Thislist of unsolved murders includes notable cases where victims have been murdered under unknown circumstances.

• An unidentified human (~20s) alive 430,000 years ago, predatingNeanderthals, was found in a Spanish cave with two holes in his head, which archeologists determined had been inflicted by another human while the victim was alive and which led to his death.^[1]
• Ötzi, (~45) 3350 to 3105 BC; also called The Iceman, he was presumably a high-altitude shepherd from Anatolia. He was killed by an arrow to his left shoulder. He was found on 19 September 1991 by two German tourists.
• TheGebelein Man (18–20), one of six naturally mummified bodies dating back to 3400 BC found in 1896 in Egypt, is suspected to have been murdered, because a 2012 CAT scan determined that there were puncture wounds on his body. As with most things surrounding the mummies' lives, his murder remains a mystery.^[2]
• Bog bodies are a numerous class of people who had been violently killed from prehistoric times into the Middle Ages.^[3] The victims had subsequently been dumped in swamps where they were naturally mummified. It is unclear whether the bog bodies were sacrificed, executed, or murdered. Notable examples include theBocksten Man, theTollund Man,^[4] theLindow Man and theLindow Woman.^[5]

• Caesarion (17), (Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar), 30 BC; the son ofCleopatra and (allegedly)Julius Caesar, and as such the last king of thePtolemaic dynasty of thePtolemaic Kingdom ofAncient Egypt, ruling alone for eleven days, whose death at the orders ofAugustus (while still Octavian) is accepted in 30 BC,^[6] and yet the exact circumstances of his death and the location of his body are not documented.^[6]`
• Dagobert II, 679; he was one of the lastMerovingian kings, murdered in theArdennes Forest on 23 December.^[7] Whoever killed him is unknown.
• Mawdud, 1113,atabeg of Mosul; stabbed to death in Damascus while a guest of local rulerToghtekin. The murder is presumed to have been carried out by theOrder of Assassins, probably with the collusion of either Toghtekin orFakhr al-Mulk Ridwan.^[8]
• Raymond II, Count of Tripoli and two of his knights were stabbed to death by the Assassins in 1152. The motive for the attack remains unknown.^[8]
• Wenceslaus III of Bohemia (16), the lastPřemyslidKing of Bohemia, died on 4 August 1306 just short of his 17th birthday inOlomouc. It is known he was murdered,^[9] but not by whom. Most chronicles report the murderer was aThuringianmercenary named Conrad von Bottennstein, but this has been rejected since the real Conrad died around 1320 and the chronicles also report the supposed murderer was stabbed to death by guards moments after the murder. The person who ordered the murder is completely unknown,^[10] but most assumed it was eitherAlbert I of Germany orWladyslaw I of Poland, who both had political animosity towards him and against the latter of whom Wenceslaus was then marching with an army since both claimed theKingdom of Poland as theirs.
• Maol Ruanaidh Cam Ó Cearbhaill, an Irish poet who was famous for playing theharp was killed along with many other people at theBraganstown Massacre by unknown persons on 10 June 1329.^[11] The murders were never solved.
• Anselm Adornes (58) was slaughtered by a group of unknown assailants on 23 January 1483 while staying at a monastery atNorth Berwick.^[12]
• Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía, 1497; his body was recovered from theTiber with his throat slit and about nine stab wounds on his torso.^[13] His father,Pope Alexander VI, launched an investigation but it ended without results. Theories range from theOrsini family to CardinalAscanio Sforza, and even to his own brother,Cesare Borgia, having committed the crime.
• Richard Hunne, an English merchant accused ofheresy, was found hanging in his cell inSt. Paul's Cathedral on 4 December 1514. Although his death was staged as a suicide, a coroner's jury found that he had been murdered due to evidence that it was physically impossible for him to have hanged himself; however, the sole suspects were never brought to trial due to judicial interference.^[14]
• Moctezuma II, 1520,Aztec emperor; according to Spanish accounts he was killed by his own people; according to Aztec accounts he was assassinated by the Spanish.^[15]
• Robert Pakington (46–47), 1536, likely to have been the first person murdered with a handgun in London.^[16]
• John Knight was a British explorer who disappeared after his boat went over a hill most likely nearNain^[17] on 23 or 24 June 1606. Some time after that it was confirmed that he had been killed by local residents, but these people were never identified and no one was charged with his murder.
• ExpatriateEnglish Royalists are believed to have ambushed and murderedIsaac Dorislaus in 1649,^[18][19] then a diplomat representing the interests of theCommonwealth to the Dutch government atThe Hague, in retaliation forhis role in the trial and execution of Charles I. No suspects were ever identified, although some Royalists later boasted of having taken part.
• Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (56), in 1678; he was found impaled on his own sword and strangled atPrimrose Hill, London.^[20] Three men were hanged, but later the witness' statement was found to be perjured.
• Alessandro Stradella (38), 1682, composer; he was stabbed to death at the Piazza Banchi ofGenoa. His infidelities were well known, and many theorize that a nobleman of the Lomellini family hired the killer.^[21]
• Jean-François Duclerc, a Frenchprivateer who was murdered inRio de Janeiro on 18 March 1711 while he was in prison for unknown reasons by masked gunmen.^[22] The case was never solved.
• Jean-Marie Leclair (67), 1764, violinist and composer; he was found stabbed in hisParis home. Although the murder remains a mystery, his nephew, Guillaume-François Vial, and Leclair's ex-wife were considered main suspects at the time.^[23]
• Although the colonial authorities inPennsylvania at the time investigated the two December 1764Paxton Boys massacres of defenselessConestoga communities near present-dayMillersville^[24] as a criminal mass murder, the perpetrators were never identified.
• Gulielma "Elma" Sands (22) disappeared on the evening of 22 December 1799 inManhattan. Her body was recovered from the newly-created Manhattan Well in January the following year. Circumstantial evidence led to the prosecution of her loverLevi Weeks, but he was acquitted after a vigorous defence byAaron Burr,Alexander Hamilton andHenry Brockholst Livingston.^[25]

• Dominic Daley andJames Halligan were convicted of the murder of Marcus Lyon, a farmer who was found beaten and shot nearWilbraham, Massachusetts on 5 November 1805. There was very little evidence against the two men and the consensus of historians is that they were innocent and were convicted largely due to anti-Irish bigotry; both were legally exonerated in 1984, over a century after their execution. It remains uncertain who killed Marcus Lyon, although one theory points to a relative of the prosecution's main witness.^[26]
• Joseph Hedley (76), was a Quilter from Northumberland, who was killed in his home on 3 January 1826. Despite a large reward being offered, the culprits remain unknown.^[27]
• Elijah Parish Lovejoy (34), was an AmericanPresbyterianminister, journalist,newspaper editor, andabolitionist. He was shot and killed on 7 November 1837^[28] by a pro-slavery mob inAlton, Illinois, during their attack on the warehouse ofBenjamin Godfrey and W. S. Gillman to destroy Lovejoy's press and abolitionist materials.
• Helen Jewett (22), Americansex worker who was murdered inNew York City on 10 April 1836.^[29] A young man named Richard P. Robinson was arrested and charged with her murder, but was found not guilty.^[30] The real killer was never found.
• John Bibby (65), founder of theBibby Shipping Line, was found dead in a pond on July 17 1840. His cause of death was recorded as drowning. It was believed that he had been killed in a robbery as his valuable watch had been stolen from his body. Only one suspect was identified but there was not enough evidence to charge him and the killing remained unsolved;Merseyside Police still consider the case open.^[31]
• Mary Rogers (21–22), also known as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl"; her body was found in theHudson River on 28 July 1841. The story became a national sensation and inspiredEdgar Allan Poe to write "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842).^[32]
• Amasa Sprague (45) was shot and beaten to death by two or three men on 31 December 1843 inKnightsville, Rhode Island. Of the three men tried, only one,John Gordon, was found guilty; he was exonerated posthumously in 2011.^[33]
• Joseph Smith (38), founder of theChurch of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, and his brotherHyrum Smith (44)were killed on 27 June 1844 when a mob stormed the jail inCarthage, Illinois where they were awaiting trial for treason and shot both of them to death. Five suspects stood trial but were acquitted, and several others had fled to Missouri before they could be arrested.^[34]
• Françoise de Choiseul-Praslin, wife of French duke Charles de Choiseul-Praslin; she died shortly after a beating and stabbing in the family'sParis apartment on 17 August 1847.^[35] Her husband was arrested, but committed suicide during trial, protesting his innocence all along. No other suspect has ever been identified. The scandal caused by the case helped to provoke theFrench Revolution of 1848.
• Richard H. Barter (26) member of a stagecoach robbery gang active inCalifornia, was found dead outsideAuburn on 12 July 1859. He had been ambushed and injured by law enforcement the day before, but it was unclear who had actually landed the fatal shot.^[36][37]
• Barbu Catargiu (54), the firstPrime Minister of Romania and a conservative politician, was assassinated during a parliamentary meeting on June 20, 1862. His killer was never found.^[38]
• John Bozeman (32), an American frontiersman who helped establish theBozeman Trail and founded the cityBozeman, Montana, was killed under unclear circumstances along theYellowstone River on April 20, 1867. Various theories have been proposed concerning his death, ranging from an attack byBlackfeet Indians to revenge for his flirting with women.^[39]
• Sakamoto Ryōma (31), was a Japanesesamurai and a prominent figure in the movement to overthrow theTokugawa shogunate who was assassinated at the Ōmiya Inn inKyoto, not long before theMeiji Restoration took place. On the night of 10 December 1867, assassins gathered at the door of the inn and one approached and knocked, acting as an ordinary caller. The door was answered by Ryōma's bodyguard and manservant, a formersumo wrestler who told the stranger he would see if Ryōma was accepting callers at that hour of the evening. When the bodyguard turned his back, the visitor at the door drew his sword and slashed his back, which became a fatal wound.^[40]
• Nakaoka Shintarō (29), asamurai inBakumatsu period Japan, and a close associate ofSakamoto Ryōma in the movement to overthrow theTokugawa shogunate.^[41] was killed on 12 December 1867.^[42]
• George W. Ashburn (53), an AmericanRadical Republican politician inGeorgia, was assassinated by members of theKu Klux Klan on 31 March 1868. Twenty people were accused of involvement in Ashburn's murder, but political interference by Georgia legislators resulted in all suspects being released.^[43]

• T. C. Hindman (40), an American politician assassinated by one or more assailants on 27 September 1868. The assassins fired through the parlor window of his home while he was reading the newspaper with his children inHelena, Arkansas.^[44]
• Alexander Boyd (35), the county solicitor ofGreene County, Alabama, was lynched by theKu Klux Klan on 31 March 1870.^[45]
• Benjamin Nathan (56), a financier turned philanthropist; was found beaten to death in hisNew York City home on 28 July 1870. Several suspects were identified, including Nathan's profligate son Washington, who discovered the body along with his brother, but no one was ever indicted.^[46]
• Juan Prim (56), aSpanish general and statesman; in December 1870, he was shot through the windows of his carriage by several assailants and died two days later.^[47] In 2012, his body was exhumed; the autopsy showed he may have been strangled on his deathbed, but results were deemed inconclusive.
• Sharon Tyndale (65), formerIllinois Secretary of State, was robbed and shot as he walked from his house inSpringfield to the nearby train station early on the morning of 29 April 1871.^[48]
• Charles Francis Hall (50) died on 8 November 1871 while heading thePolaris expedition to theNorth Pole. Before his death he alleged that he had been poisoned by the ship's doctor,Emil Bessels. An exhumation in 1968 found that Hall had indeed died from arsenic poisoning; the poisoner is not known, although contemporary witnesses suspected Bessels and sailing master Sidney Budington of complicity in his death.^[49][50]
• George Colvocoresses (55),Greek American naval commander and explorer, died of a gunshot wound while returning to a ferryboat on 3 June 1872, inBridgeport, Connecticut. The insurance company claimed it was suicide, but eventually settled with his family.^[51]
• Charles Bravo (30), a wealthy British lawyer, died ofantimony poisoning on 21 April 1876. It is unclear how and why the antimony was administered to him.^[52]
• Henry Weston Smith (49), a minister, was found dead on the road between his home inCrook City, South Dakota, andDeadwood, where he was going to give a sermon, on 20 August 1876.^[53] Smith was not robbed and the motive for his killing remains unknown.
• Arthur St. Clair, an African-American community leader inBrooksville, Florida, was killed by a white mob in 1877^[54] after presiding over aninterracial marriage. The papers relating to the case were incinerated when the county courthouse was destroyed in anarson attack, preventing the killers from being found.
• George Leonidas Leslie (35–36), was an American architect fromNew York who later became a bank robber. After Leslie had fled from the public in May 1878 he was found dead on 4 June 1878 inYonkers, New York.^[55]
• Martin DeFoor (73), an early settler ofAtlanta, Georgia, was along with his wife the victim of an axe murder on their farm on 25 July 1879.^[56]
• Matilda Hacker's remains were found in a basement inEuston Square in 1879. She was a noted recluse and had not been seen since 1877, although what year the murder occurred could not be determined. The initial suspect, Hannah Dobbs, was acquitted at trial, and another suspect named by Dobbs was not charged due to lack of evidence, although he was jailed for perjury after he was found to have lied about his involvement with Dobbs at her trial.^[57]
• Two trials in Canada'sBlack Donnellys massacre, in which five members of a family of Irish immigrants were found murdered in the ashes of their Ontario farm after an angry mob attacked it on 4 February 1880,^[58] allegedly as a result of feuds with their neighbors, resulted in all the suspects being acquitted.
• John Henry Blake (74), agent for one of Ireland's more despised British landlords, was shot and killed along with his driver on their way to Mass outsideLoughrea on 29 June 1882.^[59] The case received considerable attention at the time because Blake's employer,Hubert de Burgh-Canning, 2nd Marquess of Clanricarde, was a nobleman. Although his wife survived the attack, she was unable to identify any suspects.
• American outlawJohnny Ringo (32), was found shot dead on 14 July 1882. Although officially ruled a suicide, doubts have been cast upon the sequence of events, and bothWyatt Earp andDoc Holliday were implicated in murdering Ringo.^[60]
• The unidentifiedServant Girl Annihilator killed eight people, seven women and one man, between 1884 and 1885. Later research suggested that the killer was a man named Nathan Elgin, but this has never been proven.
• Dave Rudabaugh (31), an American gunfighter and outlaw infamous for his stagecoach robberies and association with other notorious characters in theOld West,^[61] was killed in a gunfight at a saloon inParral,Mexico on 18 February 1886. His killer(s), who decapitated him with a machete and stuck his head on a pole, has/have never been identified.
• TheHaymarket bombing occurred on 4 May 1886 when an unidentified person threw a bomb at police officers attempting to break up an organized labour meeting inHaymarket Square, killing officer Mathias J. Degan (34) and sparking further violence which left ten others dead. Although eight people were controversially convicted of helping to plan the attack (three of whom were later pardoned), the actual bomber was never convicted.^[62]
• TheRahway murder of 1887 also known asUnknown Woman andRahway Jane Doe is the murder of an unidentified young woman whose body was found inRahway, New Jersey on 25 March 1887. Four brothers traveling to work at the felt mills by Bloodgood's Pond inClark, New Jersey early one morning found the young woman lying off Central Avenue near Jefferson Avenue several hundred feet from the Central Avenue Bridge over theRahway River.^[63] Her body was very bloody and had been subjected to a beating.^[64]
• TheWhitechapel murders were committed between April 1888 and February 1891 and comprised the murders of eleven women, including at least five -Mary Ann Nichols,Annie Chapman,Elizabeth Stride,Catherine Eddowes andMary Jane Kelly - believed to be the work of the same killer, the notoriousJack the Ripper. None of the crimes were ever solved.^[65]
• TheWhitehall Mystery; in 1888, the dismembered remains of a woman were discovered at three different sites in the centre of London, including the future site ofScotland Yard.^[66]
• John M. Clayton (48), American politician, was shot on the evening of 29 January 1889 inPlumerville, Arkansas, after starting an investigation into possible election fraud.^[67]
• Belle Starr (40), was a notorious female Americanoutlaw.^[68] On 3 February 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, she was killed. She was riding home from a neighbor's house inEufaula, Oklahoma when she was ambushed. Her death resulted from shotgun wounds to the back, neck, shoulder, and face.^[69]
• Paul Crampel (26), a French explorer while exploring the areas of present-dayGabon andChad in Africa was murdered on 9 April 1891^[70] by unknown people. No one was ever charged with the crime.
• ThePeople's Grocery lynchings were a series of racially motivated confrontations that occurred from 2–8 March 1892 inMemphis, Tennessee, culminating in the lynching of three black persons.^[71]
• Andrew Jackson Borden and Abby Durfee Borden, father and stepmother ofLizzie Borden, both killed in their family house inFall River, Massachusetts on the morning of 4 August 1892, by blows from a hatchet. In the case of Andrew Borden, the hatchet blows not only crushed his skull, but cleanly split his left eyeball. Lizzie was later arrested and charged for the murders. At the time her stepmother was killed, Lizzie was the only other person known to have been in the house. Lizzie and the maid, Bridget Sullivan, were the only other people known to have been in the house at the time Mr. Borden was killed. Lizzie was acquitted by a jury in the following year of 1893.^[72]
• Eleven people were killed whenthe Rock Island locomotive derailed on 9 August 1894 nearLincoln, Nebraska. An investigation found that the railroad track had been sabotaged by persons unknown. One suspected saboteur was convicted but was later declared innocent by GovernorJohn H. Mickey.^[73]
• Known as thePelican Point Murders, three ranch hands – Albert Enstrom, Andrew Johnson, and Alfred Nelson – were discovered dead inUtah Lake near Pelican Point,Utah County, Utah, between February 16 and February 17, 1895. The men were found with gunshot wounds to their heads, implying that they died from possible execution-style killings. Despite extensive investigations and the subsequent murder trial of one suspect, the case remains unsolved.^[74]
• TheDeep Creek murders of 4 February 1896, in which sheep-herders Daniel Cummings and John Wilson were shot to death by an unknown assailant in theDeep Creek Range, were never solved, although multiple different people were said to have confessed to the crime.^[75]
• Frazier B. Baker and Julia Baker were a father and daughter who were murdered on 22 February 1898 in their own house inLake City, South Carolina.^[76]
• TheGatton murders occurred 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the rural Australian town ofGatton, Queensland, on 26 December 1898. Siblings Michael, Norah and Ellen Murphy were found deceased the morning after they left home to attend a dance in the town hall which had been cancelled. The bodies were arranged with the feet pointing west and both women had their hands tied with handkerchiefs. Thissignature aspect has never been repeated in Australian crime and to date remains a mystery.^[77]

• Lists of attacks
• Lists of people by cause of death
• Unsolved murders

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