Experts: Break in Sniper Case May Never Come

Oct. 14 -- Police investigating the deadly sniper attacks around Washington, D.C., are hoping for a breakthrough, but there's a chance it may never come.

Not all serial killer cases are solved quickly, and some are never solved at all.

"Overall, of the 1,600 or 1,700 [serial slayings] I've personally cataloged, about 20 percent are unresolved," says Michael Newton, the author of the Encyclopedia of Serial Killers.

These cases have frustrated police ever since Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of London in 1888. The killer was tied to the deaths of at least five prostitutes, but was never brought to justice.

More recently, several high-profile serial killings remain unsolved.

Zodiac, Southside Slayer Mysteries Linger

There are many theories regarding the Zodiac Killer, believed to have claimed 37 lives in San Francisco area in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but his identity has never been determined conclusively. No one was ever prosecuted for the crimes.

Some investigators believe the killer was Arthur Leigh Allen, a convicted child molester from Vallejo, Calif., who died in 1992 at age 58. Others are unconvinced, however.

A killer known as the Southside Slayer took the lives of perhaps as many as 20 prostitutes in the Los Angeles-area in the mid-1980s. No one was ever charged in the crimes, which mysteriously stopped in 1987.

Some cold cases date back 70 years, such as the so-called Cleveland Torso Killer. The mysterious attacker killed at least 16 people in the 1930s, but was never caught, despite the efforts of famed federal agent Elliot Ness.

Other open cases are terrifyingly current.

In Baton Rouge, La., police believe a man murdered at least three women over the past year. Police released a profile of the killer in August, but there have been no breakthroughs in the case.

There are dozens more such cases scattered around the country, says Jack Levin, the director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University. There are open serial killer investigations in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Flint, Mich., for example.