The Winter Soldier is a media epithet for an unidentified man thought to have carried out various assassinations of public and private individuals over several decades.
Popular theorists he began with several killings of prominent scientists in the early 1950s might have as part of a wetwork mission. They were all killed from a distance by a single shot, the only forensic evidence left behind were untraceable Soviet-made bullets with no rifling showing the use of a smooth bore rifle.
There was no sign the killer stalked his victims, but the assassin had access to their routines, and the means to lure them to their place of execution. A few incidents took place in homes or places of business, but almost always when the subject was alone. There were a few questionable deaths of other individuals in the same general vicinity, whom some claim were witnesses, but many authorities categorized these as accidental, suicides or coincidences.
The theory that this was a single individual and not a team came from an injured witness, shot in the aftermath of such an incident in 1969. He described a man with long dark hair, of great strength and a silver arm prosthesis. He could not give more information as the person in question wore a mask. This second-hand description was all authorities had to go on for years, most dismissing it as the delusions of a dying man under the influence of painkillers. This man's death was also mysterious after amateur sleuths discovered copies of his medical records which revealed he was NOT dying and appeared to be on the mend from his injuries. His death while in the hospital was officially due to a stroke.
Enthusiasts formed various civilian interest groups who believed not only were the killing of these scientists connected and done by a single individual, there were connections to other deaths. Most of the evidence they gathered was from second-hand testimony and rumors. There were a few grainy photographs of an individual whom they claimed was the Winter Soldier, taken in proximity to these incidents. Experts proved the majority to be fakes and others were too grainy and of such low-resolution to be of any use.
One famous photograph called the Winter Green Picture shows a man matching the popular description on the rooftop of a building after the death of the Premiere of the Czech Republic, famously shot through the wall of the Wintergreen hotel. The sunset over the ocean between the buildings was the focus of the picture and the mysterious figure not noticed until later. The name of the photographer has not released or even known as the picture was sent to the authorities anonymously. Experts can find no evidence of doctoring. The FBI has possession of it but a leaked copy appears in every book and documentary on the subject.
Armchair investigators discovered a file, the validity of which is in question, of the death of a nuclear scientist outside of Odessa. Forensic evidence, in this case, bullets, matched with the findings of other crime scenes but in this case, there was another eyewitness, a SHIELD agent who was traveling with the Scientist. This agent claimed the Winter Soldier shot through her to kill the scientist which some question because he left no witnesses. The description given by the Agent matched those of other reports, a tall man, long dark hair, one arm a prosthesis, in this account described as 'metal like' or 'silver' and wearing a mask. However, as this happened decades after the first believed killing, this testimony is suspect.
Most intelligence communities dismissed a super assassin as the stuff of overactive imaginations and believed most of these deaths to be unconnected but the interest groups and amateur detectives persist, categorizing their findings alongside those of UFOS and Bigfoot, perhaps because some include such high profile individuals as President Kennedy among his victims. This has resulted in a side industry of books, documentaries and an episode of a popular crime drama where the cast comes in contact with a witness obsessed with finding The Winter Soldier. He The actor portrayed him as a crank but it left the audience to ponder unanswered questions and 'coincidences'.
The authorities point out it would be impossible for a single individual to have the resources to carry out such missions without some organization behind them So far there seems to be little connection between all the so-called victims' of the Winter Soldier as their political ideologies seem on all points of the political spectrum. If there is an individual such as the Winter Soldier carrying out these assassinations, he would be more likely to be a highly trained serial killer with his own mad motives rather than any kind of political operative.
There is also the question of time. The Winter Soldier had to stop as he would at some point become too old to carry out these missions, some as late as 2006. Some claim the Winter Soldier is a mantle, rather than one person, something can pass that on and the 'Winter Soldier' is more than one person perhaps, a family or maybe a team. There are those who persist with the idea someone caused that by a single individual who has remained active even after the passage fifty years.
Scattered reports continue to come in, and enthusiasts continue to connect dots between various killings across the world, but the only things they can point to with certainty are unrifled bullets, second-hand accounts, and a few grainy photographs. If he exists, the Winter Soldier is a ghost.