One of the most bizarre unsolved murder cases started on May 31, 1995, when a woman who went by the name Jennifer Fairgate checked into Room 2805 of the Oslo Plaza Hotel in Norway.
Three days later, she was found dead in her hotel room after a hotel employee knocked on the door and heard a gunshot. But it is the other details of the case that make it so very strange.
The oddest part of the case goes all the way back to the beginning. As it turns out, Fairgate checked into the hotel using a fake name and nonexistent Belgian address, all without a credit card or identification.
Authorities believe her name was actually a pseudonym and completely made up. On the hotel forms, the woman misspelled Fairgate as “Fergate” twice.
Hotel forms show that a man named Lois Fairgate checked in with the woman, and a witness corroborated that they saw them together.
But when security arrived 15 minutes after the employee heard the gunshot, it appeared that Jennifer Fairgate was the only one staying in the room, and there was no purse, toiletries, or passport to be found.
All of the labels had been removed from her clothing, and there were no pants, skirts, or dresses in her bags, only tops, which was clearly very odd.
The door appeared to have been double locked from the inside, and the serial numbers on the gun had been removed with acid, making it untraceable.
The fact about the door being double locked at the time of the killing seems to suggest that the death was a suicide, but investigators were able to prove you could actually lock the door and then leave through it without any issues.
Also, investigators concluded it would be extremely difficult for someone to shoot themselves with the nine-millimeter semi-automatic Browning pistol that was found in the woman's hand. The gun was held upside down, and there was no blood or gunshot residue was on her hand.
In one episode of "Unsolved Mysteries," Norwegian intelligence officer Ola Kaldager said she believed Jennifer Fairgate was a secret agent who had been tracked down and murdered.
Kaldager said it is common for secret agents to remove the tags from their clothes as well as serial numbers on a gun.
The episode also notes that Fairgate almost never left her room during her entire stay, except for one time, and didn’t return for 20 hours. One maid who entered the room to clean it at that time said it was completely empty and she had actually thought that the woman had checked out.
Jennifer Fairgate’s body was exhumed in 2016 to obtain a complete DNA profile. New information obtained from the profile showed she was about 24-years-old at the time of her death and was of European heritage.
Hotel employees who spoke with her say she sounded as though she may have been from East Germany based on her accent, and also spoke fluent English.
The Belgian government had no records of Jennifer Fairgate ever existing, ad her fingerprints have never had any matches in systems checked across several continents.
The prevailing theory remains that Jennifer Fairgate was a spy, and her family was heavily compensated to keep quiet about her true identity so that their work wouldn't be exposed.
