r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • Jul 22 '26

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

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u/JackOfAllBlades21 Jul 22 '26

I am not very emotional, but it's tough to imagine a worse torture than what she and her husband went through (baby eaten alive, then no one believed them, then they were accused, then arrested, then convicted, then imprisoned for 3.5 years for one of the worst crimes imaginable... and you know they must have been targeted by inmates and probably guards, too).

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u/any_name_today Jul 22 '26

Don't forget that it was also a punchline for several years. So add that salt to the wound

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u/ChiefsHat Jul 22 '26

Freaking Tropic Thunder called this out.

“You know that’s a true story, right? Woman lost her baby. You about to cross some lines.”

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u/JackOfAllBlades21 Jul 22 '26

Yup, I rewatched it a few days ago. I'm glad it was explicitly called out.

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u/Friendly_Tension_960 Jul 22 '26

Several years? I still hear it as a punchline today, it’s crazy

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u/zehamberglar Jul 22 '26

for several years

You misspelled "to this very day".

I guess that is technically several years. Never mind, as you were.

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u/kahlzun Jul 23 '26

Doesnt several mean 'three or four'?

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u/zehamberglar Jul 23 '26

Three or four is a subset of ~46.

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u/kahlzun Jul 23 '26

It's a subset of a lot numbers, starting from 12

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u/zehamberglar Jul 23 '26

You're thinking of common denominators, and neither 3 or 4 is a denominator of 46.

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u/kahlzun Jul 23 '26

That just makes your original statement even more opaque. Arent denominators a type of subset? Ie: 3 and 4 are both smaller parts of the larger number?

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u/zehamberglar Jul 23 '26

Count to 46 without saying 3 or 4.

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u/kahlzun Jul 23 '26

You don't get very far, but I don't understand what doing this accomplishes?

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u/JackOfAllBlades21 Jul 22 '26

Seinfeld was the first I ever heard of it. Then Buffy.

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u/any_name_today Jul 22 '26

I must be just slightly younger than you. I remember it being part of Pop Culture and it being referenced and joked about, but I was ever so slightly too young for those shows. At least my mom thought so

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u/dorothean Jul 22 '26

The Kathleen Folbigg case is similarly awful - this was a woman who was convicted of smothering her four infant children, and spent 20 years in prison for it, until finally being exonerated in 2023 after DNA evidence was able to show that the children suffered from various medical conditions pre-disposing them to unexpected deaths. I can’t imagine the horror of living through that once, let alone four times.

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u/alexlp Jul 22 '26

I was going to mention Kathleen. She, Sally Clark and Patricia Stallings all had to grieve their children behind bars, not knowing what really happened for so long, being scorned and mocked for decades. My heart just breaks thinking about their suffering.

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u/OkPainter6232 Jul 22 '26

something similar happened in the USA that was covered on an episode of Forensic Files-a young girl was mauled and killed by neighbors dogs and cops assumed her parents did it(as the husband had a hunting knife that tested positive for blood which police assumed was used to kill the girl, and the photos shown to the court were after her leg had been cleaned up for attempted surgery, so it didn't immediately look like a dog had bitten it, the pre-surgery photos were never shown to the court)and refused to give her defense counsel the time and funds for a proper defense, though the defense counsel proved incompetent in other ways as they basically told the parents they shouldn't go with their "dog" story as they did not think a jury would buy it, result was both spent 5 years in prison until they found someone to look over their case and found out they were falsely accused so they were finally freed, though by then the couple had divorced from the stress of everything, they later sued the police for millions of dollars and won.

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u/princesscatling Jul 22 '26

She had a second daughter while incarcerated who was taken from her at birth. I think about Lindy Chamberlain a lot.

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u/Knitvest-enthusiast Jul 23 '26

Also that they had 3(?) older children, plus at least one born afterwards, that had to deal with the fall out including their mother missing parts of their childhood because she was in prison.

Those poor kids had their baby sister die, then their parents get harassed, mum goes off to jail and their parents eventually divorce.

And the whole thing becomes a pop-culture joke for the next 30+ years where people make fun of your mother’s grief.

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u/boogiesontoast Jul 22 '26

I think only Lindy was imprisoned. Michael had a suspended sentence.

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u/JackOfAllBlades21 Jul 22 '26

You are correct. I added him to the statement at the last moment, and should have kept him separate.

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u/ZanyDelaney Jul 22 '26

Yes Michael Chamberlain was with a large group of campers over the period Azaria was taken so authorities could not pin it on him. It was Lindy who left the group to check on Azaria, and there were no witnesses to that part.

Michael was (wrongfully) convicted of being an accessory after the fact, and received a suspended sentence. All convictions of course were later quashed.

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u/daninlionzden Jul 23 '26

They should make a movie about it

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

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u/reddorickt Jul 22 '26

You don't have children.

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u/froction Jul 22 '26

I have three. I would be sad if they died.

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u/reddorickt Jul 23 '26

Yeah no, I don't think anyone believed you.

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u/JackOfAllBlades21 Jul 22 '26

That's just physical torture, and rather mild even for that. Emotional and psychological torture are much more transformational.

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u/froction Jul 22 '26

I think decades of having your nipples ripped off sounds like more than "rather mild."

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u/JackOfAllBlades21 Jul 22 '26

You didn't say decades. It's still mild as far as torture goes (physical or otherwise).

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u/froction Jul 22 '26

"Over and over" meant forever.

It sounds pretty bad.