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
25 of 236 cases
More media formats first · Book-only cases last in each section
U.S. cases, plus the Bernardo–Homolka case in Canada.
1976–1977
David Berkowitz killed six people and wounded others in shootings that frightened New York in 1976 and 1977. Letters using the name Son of Sam intensified the coverage. He pleaded guilty after his arrest; later media theories about accomplices go beyond those convictions.
1920s–1930s
Albert Fish abducted Grace Budd after approaching her family in 1928. Years later, a letter describing her death helped investigators track him down. He was convicted of her murder; accounts of other killings include claims that were not all independently established.
2005–2007
Stacey Castor poisoned her husband David with antifreeze and later tried to kill her daughter Ashley while framing her for the death. Ashley survived. Investigators challenged the supposed suicide accounts, and Castor’s prosecution became the subject of a Lifetime dramatization and crime reporting.
1965–1971
Five of Waneta Hoyt’s children died between 1965 and 1971, with their deaths initially associated with sudden infant death syndrome. A renewed investigation produced a confession she later recanted. She was convicted in 1995, and the case prompted scrutiny of the earlier medical conclusions.
1986
Eighteen-year-old Jennifer Levin was found strangled in New York’s Central Park in 1986. Robert Chambers, who had left a bar with her, claimed she died during a sexual encounter. He later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The “Preppy Murder” coverage became notorious for scrutiny of Jennifer’s private life and treatment of the victim.
1992
Laurie Kellogg was convicted of arranging the 1992 killing of her husband Bruce at a New York vacation property. Teenagers participated in the plot and shooting. Her account of an abusive marriage and the prosecution’s murder-for-hire case became the basis of Lies of the Heart.
1984
Seventeen-year-old Gary Lauwers was killed in the woods in Northport, New York, in 1984. Ricky Kasso was arrested, and accounts connected the attack to a dispute within a drug-using teenage group. Reports of occult references fueled a national “Satanic panic.” Kasso died by suicide before his case could go to trial.
1992
Seventeen-year-old Amy Fisher went to Mary Jo Buttafuoco’s Long Island home in 1992 and shot her in the head. Fisher had been involved with Mary Jo’s husband, Joey. Mary Jo survived, and the assault became an intensely covered tabloid story. Fisher pleaded guilty to attempted murder; the publicity often overshadowed the victim’s recovery.
1992–1993
Nine-year-old Katie Beers was abducted by family acquaintance John Esposito on Long Island in 1992. He imprisoned her in an underground space beneath his property while a search was underway. She was rescued after seventeen days. Her survival exposed the hidden confinement and the abuse and neglect she had already endured.
1998
Wealthy New York homeowner Irene Silverman disappeared in 1998. Sante Kimes and her son Kenneth had targeted her property through an elaborate fraud scheme. They were convicted of her murder and related crimes even though her body had not been recovered. The investigation revealed plans to take control of her home using forged documents.
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.
1989
Five teenagers were wrongly convicted after the 1989 assault of jogger Trisha Meili in Central Park. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after another man confessed and DNA supported his account. Documentary and dramatic treatments examine the interrogations, racialized coverage, and consequences for the five.
1987–1996
People confronting AIDS organized protests, studied medical research and challenged government agencies over access to treatment. ACT UP and the Treatment Action Group helped reshape relationships between patients, researchers and regulators. How to Survive a Plague follows activists through illness, disagreement, loss and scientific progress.
1969
A police raid on the Stonewall Inn sparked resistance and several nights of unrest in Greenwich Village. The uprising became a rallying point for LGBTQ organizing, building on activism that already existed. David Carter’s history and the documentary examine witnesses’ accounts and the broader setting.
1971–1993
Ruth Bader Ginsburg challenged laws that treated people differently because of sex, developing a litigation strategy before her Supreme Court appointment. On the Basis of Sex dramatizes an early tax case involving a male caregiver; her collected writings offer a wider view of her legal career.
1940–1977
Lawyer, writer and activist Pauli Murray challenged racial and sex discrimination and developed legal arguments that influenced other civil rights advocates. Murray’s life also crossed boundaries of gender, faith and professional access. The memoir and documentary restore context to a figure often left out of familiar accounts.
1968–1972
Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress and later sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Her campaign challenged assumptions about who could seek national office. Her writing and the film Shirley explore the independence, coalition-building and resistance that shaped that effort.
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.
1967–1972
New York police officer Frank Serpico reported corruption within his department despite resistance from colleagues and superiors. His testimony and public disclosures became part of a wider reckoning with police misconduct. Peter Maas’s account and the film follow the personal costs of speaking out.
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.
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.
1911
A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory killed 146 people, many of them young immigrant women. Inadequate escape routes and unsafe working conditions made the disaster a turning point in public debate over industrial safety. Investigations helped bring changes to factory regulation in New York.
1973
Billie Jean King used her position in professional tennis to press for equal opportunities and pay. Her televised match against Bobby Riggs in Houston became a widely watched confrontation over women’s abilities. All In recounts her broader life; Battle of the Sexes dramatizes the 1973 match and its context.
1947
Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and broke Major League Baseball’s modern color barrier. He faced racist abuse while succeeding on the field, then continued advocating for civil rights. His autobiography covers more of that life than 42, which concentrates on his entry into the major leagues.
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