7. Evelyn Hernandez
In 2002, while California (and the rest of the nation) was enraptured with the murder of Laci Peterson, another pregnant women in Northern California died under mysterious, disturbing circumstances. On July 24, 2002, the dismembered torso of Evelyn Hernandez washed up in the San Francisco Bay, about two months after the nine-months-pregnant mother and her five-year old son had been reported missing. This find was especially gruesome, as the woman’s torso had had her unborn fetus cut out of her body before it was discarded in the water.
Theories spread wildly, linking her murder to that of Laci Peterson. Many believed that the two women shared the same killer, with many, including a California congressman, believing that both women had been killed on Satanic holy days as ritual killings by a rogue group of Devil-worshipping madmen. Of course, that theory was disproved once Scott Peterson was ultimately found guilty for his wife’s murder.
While many leads have been chased in the Hernandez case, nothing noteworthy has transpired in years. Hernandez’s head and limbs never washed ashore, and her unborn fetus and five year-old son Alexis, remain missing to this day.