1993: A Firewood Hunt Led to Two More Bodies in Belanglo Forest

In October 1993, a local man out gathering firewood stumbled on human remains in a remote corner of Belanglo State Forest. The bones belonged to Deborah Everist and James Gibson, a Melbourne couple missing since 1989.

What unsettled investigators was that Gibson’s camera and backpack had already turned up years earlier, dumped by the roadside at Galston Gorge, more than 120 kilometres from where his body finally lay. Within weeks, a wider search of the forest uncovered four more young backpackers buried nearby, confirming Belanglo as the burial ground of a serial killer.

Belanglo State Forest
Dark History of Belanglo Forest

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1974: Vanished in Utah: the Teenager Ted Bundy Later Confessed to Killing

Sixteen-year-old Nancy Wilcox vanished from Holladay, Utah in 1974, one of a string of young women who disappeared across the state that year without a trace. No body was ever found, no arrest followed, and for years her family had only questions.

The answer came from Ted Bundy himself. Awaiting execution years later, he confessed to her murder as part of a wider accounting of his crimes, admitting to a killing police had never been able to solve. Her remains have still never been recovered.

Exhibit with the Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, USA - December 18 2025: The Volkswagen of serial killer Ted Bundy in an exhibit the Alcatraz East Crime Museum | ID 426074004 © Raisamacouze | Dreamstime.com
ID 426074004 © Raisamacouze | Dreamstime.com

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1982: Seven Dead, No One Ever Charged: the Chicago Tylenol Poisonings

On September 29, 1982, 12 year old Mary Kellerman took a Tylenol capsule for a cold and died within hours. Within two days six more people in the Chicago area died the same way, including three members of a single family, the Januses, who had unknowingly shared capsules from the same tainted batch.

Someone had opened bottles on store shelves, replaced the medicine inside with potassium cyanide, and resealed them for unsuspecting buyers to find. No poisoner was ever caught. A man named James W. Lewis was convicted of extortion after writing to the manufacturer claiming responsibility and demanding a million dollars to stop the deaths, but he later insisted the letter was a bluff, and investigators could never tie him to the actual killings.

The case remains unsolved to this day, but it changed how medicine is sold worldwide, ending loose powder capsules and ushering in the tamper proof seals now standard on every bottle.

Capsules of Tylenol Pain Killer. A container of Tylenol tablets pain killer. | ID 207734574 © Arne Beruldsen | Dreamstime.com
ID 207734574 © Arne Beruldsen | Dreamstime.com

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1978: The Vatican Cover-Up That Fuelled a Poisoning Legend: the Death of Pope John Paul I

Pope John Paul I was found dead in his bed after just 33 days in office, the shortest papacy since 1605, with a religious devotional still in his hands. The Vatican initially claimed a priest had discovered the body; in truth it was a nun, Sister Vincenza, who found him, and officials lied about it out of embarrassment that a woman had entered the private papal quarters.

No autopsy was performed and the body was embalmed with unusual speed, feeding decades of speculation that he had been poisoned to stop him exposing corruption at the Vatican Bank. One theory even produced a mobster who claimed to have helped administer the poison. Later research drawing on confidential Vatican archives instead found a simpler explanation: a history of heart trouble, chest pains the night before his death, and no doctor ever called.

Castel Gandolfo Lazio Italy. Portrait of Pope John Paul I, albino luciani in the museum of the pontifical villas 11 Sep 2022 Castel Gandolfo Italy | ID 259284583 © Maudanros | Dreamstime.com
ID 259284583 © Maudanros | Dreamstime.com

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