The outgoing year turned out to be rich in investigations. Police officers, detectives, scientists and even random people unraveled unthinkable cases, collecting the missing details bit by bit. Some were helped by modern technology and professionalism, while others were helped by curiosity and luck. Who and how managed to reveal many years of secrets in 2019.
Old Ray
In January, the authorities successfully put an end to a mysterious 43-year-old case. This ominous story began on July 9, 1976 in the McClintock Nature Reserve, Wisconsin. David Schuldes brought his fiancée Ellen Mateis to rest in a tent in the forest. The trip was the last for the couple.
An unknown person shot 25-year-old Schuldes with a 30-caliber rifle, and then raped and killed his 24-year-old lover Mateis. The offender fled, leaving behind evidence: his sperm was found on the shorts of the murdered woman. The seized material was examined.
For many years, detectives could not get on the trail of the rapist. The case passed from one detective to another, and the ruthless killer continued to walk free. In the 1990s, Craig Bates took over the investigation. It was in those years that DNA-fingerprinting began to be widely used in forensic science to establish kinship and identify the identity of people.
Bates sent material evidence to the laboratory and obtained a genetic portrait of the killer. However, a person with such a DNA profile was not included in the US national DNA database.
In 2001, detective Todd Baldwin was assigned to investigate the murder. He identified the range of suspects and took DNA samples from them, but all of them did not correspond to the criminal's genetic profile. For the next 17 years, the business did not move from a dead center. Until at the end of March 2018, investigators contacted Tom Shaw, who was engaged in DNA phenotyping - restoring the appearance of an unknown criminal based on his genes.
Promotional video:
Raymond Vannivenhoven.
Shaw analyzed and found that the perpetrator had fair skin, auburn hair and freckles. Experts have recreated the alleged appearance of the suspect at the age of 25 and 65, taking into account the time that has passed since the murder was committed.
On October 9, 2018, the photo was handed over to a genealogist who narrowed the suspects down to a specific family from Wisconsin - Gladys Brunett and Edward Vannivenhoven. He suggested that the killer could be one of the four sons or four grandchildren of the Americans. The detectives were given the names of all suspects.
In January of this year, Baldwin and his partner took turns taking DNA samples from each of them. Of course, they had to go for tricks so as not to frighten off the sinister killer. So, the third brother, named Raymond, had to fill out a small questionnaire at the request of the detectives and seal it in an envelope using saliva. It turned out that it was he who owned the sperm from the shorts of the deceased.
On March 14, police found a rifle in the suspect's garage, and a tin can with shell casings on a shelf above the washer and dryer. True, Raymond's relatives and acquaintances are convinced that there has been a confusion, and this good-natured old man is innocent. According to them, old Ray gave the impression of a decent person, an ordinary pensioner.
Despite the evidence, Vannivenhoven denies his guilt. But the ominous secret has already been revealed, now the murderer is awaiting a court sentence The next hearing is scheduled for February 20, 2020.
Mary who is gone
In February, another mysterious detective story ended, which dragged on for 55 years. It began one autumn day in 1964 in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Albert Arcury lived with his wife Mary and two children. Heartbroken Albert gathered friends and family and told the sad news: Mary left her family and went to another man. Since then, relatives and friends have not seen her again.
On February 28, 2018, in Pittsburgh, in the courtyard of one of the houses, the remains of a woman were found during repairs. It turned out to be difficult to determine the identity of the deceased. The police launched an investigation. Soon, he was joined by a retired assistant chief of police of Pittsburgh, Teresa Rocco. In the past, she was in charge of the department of search for missing persons and kept files on unsolved cases in her basement.
Mary Arcury.
Rocco found out that once upon a time the house in the courtyard of which the bones were found belonged to the family of her friends - Mary and Albert Arkyuri. In their youth, Rocco and Mary were very close. They lived next door until the Arkury family moved to Garfield. Rocco unwittingly assumed that the remains belonged to Mary, but, as an experienced detective, she decided to keep the guess to herself.
Rocco recalled the day Albert announced his wife's departure. According to her, everyone was surprised by Mary's sudden escape. However, the husband claimed that he knew about her infidelities long before parting. It never occurred to anyone that he could harm her. Just as no one understood how Mary so easily abandoned the children whom she loved very much.
However, the disappearance of Mary Arcury did not attract the attention of the police. Everyone settled on the version that the woman thoughtlessly ran away to her lover. Eight months after her escape, Albert died in a car accident. Investigators say the car was in good order and there was no alcohol in the driver's blood. What happened was like a suicide.
After 54 years, relatives were informed about the human remains found in Mary's house. Relatives, as well as the police, guessed who the skeleton belonged to. Rocco helped the detectives contact Mary and Albert's daughter Donna. Donna's remains and a sample of DNA were sent for analysis.
On February 21, 2019, the results of the examination confirmed the version of the investigation - the remains belonged to Mary Arcury.
A terrible find put an end to this story. True, no one will ever know the reasons for the death of Mary and her husband. Due to the fact that Mary's body lay in the yard for 54 long years, it is impossible to establish whether she was killed or the cause of death was an accident. Only one thing is known for sure - she did not leave her home, even if she wanted to.
Curious librarian
In June, a curious librarian uncovered the mystery of the charming serial killer Terry Rasmussen, who has brutally cracked down on his victims, women and young children, for years. Each time he invented a new life for himself: a profession, hobbies and, of course, a name.
In 1986, Rasmussen introduced himself as Gordon Jenson. He lived in a trailer park in California with a five-year-old girl named Lisa, whom he called his daughter. She slept in the back of a pickup truck with him, often complained of hunger, and wore tattered clothes. A few months later, the man disappeared, and the child left the neighbors in the park. When they realized that Jenson would not return, they turned to the authorities.
After talking with Lisa, the police suspected that she had been sexually assaulted. The girl surprised the police with another confession. According to her, she used to have brothers and sisters who died of "herbal mushrooms." Investigators later found the woman who had met Jenson in 1984. She recalled that he had a baby girl in his arms.
Only one fingerprint of Jenson was found in the trailer park. On police bases, it coincided with the fingerprint of a certain Curtis Kimball, who was detained a year earlier with a child for drunk driving. And although the name was different, the rest of the signs coincided.
The elusive killer was caught three years later while driving a stolen car. He made a deal with the police: he was cleared of the sexual assault charges in exchange for admitting that he had abandoned the child. So the criminal ended up in prison for a year and a half. And although in October 1990 Rasmussen was released ahead of schedule, he did not wait until the probationary period ended and fled.
Photo of the perpetrator, taken in 1973.
In 2001, Rasmussen came up with a new name and introduced himself to a woman named June as repairman Larry Vanner. He told her that he was a millionaire and served in the CIA. A romance began between them. Instead of a wedding, it ended with June's disappearance. When the women missed, the police searched the house and found her remains in the basement under the rubble. According to experts, she died several months ago from a blow to the head.
Vanner calmly declared that he was not involved in the murder. He even offered to hand over prints to remove suspicion from himself. The result was astounding - his prints belonged to a person with a completely different name. This is how investigators tied together the story of Vanner and Jenson, who violated parole in 1990. He soon suddenly confessed to killing June. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Investigators continued to wonder who Rasmussen was that girl named Lisa. DNA analysis confirmed that she was not his daughter. The inmate remained silent, and in 2010 he died in prison without telling the truth. However, by 2015, little Lisa had already become an adult girl and decided to find her real parents.
Thanks to genealogical sites, she found her closest relative, Denise Bodin. She was last seen in late 1981 with a boyfriend named Bob Evans and a six-month-old daughter in her arms. Denise was probably Lisa's mother. The archival photograph of Evans showed Terry Rasmussen - the same man who dumped Lisa in the park and went to prison 15 years later for June's murder.
Four of Rasmussen's victims found at Allenstown.
Terry Rasmussen's victims.
Marlies Macwaters and her daughters Mary and Sarah.
Rasmussen's home in New Hampshire.
Not far from Denise Bodin's house was the town of Allenstown, where an unknown serial killer buried his victims. The first barrel with the remains of a young woman and a girl of nine to ten years old was discovered in 1985. After 15 years, a new investigator examined the scene and found another barrel with the murdered girls under the age of four.
Since 1977, Rasmussen worked in those places under the assumed name of Bob Evans, and his boss owned the barrel section. A DNA test revealed that one of the killed girls was his daughter. The mother of the other two children turned out to be a woman buried in the first barrel. The real name of the killer was only found in 2017. And 33-year-old librarian Rebeca Heath was able to identify his victims.
She scoured genealogical forums and cleverly traced a woman named Marlies Macwaters, who disappeared in the late 1970s. According to the relatives, she had two daughters - Mary and Sarah. Relatives also mentioned that Marlise married a man named Rasmussen. She gave this information to the police.
In June 2019, DNA analysis finally confirmed that the murdered woman and children from Allenstown were indeed Marlies Elizabeth and her daughters, Mary and Sarah. Only the fourth girl is not identified - Rasmussen's daughter. However, authorities speculate that this serial killer had other victims as well.
Vampire hunt
In August, a group of American scientists was able to unravel the mystery of "vampires" found about 30 years ago near the town of Griswold in Connecticut. In 1990, the boys were playing near a sand pit and found human bones. A visiting archaeologist, Nicholas Bellantoni, found out that the children had stumbled upon an old cemetery.
During the year, the remains of 15 children and adolescents, six men and eight women, who had died no later than the 19th century, were found there. One of the graves was empty, but the most unusual was the burial in an underground stone tomb. The coffin marked "JB55" contained the bones of a middle-aged man. Apparently, five years after the burial, someone opened the grave and smashed the lid of the coffin. The body was removed from the ground, chopped into pieces and buried again.
The archaeologist later learned that vampire hunters were involved. According to folklorist Michael Bell, the six oldest states in the northeastern United States were hunted for vampires: Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut. Digging through the archives, he found 80 such cases that occurred from 1784 to 1892.
Bell said that Americans seriously believed in ghouls who sucked juices from living people. “They believe that the blood in the heart of a relative who has died of consumption proves that some occult force pumps the blood of the living into the heart of the deceased, leading to its rapid extinction,” said anthropologist George Stetson in 1896. People dug up graves and in horror found dead people with traces of blood, swollen stomachs and elongated nails.
Consumption was the very disease that united all the stories about American vampires. When a person began to fade after the death of a relative, superstitious people believed that he was dying through the fault of the deceased, that is, a vampire. To some extent, Bellantoni said they were right. “At that time they did not understand how the infection was transmitted, so the coughing tuberculosis patients sat at the same table with relatives, slept in the same room with five or six brothers and sisters,” the archaeologist explains.
Marked "JB55" on the coffin lid.
The tuberculosis epidemic swept New England back in the 1730s. 70 years later, consumption was the cause of death for one in four people in the eastern United States, and medicine was powerless. “Like vampires, the consumptive were the living dead,” writes folklorist Bell. The pale, consumptive patients with blood protruding from their lips did indeed resemble the ghouls from folk legends.
In those years, it was believed that a dormant ghoul could be defeated by cutting out and burning its heart or other organs. There was also an easier way - to chop off the vampire's head. This is exactly what they did in the United States. Not only uneducated peasants believed in vampires, but also mayors, clergy, and even doctors.
Bellantoni was haunted by the identity of a strange deceased in a desecrated grave, found in a quarry in Griswold. He assumed that the letters "JB" were his initials and the numbers "55" were his age. In addition, there were two more graves near this coffin. In one of them a teenager was buried with the mark "NB13" on the coffin, and in the other - a woman with the inscription "IB45".
Experts examined the remains of the deceased and made a male portrait. During his lifetime, this man limped due to arthritis, and traces of a poorly healed fracture are visible on his clavicular bone. The injuries on the ribs indicated that before his death the person was suffering from a lung infection - most likely from tuberculosis. Bellantoni believes that he was most likely a poor farmer or laborer. For many years, experts could not advance further due to the limited technologies of the time.
But 30 years later, a group of researchers from the United States came to the truth. They carried out DNA analysis and revealed that the so-called vampire was from Western Europe. In the public genealogical database, there were two people with a similar genetic profile and a surname starting with "B". And both were called Barber.
Scientists looked up newspaper archives and found news in 1826 about the death of 12-year-old Nathan Barber of Griswold. The message also mentioned his father John Barber, i.e. JB. About why the vampire hunters got to his grave, nothing is known. But now it became clear to researchers and archaeologists who exactly became a victim of the occult rite of past years.
The secret of the depths
In August, a 13-year-old Canadian revealed a terrible secret that had been kept at the bottom of the lake for many years. In the fall of 1992, 69-year-old Janet Farris from the small Canadian town of Mill Bay went missing. It is only known that she was heading by car to someone's wedding. Her family speculated that she might have run off the road in an accident, fell asleep, or tried to go around an animal that blocked her path.
However, at the end of the last century, the search and rescue team did not find either the car or the body of an elderly woman. Only 27 years later, teenager Max Verenka with his mother Nancy rode a boat on the lake and noticed an overturned car at the bottom of the reservoir. The family told about the creepy find to the officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
A flooded 1986 Honda Accord.
Janet Farris.
Max Verenka.
On August 21, patrolmen from Revelstoke arrived at the lake, but because of the bright sun they did not see the flooded car. Then Verenka volunteered to shoot it with a GoPro camera and plunged four meters under the water. And three days later, the police and the evacuation service raised a black Honda Accord on land, in the cabin of which there were the remains of the missing Janet Farris.
The police concluded that Farris was killed in an accident. The granddaughter of the deceased admitted that it was hard for the family to mourn the man who was reported missing. According to her, to some extent this story has a happy ending. At least now her relatives know the place and cause of her death. The funeral of Janet Farris will take place in 2020.
Cursed will
In 2019, they managed to solve a mysterious murder that happened ten years ago in a family of Wall Street financiers. On the morning of December 31, 2009, nine-year-old Anna found her mother, 47-year-old Shele Danishefsky-Kovlin, dead in the bathtub. She called her father Roderick Kovlin, who lived next door. Shortly before her death, Shele filed for divorce, but rented an apartment for her husband nearby so that the children could see him.
Rod called the rescue service. He then allegedly pulled the body out of the water, covered it with a blanket and tried to do artificial respiration. But it was too late to save Shele. Fresh scratches were visible on her face, and blood flowed from a deep wound on her head. The cabinet door above the bathroom was torn off its hinges. The man pretended to be agitated: he trembled, tried to hug the policemen and repeated that he could not believe what had happened.
If you study the biography of Roderick, it is very easy to understand who is responsible for Shele's death. He was an aspiring trader and his wife served as vice president of a large financial company.
Roderick did not manage to build a career, so he lived without any embarrassment on his wife's salary and took money from his parents. He did not work anywhere for a long time, and spent his free time on hobbies and adventures on the side. Shortly before the divorce, he regularly met with two dozen mistresses and corresponded on Facebook with hundreds of women.
Location of the incident.
Shele filed for divorce when Rod openly stated that he wanted an open relationship. After parting, she confessed to her relatives that she was afraid of revenge and was thinking of paying off her husband with money. The fears were not in vain. The husband began to harm her: he lied to her superiors that she was taking drugs, then secretly came to her apartment to read her text messages and emails. To top it all off, he accused his wife of molesting their three-year-old son.
However, the medical examination did not confirm his words and was convicted of slander. He was forbidden to meet with the child unattended, as well as to approach Shele. On December 29, 2009, she asked a lawyer in writing to delete Rod from her will. According to the previous document, he was supposed to receive two million dollars and insurance. She wanted that in the event of her death, four million dollars went exclusively to her children, and her husband was left with nothing. Their meeting, which never took place, was scheduled for January 1, 2010.
Instead, on January 1, her body was handed over to a pathologist. He found four coin-sized bruises on her right wrist and a large bruise on her index finger. Her parents banned autopsies for religious reasons. Oddly enough, the cause of death was considered an accident, and neither fingerprints, nor DNA samples, nor other evidence were searched at the place of death. Shele was buried two days later.
Soon, relatives began to recall suspicious details preceding her death. For example, the day before the death of Shele, she made keratin hair straightening, after which they could not be wetted for three days. In addition, all the acquaintances knew that she did not like to take a bath and preferred a shower. Then the sister remembered that Shele had complained about her husband and said that he hated her.
Rod Kovlin and Shele Danishefsky-Kovlin.
In April 2010, the family agreed to exhume the body. The medical examiner found evidence that the woman was strangled. The prime suspect, of course, was Rod. And the motive was obvious - he learned about his wife's desire to delete it from the will and dealt with her. However, it was impossible to accuse him of a crime, relying only on guesswork and circumstantial evidence.
In 2015, he was exposed by one of his mistresses - Debra Oles. After their quarrel, she went to the police and said that Rod confessed to her in the murder of his wife and attempts to take possession of the will. It also became known that two years earlier he had saved a confession of murder on his daughter's phone. The letter said that the girl was angry with her mother and pushed her, because of which she fell into the bathtub and died. He hoped that the false confession would remove the guilt from him.
This evidence was enough to take Rod under arrest in November 2015. He continued to insist on his innocence. In 2019, the case was reviewed by a jury. They listened to the police, who were the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy, forensic experts, relatives and acquaintances of Shele and Rod's mistresses, including Debra Oles. The children begged the judge to mitigate the sentence, but the request was denied. Roderick Kovlin was sentenced to life in prison.
Author: Veronika Gavrilenko
