Number one This first mystery takes us all the way to a favorite destination for viewers of this channel; namely "The Land of the Rising Sun" It was the 1980s, and much like today Japan was an extremely safe country So safe, in fact, that your chances of losing your life to another human there were about 1/100000, nine times or less than the USA As such, any big cases there were bound to make news headlines and grab the public's attention One such case is that of Kazuko Fukuda Let's begin In 1982 Kazuko Fukuda was a 34 year old mother of four living in Matsuyama City, Ehime Times were hard for her and her family She was deep in debt (the equivalent of about thirty thousand dollars) mostly from wasting cash on an overly extravagant lifestyle Kazuko loved expensive clothes, put it that way Still, the collectors were calling, and she needed money to pay them off Thus, she took a job that didn't require any fancy degrees, but still paid pretty well A hostess at a snack bar Her job was basically to wear a dress, drink with the male customers, flirt with them, sing karaoke if they wanted to, and just generally beguile them with interesting stories and her feminine charms That type of work wasn't a problem for her When she was young she'd had a tough upbringing with her mother, living with her in a... let's call it a "gentleman's funhouse" So from a young age she'd been doing much worse than working as a hostess One of the perks of the job was free booze, and Kazuko loved to drink That was one of her not so admirable qualities... Another such quality was her jealous streak One of her co-workers 31 year old Atsuko Yasuoka was a far more popular hostess at the snack bar; a real charmer the customers preferred her for her bubbly, easygoing personality... Not to mention her good looks! Her popularity translated into one thing: tips. Good tips One evening after closing time Kazuko happened to notice just how much money Atsuko had made that shift It was a lot, and it infuriated her If she made that kind of money herself she'd be debt-free in no time But alas, poor Kazuko was too stern and serious for most of the customers At the end of that shift she approached Atsuko and asked her if she could pay her a visit sometime. Learn from her, you know? Atsuko agreed They went back to Atsuko's apartment together after work one night It was there that Kazuko saw all of the lovely things that Atsuko had in her apartment... Saw how she was living the life that she wanted That's when envy took ahold of her In a jealous rage she grabbed a rope and hooked it around at Atsuko's neck, strangling her until all of the life in her was snuffed out She then took more than 300 items from Atsuko home, including her furniture clothes and a bank book The total of it all was more than enough to pay off all of her debts, and then some $90,000 in today's money Now Kazuko was smart, but she wasn't a criminal mastermind or anything After she took care of Atsuko she went home and told her husband what she had done Her husband begged her to turn herself in She just laughed in his face and forced him to help her hide Atsuko's remains Under cover of darkness they smuggled Atsuko out of her apartment, took her up into the mountains and dumped her For a time life went on as normal Kazuko even went out and found herself a new boyfriend while she was still with her husband Like I said, she liked to live "extravagantly" Before long however, the authorities caught on to what had happened They soon found Atsuko in the mountains, and they decided to pay Kazuko a visit By the time they came knocking on her door Kazuko was already long gone taking her small fortune with her, and leaving behind her husband and children Now here's where things start getting really interesting Japan's statute of limitations was (and still is) 15 years If Kazuko could elude the cops for that long she'd be free as a bird Heck, she could even go around telling everyone what she had done to Atsuko if she wanted to... Brag about it even! There'd be absolutely nothing anyone could do about it. No consequences whatsoever Now, 15 years on the run might sound like a long time, but Kazuko was no fool Like I said, she had had a tough upbringing; a tough life in general 15 more years of struggle didn't sound like that much when her freedom was on the line And that hardship in life had made her a very capable woman Pair that with her devious mind, and she'd proved to be very elusive Not to mention, she knew just how horrible prison life in Japan could be She had already served time in the past after holding up a tax collector The time she spent in jail was horrendous The prison itself was essentially run by the Yakuza, and members of the group would frequently pay off guards to have their way with the inmates Kazuko included There was no way she was going back Thus, she made herself a list of rules to evade capture 1. Never stay anywhere longer than three months 2. Never let anyone take her photograph 3. Use a different name at every job That was all pretty elementary, and the cops knew to suspect that she'd do that Most people on the run stuck to those kind of rules, and 96% of them would eventually be caught Not to mention Kazuko's face was all over the news it was only a matter of time before they caught up with her Turns out that that matter of time was longer than anyone expected... 14 years and 11 months later, and they still hadn't found her They had only one month left to track her down and charge her, or she'd be free, no longer a fugitive, and Atsuko's demise would go unpunished July 24th 1997 The authorities received a call Someone told them that a woman resembling Kazuko Fukuda was at a restaurant in Fukui City They staked out the restaurant, and five days later that same woman returned It was only lunchtime, but she'd already been drinking The woman went by the name "Yukiko Nakamura" The investigators agreed that she vaguely looked like Kazuko, but not entirely Still, a lot can change in 15 years, right? They asked her to come in and answer a few questions She voluntarily agreed At the station she continued her drinking The investigators asked if they could have a set of her fingerprints the woman declined Still, they were able to extract a set from the bottle she was drinking from They were a perfect match with those found at Atsuko's apartment 14 years, 11 months and 10 days after she gone on the run Kazuko had been found She was only 20 days away from total freedom Turns out that the authorities and everyone else in the public had been following a red herring all along But that red herring wasn't a lead at all. It was something much more basic They assumed that Kazuko had the same face In reality, Kazuko knew that her money wouldn't last forever So, at the very start, she spent it on something much more valuable than possessions She went to a doctor in Tokyo and had her face completely changed By keeping herself looking younger this also had the added effect of helping her get work at other hostess bars around the country She had hopped from town to town relationship to relationship Getting plastic surgery numerous times to change her face and elude the cops, and always moved on when things got too hot And that's why it took so many years for somebody to call in a tip Nobody knew the face they were looking for To this day, Kazuko is known in Japan as "The Woman of Seven Faces" She was sentenced to life in prison, but passed away in 2005 Kazuko was obviously a wretched person, but you can't deny her sly industriousness 14 years, 11 months and 10 days... She almost got away with it Almost. Number two Peter Sutcliffe AKA, the Yorkshire Ripper His name is probably familiar to many of you, and for good (or more accurately bad) reason Between 1975 and 1980 he took the lives of 13 women, and attempted to slay nine others in Yorkshire, England What some people don't realize however was that there was a red herring in the case which led investigators down the wrong path This red herring ended up costing some of the victims their lives 1978, West Yorkshire The Ripper's been making headlines for the past few years sporadically taking the lives of women, his favorite targets being "ladies of the night" so-to-speak His modus operandi was crude, but effective He'd strike the women from behind with a hammer (sometimes multiple times) Then he'd pull out a blade and stab them repeatedly in the neck, chest and abdomen At that time nobody knew his identity What the authorities needed was a lead Well, in March they got one They received a letter in the post written to Detective George Oldfield, the head of the Ripper inquiry I'll read it now Due to YouTube's new tougher guidelines I'll have to change a few words Dear sir, I am sorry. I cannot give you my name for obvious reasons I am the Ripper I've been dubbed a maniac by the press but not by you You call me clever, and I am You and your mates haven't a clue that photo in the paper gave me fits, and that bit about ending myself? No chance I've got things to do My purpose? To rid the streets of them women My one regret is that young lassie McDonald Didn't know cause changed routine that night Up to number eight now... You say seven, but remember Preston '75 Get about, you know You were right, I travel a bit You'll probably look for me in Sunderland. Don't bother. I'm not daft. Just posted the letter there on one of my trips Not a bad place compared with Chapeltown and Manningham and other places Warn ladies of the night to keep off the streets, because I feel it coming on again Sorry about young lassie. Respectfully, Jack the Ripper Over the next 18 months the authorities received two more letters What really caught their attention however was a cassette they received in 1979 On it was a recorded message for Detective Oldfield This recording came to be known as the "Wearside Jack Tape" The first thing the authorities did was focus on the man's accent. If you haven't been here, England's an eclectic place full of different dialects If they could narrow down where his accent had come from they'd be able to pinpoint where the Yorkshire Ripper was Voice experts were called in They determined that the man must be from the Castletown area of Sunderland, a place with a very particular accent This led to 40,000 men in the area being interviewed, and a £1m campaign being launched to try and catch the Ripper The result of all of this? Zilch. Nothing. The Ripper was nowhere to be found All the evidence from the cases pointed to one man being responsible: Peter Sutcliffe He was interviewed multiple times But the thing is, his accent didn't match with the man's in the Wearside Jack tape Nor did his handwriting match that of the three letters As a result, he was never formally arrested He simply couldn't be the man they were looking for But as we know, Sutcliffe was indeed the Ripper The letters, the tape... they were all a hoax sent in by one little man desperate for attention John Samuel Humble He had managed to fool the authorities, leading them to believe the Yorkshire Ripper had a different accent than he really did As such, Sutcliffe was able to remain free for another 18 months, during which time he took the lives of three more women and attacked two others So, how did the cops actually catch Sutcliffe? In the end he was just pulled over for driving with false license plates When they took him in for questioning he confessed to being the Ripper That's it Right up until that point they remained convinced that the letters and the tape were genuine When the truth finally came out Detective Oldfield resigned from his position So there you have it. A set of simple, but very effective red herrings sent in by one man for who-knows-what reason Whatever the case, John Humble drew attention away from the real perp and allowed the Ripper to continue his rampage for much longer than he should have been able to, costing three women their lives John Humble was finally tracked down in 2005 thanks to advances in DNA technology For his trouble, in 2006, John Humble was sentenced to 8 years in the slammer He was released early after serving only 4 of those years, and passed away last year in August Peter Sutcliffe himself was given an all-life sentence to be served in HM Prison, Frankland He remains there to this day Number three Joseph and Summer McStay where your average American couple, living in Fallbrook, California with their two sons Gianni and Joseph Jr. Along with his business partner Chase Merritt, Joseph owned and operated Earth Inspired Products, a company that made decorative fountains Summer was a real estate agent The family seemed to be living the American dream But, since we're talking about them on this channel, you know that dream came crashing down February 4th, 2010 7:47pm. The McStay family residence One of their neighbour's surveillance cameras captured the bottom portion of an unknown vehicle pull-in to the McStay driveway Whoever was inside the vehicle couldn't be seen in the footage At 8:28 pm Joseph's cell phone made a call to his business partner Chase, but it went straight to voicemail Soon after the vehicle parked in the driveway drove off into the night For the next few days the neighbors noticed that the McStay's house was extremely quiet Joseph and Summer's family members tried to contact them, but they weren't answering their phones Finally, on February 13th, Joseph's brother went over to their house and climbed in through an open window in the back The scene he found inside was unusual Joseph, Summer and the kids were nowhere to be seen, but there were no signs of foul play anywhere It looked as if the McStays had left in a hurry There was uneaten food plated in the kitchen and the living room, and their dogs had been left outside It seemed as if something or someone had interrupted them, and for whatever reason they had to quickly leave the house He assumed they left by car since their vehicle wasn't in the driveway The next day Joseph's brother reported the family as missing. An investigation began What the investigators found out was strange to say the least It came to light that on February 8th the McStay family's car had been towed from a shopping mall parking lot right beside the Mexican border CCTV footage from the mall and the border were examined Finally the investigators had found what they were looking for The McStays had been caught on the mall security cameras crossing the border into Mexico by foot It did seem strange that they had left their car behind Theories started to circulate. A lot of people believed that they must have somehow been involved with the cartels Others thought that they had simply upped and left to start a new life elsewhere Both theories were completely out of character for the McStays, especially as they disappeared without telling any of their friends or family The authorities checked the McStays computers Their search history revealed something very interesting They had recently been searching things such as "what documents did children need to travel to Mexico" "how to learn Spanish" and things of that nature Perhaps they had run away after all With no further leads, in April 2013, the authorities officially stated that the McStays had more than likely fled across the border to Mexico on their own accord though what exactly they were running from remained unclear There were even unconfirmed sightings of the family in Mexico Their family members however didn't believe in that theory whatsoever They remained adamant that Joseph and Summer would never do something like that Not to mention there was $100,000 in their bank account, which hadn't been touched So what on earth was going on? Well, the truth would eventually surface, but because the case was officially classified as solved and the investigation discontinued, the McStay's whereabouts remained a mystery for an extra three years Then, on November 11th, 2013, a discovery A biker was passing by the desert in Victorville, California when he came across two shallow holes in the ground Inside he found four sets of human remains It was Joseph, Summer, Gianni and Joseph Jr. The McStay family An examination revealed that their lives were ended by blunt force trauma The weapon used would later be revealed to be a sledgehammer They hadn't run away to Mexico after all For the past three years everyone assumed they were alive when in reality they were slain on the same night that mysterious vehicle pulled into their driveway Now the only question was "who was responsible?" There were several suspects, most notably a jealous ex-boyfriend of Summer's who had been bombarding her with emails This ex-boyfriend had a criminal history However the truth was much closer to home Remember Joseph's business partner I mentioned? Chase Merritt? Well, he had his own dark history as well. Not to mention a dark present... Chase had a problem. He loved to make a bet, and he had accrued a hefty amount of debt His plan was to take Joseph out of the picture along with his whole family, and then write checks from Joseph's business account to fuel his habit Tire tracks at the burial scene were the same as those on Chase's car, and his cell phone had pinged off towers next to the site The evidence was clear, and the McStay family mystery had finally been solved There were numerous misleading clues in this case to be sure, most of them set up by Chase himself to throw the police off his scent The biggest red herring of all though was undoubtedly the CCTV footage Turns out that the family seen crossing the border in the images weren't the McStays at all They were just some random family that vaguely resembled them in the grainy footage A mere coincidence This footage was enough to convince the authorities that the McStays were alive and well, when in reality their remains were in shallow holes in the desert Had the police been less fixated on the camera footage, perhaps they'd have found them sooner, and the perp brought to justice more swiftly On June 10th, 2019, Chase Merritt was found guilty of slaying the McStay family He's soon to be formally sentenced The best things happen... In the dark.
