I love a mystery....up to a point.

I want to talk a little about the mystery of disappearance.

I am a big fan of real-life mysteries, and as I re-read that sentence fragment, I realize that it's a bit creepy. Let me rephrase. I am intrigued by real-life mysteries.

Good. That didn't sound half creepy.

Anyway, history is filled with great mysteries......

The mystery of Kaspar Hauser, who appeared as a teenager in Nuremberg in the 1800's, without any idea of who he was or where he came from. Somebody attempted to kill him several times during his life, and finally succeeded by stabbing him to death. It's a great story.

The mystery of Judge Crater, who disappeared after dinner and show in New York in August of 1930. He was never seen again. There is evidence that popped up in 2004 that he was killed by a taxicab driver and buried at Coney Island. But the strange part is that his mistress, whom he had dinner with that fateful night, also disappeared shortly after, and was never heard from again.

The mystery of the Griffon, Lesalle's ship, which disappeared with all hands on the Great Lakes in 1679, never to be seen again....except during storms in November, so they say.

The mystery of the sons of Edward IV of England, who were placed in the tower for their protection, and were never seen in public again.

The mystery of the Roanoke colony, which disappeared entirely sometime in the winter of 1587 or 1588.

The various mysteries of Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, Michael Rockefeller, Jimmy Hoffa, Helen Brach, and many other high-profile disappearances....

I'm always reminded of the mantra that Detective Frederick Abberline would repeat during his harrowing and ultimately fruitless investigation of the Whitechapel murders...."Somebody, somewhere, knows something."

For a man who prides himself upon his intellect, I find it frustrating that this kind of mystery still exists in this day and age, when information is available in the blink of an eye, and we have satellites that can see that you need to see a dentist. What's equally frustrating is that only the really stupid criminals tend to pull off the perfect crime.

Case in point: The disappearance of Kristin Smart.

Briefly, Kristin Smart was a freshman at Cal Poly who disappeared after a party in 1996. She has not been seen since. Because it was just before spring break, there was a delay in reporting her disappearance; her friends thought she had gone home, and her family thought that she had stayed at school. When the investigation finally began, they had EVERYTHING they needed to find the person who saw her last: a scumbag named Flores. Witnesses put them together. DNA proved she was in his room. Cadaver dogs got hits in the room as well. And yet.....

He was never arrested, or charged.

Amazing. This idiot, completely improvising, probably after a roofie inspired sexual assault took place in which the victim accidentally died, has managed to get away with it thus far....and until they find the body, the location of said body being known to only one individual, the aforementioned idiot), this case will go the way of Judge Crater, and Roanoke, and all the rest.....

And that's the thing that intrigues me about real-life mysteries.

It's so thoroughly unbelievable, it's got to be true.