History has been plagued by many unspeakable acts, but this October, in the month of all things terrifying and creepy, we’re going to explore the most notorious unsolved murders of history.

5. The Grimes Sisters

The year was 1956 in Chicago. Two sisters named Barbara and Patricia Grimes, ages 14 and 15, went out looking for a fun night on the town. They were excited to see the Elvis Presley movie, “Love me Tender.” Tragically for the two girls, they would suffer a much darker fate. At 2:15 am, their mother reported them as missing. This would go on to create one of the biggest missing persons case in Chicago history. The girls were at first thought to have run off to an Elvis concert in Nashville, but that theory would sadly become debunked after their bodies were found a month later. Though found with bruises and puncture wounds from an ice-pick, the girls’ ultimate cause of death was from the cold of December. Many suspects were named, but justice would not come for these girls due to evidence not matching up with polygraph tests and false confessions.

4.The Zodiac Killer

From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, California was gripped in fear by the Zodiac Killer. The killer was indiscriminate and killed anyone he pleased. The zodiac claimed to have murdered 37 people in his cryptic letters to police, but only 7 were confirmed victims of the dreaded puzzle master. The Zodiac Killer sent many letters taunting police and providing puzzles and ciphers that the killer claimed would lead to his identity. The case has been investigated as recently as 2007, but to this day, it remains one of the most infamous cases of murder in American history.

3.The Axeman of New Orleans.

It’s early 1900s New Orleans; jazz music is playing all through the night, but it’s not for genuine love of the genre. It is out of fear of having a maniac with an axe hack you to pieces. The Axeman of New Orleans was a man who butchered his victims with an axe. Six to seven people fell victim under his cold merciless steel. Like the Zodiac Killer, the Axeman sent in letters with the most prominent feature of the letters being the Axeman’s arrogance–claiming to be a demon from Hell. He claimed the police never caught him because they were actively avoiding him. He demanded that every night that all houses would play jazz music, and whichever house didn’t would pay the price dearly. So the air was filled with jazz and fear. Let’s finish this infamous murder off with a quote from one of the Axeman’s letters.

“When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims,” The Axeman wrote. “I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.”

2.Jack The Ripper

No unsolved murder list would be complete without including the notorious White Chapel Murders perpetrated by Jack The Ripper. The Autumn of Terror in 1888 London is a bloody stain on English history. Five women were brutally murdered by The Ripper, and the White Chapel district where Jack conducted his harrowing deeds had descended into fear and darkness. Scotland Yard was stumped at every turn in their hunt for The Ripper, and the media was publishing the graphic letters that were allegedly written by the murderer. Jack The Ripper’s actions would be felt for a century–leaving a dark legacy to be remembered.

1.The Black Dahlia

The glitz and glam of 1940s Hollywood leads every young girl to want her name up in lights. For one unfortunate girl, her name would end up in print. Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia, became a murder victim that would leave a mark on American history. She was left in a vacant lot so deformed that a civilian identified her as a mannequin. The condition which her body was found in was so graphic that I cannot repeat most of the details–only that the victim was left with a Glasgow Smile. Fifty people have confessed to the murder of Elizabeth Short, yet all of them proved to be false. The murder has since exploded into pop culture by spawning books, a film and a video game appearance. This murder is chilling, mysterious and disturbing. Its vague and terrifying lack of details puts it at the top of this cadaver-filled list.