Famous author Edgar Allen Poe died under grim and…odd circumstances to say the least. 27 September, 1849. Poe is walking down the rainy streets of Baltimore Maryland in ill-fitting clothing and a straw hat. He’s mumbling incoherently and appears delirious. He falls into a puddle. Most people walk by believing him to be a drunk vagrant. But a writer for the Baltimore times, Joe A. Walker, recognized him and helped Poe up to his feet.
Walker helped Poe into a nearby bar where Poe continued speaking incoherently and still had signs of delirium. Walker got something out of Poe however. Dr. Joe E. Snodgrass. A local hospital physician who was an acquaintance of Poe’s. Walker penned Snodgrass describing Poe’s condition hoping the doctor could help him. When Poe was admitted to the hospital, Snodgrass and the nurses were very confused as to his condition. He faded in and out of consciousness, rambling incoherent nonsense, and was still delirious. He also interestingly refused to drink water while at the hospital. After several days of staying, Poe was declared dead by hospital staff.
Newspapers that wrote about his death stated the cause being “congestion of the brain” likely in reference to Poe’s delirium. Many theories exist such as Dr Snodgrass’ belief that he suffered from alcoholism. Others have proposed hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and rabies.
Rabies, alcoholism, diabetes, or whatnot. No one knows what killed this famous poet from Baltimore. His death to this day is mysterious. And perhaps it shall remain, forevermore.
[Read more here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Edgar_Allan_Poe)
12 comments
I can’t think of any mysterious deaths like the one you described. There are famous murder mysteries that remains unsolved for sure. Two of the most famous examples are the [murder of Kyllikki Saari](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/169k6e0/whats_a_mysterious_death_that_remains_unsolved_to/) and [Lake Bodom murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders). And there are unusual deaths like the [death of Sirkka Sari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirkka_Sari) who fell to a chimney.
But besides usual homicides and people missing, I can’t think of any cases where the actual reason for the death has remained unsolved.
The murder in “Finderup barn”. In 1286 king Erik Klipping was murdered while seeking shelter in the barn during a hunt. His body was found with 56 stab wounds, supposedly one stab on behalf of the each man behind it, while several men were convicted the following year, evidence against them was at best circumstancial, the strongest case is against someone that was definitely nothing more than a servant, Arvid Bentsen, many of the other suspects were given protection by the then king of Norway, who in turn himself was a prime suspect. In 1320 when the murdered kings 2nd son ascended the throne, due to his elder brother not having any heirs, the nobility imposed a quite severe håndfæstning on him (a sort of treaty in which the nobles recognised him, and he in turn recognised the rights and privileges of nobles, clergy, burgers, and selfowners (small time farmers not tennants), as well as a lot of settlements being made). In this håndfæstning just about all convictions were overturned. In essence there was a coverup in the beginning and then another coverup to both undo the first, and then settle things. As a fun side note, the case technically remains open to this day because murder has no statute of limitations in Denmark.
Having recently visited [Neuschwanstein Castle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle) in Bavaria, I learned of the mysterious death of [King Ludwig II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria#Death).
After essentially bankrupting himself building fairytale castles, he was declared insane, deposed and taken into custody.
The following day, he and his doctor went for a walk along the shore of Lake Starnberg, from which they didn’t return. They were found dead later that evening, with Ludwig’s death being ruled as suicide by drowning, despite several items of evidence contradicting that verdict.
Probably the assassination of our Prime Minister during the 80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme
One night while out with his wife he was shot down in the street. There’s still no conviction, there’s no consensus on who might’ve done it and during the investigation a lot of very suspicious information got out, such as part of the Stockholm Police being suspected.
The most interesting leads are probably those connected to South Africa and the CIA though, as Palme was a strong international leader of the Social Democracy movement, and was very open about his position on both apartheid and the US foreign policy.
What makes this even more interesting is that this connects his murder to the assassinated Head of the UN Dag Hammarskjöl who quite likely was murdered for his role in the global peace movement as well.
The 81 victims on the [Ustica massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itavia_Flight_870), 27 June 1980.
The plane was taken down by a missile. Officialy the origin of the missile is unknown, however it’s almost certain that it was fired by a [French fighter plane](https://www.corriere.it/cronache/23_settembre_02/strage-ustica-giuliano-amato-missile-francese-macron-48a19710-492b-11ee-859b-50c2b0b05e77.shtml) in an attempt to get Gheddafi killed. The involvment of the French govt or NATO in the massacre has always been denied, but there is a loooooong and painful history of obstructions and hiding evidences in this story.
I think Jan Masaryk is still a mystery, although I guess people probably lean into the version his suicide wasn’t a suicide. Basically, he was found underneath his window, and the official statement was suicide but it seems someone (communists) pushed him. That happened in 1948, and he was one of the last noncommunist ministers.
There are many.
Probably the most well known contemporary case in Germany is the [YOGTZE case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YOGTZE_case?wprov=sfla1). Günther Stoll was an unemployed family father who died under mysterious circumstances in 1984. He left a note reading “YOG’TZE” which still is not decrypted today.
[The murder of Tristan Brühbach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tristan_Br%C3%BCbach?wprov=sfla1) is probably the most gruesome unsolved murder case. I won’t describe the details here. You can read about them yourself but I would not recommend it if you are easily terrified.
[The Hinterkaifeck murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinterkaifeck_murders?wprov=sfla1) are also well known but will probably remain unsolved because it’s too old.
[The murder of Frauke Liebs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Frauke_Liebs?wprov=sfla1) is also really strange, because it feels like it should be easily solvable since there are a lot of known facts but there is little hope to solve it.
Currently german, dutch and belgian police are trying to solve a bunch of murdercases involving unidentified women via [Operation Identify Me](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Identify_Me?wprov=sfla1).
There are just too many rabbit holes.
Not so much of a murder mystery, but Sebastian, King of Portugal disappeared during the battle of Alcácer Quibir in Morocco. This event has been somewhat mythologized, and legend goes that the king will return on a misty morning during an hour of need.
There are 2 famous Finnish murder cases that remain unsolved to this day, despite extensive investigation.
Firstly the Lake Bodom murders. In 1960, 4 teenagers went camping by the lake, during the night, 3 of them were brutally murdered and the last one was badly injured. They had been smashed with a rock and some had multiple stab wounds.
First obvious suspect was the survivor, Nils Gustafsson, where the theory goes that some sort of beef would have developed during the night, which led Gustafsson to commit the murders, and his injuries could be explained by the one other man fighting back. He was arrested and sentenced for the murders in 2004, but later released due to lack of evidence. There are 5 other primary suspects, but nothing conclusive came out of it.
Most interesting one of the suspects is Hans Assman, who had been a former guard at SS and at the time living in Finland, and suspected to be a KGB agent. On the following day he arrived at a hospital covered in red stained clothes, dirty fingernails and for lack of a better term, acting batshit crazy. He was also a perfect match for the descriptions given by the witnesses under hypnosis. There’s a whole conspiracy theory about him being guilty about it but it was covered up due to his connections to the Soviet Union.
The whole case is very interesting, i recommend looking into it.
The second being the Murder of Kyllikki Saari in 1953. She was riding a bike home from an event at a church, but vanished during the bike ride home. It caused a massive manhunt with a lot of people. It was really weird as pretty much the whole municipality helped in the investigation because they tought it ruined the reputation of their village.
I don’t want to bother to explain the whole thing as it’s very detailed, but some ending notes: The same guy from the previous case, Hans Assman is also a primary suspect in this case among with hundreds of people interrogated by the police. Apparently the investigating cops are pretty certain of who did it, but chose not to tell as the person responsible is already dead.
In 2011 the charismatic founder leader of an opposition party called “Self-Defense” was found hanging from a rope in his office. The investiation cocluded that it was a suicide caused by depression, political fall, multiple lawsuits against him and monumental debts, but there are also suspicions of murder because he was in possession of compromising information on many politicians and illegal activities of the goverment.
And, well, there’s the Smolensk plane crash in which the then-president Kaczynski died. Most believe it was an accident caused by bad conditions and the President insisting on landing, the ruling PiS party and its leader the president’s twin want you to believe Putin did it. Which, to be fair, is something Putin totally could do.
Probably the [death of our prime-minister in 1980 in a plane crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Camarate_air_crash?wprov=sfla1). Some people say it was an accident, others that it was a bombing.
Slovenia:
[Ivan Krambeger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Kramberger), Slovenian Robinhood/JFK crossover.
He was supposed to be very popular, and would probably win the elections (or at the very least). Since he was not a part of the old establishemnt and too much of a wildcard to be controlled/bargained with, they say he was killed so powers that were kept being the powers that were.