One file for each year of the 1980s: the most documented and most cited case on record for that year.
Credit: Family photo via Find A Grave; reproduced by The CinemaholicEditorial useSourcePikeville, Kentucky, United States
Susan Smith, a young FBI informant from Kentucky, was strangled in June 1989 by her handler and lover, FBI agent Mark Putnam, who later became the first FBI agent convicted of homicide.
Credit: GsamieCC BY-SA 4.0SourceSoutheast 31st Avenue, Portland, Oregon
Mulugeta Seraw, a 28-year-old Ethiopian student, was beaten to death with a baseball bat by three white supremacists in Portland, Oregon, on November 12–13, 1988. The killers were convicted, and a subsequent civil suit held White Aryan Resistance and its leaders liable for $12.5 million.
Credit: English Wikipedia ; teenage photo supplied by her fatherEditorial useSourceMarana, Arizona (near Interstate 10)
Deanna Criswell, a 16-year-old runaway from Spokane, Washington, was found shot to death near Marana, Arizona in November 1987. She remained unidentified for 27 years until 2015, when relatives using online cold-case databases and forensic facial reconstruction helped confirm her identity. The suspected killer died in prison in 2005 and was never charged.
Image recordEditorial useSourceVan Nuys, Los Angeles, California
Sherri Rasmussen was beaten and shot to death in her Van Nuys condominium in February 1986; the case went cold for more than two decades before Los Angeles police officer Stephanie Lazarus, her husband's former girlfriend, was convicted of first-degree murder in 2012.
Credit: crimeimmemorial.com (true-crime blog); reproduced press/family photosEditorial useSourceMineral, Washington
In 1985, four people—Stephen Harkins, Ruth Cooper, Diana Robertson, and Mike Riemer—were killed in remote areas of Lewis and Pierce counties near Mineral, Washington, in a case that remains unsolved despite the discovery of a fourth victim's remains in 2009.
Credit: Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report / U.S. Library of CongressPublic domainSource1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi, India
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by two of her own bodyguards at her New Delhi residence on 31 October 1984, months after she ordered a military operation against Sikh militants at the Golden Temple. Her assassination triggered widespread anti-Sikh violence across India.
Credit: Autor nieznanyPublic domainSourceCastle Square, Warsaw
Grzegorz Przemyk, an 18-year-old Warsaw student, died in May 1983 from injuries inflicted by police officers who detained him after his high school graduation; the killing and the communist government's attempt to cover it up became a defining scandal of Poland's martial-law era.
.jpg)
Image recordEditorial useSourceRangely Avenue, West Hollywood, California
Actress Dominique Dunne, 22, was strangled outside her West Hollywood home on October 30, 1982, by her ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney; she died five days later after being taken off life support. Sweeney was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and misdemeanor assault, and served two and a half years of a six-and-a-half-year sentence.
Credit: White House / US federal government (public domain)Public domainSourceWashington Hilton, Washington, D.C.
On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. Hinckley was later found not guilty by reason of insanity.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons (investigation surveillance still)Editorial useSourceChicago metropolitan area, Illinois
In September 1982, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide after leaving the factory. The case remains unsolved as of 2026, though it led to nationwide tamper-resistant packaging reforms and federal anti-tampering laws.
