UNSOLVED MURDER MYSTERIES

CAMILLA LYMAN

A story which could have been F. Scott Fitzgerald’s sequel to The

Great Gatsby is that of Camilla Lyman. A well-known clumber spaniel

breeder, Camilla was a rich recluse who underwent a physical

transformation from woman to man from 1978 to 1985 and took on

the name Cam. Cam met George O’Neil in 1981 and hired him as

caretaker of his estate and dogs. When Cam failed to send his

annual Christmas cards to family in 1987, they knew something was up.

Police questioned O’Neil who said he hadn’t seen Cam since the

summer, assuming he had gone to Europe to finish the gender

reassignment surgery (though he gave no reason why he thought

this). Eight years later, Cam was declared legally dead by his family;

two years after that, the new estate owner found his body in a sewer.

O’Neil was naturally the prime suspect but police could never

link him to the death. He was, though, indicted for embezzling

money which arrived in Cam’s name and keeping it. If O’Neil was

the real killer, he recently (coldly) said, “She’s dead.

I don’t know anything about it.”

MARIO AMADO

Mario Amado thought he was taking a leisurely vacation to Rosarito

Beach, Mexico, with his brother and their girlfriends. But their

beach holiday took a turn for the worst. Arrested for fighting with

his girlfriend, Mario was taken to prison where he was found hanging

in his jail cell two hours after the arrest. The police officers were thought

to have beaten Mario to death and tried to cover up it. After a second

autopsy, evidence emerged that proved death by trauma. One officer,

Jose Antonio Verduzco Flores, was arrested and sentenced to 8.5 years

in prison, only four months of which he served. His sentence was soon

overturned and the murder mystery remains unsolved.

JAMIE SANTOS

The emergency line in Wheeling, Illinois, received a strange call on

October 28, 1991. An unknown man called the emergency number,

giving the address of an unconscious woman. Before the operator

could get more information, he hung up the phone. Paramedics arrived

on the scene to find exotic dancer Jamie Santos nearly dead in her

home. Jamie appeared to have struggled with her killer and

ultimately died from asphyxiation by pillow. (The previous day,

Jamie cancelled various appointments, leading police to wonder

whether she had expected something odd to happen.) Police believe a

former customer may have killed Jamie, but with almost no evidence,

the case never progressed.

DICK HANSEN

Dick Hansen and his friend Jean were hanging out together before

chatting in his car at the end of the night. A car pulled up and parked

behind them on a street where only their two cars remained. As they

left, Jean followed Dick as she wasn’t familiar with the area, soon

getting the idea they were being following by the other car. Darting across

a highway and trying desperately to lose their stalker, Jean and Dick

exited the highway and parked their cars, behind which the car rolled

up and parked behind them. Dick went to confront the man who

mortally wounded him. Jean ran back to help Dick and barely caught

a glimpse of the shooter as the car sped away. To this day, the

murder has not been solved. Jean thinks, due to the man’s football-like

build and her license plate reading “49R HUGS”, the killer may have

been a fanatic of a rival team, though the ball still hasn’t been

caught on Dick’s killer.

ARNOLD ARCHAMBEAU AND RUBY BRUGUIER

The mystery of Arnold Archambeau and Ruby Bruguier’s deaths has

yet to be solved. While driving home after a night out drinking, Arnold

crashed the car into a frozen ditch for unknown reasons. Arnold and

Ruby were nowhere to be found when paramedics arrived, pulling

Ruby’s cousin Tracy out of the car. Three months later, police found

Ruby’s decomposed body in the ditch and soon after found Arnold’s

less-decomposed body. No one knows what happened to the

two but foul play has been assumed.

JACK DAVIS JR.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania student Jack Davis Jr. was found

dead in a campus stairwell in October 1987. Police initially ruled the

cause of death as choking, claiming he died by passing out, vomiting,

and swallowing the vomit which he then choked on. A pathologist

was called in by the family some years later who found no food in his

lungs and found his skull fractured in three places. These discoveries

led to the opening of the case again but it was soon closed after

further information was not found. Some believe Jack was in a fight

that night and, after his attackers found he wasn’t getting better,

dumped his body in the stairwell once he died.

RON GILLISPIE

An anonymous writer only identified as the Circleville Writer wrote to

Mary Gillespie in December of 1976. The Circleville Writer claimed to

know of her extramarital affair with the school superintendent and

threatened violence to get her to stop. Her husband Ron received a

phone call many months later after which he drove away from the

house with his gun. His body was found nearby with a bullet wound,

the car crashed off the road. Mary’s brother, Paul, was arrested for

the murder and incarcerated, though the harassing letters continued

to arrive. As he was convicted circumstantially and the letters

kept coming, Paul was released; the killer has yet to be identified.

BLAIR ADAMS

Blair Adams was a young Canadian construction worker who feared

someone was after him. After a string of erratic behaviours

withdrawing all money from his savings account, trying to get across

the American border (he was denied as he had a large sum of money,

the sign of a drug trafficker), buying a roundtrip ticket to Germany

which he soon returned – Blair managed to cross the border to

Seattle in a rental car. He flew one-way to Washington D.C. and

drove to Kentucky. In Knoxville, he told a gas station attendant

his car wouldn’t start and the attendant told him he had the wrong keys.

Hitchhiking to a nearby hotel, Blair checked in and later left the hotel.

His body was found 12 hours later, naked from the waist down and

surrounded in Canadian and American dollars and German marks,

in a parking lot.

WIL HENDRICK

Wil Hendrick was a University of Idaho student in 1999. While attending

a friend’s party, Wil mysteriously disappeared. Rumours began

circulating Wil had confronted a group of people at an earlier party

over his sexuality and that he was killed for it. The following night,

his car was found parked outside of his friend’s house and gone

the following day, found parked downtown – unlocked and with his

portfolio in it. Though there were no signs of tampering, Wil’s partner

Jerry thinks a man driving a refrigerated truck who yelled a gay slur

at Wil could be responsible. The man was leaving town and no trail

has ever been found. Three years later, Wil’s body was found in a

rural part of his college town.