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check his video on it out but right now i'm gonna have a stab at it myself okie or al as he preferred to be called was known for being a kind and easygoing guy the type of man that had no enemies to speak of even his ex-wife gail whom he divorced in 2002 remained good friends with him long after they had separated and al went out of his way to keep a good relationship with his stepdaughter julie in early 2004 al was living the carefree bachelor's lifestyle despite having lost his wife step daughter and previous job just two years prior the 53 year old was now doing very well for himself once again he'd purchased a two-story townhouse in aurora colorado and had landed a new job at the consulting firm carter douglas during a work function he also happened to meet a charming woman named linda angelopoulos the pair quickly headed off and began a casual romance one which quickly blossomed into something more serious now with a new partner a new job and newfound happiness there was just one thing al still needed a new tenant as mentioned al's townhouse in aurora was two stories he lived on the top floor and rented out the lower one to bring in a little extra cash each month in may 2004 his previous tenant had moved out so al was on the hunt for a new housemate to fill his empty room he put up ads in the university of colorado's library and on may 19th someone responded a guy who went by the name robert cooper well whoever this robert cooper was he sounded desperate for a place to stay and wanted to move in as quickly as possible he told al over the phone that he could have the security deposit and first month's rent for him that same day in order to secure the lease mr cooper also mentioned that he worked at wells fargo said that he had just been transferred from the east coast hence why he needed a place to stay robert cooper ticked all the boxes and sounded like a decent enough guy so i'll agree to rent him the room perhaps he thought this could be the start of a new friendship at some point within the next three days al's girlfriend linda came to the townhouse to pay him a visit she just so happened to arrive while al was showing robert cooper around the downstairs apartment i'll ask linda if she'd like to meet the new tenant she said of course she would but she had to use the bathroom first in the short space of time that linda was inside the bathroom cooper told dal that he had forgotten about an important appointment he had and hastily made for the exit as linda stepped out of the bathroom she only caught the briefest glimpse of cooper's back as he left according to both linda and several other neighbours he was a well-dressed man who appeared to be in his late 30s or early 40s of medium height and build with dark curly hair most notably linda said that he walked with a limp and carried a cane neither she nor al thought much about robert cooper's speedy exit maybe he really did have a prior engagement or maybe he had some social anxiety problems and didn't want to meet linda for some reason either way it wasn't a big deal as long as the guy kept up with the rent he could come and go as he pleased a few days later on may 22nd al dropped linda off at the airport she was taking a week-long trip to virginia beach while al finalized the contract with mr cooper and helped him settle in cooper said he needed some assistance with moving an armchair down the stairs or something like that and al being a nice guy offered to lend a hand linda's plane landed safely later that day and she called dal at 3 30 pm to tell him that she had arrived but there was something off about the phone call al wasn't his usual happy-go-lucky self instead he was quiet distracted maybe even uncomfortable figuring that he was just busy helping cooper move in linda wished him a good weekend and they both exchanged i love yous before hanging up linda had no idea that she would never speak to al again nor would anyone else for that matter except perhaps for the man who took his life on may 24th just two days after linda's departure al's absence at work was noticed by his boss that was slightly alarming al was a diligent and punctual worker he wouldn't have just taken a day off without notifying the company the boss tried to call al but got no response to be on the safe side he called dapao's sister barbara and asked if she could check up on him barbara didn't live in colorado so she in turn called up the local authorities within minutes officers were on their way to al's home to conduct a welfare check they knocked on his door but nobody answered realizing that the door had been left unlocked the officers slowly entered and took a look around hoping to find some trace of al inside well they found more than just a trace at the bottom of the stairs to the basement they found al hogg tied and lying face down in a puddle of his own blood he had been struck in the back of the head with a blunt object while walking down the stairs but it wasn't the strike that killed him while incapacitated at the bottom of the stairs his attacker tied up his arms and legs behind his back and then proceeded to torture him for hours the soles of his feet were extremely bruised and swollen having been repeatedly beaten with a steel honing rod a form of punishment known as falakka sharp blades from his own kitchen have been inserted into his ears down through his shoulders and even into the spaces right above his eyes the unusual way in which al had been bound made it impossible for him to move all he could do was endure the pain finally whoever had done this to him have finished him off with 22 stabs to the chest head and neck the final blows were so ferocious that al's head was nearly detached from his own body sickeningly after taking al's life the purp then made himself at home he cleaned up the scene ate food from al's fridge wore else clothes took a shower in his bathroom and even slept in his bed something very reminiscent of the japanese setagaya family massacre case it's believed that cooper may have stayed in al's home for more than a full day after slaying him perhaps the perp wanted to know what it felt like to be his victim perhaps he just got a thrill out of remaining at the scene perhaps taking al's life wasn't enough and he wanted to take his privacy too whatever was going through the guy's head it was clear to the investigators that they weren't dealing with an ordinary killer whoever this man was he hadn't known al personally but had still taken great satisfaction in his work and he had to have been planning this for a very long time the lead investigator on the case detective thomas sobieski believes that al was struck in the head while helping his new tenant robert cooper move in this robert cooper was the obvious suspect now all the authorities had to do was track him down to begin with they found the crumpled up rental contract between cooper and al in the kitchen bin the contract contained all of cooper's personal information but obviously it had all been made up his social security number belonged to an 80 year old woman who lived in indiana his address was for an elementary school in denver his reference phone number was from an aurora retirement village and the name robert cooper was of course an alias no one with that name worked at wells fargo or had moved to the area because this guy had chosen to target al not because he knew him but because he had an apartment to rent they didn't really have a lot to work with but they did have something when the perp finally left the townhouse he took al's debit card and truckees with him he then drove al's vehicle to a nearby atm where he withdrew a thousand dollars of his victim's hard-earned cash while doing so the atm's inbuilt camera took several pictures of the killer his face hidden behind a ski mask strangely al had a lot more savings in his checking account and the purp could have taken a much heftier sum if he wanted to but for some reason only took a thousand dollars then again money clearly wasn't this guy's motive he hadn't tormented al and then taken his life for financial gain no he'd done it simply because he could after withdrawing the money cooper again returned to al's townhouse removed all the blades he had inserted into al and then placed them in the kitchen sink along with the steel honing rod he poured bleach all over them as well as down the shower drain to remove any dna evidence he left behind finally he walked out the front door and vanished into the night to this day nobody knows who robert cooper really was or why he did what he did he'd been careful not to leave behind any trace of his identity even in the lead-up to the slaying the only evidence he had left behind was his phone number which he had used to contact hal in the first place but it turned out that he had actually been using a burner phone that very phone was found in downtown denver and investigators were able to work out which 7-eleven cooper had purchased it from one close to the university of colorado's library but cooper had done his homework he had waited 30 days to activate his bernathon and guess how long that 711 kept their cctv footage before deleting it bingo exactly 30 days cooper was also smart enough not to call anyone else using that bone so unfortunately the seemingly vital piece of evidence was in reality worthless mr cooper had been disturbingly methodical as the investigators would come to learn just before al's untimely slaughter numerous other landlords in aurora had left ads at the university of colorado's library looking for tenants to rent their empty rooms many of them have been contacted by a man calling himself robert cooper several of them even met with him one landlord described him as a well-dressed man who walked without a lump another landlord who happened to be familiar with european dialects said that the man spoke with a distinctly romanian accent according to her cooper spent a lot of time examining her windows both landlords agreed that he gave off a creepy vibe with one of them saying that he made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and because of that they both turned him away well their intuitions likely saved their lives and if they hadn't followed their gut instincts we'd probably be talking about one of their deaths here instead of us but al liked to think the best of people always had and that cost him everything as it stands the case of al qaeda remains unsolved to this very day and the true identity of robert cooper remained shrouded in mystery but the audacity of his actions the amount of effort he put into finding his victim the time he invested in planning this whole thing the efficiency with which he pulled it off the confidence he displayed by remaining at the scene and the joy he clearly got from his work well it all makes me wonder whether this really was just a one-time deal or whether al was just another victim on this killer's sick resume a lot of internet sleuths believe that's the case and have tried to link robert cooper to other killers who were caught trying to use their victims bank cards guys like roy charles waller who also like to disguise his identity others have suggested the infamous israel keys his ammo was very similar to that of the perp in this case and the atm photos certainly bear a striking resemblance to him still to date no definitive connections have been drawn but there is one piece of good news a small amount of dna belonging to an unknown male was uncovered on the basement stairs at al's house this was run through the authority's database and though no matches have ever turned up the dna did reveal that this unknown male was of south east european descent and using advances in forensic technology composite artists were recently able to create this image of his face this 3d figure is robert cooper back then and now with developments like this still being made more than a decade after the incident perhaps one day this incredibly sinister figure will be brought to justice and this rabbit hole finally filled in with a little luck the fbi might be able to map his family tree and find him that way in the near future until then all we can do is shudder at the fact that people like robert cooper actually exist and that on any given day they could choose to target you not because you wronged them but just for the thrill of it if you've checked out a lot of unsolved mysteries content before it can almost end up feeling like you're listening to movie plots rather than things that have happened to real ordinary people like you and me but as this next case proves any one of us could unwillingly become the star of our own murder mystery the year was 2005. the subject of this story todd guyb your average 22 year old living in the small community of casinovia michigan with a good job at hager distribution an active social life and a loving family the future seemed bright for todd but sadly that future was about to be taken away from him by a sinister force june 11th 2005 was a saturday and for a young and outgoing guy like todd that meant a night out with his buddies now todd and his friends were a very close group not surprising since casenovia only had a population of 314 at the time he left the house that he shared with his cousin at 7 30 pm and went to meet his friends at the half moon bar in grill they ate dinner together and at 9 30 set off to an orchard party just off a dirt road basically in the middle of nowhere but still very close to where todd was staying with his cousin most of the youngsters living in and around the area went to this event about a hundred people in total one person who wasn't attending was todd's designated driver she dropped todd and the others off at the orchard and promised to pick them all up later straight away the event seemed like it was going to be a rager there was a keg and a bonfire and by all accounts the atmosphere was electric a little too electric at approximately 12 45 am a fight broke out between a few of the local guys and almost erupted into a full brawl this prompted todd who was still in a sober state of mind to leave the party very abruptly it's unclear whether he was frightened about the brawl or whether he was just tired and wanted to get some rest but either way he said a quick goodbye to his friends and told them he was going to walk home he set off on foot and disappeared from the party into the darkness since he only lived about a mile away and hadn't drunk too much his pals weren't too worried about him making the journey by himself but almost as soon as he left the orchard todd made a series of odd phone calls that were concerning to say the least at 12 47 am just two minutes after leaving the orchard todd called up his close friend the woman who had dropped him off she answered and todd simply said i've had enough before the line cut out it's not known whether he meant he had had enough of the event and wanted to be picked up or if he meant he had had enough generally in another call which he made at 12 51 he told that same friend i'm in a field before the line cut out once again his friend immediately called them back but all she could hear on the other end of the line was either the rush of wind or heavy breathing phone records show that dog kept trying to call his friend back for the next five minutes but the course wouldn't go through that was the last contact anyone had with todd guyb he never made it home that night while making the ma long journey back to his cousin's house todd seemingly fell off the face of the earth and vanished entirely for the next three weeks a search effort involving 1500 officers and volunteers worked day and night to help find todd planes scoured the area from above and thermal imaging devices were used to try and locate him in the latter days of the search sniffer dogs were brought in to track todd's movements they picked up on his scent and followed it from the orchard along a dirt road and up into a field it appeared that after leaving the party todd was indeed walking in the right direction back home but strangely the dogs lost his scent as soon as they reached the main paved road the road that would have led todd straight to his cousin's house the final stretch of his journey but why did his sense simply vanish when he reached it did somebody pick him up after all on july 2nd todd was found but to everyone's dismay the search for him didn't have a happy ending a local couple found his body in ovidl lake very close to where his scent disappeared smack bang in the middle of the search area but he wasn't submerged in the lake he was standing upright his head and shoulders above the water's surface it almost looked like he was still alive and was just treading water but there were no ripples and the lake was completely still at first the wife thought that he was a beaver but when the couple realized what they were actually looking at they immediately called the authorities investigators arrived and removed todd from the lake he was fully clothed and his wallet was still in his pocket there were no noticeable injuries on his body and since he had a large amount of alcohol in his system they theorized that todd must have left the party then decided to go for a drunken swim and ultimately drowned in their eyes it was a classic case of misadventure and they closed the case almost immediately but their conclusion just didn't seem to make sense for several reasons firstly how had todd's body gone undetected in that lake for three weeks when he was so obviously standing in the middle of it a group of 1500 had thoroughly searched that area it seemed strange that nobody spotted him secondly most people who drown are found bobbing face down in the water but the chilling way in which todd was standing it almost appeared as if somebody had placed him there it also doesn't make sense that todd would go swimming fully clothed not to mention when he left the orchard everybody noted how clear todd's head was like he hadn't had too many drinks at all in response to these questions a team of independent investigators examined todd's remains and what they discovered was truly disturbing although todd had been missing for three weeks he had only been dead for two to five days his body was in too fresher condition and there was hardly any insect activity or algae built up on his body even stranger they found absolutely no water in his lungs none whatsoever which completely discredited the police's conclusion that he had drowned and strongly indicated that he had been killed on land and then placed in the water as a result of these findings this independent team conducted a number of tests with pig carcasses they placed these carcasses in the lake to examine the rate at which they decomposed pigs are anatomically very similar to humans so they wanted to see if after three weeks their carcasses were in a similar condition to todd's body as expected a huge number of insects colonized the pigs on top of that there was also a large amount of bloating foaming algae and slime buildup all things that weren't present on todd there was no way he had been in the water for all those weeks and he had almost certainly been the victim of foul play this new team theorized that when todd made it to the paved road he was actually picked up by one or more people who then held him on land for a period of time before taking his life and eerily placing him in the water they even put forward a possible group of suspects namely the smiley face killers a group you have likely heard of before their existence remains unverified but many people including seasoned investigators believe they're a shadowy group of organized killers who target young successful popular men and almost always dump their remains in rivers canals and lakes often leaving behind the graffiti signature close to the scene a crudely sprayed smiley face according to some witnesses one such smiley face was found spray-painted on a tree near vidal lake though i can't seem to find any official reports confirming that the team speculated that the smileys forced todd to consume a lethal dose of amitriptyline and decipramine two prescription substances which were also found in his system and which todd himself hadn't been prescribed despite the independent team's findings the authorities stuck with their ruling and said todd had accidentally perished while night swimming even though there was no water in his lungs it's entirely possible that todd's demise was a complete accident but the official version of events ignores too much evidence to be taken seriously and the quest for definitive answers persists to this day todd's mother has tried for years to get her son's case reopened but even though all the evidence points towards foul play the cops still refuse to take another look at it remember todd lived in a very small community of only 314 people if somebody did take his life it doesn't seem like it would be hard to find the person responsible that combined with the authorities refusing to reopen their investigation has led some people to believe there's a cover-up going on if that's the case then the only questions left to answer are who are the authorities protecting and why we'll end things with a mystery from germany that of ursula hermann the girl in the box ursula was a sweet and intelligent 10 year old who loved nothing more than gymnastics and playing the piano in 1981 she lived in the small village of schondorf bavaria with her parents and brother michael on september 15th the siblings both attended an after-school piano lesson after which ursula took her bike and rode to a gymnastics class which she always attended with her cousin being close friends ursula went back to her cousin's house in the neighboring village of eking and at 7 30 pm began the short cycle back to her own home thing is she never made it when apm rolled around ursula's mother called her cousin's house and asked if her daughter would be leaving soon the cousin's mother told her that ursula had left 30 minutes earlier the ride should have only taken five to ten minutes so immediately alarm bells started ringing the two households immediately started searching the areas between schondorf and eking but there was no sign of ursula anywhere her parents went straight to the police station and before long a huge scale search effort was underway almost the entire population of both villages were out looking for ursula but their efforts were all in vain two days later on september 17th ursula's parents received a bizarre phone call from an unknown person when the phone rang they both jumped for the receiver hoping against hope that someone was calling with information about their daughter's whereabouts for the first few seconds of the call though all they heard on the other end of the line was silence then an eerie radio jingle began to play they didn't know what to make of it after receiving three identical calls the authorities began tapping the family phone lines three days after that first call a mysterious letter arrived in the mail made from letters cut out from books it read as follows we have taken your daughter if you ever want to see her alive again pay 2 million deutsche marks as a ransom 2 million deutsche marks worked out to be roughly 1.2 million dollars a huge sum which the hermann family simply didn't have still they were going to agree to pay and worry about how later but how are they supposed to tell the perps that they were willing to pay well as it turns out the note had arrived much later than the perps had anticipated it was supposed to have been read before the first phone call was made but due to postal delays had arrived after the cryptic radio jingles that they played over the phone were supposed to elicit a yes or no response with regards to the ransom payment but without the note telling them that there was no way ursula's parents could have known well the next time the phone rang ursula's mother confirmed that they would indeed pay then on monday the 21st a final letter arrived this one detailing the payment instructions the money must be made in 100 deutschmark bills ursula's father should deliver the packed suitcase the date and location will be communicated later he must drive a yellow fiat 600 no faster than 90 kilometers an hour over the course of the next few days the hermans reached out to everyone in their community for support and as a result were able to raise the 2 million deutsche marks they needed to get their daughter back now all they had to do was wait for the perps to tell them when and where to meet but those instructions never came after two weeks with no contact search efforts for ursula reignited hundreds of officers tens of sniffer dogs and many people from the villages comb the woods this time they used metal rods to search beneath the leaves and foliage finally nineteen long days after ursula had first disappeared a huge discovery was made using a metal rod one of the officers found something hidden beneath the forest floor a green box shallowly buried in the earth inside was the lifeless body of ursula hermann everyone was devastated ursula's parents had agreed to pay the ransom so why had the perps so callously taken her life well as it would turn out they likely hadn't meant to to begin with ursula's remains were examined it was clear that she hadn't put up much of a fight had likely been sedated when she was first taken and hadn't tried to escape as for the box she was entombed in it had actually been designed to keep her cellar both alive and entertained there was food and water inside it along with books a small bulb a radio a toilet bucket and a ventilation pipe which went up to the surface so she could breathe but just like how they hadn't anticipated their ransom note being delivered late they had also failed to consider air circulation despite designing the box to keep her cellar alive she'd ultimately perished due to a lack of oxygen the ventilation pipe simply didn't allow for enough air exchange and in all likelihood she had suffocated just a few hours after being placed in the box the authorities quickly realized that the box was far too big and heavy for one person to have moved alone meaning there were at least two perps involved they were quickly tipped off that a man named verna masarek may have been one of those responsible masarek lived next door to ursula in her family and was known to be in a lot of debt so he certainly had a motive thing is he also had an alibi he claimed that at the time ursula disappeared he was playing the board game risk with his wife and her friends something which they all confirmed he was taken in for questioning anyway but released after several days after his release an acquaintance of his klaus faffinger told the authorities that masarek had asked him to dig a hole out in the woods not long before ursula vanished thing is when the authorities asked faffinger to take them to the hall he was unable to do so and recanted his statement perhaps he was lying for attention perhaps he wanted revenge on masarek for something or perhaps he was involved in some way in 2007 the statute of limitations on the case was fast approaching by that point faffinger had passed away and the only living suspect was verna masarek with nothing left to go on and the case about to freeze over forever the authorities eraded mazurek's house and found a grundig model tk248 tape recorder something which he could have used to play the jingle all those years ago they used that tape recorder along with faffinger's past statement to take masarek and his wife to trial in all honesty it wasn't a lot to go on with all of this evidence being circumstantial there was no dna evidence or fingerprints to speak of even ursula's own brother michael didn't believe that the couple were responsible still against all odds werner masarek was found guilty and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment his wife was acquitted to this day masurek remains behind bars though there are many who consider him to be an innocent man most notably michael herman in 2016 michael was able to get masarek a retrial this time with strong evidence that he wasn't the one responsible for what happened to ursula sound experts had analyzed the tape recorder and said there was no way to prove it was the one that had played the jingles a language expert examined the ransom note and concluded that it had to have been made by someone who spoke broken german someone who wasn't a native speaker like masarek still the court refused to overturn his conviction the final update in this case happened just last year nearly 30 years after ursula's life was taken in march 2021 top german media houses received an anonymous letter in the mail this still unidentified person confessed that he and his friends were the ones responsible for taking ursula's life back when they were high school students in 1981 and that masarec was an innocent man it remains unknown whether this confession was legit or not but with this case now officially closed it's unlikely anyone's going to look into it a huge thank you to all of my supporters here on youtube and over on patreon especially my biggest supporters that one guy thomas jesse jugg alex greenswall alicia jaggals anikra asriel warakai beatrice matarazzo charlie lackey colin monsma crawford k macdonald expand on gina valera grace archie infamous empappy ki ganidi leonardo martinez myra lancaster monica mendoza nadine natalie escobedo peter logdredge philip westra procupadine nata sarah ramirez taylor and monica gruink the only dorita zayn miss krypto damian bennett the deck of cards lydia glassley and hamish k thank you guys so much for your continued support it really helps the channel out be sure to smash that like button or i'll smash you and you'll be hearing from me again very soon until then you will stay spooky and remember the best things happen in the dark you
2022-02-14