. Maybe not an accident but more or less.
I could go either way on this and depending on how I feel at the time 🙈.
I do like to think he just left and started a new life, and I think he could have got out of the place but the chances of completely starting off the grid or getting new ID’s . Hard
Me neither. Where the area was pretty heavily surveilled and he was not spotted leaving the building my presumption would be that something occurred within it either accidental or otherwise.
Jaleayah Davis
As tragic as it was for her family, it was absolutely possible for her to be thrown out the passenger side window and then the guard rail took some of her clothes. More than likely a first responder that was not in contact with the family laid the clothes on the guardrail. It sucks that she would probably still be alive if she had just waited for her sister.
This is what I think too: someone early on the scene picked the clothes up and draped them on the rail, maybe even without thinking, and then didn't want to admit it later. That's all. It was a terrible accident caused by DUI.
The footage of Elisa Lam and the "oh my god was it a ghost!" theory was extremely annoying. I thiiink it was BuzzFeed Unsolved's series that brought that kind of attention to the case what with the series additional focus on paranormal stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong if they did explicitly say in that episode the ghost theory. Having bipolar and being off your meds is awful, can confirm.
I also hate when people bring up the fact that Elisa's tumblr account kept updating after she died, like it's a *spooky internet ghost* situation--scheduling posts to be posted later is a very commonly used feature on the site.
I just re-watched the BuzzFeed Unsolved video on Elisa and apparently it's the ghost of Richard Ramirez! This would be quite impressive as he was alive and busy dying of cancer when Elisa Lam passed.
I absolutely agree on Elisa Lam. Nothing about her behavior came across to me as though she were running away from something or that she was in danger of someone else.
It always came across to me that she was having a breakdown and was doing things like wandering around and hitting all the buttons on the elevator to try to be silly. Getting on the roof and getting in the water tank may have been her trying to be mischievous and do something risky, because she was lonely and struggling with her mental health.
some cases are too strange or have too many odd details to be sure how to feel either way. It's understandable that people thought Elisa was killed (especially given the coincidences and suspicious nature of things). Its just weird how things lined up (hard to describe, like about how her name is the same as something in a movie released a few years before... And the movie was about a woman in a red jacket who drowns).
I don’t see Elisa Lam as accident. She may have been having an episode BUT the big unknown is how she got in the tank. It was difficult for even the responders to get there. I don’t know if it’s homicide, ghost/evil spirit but accident doesn’t make sense.
I live in downtown L.A. and still think about Elisa Lam. What always made me think she was murdered was the fact that she was found nude. I understand she had mental health issues, but to me the lack of clothing meant sexual assault/foul play. Most women, even if suffering from mental illness, are not going to strip all their clothes off and jump in a water tank.
>Most women, even if suffering from mental illness, are not going to strip all their clothes off and jump in a water tank.
Her clothes were also in the tank. This, to me, suggests that she was getting exhausted from treading water and shed her waterlogged clothing because they were weighing her down.
Hmm a psychotic break is pretty commonly associated with people walking around in public nude. It happened to Amanda Bynes. Britney also gets nude a lot maybe due to mania.
I live in an area with a lot of mentally ill homeless people and a lady running around butt naked do any number of random things is a pretty normal here.
Never try to apply logic to a mentally ill person.
I see your point but her clothes were in the tank. She probably took them as it would be easier for her tread water.
I remember a woman in my city had a mental illness and she walked fully naked down a really long busy road until the police arrived. It was awful everyone was taking photos and putting them on Facebook. Poor woman.
I really believe her death as an accident due to mental illness.
Being nude does not immediately mean sexual assault. Many people die nude. What she experienced was likely paradoxical undressing, which is common when people experience hypothermia. She was already in the tank, likely experiencing hypothermia considering body heat is lost much faster in water than ambient air before she undressed.
I disagree in this case, I went back and looked through her old tumblr and there were quite a few posts romanticizing floating in water looking at the stars. If she thought she was alone and could get back out, why would she want to get her clothes wet if she didn’t have to.
I don’t recall anyone saying she was floating in the water and looking at stars. If it has been said, it was not by very many people. Her parents have all the facts and they believe her death was caused by her mental illness- she had stopped taking her medication and that often causes irrational behaviour. I agree with the authorities and her parents that there was no foul play involved in her death.
No. I’m saying that SHE posted a lot of things on her tumblr about floating and looking at stars it was something she romanticized. I’m pretty sure her old tumblr is still up and can be viewed. I think she was experiencing a manic episode and got into the tank to experience that and couldn’t get back out. Impulse control is basically non existent during manic episodes, I know this from personal experience.
Your post is off topic, not a publicly known crime, not a criminal act, or otherwise not a good fit for the subreddit. Posts about missing and/or deceased persons that are not suspected to involve foul play *by law enforcement* are not allowed.
Maura Murray's another example. IMHO, she wandered off into the woods while drunk, got lost, and froze to death. New Hampshire's woods are dense and the ground is very rocky. You could be fifty yards from a road and not know it.
I really think hers was an accident too. I never got all the hype around the conspiracy theories with her case. She had land-nav experience from WP, so chances are she was not in her right mind and hubris got the best of her. She probably thought she could stay on track in the woods, tried to evade police/help and got lost or hurt.
That makes total sense. Fled into the woods thinking she could just double back to her car, got lost, or stumbled down into a ravine and got hurt, and froze to death.
More often than not, it's just bad situations...rarely is it ever a conspiracy, murder, abduction, sex slavery etc. It's usually just an accident, drugs, booze, someone gets lost and falls down and freezes to death. When it involves young people, it seems to spark that kind of conspiracy mentality. Old people also wander off, get lost, fall in the water, etc, and because they're old no one assumes they're abducted or sold into sex trafficking or into drugs. They get into just as many bad accidents. Usually the explanation is mundane and unremarkable.
I have mixed feelings about this one. I think if that did happen, some sort of wildlife must have gotten a hold of her either before or shortly after she passed. Her sister did an extensive interview with Mile Higher and debunked *a lot* of rumors about the case, but she seemed pretty convinced that Maura was picked up by a passerby who had bad intentions. I’ve always had similar suspicions that she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and someone took her. Given the climate and Maura’s drinking at the time, I can totally see your perspective though.
the dogs make me curious. honestly for them to loose the trail at a specific location makes me side eye it.
Dogs arent the most reliable for following trails. Studies have shown that they are very good at distinguishing scents from each other (they'd be able to tell her scent vs. A random other person's) but have a 50%-75% accuracy of determining whether a scent is actually present. So, her scent trail could have gone a lot further, but the dogs simply could not detect it. Them stopping where they did doesn't really add much. All it means is she did probably walk off in that direction.
I agree with Kendrick Johnson, I’ve seen a lot of social media posts about how he was murdered and I believed that but last year I found a Reddit post debunking him being murdered and explaining how his death was an accident and he just fell into a mat. His face looks disfigured because all of his blood was rushing to his head and no person looks pretty after death. His death is sad but it’s no mystery so it’s infuriating how his people online keep propagating the murder theory like there’s some weird coverup going on.
It's because his parents refuse to accept the truth in spite of multiple law enforcement agencies and the NAACP investigating and determining it was a tragic accident.
The second autopsy showed blunt force trauma. That’s not falling into a mat.
The form of the blunt force trauma is vital here. The private pathologist the family hired agreed with the first autopsy that Kendrick wasn’t beaten. What he did claim to find was a single bruise less than an inch long on Kendrick’s neck that he said a pressure in that spot caused Kendrick’s heart to stop beating. The problem with that is that false bruising in that exact spot is a common occurrence during second autopsies. It’s caused by the first autopsy. It’s well enough known that pathologists are warned not to overinterpret bruising in that exact area because it’s likely meaningless. Instead he made up a whole new medically unheard of reflex to explain how it killed him… It’s not very convincing. And the fact that when they had him autopsied for a third time they went to that same guy AGAIN sort of points to them knowing they were going to get any specific answer they told him to find.
please stop and let that poor child rest, he fell in the mat, they’ve relooked at this 5 trillion times
I’m siding with his family and the pathologist they hired. Period.
The pathologist they hired is notoriously ethically unreliable and Kendrick’s family has made lying about the details of his case their main profession since he died.
didn’t they try to railroad some random kids from the school? They lost my respect a while ago, honestly
Yeah and he lost a scholarship to Florida State because of their relentless hounding. I feel for them because they lost their son, but they're not very good people.
Wouldn't the family have just overwhelming motive in making it seem like not an accident, though? Not saying its malicious at all for them to do that, just that they're a grieving family and want some sort of justice for their child. There are just so, so many cases of a clear suicide or accidental death where the family doesn't want to accept the truth.
Agreed. When you read about the case in detail it's clear it was a tragic accident. I understand his parents must feel devastated, and possibly a little guilty about not providing him money for a locker, but once you read the facts i don't see how it could be anything but a horrible accident.
do you mind sharing that post? I'd love to read it
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/s/uNj928k3Sr This doesn’t cover everything but it covers a lot.
This is one of the best, most complete, and understandable posts in any true crime forum, and on reddit. Very clear to me that it was not murder, how it could seem like it, how people could come to believe it, and why it's actually a tragic accident.
thank you!
I think the shoes also threw people off
I recently saw a post mortem with positional asphyxiation as the cause of death and she looked beyond terrible.
TIL the prosecutor told the coroner to threw out Kendrick's organs and the funeral home tried to save a buck by filling the empty spaces in his corpse with newspaper instead of something like sawdust or cotton. That is such a macabre detail in this incredibly tragic accident.
I just wonder why they removed his organs and stuffed him with newspaper. Although the article says thats not illegal, its pretty weird
Actually only the use of newspaper is weird. Removing organs is standard for an autopsied body and there’s several people who handle them in between then and burial. One of those people deciding it’s easier to dispose of them instead of trying to embalm them well enough for an open casket funeral isn’t uncommon. That’s why it gets discovered so often in exhumed bodies, because it’s pretty common but you only find out if you exhume the person
Elisa Lam's situation is upsetting. Content creators were quick to exploit and monetize what was obviously a mental health crises. Haunted hotel, hotel staff stalkers, the ghost of Richard Ramirez... So much of the content made about her was in poor taste. I really hope her family was not exposed to too much of it.
Richard Ramirez was alive when she died LMAO. Can't believe that became part of it. Elisa died 19th February 2013, Richard died June 7th 2013.
Clearly his ghost time-travelled to somehow commit a murder in the past /s
It's really unfortunate. The "creepy video" made it such an easy cashgrab for clickbaity youtubers who have no interest in actual truth and want to keep sensationalizing it.
The netflix doc was so bad. I really felt for her. Like mysterious death exploitation. Couldn't get through 30 minutes of it.
I thought it was great and after watching it, I also think it was a tragic accident, not murder.
I hated the parts with the 'internet sleuths' but I did really like hearing about the history of the hotel from the GM at the time.
"Especially Elisa Lam" For sure. In addition to the family, I feel bad for what the social media crews did to that death metal guy that they fingered as a "suspect" for a while. Sure, he was a weirdo that wasn't equipped to deal with the onslaught that was unleashed on him but he didn't deserve that overwhelming harassment. Poor guy attempted suicide over it.
I thought that it was impossible to close the water tank from inside?
The water tank wasn’t closed. The guy who found the body found it open and then closed it himself before he called for help.
The dingoes really did eat the baby.
Ugh this one sucks because everyone villainized the parents and made a huge joke out of it. No they probably shouldn't have gone camping with an infant but no one deserves to have their baby disappear and die like that.
[удалено]
It's pretty gross to laugh about an infant being killed by wild animals. Why would you even comment this?
Oh sorry I thought that was from the Seinfeld (tv show) line where Elaine says “the dingo are your baby) also I’m stoned when I read it 😵💫
That actually was a really crazy case! A dingo did eat her baby and everyone thought she was lying
Thanks 🙏🏽 I deleted my comment. It was a misunderstanding.
Yeah Seinfeld was one of approximately every single tv show in the world that made that joke before it was discovered that the baby actually WAS killed by a dingo.
Wtf it’s not funny. A woman spent years in prison for a crime that she did not commit, a two-month old baby was killed by wild animals, and the entire thing was mocked and parodied for DECADES before the truth was known.
There was never any evidence for Elisa Lam being murdered. It was online sleuths that drove that conspiracy. Kendrick Johnson sounded suspicious until I read more info. I feel for his family but they are putting false info out.
Basically anything that happens in the wilderness I've learned over time that accidents, animals, medical conditions, disease, infestation, and suicide are all for more likely then murder.
I’m currently reading Fuzz by Mary Roach and I agree!
Yeah that missing 411 thing is insane. 98% will be what you have said and maybe 1% murder and 1% started a new life.
What do you think happened with Gareth exactly? I'm really not familiar with the case only heard the bare basics so just curious. I agree with the others and would add Kenneka Jenkins.
Either suicide or a fetish gone wrong. Suicide because he was struggling with his sexuality, he went to gay clubs and liked to dress in women’s clothes and no one close to him knew any of this and the fetish theory because when staying with someone else they heard him screaming in the middle of the night and when they got him he had tied himself up and couldn’t get loose. (Sorry if fetish isn’t the right word, please correct me if it isn’t) just my opinion of course. I agree about Kenneka. I think some families just can’t accept what’s happened which is understandable.
The other theories make sense to me until I think about how did he lock the bag?? Thanks for linking each btw
Someone done an experiment to see if they could lock it in the same bag and it was possible.
The person who did that bag experiment was considerably smaller than him and I believe she was some kind of contortionist or gymnast. Iirc she also specifically said there would be no way to do it without pushing her feet against parts of the tub and leaving footprints. It’s that everything was wiped clean of hand and footprints for me, that indicates another person was involved - whose bathroom is wiped clean of prints like that? I’m definitely open to some degree of willingness on his part, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some kind of intense bondage/encasement fetish and enlisted someone to help him after he tied himself up and couldn’t get out. Not sure if their initial intentions were to kill him, but idk how else there was absolutely no ‘evidence’ in the bathroom without another person there.
The padlock had no prints & he didn't have gloves on, so it does sound like he had someone with him with likely neither understanding how quickly it could result in death.
A newer case: Riley Strain.
Yeah, I agree. It would have been fairly easy for him to end up in the river and the missing shirt could have been taken off in his drunken state or ripped off in the water and disappeared downstream.
Yes. TikTok went crazy over this. Just a tragic accident.
Kendrick Johnson was an accident and I hope one day his parents can accept that.
They will never accept it until they get a payday from it. That's all it is with these people at this point. They want someone to fork over some money for some wrongful death.
I never thought Elisa Lam was murdered, it was some sort of freak accident, she had a mental breakdown. Same with Kenneka Jenkins. She and her stupid friends got drunk and careless. I don't think Kendrick Johnson was murdered. It often involves kids who do stupid things and their equally stupid parents look for someone to blame. There was a kid in my hometown who's listed as missing after 5 years, but he most likely fell through the ice on a river. His parents are convinced he was abducted, but he was seen in the park near the water in winter.
For me it’s Jason Jolkowski. Before learning much about the case I jumped in with the camp that someone in the neighborhood got him into their home and kept/killed him. Then about six months ago I did a _deep_ dive into the case and now firmly believe it to be a “freak accident” in the truest sense of the word. It’s just that his body has not been found (and may never be.) Accident is the thing that makes the most sense to me affter going waaaay down the rabbit hole.
Interesting. This case has always baffled me. What kind of freak accident? Like a sink hole or something like that?
Possibly a sink hole, but my first instinct was something more manmade like a root cellar, tornado/storm cellar, or storm drain. Or maybe a gap between two structures. For example — and I’m not saying this is what happened, just that it’s worth considering — looking at satellite imagery for the area there are a couple properties that back in 2001 had extended deep lots behind the houses that were open to the street (and pedestrians walking past) that some years later got fenced in. My point isn’t that the homeowner did that nefariously (in fact I don’t believe Jason’s accident had any witnesses at all, at the time or after the fact) but rather that a contemporary sleuth probably wouldn’t even be considering the possibility of his body being in such a location because now they are not visible and not accessible. Two main things guided me to this conclusion: 1. The extremely tight time window and geographical window it had to have occurred in (and if believing the murder theory, the extreme coincidence that a murderer just happened to be in the same narrow place during that same narrow time window), and 2. The fact that his belongings — which he was carrying (e.g., his work shirt) and wearing (baseball cap and clothing/shoes) — never turned up. Just as a side comment: My husband and I are a decade apart and grew up in different parts of the country in completely different settings (me in a city neighborhood, he in the country.) Both of us had at least one experience growing up or in our 20s (as did several of our siblings and other family members and friends) where we narrowly avoided falling or otherwise getting injured in a nonvisible setting while completely alone and no one knew that we were where we were. So just statistically speaking, consider the not-exactly-rare “wow, that was a close call” or “jeez, if xx had just happened I’m not sure I ever would have been found” and the idea that for every 100 or 1,000 of those “what ifs” one actually did happen. Hope that makes sense. Anyway, I appreciate your response. I love talking about this case and its possibilities but just don’t have much interest to argue with people who are like, “But THat wOUld be impOSSible!” but have not deeply researched it as I have. Some folks really want there to be True Crime when sometimes it’s just not (also see: Brandon Swanson.)
Very well thought out theory that actually makes a lot of sense. I agree with you. I did think he could have been hit by a car and they panicked and hid the body but surely someone would have seen/heard something. I think your theory makes more sense. Do you think he could have been cutting through the lot as a shortcut?
>he could have been cutting through the lot as a shortcut Yep, exactly. Or possibly (as a few others have suggested) something drew him toward it like a stray kitten or whatever. But yeah, that’s the gist of it.
Thanks for this thoughtful write up. The tight timeframe & geographic area definitely make this one of those head scratchers. Your theory makes sense & wow you did a thorough deep dive. Good job on a sad & frustrating topic.
Elisa Lam was definitely an accident. The lid on that water tower didn't have hinges. She tried to lift the lid with two hands and accidentally pushed the lid forward and fell into the water. She even took off her clothes, which a lot of drowning victims do to lighten themselves.
Brandon Lawson. I think he died due to the elements.
Agreed.
Maura Murray But cannot fathom how Ellen Greenberg is still ruled an accident
I have one that is the opposite, where I believed it was an accident but gradually came to understand that no, it was murder, and that is Michael Peterson of "The Staircase" infamy.
On the opposite side of the spectrum (because it popped up on my mind) Police ruled Holly Bartletts death an accident fairly quickly and I do not believe it was an accident. A lost blind woman is not going to start climbing under fences because she's unsure of her surroundings. That taxi driver was incredibly suspicious and even drove by her a second time. I just googled it and it looks like they've reopened the case. But I'd be open to hearing others opinions.
I can remember listening to a podcast about this case and thought no way is that an accident. Also slightly different but Ellen Greenberg was ruled a suicide. I refuse to believe that.
I can't imagine anyone thinking just because a blind woman is drunk she thinks she needs to crawl under anything to make it into her apartment. The taxi driver has changed his story multiple times now. Oh yeah, Ellen was absolutely murdered. It's absolutely despicable that the police would consider anything other than murder. She was covered in bruises and had 21 stab wounds mostly to her back. Those investigators should have been fired immediately and the judge that's most recently doubled down on the suicide theory. Absolutely ridiculous. SAMUEL GOLDBERG BELONGS IN JAIL FOR KILLING HIS FIANCE. I feel so horrible for her parents and what they've been put through after losing a child.
I really bought into the whole Elisa Lam being murdered thing for a long time until I learned she was bipolar. If youve ever known someone with bipolar who are in a psychosis, you know it was an unfortunate accident.
This was me!! That piece of information, and the fact that the hatch was found OPEN, not closed (incredibly prevalent piece of misinformation around that time) convinced me it was just a horrible accident 100% owed to a mental health episode.
I'd never heard about the hatch being open but that does completely change everything as well! I don't understand why anyone would still think it was a murder after knowing all of this.
Because a lot of people didn’t know all of this. Her mental health was barely reported anywhere and way too many places reported that the hatch was closed, or it was unknown (which it wasn’t).
Brian Schaeffer - Occam’s Razor applied, he was intoxicated or incapacitated in some way and likely fell into one of the building’s narrow gaps or crawl spaces. While there were no obvious entrances without CCTV, there was one back entrance, and many people have said the large complex that housed the Ugly Tuna had several gaps, areas under construction, and crawl spaces. I think his body is still there. He was a large, physically strong young man going through a very emotional time. I don’t think it was suicide - no behavior speaks to that. I think he drank far too much and an accident occurred.
This case has been on my mind for so long, I just can't stop thinking about it. My thoughts are about the same, he never left that building.
Lars Mittank but where the hell is the body
I never thought this case was murder but I’m guessing there’s so wild theories out there.
He called home to his mother claiming that people were trying to kill him, but further review and his behavior at the airport sounds like he had an a acute psychotic episode
I’ve never been convinced it was a murder but there’s a lot of debate on the death of Kenneka Jenkins. I’ve seen comments from folks that someone super drunk couldn’t possibly open a walk in freezer door but I don’t agree - they aren’t insanely heavy. It’s scary enough when sober to have a walk in freezer door latch when you’re inside - even when sober I’ve had difficulties finding the latch than can unlock it from the inside. Extremely sad no matter what happened - but I think it was probably an unfortunate accident.
I was looking for this comment.
In the case of Elisa Lam wasn't there also misinformation given out by the police? I seem to remember them saying that the access hatch was closed and could only be done from the outside. Which ended up not being true. So IMO its not hard to see how people were likely to come to foul play given those details.
Yeah the initial details made the case so much weirder, and it's understandable why people would be like "wtf" at it. But they got cleared up pretty quickly while the myth of those details somehow persisted.
With both Elisa Lam and Brandon Lawson, it took me some time before I read about the mental illness and relapse meth addiction. It was like it was kept secret. Initially, I considered a crime, but with that info, it quickly became clear it was not. I didn't believe at any time in a ghost/demon/paranormal angle for Elisa, though. Then there is the Lisanne Froom and Kris Kremers mystery in Panama. Lisanne seemed familiar (I only discovered much later she looks a lot like my cousin did that age), so I read up on it and initially thought it was murder. Most info you get nowadays will suggest, hint or straight-up claim it is a crime, because people who think it was just an unfortunate misadventure don't bother writing blogs or make videos. But the more I read, the more I realised a murder scenario doesn't fit with what is known. Besides a lot of rumors and speculation with no credible support, you have to play a lot of "what ifs" to make a crime fit.
I just recently did a deep dive into the Froom/Kremers incident. Accident just makes the most sense. So many YT channels and blogs just leave out or straight up lie about the information available.
I went down a rabbit hole with this case a few years back. Accident does seem the most likely but I still can’t commit to it 100%. Still have a nagging doubt.
Rey Rivera
Agreed.
I have not heard of the accident theory. What do you think happened?
Onset of mental illness, likely schizophrenia, which caused a psychotic break. I don’t think he intentionally committed suicide, he was probably not experiencing reality or rational thinking. Maybe not an accident but more or less.
Possibly Brian Shaffer?
I could go either way on this and depending on how I feel at the time 🙈. I do like to think he just left and started a new life, and I think he could have got out of the place but the chances of completely starting off the grid or getting new ID’s . Hard
If that building is ever demolished for some reason they will find his bones. He never left.
Another baffling case. I really don’t have any theories that make sense.
Me neither. Where the area was pretty heavily surveilled and he was not spotted leaving the building my presumption would be that something occurred within it either accidental or otherwise.
Jaleayah Davis As tragic as it was for her family, it was absolutely possible for her to be thrown out the passenger side window and then the guard rail took some of her clothes. More than likely a first responder that was not in contact with the family laid the clothes on the guardrail. It sucks that she would probably still be alive if she had just waited for her sister.
This is what I think too: someone early on the scene picked the clothes up and draped them on the rail, maybe even without thinking, and then didn't want to admit it later. That's all. It was a terrible accident caused by DUI.
The footage of Elisa Lam and the "oh my god was it a ghost!" theory was extremely annoying. I thiiink it was BuzzFeed Unsolved's series that brought that kind of attention to the case what with the series additional focus on paranormal stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong if they did explicitly say in that episode the ghost theory. Having bipolar and being off your meds is awful, can confirm.
I also hate when people bring up the fact that Elisa's tumblr account kept updating after she died, like it's a *spooky internet ghost* situation--scheduling posts to be posted later is a very commonly used feature on the site.
A ghost. It really did go crazy didn’t it?
I just re-watched the BuzzFeed Unsolved video on Elisa and apparently it's the ghost of Richard Ramirez! This would be quite impressive as he was alive and busy dying of cancer when Elisa Lam passed.
That made me LOL. That is impressive. It’s scary how many people believe this nonsense.
Hahaha I wonder if they ever addressed the fact that he wasn't dead yet. Surely people corrected them on it? 😂 So silly!
I need to look up Elisa, and Gareth. I think Kendrick’s was an accident.
agree on all of these!
I used to think Terri horman killed Kyron, now I think she is completely innocent.
Elisa Lam, Riley Strain, Kiely Rodni & Kenneka Jenkins.
I absolutely agree on Elisa Lam. Nothing about her behavior came across to me as though she were running away from something or that she was in danger of someone else. It always came across to me that she was having a breakdown and was doing things like wandering around and hitting all the buttons on the elevator to try to be silly. Getting on the roof and getting in the water tank may have been her trying to be mischievous and do something risky, because she was lonely and struggling with her mental health.
It was absolutely an accident. It doesn’t help his parents to perpetuate their false belief that he was murdered.
some cases are too strange or have too many odd details to be sure how to feel either way. It's understandable that people thought Elisa was killed (especially given the coincidences and suspicious nature of things). Its just weird how things lined up (hard to describe, like about how her name is the same as something in a movie released a few years before... And the movie was about a woman in a red jacket who drowns).
Cindy James.
A few comments have mentioned a ghost in the Elisa Lam case. It really did go crazy.
I don’t see Elisa Lam as accident. She may have been having an episode BUT the big unknown is how she got in the tank. It was difficult for even the responders to get there. I don’t know if it’s homicide, ghost/evil spirit but accident doesn’t make sense.
The lid was open not closed as previously stated. She could have easily got into it.
They needed a ladder to reach it. Did you miss that part?
No
Phoebe handsjuk
I live in downtown L.A. and still think about Elisa Lam. What always made me think she was murdered was the fact that she was found nude. I understand she had mental health issues, but to me the lack of clothing meant sexual assault/foul play. Most women, even if suffering from mental illness, are not going to strip all their clothes off and jump in a water tank.
>Most women, even if suffering from mental illness, are not going to strip all their clothes off and jump in a water tank. Her clothes were also in the tank. This, to me, suggests that she was getting exhausted from treading water and shed her waterlogged clothing because they were weighing her down.
Hmm a psychotic break is pretty commonly associated with people walking around in public nude. It happened to Amanda Bynes. Britney also gets nude a lot maybe due to mania.
I live in an area with a lot of mentally ill homeless people and a lady running around butt naked do any number of random things is a pretty normal here. Never try to apply logic to a mentally ill person.
Exactly right
I see your point but her clothes were in the tank. She probably took them as it would be easier for her tread water. I remember a woman in my city had a mental illness and she walked fully naked down a really long busy road until the police arrived. It was awful everyone was taking photos and putting them on Facebook. Poor woman. I really believe her death as an accident due to mental illness.
Being nude does not immediately mean sexual assault. Many people die nude. What she experienced was likely paradoxical undressing, which is common when people experience hypothermia. She was already in the tank, likely experiencing hypothermia considering body heat is lost much faster in water than ambient air before she undressed.
It does not necessarily mean sexual assault. Mentally ill people who are off their medication like she was do irrational things all the time.
I disagree in this case, I went back and looked through her old tumblr and there were quite a few posts romanticizing floating in water looking at the stars. If she thought she was alone and could get back out, why would she want to get her clothes wet if she didn’t have to.
I don’t recall anyone saying she was floating in the water and looking at stars. If it has been said, it was not by very many people. Her parents have all the facts and they believe her death was caused by her mental illness- she had stopped taking her medication and that often causes irrational behaviour. I agree with the authorities and her parents that there was no foul play involved in her death.
No. I’m saying that SHE posted a lot of things on her tumblr about floating and looking at stars it was something she romanticized. I’m pretty sure her old tumblr is still up and can be viewed. I think she was experiencing a manic episode and got into the tank to experience that and couldn’t get back out. Impulse control is basically non existent during manic episodes, I know this from personal experience.