Unforgotten Casebook — One case. Every angle. One place.One case. Every angle. One place.
Explore books, movies, podcasts, news coverage, and court records—organized by true crime case and real-life story, together in one place.
Explore the case libraryTHE CASE LIBRARY
41 of 236 cases
More media formats first · Book-only cases last in each section
U.S. cases, plus the Bernardo–Homolka case in Canada.
1982–1988
Police searching Dorothea Puente’s Sacramento boarding house in 1988 found bodies buried in the yard. Puente had been collecting benefit checks belonging to vulnerable tenants, some of whom had disappeared. The discoveries contradicted her image as a caring landlady. She was ultimately convicted of three murders.
1970s–1980s
Joseph James DeAngelo committed murders, rapes, and burglaries across California under several names used by investigators and the media. Genetic genealogy helped identify the former police officer in 2018. He pleaded guilty to 13 murders in 2020 and admitted numerous other offenses.
1999
Carole Sund, her teenage daughter Juli, and family friend Silvina Pelosso disappeared during a Yosemite-area trip in 1999 and were found murdered. The later killing of park naturalist Joie Armstrong led investigators to Cary Stayner, a motel worker. Stayner was convicted in the killings that had frightened visitors and devastated four families.
1964–1973
Edmund Kemper killed his grandparents as a teenager and was later released from psychiatric custody. In the early 1970s he murdered six young women, his mother, and her friend before surrendering. Interviews with him became part of later discussions of criminal profiling.
1984–1985
Richard Ramirez entered homes across California during a series of murders, sexual assaults, and other attacks in 1984 and 1985. Public identification helped end the manhunt. The crimes and the investigation became widely known through reporting about the Night Stalker.
1989
Betty Broderick entered the home of her former husband, Dan Broderick, and shot him and his new wife, Linda, as they lay in bed in 1989. The killings followed a bitter divorce and years of conflict. Her televised court proceedings divided public opinion; a jury convicted her of two counts of second-degree murder.
1989
Lyle and Erik Menendez shot their parents, José and Kitty, in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. Their trials contrasted allegations of long-term abuse with prosecutors’ account of financial motives. Both were convicted; later proceedings and renewed coverage revisited their sentences and the evidence about abuse.
2002
Laci Peterson disappeared from Modesto while pregnant in December 2002. Her remains and those of her unborn son, Conner, were recovered the following year. Her husband Scott was convicted of their murders in 2004; subsequent coverage has examined the investigation and challenges to the conviction.
1984–1985
Suesan and Sheila Knorr died in separate incidents in California after prolonged abuse by their mother, Theresa Knorr. Other children in the household were drawn into concealing the crimes. Their surviving sister Terry later helped bring the deaths to investigators’ attention. Theresa pleaded guilty to murdering both daughters.
1984
Doreen Erbert was killed at her California home on Halloween in 1984 by her former husband William Michael Dennis, who arrived in disguise. Her pregnancy also ended in the attack, while her daughter survived by hiding. Dennis was convicted in the case.
1995
Sally McNeil shot her husband, bodybuilder Ray McNeil, on Valentine’s Day in 1995. She said she acted in self-defense during a violent confrontation; prosecutors argued that the killing was murder. A jury convicted her of second-degree murder. The case centered on sharply competing accounts of domestic abuse and the shooting.
1985
Fourteen-year-old Cinnamon Brown shot her stepmother, Linda, in California in 1985 and initially took responsibility. Investigators later uncovered a plot directed by Cinnamon’s father, David Brown, who stood to benefit financially. The case revealed how he manipulated his daughter into killing and accepting the blame, leading to further convictions.
1985
Seventeen-year-old Michele “Missy” Avila was lured into the Angeles National Forest and drowned in 1985. Her friends Karen Severson and Laura Doyle were eventually convicted of killing her. The case was especially disturbing because the killers remained close to Missy’s grieving family while the crime was still being investigated.
1979
Sixteen-year-old Brenda Spencer fired at an elementary school from her San Diego home in 1979, killing two staff members and injuring children and a police officer. Her remark about disliking Mondays became notorious. The victims’ experiences form an essential part of the case beyond that phrase.
1984
Fifteen-year-old Kirsten Costas was stabbed to death by schoolmate Bernadette Protti in Orinda, California, in 1984. The attack followed an evening outing and months of resentment over social acceptance. Protti’s involvement emerged after a lengthy investigation. The killing brought national attention to teenage jealousy, status, and violence in an affluent community.
1977–1984
Colleen Stan was abducted while hitchhiking in 1977 by Cameron and Janice Hooker. She endured seven years of captivity, threats, and abuse before escaping. Books and screen adaptations examine how coercion helped keep her trapped even when she was sometimes outside the house.
1972–1980
Steven Stayner was abducted at seven by Kenneth Parnell in 1972 and held for more than seven years. In 1980 he escaped with another kidnapped child, Timmy White, and sought help. His return and the difficulties afterward inspired I Know My First Name Is Steven.
1991–2009
Jaycee Dugard was abducted at age eleven on her way to school in California in 1991. Phillip and Nancy Garrido held her captive for eighteen years, during which she gave birth to two daughters. Her discovery in 2009 exposed both the long confinement and missed opportunities to uncover it.
1982
Actress Theresa Saldana survived a stalker’s stabbing attack in Los Angeles in 1982 after a passerby intervened. Arthur Jackson was convicted. Saldana later wrote about the experience and advocated for crime victims, including through a television dramatization in which she portrayed herself.
1992
Jennifer Asbenson escaped after being abducted and attacked by Andrew Urdiales in Southern California in 1992. Her account later helped identify him as the man who had held her. Memoir and screen treatments describe the escape and the difficulties she faced afterward.
1968–1969
The Zodiac attacked people in Northern California in the late 1960s and sent threatening letters and ciphers to newspapers. Five deaths are commonly attributed to the confirmed attacks. The killer’s identity remains unresolved, despite decades of suspects, books, films, and amateur investigations.
1947
Elizabeth Short’s body was found in Los Angeles in January 1947. Newspapers called her the Black Dahlia, and the unsolved killing generated decades of theories and fictional treatments. No later book’s proposed suspect should be treated as an officially established killer.
1986
Sherri Rasmussen was killed in her Los Angeles home in 1986. Investigators initially treated the attack as a burglary, but preserved DNA evidence eventually pointed to police detective Stephanie Lazarus, a former girlfriend of Rasmussen’s husband. Lazarus was arrested more than two decades after the crime and convicted of murder.
1996
Nineteen-year-old college student Kristin Smart disappeared after a party in San Luis Obispo in 1996. Paul Flores, who had walked with her that night, remained central to the investigation for years. He was convicted of her murder in 2022, following renewed scrutiny of evidence and a long campaign by Kristin’s family.
1982–2001
Robert Durst became the focus of investigations involving his missing wife Kathie, his friend Susan Berman, and neighbor Morris Black. He was acquitted in Black’s death after claiming self-defense, but convicted of Berman’s murder in 2021. The Jinx brought renewed attention to the overlapping cases.
1969
In August 1969, followers of Charles Manson murdered Sharon Tate and others at her home, then killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the following night. Manson and several followers were convicted. The extensive media coverage often examines how he directed and controlled the group.
2016
Sherri Papini claimed she had been kidnapped in California in 2016 and blamed two Latina women. Investigators later determined she had stayed with a former boyfriend. She pleaded guilty in 2022 to mail fraud and making false statements, after years of public concern over the supposed abduction.
1992
Dale and Glee Ewell and their daughter Tiffany were shot dead in their California home in 1992. Their surviving son, Dana, stood to inherit the family fortune. Investigators uncovered a murder plot involving Dana and a friend, and both were convicted. The apparent family tragedy became a case about a son arranging his relatives’ deaths for money.
1980
Dorothy Stratten, a model and actress beginning a film career, was killed in 1980 by her estranged husband Paul Snider, who then killed himself. Books, reporting, and dramatizations have examined his controlling behavior and the pressures surrounding her rise to fame.
1989
Actress Rebecca Schaeffer was shot at her Los Angeles door in 1989 by stalker Robert Bardo. He had obtained her address through a private investigator. Her death drew attention to access to personal records and became a prominent case in the campaign for stronger anti-stalking protections.
2003
Lana Clarkson died from a gunshot at music producer Phil Spector’s home in 2003. After an initial trial ended without a verdict, Spector was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009. Reporting and films examine the evidence and the power imbalance surrounding the case.
1994
Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were stabbed to death in Los Angeles in 1994. O. J. Simpson was acquitted in the criminal trial and later found liable for their deaths in a civil case. Books and documentaries examine the evidence, the proceedings, and their different outcomes.
1988
Carol Montecalvo was killed in California in 1988. Her husband Dan said burglars had attacked them, but investigators accused him of murdering her for financial gain, and he was convicted. A later burglary confession raised questions about the case; prosecutors rejected that account, leaving sharply conflicting versions of what happened.
2002–2012
High-school football player Brian Banks lost years of his life after a wrongful conviction. New evidence and assistance from the California Innocence Project led to his exoneration. His memoir and the film follow the struggle to clear his name and rebuild a future.
1993–1996
Residents of Hinkley challenged Pacific Gas and Electric over chromium contamination of groundwater. Erin Brockovich helped investigate residents’ accounts and assemble the legal case that resulted in a 1996 settlement. California regulators’ cleanup work is a separate, continuing part of this environmental history.
1962–1975
Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and farmworkers organized strikes, boycotts and a union campaign to improve agricultural working conditions. Their story includes collective action by Mexican American and Filipino workers. Books and films explore both the movement’s achievements and tensions within its leadership.
1977–1978
Harvey Milk built a political base in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood and won election to the Board of Supervisors as an openly gay candidate. He advocated against discrimination before he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in 1978. His organizing and death became defining events in LGBTQ political history.
1942–1945
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston was a child when her family was forcibly removed and incarcerated at Manzanar during World War II. Her memoir follows family life inside the camp and the experience of returning afterward. Its television adaptation helped bring Japanese American incarceration to a wider audience.
1970–1990
Judy Heumann challenged exclusion from education and employment and helped organize the 1977 Section 504 sit-in. Her memoir and Crip Camp connect personal experience to collective action for accessibility and civil rights. The story includes the community that formed around a summer camp for disabled young people.
2017
Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey investigated allegations of sexual abuse and harassment by Harvey Weinstein, along with settlements and institutional silence. Women who spoke with reporters took substantial personal risks. The book and film follow the reporting process that helped fuel a wider reckoning over workplace abuse.
2005–2008
A group of investors questioned the mortgage market’s apparent strength and bet against securities tied to risky home loans. Their perspective became one way to examine the housing crash and the failures of financial institutions. The story also sits within a crisis that cost many Americans homes and livelihoods.
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