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
9 of 243 cases
More media formats first · Book-only cases last in each section
U.S. cases, plus the Bernardo–Homolka case in Canada.
1980s–1990s
Gary Ridgway killed women and girls in Washington, many of whom were vulnerable or working in the sex trade. Advances in DNA testing helped investigators arrest him in 2001. His guilty pleas resolved dozens of murders associated with the Green River investigation.
1986
Bruce Nickell and Sue Snow died after taking cyanide-laced Excedrin in Washington in 1986. Investigators determined that Bruce’s wife, Stella Nickell, poisoned him and placed tampered bottles in stores to disguise his death as part of a random product attack. Her scheme killed a second person and led to a federal conviction.
1997
Dawn Hacheney died in a Washington house fire in 1997 that initially appeared accidental. Investigators later concluded that her husband, minister Nick Hacheney, had killed her and used the fire to conceal the crime. His affairs and claims of religious authority became part of the evidence leading to his murder conviction.
1980
Retired ship’s pilot Rolf Neslund disappeared from Washington’s Lopez Island in 1980. His wife Ruth offered explanations for his absence, but investigators assembled evidence that she had killed him and disposed of his remains. She was convicted even without a recovered body, ending years of uncertainty surrounding his disappearance.
1990s
Teacher Mary Kay Letourneau sexually abused her student Vili Fualaau when he was a child. Her 1997 conviction and violation of a no-contact order drew extensive coverage. Later accounts examine the abuse, the children they had, and their eventual adult marriage without erasing his age when it began.
1998
Former Washington state trooper Ronda Reynolds was found shot in her home in 1998. Authorities initially treated her death as suicide, but her mother challenged that conclusion and pressed for further investigation. Conflicting evidence and later proceedings made the manner of death a prolonged public controversy rather than a straightforward, resolved murder case.
1985
Twelve-year-old Brenda Gere disappeared from her family’s Washington home in September 1985. The search devastated her parents and drew investigators toward Michael Kay Green, a man with a history of violence. The case followed the family’s struggle to learn what had happened after an ordinary afternoon became their daughter’s disappearance.
1988
Lieth von Stein was killed and his wife, Bonnie, seriously wounded in their North Carolina home in 1988. Investigators traced the attack to a plan involving Bonnie’s son, Chris Pritchard, and accomplices. Money and inheritance were central to the prosecution. Coverage also focused on the young defendants’ social circle and role-playing interests.
2008–2011
A young woman identified in reporting as Marie reported a rape in Washington in 2008, but police doubted her account. A later investigation in Colorado uncovered evidence supporting her report. Investigative journalism, the book A False Report and Netflix’s Unbelievable explore the failures and breakthroughs.
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