Cold Cases

Christmas is usually a time of festivities and cheer but over the years, the holiday has been the center of numerous unsolved mysteries.

Investigators used DNA evidence and genealogy to connect four cold cases that occurred between 1978 and 1981, police said.

Courtney Brooke Atlas confessed in prison this week to the 1968 murder of Pamela Ann Dorrington, a 19-year-old woman who was renting an apartment from him.

Robert Brunson Blair, 71, has been arrested in the 1989 disappearances of Isabelle Mansell Blair—his wife—and 31-year-old Marian Elizabeth Coutee, both of whom were last seen near Blair's Louisiana home.

Mark Douglas Burns, 69, was charged with alleged crimes including eight counts of aggravated sexual assault on Wednesday. Police say the man is a serial rapist they have sought for crimes dating back to 1991.

Police initially believed that Welch's case was tied to the murder of 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian—until DNA proved two men were involved.

Witnesses told police they heard a confrontation between Steven Pitt and a suspect.

Brian Lamonds went missing just 85 miles west of Fort Myers, Florida. 

Joseph James DeAngelo's public defender had attempted to block efforts by prosecutors to collect additional identifying information.

There have been dozens of serial murder cases in the United States in the last 60 years. Newsweek takes a look at four notorious cases.

"A lot of people in the neighborhood knew him or were friendly with him. I never had any negative experience," a neighbor told Newsweek.