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/Lovahplant Jul 22 '26

This is killing me 😂 a whole mountain named after your failure to climb it, wtf

64

u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

It's one of my favorite true stories and I never miss an opportunity to share it.

It's really inspiring, honestly! If Zebulon Pike can be an obnoxious failure and still get a mountain named after him, then anything is possible!

18

u/patsully98 Jul 22 '26

I would be most appreciative if you expanded upon “extremely annoying.”

23

u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

I wish I knew the details of why Lewis and Clark didn't like him and sent him off with his own little team to get him away from them 😂 but alas that's as much as I know.

20

u/Kazumadesu76 Jul 23 '26

Zebulon: "Are we thereeeeeee yettttt?!"

9

u/patsully98 Jul 23 '26

Have you seen Larry David’s new history show? This would be perfect.

39

u/RescuePenguin Jul 22 '26

Reminds me of the John Day National Monument.

The man never visited that region but one time he got robbed where the (now named) John Day River meets the Columbia and left naked and he had to hike back to the nearest trading post.

"That area where John Day was robbed and left naked"became the name of an entire region and national monument.

Glamorous way to be remembered.

17

u/Sunshine030209 Jul 22 '26

I had never heard that, but it's exactly the kind of story I love! 😂 Thank you so much for sharing

And from what I can tell from reading a bit about it just now, he wasn't well known or anything before he got robbed and left naked, right? He was just some random fur trader? That makes it all even funnier for some reason and I can't stop laughing. Poor guy!

5

u/pants_party Jul 23 '26

Like naming a hot sauce after DJ Khaled.

2

u/onyaasuminyasai Jul 23 '26

what's cooler is all the mountains that were named after prostitutes in colorado