16 Crimes To Research While You Wait For New Episodes Of "Serial"

Because true crime once a week just isn't enough.

1. Salish Sea Human Foot Discoveries

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Between 2007 and 2014, a number of human feet — belonging to five men, one woman, and three other people of undetermined sex — have washed up on the coast of the Salish Sea in British Columbia, Canada. Only five of the feet (belonging to four people) have been identified. Among the many weird facts about this case is that no other body parts have turned up. Read more here.

2. West Memphis Three

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The West Memphis three (Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr., and Jason Baldwin) were tried and convicted of the 1994 murders of three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. It was said that the boys were killed as part of a Satanic cult ritual. 18 years later, they were released, having entered Alford pleas — allowing them to state their innocence while admitting the courts had enough evidence to convict them. It is now widely believed the Three are innocent; two of the three boys' fathers have been raised as possible suspects, but the the real killer is unknown. Read more here.

3. D.B. Cooper

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D.B. Cooper is the nickname given to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 in flight between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington in 1971. After informing a flight attendant he had a bomb, Cooper demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. The request was passed along to Air Traffic Control and then the FBI, who worked to gather the supplies while the plane circled Puget Sound for two hours. When they landed, Cooper was given his bribe, and told everyone but the pilots and one flight attendant to get off the plane. They took off again, Cooper jumped out, never to be seen again. Read more here.

4. The Michael Peterson Trial

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In 2003, Michael Peterson was convicted of murdering his second wife, Kathleen Peterson, by blows to the head. She was found at the bottom of their home's staircase. The trial was highly convoluted, involving a similar death of Peterson's acquaintance in Germany years earlier; conflicting reports of the Peterson's marriage; and the potential involvement of an owl after a feather was found on the scene. Peterson's trial is the subject of a very good 2004 miniseries by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. Read more here.

5. JonBenét Ramsey

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Six-year-old pageant queen JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was found murdered in her family's basement in 1996. Though her family was initially suspected (and remains so by many), they were partially exonerated by DNA evidence in 2003, and her parents were completely cleared in 2008. The case was reopened in 2010. Read more here.

6. The Murder in the Metro

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On May 16, 1937, a 29 year-old woman named Laetitia Toureaux was found stabbed to death in a first-class compartment on the Paris Metro train. Toureaux was alive when the train left Porte de Charenton at 6:27; the train arrived at Porte Dorée at 6:28, and she was dead. This means that the murderer had one minute and twenty seconds with which to kill Toureaux and escape. Witnesses swear they didn't see anybody entering or exiting her compartment, and the killer was never found. Read more here and here.

7. Ray Gricar Disappearance

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Ray Gricar was district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania who went missing in 2005 and was declared dead by absentia in 2011. He was reported missing after failing to come home after a planned road trip. His car was later found with his cell phone inside. His laptop was found in a nearby river. It was later discovered that shortly before his disappearance, someone at the home Gricar shared with his girlfriend had searched their computer for terms: "how to wreck a hard drive", "how to fry a hard drive" and "water damage to a notebook computer." Read more here.

8. Hinterkaifeck

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In 1922, the six inhabitants of Hinterkaifeck farm in Germany — Andreas Gruber, his wife Cäzilia, their daughter and her two children, and the maid — were found murdered by a mattock. Adding another disturbing layer to the crime, one of the grandchildren was rumored to be the son of Andreas and his daughter, who had an incestuous relationship. Several days before the murders, keys went missing and strange footprints were found in the snow leading up to the house — but not away from it. Read more here.

9. Taman Shud

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The "Taman Shud Case" is the name given to the mysterious appearance of an unidentified dead man on Somerton beach in South Australia in 1948 — so named because of a slip of paper with the phrase "taman shud" ("ended" or "finished" in Persian) found in a hidden pocket of the man's pants. The body was precisely arranged, his feet crossed and pointed toward the sea, and an unlit cigarette behind his ear. An autopsy was inconclusive as to cause of death. Rumors have speculated that the man was a poisoned Soviet spy, but he has never been identified. Read more here.

10. The Zodiac Killer

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The Zodiac Killer is the self-appointed name to an unidentified serial killer who killed at least 5 (and claimed to have killed 37) people in northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Most of the Zodiac's victims were killed in their cars. He began sending police terrifying handwritten letters, some of it in mysterious code, soon after beginning his spree. His final letter was sent in 1974 after nearly three years; his identity has never been discovered. Read more here.

11. Mary Celeste

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The Mary Celeste is one of history's most enduring nautical mysteries. Discovered empty in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872, the ship had left shore a month earlier in fine weather with eight crew members and two passengers. When it was discovered, the ship had apparently been abandoned — the passengers' personal belongings were intact, as was the cargo. None of those aboard were ever heard from again. Read more here.

12. Villisca Axe Murders

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Sometime during the night of June 9, 1912, in Villisca, southwestern Iowa, the six members of the Moore family as well as two young guests (friends of the Moore children) were bludgeoned to death — seven of the eight in their beds and believed to have been asleep at the time. Only 12 year-old Lena Stillinger was awake and had attempted to fight back. Many suspects emerged, including traveling minister Reverend George Kelly, who was tried twice but ultimately acquitted. Read more here.

13. Jack the Ripper

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Jack the Ripper is the name given to a serial killer who operated in London in 1888. Jack's victims were mostly prostitutes who worked in London slums; all were discovered with cut throats and mutilated bodies from which organs were removed. A letter from someone claiming to be the killer was mailed to the town's vigilance committee along with a piece of preserved liver. It's unknown exactly how many victims Jack the Ripper claimed, though five are considered "canonical." Read more here.

14. Disappearance of Frederick Valentich

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Frederick Valentich was a 20-year-old member of the Air Training Corps on a training flight over Australia's Bass Straigt, on October 21st 1978, when he and his aircraft seemingly disappeared into thin air. Before vanishing, Valentich radioed Melbourne air traffic control to report that he was being closely accompanied by an unknown object, of which he clarified, "It's not an aircraft." He described the object as shiny and emitting a green light — leading UFO enthusiasts to suspect extraterrestrial involvement. Read more here.

15. Elizabeth Short/"Black Dahlia" Murder

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Elizabeth Short (nicknamed "Black Dahlia") was found mutilated and cut in half at the waist in Leimert Park in 1947. She was found by a woman walking with her young daughter; originally the woman believed Short to be a discarded mannequin. Short's body was meticulously cleaned and posed. More than 50 men and women have confessed to the murder, but none have been substantiated by evidence — though several are still discussed as possible suspects by theorists and experts today. Read more here.

16. The Chicago Tylenol Murders

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In 1982, seven Chicagoans were killed by Tylenol that had been laced with potassium cyanide. It was believed that the killer had purchased (or stolen) the Tylenol bottles from stores, took them home, injected them with poison, and taken them back to various Chicago stores, where they were picked up by unsuspecting customers. Tylenol was recalled nationwide, and production was reformed to make tampering more difficult. Though one man (James William Lewis) served time for the crime, it was in connection with extortion — Lewis had written to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to stop the crimes, though he lived in New York City at the time and denied involvement with the actual poisonings. Read more here.