For years the loved ones affected by unsolved crimes have been left without answers.
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From Madeleine McCann to JonBenét Ramsey, here are the cold cases that still plague us, and the new developments that hopefully bring us closer to some answers.
JonBenét Ramsey
John Ramsey has welcomed news that his daughter JonBenét’s case may finally be solved, 28 years after the six-year-old was found strangled to death in the basement of her family’s Colorado home.
The Colorado Cold Case Team has put fresh eyes on the decades-old evidence and will soon announce its findings and recommendations.
“This is something we’ve been trying to get accomplished almost from day one,” John, 80, said.
“To get help from the outside.”
He hopes the Cold Case Team will finally do the job that should have been done years ago and put JonBenét’s killer behind bars.
Madeleine McCann
The prime suspect in Maddie’s disappearance has allegedly confessed the three-year-old ‘didn’t scream’ when she was taken from her bed at her parent’s holiday home in Praia da Luz, Portugal on May 3.
Convicted rapist Christian Brueckner was named by German authorities as the prime suspect in Maddie’s case in 2020.
Now, Petty criminal and former friend to Brueckner, Helge Busching, told journalist Jutta Rabe the sex criminal had confessed to him at a music festival that Maddie McCann “didn’t scream”.
“He said ‘she didn’t scream’, ‘she didn’t scream’, that is what Brueckner said and then I looked at Mr. Brueckner and thought ‘What are you telling me now?’” Mr Busching said, in audio aired on 60 Minutes.
Then, 60 Minutes reporter Ms Rabe replied: “And, then his reaction to that, that is, ‘Huh? What did you just say? She didn’t scream? How can you know?’ … At this moment, he realised, ‘he knows it. He, he has been there. He took her out.”
This month, Brueckner faces trial in Germany on unrelated charges.
Revelle Balmain
A week-long inquest into the 30-year cold case of missing woman Revelle Balmain has given her family hope they may finally find closure.
In 1994, Revelle, a model and dancer, vanished from Kingsford in Sydney’s east after failing to meet her mother at Newcastle railway station. The 22-year-old was never seen again.
In February 2024, NSW Deputy State Coroner Joan Baptie held a hearing to set down a second inquest to begin on April 29.
Criminologist, Dr Xanthe Mallett told Today Extra a second coronial inquest into the cold case was announced following information offered as a result of a $1 million reward offered in 2020.
“The police conducted a number of raids as a result of information coming forward from the public in 2021 and a couple of persons of interest were also named,” she said.
“So new information may be available in terms of DNA technology that has certainly advanced since 1994, but they have collected more information as a result of those raids and the ongoing investigation.”
Revelle’s sister Suellen Simpson joined the court hearing by videolink and watched the proceedings in silence, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
“For many years our family worked tirelessly to find out what happened to my sister – but sadly both our mother and Revelle’s father, Ivor, passed away without ever knowing what happened to their little girl,” she said in 2021.
Both of her parents died without ever knowing what happened to Revelle.
