Every once in a while, someone really gets away with murder, although we can hope that they were at least eventually arrested for another crime. The remaining mysteries bother us for as long as we remember, and the people who knew the victims will never forget. Here’s one such story.

It was 1966, a gorgeous Australia Day in the suburbs of Adelaide, when nine-year-old Jane Beaumont and her siblings, seven-year-old Arnna and four-year-old Grant vanished seemingly into thin air. The kids hopped a bus for what should have been a five-minute ride to Glenelg Beach, a popular spot they visited often. Hours later, they failed to return home, setting into motion one of Australia's most sensational mysteries — and even today, one of its most prominent cold cases.

Witnesses claimed to have seen the siblings on the beach playing with a tall, thin, blonde man. Jane Beaumont was spotted buying snacks (including a meat pie, which the children had never purchased before) with money she did not have when she left the house that day. A mail carrier who knew the family saw the kids walking in the direction of their home a few hours later ... but they never made it. Where did the children go? Who was the tall man? Though the case has continued to generate leads and wild theories (religious cults, a madman who may have turned the kids into a human centipede of sorts via "experimental surgery"), it remains unsolved. Needless to say, parents in Australia became a lot more protective and paranoid in the wake of this case.

There are seven other stories you may or may not know in a list of lesser-known unsolved crimes at io9. -via the Presurfer

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The end-of-the-year wrapups may have you a little down, as there were some horrible things happen in the word in 2014. However, good news doesn’t make great headlines, especially when it happens gradually. Astronaut Chris Hadfield reminds us of the good news, and how we can contribute to make 2015 another year in which things get better for humanity. -via Viral Viral Videos

We used to jokingly call them “quarter horses,” but the one at my local grocery store still only takes pennies. My kids rode it often, but only if they behaved themselves while we shopped. Kiddies rides, the mechanical horses, cartoon characters, and vehicles that jiggled kids for a coin, were once everywhere. And they were profitable for their manufacturers and the stores that displayed them. It all started in 1931.

Commonly known as the kiddie ride, these coin-operated children’s amusements are over 80 years old. According to The Southwest Missourian, in 1931, Missouri inventor James Otto Hahs decided to make his children a special Christmas present, building a mechanical horse covered in mohair and using a real cow’s tail from the slaughterhouse for the horse’s tail. Realizing he had a potential hit on his hands, he set out to build a commercial coin-operated version. Early wood-carved prototypes were too heavy and too expensive, so Hahs developed his own method of casting large aluminum-framed horses. By 1932, the Hahs Gaited Mechanical Horse was winning design and invention awards. He later teamed up with the Exhibit Supply Company to distribute his horse widely, getting 5 percent of all profits. (Hahs would retire not rich, but well-off enough to tinker in his backyard for the rest of his life on more children’s toys and rides.)

The kiddie ride craze declined when other amusements eclipsed them, as children switched to arcade games, video games, and iPads at younger and younger ages. The number of manufacturers that made the rides plummeted. One company is trying to bring back mechanical kiddie rides, but is selling most of its machines to private owners. You can read the entire history of kiddie rides at The Atlantic. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Joe Mabel)

You’d think the last thing people would steal from each other would be Christmas lawn decorations, because the whole point is to show them off to your neighbors. But that seems to be the case in Colorado Springs as police arrested 42-year-old Carrie Carley and her 18-year-old husband  Jeremy Lewallen. One of their neighbors retrieved his 9-foot inflatable Grinch from the couple’s yard and then called police.

When police arrived to Carley and Lewallen's house, they said they found 20 to 30 holiday decorations on the lawn without any sort of coherent theme.

Police spotted various stolen decorations, including reindeer, Mickey Mouse, penguins, Dalmatians and "Frozen" characters.

A search warrant turned up 50 to 75 other stolen items in a "decoration graveyard," police said.

Carley blamed the thefts on her young husband, and told the local news outlet that he was also arrested for stealing Halloween decorations. The two were lodged in the El Paso County jail on $1,000 bond. -via reddit

(Screenshot from KKTV)

When I saw this picture at Weird Vintage it occurred to me that my children have never seen colored toilet paper. When I was a kid, I noticed the different pastel colors in my friend’s homes that matched the different bathroom colors. My parents always bought plain white, as it was less expensive. But now toilet paper everywhere is white. What happened? The answer is at the ToiletPaperWorld Blog.

In other news, there is a ToiletPaperWorld Blog. Oh yes, you can still get colored TP if you really want it, but you have to have it shipped in.

Children learn to speak in full sentences a long time before they have the vocabulary, logic, and real world experience we adults have, so what they say can be odd and charming, yet fully communicative. At the same time, parents find themselves saying things to a child that they never imagined possible. Martin Bruckner started illustrating some of those things for a blog called Spaghetti Toes. He explains the name in the introduction:

Welcome to Spaghetti Toes. I’ve dedicated this place to the absurd things I hear under my roof on a daily basis. Some are said by me, some by my wife, but most by my wonderful 2 year old daughter, Harper Grace.

The name “Spaghetti Toes” comes from my wife saying to my daughter “Please don’t put spaghetti between your toes” at the dinner table. I said to my wife, “Did you actually just say those words?” and Spaghetti Toes was born.

I believe Harper Grace is now three, and still contributing to the blog. You can check out Spaghetti Toes at Tumblr. -via Buzzfeed

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There were some horrible failures recorded in the past year, as collected here by Fail Army. Get ready to see lots of property destruction, embarrassment, and pain, yet these folks chose to upload the videos to the internet anyway. There's almost a half-hour of clips, so you might want to bookmark it and watch it in pieces. Contains NSFW sweary language, as you can imagine. -via Tastefully Offensive

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This is not a fireworks display gone wrong; in fact it worked exactly as intended. But it is also not what an American would expect when they see the term “fireworks display.” I really don’t want to describe it any further, so just watch. It’s not long. The launch was at the Thailand Rocket Festival. -via Metafilter

Talk about armed and dangerous! This picture was posted at reddit and labeled “Only in Louisiana,” which doesn’t quite make sense because there’s no shortage of hot sauce at any eatery in Louisiana. However, the vest tells us he’s working outside and wants to be ready for any emergency, even lunch.   

You can order a Tabasco holster in denim, although the leather looks nicer. As you can imagine, the conversation under the picture turned to the merits of Tabasco vs. other hot sauces. Several were mentioned, which made me wonder what y’all thought.

We’ve all known someone like this, right? And we’ve all had the urge to shoot them, but luckily did not have our pedantic jackass rifle around at the time. This comic is from Neil Kohney at the webcomic The Other End. -via Geeks Are Sexy

When you have an entertainment concept that works, of course you want to take it on the road. We’ve read about the Middle Eastern version of The Simpsons and how Married… with Children took on the world, but there are plenty more international versions of American TV shows. Dorkly introduces us to eight of them, including a Dutch version of The Golden Girls that premiered in 2012! Pictured above is It’s Always Sunny in Moscow. And we get to see clips of the shows. They’ll look familiar, even if you don’t understand the language.    

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Making the song scientifically correct doesn’t take away its charm, not one bit. Why not learn a bit about the cosmos as you're singing? The song is from the children’s book Astronomically Correct Twinkle Twinkle, written by Henry Reich of Minute Physics and Zach Weinersmith of SMBC Comics with illustrations by Chris Jones. It’s sung by Henry Reich. -via Viral Viral Videos

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Here’s a stop-motion animation created with over 1,000 cups of latte! The creamy cup tops are the medium for single pictures that are compiled to tell a short story -only about 90 seconds, then there’s a half-minute on how it was done. This is part of a Japanese ad campaign. -via the Presurfer

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Today is the day we get to see what people got for Christmas gifts. Some are hysterical, some are funny, and some are downright tragic. But the best gift I’ve seen so far is the one Joey Trombone got for his parents. You can see their reactions in this video, but to find out what he got them, you’ll have to see the picture of the envelope contents at his Facebook page. -via 22 Words

When Jack Daniels Leathers was born 31 years ago, his parents named him after the whiskey in order to annoy their parents. Jack has always been proud of his name, and when he and Lydia went on their first date, they agreed it could be a tradition worth continuing (the names, not the annoying). The Louisiana couple got married, and on November 14, Lydia gave birth to their first child. They named him Jim Beam Leathers, after the bourbon. But that’s not the only whiskey name connection for the Leathers.

When they got married, Judge Johnny Walker of Houma officiated the ceremony.

“When Judge Johnny Walker realized that he was marrying Lydia to Jack Daniels, he turned red. We wanted to get in touch with Judge Walker to notify him that Jack Daniels had a son named Jim Beam,” he said.

Jack and Lydia have already picked out more names. If they have a second boy, he will be named Evan Williams, or Sherry if they ever have a daughter. -via Buzzfeed

(Image source: Lydia Leathers/Facebook)