Warning: The following post contains discussions of domestic violence and sexual assault.
The crime docuseries Unsolved Mysteries has covered hundreds of cases during its iterations on broadcast, cable, and streaming TV — and many of those cases are unsolved no longer.
Terry Dunn Meurer, who co-created the series in 1987, told USA Today in 2020 that more than 260 mysteries from the original series had been resolved at the time. And though none of the Netflix-era Unsolved Mysteries cases have joined that list, who knows what will happen after the streaming service drops five more episodes on Wednesday, July 31?
In the meantime, the Unsolved Mysteries website maintains an archive of solved cases from the show, and here are updates on a handful of those stories.
Anthrax murders of 2001
In what the FBI called “the worst biological attacks in U.S. history,” letters laced with anthrax killed five Americans and sickened 17 more in 2001, and Unsolved Mysteries covered that scary saga in Season 13 in 2002. In 2008, the Department of Justice and the FBI prepared to arrest government scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins for the attacks, but Ivins died by suicide before charges could be filed. And in 2010, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service formally concluded the investigation.
Bonnie Haim’s murder
In 1993, a young wife and mother named Bonnie Haim disappeared from her home in Jacksonville, Florida. The case remained unsolved for decades — and the show covered the mystery in 1996 — but in 2014, Bonnie’s son discovered her skull and other remains while digging in his boyhood home’s backyard for repairs. Michael Haim, Bonnie’s husband, was arrested for murder in 2015 and sentenced to life in prison in 2019.
Annette Schnee and Barbara Oberholtzer’s murders
Annette Schnee and Barbara Oberholtzer both disappeared while hitchhiking near Breckenridge, Colorado, in 1982, and their bodies were later found with gunshot wounds. Unsolved Mysteries covered the case in 1991, and three decades later, in 2021, genetic genealogy led to the arrest of Alan Lee Phillips, whose DNA matched blood found on Oberholtzer’s glove. He was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison in 2022.
Donald Eugene Webb’s disappearance
As detailed in the 1987 Unsolved Mysteries series premiere, Donald Eugene Webb was a wanted man after shooting and killing Greg Adams, a police chief in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, in 1980. In a 2017 deal with prosecutors, however, his widow told Pennsylvania State Police, the FBI, and Massachusetts State Police what happened to her husband: Donald had hid in the basem*nts of two homes until his 1999 death from a stroke, after which she buried him in one of the backyards.
Eric Rudolph’s disappearance
Between 1996 and 1998, domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph bombed a 1996 Olympics concert in Atlanta, Georgia, an abortion clinic and a lesbian bar in Atlanta, and an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing two people and injuring many more. Unsolved Mysteries reported on Rudolph’s fugitive status in 2002, but it wasn’t until 2003 that he was arrested — after a police offer caught him foraging in a trash bin behind a grocery store in Murphy, North Carolina. Rudolph later pled guilty and received four life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg’s murders
Canadian couple Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg never made it back from a trip to Seattle in 1987. Cook, 20, was strangled, Van Cuylenborg, 18, was shot in the head, and their bodies were left 65 miles apart. After years without answers (and after a 1989 Unsolved Mysteries installment reported on the crime), a man named William Talbott II was arrested for the murders in 2018 and convicted the following year with help from genetic genealogy. An appeals court overturned his conviction in 2021, citing juror bias, but Washington’s Supreme Court reinstated the guilty verdict in 2022, and Talbott is serving life in prison.
Lisa Ziegert’s murder
It took 25 years for the family of Lisa Ziegert to find justice for the teaching aide’s 1992 kidnapping from Agawam, Massachusetts, and her subsequent rape and stabbing death, the subject of a 1993 segment of Unsolved Mysteries. In 2017, state and local police reexamined 11 suspects who had refused to volunteer DNA, and when a suspect named Gary Schara found out about the revived investigation, he wrote a confession letterto his girlfriend. In 2019, he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life behind bars.
Wendy Camp, Cynthia Britto, and Lisa Kregear’s disappearances
Wendy Camp, 23, her daughter, Cynthia Britto, 6, and her sister-in-law Lisa Kregear, 22, vanished from Shamrock, Oklahoma, in 1992, as Unsolved Mysteries recapped in 1993. And in 2013, their skeletal remains were finally found in a septic tank hole close to nearby Terlton, on property once owned by her in-laws’ family. Prosecutors alleged that Beverly Noe, who was Camp’s mother-in-law, and Beverly’s late mother killed Camp so that Beverly could continue raising Jonathan Noe, Camp’s son, and then killed Britto and Kregear because they were witnesses. Beverly pleaded no contest to three counts of accessory to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The Golden State Killer case
In 2002, Unsolved Mysteries reported on the case of the Golden State Killer — also covered in the book and docuseries I’ll Be Gone in the Dark — back when it was still unsolved. In the 1970s and 1980s, the killer committed 13 known murders and almost 50 rapes, according to prosecutors, but escaped capture. Then, in 2018, “discarded DNA” led to the arrest of former police officer Joseph DeAngelo, who in 2020 pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder and 13 rape-related charges.
If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233.
If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual assault, contact the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
