Speaking for all of us at Minot State, we are extremely saddened by this loss of one of our students. She died of strangulation. An autopsy revealed he'd been beaten about the head and body and died as a result of those injuries. Inforum calls it "one of the state's biggest murder mysteries.". The Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as both local and state law enforcement agencies maintain annual reports which explain the crimes that have occurred each year per jurisdiction, specifically the number of murders in North Dakota by year. In terms of the robe used to cover Anita Knutsons body, Klug said that aspect of the crime scene doesnt point them in one direction or another when considering whether the assailant was someone Anita knew. Cold cases looking for hot leads- right now there are 30 open unsolved deaths or disappearances with ties to South Dakota, leaving families of the missing . A wave of fear sweeps across the barren prairies of central North Dakota in April of 1920 with the tragic news that seven members of a farm family and their hired boy have been brutally murdered at their home just north of Turtle Lake in McLean . Where my brother and I went to high school was about 30 minutes from Minot. Sandras mother raised Spencer after she went missing. 4 Year Anniversary of the Unsolved Murder of Gregory Ruffin Jr. Read More . Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. The bill, nicknamed after Fargo, North Dakota resident Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind who was murdered in August 2017, just one example of the horrific statistics regarding abuse and homicide of. It was not a super normal thing for my brother to do, and he wouldnt tell me anything. They came up with a small pool of suspects, but no one was ever charged. The problem is particularly acute in the 200,000-square-mile Bakken region straddling the Montana-North Dakota state line, where attacks on Native American women have increased as tens of thousands of transient oil workers flow into temporary housing units called "man camps" on and near tribal lands. For many residents of Tallahassee, the Florida capital lost its innocence on October 22, 1966. Love North Dakota? November 6, 1994, the body of Ronald S. Johnson was found frozen in a water-filled ditch approximately five miles northwest of Dunseith, ND. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! These discussions can cover anything from speculation of evidence, the sharing of factual details of a case, the sharing of theories, and on occasion include conversations about Bismarck murders pictures. The drivers side door was open, with the keys still in the ignition, and her purse was on the front seat. Additionally, the 1963 murder of Larry Phebus, the 1972 murder of Lora Jean Dugan, the 1974 murder of Daniel Erick Johnson, the 1991 murder of Joseph Anderson, and the 2002 murder of Russell Douglas Turcotte are a few examples of unsolved murders in central North Dakota. 603 West 5th St. Sioux City, IA. At first, it was thought so, but now thought leans heavily into homicide but who? Anita had been killed while lying in her bed; she died as a result of knife wounds to her upper body. If you have any information about the murder of Anita Knutson, call the Minot Police Department at (701) 852-0111. led some to suspect that the police were involved in the deaths or in covering them up, rampant misconduct and trafficking inside the jail, standing next to a maroon car driven by a man in his 30s, Lizzie was acquitted of her parents' murder in 1893, abducted, in some cases sexually assaulted, and killed four children between 1976 and 1977, found dead in Spring Brook Township in 1974, disappeared in Simpson County in August 2009, the only decapitation in the US that involved a person that young. In June of. Homicides were, and still are, rare in North Dakota. Police say that Anita was stabbed at least twice in the chest with a pocket knife that was recovered at the scene. Steven Fisher, 20, and his girlfriend Melisa Gregory, 17, were bludgeoned to death on a ranchnorthwest of Newton, Iowa, in 1983. Diede was in the company of her boyfriend, 32 year old, Robert Michael Anderson. Other cold cases in North Dakota involve missing persons, like the case of Barbara Louise Cotton, who was 15 years old when she disappeared from Williston, North Dakota. The cause of death . Not long after, Flora heard shots from a neighboring apartment complex and called to see if Vanessa was OK. She didn't pick up the phone. Their killer; William Reager. Steven Pearsall and Christina White remain missing. "The members of the criminal investigation division of the Provo Police Department have dedicated thousands of hours, and exhausted hundreds of leads, which includes traveling to Mexico with the FBI, to try to find facts about her disappearance. Local newspaper outlets reported that Butte residents rallied together to support Gordon and Sharon Knutson, including with grocery runs. A handful of North Dakota law enforcement agency websites, including the website of the North Dakota Attorney General, include a short list of North Dakota murders that remain unsolved or labeled as cold cases. 33. Patton's vehicle, a brown 1/2 ton 2-wheel drive Dodge pickup with a white topper, North Dakota license 8755A, was missing. At the time of her disappearance, she stood between 55 and 56 and weighed 145 pounds. Although there is currently no clear protocol for determining how many murders in Bismarck, North Dakota, 2021 or how many murders in North Dakota 2021, looking back at archived Uniform Crime Reports for both categories will show you that both the homicide number and the violent crime number have remained low and stable over recent years, with no sign of rising. Her husband Dominic told authorities that they had been planning to divorce and that Mary took off with $100,000 in exchange for their home. Eight people, including a man, his pregnant wife, their two children, and teenage deckhands, were shot to death aboard a fishing boat called the Investor on September 6, 1982, People Magazine reported. I still remember when I found out. Klug said that the Minot Police Department collected DNA samples from everyone close to Anita and interviewed widely in their efforts to solve the case. Investigators believe he was killed and then thrown off a bridge based on a trail of blood. Deputies reportedly lost evidence during the investigation, and a detective bought a truck from an acquaintance of one of the victims and was seen in it the day she disappeared. What are some of the weirdest, strangest murders in North Dakota? These circumstances and the overall lack of progress in cracking the case led some to suspect that the police were involved in the deaths or in covering them up, the New York Times reports. most-covered, watched and listened-to case in the recent history of the state. On October 27, 1961, 19-year-oldBetty Gail Brown was found in her car in front ofTransylvania College's Old Morrison building, strangled to death with her own bra. fatally stabbed seven women in New Hampshire. The identity of victims also remains unknown in some cases. Below are the total number of homicides reported in each state, the rate at which homicides are cleared and the estimated number of unsolved homicides. Eugene Butler (1849 - October 22, 1913) was an American serial killer who murdered six teenage boys at his residence in Niagara, North Dakota from 1900 to 1906. "That's when our nightmare started 30 and a half years ago," Marler's mother,Betty Stringfellow, told the Montgomery Advertiser in 2015. Nearly 340,000 cases of homicide and non-negligent manslaughter went unsolved from 1965 to 2021, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report data studied by The Murder Accountability Project. The murdered body of Anita Knutson was found in her Minot apartment on June 4th, 2007. I think now, we kind of lived on that hope for so long that this would get solved that we would figure out who did this, wed figure out why they did it, and then we could kind of move on, Haustveit said. Some of the victims couldn't even be identified due to their incomplete remains. Love North Dakota? The Simpson County Sheriff's Department considers it a cold case. Bottom right: Coretta Greybear . When a woman walking her dog found a human bone in 2009, she had no idea she had come across one of the biggest crime scenes in US history. Examining the world of solved and unsolved cases. Please enable javascript and refresh the page to continue reading local news. The killer is then believed to have returned to the scene the next afternoon to set the boat on fire. In the 1920s, a lawman in North Dakota had a dark secret - He was Al Capones brother, Amid a night of costumed Halloween revelry, a man found beaten to death, Police deemed Refugio Rodriguez's death a suicide, not a murder. Lizzie Bordenallegedlytook an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done sheallegedlygave her father 41. The news of Anita Knutsons death spread fast, particularly throughout her college and hometown communities. So we went multiple times a week, Anna said. The murders remain unsolved. When she was found with her throat slashed in a utility room outside her garage in 1989, the killer left no clues and detectives were baffled. The man who owned the farm was named Eugene Butler. Pilar. He was shot while stopped at a red light in Las Vegas. one of the highest-profile unsolved-mysteries in Philadelphia history. Johnson had been shot three times. She loves small-town life and currently enjoys living on a small farm in the ND prairie. The brazen murder of the rural North Dakota mayors daughter shook the community, but the Minot Police Department has never made any arrests or even officially named a suspect over the course of a 14-year investigation. Contact the Ramsey County Sheriffs Department 701-662-0700. On the night of December 7, 1924, one of Billings' oldest unsolved murders took place. He went through the door to the second floor. Nearly 15 years after 18-year-old college student Anita Knutson was found murdered in her off-campus apartment in Minot, North Dakota police have made an arrest in her case. Visit the In Loving Memory of Anita Knutson Facebook page. And why? The cases were featured on the Investigation Discovery docuseries "Cold Valley" and the true crime podcast "The Trail Went Cold.". Unfortunately, his wife passed away in 2009 from a rare form of strep. He was outgoing, he was funny, he was homecoming king, people loved being around him, Haustveit said. Trisha Taurinskas is an enterprise crime reporter for Forum Communications Co., specializing in stories related to missing persons, unsolved crime and general intrigue. The Dakota Spotlight . 2012. Due to the close nature of their relationship, many who knew Daniel Knutson claimed her death changed him. In January 2022, Thomas McDowell was arrested and charged with burglary, kidnapping and murder. He went missing for nearly four months until his naked body was found 100 miles away near Devils Lake. They were dubbed "The Redhead Murders.". There wasn't enough evidence to charge anyone with the murder, the Honolulu Prosecutor's Office told KHON2. On April 30, 1972, the body of 14 year old Lora Jean Dugan was found approximately three miles southwest of Medora, North Dakota, in a hilly and wooded area approximately one mile south of Interstate 94. Nancy Grace featured the cold case in 2010, and the family received a new home on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" in 2012. While the forest is popular with hunters, her death was ruled a homicide. CASE CONTACT INFORMATION: Sandra "Sandy" May Jacobson was last seen in Bismarck, Burleigh County, North Dakota on the evening of November 16, 1996. Alan Jacobson, who has since relocated to Mandan, remarried a couple of years after Sandra and John disappeared. The trial remains ongoing. One of the two men convicted in the murder of an elderly couple after a burglary in Minot is out of prison after three decades. Sandras dentals and fingerprints are available for comparison, should her body be found. Diede and Anderson were last seen on August 15, 1993, in Wishek. a family was killed. There has been nothing that I would consider completely clearing her as a suspect, Klug said. Currently, both cases are classified as endangered missing. JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in the basement of her family's home on December 26, 1996. Robert . Klug said its difficult to know if the severed screen was a move by the killer to make it look like he or she had entered the apartment through the window, but he claims it is possible. ", In the 1970s, '80s, and even into the '90s, bodies of redheaded women were found in Memphis, Jellico, Ashland City, and Greenville, Tennessee, as well as Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. Every single thing my sister did, I wanted to do it.. She was found face down on her bed. She managed to drive to a friend's house, and both she and her baby survived the attack. Her murder remains an unsolved cold case. When asked why she hadnt called local law enforcement, she replied that she didnt trust those with the Center Police Department and the Oliver County Sheriffs Office. as well as other partner offers and accept our, Donna Svennevik/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images, Donna Hageman/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images, Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images, That's when our nightmare started 30 and a half years ago, What Happened in Craig: Alaska's Worst Unsolved Mass Murder, They have DNA evidence but no source for it yet. A few well-known or infamous North Dakota murders that can be found within the lists of all murders in North Dakota include the following: the 2007 murder of Anita Knutson, the 2002 suspected murder of Russell Turcotte, and the 2017 suspicious death of Olivia Lone Bear. From Haustveits perspective, watching the Knutson family, known for their closeness and kindness, walk through immense grief has been hard for many to wrap their heads around.