disappearances, and mob hits, some  of which have become legendary in  

the annals of crime. And a number  of them remain unsolved to this day.

Murder, Inc., gangster Benjamin "Bugsy'' Siegel  made his fortune from bootlegging, prostitution,  

and murder-for-hire. In a more bizarre scheme,  he tried to sell an explosive known as atomite  

to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's  military. But for all his notoriety,  

no one knows for sure who gunned him down  in Beverly Hills, California, in 1947.

Siegel was in California on business and to visit  his daughters, who lived with his former wife  

Esta. After dinner with a handful of friends and  business partners, Siegel returned to the house of  

his mistress Virginia Hill, who'd left for Paris  after a lover's quarrel. There, a gunman shot him  

twice in the face and twice in the chest. Police  struggled to narrow down the suspect list: Siegel  

had a long list of enemies. He had construction  debts related to his Vegas casino, and East Coast  

mobsters like Salvatore "Lucky" Luciano hated him,  as did Virginia Hill's family for mistreating her.

"The cost overruns for the Flamingo were due  mostly to excessive skimming by Bugsy Siegel."

But the lead suspect was Murder, Inc., honcho  Meyer Lansky. In 1947, an FBI informant claimed  

Lansky had identified the killer as Virginia's  brother Chick. But in 2014, Robbie Sedway, son  

of Siegel's bookkeeper Moe Sedway and his wife,  Bee, told LA Magazine his mother's lover, Mathew  

Pandza, killed Siegel before Siegel could kill  Moe. Moe had reportedly ratted to Lansky about  

Siegel's financial issues. So it seems Lansky  was happy to see Siegel go — one way or another.

In 1947, fashion designer Vera West, who worked  on now-classic Universal films such as The Bride  

of Frankenstein and The Killers, was found  dead in her pool by photographer Robert  

Landry. Police found two notes addressed  to "Jack Chandler." The first one read,

"This is the only way. I am  tired of being blackmailed."

And the second one said,

"The fortune teller told me there was only one way  

to duck the blackmail I've  paid for 23 years — death."

A medical examiner determined  that she probably drowned,  

but the Los Angeles County coroner  refused to sign the death report.

The "blackmail" was likely a reference  to whatever scandal triggered West's  

move from New York to California in 1924. The  likeliest suspect was her husband, Jack C. West,  

who gave conflicting accounts about his  whereabouts on the night of her death. He  

also claimed there was no blackmail, but said  her behavior had been erratic. Vera's friends,  

however, suspected her death was a  murder made to look like a suicide.

The investigation was full of holes  and unanswered questions. Police never  

established whether Jack Chandler and Jack  West were the same person. Nor did they ever  

identify the blackmailer or the fortune teller.  Suicide didn't explain how the hydrophobic Vera  

ended up in the pool — she was afraid to even  go near it alone. And then the big question:  

Why did Jack West demolish their  house and disappear without a  

trace? The case is considered cold,  but the mystery remains intriguing.

The body of Elizabeth Short, dubbed the "Black  Dahlia," was found in Los Angeles in 1947 by  

a mother walking with her child on the street.  Short had been brutally murdered. She had suffered  

blunt-force head trauma, had both sides of her  mouth slit, and been severed in half at the waist.

"The only evidence was the body.  The killer had scrubbed it clean."

The troubled Short had left Massachusetts  for California as a minor, where she was  

arrested for underage drinking in 1943.  By 1947, she was a regular at Hollywood  

nightclubs and other fancy joints.  According to local resident Vera French,  

who took Short in at one point, she amassed  a laundry list of suitors and boyfriends.

French said one of Elizabeth's exes had  threatened to kill her for moving on to other  

men. Los Angeles Police Department officer Myrtle  McBride gave an account that agreed with French's,  

adding that a girl resembling Short had approached  her on the street for help with a violent ex,  

although McBride was not able to identify  her with certainty. The case is still cold,  

complicated by bizarre false confessions.  However, observers noted that whoever cut  

up her body very likely had medical training.  In 2016, retired Los Angeles police detective  

Steve Hodel told The Guardian that his  father, Dr. George Hodel, had done it,  

although it's impossible to say for sure,  since much of the original evidence is gone.

In 1943, Italian socialist and journalist Carlo  Tresca, a fierce critic of Mussolini, was gunned  

down in New York City. At the time of his death,  people suspected everyone from Mussolini and  

Italian fascists, who had a warrant out for him,  to American communists. He had that many enemies.  

But in mid-20th-century New York, where there was  murder, there was often the Cosa Nostra. In fact,  

future Bonanno Family boss Carmine  Galante was believed to be the shooter.

"He was head of the Bonanno  crime family. Known as "The  

Cigar," he was widely feared for his cruelty."

Galante spent some time in jail  as a suspect in the murder,  

but he was released without charges,  and the case was never closed.

Tresca was likely the victim of an alliance  between fascist Italy and Cosa Nostra  

kingpin Don Vito Genovese. Tresca had stymied  Mussolini's activities in America for years.  

Despite Mussolini's anti-mafia campaign during  the 1920s, the dictator grew close to Genovese,  

who functioned sort of like his American  fixer. So when Tresca hindered Mussolini's  

influence among Italians in America,  he also ran afoul of Genovese. In fact,  

Tresca allegedly threatened to expose  a drug ring Genovese ran out of Italy.

So it would seem Genovese had Tresca  killed, both out of self-interest and as  

a favor to Mussolini. Lucky Luciano quipped  in 1961 that, when Mussolini had a problem,  

Genovese would "take care of it" for him. One  of those problems, Luciano said, was Tresca.

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders were  two double and one single murder that  

took place near Texarkana, Texas, between March  and May of 1946. Teenagers Richard Griffin and  

Polly Anne Moore were removed from their car,  shot in the head with a .32 caliber pistol,  

and returned to the vehicle. The following  month, a second pair of teens were dragged  

out of their car and shot, again with  a .32. A third murder hit the news in  

May when Virgil Starks was shot dead in his  home; his wife survived with two bullets to  

the face. In Starks' case, the killer used a  .22 but left similar tire tracks at the scene.

Police believed the crimes were related. A  third couple, Jim Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey,  

who survived a similar attack in February,  reported an assailant wearing a burlap sack  

and armed with a gun, likely a pistol, which he  used to whip Hollis. Like at least one of the  

murdered women, Larey had been sexually assaulted  — another detail the attacks had in common.

The killings caused panic in Texarkana.

"When dark came, the kids came in. People didn't  go downtown too much. They were frightened."

Gun sales skyrocketed, and women took their  children to hotels whenever their husbands  

were out of town. Police never confirmed the  killer's identity, but Texarkana native and  

author James Presley, nephew of the Bowie  County sheriff who investigated the murders,  

told Texas Monthly that the killer  was likely a man named Youell Swinney,  

who was incarcerated on car theft charges in  1947. The case, however, is officially cold.

Sisters Ann and Margaret Richards  were granddaughters of Tennessee  

hotel mogul Joseph Richards. The sisters,  who were white, along with Leonard Brown,  

a Black teenager who worked for them, were  murdered in their Oliver Springs mansion in  

1940, in a cold-blooded killing that brought  together crime and race in the Jim Crow South.

"It's been over 75 years, you know, and  people are still reluctant to talk about it."

Initially, law enforcement suspected Brown of  killing the sisters in a murder-suicide. The  

killer had positioned the gun to make it  seem like Brown had killed himself after  

shooting the women. Witnesses added that Brown  had left the house of the family that owned the  

murder weapon the same morning, suggesting  he'd stolen the gun. With this evidence,  

the sheriff closed the case and  declared Brown guilty. But there  

were doubts. Brown was known as a good kid  who was afraid of loud bangs. And he'd been  

shot in the forehead from above — an unlikely  trajectory for a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In 2000, a man reported seeing two other  men leave the mansion on the day of the  

killing. After the men threatened him, the  witness skipped town. Based on his testimony,  

law enforcement exonerated Brown and tied  the killing to a property dispute the women  

had with their cousin, Mary Sienknecht,  who had lost a property case against the  

pair years earlier. But all the suspects  are dead, including one suspect who was  

shot to death by another, reportedly  to prevent him from talking to police.

Oil heiress Georgette Bauerdorf was  found dead in her bathtub in 1944,  

wearing only her pajama top. The Los Angeles  Police Department initially suspected an  

accident because her valuables were untouched,  apart from a missing $100. But when they found  

a medical bandage stuffed down her throat, they  realized she'd been murdered. Beyond the bandage,  

her body was bruised, her skull punched in, and  her knuckle bones shattered. She'd put up a fight.

Police searched Bauerdorf's diary for clues.  The journal contained the names of soldiers  

she'd been involved with, and they became  suspects. Police suspected Cpl. Cosmo Volpe,  

who was witnessed aggressively pursuing  Bauerdorf and getting between her and other  

men on the dance floor at the Hollywood  Canteen, where she worked. But police  

released him after his alibi checked out.  Sgt. Gordon Aadland, who hitched a ride  

with her and became the last person to see her  alive, was also exonerated after questioning.

According to retired Los Angeles police  detective Steve Hodel, the biggest clue  

may be the medical bandage found lodged in  her throat, a kind that hadn't been available  

in the area for over 20 years. With that in  mind, Hodel has suggested that the killer was  

a medical professional, similar to whoever  murdered and dismembered Elizabeth Short.

Lewis Allyn, a "pure food" activist and college  chemistry professor, was murdered at his house  

in Westfield, Massachusetts, in 1940. He  lived in a respectable home with his wife,  

ran a lab, and taught classes at what  is today Westfield State University. One  

night in May, after an argument with  an unidentified person at his door,  

Allyn was shot twice in the face and twice  in the body. His killer was never caught.

Sensational theories surfaced to explain Allyn's  killing, accusing everyone from Nazis who wanted  

his patents for food preservatives to  a food industry angry at his promotion  

of "pure food" standards, and even the mafia,  which had supposedly targeted Allyn for being  

a government informant, according to Westfield  historian Bob Brown. However, according to Brown,  

none of these had any basis in fact. They were  just grand conspiracy theories that sprang up  

amid intense national coverage after law  enforcement failed to solve the crime.

Brown hints at two alternative possibilities.  Allyn had a reputation as a womanizer, and may  

have had relationships with his female students.  Given that the murder began with an argument,  

it's possible Allyn ran afoul of a father,  husband, or boyfriend of one of these women,  

and was killed in a crime of passion. Or maybe he  was killed by someone who lost money by investing  

in a company Allyn had promoted. Either way,  the killing remains unsolved 84 years later.

Margaret Treese was a war widow and divorcee  who moved to Iowa after divorcing her second  

husband in West Virginia. One morning in 1947,  two workers found her dead in a Davenport,  

Iowa, park. According to the Estherville Daily  News, she was found naked, badly disfigured,  

and covered with tattoos, which led her killing  to be dubbed "the Tattoo Murder Case." Her killers  

had shown no mercy, stabbing her at least 10  times and even running her over with a car.

Police quickly turned their attention to  Treese's social circles, which included a  

handful of men with whom she appeared  to have been romantically involved.  

Treese was also known as a regular at  the taverns on Davenport's Skid Row.

Witnesses said she was last seen outside a Skid  Row bar getting into a car with three men. In  

1956, however, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported  that an unidentified woman, who described herself  

as an acquaintance of Treese, had seen her just  a few hours before her death in a car with two  

men. According to the news report, both men  were "known police figures." Police never  

ascertained a motive and no one was ever charged.  At this point, the perpetrators are likely dead.

In the 1930s, the Brooklyn waterfront was  a haven of mob activity. According to Tom  

Folsom's The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and  the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld,  

mobsters like Gallo got their start  there, enforcing kickback schemes,  

roping workers into rigged numbers games,  and directing them to mafia loan sharks to  

cover their losses. Tired of their tactics,  Italian longshoreman Pete Panto attempted to  

rally people against the Cosa Nostra in  July 1939. He disappeared a week later.

Panto's fate was confirmed in 1941  when his body was found buried in a  

New Jersey lime pit. According to  a Time Magazine story from 1952,  

Panto had run afoul of none other than  Umberto Anastasio, better known as "High  

Lord Executioner" Albert Anastasia, who  ruthlessly ran the New York waterfront.

"Within the mafia, Anastasia was recognized  as a ruthless, unflinching killer."

According to the outlet, New York Mayor Bill  O'Dwyer, at the time a Brooklyn prosecutor,  

had promised to bring the killers to justice.  Unfortunately Murder, Inc., hitman Abe Reles,  

the city's star witness, conveniently took  a fatal fall out of a window before trial.

"You had the perfect murder case. You had the  

murderer. You had the smoking  gun. And nobody goes to trial."

This was, of course, Mayor  O'Dwyer's account. Time,  

however, revealed that O'Dwyer had  buried a conversation between two  

of Anastasia's men discussing Panto's killing  and directly implicating the capo. Furthermore,  

Anastasia was never questioned – the first  thing any good detective would have done.  

So although Panto's murder is technically  unsolved, everyone knew who was behind it.

Twenty-one-year-old Texarkana native  Virginia Carpenter was supposed  

to start school at the Texas State  College for Women in Denton. Instead,