UNSOLVED MYSTERIES - Season 3, First Episodes Have Dropped on Netflix

Obviously possessed judging by the picture.

There’s so much shit they left out of the first episode. The girl had been cutting herself and CPS was called on the house 3 times.

Just watched and I don’t believe she committed suicide. She was missing her shoes and her feet were clean. There is no way she could have walked a mile on rail ballast in the dark without dirt, cuts and scratches on the soles of her feet.

She had broken up with her girlfriend the Friday before, but already had a new one lined up before she died.

I watched episodes 1 and 3 (will get to the UFO one later this weekend maybe—these aren't always really my "thing") but I have to admit I'm not particularly taken by these stories. The death by train in episode 1 harkens back to the Don Henry and Kevin Ives deaths from the late '80s that UM profiled; that story actually had enough interesting and weird details (including political conspiracy theories) that it could have made for a full-fledged 50-minute episode—but the Tiffany Valiante case? I don't know. The third episode about the man who was dismembered by his girlfriend was also not compelling enough to make for a nearly-hour long episode IMO. The only mystery there is where the psycho bitch is today, and I'm guessing it's not in this country. I hope they find her and this definitely makes for good exposure, but the story is too cut-and-dried to be a good fit for what UM does best. I'm hoping the subsequent episodes are better. The first volume of the new UM was pretty good I thought; the stories had a (for the most part) bizarre and creepy edge to them that these seem to be lacking.

Lesbian Drama

The train's impact tore the clothing from Tiffany's body. You can read the details if you pause at 26:45 in the episode.

Why is season 3 just 3 episodes? Weird. Anyways, I knew that teenage girl was a dyke. Tall and into sports... what a cliche. I think she was killed by that girl who accused her of using her credit card. It makes sense if what the guys in the store said... that two girls and a guy wanted to humiliate her. Sounds like a revenge plot.

I agree, OP. The third episode was boring. A father was killed and the killer ran away... ok. And? How is that UNsolved? It's clearly solved. We know the killer, but she ran away.

Was a cane found near the body?

It’s 9 episodes, 3 more will be released on the 25, and the final 3 November 1.

They left out a lot of info in the Tiffany Valiente case. She was a cutter, had a bad relationship with her mom, and CPS had been called to their home three times. It was an obvious suicide and the family is in denial.

R7, her body was ripped from her body. That doesn't negate the fact that her shoes and headband were found miles away, off to the side of the road. She would have had to have walked something like a mile down a highway and then another mile down a railroad track without any marks on her feet. Her phone was also found just laying out near the street closer to her house.

I hate that all these services are now releasing shows weekly.

R12 Thanks, that's interesting. It should have been included. They painted this as an obvious murder had happened. So a suicide is possible, I guess that one girl said she seemed sad and didn't fit in, but other than that nobody said she was sad or depressed or a cutter. But a suicide doesn't explain why she took off her shoes before walking like a mile. Also, why did they find so many clothes so far away from the crash site?

Parents are often oblivious to what their child is thinking. I did a lot of stuff that my parents never knew about and wouldn't have believed I was capable of.

But, was one of those things the ability to fly, R15? Because her damn shoes were miles away from where she was and her feet were not cut up or dirty.

I think her uncle found the shoes and her mom lied to bolster her murder theory.

[quote] Parents are often oblivious to what their child is thinking. I did a lot of stuff that my parents never knew about and wouldn't have believed I was capable of.

Some parents do know and just don't confront you at the time. My mom told me all this stuff she knew about me (that I thought I had hidden).

Tiffany's autopsy report.

That crooked lawyer is taking the parents for everything they've got. He wanted to know why an autopsy and a rape kit wasn't done. Because there was nothing left to examine! They put her organs in a cup for fucks sake!

This was an obvious suicide. The older sisters and her myriad friends aren’t participating in this stuff - if there was truly a case for murder, wouldn’t they want justice for her? The parents are still in denial.

[quote]The only mystery there is where the psycho bitch is today, and I'm guessing it's not in this country. I hope they find her and this definitely makes for good exposure, but the story is too cut-and-dried to be a good fit for what UM does best.

[quote]I agree, OP. The third episode was boring. A father was killed and the killer ran away... ok. And? How is that UNsolved? It's clearly solved. We know the killer, but she ran away.

WANTED was an entire category on the original show. The unsolved mystery wasn't whodunit, but their whereabouts. (Not in the eyes of the law, obviously, which only further qualifies wanted cases as UMs.)

Some of the most memorable stories on UM were wanted segments, among them William Bradford Bishop, Dan Tondevold, Hazel Head, and William Fisher. XDDL on the first season of the Netflix show also falls into this category.

That's without even getting into the FRAUD category which was the same deal. You knew the perpetrator; the UM was their location.

R19 I made it to page 2. Very gross. I wonder how the uncle even identified her?

“Identification was visually established by the decedent’s uncle, Michael Valiante.” With damage like this: “The brain is lost; it extruded from the cranial cavity.”

The family is still clearly traumatised by it all and the episode felt a little exploitative - in a way in which previous episodes involving murders haven't been. But there's so much that's mentioned in passing but then pretty much elided for the rest of the episode - the use of the friend's credit card, the new relationship started so soon after the previous one? They hint at so much drama, without really taking into account how it may have impacted her mental well-being.

It's not uncommon for people who die by suicide to have dissociative episodes leading up to their deaths, where they leave behind personal items or remove items of clothing as a literal way of relinquishing everyday responsibility and parts of their identity. It seems disingenuous to not even mention that there could be a very banal and no less tragic reason why her shoes and headband were found miles from the scene of the collision.

the shoes landed there after she got blasted by the train.

I thought episode 3 was the best because Tammy is at large. Also, the guy she cut into thirds seemed very solid and responsible. I loved his sister who was tough and had Tammy’s number and clearly loved her brother. The young son dodged a bullet—literally—by not going into his dad’s bedroom.

She was a teenage 6’3” lesbian in a small town: I’m sure she had suicidal impulses.

Seemed like we were getting a sanitized version of the graduation party and the arguments leading up to Tiffany running off. The fighting about using the friend’s credit card was tantalizing but went nowhere. She could have been very distraught that she was going to get in serious legal trouble for basically using someone’s credit card without their permission.

Those shoes look like they would fly off in a strong wind, I can imagine what a train would do.

The conversation about Tiffany being restrained and tortured was inane small town junior high school bullshit rumors…had it been the 1990s there would have been a satan worship angle.

My theory is that she either had a jolt of adrenaline and urge to run / beat the train and ran across the tracks and misjudged and poof, that was that…or it was an opportunistic suicide: she was seized by an impulse to end it all as the train was coming and she acted on it.

Regardless, it’s sickening and shameful that her family members found/had to pick up some of her body parts and bone fragments near the tracks.

Was it even mentioned what she bought with the credit card?

R28 No. It was completely glossed over.

A cane and a flannel shirt.

R28 there’s are some damaging allegations in this article (culled from a more extensive Daily Beast article). The mother should not be drawing attention to herself. Bottom line is this was not a happy family.

I have a feeling the third story was done for purposes of diversity and inclusion.

R32 Do you know the difference between them? What about equity?

Not surprisingly there are multiple Reddit threads about Tiffany Valiente, one with 1,000+ replies. No one is buying homicide. One observation I missed but is so obvious is that the number of panicked text messages and voice mails her parents, family, and friends sent her within minutes of her running off demonstrate they clearly knew Tiffany was at risk for self harm and/or suicide.

This show really needed the old and new girlfriends interviewed, dropping tantalizing details of love ending and starting in the same week and not following up on that was missing good TV opportunities.

R35 yes but no one’s talking because they all know she killed herself…except her guilt ridden parents.

[quote]One observation I missed but is so obvious is that the number of panicked text messages and voice mails her parents, family, and friends sent her within minutes of her running off demonstrate they clearly knew Tiffany was at risk for self harm and/or suicide.

I thought the exact same thing! Who flies into a panic when a teenager goes 'missing' for a whole 15 minutes?? You'd just assume they're at a friend's house or something.

[quote]Those shoes look like they would fly off in a strong wind, I can imagine what a train would do.

Would they fly a mile and a half down an entirely different road?

They wouldn't be the first.

Still prefer the original Unsolved Mysteries

R32, you think only white people deserve justice?

Thanks for the heads up. I enjoy that show.

The next three episodes have dropped!

R43, I’m still not seeing them.

R44 Are you on the west coast? It might coincide when you hit 3AM.

Larger than life Las Vegas personality dies in Motel 6, but maybe murder?

Paranormal activity on the Navajo reservation, Bigfoot and aliens?

Midwest academically gifted student disappears, Gay hookup gone wrong? (last part is my early prediction)

But what about REY?

No one else has watched yet?

These gays really aren’t unsolvable. lol. The UFO one is the outlier.

R45, I found them. Thanks!

What about the new episode with the college guy, it was a bit of a twist at the end with…..SPOILERS…

the computer wasn’t it. And then they showed the photos of people who they want to question that contacted him, so did they basically out all the closeted men that were using Craigslist or whatever it was. Either way so sad for his family not to have answers.

Damn you called it r46

R52 Well, we could all see he had Gay face from the get go, and his overachiever, Best Little Boy in the World persona just rings struggling Gay boy. It does make it all the more sadder that being closeted might have lead to his disappearance and death. I wished they would have talked about the pedophile priests on campus and if they were brought in for questioning and examination. Especially if he was interested in exposing them, they might have been desperate not to be caught if he threatened them and that would make sense for his demise. Who’s not going to be trusting of a priest driving by on a freezing night and offering you a ride back to your dorm.

For those looking for more content like this, go no further than the recently dropped 4 part docuseries Vatican Girl on Netflix, that feels like an extended episode of this show. I’m starting the 3rd episode, but it’s intriguing and the cinematography and editing is beautiful. I had no idea the Pope’s assassination attempt was connected directly to one of the Lourdes’ prophecies and that it lead to the Vatican undermining the Soviet Union and working to topple Communism, laundering millions of dollars.

R53, the killer was clearly Pete Buttigieg who didn't want competition from a fellow gay overachiever with presidential ambitions! Case solved.

R 55 I was totally thinking shades of Pete about him too.

A train hit me, but it felt like a kiss.

Gotta love the frau who was in denial about Josh being gay. "No way was he gay." Sure, Jan!

Of the six episodes only the student's disappearance held any interest. Bigfoot? UFO lights? Not my shirt of mystery. The Las Vegas colorful lawyer story had promise but was badly constructed and argued. The lesbian athlete and the train...not much mystery.

These have all been pretty boring so far. It feels like there have to be bigger mysteries out there they could have focused on. That one about the Native American rangers was literally nothing. It was just listing mythologies.

Joshua obviously hooked up with a guy who killed him. He was gay and was hiding his sexuality. I feel like we should do a thread on Joshua as he was obviously gay (or at least bi) and his case was interesting.

R60 I never watch the paranormal stuff. It's boring, not to mention far fetched. I prefer real life actual missing cases or unsolved murders.

R59 Same. The missing student case drew me in, maybe because he was gay.

R58 Exactly. I was watching that frau and their mutual friend who said there was no way Joshua could be gay. Lmao. As if someone as religious as he was and as ambitious as he was (he was probably a Republican), would EVER come out. He knew if he wanted a career as a politician there was no way he could be openly gay. Add that to possible confusion (did he even know what he was at this point?) and you get a messed up person. He had every reason to keep it a secret.

I was quite shocked at the drinking and gambling going on at a religious order college, but then again I grew up in a town with one of the most religious and restrictive campuses in America, where even married couples holding hands and kissing in public is frowned upon.

R31 Thanks, I still think she was murdered. I don't know why, it's just a hunch I have.

R51 Yes! He was clearly closeted. A guy as ambitious and religious as he was would want to keep his gay life a secret. Also, people need to remember this was 20 years ago. Being gay wasn't as accepted back then, not even in liberal circles, can't imagine how difficult it would have been at a religious college in a small town.

R53 I thought so too. Either he might have been killed because he was about to expose the pedophiles, or he was killed from a hook up gone wrong.

R54 Thank you! I'm fascinated by missing people cases. I wish we had more shows like this on tv.

I find the case of Josh to be fascinating and it’s the best episode after Rey.

The washing of his computers web activity was odd because it was not regularly done but had recently been completed around the time he disappeared.

I think his death is accidental, something went down that night while he was at the party that the group is unwilling to share and could be key. People just don’t get up and go without explanation like that, they know something.

The one about the UFOs in the first batch of episodes was much better than the Bigfoot/Skinwalker/Skylights one.

Has anyone watched Shatner's show, The UnXplained? If so, how's that compare? Are they a good mix of things like murder mysteries and missing persons cases or is it all supernatural and paranormal stuff?

R71 I think it's all supernatural stuff, unfortunately. I would watch if it was about missing people. I tuned in once and it was about aliens looking like humans walking among us, and that aliens have been among us for centuries and contributed to technology inventions through time. It was all hogwash. I had to tune out.

The Midwestern possibly gay student Josh Guimond who went missing...

I might have been sympathetic but the more the story aired bits of his high school valedictorian speech, the less it seemed the USA its next great orator who would inspire a nation. I know American politicians set a low bar, but damn, that speech was especially terrible.

Josh was not a tranny. He was pretending to be a girl online to get dick pix from straight dudes. We all did it back in the day.

I think there are four possibilites when it comes to what happened to Josh: hookup gone wrong, his friend killed him, it was an accident (though is he fell into the lake shouldn't he have been found by now?), or the monks did it because he researched the pedo stuff.

Someone said Josh made fake ids and that's why his computer was full of pics of men. Is this true? Why were they all shirtless? The police guy said that he had gay porn on the pc so he was clearly gay or at least bi.

Bigjugs69

Josh ran off to live as a big-breasted woman named Misteria.

R73 = Pete Buttigieg.

Even if it was a hookup gone bad isn’t it kind of odd that he just left in the middle of a poker party to meet someone, without making up some excuse as to why he was leaving. Was the party impromptu or had it been planned? If he had prearranged a hookup it doesn’t seem like he’d make it for the same time he was supposed to be at a party. They didn’t mention him having a phone on him, so I assume he couldn’t have received a “hey, I’m here” text which would prompt him to leave immediately.

Right - that was the weird part, which was somewhat underexplored. As the mother pointed out, it suggests that the party guys are lying/covering something up. But what?

R80 I don’t think cellphones were as ubiquitous in 2000–he was on AOL & used Yahoo personals, maybe he wasn’t very techy. I don’t think I got my first cell until like 2005.

The story really creeped me out, how did jr just vanish into thin air? He must’ve been murdered & either buried well or dissolved in acid or something.

Ok I’m gonna admit I haven’t watched this yet, but I’m intrigued. The timing of the computer wipe is odd, but for a closeted Catholic it’s not terribly surprising this would have been done (I feel so guilty, I’m gonna be better, etc). So it’s possibly a coincidence,

If he wiped it because he planned to either kill himself or disappear and was ashamed of what loved ones might find, he did a really good job of making himself go away.

I’m guessing he was killed by a hookup. I can recall going to excessive lengths for sex when younger and horny, so leaving a party without saying anything would be a very small hurdle in a dick quest. Is there a pattern of missing men in the area or was it just a furtive same-sex experiment gone wrong? Can survivors access your email accounts after you’ve disappeared?

I’ll have to watch this episode. I’m most looking forward to the the girl 20 years later in denial about his sexuality.

R73, geez, he was a 17 or so year old kid at the time. Were you really expecting him to be the next Lincoln?

Anyone else believe Tiffany’s mom is a hysterical nut and a liar? I think the uncle and cousin found her shoes when cleaning up the next day and gave them to the mother. She then “found” them three weeks later along the side of the road. Sure, she did. She went out specifically looking for them….and finds them. No fucking way that happened the way she said. Mother has a munchausen by proxy vibe and enjoys the drama and attention, but suicide is shameful.

They left so much stuff out of the first episode like abuse from the mother and self harm. Her team mates said they had no doubt that she was depressed. I think it was suicide but the parents just can't accept it. It's a lot less mysterious if you look into it.

Robert Stack come back!

I also wouldn't be surprised if the mother planted the shoes, or even the greedy lawyer putting them somewhere she would "find" them randomly. The other option is that they flew off away from the accident site, somebody found them, took them for a while then abandoned them - maybe there was a toe in there.

Or maybe a homeless person found the shoes, put them on, and ditched them a couple miles away.

The mother kept emphasising over and over that the shoes were brand new - how hard would it have been to just buy another new pair and plant them?

Well r82, he may have never left at all - the only “evidence” that he ever left the party is that two randos saw some other rando on the bridge at night. If we start from the premise that the “he just left” story makes no sense, it leads to a different set of possibilities that no one seems to have ever looked into.

I think something happened at the party and he died. The other students at the party went to his place and played music on his computer to make it look like he went home.

He was obviously gay but there is only hearsay that he ever left.

Thoughts on Death in a Vegas Motel Room? Unsolved Mysteries clearly wants us to believe that it was a mob hit.

I tend to think it was R93. The only thing that makes me question that is Lisa calling him to see if he was ok. If she were in on it she probably wouldn’t have done that.

Three new episodes tomorrow.

I know r87!!!

This reboot is a shadow of its former self. The only episode from this newest season I found remotely interesting was #7 (Josh).

The train girl has trashy parents who turned me off. I had an immediate, visceral reaction to them, such that I kept cursing at the TV when they were on and then just skipped ahead.

Not a good season, at all.

My favorite episodes are the genuinely scary ones. Josh’s story gave me the creeps, the Japanese tsunami ghosts episodes really scared me.

The only good episode this season has been Joshua's. Tiffany was clearly suicide, the Vegas man clearly died from an overdose. We know who killed the family man, it was his girlfriend. She's still at large. The only real mystery is Josh, it's like he just vanished.

In episode 7 play a drinking game by taking s shot every time they say the word “Stumpknocker.”

I keep feel like DL Gay hookup gone wrong is the answer to many of these.

Am I the only one who has never heard of a headbox before?

Episode 7 sounds like a gay hookup gone wrong. The spurned lover killed him after a meth fueled tryst.

I could tell right away that Patrick Mullins was a cookie sniffer.

I just watched the episode on the haunted apartment. As it went on, I remembered the “girl in the box” case of Colleen Stan and the details of the missing girl being abducted by a couple reminded me of it (same region of northern California too). As I was watching the episode, it clicked pretty quickly that these cases were related. I frankly had never heard of Marliz Spannhake’s disappearance before. Not a big mystery per se, as it’s clear she was Cameron Hooker’s ostensible first victim, but the poltergeist activity reported by the hippie mom in Marliz’s former apartment was definitely weird. The dreams about numbers and other strange things were fascinating. I can see why police might have initially dismissed her as a kook, but I think I believe her story (the detective seems to as well). It seems like they’ve narrowed down the area of Marliz’s burial site, and am somewhat surprised she hasn’t been found. Given the terrain though, I suppose it’s a bit of a needle in a haystack situation. Very sad, morbid story.

If the viewership parallels the interest here I can’t see the show having another season.

Wow more shitty episodes. The guy in the boat was clearly killed by the one who overdosed on meth. I don't give a shit about parents kidnapping their own children and yet another paranormal episode. I'm just not interested.

At the risk of sounding cold, one thing I'm glad they didn't bring back was the long-lost reunited loved. I always thought those were a snooze.

*reunited loves ones.

R106 I’m with you, a parent kidnapping their own child is something I have a problem rousing a lot of empathy for. If you’re going to marry someone and then choose to have children with them you should have done your due diligence ahead of time to make sure they were a good person and something like this wouldn’t happen. And it’s like she never watched the Sally Field movie or something? Once you see that you never forget.

Norma Ray?

Oh dear!

These mysteries are unsolved for a reason. They're too boring!

They should revisit the case of missing baby Sabrina Eisenburg.

I don't know, R113. Babies are never interesting.

Are there any more episodes left to come or was those duds all we got?

Unsolved Mattresses would be more interesting.

Yeah R89, but what about the white headband. Would a homeless guy have a need for that?

I don't really get the motive for the meth chef to tie up and kill the nerdy dad. Was it a bondage session gone wrong?

I think next season should just be called Unsolved Gay Hook-Ups Gone Wrong.

[quote]or was those duds all we got?

In Death in a Vegas Motel, one of the big smoking guns was the room was accessed with a key card seven minutes before Buffalo Jim checked in and someone was waiting for him. But if you pause when they show the room access log, you see the room was only accessed ONCE that night. So, likely the card system time and the lobby surveillance camera time were a few minutes off from each other.

I feel bad for the daughters, but they just don't want to believe their dad died from a heart attack while snorting cocaine and fucking a hooker in a Motel 6.

That poor Josh Guimond guy was obviously a hookup gone wrong. He got himself into a Mr. Goodbar situation.

He was cute.

[quote]If he wiped it because he planned to either kill himself or disappear and was ashamed of what loved ones might find, he did a really good job of making himself go away.

His computer was wiped a few days after he disappeared. Somebody else downloaded the program and wiped his computer.

Local Minnesota News 20th anniversary coverage of Josh’s disappearance and Gay podcaster covering the story.

A few years ago, I started listening to a podcast called "The Trail Went Cold." The host is a huge "Unsolved Mysteries" fan and has covered a ton of cases that were featured on the series, but are still unsolved. In every case, he talks about details and information UM left out of the segments. And that's understandable, since there's only so much you can include in an 8 to 12 minute segment. But these Netflix episodes are 50 fucking minutes, and they are still leaving out pertinent information.

I used to listen to TTWC and remember the host’s voice being described as if he sounds like he has his “nuts in a vice”. I got burnt out on true crime podcasts, but still watch all of theses that come up on Netflix and HBO. The Murdaugh story is going to make a killer dramatized mini-series some day. We need to cast it (if we haven’t already).

On the release of the chatters images.

That poor Josh Guimond kid was either a hook up gone wrong or some psycho just happened to be driving by as Guimond was walking alone on a dark road in the middle of the night and abducted him.

I think Josh may have met up with one of the monks for a hookup and Josh recognized one of his teachers

I went into a porn store with two friends, who both ran out of the store laughing hysterically, as they’d spotted one of their Catholic priest educators from their private high school.

Three more episodes dropped...only one of which is worth watching (the boat one). Maddeningly, some very obvious details were left out of that episode though. First and foremost: DID THEY EVER FIND THE FUCKING SHOTGUN!? If they found it, who was it registered to!? And if they didn't find it then obviously it was murder! Had he used it on himself, it would've dropped down into the water and landed right next to the anchor (assuming it didn't fall into the boat). Why did they leave out such an important detail?? And speaking of anchors, whose anchor was he tied down with? His own? And whose rope? If his boat had been pulled out to sea by someone, why wouldn't they have taken the body out to sea as well? It would've been much easier to hide a body out there than in that clear, shallow river water!

Justice for Marliz.

Did anyone think that the meteorologist who saw the UFOs on radar was gay as hell?

Rey Rivera, the best of these, and the most disturbing.

The UFOs over Lake Michigan in 1994 have really fascinated me. I’m about to spend all night digging into it.

Will there be a season 4?

I wish they’d bring back Rescue 911

The Dan Motherfuck saga would make a great series premiere.

Season 4 premieres on July 31. Let's hope they picked some better cases for this new season.