True crime cases in California span decades of criminal history, from unsolved disappearances in rural communities to high-profile investigations in the state's largest cities. California law enforcement agencies, from local police departments to the state bureau of investigation, have tackled cases ranging from cold-case homicides and serial offenders to fraud schemes and domestic violence tragedies. CaseSleuth tracks each California case with comprehensive timelines, profiles of victims and persons of interest, evidence summaries, and links to media coverage and court documents. Browse the cases below to explore the full scope of criminal investigations in California.
21 cases found
Amy Hillyard, 52, co-owner of Farley's Coffee, went missing from her Oakland home on March 25, 2026. She was last seen on surveillance video at Dimond Park around 4:30 p.m. that day. She left without her phone, wallet, and keys. Classified as at-risk due to a medical condition. As of April 14, 2026, she has not been found.
In November 2016, Sherri Papini of Redding, California staged her own kidnapping, disappearing for 22 days before reappearing with self-inflicted injuries while falsely claiming she had been abducted by two Hispanic women. DNA evidence later revealed she had spent the time with an ex-boyfriend. She pleaded guilty in 2022 and was sentenced to 18 months.
On February 19, 2013, the body of 21-year-old Canadian tourist Elisa Lam was discovered inside a rooftop water tank at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Her death was ruled an accidental drowning with bipolar disorder as a contributing factor, but the circumstances — including bizarre elevator surveillance footage — remain deeply mysterious.
Music producer Phil Spector, creator of the "Wall of Sound" recording technique and producer of legendary albums, was convicted in 2009 of the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson at his Alhambra, California mansion. He died in prison in January 2021.
Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos in 2003, claiming to revolutionize blood testing with finger-prick technology. The company reached a $9 billion valuation before journalist John Carreyrou exposed its fraudulent claims in 2015. Holmes was charged by the SEC in 2018, indicted on federal wire fraud charges, convicted on 4 of 11 counts in January 2022, and sentenced to 11.25 years in prison. She reported to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas on May 30, 2023. Her former COO Sunny Balwani was convicted on all 12 counts and sentenced to nearly 13 years.
Scott Lee Peterson was convicted in November 2004 of the first-degree murder of his pregnant wife, Laci Denise Peterson, and the second-degree murder of their unborn son, Conner, after Laci disappeared from their Modesto, California home on December 24, 2002. Originally sentenced to death in March 2005, his death sentence was overturned by the California Supreme Court in 2020, and he was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in December 2021. The Los Angeles Innocence Project took up his case in 2024, filing motions for DNA testing and a nearly 400-page habeas petition in April 2025, which was denied by the appeals court in June 2025.
Laci Peterson, 27 and eight months pregnant, disappeared from Modesto, California on Christmas Eve 2002. Her husband Scott Peterson was convicted of her murder in 2004 and sentenced to death, later reduced to life without parole.
Robert Durst, heir to a New York real estate empire, was convicted in 2021 of the first-degree murder of his close friend Susan Berman, who was killed in 2000 to prevent her from speaking to investigators about the 1982 disappearance of Durst's first wife, Kathie McCormack. Previously acquitted in the 2003 killing of neighbor Morris Black in Galveston, Texas, Durst's decades of evading justice ended after the HBO documentary The Jinx captured him making incriminating statements on a hot microphone. He died in prison on January 10, 2022, at age 78, while serving a life sentence without parole.
On March 9, 1997, rapper Christopher Wallace — known as the Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls — was shot and killed in a drive-by attack in Los Angeles, just six months after the murder of his rival Tupac Shakur. The case has never been solved and remains one of the most prominent cold cases in music history.
Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart vanished in May 1996 after a party. Paul Flores, who walked her home that night, was convicted of her murder in 2022 after a 26-year investigation. Her body has never been found.
O.J. Simpson, a former NFL star and media personality, was charged with the June 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. After a televised criminal trial widely described as the 'trial of the century,' Simpson was acquitted on October 3, 1995. A subsequent civil jury found him liable in February 1997 and awarded the victims' families $33.5 million in damages. Simpson was later convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping in a 2008 Las Vegas case, served nine years in prison, and was released on parole in 2017. He died of prostate cancer on April 10, 2024, at age 76.
Betty Broderick shot and killed her ex-husband Daniel Broderick and his new wife Linda Kolkena in their San Diego bedroom on November 5, 1989. After a first trial ended in a hung jury, she was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder in 1991.
Lyle and Erik Menendez, then ages 21 and 18, shot and killed their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home on August 20, 1989. After two trials, they were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy in 1996 and sentenced to life without parole. In May 2025, a judge resentenced them to 50 years to life, making them eligible for parole.
In 2024, renewed attention to the 1989 Menendez brothers case led to resentencing efforts after new evidence of sexual abuse by their father José emerged, including a letter and a corroborating witness.
Richard Ramirez terrorized the Los Angeles area from June 1984 to August 1985, committing at least 13 murders and numerous sexual assaults during nocturnal home invasions. He was captured by an angry mob of citizens, convicted of 13 murders in 1989, and died on death row in 2013.
Acclaimed actress Natalie Wood drowned on November 29, 1981, near Catalina Island, California, while aboard a yacht with her husband Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken. Initially ruled an accidental drowning, the case was reopened in 2011 amid new witness statements, with Wagner named a "person of interest."
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. (born 1945), a former California police officer, committed at least 13 murders, over 50 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1974 and 1986 under the monikers the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, and the Original Night Stalker. He evaded capture for over 40 years until investigators used forensic genealogy and the public DNA database GEDmatch to identify him in April 2018. DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 murders in June 2020 and was sentenced to multiple consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
In August 1969, members of the Manson Family, a cult led by Charles Manson, committed the Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles, killing seven people including pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1971, though their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment after California's Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in 1972. Manson died in prison on November 19, 2017, at the age of 83, while several of his followers remain incarcerated.
The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered at least five people and injured two others in Northern California between December 1968 and October 1969. The killer taunted police and newspapers with cryptic letters and ciphers, claimed responsibility for as many as 37 murders, and was never identified or apprehended. The case remains one of the most infamous unsolved serial murder investigations in American history.
Edmund Kemper murdered 10 people in California between 1964 and 1973, including his grandparents, six college students, his mother, and her friend. Standing 6'9" with a genius IQ, he turned himself in and has been in prison since 1973.
Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old aspiring actress from Medford, Massachusetts, was found brutally murdered on January 15, 1947, in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her body had been severed at the waist, drained of blood, and her face slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears. Despite one of the largest investigations in LAPD history, involving hundreds of officers and over 150 suspects, the case has never been solved and remains the department's most infamous cold case.