10 Disturbing Crimes Solved By Amateurs
6. Murder And Rape: Ghost Makes Friend Solve Her Cold Case
All the way back in 1984, Angela Samota’s boyfriend became worried after a disconnected call and alerted the police. The Sophomore at Southern Methodist University was then found dead and stark naked on her bed, having been raped and incessantly stabbed at the heart.
Unhappy with her murderer having escaped justice for two decades, Samota’s 'ghost' supposedly stood at the edge of Shelia Wysocki’s bed and terrified her once college roommate into cracking the cold case.
Wysocki relentlessly pestered the Dallas police about the forgotten crime, but it wasn’t until four years and ‘over 750 phone calls’ later that detective Linda Crum went through the department’s evidence and learned that they had the culprit’s DNA. Serial rapist Donald Bess, who was on parole while serving a 125-year sentence in the ‘80s, was eventually convicted and sentenced to death in 2010.
Having solved the mystery through her refusal to let everybody forget about Samota’s misfortune, Wysocki was rewarded with a private investigator license. She now enquires into cold cases of murder and rape on her own, doing it for clients who no longer believe in the justice system.