Celebrities are almost always in the spotlight, but in these cases of unsolved celebrity murders, their fame wasn't enough to save them, or find their killer. This list features unsolved murders of celebrities and includes some of the most notorious crimes in history. Some of these celebrities were filming at the time of their death, while others were in their own homes.
Most of these murder cases closed after years of searching fruitlessly for suspects or substantial evidence; their leads coming to dead ends. However, some of them remain open and even decades after the murders, authorities are still attempting to identify what actually happened. For now though, they remain a mystery.
Known for: Starring Colonel Robert H. Hogan on Hogan’s Heroes
1960s sitcom star Bob Crane from Hogan’s Heroes was discovered in his apartment in 1978 in Scottsdale, AZ, after he had been bludgeoned to death in his bed with a camera tripod. The beating was so brutal that police could hardly recognize him. The main suspect, John Carpenter, was a friend of Crane's; the two of them spent a lot of time together, going to strip clubs and geeking out on video equipment. However, there were no weapons or witnesses to the murder, making it difficult to make any formal accusations.
The case was reopened in 1990 after an overlooked photo of human body tissue found in Carpenter's car resurfaced. Carpenter was arrested and tried for first-degree murder, but the case was later acquitted after evidence was found inconclusive. Known for: Acting in the late 1920s and early 1930s, known as "Hot Toddy."
Thelma Todd was an actress in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She owned a café that she ran on the Roosevelt Highway (now called the Pacific Coast Highway), where she lived in the above apartment with her boyfriend at the time, Roland West. She was found dead inside a garage, behind the steering wheel of her car. At the time, some believed that she had committed suicide or accidentally killed herself while warming up her car when she got locked out of the house.
Todd had no signs of struggle on her, though she did have a broken nose. Her blood alcohol level was too high to have allowed her to climb the steps to the garage, and her sandals were too clean if she had, in fact, climbed the stairs herself.
A rumor spread that West confessed on his deathbed that he had unknowingly locked Todd in the garage. Todd's body was cremated, lending some to believe it was done to cover up her death by the corrupt District Attorney's office. Others suggest that it could have been her ex-husband or gang leader Charles "Lucky" Luciano who might have killed her, as she had had confrontations with both of them shortly before she died.
Known for: Musician, host of the New Wave Theater in Los Angeles
Peter Ivers was the host of the New Wave Theater when he was found bludgeoned to death in his bed in downtown LA in 1983.
Evidence was later unearthed by the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the investigation. Upon his death, dozens of friends went to Ivers's apartment to mourn him, though in doing so, they accidentally tampered with the evidence. A number of theories abound about the cause for his murder. Some say he was killed as the result of a robbery; others speculate that he was killed by one of the attendees of the New Wave Theater. Little headway has been made in solving the Ivers murder case.Known for: Martial arts and character actor
On June 4, 2009, Carradine was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok, where he was shooting a movie. The actor's body was found hanging in the closet with a rope tied around his neck, wrist, and genitals, in an apparent act of autoerotic asphyxiation. Following his death, two of Carradine's ex-wives, Gail Jensen and Marina Anderson, stated that Carradine did indeed have a self-bondage fetish and an overall penchant for "deviant sexual behavior." Since then, Anderson has publicly claimed that she conducted her own investigation of Carradine's death, ruling that he was murdered.
Known for: Hip hop icon
Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1996 and died six days later in the hospital. He had just attended a boxing match and a witness identified a Crips gang member, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, in the lobby. The witness also said that Anderson had attacked Shakur. It is speculated that the death was gang related, but sufficient evidence was never given to lead to any arrests. He was 25 years old when he died.Known for: Hip hop icon
Rapper Christopher George Latore Wallace was better known by his stage names The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie, or Biggie Smalls. He became a central figure in the East Coast hip hop scene during a time when the West Coast scene was dominant in the mainstream, leading to an ongoing feud between the two groups, including with his longtime rival Tupac Shakur. After Shakur's death in 1996, Biggie became concerned about his own life. He was killed in 1997 after leaving the Soul Train Music Awards in LA when he was sitting in an SUV and another car pulled up beside him and shot him. No one was ever named a suspect in his death. He was 24 years old. Known for: Being a Hollywood publicist
A Hollywood publicist, Chasen was a veritable institution in the movie industry, representing everyone from filmmakers to producers and composers. She orchestrated the Oscar campaign for Driving Miss Daisy, and worked with actor Michael Douglas.
In the early hours of November 16, 2010, while driving home from the Hollywood premiere of the film Burlesque, Chasen's Mercedes was shot at four times and her body was found slumped over in her car. The murder had many in Hollywood scratching their heads and sparked a massive police hunt, with some sources claiming it was a planned hit. Adding to the mystery, the lead suspect Harold Martin Smith in the murder reportedly committed suicide, though the case was closed after that.Known for: film acting, starring in West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause.
Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, Wood was known for her roles in West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause, as well as for her high-profile relationships with men like Elvis Presley to Dennis Hopper. On the evening of November 28, 1981, she was on a boat trip to Catalina Island taking a break from filming the sci-fi film Brainstorm with her co-star, Christopher Walken, and her husband, Robert Wagner, when she and Wagner began to argue about her relationship with Walken.
The next morning, Wood's body was found along with a dinghy floating in the water. A passenger on a boat nearby claimed she heard someone yelling cries of help that evening, and there were bruises on her body, but in the wake of Wood's death, her lawyer said, "It was not a homicide… not a suicide. It was an accident."
While many thought Wagner was the culprit, police officially declared him not a suspect in 2011. In 2013, her death certificate was mysteriously changed, from the reason of death being an "accidental drowning," to drowning caused by "undetermined factors."
Known for: Hollywood bodyguard work
The inquest into the fatal stabbing of Stompanato, a bodyguard for LA's notorious Mickey Cohen, member of the Jewish mafia, was a major television event, with both his girlfriend, actress Lana Turner, and Cohen testifying before 120 journalists filling the courtroom's 160 seats. There was even an unidentified man shouting "Lies! All lies! This mother and daughter were both in love with Stompanato! Johnny was a gentleman!" as he was dragged from the courtroom.
However, Stompanato was anything but a gentleman as a bodyguard to Cohen, a rumored blackmailer, and an alleged abusive boyfriend to Turner. Though the star's daughter, Cheryl Crane, was found guilty of justifiable homicide when she stabbed Stompanato with a kitchen knife at Turner's house while he was attacking Turner, rumors persisted that Turner had murdered Stompanato herself and passed off the crime to her daughter, who was 14 at the time.Known for: Playing the role of Superman (1951-1958)
After the Superman series, Reeves had trouble finding work and was in dire financial straits due to his extravagant Hollywood lifestyle. According to the police report, between approximately 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. on June 16, 1959, Reeves reportedly shot himself in the head in the upstairs bedroom of his Los Angeles home, while his fiancée, playwright Leonore Lemmon, and friends William Bliss, writer Robert Condon, and Carol Van Ronkel were partying downstairs. The house guests allegedly heard a single gunshot and Bliss ran into the room to find Reeves's lifeless body.
Police reports at the time said that Reeves was depressed because he wasn't earning roles. Lemmon and Mannix became suspects, but no one was ever arrested for murder.Known for: Martial arts film star
On July 20, 1973, one month before the release of his latest movie, Enter the Dragon, Lee met with producer Raymond Chow to talk about a new project, Game of Death. The two then drove over to the home of Lee's colleague, Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei. When Lee complained of a headache, Pei allegedly gave him an Equagesic - a combination of aspirin and a muscle relaxant. Lee reportedly decided to take a nap, but never woke up.
The only substance found in the actor's autopsy was Equagesic and it was later ruled that he died from a brain edema due to a hypersensitivity to the muscle relaxant in the drug. However, many conspiracy theorists claim that Lee was either murdered by the triads, that he died from a Dim Mak ("death strike") he received some time earlier, or that his family was cursed.
The final theory resurfaced when, on March 31, 1993, his son Brandon Lee was accidentally shot to death while filming his character's death scene in the film The Crow (it was believed the gun only had blanks in it, but a live round was shot into Lee's stomach).Known for: 1920s actress
1920s actress Virginia Rappe was at a party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on Labor Day weekend 1920 with silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Virginia Rappe died a few days after the party from peritonitis, caused by a ruptured bladder.
Arbuckle was charged with murder for the death of Rappe in 1921. Some believed he squashed her to death with his weight while raping her at the 3-day rager. Others believe he raped her with a foreign object, causing peritonitis. According to Arbuckle, he found Rappe in his hotel room vomiting when he had gone back there to change his clothes. He cleaned her up, put her to bed, and returned to the party, assuming she was just drunk. Other party members found her in his room later, ripping her clothes off. Hotel employees were called and she got moved to another room to rest.
Knowing other people were looking after Rappe, Arbuckle returned to LA the following day. Three days later, when she showed no improvements, she was taken to a maternity hospital, which was known for performing abortions, where she died the next day of peritonitis.
After going through three trials and making headlines of the newspapers every day, Arbuckle was finally found not guilty. Additionally, the jury wrote and apology to him:
Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him. We feel also that is was our only plain duty to give him this exoneration. There was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime.He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story on the witness stand, which we all believed.The happening at the hotel was an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, so the evidence shows, was in no way responsible.We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgement of fourteen men and women who have sat listening for thirty-one days to the evidence that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame. Known for: Member of the British royal family
On August 31, 1997, Diana was fatally injured in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. The initial French investigation concluded the accident was caused by the driver's drunken loss of control, but conspiracy theories live on to this day. Was the crash the result of aggressive paparazzi? Did the MI6 or even members of the Royal Family stage the accident to keep Diana from marrying Muslim billionaire Dodi Al-Fayed and having his baby? The official verdict, at which a jury arrived in 2008, was "unlawful killing," but many still question her death.
Recent evidence arose in 2013, lending to a new investigation of the Princess's murder. Researchers believe the crash was a plot planned by MI6 with help from the British military. A former SAS solider claims he worked on an assassination team called The Increment, and has offered sensitive files to the police. Another former SAS solider claims he told his in-laws that the regiment was behind the assassination, which was the story that had reopened the can of worms in the first place. Another story has recently surfaced, suggesting that the car's brakes may have been tampered with beforehand.
Francois Levistre witnessed the car crash saying a white flash of light occurred right in front of Princess Diana's car, which caused the crash. He then saw a motorcycle passenger get off, inspect the car, and make a hand gesture to the motorcycle driver before getting back on and speeding away.Known for: Model and actress
There was a lot of drama surrounding Smith’s untimely death. First her behavior on her reality show became increasingly bizarre, then in late 2006, her son died of an overdose. Smith followed six months later, under the influence of a similar drug cocktail. But what remains unknown is whether Smith took her own life or is she was prescribed the dangerous cocktail.Known for: Film acting
Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, Monroe died in her Brentwood home on August 4, 1962, at 36-years-old. Her housekeeper and psychiatrist discovered Monroe naked in bed with an empty bottle of sleeping pills nearby. Before her death, Monroe had been hospitalized for psychiatric problems and was receiving long-term psychiatric care. Her death was ruled a probable suicide, but many believe Monroe was murdered, possibly to make sure she wouldn't talk about her liaisons with both John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. Although rumors and speculation continue, there is no definitive answer about Monroe's death.
New evidence recently surfaced in 2014 about Monroe's last hours from the late Hollywood private detective Fred Otash, whose work documents on Monroe were recently discovered by his daughter. According to Otash, who had bugged Monroe's house, she had been sexually involved with both John F. Kennedy and his brother, Bobby, and that Monroe had commented that she "had been passed around like piece of meat."
Otash wrote, "I listened to Marilyn Monroe die." In his notes, he recorded that she had been in an heated argument with the Kennedys about being passed between them like "a piece of meat," when he then said, "she was really screaming and they were trying to quiet her down.
"She's in the bedroom and Bobby gets a pillow and muffles her on the bed to keep the neighbors from hearing. She finally quieted down and then he was looking for a way to get out of there."
Otash later discovered that Monroe had died. His notes don't contain any additional information about what he discovered at Monroe's apartment, nor were the tapes recording her encounter with the Kennedy's ever discovered. He also had a red filing cabinet that contained his most sensitive information, but was removed from his house by his lawyer after he died. The contents were never seen again.
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