A fair number of celebrity , whether actors , athletes , or socialites , have met strange and tragic end over the years . While the absolute majority of these death have been resolved through the court system , many of the more bizarre subject have remained unsolved – form them everlasting fodder for gossip cartridge , investigative news shows , and public venture . The mystery and machination around unresolved renown deaths only seems to grow with the passage of prison term ; yet , in most illustration , investigators are no closer to solving these case than they were to lead off with . Here are 10 of the most notorious unsolved celebrity demise of all meter .
9. Jack Nance, Actor
Jack Nance was an actor best known for his piece of work with director David Lynch . He played the main character in the 1977 cult movieEraserhead(he ’s the guy on the noted card with the brainsick hair . ) Jack Nance also starred in other David Lynch movies such asDune(1984 ) andBlue Velvet(1986 ) , as well as pic such asBarfly(1987 ) andColors(1988 ) . In 1996 , Nance give-up the ghost under circumstance worthy of a Lynch picture show .
On December 29 , 1996 , Nance showed up at lunch with friends in South Pasadena , California with bruise on his face . By all report , Nance was nonchalant about the injuries , tell his dining companions that a young homeless man had beat him outside a Winchell ’s Donuts fix the late night . After luncheon , Nance headed home , remarking to his champion that he felt a headache coming on . The next solar day , the actor digest a subdural hematoma due to manoeuvre harm , resulting in his death on December 30 , 1996 . A lengthy police probe failed to receive evidence of the allege scrap with a homeless serviceman or anyone else for that matter , and his death remains an open investigation .
8. Ronni Chasen, Publicist
Ronni Chasen was a popular and successful publicizer in Hollywood , represent A - list player such as Michael Douglas , as well as composers such as Hans Zimmer . By all accounts , Chasen lived a uninfected and respectful lifetime and had never had any trouble with the jurisprudence . So it was especially shameful on November 16 , 2010 when Chasen was gunned down in Beverly Hills as she was driving home from the Hollywood premiere of the filmBurlesque .
law investigated , but observe no eye witnesses , no grounds , and no need for the offence , which is believe to have been targeted . Nobody came forward with any information about the shot . To this 24-hour interval , nobody knows who killed Ronni Chasen or what the motivation was for her murder and the case stay open . Making the position even more bizarre , Chasen ’s banking concern accounts had no money in them at the time of her death . She emptied them in the days before the shot that killed her and nobody seems to know why .
7. Chris Trickle, NASCAR Driver
Chris Trickle was a pop up - and - coming NASCAR driver when the then 24 - year - onetime died on March 25 , 1998 . What made his end strange was that Trickle died more than a yr after he was fritter outdoors of a Las Vegas casino on February 9 , 1997 . The gun for hire was never describe , and a bizarre quirk in Nevada law at that fourth dimension intend that nobody could be prosecute for Trickle ’s murder , since his death occurred more than a year and a twenty-four hour period after the shot . While this weird law has since been changed , no suspects have ever been identify , and the casing demand who shot Chris Trickle ( and why ) is now labeled “ cold ” by Las Vegas police .
6. Jill Dando, TV Journalist
British television journalist Jill Dando was staggeringly popular in her native England . She work as a news reporter and conferrer on the BBC for 14 years . The pretty Jill Dando was nominate “ BBC Personality of the Year ” in 1997 and her popularity made her murder on April 26 , 1999 both shocking and stunning for the British world . While allow the home of her fiancé , Dando was killed by a single gunshot to the back of her head , or “ execution style ” as the British police claimed . This coiffe off what became know as “ Operation Oxborough , ” the bighearted execution inquiry and largest criminal investigation in the United Kingdom since the James Henry Leigh Hunt for Jack the Ripper .
Yet despite the involvement of both Scotland Yard and Interpol , the murder of Jill Dando has never been solved . A local gentleman diagnose Barry George was convict and jailed for the murder , but was later comport on appealingness and released . To particular date , the slaying investigation remains open , with the most late hypothesis being that Jill Dando was killed by a Yugoslavian terrorist group she had been look into . Ironically , at the clock time of her death , Dando was hosting the long running BBC boob tube programCrimewatch , which reconstructs major unresolved criminal offence and solicit information from the populace to help work out the caseful .
5. Mary Meyer, Socialite
Mary Meyer was a socialite who moved in muscular circles within Washington , D.C. in the early sixties . She was matrimonial to CIA executive Cord Meyer and was cover to be a mistress of then U.S. President John F. Kennedy . On October 12 , 1964 , nearly a yr after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , Mary Meyer was shot to death while walking along a nerve pathway by the Ohio Canal in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington , D.C. A machinist work on a car nearby account hearing two gun shots and a woman sidesplitter , and also saw a valet de chambre in a dark jacket fleeing the scene . The murder of Mary Meyer was never solved ; however , detective tried to link her murder to John F. Kennedy ’s assassination and there have been composition she was killed for “ knowing too much . ” Interestingly , her hubby , CIA official Cord Meyer , refused to join forces with the investigation after giving an initial argument to police .
4. Christa Helm, Actress
She was n’t a vast star , but Christa Helm was a beautiful actress who had parts on seventies goggle box shows such asWonder WomanandStarsky and Hutch . At the metre of her expiry in 1977 , she was get it on more for her relationships with A - list renown . Helm was attend publicly on the arms of notorious ladies ’ military personnel such as Warren Beatty , Mick Jagger , and Joe Namath , and even dated the Shah of Iran for a period of sentence . Helm also kept a detailed “ sex journal ” according to her supporter , and she used to joke about using the diary to blackmail some of her famous lovers . Sadly , it all catch up with up to her in the summertime of 1977 when she was stabbed to death on a dark street in West Hollywood . Police key the diary at her house after the death and suspected she was killed for what she sleep together , but the Orcinus orca has never been identified .
3. Natalie Wood, Actress
Natalie Wood ’s last has been tabloid fodder since it occurred in 1981 . While her death has been govern an “ accidental drowning ” at various point , the compositor’s case has also been reopened by police several times over the years , most late in 2014 , with nobody really sure how she died . What is known is that Natalie Wood drowned while on a weekend boat trip in California with her then hubby , actor Robert Wagner , and worker Christopher Walken , whom Wood was filming a movie with at the time . precisely how Wood terminate up in the piddle and drowned in the early hours of November 29 , 1981 is obscure , as neither Wagner or Walken admit see the actress enter the water .
2. Bob Crane, Actor
Bob Crane was a likable American actor best known for his starring purpose in the 1960s television showHogan ’s Heroes , as well as starring in a few Disney movies during the seventies such asSuperdad . Sadly , the role player was found bludgeoned to death at the seedy Winfield Place Apartments in Scottsdale , Arizona , on June 29 , 1978 . law mistrust the arm used to obliterate Crane was a camera tripod . The popular actor had been intemperately Byzantine in the cloak-and-dagger sex scene and videotaped his numerous sexcapades with the help of his champion John Henry Carpenter , an audio - optical expert .
While hundreds of video tapes of Bob Crane having gender with women were come across after his death , the killer was never distinguish . constabulary suspect that Carpenter was the murderer but could never try it . Carpenter die of natural causes in 1998 while still a free man – 20 years after Bob Crane ’s murder , which still rest unsolved .
1. Jimmy Hoffa, Union Leader
The most famous unresolved slaying of all time has to be former head of the Teamsters Union Jimmy Hoffa . What makes Hoffa ’s death so strange and mysterious is the fact that his body has never been found , and no killer or motive has ever been identified either . The labor union president , who was be intimate to have ties with unionize crime , simply disappeared in 1975 . Hoffa was last seen in the parking flock of a restaurant in Bloomfield Township , Michigan in 1975 while waitress to meet with a local marriage loss leader from New Jersey to make up a feud . The union drawing card never showed and Hoffa ’s car was encounter in the restaurant parking lot the next day , clean and spotless .
No evidence was found in Hoffa ’s auto , and no clue have ever been unearthed as to what happened to the well - know union leader . Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982 , though his organic structure has never been recovered . Books , motion picture , and even song have been written about his disappearing , which has been called one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th Century .
