CASE 271Urbana, Illinois
2017
Yingying Zhang
Visiting scholar Yingying Zhang disappeared from the University of Illinois campus. Police and the FBI used surveillance footage to investigate her abduction and the events leading to her murder.
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Showing 1–13 of 13CASE 436Bloomington, Illinois
2014
Pamela Zimmerman
Pamela Zimmerman, a financial planner and mother of three, was killed in her Bloomington, Illinois, office in 2014. Prosecutors charged her former husband Kirk Zimmerman, arguing that financial conflict provided a motive. His defense challenged the investigation and argued that other leads had been neglected. A jury found him not guilty in May 2019. Dateline’s later report and local trial coverage offer different entry points into a case where an accusation must not be presented as a conviction.
CASE 097Columbia, Illinois
2009
Sheri Coleman & her sons
Sheri Coleman and her sons Garett and Gavin were strangled in their Illinois home in 2009. Her husband Chris, a ministry security employee, had reported threatening messages. Investigators concluded the threats were staged, and he was convicted of all three murders.
CASE 099Bolingbrook, Illinois
2004–2007
Kathleen Savio & Stacy Peterson
Kathleen Savio’s 2004 bathtub death was initially treated as an accident. Investigators reexamined it after Stacy Peterson, the next wife of former officer Drew Peterson, disappeared in 2007. Drew was convicted of Kathleen’s murder; Stacy’s disappearance is a separate, unresolved case.
CASE 011Winnetka, Illinois
1988
Laurie Dann & the Winnetka school shooting
Laurie Dann entered an elementary school in Winnetka, Illinois, in 1988 and opened fire, killing eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin and wounding other children. The shooting was part of a day of violence that also involved fires and poisoned food. Dann later died by suicide, leaving investigators and families to reconstruct the warning signs and attacks.
CASE 133Illinois
1986–1989
Paula Sims
Paula Sims reported that masked kidnappers had taken two of her infant daughters in separate incidents in 1986 and 1989. Both children were found dead. The investigation led to her conviction in Heather’s death and later admissions concerning both daughters.
CASE 445Chicago area, Illinois
1982–2026
Unsolved homicidesThe Chicago Tylenol poisoning victims
Seven people in the Chicago area died after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol in 1982. The killings brought a vast investigation and changes to product-tampering law, but no murder conviction. Netflix’s Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders revisits the evidence; September 2026 reporting describes a possible Idaho connection that authorities had not established as a solution.
CASE 073Illinois
1972–1978
John Wayne Gacy · “Killer Clown”
Photo credit
Des Plaines Police Department, 1978 / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (U.S.). Cropped/resized.John Wayne Gacy murdered 33 boys and young men in Illinois. The disappearance of Robert Piest in 1978 led investigators to Gacy’s home, where many victims had been buried beneath the house. His respectable public persona contrasted with the crimes uncovered during the search.
CASE 087Chicago, Illinois
1966
Richard Speck
Richard Speck attacked a Chicago townhouse occupied by student nurses in 1966, killing eight women. Corazon Amurao survived by hiding beneath a bed and later identified him. Her testimony and the investigation brought the case to trial and national attention.
CASE 228Chicago, Illinois; Money and Sumner, Mississippi
1955
Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was abducted and murdered while visiting Mississippi. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted that the public confront what had happened to him and became an advocate for justice. Her memoir and the film Till center a family’s loss and its place in civil rights history.
CASE 334Chicago, Illinois
1924
Bobby Franks — Leopold & Loeb
Bobby Franks was kidnapped and murdered in Chicago in 1924. The investigation focused on students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, and the prosecution became a major public debate about punishment.
CASE 219Orange, New Jersey, and Ottawa, Illinois
1917–1938
The Radium Girls
Young women painting luminous watch and instrument dials ingested radium while following workplace instructions. Severe illness led workers to challenge employers who disputed responsibility. Their struggles became an important chapter in occupational health and workers’ access to compensation. The film uses fictionalized characters inspired by that history.
CASE 089Illinois & other U.S. states
1890s
H. H. Holmes
Photo credit
Unknown photographer, circa 1880s–1890s / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (U.S.). Cropped/resized.H. H. Holmes used fraud and deception while committing murders in the 1890s, including the killing of Benjamin Pitezel. Investigators also traced the deaths of Pitezel’s children to him. Sensational stories about a Chicago “murder castle” often mix documented crimes with disputed or exaggerated claims.
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