In Brazil, near the Amazon, a British traveler disappeared, who alone wanted to go from the source of this river to its mouth. The woman described in detail the progress of her expedition on Twitter, where in the last days before her disappearance she spoke about armed people she met along the way and strange strangers near her tent. Police have already detained several suspects, and rescuers continue to search for the traveler in the Brazilian jungle.
UK resident 43-year-old Emma Kelty quit her job as a school principal in 2014 and decided to devote herself entirely to travel. In June of this year, she went on an expedition along the Amazon, and last week on Wednesday, as reported by the BBC, she went missing. She raised an alarm and rescuers who went to help her managed to find some of her belongings, but not her body.
Emma wanted to walk the river from its source, which is in Peru, to its mouth, located in Brazil near the Atlantic Ocean. The woman went on the expedition alone and talked about the progress of her journey on Twitter. At first everything went well. Emma paddled her kayak down the river, met locals, enjoyed views of wildlife, and posted joyful selfies to her feed.
“The view of the source right before I started rafting down it. A couple of false starts, but a start has been made.”
“Probably the best lunch a traveler can have.”
But starting in August, alarming events began to happen in Emma's life. The woman almost always spent the night in some sparsely inhabited places alone in a tent. And despite the fact that the traveler could watch stunningly beautiful sunsets, much more often she saw some suspicious strangers near her temporary home.
“Hmm... Today, I think I'll have a sleepless night. Two young guys and now a third landed on my island, although they did not approach me.”
Not far from her tent, she often noticed traces of some large wild animals and even heard them at night. Emma walked an average of 40-50 kilometers every day, and by the end of August she began to complain more and more about fatigue and the lack of a human voice.
I officially declare that I am tired beyond belief. Every night someone comes to my tent with a torch between 12 and 3 am... I can't do this anymore.
On September 10, she tweeted that she had entered the Coari region. Other travelers warned her that this was a very dangerous area. As local media reported, this is the route along which drug dealers from Colombia transport drugs and are often attacked by pirates. But, despite all the warnings, Emma did not deviate from her route.
“So this means that in Koari or nearby (100 kilometers) my boat will be stolen and I will be killed. Cute".
Two days passed and the warnings began to come true.
I turned and saw 50 men in boats with guns!!! You should have seen my face!!
But, apparently, this meeting took place without any special consequences for the traveler. The very next day she tweeted about a rather sweet meeting.
“The day yesterday ended with me meeting three cute locals and two kittens who slept near my tent at night (well, until they started playing tag at 1 am). Such a big change in one day... But this river... Every kilometer is different, and just because one area is bad, doesn’t mean that...”
This tweet was the last thing Emma wrote. She sent out an alarm on Wednesday and has not been seen since. Local authorities immediately sent a rescue team of 60 people to help the traveler, but all they managed to find was her kayak and personal belongings.
Police say they have already detained three suspects in Emma's alleged murder. One of them, a teenager whose name has not been released, said that he and other young people robbed Emma, stealing her phone, computer and camera, and then shot her and threw her body into the river.
Upon learning of this news, people began to express support for the family of the deceased on social networks. Many people have said that traveling to Brazil is not a good idea, as many areas of the country are unsafe.
"Very sad and senseless loss of such a beautiful bright light, my sincere condolences to Emma's family and friends."
“Here in Brazil we have 60 thousand murders a year, my advice is don’t bother here! Drugs, poverty and impunity lead to such tragedies.”
“I am so sorry that such a tragedy happened! Brazil is out of control! Bandits have no boundaries! My sincere condolences to Emma's family!"
Rescuers continue to search for Emma, who has gone on expeditions alone not for the first time. She became the sixth woman to ski to the South Pole on her own. And I was seriously preparing for the trip to the Amazon.
I took a self-defense course to learn how to disarm people. So if I encounter any dangerous situation, I will be ready for it.
Perhaps Emma’s case is worth paying attention to another resident of the UK, who considers himself the unluckiest traveler, but still continues to go to almost the most dangerous places on the planet. Why be surprised then? But not all journeys end so unsuccessfully. For example, one resident of China (yes, this is possible) just to take his daughter to university.
A new survival thriller, “Deadly Path,” has appeared on ivi, and we have collected several more stories about people who returned from the wild alive, although all circumstances were against it.
Deadly trailBody at Brighton Rock, 2019
If you don't think you're cut out to be a ranger, you probably are. An inexperienced and uncollected employee of the national park, Wendy, while walking around a tourist route, loses her way, loses her map and ends up somewhere many kilometers from the base, not knowing how to get back. To top off the misfortunes, the girl finds a corpse at the foot of the cliff. She radios about the discovery, and as it is getting close to sunset, she is told not to go anywhere and to keep an eye on the body all night.
JungleThe film is based on the memoirs of Israeli traveler Yossi Ginsberg, set out in his book “Lost in the Jungle. A true, heart-wrenching tale of adventure and survival." Together with two friends and a strange guide, he went on a hike through the Amazon jungle, and at one point they found themselves separated and forced to go out to the people one by one. By the way, not everyone survived.
Life of PiLife of Pi, 2012
After a shipwreck, Boy Pi finds himself on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a tiger, an orangutan, a zebra and a hyena. The strange voyage will last many days, and Pi has two versions of how events unfolded.
At 6 feet deep6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain, 2017
One snowboarder, filled with internal contradictions and problems with drugs, decided to ride a wild track in a snowstorm and, of course, got lost. He wandered around the mountains for a whole week before rescuers found him, and this is the real story of Eric Lemarque.
SurvivorThe Revenant, 2015
Hugh Glass was mauled by a bear during a hunting expedition. Friends, fearing the Indians, left him with his son and one of his comrades, but he cowardly killed his son, and left Glass himself to die alone and rushed to civilization away from the savages. The only thing he didn't take into account was Hugh's vitality.
No one knows how it all really happened, but Michael Punk used facts from the biography of a very real hunter, Hugh Glass, for his novel The Revenant.
Lost in the iceHuxley, the pilot of a crashed plane, survives well in the icy Arctic desert and calmly awaits help from the mainland. But one day a helicopter crashes near him, and the surviving woman needs medical attention, so the hero calculates the chances, ties the wounded woman to a sled and sets off on a dangerous journey towards civilization.
127 hoursThe film was based on the autobiographical book of a young rock climber and lover of walking in the caves of Aron Ralston. One weekend in 2003, without telling anyone where he was going, he went for a walk into the canyon. At one point, gaping, he stumbled and fell into a crevice.
The moral of the film is simple - if you like dangerous adventures alone, tell your relatives or friends your route.
ImpossibleImpossible, 2012
EverestEverest does not forgive mistakes, greed and thoughtlessness, and Everest does not forgive generosity and selflessness. There are laws that can be called inhumane here. However, hundreds and hundreds of people are trying to conquer this height. On that ill-fated day in the spring of 1996, two commercial expeditions set out to climb at once, which included both experienced climbers and tourists who had no experience in conquering eight-thousanders.
When we travel, we are often careless. I don’t want to create paranoia, but this is a fact: documents are often stolen, a wallet is snatched from your hands, and your life itself may be at risk. Over the past 20 years, the world has become a less safe place for tourists traveling abroad or even within their own country. We remembered 15 shocking and sometimes ridiculous cases of missing tourists. Unfortunately, these guys were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
1. Chris and Lisa
Dutch tourists Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, aged 21 and 22 respectively, went missing in Panama in April 2014. The girls went to Panama on a humanitarian mission - social work with local children. One day they went hiking through a dense forest near the Costa Rican border and went missing.
Rescuers found their belongings in the forest. Among other things, they found cell phones with numerous attempts to call 911. The phones also contained numerous photos taken between 1:00 and 4:00 a.m., approximately every two minutes; the girls probably used flash to see anything in the pitch darkness of the forest.
Almost two weeks after this, fragments of human bones were found in the forest; DNA testing confirmed that these were Dutch girls. So far there is no definitive explanation of what happened to them, but most likely, not having time to leave the forest before dark, they panicked and fell off one of the many steep cliffs that abound in that area. Their complete remains have never been found.
14. Amber Tucarro
The missing person case of Amber Tucarro was later upgraded to a murder investigation. This is one of the worst kidnapping cases.
The girl was traveling from her home in Fort McMurray, Canada to Edmonton with her boyfriend and 14-month-old son on August 18, 2012. They planned to stay overnight on the outskirts of Edmonton to save on hotel costs and visit the city the next day.
But for some reason, Amber suddenly decided to hitchhike to Edmonton alone that night, leaving her son with her friend. She was picked up by an unknown driver and was not seen again until her body was found nearly two weeks later.
While she thought she was getting a ride into the city, Amber called her brother, who was in the Edmonton Correctional Institution, or rather, in a pre-trial detention center, where all telephone conversations are recorded.
After Amber's body was discovered, police released a recording of the minute-long telephone conversation, hoping that someone would recognize the voice of the perpetrator. It turned out that during the telephone conversation, Amber realized that she seemed to have been kidnapped and was being taken somewhere to the wrong place, she got scared and began to ask the driver where he was going. He says a few phrases in response, his voice can be heard quite clearly. However, to this day, no one has been arrested for the murder of Amber Tucarro, and the killer remains at large.
13. Lars
German citizen Lars Mittank, 28, was on holiday in Bulgaria when he got into a brawl on the beach and was hit in the head. He was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a ruptured eardrum and given a prescription for medication. Under doctors' orders, Lars needed to avoid flying for the next few days and told his friends to fly home without him. Lars himself remained in Bulgaria, waiting for his condition to improve.
Then some inexplicable series of events begins: Lars called his mother from his hotel room, claiming in a panic that four men were watching him. He asked to call the bank and block his credit card. He spoke in a confused and chaotic manner: he believed that the medications prescribed to him were doing something wrong to him, affecting his ability to think clearly.
Lars was last seen on security cameras at the airport. He fled from the airport building into the nearby forest, abandoning his luggage; No one ever saw him again, and his body was never found.
12. Tom
22-year-old British backpacker Tom Billing went missing in the North Shore Mountains on November 25, 2013. Billings had planned an 8-week tour of North America, but his plans were interrupted by a fatal accident that occurred while attempting to negotiate a dangerous route.
Billings told two traveling companions that he planned to take a risky and difficult route into Lynn Headwaters State Park.
Tom was not reported missing for a week, and the alarm was only raised when he failed to arrive at his next destination.
His body was found almost three years later, in April 2016. He appears to have died of natural causes (such as exhaustion or dehydration).
11. Yuri and Natalya
Human remains were found on one of the beaches of Fiji Island in the Pacific Ocean. It soon became clear that parts of the bodies belonged to people from Ryazan who moved to the island five years ago - Yuri Shipulin and Natalya Gerasimova.
On the Fijian beach of Natadola Beach, police discovered the remains of Russians - body parts were scattered along the shore. Local media wrote that the remains were washed ashore by the surf, where the killers could have thrown them out after the massacre. A number of publications also draw attention to the fact that a chainsaw appears to have disappeared from the house of the murdered. According to journalists, it could have become the murder weapon.
The killers were not arrested in connection with this double murder, and some fragments of the couple's bodies have still not been found.
Fiji authorities are worried that the reputation of their paradise could be greatly damaged by such a brutal murder, because crime on the island is very low and such cases are extremely rare.
P.s.: the source does not explain what travel and dangers for tourists have to do with it.
10. Eliza
On January 26, 2013, Columbia University student Elisa Lam, originally from Vancouver, left the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles and went missing. 18 days later, her body was found under strange circumstances. The girl was going on a tour along the West Coast, planning to visit Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, San Diego and San Francisco. Her trip seemed to go smoothly, judging by the photos Eliza posted on social media.
Everything was fine before arriving at Hotel Cecil. It’s something like a hostel, where she shared a room with several neighbors, who immediately began to complain to the hotel administration about the girl’s strange, chaotic behavior, and the manager moved her to another room.
CCTV footage from February 1: Eliza squeezed into a corner in the hotel elevator, looks out into the corridor and quickly returns to the elevator again, as if she is hiding and afraid. Actually, this is the last that is known about her.
Eighteen days later, her body was found in a water tank on the roof of the hotel, the cause of death being drowning. It is still unknown how she got onto the roof (the door was locked), or under what circumstances she drowned. Her disappearance and death were hotly discussed in the media and social networks, everyone was scratching their heads and theorizing, but to this day there is no definitive explanation.
9. Gareth Crowe
In February 2016, 36-year-old British tourist, Gareth Crowe from Scotland, died while riding an elephant in Thailand. Crowe was on vacation with his family when the accident occurred.
Crowe and his 16-year-old stepdaughter, Eilidh Hughes, were riding on an elephant when the elephant's mahout climbed down to photograph them. The elephant began to ignore his commands and then threw Crow and Hughes off its back and trampled them. After which he ran away. The girl was hospitalized, and her stepfather died.
The driver blamed Crowe for the incident, saying he had teased and angered the animal. Hearing these accusations, Hughes completely denied them - there was no such thing!
A spokesman for the charity World Animal Protection said the tragedy was a reminder that elephants were never designed to ride. The animals are domesticated for the entertainment of tourists, but they are often under great stress, both physically and mentally. The elephant's owners caught it, but weren't sure what to do with it. We hope he won’t take tourists on rides anymore.
8. Anne
Chicago television producer Anne Swaney, 37, was visiting a farm in Belize while on vacation in January 2016, where she was killed. This was Annie's second visit to this farm, where she rode horses, and the owner of the farm described her as a very nice and friendly person.
That day, Anne went down to the nearby river to do yoga. When she did not return to the hotel, hotel staff notified police of her absence a short time later, at which time her personal belongings were found near the river.
Her body was found the next morning and an autopsy revealed that she had been strangled. Police say the motive for the attack is unclear. This place is located about a mile from the border with Guatemala, perhaps the criminal killed the girl and fled to Guatemala (the border is open there).
Belize's murder rate is ranked third in the world, although the area where Annie was killed is not considered to be particularly dangerous. The killer has still not been found.
7. Max Mendoza
American citizen and Arizona State University alumnus Max Mendoza visited Brazil in July 2014 to cheer on the FIFA World Cup.
The investigation claims that Mendoza and two of his friends went on a hike to the world-famous statue of Christ the Savior, and their path ran through the forests. At some point, Mendoza became separated from his friends and disappeared. The body was discovered by Brazilian police near the Waterfall of Souls: Max fell from a great height. How and why this happened - no one will ever know.
The police notified the US Embassy, and the body was quickly identified by its belongings. No signs of violent death were found; it was officially recognized as an accident.
Max was loved very much by his friends; they expressed their condolences on social media over the tragedy.
6. Denis
An Arizona woman, Denise Pikka Thiem, went missing on April 5, 2015. She quit her job to travel. Denise visited many countries such as the Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore and Vietnam, and then decided to go to Europe, on a pilgrimage - from El Camino de Santiago. Tens of thousands of people undergo this test of physical endurance and religious spirit every year.
Before and after Thiem's disappearance, numerous tourists and locals reported being disturbed by a strange girl who had strayed from her pilgrimage route. And then she disappeared.
Miguel Angel Muñoz, 39 years old, a hermit who lived in a shack along the pilgrim route, was detained on suspicion of murdering Denis. After being taken into custody and charged with Thiem's murder, Muñoz led police to her remains. Why he killed the American woman is not reported.
5. John and Robert
Back in September 2015, Canadian tourists John Riedel and Robert Hall were captured. They were captured at gunpoint by the Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf.
Riedel and Hall were vacationing at the Oceanview resort, which is located on Samal Island in the southern Philippines.
The Philippine military said it was no accident and that the foreigners were the target of a raid by an Islamist organization. The Abu Sayyaf terrorists demanded a ransom for each captive, threatening death if their demands were not met. They posted several heartbreaking videos online of the captives' pleas, and Canadians appealed to their government and the leadership of the Philippines. But no one was going to buy them.
Unfortunately, a few months later, in April 2016, Canadian authorities confirmed that John Riedel was dead and his family was mourning his senseless death. In turn, almost a year after their capture, in June 2016, Robert Hall was also executed.
4. Bo Solomon
Study abroad programs are highly regarded, and prestigious education at the world's best universities is an excellent choice. However, Bo Solomon's foreign education did not end well. He went to Rome to study at John Cabot University.
In July 2016, 19-year-old Solomon from Wisconsin went missing shortly after arriving in Rome.
His roommate reported the American's absence, and officials began searching for him. Three days later, Solomon was found dead in the Tiber River. CCTV footage helped identify the three men who led Solomon to shore after robbing him. The criminals are wanted, but young Bo cannot be returned.
3. Spouses from the Czech Republic
On July 26, 2016, a young couple from the Czech Republic set out on a twenty-mile trek that usually takes about three days. The trekking took place in an area that is famous as a tourist attraction, but in severe winters, as a rule, only experienced, properly equipped climbers go there.
On the second day of the hike, a man died after falling down a steep slope. The woman, frightened and confused, survived in the cold for three nights, and then found a hut. She suffered minor injuries and frostbite and decided it was better to stay in the hut rather than try to find help.
Almost a month passed before the couple's abandoned car was found and the alarm was raised and a search began for them. And the woman lived that month in fear and loneliness, eating what she found in the hut.
2. Lane
This tragedy shocked the whole world. On June 14, 2016, the world famous Disneyland Park in Orlando generated chilling headlines around the world with the death of 2-year-old Line Graves from Nebraska. The boy was standing in about knee-deep water, at a shallow depth, when he was attacked by an alligator, which instantly dragged him under the water. Graves' father tried but was unable to save the boy, suffering injuries to his arms.
The boy's body was found only two days later.
The investigation found his body completely intact, with minor wounds, and concluded that the cause of death was drowning.
Alligators are not uncommon in the area, but attacks on humans have never occurred in Orlando before. This story served as a terrible lesson for both the park administration and all parents.
1. Madeleine
Four-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappeared in Portugal in 2007 under mysterious circumstances. Her parents put her to bed in the hotel room, and they went to a party with friends. When they returned, they did not find their daughter there, while the other two children were in their cribs and did not hear anything.
At first, the parents searched on their own, then they turned to the police. A few months later, the first suspects were detained, allegedly associated with a pedophile ring. However, there was no evidence against them. The detainees were released, and suspicion fell on the parents themselves. But soon the Portuguese police again admitted that there was no evidence.
At the same time, various private investigators began to speculate on the incident, every now and then declaring their own investigations, the threads of which lead to various secret societies of pedophiles: Belgian, French and even pan-European.
Recently there were reports in the media that the remains of the most wanted girl on earth, Little McKen, were allegedly discovered in the Australian city of Wineark. But no confirmation has yet been made public.
The search for the child has reached a truly global scale. Various celebrities (for example, David Beckham), writers and musicians got involved in the cause. However, to no avail, and Madeleine McKen's case remains open to this day.
Madeleine has a special feature: the pupil of her right eye seems to “flow” onto the iris. Her parents do not lose hope - someday the baby will be found.
Often the media informs us about missing people whose disappearance was so sudden and mysterious that the blood runs cold. Recently, one of the most mysterious and high-profile disappearances was the case of 18-year-old American Natalie Halloway, who in 2005 went with her classmates to the island of Aruba to celebrate her graduation, but never returned. In the continuation of the article, you will find 10 blood-chilling stories about the sudden disappearance of travelers who never returned home.
1. John Reed
In 1980, 28-year-old John Reed left his hometown of Twin Cities, California, and headed to Brazil. He hoped to find the lost city of Akator, an ancient underground civilization that supposedly remained a secret in the Amazon jungle for thousands of years. Reed learned about the city from a book called Akator's Chronicle. The author of this book, Karl Brugger, wrote it after learning about Akator from the Brazilian guide Tatunki Nara, who claimed to have once been the leader of a tribe that ruled the city 3,000 years ago. Tatunca lived in the village of Barcelos and owned a profitable business organizing trips for tourists into the jungle to search for Akator. Reed decided to accompany Tatunka on one of his expeditions. He left his belongings and his return air ticket in his hotel room in Manaus, but never returned to retrieve them.
It was eventually discovered that Tatunka Nara was actually a German citizen named Gunter Hawk. Tatunca claimed that Reed ran away and disappeared into the jungle after they decided to return to Barcelos. However, Reed was not the only person to disappear under suspicious circumstances in the company of Tatunka. In the 1980s, a Swiss man named Herbert Wanner and a Swedish woman named Christine Heuser also mysteriously disappeared during the Tatunta expedition. Wanner's jawbone was later found.
Additionally, Karl Brugger, the author of the book that inspired John Reed, was gunned down on the streets of Rio in 1984. Authorities still believe Gunther Hawk was responsible for Brugger's murder and the three disappearances, but there is not enough evidence to charge him.
2. Judy Smith
In 1997, Judy Smith, a 50-year-old mother of two from Newton, Massachusetts, married an attorney and decided to travel to Philadelphia to join her husband Jeffrey on a business trip. On April 10, Jeffrey went to conferences and Judy decided to go sightseeing. Judy never returned to the hotel and Jeffrey reported her missing. Five months later she was found. On September 7, hikers found her partially buried remains in an isolated mountainous area. The strange thing about this story is that Judy's remains were found more than 960 kilometers away, in North Carolina.
The exact cause of death could not be determined, but since Judy's remains were found in a shallow grave, authorities concluded that she was the victim of an intentional homicide. Since she still had her wedding ring and $167, robbery was unlikely to be the motive. What was also strange was that she was carrying her belongings in a red backpack, but a blue backpack was found at the scene. Even stranger, Judy apparently went there voluntarily, as four witnesses reported seeing her in nearby Asheville.
Witnesses said that Judy was in a great mood and mentioned in conversation that her husband was a lawyer. If the woman the witness spoke to was indeed Judy Smith, no one knows why she wanted to run away without telling her family. And if Judy made the decision to disappear on her own, how did she end up dead on a remote mountain, buried in a grave?
3. Frank Lenz
A large number of people have disappeared while trying to fly around the world on their own. However, the disappearance of Frank Lentz while attempting to circumnavigate the globe has a unique difference. Lentz, 25, was a Pennsylvania cyclist who wanted to bike around the world, a trip he expected would take two years. Lentz began his journey in Pittsburgh on May 25, 1892, and spent the next several months traveling throughout North America before sailing to Asia. By May 1894, Lenz had cycled through Tabriz, Iran, and his next destination was Erzurum, Turkey, 450 kilometers away. But Lenz did not come to Erzurum and was never seen again.
His family and friends decided to organize a search. Unfortunately, Lentz was traveling in Turkey during the peak of the Armenian massacres in the mid-1890s. During this terrible time, the Ottoman Empire killed tens of thousands of Armenians, and Lentz may have been their accidental victim.
When another cyclist named William Sachtleben rode to Erzurum to look for Lentz, he discovered that Lentz may have passed through a small Turkish village in the Kurdistan region, where he had inadvertently offended the Kurdish chieftain. Thirsting for retribution, the chieftain ordered the bandits to kill Lenz and bury his body. The alleged killers were charged with Lenz's death, but most escaped or died before they could be jailed. The Turkish government eventually agreed to pay compensation to Lenz's family, but his body was never found.
4. Leo Widiker
Even though he was 86 years old, Leo Widiker still led a very active lifestyle. Leo was married for 55 years, and both spouses belonged to a Christian organization called Maranatha Volunteers International. By 2001, the Widickers had organized 40 humanitarian trips. On their 41st trip, the couple left their home in North Dakota to accompany the organization to Tabacon Hot Springs, Costa Rica. On November 8, Leo sat on a bench on the resort property while his wife walked away briefly. When Virginia returned half an hour later, her husband was gone.
There was a theory that Leo may have fallen asleep on the bench, and when he woke up, he forgot everything. Before he disappeared, witnesses saw Leo asking people if they knew where his wife was. He walked up to the resort gate and asked the guards if he could come out, they opened the gate and watched as he walked away down the main road.
Already 15 minutes later, one of Leo's friends was walking along the same road, but found no signs that he had passed here. Since Leo wasn't moving very fast and there weren't many places he could go, the only logical explanation was that someone had kidnapped him. And even during the search operation, the police could not find a single trace of Leo Widiker.
5. Karen Denise Wells
Karen Denise Wells was from Haskell, Oklahoma. She was 23 years old and raising a child alone. As usual, she decided to leave the child with her parents to visit a friend named Melissa Shepard. Wells rented a car and drove to North Bergen, New Jersey. Wells was last seen on April 12, 1994, calling a friend from a motel in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Shepard agreed to meet Wells at the motel and arrived later that night with two unknown men. Wells never returned to the room, but most of her things remained there.
Early the next morning, Wells' rental car was found abandoned on a remote road 56 kilometers from the motel. The vehicle was running without gas and its doors were wide open. Evidence was found in the car that indicated that Karen had been in that car until the last moment. Evidence included a small amount of marijuana, but Karen's wallet and change purse were found in a nearby ditch. The strangest clue in the abandoned vehicle was the numbers on the speedometer, which did not correspond to the distance from Haskell to Carlisle. In fact, 700 miles was unnecessary.
Before she arrived at the motel in the town of Carlisle, Wells was seen in two other cities that were completely out of her way. During her last phone conversation with Shepard, Wells mentioned that she had gotten lost several times before. However, to this day no one can say where Karen is.
6. Charles Horvath
In 1989, 20-year-old Charles Horvath decided to leave his native England and head to Canada to spend several months hitchhiking across the country. By May 11, Charles arrived in British Columbia and stopped at a campsite in Kelowna. He sent a fax to his mother, Denise Allan, saying he would try to meet her in Hong Kong for his 21st birthday. However, this was the last message his mother received. Since Charles had maintained contact up until this point, she began to worry. She decided to travel to British Columbia on her own to find him. Denise discovered that Charles had left his tent and all his belongings at the campsite when he suddenly disappeared. After informing the police that Charles was missing, Denise returned to her hotel and one evening found a note: “I saw him on May 26th. We were celebrating and two people beat him up. He died. His body is in the lake behind the bridge.”
Divers searched the lake but did not find Charles' body. However, Denise soon received another note, claiming that they had searched the wrong side of the bridge. After another search, the police did find the body. The victim was initially identified as Charles, but it turned out that he was a local man who committed suicide. Denise did receive confirmation that Charles was going to a slumber party before he went missing. However, his disappearance has remained a mystery for 25 years.
7. Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana was a fairly famous Italian theoretical physicist. In 1938, Majorana worked as a physics teacher at the University of Naples. On March 25, he wrote a bizarre note to the university's director, saying he had made an "unavoidable" decision and apologizing for any "inconvenience" his disappearance might cause. He also sent a message to his family asking them not to spend too much time mourning him. Majorana withdrew a large amount of money from his bank account and boarded a boat to Palermo. After arriving in Palermo, Majorana sent another message to the director, saying that he had reconsidered his decision to commit suicide and planned to return home. Majorana was seen boarding a ship to Naples, but he mysteriously disappeared.
There were a huge number of theories about Majorana's disappearance: suicide, fleeing the country to start a new life, and even possible collaboration with the Third Reich. This mystery remained unsolved until 2008, when a witness was found who claimed that he met Majorana in Caracas in 1955. This man supposedly lived in Argentina for many years, and the witness even provided a photo of him. After analyzing the man in the photograph and comparing it with photographs of Majorana, investigators concluded that a large number of similarities could indicate that they were the same person. The investigation into the disappearance of Ettore Majorana is still ongoing, but the full story of what happened remains a mystery.
8. Devin Williams
Devin Williams lived with his wife and three children in Lyon County, Kansas, and made his living as a truck driver. In May 1995, Williams went on a routine work trip to deliver cargo to California. After completing the task, Williams picked up another load for delivery to Kansas City. On May 28, he was spotted speeding in a truck through the Tonto National Forest near Kingman, Arizona, driving dangerously close to some hikers' campsites and their vehicles. The truck eventually stopped in the middle of the woods and witnesses saw Williams wandering around it. He appeared disoriented, muttering incoherently "I'm going to jail" and "they made me do this." By the time police arrived, the truck was driverless and Williams had disappeared.
The Tonto National Forest is more than 50 miles from the interstate that Williams usually took to get to Kansas, and there was no rational explanation for his strange behavior. He had never used drugs before or suffered from mental illness, although before he left California, Williams called his doctor and said he was having trouble sleeping. Williams' disappearance was so strange that even UFO researchers began to think he had been abducted by aliens.
Finally, in May 1997, hikers discovered Devin Williams' skull approximately half a mile from where he was last seen. However, what actually happened to him is unknown.
9. Virginia Carpenter
In 1946, Texarkana became the birthplace of a terrible mystery when an unidentified man known as the Phantom Killer killed five people. A young girl named Virginia Carpenter knew three of the victims and became the center of all the leads just two years later. On June 1, 1948, 21-year-old Carpenter left Texarkana for the six-hour train ride to Denton, where she was enrolled at Texas State College for Women. After arriving that evening, Carpenter took a taxi from the train station to her college dorm. However, remembering that she had forgotten her bag, she returned to the station. When Carpenter learned that the luggage had not yet arrived, she gave her ticket to the taxi driver, Jack Zachary, and paid him to pick up the luggage the next morning. Zachary drove Carpenter to the dorm, where he said she went to talk to two young men in a convertible.
The next day, Zachary took Carpenter's luggage and left it in front of the dorm, where it lay unclaimed for two days. When college officials and Carpenter's family realized that none of them had heard from her in a long time, they reported her missing.
Who the two young men in the convertible were was never found out. However, some suspicion fell on Zachary, who had a criminal record and was known to be violent towards his family. Zachary's wife initially told police that he returned home shortly after dropping Carpenter off, but years later she claimed that her alibi was false—Zachary had actually arrived home several hours later. However, there was no evidence linking Zachary to Virginia Carpenter's disappearance, and no trace of her was ever found.
10. Benjamin Bathurst
Benjamin Bathurst was an ambitious 25-year-old British ambassador. He was sent from London to Vienna in 1809 in the hope of improving British-Austrian relations. However, when French forces invaded Vienna, Bathurst headed back home. On November 25, he and his personal valet stopped in Perleberg, Germany, and checked into the White Swan Inn. Bathurst intended to continue the journey that evening, after his valet had changed the horses in their carriage. Finally, at approximately 21:00, Bathurst learned that the horses were ready. He left his room, apparently to go to the cart, and disappeared.
Two days later, Bathurst's coat was discovered in a building belonging to a man who worked at the White Swan Inn. The man's mother claimed to have found the coat at the hotel and brought it home, but one witness claimed to have seen Bathurst walking towards the structure the evening he disappeared. Bathurst's trousers were soon found in a wooded area about five kilometers from the city. In his trousers was an unfinished letter to Bathurst's wife, in which he expressed his fear that he would not return home to England.
There were rumors that French soldiers had kidnapped Bathurst, but the government denied these accusations. In 1862, a skeleton was found under a house that once belonged to an employee of the White Swan Inn. The remains could not be identified as Benjamin Bathurst, and so his disappearance remained an unsolved mystery for more than 200 years.
