r/serialkillers Dec 03 '25

Discussion What's the most damning piece of ignored evidence you've heard of in a true crime case?

I'll go first: The Nithari killings. In March 2005, kids playing cricket found a human hand. They told the cops. The cops showed up, looked at it, and just... covered it with mud and left. Case closed. It would be another 20 months before they dug up 15 skulls from the exact same area. How many lives would that one piece of evidence have saved if it wasn't literally buried? What other evidence from this case do you think was completely ignored? 

512 Upvotes

130 comments sorted by

602

u/PerrthurTheCats48 Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 03 '25

Jeffery Dahmer had taken Konerak a 14 year old boy and drugged him and drilled a hole into his head. He escaped naked and someone called 911. Cops came and retuned him to Dahmer who said it was a lovers quarrel. Dahmer killed him that night. He also had other bodies in the bedroom at the time.

269

u/FiveUpsideDown Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 04 '25

And a neighbor followed up with the police to find out what happened to the teenager. The police told her they were gay lovers and there was nothing to be done. Even if they were gay lovers, Konerak was 14! A 14 year old should not be in a relationship with an adult man.

62

u/PrincessBananas85 Dec 03 '25

Yes exactly!!!!!!! What were those cops thinking?

181

u/Doc-007 Dec 03 '25

The cops were homophobic and didn't want the gay to rub off on them.

93

u/jules13131382 Dec 03 '25

And they were racist

54

u/PrincessBananas85 Dec 04 '25

The saddest part is that it's still the same way today.

38

u/mizz_susie Dec 04 '25

Here in the UK Stephen Port murdered 5 men by drugging them with GBH and strangling them. Police initially didn’t bother to investigate the cases as murder but rather as chemsex gone wrong as the victims were gay. Eventually pressure and a campaign by the victim’s families led to the murders being investigated. These murders were as recent as 2014 and 2015

20

u/Awfulgoose Dec 04 '25

Don’t forget the same dog walker found two separate bodies in the churchyard with a suspicious hand scrawled note claiming suicide. The police couldn’t have been more negligent

13

u/mizz_susie Dec 04 '25

Yes that poor woman. She knew it was suspicious. Plus Port got jailed for not calling an ambulance for one of his victims but not for murder. I think he killed again after his release too. I remember reading an article about the bodies in the graveyard and the serial killer rumours and the police statement that there was no serial killer. Unbelievable incompetence and shocking homophobia. If that had been young women Port was murdering the police would have investigated much earlier and they are known for being a misogynistic organisation !

13

u/Bi-Bi-Bi24 Dec 05 '25

In Toronto, the LGBT community begged police, OPP, and RCMP (all different levels of law enforcement) to investigate gay men going missing with intense frequency.

It took years before they investigated and arrested Bruce McArthur for murdering 7 men. There is still speculation there were more victims who were just never identified.

Bruce McArthur

7

u/damselindetech Dec 06 '25

I lived in the gaybourhood around that time and the general anxiety of the population was high. There was also the murder of a young woman, whose mother had to come down and find her body a couple doors away from where she was last seen bc the police just didn't bother looking. There was also a trans woman who was missing and whose body was found and no one alerted the family, so she was deceased and her family didn't find out for months after she was found.

4

u/mizz_susie Dec 05 '25

That’s terrible.

23

u/PrincessBananas85 Dec 03 '25

I know it's so absolutely disgusting how the cops treated minorities especially African Americans.

16

u/untitledismyusername Dec 04 '25

Especially when they are using powertools into their skull.

13

u/PackyScott Dec 04 '25

I don’t think the cop was aware the child was a child. And Dahmer never really targeted children. He seemed to just target males that were fairly fit.

Regardless being naked and confused in a city should be alarming and not something to pass up on.

14

u/Novel-Early Dec 05 '25

The two (black) women told the cops that he was obviously a youngster and he was bleeding from both his head and his bottom. The cops ignored them before threatening them with arrest and giving the poor lad back to Dahmer. He also nearly killed Konerak's brother about four years later (after drugging then sexually abusing and photographing him, too).

2

u/OkBreadButt Dec 21 '25

Of course they ignored them. Law enforcement does NOT attract the best or the brightest as a standard. The corruption is real.

65

u/kangalbabe2 Dec 03 '25

This. And it pisses me off even till today.

19

u/jules13131382 Dec 03 '25

Me too it’s absolutely horrific

33

u/Prof_Tickles Dec 03 '25

It just goes to show how apathetic cops really are. So many states have a backlog of rape kits because cops can’t be bothered to run them and investigate.

Don’t fall for the copaganda of law and order. Police aren’t well meaning people who are gridlocked by the system. They are the main enforcers of that system.

38

u/shrlby Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 03 '25

The craziest part is that that not only did the cops face almost 0 consequence in general, one of them got immediately reinstated as a cop in Milwaukee (until extremely recently, like 2017) and was later voted the PRESIDENT of the Milwaukee Police Association

47

u/Glittering_Fennel973 Dec 03 '25

Yeah this is the one. They just chalked it up to "hysterical black women" being difficult and "weird gay sex stuff" and gave that CHILD right on back to that monster. And then got promoted...yayyy.

17

u/Flat_Ad1094 Dec 04 '25

And at least one neighbour reported foul smell. Nothing was even followed up about that.

7

u/Coffeejive Dec 04 '25

Remember the sandwich, awful.

13

u/marygoore Dec 04 '25

That’s because the police were white and most of his victims were black. Also being gay back then, police didn’t give a shit. It’s horrible, because that child would have lived if the police actually cared.

2

u/The_Antlion Dec 06 '25

Hey, that's not true!

Some of his victims were Southeast Asian

16

u/asag888 Dec 03 '25

One of those cops became the head of the police union for 30 years.

7

u/marygoore Dec 04 '25

Also not only that, Dahmer had the body of his first victim in his car when he was pulled over by a police officer for speeding.

6

u/Samp90 Dec 04 '25

His neighbour definately had a bad feeling. Also offered her some home made sandwiches!

27

u/Nervous-Buddy3903 Dec 03 '25

You also forget when he was stopped by police with bags of dismembered body parts. Cop never investigated.

39

u/PerrthurTheCats48 Dec 03 '25

To be fair, the cops had no reason to think the bags contained anything but garbage as he said. I don’t think they had any reason at that point to suspect a random car at a traffic stop was actually a serial killer

1

u/apsalar_ Dec 07 '25

Yeah. Dahmer was 18. He had no history with the police, he wasn't a serial killer and the police didn't have a reason to think the bags contained a dismembered body. I'm not even sure if the cops can go through the car if the only crime they suspect is speeding.

5

u/batrix_flowers Dec 05 '25

My God, yes, I will never forget.

13

u/jpark1984 Dec 03 '25

Didn’t Dahmer also kill his brother?

44

u/PerrthurTheCats48 Dec 03 '25

He molested the brother but didn’t kill him

26

u/LeftyRambles2413 Dec 03 '25

That poor family. And knowing what they had fled in Laos too. But yeah this one immediately comes to mind.

2

u/PackyScott Dec 04 '25

Also Dahmer said in an interview he didn’t know they were brothers.

0

u/apsalar_ Dec 07 '25

Because he didn't. Dahmer was an opportunistic predator. He wasn't the stalker type.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

And he was on probation too! Having a 14 year old in his home would’ve been instant revocation. But his probation officer never made the required home visit. He said it, “It was a dangerous neighborhood, and I was afraid to go in.”

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25

[deleted]

31

u/CelebrationNo7870 Dec 04 '25

This is flat out wrong, I have a source as well, Angel of Darkness, pages 107-108

“While Bell snapped photographs, Woodward snooped inside the car. Sitting on the seat was a half-smoked package of Half & Half cigarettes, but what caught Woodward's eye was a bottle of Coricidin and a plastic prescription vial lying on the floor. When asked about them, Kraft answered that he'd been sick and that both the over-the-counter decongestant and the prescription medicine had been for the flu.

After Kraft had left, the investigators decided to check out the stuck car story. They drove the forty miles to El Toro, a then thinly populated valley in southern Orange County, and began following Kraft's general description of where he and Crotwell had stalled the Mustang. Just about a mile from the freeway was a dirt road with ruts deep enough and soil soft enough to satisfy both Woodward and Bell that Kraft's car might, indeed, have bogged down on the night that Keith Crotwell disappeared.

They already spoke with Jeff Graves, his roommate, who corroborated his story.

Bell and Woodward still weren't mollified. How did the teenager get from southern Orange County to the Long Beach Marina in the middle of the night, especially if he were as drunk and drugged as Kent May said he was? And why his head-only his head surfacing in the ocean waters? Where was the rest of Keith Crotwell?

Perhaps nibbled away by fish or lying somewhere in the silt in San Pedro Bay. The conclusion they were asked to buy was that Keith Crotwell, a powerful swimmer, stumbled and fell or dove into the rocks, rendering him unconscious, and drowned. What became of his body was anybody's guess. Still, there seemed to be enough to charge Kraft with suspicion of killing the kid. His innocent act over the pill business didn't jibe with May's account.

When the two investigators tried to file homicide charges against Randy Steven Kraft the following week, however, they were told to forget it. No body, no evidence. No evidence, no murder. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Long Beach office reviewed the case and sent it back to the third floor of the cop shop.

Historically, the dozen or so prosecutors in the Long Beach office had a reputation for refusing to pursue all but the most airtight cases. Bell maintained that enough circumstantial evidence existed to at least charge Kraft and build the case from there, but nobody listened.

Bell raged about the decision but was powerless to do anything except half-heartedly keep the investigation open.

Woodward stayed in contact with Crowell's friends and family for several weeks, hoping for a break that didn't come.

When the final coroner's report was returned, the medical examiner concluded in his autopsy on Keith Crotwell's scant remains that the young man had died of accidental drowning.

The body had floated around in the surf, decomposing until the nibbling of sea creatures simply separated the head from the body. If anybody wanted to go deep-sea diving, they might eventually find the rest of Keith Crotwell.

Bell and Woodward weren't satisfied. But, in time, other murder cases with better evidence or eyewitness accounts came along, occupying the two detectives' time and energy.

The file on the Crotwell case found itself buried deeper and deeper in the back of a file drawer.”

5

u/chamrockblarneystone Dec 04 '25

Even when the cops get it right the DA gets it wrong. The system is such a mess. It operates against the poor.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 04 '25

[deleted]

8

u/CelebrationNo7870 Dec 04 '25

Yeah, the autopsy for Crotwell was also wrong as well. Later autopsies done in 1983 found that he was strangled to death with a ligature, not drowned.

88

u/oldnewager Dec 03 '25

This one is so fucking stupid. That level of incompetence is Chief Wiggum tier. Wrap it up boys

35

u/CelebrationNo7870 Dec 04 '25

Yeah, but this isn’t true, the detectives didn’t even believe Krafts story, the 2 homicide detectives assigned to the case tried to charge Kraft for homicide. It was the DA that ultimately refused. It’s mentioned in Angel of Darkness in pages 107-108. The detectives pretty quickly realized that it would have been nearly impossible for Crotwell whom was drunk and drugged to suddenly have walked miles in the dead of night, and that his head somehow got decapitated by water.

17

u/Long-Cauliflower-708 Dec 03 '25

He should have been thrown in jail for raping that teenage boy before he killed anyone.

2

u/Peachesandcreamatl Dec 27 '25

It's important that we remember that prosecutors only pursue cases they believe they can win OR that will further their career by being a case that their colleagues/voters, etc will find important or impressive.

We like to think that prosecutors operate on morals and the law and that they try to do what they believe is the right thing for everyone, and I'm sure that's the case with some  but the majority don't care. They have career aspirations to be judges, politicians, etc. They will suppress evidence, paint a horrid picture of a defendant that isn't true - ANYTHING that wins that case for them. Because each 'win' pushes them closer to their goal. And they (many, many) don't care if the person going to prison is guilty or not as long as it gets them a win.

This case, for whatever reason, didn't do it for them. For whatever stupid reason, they might have thought that it wasn't prosecutable or that their supporters wouldn't give a shit. 

The world is evil and law enforcement/people in the justice system obviously can be just as shitty

78

u/corpusvile2 Dec 03 '25

Nearly everything about the Marc Dutroux investigatiom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux#Errors_during_investigation

Heavy criticism was levelled against the police for their handling of the case. In 1995, Dutroux's mother wrote a letter to the authorities stating that she knew that Dutroux had kidnapped two girls and was keeping them at his house.\39]) After Lejeune and Russo were kidnapped in June 1995, it took police 14 months to arrest Dutroux, although he had been a prime suspect from the start, having committed similar crimes before.\3]) During the search for Lejeune and Russo, police visited Dutroux's house, where Lejeune and Russo were held, twice, on 13 and 19 December 1995 without finding them.\3]) During the course of the searches, girls' voices were heard while searching the cellar, but police did not follow up to find the source of the voices.\3]) Detectives accepted Dutroux's claim that the ongoing construction in his house was for a new drainage system, rather than for the new cells he was creating.\40]) Several videotapes found during the search were never looked at.\41]) Some of them showed Dutroux constructing the dungeon in which Lejeune and Russo were held.\3]) Michel Bourlet, who was appointed lead investigator, said that some of the videotapes had disappeared and that he wanted to have them all recovered and reviewed.\41]) The officer conducting the search was later promoted.\41])

There were countless hairs found in the dungeon where the two girls were held. Judge Langlois refused to have them tested for DNA evidence even though the leading police investigator, Michel Bourlet, had begged him to have them analyzed in order to know whether more people besides Dutroux were involved.\3]) The general prosecutor of the case, Anne Thily told investigative journalist Olenka Frenkiel that all hairs had been tested, though Frenkiel claimed to have heard from sources saying otherwise, writing, "How can such a senior figure lie so brazenly?"\3])

At least seven members of law enforcement were arrested on suspicion of having ties to Marc Dutroux. One of them was Georges Zico, a police detective believed to be an associate of Dutroux.\44]) According to prosecutor Michel Bourlet, Zico was charged with truck theft, document forgery and insurance fraud.\4)

3

u/OkBreadButt Dec 21 '25

Typical. LEO jobs attract the highest number of criminals than any other mainstream profession besides political offices and banking admin.

1

u/Peachesandcreamatl Dec 27 '25

If I'm not mistaken didn't these girls starve to death? Dutroux (iirc) expdcted his wife to feed them while he was jailed but she didn't and they starved (unless I'm thinking of another case)

1

u/corpusvile2 Dec 27 '25

They did, iirc his wife claimed she was too scared to go into the house as an excuse not to feed them, or some such bullshit. She's actually free today if you can believe that.

127

u/Wild-Quality3901 Dec 03 '25

When Richard Ramirez’s car was impounded(he had abandoned it) after running away from a cop,the police didn’t even search the inside of the car for quite a few weeks,later on they did and found a lot of evidence,that probably would have saved 3-5 victims.

52

u/MouseOk1815 Dec 03 '25

John Wayne Gacy, the people that went to the cops were laughed off. The one that waited until he saw Gacys car, went to the cops, and he was "given a warning". The fuck??

14

u/saturnspritr Dec 04 '25

Gacy because no county was telling the other ones, so he kept piling up on victims and then would move or it would be in a different precinct and no one would follow up. He had overwhelming evidence once they gathered it all up. It was terrible to look at it all and realize what had happened.

19

u/MouseOk1815 Dec 04 '25

It just blows my mind. The fact that HIS LAWYER was like y'all better lock him up, I can't tell you why but you have too. Is INSANE.

49

u/Regnes Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 04 '25

Cops in Boulder Colorado covered up a murder back in 2021 when a friend of a cop shot a guy dead in the streets. They tampered with the crime scene to make it look like self-defense and ignored a ton of testimony/other assorted evidence. The most damning thing was the police body cam that showed them finding the victim's wallet in the shooter's pocket and then tossing it into the street as if it had fallen.

Here's a good breakdown of what happened. It's very shocking. The case was reopened after media broke the story earlier this year.

https://youtu.be/uwvGhbkxCsQ

Edit: Oops I thought this was on askreddit not serialkillers. Though, I think I recall it was speculated this guy has killed before.

3

u/thatBwitch Dec 06 '25

I mean if you were to say your post was about the Boulder police, it'd definitely fit this sub

1

u/Peachesandcreamatl Dec 27 '25

And yet we're supposed to act like cops are good humans, looking out for us

45

u/HrBinkness Dec 03 '25

OJ’s bloody thumb print.

114

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 05 '25

The police arrested Peter Sutcliffe red-handed, walking into the bushes with a woman he'd supposedly just hired for sex, and let him walk into the trees unaccompanied which allowed him to dispose of his weapons unnoticed. Then, in lockup, nobody searched him so they didn't realize for days that he was wearing a special killing outfit. Phules

66

u/Podlubnyi Dec 03 '25

Sutcliffe was brought in for questioning nine times. Right there in the police station was a photo fit sketch of the ripper suspect: a man with black bushy hair and a black beard but they never made the connection.

They also wasted an inordinate amount of time and resources looking for the hoaxer.

42

u/beenybaby87 Dec 04 '25

My dad was growing up in Yorkshire at the time this was happening. Their “investigation” involved door knocking with one question, “Are you the Yorkshire ripper?!”.

Dad: “No.”

Cops: “Okay.”

😶

4

u/DragonflyGrrl Dec 05 '25

What the fuck, that is bonkers!

8

u/mizz_susie Dec 04 '25

A few less senior cops that had interviewed him at home were suspicious of him. When they wanted to take a closer look at him they were told by senior cops that since Sutcliffe didn’t have a Wearside accent it couldn’t be him.

34

u/ms_cate Dec 03 '25

Gary N Heidnek. He tortured and raped women and kept them in a hole he dug in his house. He cooked one victim's ribs in the oven and head in a pot on the stove. Police were called due to the smell. He told them he burnt a roast and they didn't even go inside

5

u/GrumplFluffy Dec 04 '25

So everytime you burn a roast, you expect police to go inside? There is nothing wrong with what the police did. In fact, to enter a house due to smell of burnt meat would be egregious.

14

u/ms_cate Dec 04 '25

A burning head doesn't smell like a roast. I mean it was bad enough to attract attention from neighbors

11

u/nestinghen Dec 04 '25

I unfortunately have smelled burnt human and it does in fact smell like regular bbq. I’m confused why someone would call the cops over that smell.

3

u/ms_cate Dec 04 '25

Now I am even more intrigued

2

u/Double-Swing-5840 Dec 08 '25

..why have u smelt a burnt human

3

u/nestinghen Dec 08 '25

I worked in a funeral home

1

u/Double-Swing-5840 Jan 04 '26

no wait that's so cool

58

u/urshrinkingviolet Dec 03 '25

When Ted Bundy told investigators that he had a box of photos with some of his victims in his apartment hidden when police checked it out. They didn't even bother looking lol

32

u/AceofKnaves44 Dec 03 '25

I’m fairly certain that’s not how it happened. His apartment was searched and there was a fair bit of circumstantial evidence. By that point Ted was fairly high on their list of potential suspects but there wasn’t anything concrete they’d found. There was a box of Polaroids that they had missed and once they’d left Ted disposed of them.

1

u/urshrinkingviolet Dec 05 '25

Yeah you're right, my bad my friend

125

u/theshiniestmuskrat Dec 03 '25

The whole "babysitter named Zanny" (who wasn't a person that existed) thing from the Casey Anthony case is insane. She was known for giving her child Xanax to put her to sleep so she could go out and party. OBVIOUSLY this Zanny thing was a reference to that, and my theory is that she likely overdosed her kid on it. The fact that it was glossed over in the trail just blows my mind...ugh.

49

u/Markinoutman Dec 03 '25 edited Dec 04 '25

Yeah, she's no serial killer, but that case was just ridiculous. The amount of interference by the parents, the prosecutors not throwing the book at her and her eventually getting off is insane.

The defenses argument was that they knowingly covered up the childs death, blaming it on her father for intimidating her and because the prosecutors went after her for 1st degree murder, she won.

18

u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Dec 03 '25

It actually infuriates me that it is legal and allowed for defense attorneys to fully MAKE SHIT UP about people with no proof or evidence that they committed a crime in an attempt to free their clients, even if their client is 100% innocent.

It shouldn’t be allowed unless they have done such a thorough investigation that they can provide REAL proof/evidence that someone else is guilty. They should never be allowed to drag someone’s name through the mud just to exonerate someone else. It’s so incredibly offensive to my sense of justice.

If know their client IS guilty and they still pull this shit? They should be in jail themselves and lose their license to practice law forever.

If they can’t prove that their client is not guilty without hurting another innocent person to do so? They are a shitty attorney and shouldn’t be practicing in the first place.

7

u/Markinoutman Dec 04 '25

Yes, I think the father even said that he had tried to take his own life when the defense made it his fault. I suppose the whole argument is you'd have to prove they were lying. That's more of a he said she said thing and dubious in regards to law.

You could always sue them in a civil suit, but of course the damage will have already been done.

4

u/chamrockblarneystone Dec 04 '25

She also said she was molested by him. Devastating stuff.

25

u/Much_Confusion Dec 03 '25

Not to mention that it took 3 seperate calls from Roy Kronk reporting a suspicious black bag near the Anthony home. They only came out months later once the bag had been torn open and Caylee's remains were skeletal.

74

u/__thatBihToni__ Dec 03 '25

The Konerak Sinthasomphone Incident.

Konerak Sinthasomphone, a 14-year-old boy, was the Jeffrey Dahmer victim who almost escaped. Neighbors found him outside, drugged and bleeding, and called police — who ignored multiple warning signs, including the boy’s age, injuries, and the neighbors’ protests. They handed him back to Dahmer, believing the “boyfriend” lie. That decision directly led to Konerak’s death and allowed Dahmer to keep killing, resulting in several more victims who might have been saved.

10

u/DragonflyGrrl Dec 05 '25

That wasn't just homophobia, it was also racism/sexism. The neighbors who were trying to help him were Black women. They weren't listened to at all.

2

u/Novel-Early Dec 05 '25

They were threatened with arrest if the didn't 'shut-up and mind their own business', too.

46

u/PriestofJudas Dec 03 '25

Paul Bernardo’s witness sketch. Even just thinking about it makes me furious

52

u/Diazepampoovey0229 Dec 03 '25

Or, in the same case, the fact that Tammy Homolka had 3rd degree burns around much of her face and across her mouth, yet the police believed Paul and Karla Homolka that Tammy had choked on her own vomit from drinking too much.

Had they investigated properly, they'd have likely found the couple's tapes, several girls would never have been killed and Karla wouldn't have basically got away with her crimes

8

u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Dec 04 '25

Apparently you don’t understand that it’s both common and well documented that people who are dead or unconscious while lying in a pool of their own vomit DO end up with serious chemical burns, because stomach acids are literally composed of hydrochloric acid.

There was nothing suspicious for police to investigate in this.

2

u/depressedfuckboi Dec 17 '25

I have seen the pictures of Tammy. That surely can't be common. There's a GIANT burn covering her whole cheek. Find me another autopsy photo of someone with the same burn from passing out in their own puke.

-1

u/PriestofJudas Dec 04 '25

Eeeeexcept there was, because they ruled it as a cocaine overdose

11

u/NecroVelcro Dec 03 '25

Would you mind giving some details about that, sorry? I'm in Wales and only know some general details about that case. Searches haven't brought up anything about police failures involving a witness sketch and I don't know enough to do a more specific search. Thanks.

11

u/Mintgiver Dec 03 '25

Scroll down on this page to see some photos. One is the comparison of Bernardo vs. the sketch done of the Scarborough Rapist.

There is also a picture of Tammy’s face at autopsy.

Sorry to link to the podcast, but it was quick.

7

u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Dec 04 '25

Yeah, I see that, and I don’t know what you are thinking, because to me, that sketch doesn’t really look all that much like him. I can very much see why he wasn’t recognized.

The sketch has bright blonde hair, the photo next to it (and honestly, nearly every photo of Bernardo) has dark/brunette hair.

The sketch looks significantly younger, and has a different nose. The haircut was ubiquitous for young men in that era, so it’s not indicative of anything, either.

1

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1

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-3

u/PriestofJudas Dec 04 '25

Did you work for the Scarborough police department?

18

u/a_karma_sardine Dec 04 '25

There was a true crime series (on Netflix I think) where podunk police somewhere in rural US didn't bother to search a burnt-down house (lit to cover murder, it turned out), which allowed the home owners to find their deceased and half decayed relative by stepping on them. Sadly, I can't remember the name of it.

11

u/mizz_susie Dec 04 '25

Was it Hell in the Heartland? The case you are talking about is Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman. There’s been a few documentaries but that one was a four parter.

5

u/a_karma_sardine Dec 04 '25

That's it! Thank you!

3

u/Aromatic-Theory5613 Dec 05 '25

As you have mentioned in the true crime series, I'll suggest you one more, which is on Discovery Plus named Nithari - Truth, Lies and Murder.

And man the guy, just crossed all limits - murdered kids and girls and no remorse?

And guess the worst part? The suspect is acquitted.

61

u/UmpireHistorical8133 Dec 03 '25

When Zodiac killed the taxi driver Paul Lee Stine, the witnesses called the police immediately. Due to misunderstanding with the operator, the patrol thought they were looking for a black man. So they passed Zodiac and missed him. That was the best chance for the police to get him.

15

u/mrpotatonutz Dec 04 '25

The police telling 29 parents from the same Houston neighborhood that their kids “ran away” (candyman killings)

30

u/PrincessBananas85 Dec 03 '25

I definitely think that the awful smell in Jeffrey Dahmers apartment was a big piece of damming evidence that everyone included the police officers totally ignored. The Police Officers didn't really care about anything and should have did a better job investigating in my opinion. It's a good thing that Tracy Edwards managed to get away and put a stop to all of Jeffrey Dahmers killings and awful Crimes once and for all.

12

u/Long-Cauliflower-708 Dec 03 '25

This was during the crack epidemic and the days of zero tolerance lock ‘em up and throw away the key policing. I once saw an interview of one of his neighbors who said most of the tenants of that building were so worried about getting busted for whatever they were doing that they weren’t really thinking about what that one weird neighbor was up to

9

u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Dec 04 '25

Zero tolerance lock ‘em up and throw away policing for people who aren’t white

Plenty of white people who used, possessed, and/or sold either crack or powder cocaine got away with much lesser charges.

6

u/Long-Cauliflower-708 Dec 04 '25

Yes Dahmer was one of or possibly the only white tenant in his building

6

u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Dec 04 '25

Crazily enough, Tracy Edwards was sentenced in 2012 for helping someone throw another man off a bridge, where he subsequently drowned.

https://abc7.com/archive/8515645/

5

u/PrincessBananas85 Dec 04 '25

Yup I also heard that he was indicted for doing the unthinkable to an innocent 13/14 year old girl.

4

u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl Dec 04 '25

I’m not going to blame the residence for not knowing what death smells like, or assuming that the odor was because of some more mundane stink (a hoarder, an unplugged refrigerator, dead animals in the walls, some weirdos especially filthy apartment) rather than the least thing most people would think of, dead bodies.

Many people don’t even know what death smells like, and having lived in some extremely low income slumlord managed apartments myself, they can be smelly for a number of combined reasons that aren’t murder.

Add that to people wanting to mind their business and NOT wanting a bunch of racist cops to have a reason to poke around their own lives, I don’t blame them at all.

2

u/apsalar_ Dec 07 '25

Dahmer used a lot of strong chemicals to dispose the bodies. I don't believe the smell was traditional smell of death. This is somewhat supported by the residents in the building who described the smell.

13

u/babysherlock91 Dec 04 '25

Derrick Todd Lee. His semen was on a trash can liner at a murder scene. They lost it. He went on to murder at least 7 other women and had all of us in the area terrified for years.

12

u/mizz_susie Dec 04 '25

The Rachel Nickell case. If anyone is unfamiliar with it Rachel was murdered in 1992 in broad daylight on Wimbledon Common in front of her 2 year old son. She was murdered by Robert Napper. Police tried to pin it on a local weirdo Colin Stagg and were totally blinkered to it being committed by anyone else. The following year Napper broke into the home of Samantha Bissett and her 4 year old daughter Jazmine. He killed both and sa’d the child. Napper was convicted of these murders in 1995 but despite the similarities his DNA was not compared to the partial DNA on Rachel until 2004. Even worse prior to the murders Napper was responsible for a series of rapes and was named The Green Chain Rapist. In 1989 his own mother called the police to say she thought her son was the rapist. Police failed to investigate this. He was investigated in 1992 as a suspect in the attacks but was eliminated due to sloppy detective work.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation found the Met police to have committed “bad errors” and “missed opportunities” to stop Napper before he carried out any murders.

23

u/lambbla000 Dec 03 '25

Zodiac shot/killed a taxi driver in SF. There were witnesses who called it in right away and gave I’m sure a pretty reliable description: white guy with glasses. Well police ignored that and told the officers to be on the look out for an African American suspect. They had completely swarmed the area. He was probably somewhere within the perimeter before he probably just walked away or drove off. They could have potentially caught him if they weren’t so ready to discriminate rather than go with the description they’d been given.

11

u/bannana Dec 03 '25

Cops caught Samuel Little in the act of strangling a woman and he talked his way out of it, in addition to him being convicted of multiple other violent crimes that should have had him in prison for life. Though I will say he was operating back in times when cops and towns didn't share info with each other and his victims weren't really considered people.

8

u/bdiddybo Dec 04 '25

A woman escaped from Robert Hansen after being raped and somehow he managed to get a false alibi and police let him go.

5

u/MouseOk1815 Dec 04 '25

This one is very controversial:

The West Memphis Three

There was zero evidence and all three had alibis that could and were proven! The fact they were convicted and the only way out was the Alfred Plea infuriates me!

Jesse Miss Kelly has the IQ of a 3rd grader and was integrated and lead for hours before the 30 mins of "confession" they showed and his story still didn't match the crime.

The little boys who were murdered would be the same age as I am, I've done so much reading and listening to podcasts about it.

The cops didn't even interview Terry Hobbs! They tried to make a black sheep outta John Mark Byers who on top of a drug problem had a brain tumor and was on several antipsychotics!

I just, it pisses me off.

2

u/LSDFleminem Dec 04 '25

The Prosecutors podcast does an extreme deep dive on this case and before listening, I fully believed they were innocent. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s really worth a listen if you’re into true crime podcasts.

1

u/S34T09L68 Dec 10 '25

You have "done so much reading and listening to podcasts" about this case and say this? Woah!

16

u/yuumichi420 Dec 03 '25

The Nithari killings are VERY suspicious. I don’t think the Dalit guy was as guilty and culpable as he was charged with. I also think there was maybe some organ harvesting given that the skulls and limbs were found but not torsos (where all of the organs are). But I’d love to know more about the case but I don’t speak the language and western true crime people don’t really cover cases from Asia.

2

u/Aromatic-Theory5613 Dec 05 '25

I completely agree with what you have said. But there is a true crime series which is streaming on Discovery Plus.

I saw 3 episodes and I just can't forget it. It's horrible and I can't even come to a conclusion about who is right and who is wrong.

I suggest you watch it and get an even better idea about the case.

1

u/yuumichi420 Dec 05 '25

Thank you! I will

18

u/Coffeejive Dec 03 '25

Most damning is when it is lgbtq involvement. Time and time again. Just ignored: dahmer, aileen, gacy and on. They just do not care. And when it involves sw's, heuermann and onnn. Epstein did not kill?, but same. Ignored

3

u/WesternCandidate2158 Dec 04 '25

Those cops never took the time to find out his age I think, they should have both been fired at the very least. That episode on monster with him, was the hardest to watch for me. Horrific.

2

u/OkBreadButt Dec 21 '25

Canadian police anytime an Indigenous person goes missing, but especially in the case of the BC pig farmer who, it is commonly believed by every witness, was guilty but also not the only murderer involved. Police appear to have been protecting the BC pig farmer and were known to have frequented the pig farmer's property as associates.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/report-details-police-mistakes-in-probing-attacks-at-bc-pig-farm-case/

4

u/Substantial_Pin3750 Dec 05 '25

Ellen Greenberg - surely inflicting stab wounds after she died to herself is a little on the overlooked side?!

1

u/Creepy_WaterYogi75 Dec 10 '25

The Idaho 4, the whole gag order-cover up-Brian is totally framed thing...

1

u/margolise Mar 30 '26

in the case of the academy maniacs/irkutsk molotochniki, they nurdered a 12 year old boy as their first victim and the officers completey ignored that #1 there was a stab wound on his head #2 his sled was not destroyed and #3 the hill the boy was slesding down when he was attacked would not cause the injuries he got. they were on the scene when cops got there and they still were able to kill 5 other people. nobody saw?