
These 8 Mysteries of the West Remain Unsolved (and Are Turning Us into Obsessive Armchair Sleuths)
These cases range from “cold” to “downright chilling,” and we need to know what happened.

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Sometimes the curious are rewarded. Sometimes, the mists of time part, the sands of history shift, and we get answers to questions we’d just about given up on. Take the identity of the Golden State Killer, who started his spree in the mid-1970s and was only just arrested in 2018. Or to pick a less famous but even colder case, DNA testing was used in 2019 to ID a body discovered in an Idaho cave in 1991—and thought to have been a victim of vigilante justice in 1916. And in the first days of 2020, the gravesite of an inmate of the Manzanar Japanese internment camp was rediscovered, bringing closure to descendants who had never known exactly where their relative had been buried.
But some mysteries endure. Here are a few of the most intriguing enigmas and cold cases of the West. We’re following all of them—and fervently hoping we don’t have to wait many more years before the riddles are solved.
Who Killed the Black Dahlia?

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In 1947 the mutilated body of an aspiring 22-year-old actress named Elizabeth Short—posthumously nicknamed the Black Dahlia—was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The case captivated the city and stayed on the front page of newspapers for over a month. Many suspects were identified, including a doctor, two members of the Los Angeles Times editorial staff, the entire student body at USC’s medical school, and, most improbably of all, Orson Welles. But after more than 70 years, this case is well and truly cold.
Has Anyone Successfully Escaped from Alcatraz?

Mason Cummings, courtesy of the Parks Conservacy
If you’ve ever toured the former island prison site, you know that in 1962 three men did escape the building and got as far as the beach one mile across the bay from San Francisco. But did they make it to freedom? Common sense says icy water and impossible currents would have doomed the convicts. But there is just enough evidence that they survived—including taunting letters to authorities and mysterious floral deliveries to an elderly relative that continued for years after the escape—to keep alive the hint of a possibility that the men lived long and free afterward. Even more intriguing is the fact that there is the tiniest chance that the three, who would be in their late 80s to mid-90s, are still alive out there somewhere.