The stories of amateur internet sleuths cracking cold cases are truly captivating. It's incredible how ordinary people, armed with determination and digital tools, can make a significant impact in solving long-standing mysteries. Take the case of Tent Girl, where a determined amateur sleuth used online forums and forensic reconstructions to finally identify the young woman found in a tent bag in Kentucky. It's a testament to the power of collective effort and modern technology in unraveling the past.
Operation Death Eaters, another remarkable example, saw online communities collaborating to expose a network of child abusers and traffickers globally. This grassroots investigation led to arrests and shed light on a dark corner of criminal activity that might have otherwise gone unchecked.
Aundria Bowman's case demonstrates how persistent online researchers can help bring closure to families. Through digital sleuthing and sharing information across platforms, crucial leads emerged that ultimately led to the discovery of Aundria's remains, bringing long-awaited answers to her loved ones.
The Death of Gregory May and Abraham Shakespeare cases also highlight how online communities can aid law enforcement in solving complex crimes. Whether through spreading awareness, sharing information, or contributing expertise, these digital detectives play a vital role in seeking justice.
Each of these stories showcases the potential of harnessing the collective power of the internet for good, turning armchair detectives into formidable allies in the pursuit of truth and justice. Which of these cases resonates with you the most, or is there another internet-solved mystery that fascinates you?
Operation Death Eaters, another remarkable example, saw online communities collaborating to expose a network of child abusers and traffickers globally. This grassroots investigation led to arrests and shed light on a dark corner of criminal activity that might have otherwise gone unchecked.
Aundria Bowman's case demonstrates how persistent online researchers can help bring closure to families. Through digital sleuthing and sharing information across platforms, crucial leads emerged that ultimately led to the discovery of Aundria's remains, bringing long-awaited answers to her loved ones.
The Death of Gregory May and Abraham Shakespeare cases also highlight how online communities can aid law enforcement in solving complex crimes. Whether through spreading awareness, sharing information, or contributing expertise, these digital detectives play a vital role in seeking justice.
Each of these stories showcases the potential of harnessing the collective power of the internet for good, turning armchair detectives into formidable allies in the pursuit of truth and justice. Which of these cases resonates with you the most, or is there another internet-solved mystery that fascinates you?
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NewsTranscript
00:00There was a hiccup.
00:01Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 times the internet
00:06solved crimes.
00:08Finally, we knew.
00:09For this list, we're looking at the most interesting true crime cases that were resolved
00:14by amateur internet sleuths.
00:16Which of these stories fascinates you the most?
00:18Let us know in the comments below.
00:21Number 20.
00:22Tent Girl
00:23The body of Barbara Ann Hackman Taylor was found wrapped in a tarp on May 17, 1968,
00:28and was presumed to be the victim of a homicide.
00:31Her nickname, Tent Girl, came as a result of the material she was found wrapped in,
00:35and because her real identity wasn't known yet.
00:38Years after Tent Girl was found, a man named Todd Matthews married the daughter of the
00:42man who first discovered the body.
00:44Knowing that the case troubled his father-in-law, Matthews began digging on the internet.
00:48He scoured public databases and missing persons websites until he found a match.
00:53The Hackman family had posted a report about their missing relative,
00:56whose story seemingly matched Tent Girl's.
00:59Contact was made, authorities were notified, and Tent Girl was positively identified.
01:04Number 19.
01:05The Linda Jane Hart Case
01:07Websleuths.com is where amateur detectives gather to discuss cold cases,
01:12and they all share one primary mission, to solve what the police could not.
01:16One sleuth is Carl Koppelman, who once worked as an accountant for Disney.
01:21He took to perusing the website and started moderating a forum for unidentified victims.
01:25The object of this forum is to locate missing persons by cross-referencing coroner's reports.
01:30Through his involvement, Koppelman was able to identify Linda Jane Hart,
01:34who had been missing since 1988.
01:37Hart's remains were found in an abandoned parking lot,
01:40but she was initially categorized as a Jane Doe.
01:43It wasn't until 2011 that Koppelman's investigative skills would lead to her identification.
01:49Number 18.
01:50Anthony Posey's Stolen Camera
01:52And now for something a little lighter.
01:54Louisiana-based professional photographer Anthony Posey traveled to Seattle for his
01:58wife's 50th birthday, and decided to visit the city's public library while he was there.
02:02Unfortunately, he left his camera in one of the bathrooms, and when he returned,
02:06the camera was gone.
02:08He posted a help ad on Craigslist, but didn't hold out much hope.
02:11Nevertheless, police soon recovered a stolen camera and used the community
02:15posting website Nextdoor.com to publicize their find.
02:19One of its users recognized the camera from Posey's Craigslist ad and connected the dots.
02:23And with that, the professional photographer was reunited with his camera.
02:28Number 17.
02:29Operation Death Eaters
02:33Founded in 2014 by a woman named Heather Marsh,
02:36Operation Death Eaters would later become associated with the hacktivist group Anonymous,
02:41which garnered it greater media attention.
02:53From anywhere across the world.
02:55The goal of the operation is to find and expose those dealing in human trafficking and predation.
03:00Despite the involvement of Anonymous, there is actually no hacking involved.
03:05Rather, the participants use good old-fashioned research and investigative methods in an attempt
03:09to remain legitimate.
03:10The group is looking into both individuals and entire institutions, including the U.S.
03:15military, which they argue govern themselves and therefore cannot be trusted to mete out
03:20justice properly.
03:21It's unclear if the operation has led to any arrests,
03:24but there's no denying that their intentions are noble.
03:27Number 16.
03:28The Reddit Recounting
03:30During a friend's engagement party at a Seattle bar, 26-year-old Sam Whitehorn was assaulted
03:35by three men, according to Whitehorn's girlfriend Bridget Kitson.
03:38His Green Bay Packers hat attracted the attention of the men, who were fans of the Seattle Seahawks.
03:44As a result of the attack, Whitehorn hit his head on the curb.
03:47The fall fractured his skull and put him in a coma.
03:50Kitson recounted the story on Reddit, which quickly went viral.
03:54A resulting police investigation later found and identified the three suspects.
03:58According to a post made by Kitson, the suspects proceeded to turn themselves in.
04:03Number 15.
04:04Billy Jensen's Geo-Targeted Ads
04:06A digital media consultant named Billy Jensen has emerged as one of the most accomplished
04:11amateur sleuths working today, with the solving of a purported 10 homicide cases under his belt.
04:17I wanted to solve these murders myself, and I came up with a system on how to do it.
04:21Jensen once worked as an investigative journalist,
04:24and his experience in the field of crime reporting has paid dividends.
04:28Jensen uses geo-targeted ads on social media to attract the attention of locals,
04:32and uses their witness reports to suss out criminals.
04:35If you're able to target the specific people that you want to target in a specific area and say,
04:40hey, do you know this guy? You're going to get a lot better response.
04:43One specific case solved by Jensen was the killing of Marcus Gaines,
04:47with the help of local photos and videos.
04:49Jensen was able to identify the perp as Marcus Moore.
04:52I started, you know, kind of fumbling in the dark, started a social media campaign,
04:56and was able to actually find someone who was there that took a video of the event,
05:00and I was able to take that video, match it up with pictures of mugshots,
05:06and was able to identify the puncher.
05:09Jensen has since written two books about his exploits,
05:11Chase Darkness With Me and Killer Amidst Killers.
05:15Number 14.
05:16The Jacob Wetterling Case
05:18In 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted by a massed assailant
05:23while biking home with his younger brother and friend.
05:25The case remained cold for decades, until Joy Baker got involved.
05:30It would take nearly three decades for a break in the case.
05:33A man named Jared Shiral claimed that he survived a similar encounter in the 80s,
05:38and both he and Baker began to unravel the years-long mystery.
05:41That case was too old to prosecute, but there was DNA evidence from it.
05:46That DNA evidence, enough to get a search warrant for Heinrich's home.
05:49They unearthed a number of related stories,
05:52leading to their appearance on CNN's The Hunt.
05:55This then attracted the attention of authorities,
05:57who ordered that the Wetterling case be reopened.
06:00An old DNA sample was found and matched to a man named Danny Heinrich,
06:04who would eventually reveal the location of Wetterling's remains.
06:08He's not getting away with anything. We got the truth.
06:11Number 13. The Shooting of Crystal Theobald
06:15The 2021 Netflix documentary Why Did You Kill Me tells the story of Crystal Theobald,
06:20and her family's desperate search for justice.
06:22I look over, and he's standing there, right by the stop sign.
06:27Theobald was killed in 2006 when a local gang mistakenly believed the car she was
06:31riding in belonged to rival gang members. They shot at the car in a drive-by,
06:35killing Theobald and wounding her boyfriend.
06:38Theobald's mother, Belinda Lane, took to MySpace with a fake account to befriend
06:42members of the gang. She connected with a man named William Sotelo,
06:46who admitted that he and a few others were involved in the shooting.
06:49In the end, Sotelo was charged with voluntary manslaughter,
06:52while Julio Heredia, the shooter, was found guilty of first-degree murder.
06:57Number 12. Anonymous and Retea Parsons
07:00After attending a high school party where she was sexually assaulted,
07:03Retea Parsons was further maltreated when photos of the assault were spread online.
07:08The photos also made their way through Parsons' hometown of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
07:12Unfortunately, under the stress of it all, Parsons attempted to take her own life,
07:16and ended up in a coma.
07:18From the start, police messed up, interviewing Parsons not once, but twice.
07:23Her family eventually had to make the incredibly difficult decision to terminate her life support.
07:28The story attracted the attention of Anonymous, who reportedly identified the guilty parties.
07:33They demanded that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police enact justice,
07:36or they would publicly reveal the names.
07:47There are varying accounts of what happened subsequently to this,
07:50but it seems at least two of the suspects were identified by the RCMP.
07:55Number 11. Andrea Bowman
07:57Amateur sleuth Carl Koppelman strikes again,
08:00this time solving the case of teenager Andrea Bowman.
08:03Bowman was suffering abuse from her adoptive father Dennis before she vanished from his home.
08:07The case went cold for decades,
08:09until authorities in Hamilton, Michigan arrested Bowman in November.
08:12Koppelman began digging around online years later,
08:15and stumbled across an ActiveClassmates.com page in Bowman's name.
08:19He contacted the owner, and discovered that it was Bowman's biological mother.
08:23The two investigated the case together,
08:25and came to the conclusion that Bowman's abusive adoptive father
08:29was most likely responsible for her disappearance.
08:31Police, in turn, eventually took his DNA and linked it to a prior murder.
08:36Knowing that he was caught, he then confessed to killing Andrea as well.
08:40Number 10. Brad Wilman's Trojan Horse
08:43Back in the late 90s, a Canadian man named Brad Wilman devised a Trojan horse
08:48that allowed him complete access to the computers that downloaded it.
08:52Wilman placed the Trojan horse on websites dedicated to predators,
08:55and at the height of Wilman's activity, he was monitoring up to 3,000 computers.
09:00These belonged to a wide variety of people, including priests,
09:04social workers, police officers, and military personnel.
09:08His program aided in numerous official channels,
09:11including a Kentucky state investigation,
09:13and a case involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
09:16But perhaps his biggest catch was Superior Court Judge Ronald Klein,
09:21who pleaded guilty to possessing explicit material,
09:24and was sentenced to 27 months in prison.
09:27Number 9. Finding Sean Powers' Laptop
09:30A Canadian web consultant named Sean Power
09:32was the victim of a laptop thief while visiting New York City.
09:36After returning home to Canada, a tracking tool called Prey
09:39alerted Power that his computer was in use, and provided screenshots of the user.
09:44The man logged into Skype using his real name,
09:48giving Power his name, face, and location.
09:51His 12,000 Twitter followers then banded together,
09:54with one discovering that he was the owner of a restaurant called Oficina Latina.
09:59Powers sent a female friend to investigate,
10:14and a Twitter follower named Nick Reese ventured to the restaurant on behalf of Powers.
10:18They were able to reclaim the bag and the laptop,
10:21and Powers called the perp to thank him for returning his belongings.
10:25Number 8. iPad Selfies
10:28That pesky cloud and its penchant for stopping criminals.
10:31Now, the things you do on your phone are everywhere you want them. Automatically.
10:36In January of 2015, Randy Schaefer woke up to find his truck broken into.
10:41Missing was a bag containing cash, an iPad, and a MacBook.
10:45After informing the police, Schaefer realized that some pictures
10:49had been uploaded to his iCloud account.
10:51There were several pictures. There's about 15 pictures.
10:53Schaefer uploaded the photos to ClickToHouston's Facebook page,
10:57and received 11,000 shares.
10:59Meanwhile, his friend shared the photos on Reddit,
11:02and a user recognized one of the perps from high school.
11:05The friend was linked to the Facebook account of one Dorian Walker-Gaines,
11:09where they found a video of the man flaunting his newfound cash.
11:22The authorities were alerted, and the perps were promptly arrested.
11:26Number 7. Virginia Hit-and-Run
11:28On April 7, 2012, a 57-year-old woman was killed in a hit-and-run in Virginia.
11:34No description of the car was provided, and the only thing police had to go on
11:39was a small piece of metal that broke off the car upon impact.
11:42They posted a photo of the piece online,
11:45and it was quickly picked up by car enthusiast website Jalopnik.
11:49Its users quickly identified the metal as the grille from a Ford F-150.
11:53They narrowed it down to the exact year and trim level,
11:56and the police used this information to build their case.
11:59It eventually led them to Victor Espinoza and Juan Gonzalez Vasquez,
12:04both of whom were arrested and slapped with hit-and-run charges.
12:07Number 6. The Steubenville High School Case
12:10This very public and controversial case involved a crime
12:13perpetrated against a 16-year-old high school student.
12:23The act was graphically disseminated through social media,
12:32with dozens of people documenting the event
12:34through text messaging and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
12:38Many of these posts were found and publicly released
12:41by crime blogger and amateur sleuth Alexandria Goddard.
12:44Alexandria Goddard is a crime blogger who posted all the messages
12:49and all the names of the boys involved,
12:51even those who had not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.
12:55Extra footage was leaked by an anonymous offshoot known as NightSec.
12:59Both were paramount in publicizing the Steubenville case and making it national news.
13:04And then all of a sudden, some guy comes on, he's not even from the area,
13:09and he's like, I'm coming for you, she's passed out, it's not okay.
13:12The information was also responsible for exposing the perpetrators,
13:15both of whom were convicted and sent to juvenile detention for one and two years respectively.
13:21That both of the defendants are hereby adjudicated delinquent
13:25beyond a reasonable doubt on all three counts as charged.
13:31Number 5.
13:32Philadelphia Swarm
13:34In this horrible case, over a dozen people attacked a gay couple on the streets of Philadelphia
13:39while making disparaging remarks about their sexual orientation.
13:43The attack has outraged the city and raised concerns about the law.
13:47The police released surveillance video of the incident,
13:50and a Twitter user named Greg Bennett posted a Facebook photo
13:53of what looked like the assailants in a nearby restaurant.
13:56Bennett claims that the photo was sent to him by a friend of a friend of a friend.
14:01The restaurant was identified as La Viola,
14:03and user AtFanSince09 cross-checked Facebook for people who had checked into La Viola that night.
14:09They found numerous matches, and Twitter now had names.
14:13The names were given over to police, and Detective Joseph Murray thanked them for their efforts.
14:19Number 4.
14:20The Death of Gregory May
14:22Back in 1995, cousins of Ellen Leach went missing,
14:26and this eventually inspired the Mississippi resident to become a web sleuth
14:29dedicated to finding missing persons around the country.
14:32In the early 2000s, a skull was found inside a bucket of concrete,
14:36and a clay reconstruction of its human face was produced.
14:39Web sleuth Leach found a match with one Gregory May,
14:42a missing antiques dealer who was robbed by his roommate.
14:45The roommate, Douglas DeBruin, had stolen May's antiques collection worth $70,000,
14:51and was going to trial for May's potential murder.
14:54The only problem was the lack of a body.
14:57Fortunately, the skull was indeed matched to May,
14:59and DeBruin was convicted and sent to prison for orchestrating his death.
15:04Number 3.
15:05The Case of William Francis Melchert Dinkle
15:08This married father-of-two perused chat rooms and posed as a depressed 20-something woman.
15:14He would then enter into fake death pacts with despondent people,
15:18often providing them with detailed instructions.
15:20In November of 2006, a retired schoolteacher named Celia Blay
15:25got word of one Leigh Dow who had made a death pact with her friend.
15:29Blay investigated Leigh Dow and found other aliases and prior pacts.
15:34The police were not interested, so Blay set up a sting operation in which she was
15:38able to track the user's IP address to William Francis Melchert Dinkle in Minnesota.
15:43The St. Paul Police Department apprehended the man, and he was convicted on two counts.
15:48He spent 178 days in prison.
15:52Number 2.
15:53Abraham Shakespeare
15:54While buying cigarettes at a Florida convenience store in 2006,
15:58Abraham Shakespeare decided to try his luck and bought some lottery tickets.
16:01Those tickets made him $17 million richer.
16:05Shakespeare bought himself that new car, a fancy new house, and lots more.
16:10But as so often happens, his lotto winner's drama didn't stick to the script.
16:15That's because the money also brought unwanted attention.
16:18A lady named Dee Dee Moore then started a business with Shakespeare and gave herself
16:23full control over the funds.
16:25So when Shakespeare later went missing, police immediately suspected Moore.
16:29In the beginning, we thought he was missing, that he was hiding away.
16:33As the investigation continues, the evidence mounts that he could have died because of
16:40sinister means.
16:41Murder, we're talking here.
16:43Could be.
16:43She in turn claimed that Shakespeare had gone to live somewhere remote,
16:47having grown sick of the constant requests for money.
16:50Prosecutors paint a picture of Moore as a conniving manipulator,
16:53intent on taking Shakespeare's cash.
16:56Web sleuths also blamed Moore, and when an anonymous user logged in to defend Moore's
17:01name, their IP address was traced.
17:04It led directly to Moore herself.
17:06Cold, calculated, cruel.
17:09They all apply.
17:10Manipulative.
17:11Probably the most manipulative person that this court has seen.
17:15She was later arrested for the death of Shakespeare, as his body was found in the backyard of her
17:20house.
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17:37Number 1.
17:38Luca Magnata
17:39And so I was on Facebook one day and I found a post a lot of people have been feverishly
17:45posting about a video that was online.
17:49In 2010, a video was posted online depicting violence against animals.
17:54This resulted in the creation of a Facebook group intent on identifying the perpetrator.
17:59Eventually, the amateur sleuths were tipped off to the name Luca Magnata, perhaps by Magnata
18:04himself.
18:06The group was able to match their clues to publicly available photos of Magnata, proving
18:27successful in their hunt.
18:28Then, in 2012, student Jun Lin was killed in Montreal, Canada, and the graphic video
18:34depicting his death further drew the group's attention.
18:37It was no longer a game of online, this was real world.
18:40They were able to help link Magnata to the killer in the video.
18:44Magnata was eventually traced by police to Berlin and extradited back to Canada,
18:49where he was sentenced to life in prison.
18:52They finally caught him.
18:55And it was just like the perfect way for Luca to go down.
18:58Luca was caught in an internet cafe because he couldn't stay away from his vanity.