Celebrities are almost always in the spotlight, but in these cases of unsolved celebrity murders, their fame wasn't enough to save them, or find their killer. This list features unsolved murders of celebrities and includes some of the most notorious crimes in history. Some of these celebrities were filming at the time of their death, while others were in their own homes.
Most of these murder cases closed after years of searching fruitlessly for suspects or substantial evidence; their leads coming to dead ends. However, some of them remain open and even decades after the murders, authorities are still attempting to identify what actually happened. For now though, they remain a mystery.
The Most Famous Unsolved Celebrity Murders,
Bob Crane
Known for: Starring Colonel Robert H. Hogan on Hogan’s Heroes
1960s sitcom star Bob Crane from Hogan’s Heroes was discovered in his apartment in 1978 in Scottsdale, AZ, after he had been bludgeoned to death in his bed with a camera tripod. The beating was so brutal that police could hardly recognize him. The main suspect, John Carpenter, was a friend of Crane's; the two of them spent a lot of time together, going to strip clubs and geeking out on video equipment. However, there were no weapons or witnesses to the murder, making it difficult to make any formal accusations.
The case was reopened in 1990 after an overlooked photo of human body tissue found in Carpenter's car resurfaced. Carpenter was arrested and tried for first-degree murder, but the case was later acquitted after evidence was found inconclusive.
David Carradine
Known for: Martial arts and character actor
On June 4, 2009, Carradine was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok, where he was shooting a movie. The actor's body was found hanging in the closet with a rope tied around his neck, wrist, and genitals, in an apparent act of autoerotic asphyxiation. Following his death, two of Carradine's ex-wives, Gail Jensen and Marina Anderson, stated that Carradine did indeed have a self-bondage fetish and an overall penchant for "deviant sexual behavior." Since then, Anderson has publicly claimed that she conducted her own investigation of Carradine's death, ruling that he was murdered.
Jill Dando
Known for: Journalism, TV personality, newscaster, and 1997 BBC Personality of the Year
Jill Wendy Dando was an English journalist, television presenter, and newscaster who was named the 1997 BBC Personality of the Year. She was shot to death outside her home in West London in 1999. It's believed that Dando's murder was a signature of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, carried out by his hitmen. Milosevic said he had a grudge against the journalist after she made a TV appeal for the Kosovan refugees who were displaced during Milosevic's ethnic cleansing in the 1990s.
Natalie Wood
Known for: film acting, starring in West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause.
Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, Wood was known for her roles in West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause, as well as high-profile relationships with many men, from Elvis Presley to Dennis Hopper. On the evening of November 28, 1981, she was on Catalina Island taking a break from filming the sci-fi film Brainstorm with her co-star, Christopher Walken, and her husband, Robert Wagner, when she and Wagner began to argue about her relationship with Walken.
The next morning, Wood's body was found along with a dinghy floating in the water. A passenger on a boat nearby claimed she heard someone yelling cries of help that evening. In the wake of Wood's death, her lawyer said, "It was not a homicide… not a suicide. It was an accident."
While many thought Wagner was the culprit, police officially declared him not a suspect in 2011. In 2013, her death certificate was mysteriously changed, from the reason of death being an "accidental drowning," to drowning caused by "undetermined factors."
Peter Ivers
Known for: Musician, host of the New Wave Theater in Los Angeles
Peter Ivers was the host of the New Wave Theater when he was found bludgeoned to death in his bed in downtown LA in 1983.
Evidence was later unearthed by the Los Angeles Police Department to reopen the investigation. Upon his death, dozens of friends went to Ivers's apartment to mourn him, though in doing so, they accidentally tampered with the evidence. A number of theories abound about the cause for his murder. Some say he was killed as the result of a robbery; others speculate that he was killed by one of the attendees of the New Wave Theater. Little headway has been made in solving the Ivers murder case.
Thelma Todd
Known for: Acting in the late 1920s and early 1930s, known as "Hot Toddy."
Thelma Todd was an actress in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She owned a café that she ran on the Roosevelt Highway (now called the Pacific Coast Highway), where she lived in the above apartment with her boyfriend at the time, Roland West. She was found dead inside a garage, behind the steering wheel of her car. At the time, some believed that she had committed suicide or accidentally killed herself while warming up her car when she got locked out of the house.
Todd had no signs of struggle on her, though she did have a broken nose. Her blood alcohol level was too high to have allowed her to climb the steps to the garage, and her sandals were too clean if she had, in fact, climbed the stairs herself.
A rumor spread that West confessed on his deathbed that he had unknowingly locked Todd in the garage. Todd's body was cremated, lending some to believe it was done to cover up her death by the corrupt District Attorney's office. Others suggest that it could have been her ex-husband or gang leader Charles "Lucky" Luciano who might have killed her, as she had had confrontations with both of them shortly before she died.
The Notorious B.I.G.
Known for: Hip hop icon
Rapper Christopher George Latore Wallace was better known by his stage names The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie, or Biggie Smalls. He became a central figure in the East Coast hip hop scene during a time when the West Coast scene was dominant in the mainstream, leading to an ongoing feud between the two groups, including with his longtime rival Tupac Shakur. After Shakur's death in 1996, Biggie became concerned about his own life. He was killed in 1997 after leaving the Soul Train Music Awards in LA when he was sitting in an SUV and another car pulled up beside him and shot him. No one was ever named a suspect in his death. He was 24 years old.
Tupac Shakur
Known for: Hip hop icon
Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1996 and died six days later in the hospital. He had just attended a boxing match and a witness identified a Crips gang member, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, in the lobby. The witness also said that Anderson had attacked Shakur. It is speculated that the death was gang related, but sufficient evidence was never given to lead to any arrests. He was 25 years old when he died.
Ronni Chasen
Known for: Being a Hollywood publicist
A Hollywood publicist, Chasen was a veritable institution in the movie industry, representing everyone from filmmakers to producers and composers. She orchestrated the Oscar campaign for Driving Miss Daisy, and worked with actor Michael Douglas.
In the early hours of November 16, 2010, while driving home from the Hollywood premiere of the film Burlesque, Chasen's Mercedes was shot at four times and her body was found slumped over in her car. The murder had many in Hollywood scratching their heads and sparked a massive police hunt, with some sources claiming it was a planned hit. Adding to the mystery, the lead suspect Harold Martin Smith in the murder reportedly committed suicide, though the case was closed after that.
Sophie Toscan du Plantier
Known for: French film productions
Sophie Toscan du Plantier was a French film producer who was brutally beaten to death with a rock and a concrete block outside her holiday home in Ireland in 1996, just after Christmas. She was married to another film producer, Daniel Toscan du Plantier. Although two men were arrested for the murder, they were later released on wrongful arrest. No other suspects have been named.