Great Unsolved Crimes Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Concert

"The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" is a painting by Rembrandt, and is also among the most valuable stolen paintings-- certainly the most valuable Rembrandt. It was stolen, along with "The Concert," from the Gardner.

"Girl with a Pearl Earring" is an oil painting by Vermeer. The painting has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902, and was not stolen.

"The Scream" is the common name given to each of a number of versions of a composition by the Expressionist artist Edvard Munch, all created between 1893 and 1910. "Der Schrei der Natur" ("The Scream of Nature") is the actual title Munch bestowed upon these works. Versions of "The Scream" have been the target of several thefts. In 1994, the version in the National Gallery (US) was stolen. It was recovered several months later. In 2004, "The Scream" was stolen from the Munch Museum (Norway), and was recovered two years later.

Answer: The Taman Shud Case

It is called "Taman Shud," due to a misprint in an early newspaper article, even though the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" ends with the words "Tamam Shud," or "The end," in Persian; a piece of paper from the end of a copy of this book was sewn into the lining of the man's coat.

This page in the man's clothing led some people to conclude that he committed suicide, but without his identity, it is impossible to know. His clothes were devoid of all identifying marks, including all tags and laundry marks. His fingerprints were dead ends. Because of what were obviously to the police, deliberate attempts to hide his identity, the police who investigated the finding of the body, thought it must have been murder. Even the cause of death was obscure. He was not shot or stabbed. Poisoning was suspected, though the medical examiner could not find any poison, but that did not eliminate the possibility, and the ME was sure the cause of death was not natural.

Cryptic writing in a copy of the "Rubaiyat," from which the last page had been removed, suggested he was using it to work out some kind of code or cipher when he died.

He did have unusual ears, and the police hoped that this might help identify him, but it has proved another dead end.

Answer: a briefcase

Although the man was widely reported in the newspapers as "D.B. Cooper," this was a mistake. He bought his ticket under the name Dan Cooper. He demanded $200,000 in "negotiable American currency"; four parachutes; and a fuel truck standing by in Seattle to refuel the aircraft upon landing. After releasing all the passengers, he had the plane take off again, and then jumped over a wooded area, from a cold altitude, during a cold month, wearing nothing but his business suit, with the bag of money tied around his waist.

He was never found, and neither was any trace of his parachute. However, in 1978 a placard containing instructions for lowering the stairs of a plane like the one from which Cooper had jumped was found by a deer hunter near a logging road; much more importantly (and impressively), in February 1980 an eight-year-old boy named Brian Ingram discovered three packets of money. It had rotted, but was still tied in rubber bands and the serial numbers were legible; it was arranged in the same order as it had been when given to Cooper. It was a portion of the ransom money, the FBI confirmed.

Ingram was allowed to keep a portion of the bills, which he sold at auction for $37,000 in 2008. No more of the money has ever turned up, and the possibility that it all rotted away completely is one valid theory.

Cooper was estimated to be in his mid-40s in 1971, so the odds are that whoever he was, he is dead. Two people actually confessed, but their confessions were doubtful from the beginning, and they later recanted. One was from a transgendered man, who was too short to fit the description of Cooper in the first place. A number of people have proposed conveniently dead relatives as Cooper, and several were seriously investigated, but none has panned out.

The prevailing FBI theory is that Cooper perished in the very dangerous jump, and his remains were carried off by animals. However, a recreation of his jump by a ex-military parachutist duplicating the conditions of Cooper's jump down to his business suit, and the weight of the money around his waist, demonstrated that depending on Cooper's experience as a parachutist, it is at least possible that he survived.

Answer: a baby's bassinet from J.C. Penney

The Philadelphia police were not so hardened as not to be affected by a small child who died by being beaten to death, and the whole force contributed in some way to this case. When it proved unsolvable, because the boy was unidentifiable, the police took up a collection to bury him, under an epitaph which now reads "America's Unknown Child," a reference to the grave of the Unknown Soldier.

It originally read "Heavenly Father, Bless this Unknown Boy." The stone was replaced when the child was exhumed in 1998 to retrieve DNA.

This measure still failed to identify him.

Answer: Dear Boss

No other name has ever been given to the killer-- or possibly killers-- other than Jack the Ripper, of several women in the East End of London in the Fall of 1888.

The police believed the letter to be a hoax, as they had received many such letters over the course of the investigation, but this one was made public, and the name caught on.

Shortly afterwards, the Central News Agency received a postcard signed "Saucy Jacky," also addressing "dear old Boss." It seemed obvious to the police that only a reporter would call the Central News Agency "Boss," and a reporter seemed a prime candidate for a letter-hoaxer, especially with a creative name like "Jack the Ripper."

There was a reference to "getting the ears for the police," in the "Jack" missives, a detail the police had not released to the public, so these letters were taken more seriously than most of the hoax letters sent to the police. It was not impossible a reporter could have gotten the information about the ears from a police informant, though.

Answer: a heterochromic (dark) stripe on the iris of her right eye

Madeleine's disappearance has been called "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history," and yet, no trace of her has been found, alive or dead.

Heterochromia iridum of Madeleine's type is called sectoral heterochromia, a section of the iris is different from the rest. In complete heterochromia, one iris is a different color from the other, and in central heterochromia, spikes of different colors point out from the pupil. There are many causes of heterochromia: it may be inherited in several ways, from genetic mosaicism, to conditions like Waardenburg syndrome, or it may be caused by disease or injury to the eye, including in utero assaults to the developing iris. The cause of Madeleine's heterochromia is unknown.

While heterochromia iridum is not uncommon, no two cases are alike, and it is in fact, a very useful way of identifying a person, as useful as fingerprints.

Answer: the fact that the time gap between the murders ensured that she would inherit her father's estate

It may seem obvious to people who have watched numerous television shows where medical examiners fixing the time of death has been crucial to a case, but the times of the actual deaths were not considered as part of the body of evidence against Borden, even though under the inheritance laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at the time, there was an important point that explained one of the more curious aspects of the crime.

Andrew and Abby Borden died more than an hour apart, and importantly, Abby was found cold, with blood clotted, while Andrew was warm and still bleeding. It was imminently clear, even to a layperson in 1892, that Abby died first. This meant that Lizzie and her sister inherited the entirety of Andrew Borden's considerable estate. If there had been any doubt, and a coroner had ruled that Andrew had died first, his estate would have gone to Abby's nearest relative, with just a small stipend going to the sisters-- just enough to keep them out of the almshouse.

Since it is unlikely that a burglar, robber, or person with some kind of revenge motive against Andrew-- all things investigated by the police at the time-- would have killed Abby, then hung around for an hour waiting to kill Andrew, there must have been a special motive for the time gap, which only Lizzie and her sister had, and Lizzie's sister was out of town at the time.

Why this was not used as circumstantial evidence at her trial is unknown. It may have involved a cunning that people did not attribute to Lizzie, or to women in general, at the time.

Answer: they took a bus

The children frequently took a bus to the beach by themselves. Jane, the oldest was nine, and generally considered old enough to be responsible for the younger children.

One notable thing about the case was that their mother had given them coins for the bus, and to buy food, but no paper money, yet they bought a meat pie with a one-pound note, and it is not known where they got it, although they were seen with a tall, blond man, who may have given it to them. He was a suspect in their disappearance, or possible witness, but was never located.

This was a highly publicized case, and changed the way children were supervised in Australia. After this case, it was rare for children to go around by themselves at such young ages as the Beaumont children were, even though it had been typical before, and no one considered the disappearance the parents' fault.

Answer: Bruce Anderson

Bruce Anderson was found with a man named William Walters, who stated that the child was the son of Julia Anderson, and he had permission to have the boy. Julia Anderson said she had given permission only for an overnight trip, and Walters had kept the boy for months.

Many people nonetheless identified the boy from photographs on fliers as the highly publicized, missing Bobby Dunbar, including Bobby's parents. After a long court battle, he was awarded to the Dunbars, and raised, lived and died as Bobby Dunbar.

However, in 2004, DNA testing on Bobby Dunbar, jr., and the son of Bobby's brother Alonzo Dunbar showed them to be unrelated. Further testing showed Bobby Dunbar, jr. to be, in fact, related to descendants of Julia Anderson.

The actual fate of the real Bobby Dunbar remains unknown, and probably unknowable.

Answer: Chicago, IL

The first suspect in the poisonings was James William Lewis, a man who wrote a letter to the Tylenol company demanding a ransom in order to end the killings; however, it seems that he was merely an opportunist who was looking to profit from the tragedy, and was not the actual poisoner. He was convicted of extortion, and remains the only person convicted of a crime related to the poisonings. In 2010, the police took DNA samples from Lewis and his wife, which led nowhere.

Ted Kaczynsky, the Unabomber, was also investigated, but he claimed never to have used poison, and that investigation also led nowhere. Also, neither man was known to be in the Chicago area at the time.

Before the poisonings, packaged drugs and food did not have all the redundant safety seals and boxes they now have. These are all a direct result of attempts to discourage future poisoners.