“Over 1000 people have gone missing in the Parvati Valley since the 1990s. that includes 20+ foreign nationals from the US, Poland, Israel, etc., and hundreds of Indians.”

As a Writer at BuzzFeed, I write and curate quizzes, listicles, and articles about everything from pop culture and history to food and fashion.

Note: The article has mentions of death, kidnapping, and other sensitive matters. Reader discretion is advised. 

"The family asks the Polish police for his SIM to be located, as his phone was ringing, but they say they couldn't because it was a German SIM. The German police couldn't either, as the SIM was last located in Poland. But Polish police claim he never entered the border because his car plate registration wasn't captured by cameras at the border. 

In Sept, a neighbor complains about a smell coming from the barn and decides to check it out. He finds a pile of clothes and a backpack on the floor and a severed or decapitated head with a badly decomposed corpse (so damaged it couldn't be identified). However, the backpack contains Mateus' items, his ID, a Polish water bottle, cigarette packs and stubs, but interestingly as well a carton of orange juice and the clothes were his. Two nooses are tied to the roof. 

His case was ruled a suicide. However, four days later, the family finds his shoe...with his amputated, decomposing foot still inside! It is later reported that there were German and Polish public transport tickets found with him. He also checked into a hotel on the German-Polish border with a stranger, who was it? Further, his clothes were bloody, and some or all of his teeth had been knocked off, sticking to his clothes. His phone was found with his backpack. He made a short one-second call to his uncle on the 29th of March, likely a butt dial—his uncle never received the call. His car was never found, neither car nor the keys to this day."

"Now the extra mystery—three months later, Walter reappears. He is found in a field more than one km south of the town or mountain. A local farmer/herder recognizes him and sends for his wife and a doctor (recognizing he is in bad condition). When they arrive, they realize he is not responding to any questions or verbal prompts (borderline catatonic, it seemed) and is covered in burns. The wife isn't able to take him in, so instead he is sent to an asylum. Sadly any further records of Walter or if anyone made any breakthrough in getting him to communicate is lost due to the Nazi invasion of Slovakia and the destruction of the asylum and its records." 

"In June 1980, a man called The Orange County Register, a local newspaper that had reported Scott's disappearance, claimed that he had killed Scott. Police believe the caller was Scott's killer. From 1980 to 1984, Scott's mother also received phone calls from a man who claimed to have Scott or to have killed her. None of the calls could be traced, however, because the caller would not stay on the line long enough. In August 1984, partial human remains were found and later identified as Scott's. No arrests have been made in Scott's case."

"That one has always bugged me. If it was just the two girls, you’d see theories that they ran away, or they were trafficked, or any of the theories that come up when young women disappear. But the mom being gone too makes it weirder. Who can kidnap three people? Maybe you can control two at once, but three? And they certainly didn’t all run away together. What mom is running away with her teenage daughter but also her daughter’s teenage friend? And they didn’t intend to leave since their purses and wallets and car keys were all still there. Only sign of violence was the broken porch light. So so strange. If someone took them, how did they manage to take three people without any trace except a busted light bulb?" 

"Police only ever named one person of interest, Billy Lincks. This guy died in prison for an unrelated charge in 2000. They identified fibers in his red truck that were similar to Morgan's shirt. In 2024, police revealed there was DNA evidence that strongly indicated Morgan was in the truck."

"There are a lot of odd details: the ransom demand was in cryptocurrency years before crypto ransom cases became common, the note was written in awkward Norwegian, police found cable ties and traces suggesting a struggle, the family dog had been locked away, and despite years of investigation involving thousands of tips, surveillance footage, international forensic assistance, and extensive searches, nobody knows for certain whether Anne-Elisabeth was kidnapped, murdered, or by whom. Her body has never been found. Nearly eight years later, the case remains unsolved." 

"Witnesses described Cooper as a white man, potentially in his 40s or 50s, speaking with an Eastern European (possibly Romanian) accent, and occasionally using a cane. The perpetrator had meticulously cleaned the scene—even washing kitchen knives in bleach and wiping down surfaces—before fleeing in Kite's pickup truck. He threw the victim's cell phone into a payphone booth and withdrew approximately $1,000 from Kite's bank account using an ATM. Despite the extensive cleanup, investigators recovered a single drop of blood belonging to the killer on the basement stairs, which was submitted to the FBI ViCAP system but has never been matched.The killer's extensive forensic knowledge and the specific sadistic nature of the crime—which investigators noted resembled falaka (a form of foot beating)—led experts like former FBI profiler Paul Holes to theorize he may have had international ties to militant groups or professional hit work.

The case remains open and unsolved. The Aurora Police Department continues to appeal to the public for leads regarding the true identity of the man known as Robert Cooper." 

"These letters are now believed to have been part of an elaborate plan to hide what had happened. After withdrawing money and traveling across southern France, Xavier was seen for the last time in April 2011. He then vanished without a trace. No body has ever been found, and no one knows whether he died, killed himself, escaped, or is still alive under a new identity. More than a decade later, the case remains unsolved." 

"Past portum revealed the cause of death to be drowning. Coroner's verdict: accidental drowning. Still a mystery, how or why he died. Where did he go earlier that morning, why he was barefoot? Where was his headset, and why was he naked on the streets of central Belfast at 6 p.m.? Where was his bike? His backpack was found close to Ulster University, where someone tried to pawn off his laptop (he was jailed for three months). Another mystery to me is why his mum would let him cycle such a long way on an autumn November evening alone (it would have certainly been dark or getting dark by the time he left and soon after). Bet there are deep regrets and she is devastated. No one has ever been charged...after all the verdict is that it was accidental." 

"Jason was supposed to meet his coworker at the school approximately around 11 a.m. When his coworker tried calling his younger brother around 11:15–11:30 AM to see where he was, Jason couldn’t be reached. He was never seen or heard from again after leaving his house, and there’s no confirmed evidence of what happened during that short walk. What makes it stand out is how ordinary everything was. He had no known enemies, no signs he planned to disappear, and no financial issues or activity suggesting he left voluntarily. 

He was literally just walking a short distance in a normal neighborhood during the day, and then there’s a complete gap where no one can place him after he left his driveway. That’s why it gets mentioned so often in discussions that it’s not that something dramatic had happened; it’s that there’s almost nothing to explain what did happen. The only downside was that the police didn’t really investigate until 10 days later. During the investigation, they showed the school’s security cameras, and it showed he never made it to the school. Ever since, and now 25 years later, nothing has ever surfaced." 

"A customer reported seeing an unknown man wearing a "Megadeth" rock band t-shirt behind the counter at 3:15 a.m. He was never identified or located. Police investigation: Scent dogs tracked her path from behind the store to the nearby road, suggesting she was forcibly abducted and driven away in an unknown vehicle."