Netflix’s hit series Unsolved Mysteries has, believe it or not, solved dozens of mysteries over the years – in fact, it’s solved more than 250.
The American TV show first started in 1987 and has since broadcast over 600 episodes – Netflix obtained the rights to the series back in 2020.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Unsolved Mysteries revolutionised the way viewers watched TV and engaged with it, encouraging people to call in or write in if they had any suspicions about cases explained in the show.
And Netflix has carried that tradition on, encouraging people to go to the Unsolved Mysteries website and post their theories to help crack the cases.
But what about the mysteries down the years that have been solved by the series? Surely after more than 600 episodes, not all the unsolved mysteries will have remained unsolved?
Here’s some of the most shocking cases that were solved over the years.
Danny and Kathy Freeman
In 1999, the Freeman family was hit by unbelievable tragedy when their house burnt down in an awful fire.
However, that was only the beginning of the mystery: Kathy Freeman, the mother of the family, died in the fire, but she hadn’t died as a result of being burned or from smoke inhalation.
She’d been shot.
Her husband Danny was initially missing after the fire but when he was found it turned out he’d been shot as well. The couple’s daughter Ashley, as well as her best friend, were nowhere to be found.
The case was eventually solved when Ronnie Dean Busick was found to be responsible – he was charged with four counts of murder, two charges of kidnapping, and one count of arson.
Bonnie Haim
Just before New Year’s Eve in 1992, Bonnie Haim, a young mum from Florida, vanished off the face of the Earth. Police suspected that her husband Michael was responsible.
And they were right. While Bonnie’s parents were adamant she had left Michael, other members of the family’s suspicions were confirmed when a piece of Bonnie’s skull was found on Michael’s property.
In 2019, Michael went on trial was sentenced to life in prison.
The Anthrax Murderer
In 2001, a number of postal workers in America became seriously ill under mysterious circumstances, with it being revealed that they had been poisoned with anthrax.
A man had died in Florida from the exact same cause just days earlier, leading police to suspect that anthrax was being delivered to be people in their mail.
The FBI eventually closed the case in 2008 when scientist Bruce Irvins, a suspect who had been helping to solve the very crime he was accused of, purposely overdosed and died.
Randy Mark Yager
Randy Mark Yager was a member of the infamous Outlaws motorcycle gang, based in the Indiana chapter – he was in a relationship with Margie Jelovic, a young barmaid.
The two suddenly fled to Las Vegas when drug charges and murder suspicions were raised around Randy, with the pair fleeing from the FBI in the night.
After a brief reappearance from Margie, she soon disappeared again, with her family convinced Yager was holding her captive somewhere in the United States.
Yager was eventually found in Mexico, where police discovered that was Margie living with him. Yager was arrested, while Margie died after fleeing the scene of the arrest and crashing her car.
Elizabeth Carmichael
After being suspected of fraud by the police in 1973, Elizabeth Carmichael moved her family from her home of Los Angeles all the way to Miami in Florida.
However, with the police on her trail, it was revealed that Carmichael had been living with a different identity in the past, Jerry Dean Michael, and was wanted for numerous crimes committed in the 1960s.
She was eventually caught in 1980 but failed to show up to a crucial court hearing, going missing for another eight years. That remained the case until a member of the public identified her after watching an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
By that point, Carmichael was going by Kathryn Elizabeth Johnson and had been living in Texas. She was sentenced to almost three years in prison.
Kayla Unbehaun
One of the most recent cases solved by Unsolved Mysteries is the case of Kayla Unbehaun, who went missing in Illinois aged just nine back in 2017.
Kayla was reported missing when her father, who had split from her mother, went to pick her up – she was nowhere to be found and still hadn’t been found by the time the Unsolved Mysteries episode was released in November 2022.
However, after watching the episode, somebody recognised Kayla and immediately contacted Netflix and the authorities.
It turned out that Kayla’s mother had kidnapped her and taken her to North Carolina, where she was recognised. A 15-year-old Kayla was reunited with her family back in Illinois.
Craig Williamson
Perhaps the most infamous case in Unsolved Mysteries history is that of Craig Williamson, who went missing from Colorado Springs back in 1993.
His wife Christine Reinhard was determined to find her husband, convinced he was still alive, and Unsolved Mysteries aired an episode about Craig in 1994.
While the original broadcast yielded no leads, a repeat of the episode in 1995 caught the attention of none other than Craig Williamson himself.
After recognising himself in the episode, Williamson contacted the series and announced that he had been alive and well all this time, working as a diver in Florida.
Williamson claimed he had been attacked and mugged in 1993 and had suffered amnesia as a result of the attack, but authorities were sceptical.
Williamson and Reinhard eventually divorced and remained friends.
Watch Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix.
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