More than 35 years after she started making “Unsolved Mysteries,” the documentary stalwart’s co-creator Terry Dunn Meurer still finds herself amazed at what’s happening out in the world.
Murders, missing people, paranormal experiences, possible alien encounters — few stories have been off the table for “Unsolved Mysteries” since it started on NBC in 1987. It later aired on CBS, Lifetime and the erstwhile Spike TV before being revived by Netflix in 2020, where five new episodes are now streaming as part of Volume 4.
The new batch runs the gamut of the “Unsolved Mysteries” spectrum, highlighting the cases of a severed head found in the woods in Pennsylvania, a body found in a blood-drenched basement and a college student found dead on stage in a locked theater. But the series bookends its fourth volume with two episodes that are a departure from its recent preference for lesser-known cases –– Jack the Ripper and the Mothman.
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But this is just the beginning for the series’ fall rollout. Variety can exclusively reveal that four additional episodes will drop in October — just in time for Halloween — as part of Volume 5. While Netflix won’t yet reveal what those episodes will focus on, Meurer can barely contain her excitement for one of them. “It is the most baffling mystery of all of them I’ve ever done,” she says. “That’s all I can say right now!”
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For now, Meurer spoke with Variety about making Volume 4, how the big departures of Jack the Ripper and Mothman made the cut — and why she still can’t shake the case of the severed head case. Warning: There are light spoilers in the interview below.
True crime documentaries come out seemingly every week these days. Does that change how you approach what “Unsolved Mysteries” has been doing for more than 35 years?
We have never thought of ourselves as a true crime series. We like to set ourselves apart and say we are more of a mystery show. So we are always looking for mysteries, and maybe we are selective in a different way, because it has to have certain mystery elements. It can’t just be a crime, and we try to bring in paranormal stories as well. So that limits the kind of stories we are willing and able to tackle. We are looking for that variety of mystery that some true crime doesn’t have.
These new episodes begin and end with the stories of Jack the Ripper and the Mothman, which are far more recognizable figures than the other episodes you have done on Netflix. Why focus on these now?
With Jack the Ripper specifically, everybody has heard the name, but people don’t necessarily know exactly what he did and how did it. And some people probably don’t even know that it is unsolved. So yes, it is a bit of a departure for those reasons, but also because it is such an old case. It is also one of the oldest cases we have ever done, including our vintage episodes.
There are no family members to interview about the case and the victims, so we have some really smart experts who have dedicated their lives to investigating Jack the Ripper and all the various suspects. People probably don’t know there are still new suspects being named.
As for Mothman, it is a great story that we already did in our vintage episodes, but we recently heard there was a new cluster of sightings around the Chicago O’Hare Airport area. So this new episode is kind of like a giant update on the Point Pleasant Mothman episode [from 2002]. Has the Mothman moved on to Chicago? What does it mean if people really believe [it is a harbinger for something bad]?
One of the things we always look for when it comes to paranormal stories is really credible witnesses. If we can’t find witnesses that are credible, we wouldn’t do the story. So we researched the Mothman case, and found a lot of witnesses, and some air traffic controllers and pilots and cargo handlers at O’Hare who have also seen the Mothman and gave us statements, but weren’t willing to be interviewed.
The benefit of doing this show for more than three decades is you get to update your own work, and you even use some of your vintage Mothman reenactments in this episode. But for those watching closely, did you also use these new real-life witnesses in the reenactments of their stories?
We don’t usually do that, but we did in this case. We just felt like it would make it a little bit more credible. That was a choice, actually. With the vintage series, we would have dialogue and see people’s faces. Sometimes, we had real cops or other real people, when they were willing. But with the Netflix series, the reenactments have been more evocative. Shots of hands and feet and backs of heads. We went a little farther with the Mothman episode with the real people, just to mix it up a little bit.
How was it doing that?
Oh, everyone wanted to do it. We didn’t have to talk them into doing it. These people were really traumatized by this experience. That’s one of the things that I think makes them so credible. Somehow, it would have felt odd to put an actor in these specific ones. I don’t know why. And we have often heard through the years that people are so appreciative of the catharsis from telling their story in an interview, and feeling like they are doing something to advance the mystery and get it solved.
That’s at the core of what we are doing. Yes, it is entertainment. But these are real people with real stories and real mysteries. If we can help them solve these, that’s why I will do “Unsolved Mysteries” until the day I die.
The three lesser-known episodes in the middle of the season are really chilling. But the standout may be “The Severed Head,” simply because there is so much that happens in one episode. There’s a severed, embalmed head found with red rubber balls where her eyes should be. You think it is actually the missing head of a robbed grave from the 1950s, but then you prove it isn’t, so that could be a whole other story. Then there’s the odd feud between an old man and the 15-year-old who found the head, and how that may have spiraled into using the head as retaliation, and later suicide. How did you find this wild story?
That is actually one of my favorite episodes, and the one I am most hopeful will get solved. Chief Mike O’Brien and Andy Gall, the two investigators in that case, are that woman’s family now. They are so passionate about solving this case. It was very multi-layered, and more than many of our cases in recent memory, it was an education for me, because I didn’t know anything about the body parts trade. I also didn’t know that when a head is embalmed, you can’t get DNA from it. We tried it. We paid to send some of those samples to another lab, and they tried but said they couldn’t get any.
These guys have tried everything to solve it. They’ve used NASA satellites trying to see if a car was parked there when the head was left, and then there is the Jay character. We targeted this story a number of years ago when Jay was still alive, but we didn’t interview him then. He is such a mystery in the case already, and then you find out Jay committed suicide.
That case just has a lot of twists and turns, and so much intrigue. How did the head get there? Who put it there? Who is the head? Where is the rest of her body? There are so many mysteries. I know the detectives feel that if we can figure out who she is, we can trace back what happened to her.
You said you targeted this case years ago. How long does it take to produce these episodes?
It takes about two years to get a season done. Maybe longer, depending on the case, but this is just half the season. The rest of it will drop in October.
What resonated with you about the other two episodes this season –– “Body in the Basement” and “Murder, Center Stage?”
Well, with “Body in the Basement,” it was fascinating to me that the cops started off thinking it a homicide, and then thought it could be an accident. Usually, it goes the other way in these cases. We have never done a case like that before, which made it really interesting to tell. And they were baffled. When Det. Dave Sweet came to us, he said, “Before I retire, I have to feel like I have done everything I can to get to the bottom of this.”
And Sigrid, in the other episode, was just this loss of a beautiful life so many years ago. That one, you hope someone is watching who knows the truth. But the fact that all four of those investigators are still so passionate about solving her case after all these years. A lot of times we key off the passion of the family members or the detectives, and I would say that is the case in all three of the middle episodes this season. You want to help them solve these cases.
You’re several volumes into “Unsolved Mysteries” on Netflix with this longer format that focuses on one case an episode. How has that experience been in the legacy of the show?
You know, in the vintage episodes, we were doing 100 mysteries a season. So, the chance to solve more cases was there. I love doing the deeper dive into the cases, and I think our audience does too. That’s what we’ve heard. But for me, with the mission of trying to solve as many cases as we can, we are limited now. We have nine episodes this year. The first season on Netflix, we did 12. We want to solve these mysteries — it isn’t just about telling the stories.
The early years of “Unsolved Mysteries” were famous for helping move the needle on cases you covered. Have you seen progress in solving the cases you’ve highlighted on Netflix through your tip website, Unsolved.com?
There was one case that was solved. It was in Volume 3; it was a parental abduction case. But I have been surprised that a couple of these cases that I thought were slam dunks have not been solved. I still read every tip that comes through that we send off to the U.S. Marshals, and we send them a lot.
But with those wanted cases, for instance, what I think and hope happens is that when these new episodes drop, people go back and rewatch the others. So, we could have another shot at getting answers. When it aired on NBC, it showed once, and that’s all you’ve got. In this case, people can circle back on Netflix, and hopefully we will have some solved mysteries.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
