List of unsolved deaths

This list of unsolved deaths includes notable cases where:

The cause of death could not be officially determined following an investigation The person's identity could not be established after they were found dead The cause is known, but the manner of death (homicide, suicide, accident) could not be determined following an investigation Different official investigations have come to different conclusions

Unsolved murders

Unsolved deaths

Ancient

The La Brea Woman is the partial skeleton of a young woman (aged 18–25) excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits in present-day Los Angeles, California in 1914. Radiocarbon dating places her date of death between 8250 and 8220 BCE (10,250–10,220 BP). Her precise cause and circumstances of death have not been established.

The Younger Lady (25–35) is the informal name given to the mummy of a woman who lived during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt and was discovered in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings in tomb KV35 by archaeologist Victor Loret in 1898.Reeves, Nicholas. Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Valley of the Kings. p. 100. Thames & Hudson. 1997. (Reprint) Genetic analysis published in 2010 identified the KV35 Younger Lady as the mother of Tutankhamun and indicated that she and the KV55 mummy were children of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. Her cause of death has not been established.

Tutankhamun (18–19), an Egyptian pharaoh, died around 1323 BCE. Medical and genetic examination identified several disorders and evidence of malaria infection, but his precise cause of death remains debated.

The Hasanlu Lovers are the remains of two humans found at Teppe Hasanlu, Iran, in 1972 who are thought to have died . Their precise causes of death have not been established.

The Borremose bodies are three bog bodies found in 1946 and 1948 in the Borremose peat bog in Himmerland, Denmark. The first Borremose man was found with a rope around his neck, indicating hanging, while forensic examination did not establish whether the death of Borremose Woman resulted from homicide, suicide, accident, or natural causes.Andersen, S., Geertinger, P., "Bog bodies investigated in the light of forensic medicine." Journal of Danish Archaeology Vol. 3, 1984, pp. 111–119.

The Saltmen are naturally preserved human remains recovered from the salt mines at Chehrabad in Zanjan Province, Iran. Archaeological evidence indicates that some of the miners died when mine galleries collapsed, while the circumstances surrounding all of the recovered individuals have not been established.

Alexander the Great (32) died in Babylon in 323 BCE following an acute illness. Numerous causes have subsequently been proposed, and medical studies have reached different conclusions about the cause of his fatal illness.

Cleopatra (39), the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, died in Alexandria in August 30 BCE. Ancient accounts generally describe her death as suicide but differ over the method, including accounts involving snakebite or poison. The surviving evidence does not establish the precise method of her death.

The Weerdinge Men were two bog bodies found in the southern part of Bourtanger Moor in Drenthe, the Netherlands, in 1904. The taller individual had a substantial chest wound, while the cause of death of the smaller individual remains uncertain. They died between approximately 160 BCE and 220 CE.

Medieval Princess Yongtai (15–16), 701. In both the Old Book of Tang and New Book of Tang, it is recorded that she was executed by Empress Wu Zetian with her brother and husband because of spreading rumors about the two officials Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, who were also the lovers of Empress Wu Zetian. However, from her epitaph, it was said she was pregnant when she died. From a piece of her pelvic bone, it has been presumed that she died from childbirth, because her pelvis seems to be smaller than other women at the same age. It is also suspected that she went into shock on hearing the news that her brother and husband had been executed, and it caused a fatal miscarriage. Emperor Taizu of Song (49), the first emperor of Song dynasty, died in 976. There are no records about how he died. However, his younger brother was granted the throne due to the fact that he had two grown sons. There is a folk story "shadows by the candle and sounds from an axe" possibly indicating that he was murdered by his brother, but it may also have been a suicide. Roopkund is a high-altitude glacial lake in the Uttarakhand state of India. It lies in the lap of Trishul massif, located in the Himalayas. It is widely known for the hundreds of ancient human skeletons found at the edge of the lake. The human skeletal remains are visible at its bottom when the snow melts. Research generally points to a semi-legendary event where a group of people were killed in a sudden, violent hailstorm in the 9th century. Studies placed the time of mass death around the 9th century CE (1,200 years old) and second group of skeletons were dated to the 19th century CE. The skeletons' identities are unknown, but radiocarbon dating suggests that the older remains were deposited over an extended period of time, while the remains of the younger group were deposited during a single event. King William II of England (43–44), 1100, was killed by an arrow while hunting; it may or may not have been an accident.Quoted in Barlow William Rufus p. 421 Agnès Sorel (28), 1450, was Charles VII of France's chief royal mistress, having four daughters with him. Sorel fell ill while pregnant with their 4th daughter, and after giving birth, died on 9 February 1450Wellman 2013, p. 46. from causes which are disputed.

Early modern The Lovers of Cluj-Napoca (30s), a nickname given to two skeletons found in a former Dominican convent in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in 2013, are thought to have lived between 1450 and 1550. Their exact causes of death are unclear. Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (45), a Lancastrian, died after mysteriously falling overboard and drowning while sailing through the English Channel in September 1475.Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts in the Archives and Collections of Milan 1385–1618, p. 220 Though there are different theories to what happened, none were ever proved to be true. Regiomontanus (40), whose real name was "Johannes Müller von Königsberg", was an astrologer, mathematician, and astronomer of the German Renaissance who was active in countries in Europe. He was thought to have died from the plagueO'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Regiomontanus", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews. on 6 July 1476, but this is not known for sure. Princes in the Tower, used to refer to Edward V, King of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York who disappeared in the summer of 1483.R. F. Walker, "Princes in the Tower", in S. H. Steinberg et al, A New Dictionary of British History, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1963, p. 286. In 1674, workmen at the Tower of London dug up a wooden box under the staircase in the Tower which contained two small human skeletons. The bones were widely accepted at the time as those of the princes, but this remains uncertain. King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey, where they remain. Amy Robsart (28), 1560, was the first wife of Lord Robert Dudley, favourite of Queen Elizabeth I of England. She is primarily known for her death by falling down a flight of stairs, the circumstances of which have often been regarded as suspicious. King Charles XII (36) of Sweden was struck in the head by a projectile and killed. The definitive circumstances around Charles's death remain unclear. Despite multiple investigations of the battlefield, Charles's skull and his clothes, it is not known where and when he was hit, or whether the shot came from the ranks of the enemy or from his own men. Cornelia Zangheri Bandi (66) was an Italian noblewoman whose death on 15 March 1731 may have been a case of spontaneous human combustion. But the case has never been proven, with the true cause of death remaining unknown. A human skull that was found off Vanikoro in April 2003 was thought to have been that of Gaspard Duché de Vancy (35–36), who disappeared in 1788. Who it belonged to and the cause of death are unknown. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (35), composer, died on 5 December 1791. The circumstances of his death have attracted much research and speculation, as it remains unclear whether he died from disease or poisoning. There have also been conspiracy theories.

19th century

Meriwether Lewis (35), a US explorer who helped explore Louisiana Purchase territory, was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in an inn along the Natchez Trace nature trail in Tennessee, in 1809. Though it was originally declared a suicide, historians debate whether it was possibly murder due to the nature of his injuries and the lack of a thorough autopsy. The Female Stranger (23) refers to an unnamed US woman who died in 1816 and was elevated to national intrigue by the mysterious headstone and romanticized tale."News of the Day" Alexandria Gazette (Alexandria, VA) Wednesday, 30 May 1849. Accounts of the stranger increase in oddity over time and help to incite further speculation as to the identity of the person buried in the grave. The reported location of the woman's death, Room 8 at Gadsby's Tavern, is also a tourist destination, and supposedly her ghostly visage can be seen standing at the window. Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach (57), a German legal scholar, died on 29 May 1833. The circumstances remain unclear – his family as well as he himself shortly before his death believed that he had been poisoned due to his protection of and research work on Kaspar Hauser, who himself died the same year under suspicious circumstances (see below). The events leading to the death of German youth Kaspar Hauser (21) remain a mystery, like many points regarding his life and identity. On 14 December 1833, he came home with a deep stab wound in his chest and died three days later. While he claimed he was attacked, the court of enquiry doubted this due to inconsistencies in his story and speculated that he wounded himself to seek attention and revive the fading public interest in him, a theory that is also supported by some historians today. Thomas Simpson (31) was a Scottish Arctic explorer, Hudson's Bay Company agent and cousin of Company Governor Sir George Simpson. His violent death in what is now the state of Minnesota allegedly by suicide after gunning down two traveling companions in the wilderness on 6 June 1840 has long been a subject of controversy and has never been solved. John Gregory (42) was an English engineer who served aboard HMS Erebus during the 1845 Franklin Expedition, which sought to explore uncharted parts of the Northwest Passage. He is believed to have died some time around May 1848. Gregory's remains were identified via DNA analysis in 2021, although his exact cause of death is undetermined.

Edgar Allan Poe (40) US writer, editor, and literary critic, died on 7 October 1849 under circumstances that remain mysterious, and the cause of his death is disputed. On 3 October 1849, he was found delirious in Baltimore, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker.Bandy, 26–27 He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died days later.