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
12 of 236 cases
More media formats first · Book-only cases last in each section
U.S. cases, plus the Bernardo–Homolka case in Canada.
1962–1964
Albert DeSalvo confessed to the Boston Strangler killings but was never tried for those murders. DNA evidence later linked him to Mary Sullivan’s 1964 death. His responsibility for the other killings has remained a subject of disagreement in reporting and books.
1990s
Veterans Affairs nurse Kristen Gilbert caused medical emergencies by injecting patients with epinephrine at a Massachusetts hospital. Coworkers noticed a troubling pattern around her shifts. She was convicted in 2001 of four murders and other offenses arising from the attacks.
1989
Charles Stuart shot his pregnant wife, Carol, in Boston in 1989 and blamed a Black carjacker. Carol died, and their prematurely delivered baby also died. The false account triggered an aggressive police search in Black neighborhoods. Charles’s brother later exposed the plot, and Charles died by suicide as suspicion turned toward him.
2014
Michelle Carter encouraged Conrad Roy to take his own life through messages and conversations before his death in 2014. Her involuntary-manslaughter trial raised questions about responsibility for conduct carried out through a phone. Documentaries and dramatizations revisit the messages and the court’s reasoning.
2000
Sixteen-year-old Molly Bish disappeared from her Massachusetts lifeguard job in 2000. Her remains were discovered in 2003. The investigation has considered multiple leads, but the case remains unresolved; media discussion of suspects does not establish responsibility for her death.
1892
Andrew and Abby Borden were killed with a hatchet in their Fall River home in 1892. Andrew’s daughter Lizzie was tried and acquitted the following year. The case remains unresolved; later books and films offer competing interpretations rather than an established identification of the killer.
1980–2001
Kenneth Waters was wrongly convicted of killing Katharina Brow in Massachusetts. His sister Betty Anne became a lawyer while working to overturn the conviction. DNA testing helped establish his innocence in 2001, and their campaign became the basis of the film Conviction.
1979–1990
Families in Woburn sought answers about childhood leukemia and contaminated municipal drinking-water wells. Their civil lawsuit became the subject of Jonathan Harr’s book and the film A Civil Action. Separate federal Superfund proceedings addressed cleanup of the Wells G&H site.
1887–1904
Helen Keller and teacher Anne Sullivan developed ways for Keller to access language and education as a deafblind child. Keller’s autobiography describes her learning and relationships. The Miracle Worker concentrates on the early teaching relationship, rather than Keller’s later career as a writer and advocate.
1960–1995
Temple Grandin developed a career in animal science and livestock-handling design while explaining her experience as an autistic person. Her writing and public work challenged assumptions about how people think and learn. The HBO film draws on her accounts of education, family support and early professional life.
2002
Survivors and journalists exposed sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and failures by church leaders to protect children. The Boston Globe’s investigation brought documents and survivor accounts to a wider audience. Betrayal collects the reporting, while Spotlight dramatizes how the newsroom pursued the evidence.
1971
Daniel Ellsberg supplied newspapers with a classified study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam. The disclosures set off a struggle over government secrecy and press freedom. His memoir and documentary examine the decision to leak the papers, the legal response and the people involved.
BEYOND THE HEADLINE