True Crime On This Day November 15th

November 15th

On November 15th in true crime, an airplane bombing, the Unabomber, cold case murder, missing person, and assassination.

1978

In Bergen County, New Jersey, the body of an unidentified 30-45-year-old white male was discovered in a leaf compositing site. Workers of the New Jersey Department of Public Works had made the discovery.

The unidentified man had been killed at some point in 1978 and an autopsy suggested he may have been a musician. The identity of the man remains a mystery and is an active cold case in the State of New Jersey.

1979

American Airlines Flight 444 was a target for Ted Kaczynski, AKA: The Unabomber. He had managed to plant a bomb in the cargo hold of the Boeing 727 aircraft, which was a scheduled flight from Chicago to Washington DC.

The explosion went off in mid-air and caused a loss of pressure within the plane, along with smoke in the cabins.

The pilots managed an emergency landing at Dulles International Airport in Washington and were later regarded as heroes. Of the 84 passengers and crew on board, there were no fatalities, but 12 people needed medical treatment for smoke inhalation.

A resulting FBI investigation showed that the bomb had been powerful enough to rip the plane in two but had not gone off properly. Kaczynski would not be caught until April 3^rd 1996.

1980

In Davidson County, North Carolina, 43-year-old mother Elizabeth Hall Pratt disappeared and was never seen again.

She was reported missing by her daughter three days later. Pratt had left her husband and was staying with her own mother.

Pratt received a phone call from an unidentified caller. She then gave her mother some money and left in her 1974 Impala. No trace of Pratt or her vehicle has ever been found.

The circumstances surrounding her disappearance remain a mystery.

1981

In Weld County, Colorado, the body of 28-year-old prostitute Yvonne Rabb was discovered in a ditch on a farmer’s field near Dacono.

She had been shot in the back of the head with a shotgun at another location, then dumped in the field. She had gone missing the night before after last being seen entering an alley in the Five Points area near Big Al’s Bar.

Despite multiple witnesses seeing her enter the alley, no suspect has ever been caught. Her murder remains unsolved and an open cold case with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office.

1982

In Tampa, Florida, seven-year-old Jennifer Sophia Marteliz disappeared without a trace. She was last seen walking home from school with a friend when she split off to go home, where she lived with her father.

Over time, two prime suspects emerged. The first was Thomas Peter Welnicki, who was a family friend. He claimed to have had a vision about Jennifer’s abduction, but investigators believed it was a vague confession, as he failed a polygraph.

The second suspect was Steven Visnosky, who was pointed out as the abductor in Welnicki’s vision. Visnosky was living in the same area when Jennifer disappeared and displayed strange behaviour towards children.

He died of natural causes in 1992. Both men were never charged with Jennifer’s disappearance. Her mother self-published a book, ‘Jennifer, Where Are You?’ in 2011.

No trace of Jennifer has ever been found and her case remains unsolved.

1983

In Athens, Greece, US Navy Captain George Tsantes was assassinated by a group of attackers from the Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N). Despite killing him on the 15th.

Tsantes and his Greek driver were shot dead on his way to work. 17N were a Greek far-left urban guerrilla terrorist organisation formed in 1975 and disbanded in 2002.

They were known for being pro-communist and having hatred for anything they thought unfit for Greece, including the US military’s presence in their country. Their victims were mostly Greek, American, Turkish, and British.

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