History knows a lot of mysterious crimes that have not been solved. But if in some cases it simply turned out to be impossible to find the culprit, then in others there is something irrational that defies logical explanation.
Mysterious killer
In 1922, all of Germany was shocked by the brutal murder of six people on the Hinterkaifeck farm. Andreas and Cecilia Gruber lived on a farm near the forest, as well as their daughter Victoria with two young children, Josef and Cecilia.
Six months before the incident, a maid escaped from the farm, who later said that ghosts were found there. Shortly before the tragedy, a new servant came to the Gruber - Maria Baumgartner.
The first to sound the alarm were the teachers of the school where Cecilia attended. After the girl did not show up for lessons for several days, the Grüber neighbors and then the police raided the farm. Four family members were found killed with an ax in a barn. Only Joseph and Maria were found to have been killed later in their beds. As for little Cecilia, it turned out that before her death she tore out the hair on her head with her own hands …
Experts have established that the murder took place on the night of March 31. But it was not possible to establish exactly under what circumstances people died. In addition, it turned out that after their death, someone lived in the house, at least for several days. Traces of a recent meal were found in the kitchen, and someone was feeding the cows.
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The neighbors saw the smoke coming out of the chimney at a time when all the inhabitants of the farm were already dead … Although about 100 people were interrogated in connection with the murder, none of them could shed light on the crime. The motives for the murder were also not identified.
According to neighbors, a few days before the tragedy, Andreas Gruber said that he saw strange footprints in the snow leading from the forest edge to the threshold of the house. But there were no tracks leading back. And later, mysterious sounds began to be heard from the attic, as if someone was there. But if it was a man, then why did he remain unnoticed? Maybe some otherworldly force was involved here?
Corpse in a water tower
And here is a relatively recent case. On January 31, 2013, 21-year-old Canadian tourist Eliza Lam disappeared from the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Two weeks later, her dead body was found in the hotel's water tower. Naked, it floated in the water.
The corpse was accidentally discovered by an auxiliary worker, who was sent to check the complaint of the guests about the weak pressure of water in the taps. With horror, the tenants learned that they were forced to use the water in which the remains of the deceased were decomposing …
It is completely unclear how the girl could get there. The water tower is located at the very top of the hotel building and is constantly under lock and key. In addition, the doors to the water tower room are on alarm, and it never worked.
Police investigated video footage taken by a camera in a hotel elevator, allegedly minutes before Eliza Lam's death. These frames show that the girl is behaving strangely - she huddles into the corner of the elevator car, squats, tries to press the buttons (but the doors do not close), carefully looks out, as if she is hiding from someone, either enters or exits the elevator …
In addition, at one time she seems to be talking with someone invisible and makes mysterious movements with her hands. By the way, during the autopsy, no traces of alcohol or psychotropic substances were found in Eliza's body.
Death from Pandora's box
In May 2013, the mysterious death of 37-year-old American Jason Airy. He was found unconscious in his own bedroom. Nearby lay a box on which was written in red letters: "Pandora's Box."
According to Jason's father, Dennis Irie, that day, his son returned home from the city shopping in a great mood and went up to his room to change. His parents found him sitting on his knees, face down. His face turned blue, his pulse was barely palpable. Dennis called an ambulance, and he himself began to give his son artificial respiration. Jason was later taken to the hospital, but he never regained consciousness and died two days later.
The box with the red lettering contained a bag of synthetic marijuana, but it was intact. No traces of narcotic or poisonous substances were found in the body of the deceased. The Airi couple reported that their son has not taken drugs since he had problems with ecstasy 13 years ago.
An autopsy revealed that Jason had a sudden cardiac arrest. It led to brain death and failure of other vital organs. But no one could answer the question of why the heart stopped. By the way, in Greek mythology, Pandora's box personifies the repository of all the world's evil.
Devil from the black "Volga"
In the days of the Soviet Union, there were legends about the black "Volga", driving which some saw a priest, others a nun, and still others - the devil himself. It was not possible to see who else was sitting in the salon - there were curtains on the windows. Sometimes eyewitnesses dreamed that the rear-view mirrors of the car turned into real horns.
According to rumors, the black Volga kidnapped children. They were dragged into a car and taken to who knows where. And if an adult tried to approach the car, misfortune happened to him. Some seemed to be dying on the spot, others exactly one day later. The sinister car was allegedly seen on the territory of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and even Mongolia.
Memory Erasers
Recently, a strange phenomenon has become more frequent: people who have lost their memory are found in different places. They often do not remember their name or biography. At the same time, no traces of chemicals are found in the body.
For example, in April 2005, on a beach in Sheerness (England, Kent), a young man was found in wet clothes and without documents. He was wearing a formal black suit, white shirt and tie. He did not answer questions and seemed dumb.
The man was sent to the Dartford mental hospital, where he was dressed in dry clothes and given paper and a pencil.
But instead of writing some words, the stranger suddenly drew a piano. When the young man was put at the instrument, he played for four hours without interruption.
A few months later, the stranger finally spoke up. He said that his name is Andreas Grassl, he is 20 years old, he is a pianist and lives in the Bavarian town of Prosdorf.
Grassle vaguely remembered how he got on the train in Bavaria, but how he ended up in England, 1200 kilometers from his home, moreover, without a train ticket and passport, he could not answer.
On February 6, 2004, in Sevastopol, a military patrol detained a guy who was standing with a detached view on the railway tracks. Since he did not remember anything about himself, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. It turned out that the young man had no memories only of his own personality, while he had a decent vocabulary, wrote competently, understood history and jurisprudence.
After the photo of the "foundling" was published in the newspaper, his mother came to the hospital. The guy's name was Sergei Khlopkov, and he was from Yalta. Sergei's mother Natalya said that her son disappeared on February 3, without returning home from work. He had never been to Sevastopol before. And the Khlopkovs' family had no relatives or acquaintances there.
And a year later after this story, on the night of February 8-9, 2005, in the region of In-Kerman, another "waste" was discovered. The man was found on the rails, his shin was badly cut, and the veins in his arms were cut with a blunt object. All that Nikolay could remember (that name was given to him in the hospital) was how he was given something to drink, and then some unknown people stretched out his arms.
The next memory is how he was crawling along a narrow long tunnel. When Nikolai crawled out of there, he realized that he could not walk on his own. The lineman saw him and called an ambulance.
Among the versions of the reasons explaining the loss of memory are hypnosis, processing of the brain with some kind of technical devices, or exposure to special chemicals. Who can do this and for what purpose? The military, intelligence agencies, scientists conducting illegal experiments on people, or some kind of criminal structure?
Alexey Dobychin, a representative of the Crimean Center for the Protection of Family and Childhood "Rusichi", believes that Satanists can erase memory in the course of their rituals. By the way, Sergey Khlopkov was discovered on the night of the full moon, and Nikolai - on the night of the new moon. And at this time, the Satanist sects are just holding black masses. It was not for nothing that Nikolai kept his memories of the cave …
But these are all just versions. None of the mysterious cases mentioned have been explained, which allows them to be classified as riddles.
Margarita TROITSYNA, magazine "Secrets of the XX century" 2016