Travelers who disappeared without a trace (8 photos)

Reports of missing people appear almost every day. But some of them make you feel uncomfortable because they are gone they are under very strange circumstances.





These are, for example, stories about how people walked together through the forest, and one of the group disappeared suddenly and without a trace. Or about how a person disappears from a busy street and no camera can track him path. Here are a few such stories that give you goosebumps.

Judy Smith



Judy Smith

50-year-old mother of two Judy Smith married in 1997 for lawyer Jeffrey. She decided to accompany her husband to trip to Philadelphia.

On April 10, Geoffrey went to work conferences, and Judy - walk around the city. The woman never returned to the hotel, and her husband announced the wife of the missing person. And only five months later the tourists accidentally found her remains, and in an isolated mountainous area, almost thousand kilometers from the hotel.

The cause of the woman's death could not be ascertained, but her grave was shallow, the experts concluded that she had become a victim of premeditated murder. Moreover, it was not like a robbery, because the wedding ring, worth $ 167, remained on Judy's finger.

Another oddity was that Judy had a red a backpack in which she always carried her belongings, and was found next to the corpse blue. And the strangest thing was the testimony of several people, who saw Judy in nearby Asheville, that is, the woman went so far voluntarily. She even spoke to one of the witnesses and was in his words, in a good mood, told about her lawyer husband. Ran away? And she didn't say anything to her two daughters? And if it was her voluntary decision, then how she ended up on a distant mountain, yes also buried in the grave?

John Reid





John Reid

It was 1980 when 28-year-old John Reed drove out of his Twin City in California and headed to Brazil. He dreamed of finding the lost city of Akator - an ancient civilization that remained alone of the biggest mysteries of the Amazonian jungle for several thousand years.

Brazilian guide Tatunka Nara claimed to have once been the leader of a tribe that was the main one in the city 3000 years ago, and now he organizes excursions for everyone who wants to find Akator.

Reed went on an expedition with Tatunka, leaving things and a return ticket in a hotel room in Manaus, but never came. As a result, it turned out that Tatunka is a German citizen, whose real name is Gunther Hawk and during interrogations he claimed that Reed ran off into the jungle and did not return after the group decided return to Barcelos.

It is worth noting that Reed was not the only one without a trace disappeared while walking from Tatunka. There were other cases and in general his society did not inspire confidence. But nothing could be proven.

Frank Lenz



Last known photo of Lenz

A lot of people tried to fly around, go around, go around Sveta. And many people disappeared during this journey. But here is the loss Frank Lenz is markedly different from similar stories.

Lenz was 25 years old, he lived in Pennsylvania and his dream was - travel around the world on a bike. He calculated that this would take him approximately two years.

On May 25, 1892, Lenz left Pittsburgh and traveled for months in North America, and then sailed to Asia.

Two years later he cycled through Tabriz, Iran and he he was on his way to Erzurum (Turkey), which was 450 km away. But there he did not come. He never came anywhere else, and no one has seen him since. saw.

The guy's family and friends decided to start searching, but Frank traveled in Turkey during the Armenian massacres in the mid-1890s, when the Ottoman Empire killed tens of thousands of Armenians and most likely Lenz became an accidental victim.

Another cyclist, William Sachtleben, when he rode to Erzurum, to find Frank Lenz, found out that most likely he was passing through a Turkish village in the Kurdistan region, where he accidentally insulted Kurdish chieftain. The indignant ataman ordered his bandits to kill Lenz. The alleged killers were blamed for the death of the cyclist, but most of them either managed to escape or died before they put in jail.

The body of Frank Lenz was never found, but the Turkish the government agreedpay compensation to the traveler's family.

Charles Horvath



one of Charles' photos

20-year-old Charlie Horvath traveled from England to Canada, wanting to hitchhike around the country for a few months.

On May 11, Horvath arrived in the province of British Columbia and stopped at a campsite in Kelowna. From there he sent his a fax to Denise's mom, where he said he would try hard on his 21st birthday meet her in Hong Kong. This was his last post.

Since Charles kept in touch with her regularly, the woman began to worry and decided to go to British Columbia to find son.

It turned out that Charles had left all his belongings, including tent, on the campsite and after that disappeared. Denise reported in police about the disappearance of her son and went to her hotel. In which she, in one of evenings, found a note: "I saw him on May 26. We celebrated, and two man beat him up. He died. His body is in the lake behind the bridge."

Divers were immediately sent to the indicated place, but the body The boys were not found. Denise after a short time received a note that searched the wrong side of the bridge and during repeated searches the body was found. That's just not Charles, but a local suicide.

And for 25 years now, the disappearance of Charles Horvath has remained a mystery.

Virginia Carpenter



one of the rare photos of Virginia

In 1946, a terrible murder took place in the city of Texarkana. five people. Virginia knew the three victims of the Phantom Killer as his nicknamed her, and it all came down to her.

On June 1, 1948, a girl traveled from Texarkana by train to Denton, where she enrolled at the Texas State College for Women. She took a taxi from the station to college, but then remembered that I forgot my bag and returned to the station.

Upon learning that the baggage had not yet been delivered, Virginia gave her a ticket to the taxi driver and gave him money so that he would pick up the luggage the next morning and bring him to college. The taxi driver took the girl back to the hostel and later told me that he saw her go to talk to a couple of young men in convertible.

The next morning, the taxi driver took Carpenter's luggage and left him at the door of the hostel, where no one took him away for two days. IN this moment both the staff of the educational institution and the Virginia family understood that they had not received any news from the girl for too long and announced her missing. The identities of those two young people in the convertible could not be established, suspicion fell on a taxi driver who already had criminal record and notoriety of the family tyrant.

Taxi driver's wife first told police her husband was back home as soon as I took Virginia to the hostel, but after a few years declared the falsity of this alibi - the taxi driver arrived only a few hours.

But there is no evidence of his involvement in the disappearance. young girl, as well as no trace of her so far. Although a long time there were reports that someone saw a similar girl in the most different cities and states.

Karen Denise Wells



The 23-year-old was a single mother from Oklahoma. Into one of the days she decided to visit her friend Melissa Shepard: left child to parents, rented a car and drove to New Jersey, to the city North Bergen.

Karen was last seen on April 12, 1994 - she called a friend from a motel in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Shepard accepted the invitation girlfriends about the meeting and arrived at the motel with two unknown men. Wells never returned to her room, but most of her belongings remained in room.

Wells' car was found abandoned on the road the next day. distance of 56 km from the motel. Doors wide open, no gas. The car had found some marijuana, but Karen's wallet ended up in a ditch neighborhood. And the strangest thing is the numbers on the speedometer. They couldn't correspond to the distance from Haskell to Carlisle. Whole 700 miles. Before Wells arrived at the motel, she was seen in two cities, which were completely out of the way for her.

In a telephone conversation with Shepard, Karen said that got lost several times. But it is still unknown where she went.

Ettore Majorana



Majorana was a famous theoretical physicist.

In 1938 he worked as a lecturer at the university Naples. On March 25, he sent the head of the educational institution strange note in which he said that he had made an "inevitable" decision and that he is very sorry that his disappearance may cause "inconvenience".

He sent an equally strange message to his family, where he asked that they not mourn him for a long time and live on.

After Majorana, he withdrew a large amount of money from a bank account and then went by boat to Palermo. After arriving at the place of Majorana sent a message to the manager, where he said that he had changed his mind about committing suicide and wants to go home. Ettore boarded a ship to Naples, however, after that, he disappeared without any trace.

There were a huge number of versions: escape from the country for a new life, suicide, and someone even about cooperation with the Third Reich thought. But until 2008, the mystery of the disappearance of Ettore Majorana was still remained a mystery until one person claimed to have seen Majorana in 1955 in Caracas. The witness even provided a photograph and after analysis of the photo, the investigators concluded that in the old photos, physics and those presented by the witness, the same person. Investigation is still underway.