As such, families of the victims aren't exactly hopeful that they will get answers in the immediate future. At that point, only a single detective was investigating the case full-time. While there have been at least two potential suspects, as of 2016 there had been zero arrests. Unfortunately, it turned out that the women had been murdered - strangled, possibly - sometime between 20, so the trail was colder than anyone would have wanted. The skeletal remains were discovered in 2009, and as the Albuquerque Journal tells us, the police swiftly put together a 40-strong task force to investigate the case. The West Mesa Serial Killer is an unapprehended and unknown individual who murdered 11 young women, one of whom was pregnant, and buried them in clumsy graves in West Mesa, Albuquerque.

and, seeing as he still hasn't been caught, might still be. As such, some people who are extremely familiar with the case, such as crime journalist Mario Spezi, believed in 2006 that the true Monster of Florence (or perhaps monsters) was still out there. His conviction was promptly overturned, but soon afterward, the police discovered a witness who claimed that Pacciani and a number of accomplices had in fact been killing people at the behest of a devil-worshiping doctor and other 'masterminds.' Pacciani died before his second trial, and though two of his apparent accomplices were eventually convicted, the evidence against them was shoddy at best. In 1994, the investigators finally believed they had their man, in the form of a drunken, violent farm worker called Pietro Pacciani.

The husband of the first victim was actually convicted for the murder and received a 14-year prison sentence, though the killings soon resumed. As the Atlantic tells us, the hunt for the Monster was a long one, and tens of thousands of men were viewed as potential suspects.

Unsolved serial killers usa