Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
Wikipedia is the Internet's go-to when it comes to knowledge. It doesn't matter if you're browsing for school, for fun, or falling into a weird rabbit hole, Wikipedia always has your back. The site claims it gets around 10,000 pageviews every second, with editors all around the world performing an average of 16 edits every second.
Although many people think of Wikipedia as a source of interesting facts and knowledge, there's plenty of creepy content on the site as well. The subreddit "Creepy Wikipedia" is a community that collects articles that make people "shiver with fear or disgust." Here are some of their best entries in the form of true crime, mysterious disasters, and heart-breaking real-life stories found on the Internet's encyclopedia.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Steven Stayner - kidnapping victim, with possibly the most profoundly heartbreaking life story I’ve ever read.
Some of the terrible highlights include:
-Kidnapped at age 7
-Held captive and abused for seven years
-As Steven entered puberty, his captor eventually forced him to help kidnap a five year old boy to replace him
-After this new boy was abused, Steven felt profound guilt and self-hatred for helping to kidnap him
-He eventually managed to escape with the other victim
-However, his kidnapper ONLY SERVED FIVE YEARS IN PRISON
-After returning home, Steven had intense trouble readjusting to his old life
-Everyone knew what happened to him, and he was bullied in school over it
The most horrible part might be this quote from Steven:
”I returned almost a grown man and yet my parents saw me at first as their 7-year-old. After they stopped trying to teach me the fundamentals all over again, it got better. But why doesn't my dad hug me anymore? Everything has changed. Sometimes I blame myself. I don't know sometimes if I should have come home. Would I have been better off if I didn't?"
-Steven’s father wanted to just ignore what happened, and insisted Steven didn’t need therapy
-He sunk into alcoholism
-Even after everything that happened, his own parents kicked him out of the house
-At the age of 24 he was killed when a car struck his motorcycle
-The driver didn’t even stop to help Steven
-The driver was eventually caught, but was only sentenced to three months in jail
(Also Steven’s brother ended up becoming a serial killer. I don’t know what to make of that)
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
How did the kidnapper only get 5 years????? 😡 Poor Steven had such a tragic life!
RELATED:
#2
After four decades Walter Freeman had personally performed possibly as many as 4,000 lobotomies on patients as young as 12, despite the fact that he had no formal surgical training. As many as 100 of his patients died of cerebral hemorrhage.
Walter Jackson Freeman II (1895–1972) was an American neurologist known for popularizing the lobotomy, a now-discredited psychiatric surgery used to treat severe mental illness.
In the 1930s, he and neurosurgeon James W. Watts helped introduce the prefrontal lobotomy in the United States, based on the earlier work of António Egas Moniz. Moniz developed the procedure (then called leucotomy), which involved cutting brain connections in the frontal lobes. For this work, Moniz was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Freeman later created the faster “ice-pick” transorbital lobotomy, performed through the eye socket, which made the procedure easier to carry out and led to its widespread use in the U.S. He traveled extensively demonstrating and performing it.
Although initially seen as a breakthrough, lobotomies often caused severe and permanent side effects, including personality changes and cognitive damage. With the rise of psychiatric drugs in the 1950s, the procedure fell out of favor.
Freeman continued performing lobotomies into the 1960s until he was banned from surgery after a patient died during an operation. Today, he is remembered as a highly controversial figure in medical history.
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
I've read the autobiography of this butcher's youngest victim. His name is Howard Dully and he was only 12. And he didn't even know what had happened to him until he was a grown man. The book is called My Lobotomy and it's heartbreaking. He wasn't even mentally ill - he was a typical pre-teen and his stepmother just didn't like him.
#3
Cara Knott was an American student who disappeared on Dec. 27, 1986. On December 28, her body was recovered at the bottom of a ravine. Her killer, a police officer, was interviewed while covering the investigation of the murder, and scratches, that were inflicted by Knott, are seen on his face.
On December 27, 1986, 20-year-old college student Cara Knott was pulled over on an isolated, unfinished highway offramp by Craig Alan Peyer, an on-duty California Highway Patrol officer. Peyer routinely targeted young, lone female drivers at this spot to make predatory advances. When Knott threatened to report him, a struggle ensued; she scratched his face before Peyer bludgeoned and strangled her, throwing her body into a 65-foot ravine.
Two days later, unaware he was a suspect, Peyer was interviewed by a TV news crew about female driver safety, inadvertently showing his fresh facial scratches on camera. This broadcast prompted dozens of women to call police, reporting that Peyer had previously pulled them over at the same offramp and made them deeply uncomfortable. Forensic evidence—including fibers from Peyer's uniform patch and a rare blood type match—directly linked him to the crime.
Peyer was convicted of murder in 1988 and sentenced to 25 years to life. The case deeply shaken public trust, causing many lone female drivers to refuse to stop for police out of fear. In a tragic aftermath, Cara’s father suffered a fatal heart attack in 2000 while tending a memorial garden built for his daughter near the crime scene. Peyer has repeatedly been denied parole due to a lack of remorse and his refusal to provide a DNA sample.
#4
On September 21, 2008, an Indigenous Canadian man named Brian Sinclair waited 34 hours for medical attention at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre. Sinclair died while he was waiting and had developed rigor mortis when medical staff attended to him.
On September 19, 2008, Brian Sinclair, a 45-year-old Indigenous man and double-amputee, arrived at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre emergency room with a blocked catheter and a treatable bladder infection. Although directed to the waiting room, his paperwork was lost, and he was never formally triaged. Sinclair sat in his wheelchair for 34 hours without receiving any medical attention. As his condition deteriorated, other patients and security staff alerted nurses, but their concerns were dismissed. Hospital staff later admitted they assumed Sinclair was homeless, intoxicated, or just seeking shelter.
Sinclair died in the waiting room from sepsis caused by the untreated infection, and he had been dead for several hours before staff finally noticed. A 2014 fatality inquest ruled his death completely preventable, blaming systemic understaffing and a broken registration process. The tragedy sparked intense national outrage, a criminal investigation, and a civil lawsuit that ended in a settlement for his family. Indigenous advocacy groups fiercely criticized the official inquiry for failing to explicitly address how systemic racism and racial bias directly led to Sinclair being ignored to death.
#5
Georgia Tann was an American child trafficker who utilised her position as a social worker to fraudulently place kidnapped children for adoption on the black market for 30 years. One such child subjected to kidnapping grew up to become Ric Flair.
Georgia Tann (1891–1950) was an American social worker who ran the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis, an organization that became one of the most notorious child trafficking operations in U.S. history.
From the 1920s to 1950, Tann used her position to illegally take children—often from poor, single, or vulnerable mothers—and place them for adoption with wealthy families across the United States. Many parents were told their children had died, and records were often falsified or destroyed. She charged large fees for adoptions and personally profited from the system.
Her work was widely praised at the time and even helped make private adoption more socially acceptable, but behind the scenes it involved coercion, kidnapping, and abuse. It is estimated that over 5,000 children were taken, and some children died due to neglect or mistreatment.
An investigation into her organization began in 1950, but Tann died of cancer just days before she could be formally prosecuted. After her death, the Tennessee Children’s Home Society was shut down and adoption laws in the U.S. were reformed.
Today, she is remembered as one of the most infamous figures in American social work history due to the scale and brutality of her actions.
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
There's a novel based on this story. It's called "When We Were Yours" and is told from the point of view of children who were sent to the Children's Home.
#6
Caitlin Jensen, 28, visited chiropractor T. J. Harpham on June 16, 2022 to have her neck adjusted following complaints of stiffness. During the adjustment, four arteries in Jensen's neck were dissected, resulting in cardiac arrest, a stroke, and a traumatic brain injury.
Caitlin Jensen, 28, a student at Georgia Southern University, visited chiropractor T. J. Harpham, of Richmond Hill Family Chiropractic in Georgia, United States, on June 16, 2022, to have her neck adjusted following complaints of stiffness. During the adjustment, four arteries in Jensen's neck were dissected, resulting in cardiac arrest, a stroke, and a traumatic brain injury. She was reportedly without a pulse for 10 minutes until she could be revived. She was left with almost full-body paralysis, capable of only blinking her eyes and moving her left thumb. Her injuries also subsequently removed her ability to eat and breathe on her own, resulting in doctors forming gastrostomy and tracheotomy tubes in her stomach and neck areas respectively.
Chich the witch 4 hours ago
Why are chiropractors allowed to still 'practice? You could not pay me to go to one of these clowns.
#7
David Reimer: a Canadian man who was born male, but then forcibly sexually reassigned as a female after a botched circumcision. He was raised as a girl until age 14. He and his twin brother were abused by their doctor, and both ended up committing suicide in their 30s.
David Reimer (born Bruce Peter Reimer, 1965–2004) was a Canadian man whose [privates] was severely damaged during infancy following a botched circumcision. After this, psychologist John Money advised his parents to raise him as a girl, and he was surgically and hormonally reassigned and renamed Brenda, with the aim of demonstrating that gender identity is shaped by upbringing.
For years, Money reported the case as a successful example of gender reassignment, but later research and Reimer’s own account showed that he did not identify as female. By adolescence, he was experiencing severe distress, and at age 14 his parents told him the truth. He then chose to live as male, taking the name David and undergoing medical treatment to reverse the earlier reassignment.
As an adult, Reimer spoke publicly about his experience, and his case became widely cited in debates about gender identity and medical ethics. He died by suicide in 2004.
#8
Girls bravely tried to protest and escape from an orphanage due to abuse but were later caught and locked in a room without food/water/toilets. The next day a fire started in the room - but the staff still refused to open the door and simply watched them burn. 41 girls died in this tragedy. I just saw a Guatemalan film about it, called Rita (2024) - it’s truly heartbreaking. They’re still fighting for justice.
On 7 March 2017, unrest broke out at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home in Guatemala amid long-standing reports of overcrowding, abuse, and neglect. After an attempted escape, about 85 residents briefly fled the facility before most were recaptured by police. As punishment, around 50–56 girls were locked overnight in a classroom under police guard, while boys were returned to their dorms. This confinement directly led into the tragic fire the next day, when the locked room became the site where 41 girls died.
The aftermath was highly controversial and led to national outrage. The fire was widely blamed on severe negligence by staff and authorities. Several officials were arrested or charged, including staff members and government employees, and Guatemala’s child welfare agency (CONAPROFAM/“Hogar Seguro” system oversight) faced intense criticism. The incident triggered public protests, calls for systemic reform, and resignations within the government. Investigations into responsibility and institutional failure continued in the following years, making the case one of the most significant child protection scandals in Guatemala’s modern history.
#9
The Gombe Chimpanzee war was a violent conflict between two Tanzanian chimpanzee communities observed by Jane Goodall from 1974-1978. The brutality and strategic thinking involved demonstrated for the first time how horrifically violent chimps can be, who at the time were considered more peaceful.
The Gombe Chimpanzee War (1974–1978) was a violent four-year conflict between two communities of chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. Originally united as the Kasakela community, the group splintered over eight months into a northern faction (retaining the Kasakela name) and a southern faction (the Kahama community), consisting of six adult males, three adult females, and their young. Primatologist Jane Goodall first observed the increasing hostility as the groups established strict territorial borders.
The war began on January 7, 1974, when a party of six northern Kasakela males ambushed and fatally beat an isolated southern Kahama male named Godi. Over the next four years, the Kasakela males conducted coordinated border patrols and targeted raids, systematically assassinating every single male member of the Kahama community. One elderly male, Goliath, who had previously been friendly with the northerners, was among those turned upon and murdered. After the Kahama males were eradicated, the surviving females were either beaten, killed, or absorbed into the victorious Kasakela faction.
The conflict fundamentally shifted the scientific understanding of primate behavior. Prior to the war, Goodall and the broader scientific community believed that chimpanzees were largely peaceful creatures. The discovery of their capacity for calculated warfare, territorial violence, raiding, and murder proved that a "dark side" of behavior existed in chimpanzees, revealing striking parallels to human conflict.
#10
Candace Elizabeth Newmaker was a child who was killed during a 70-minute attachment therapy session purported to treat reactive attachment disorder. Candace stated eleven times during the session that she was dying, to which Ponder responded, "Go ahead. Die right now, for real. For real."
On April 10, 2000, 10-year-old Candace Newmaker was killed during a 70-minute "rebirthing" session—a form of unlicensed attachment therapy—in Evergreen, Colorado. Intended to treat reactive attachment disorder and help Candace bond with her adoptive mother, the script required the 70-pound girl to be wrapped in a flannel sheet and covered in pillows to simulate a womb. Four adults, weighing a combined 673 pounds, used their hands and feet to press down on her body to resist her attempts to escape. Despite Candace repeatedly pleading for air and stating eleven times that she was dying, the therapists mocked her, told her to "go ahead and die," and dismissed her as a "quitter" when she faintly uttered "no" to being reborn.
By the time the adults unwrapped the sheet, Candace was blue and motionless. She was flown to a hospital but declared brain-dead the following day due to asphyxia. The entire fatal session was captured on the therapists' own video recording system. In 2001, unlicensed therapists Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder were convicted of reckless child abuse resulting in death and sentenced to 16 years in prison, while Candace's adoptive mother and two therapeutic foster parents received probation or suspended sentences. The tragedy led directly to the passage of "Candace's Law" in Colorado and North Carolina, which criminalized rebirthing techniques.
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
There was a CSI episode based on this case. Absolutely crazy. I don't believe it's the only d.eath from this "technique" either.
#11
Baba Anujka was a 90 year old serial killer from a small village in Serbia. She sold "love potions" to women with marriage problems, which contained arsenic and killed the husbands after 8 days. In 1929, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison. It is believed she killed between 50 and 150 people.
Baba Anujka (born Ana di Pištonja, c. 1836/1838–1938) was a Serbo-Romanian woman from the village of Vladimirovac (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later Yugoslavia) who became known as one of the earliest serial killers in the Balkans. She is believed to have poisoned at least 50 people, and possibly up to 150.
After an early life marked by isolation and an interest in herbal medicine and chemistry, she built a reputation as a healer and “wise woman.” She ran a small laboratory in her home and sold mixtures she called “magic water” or “love potions.” In reality, these contained poisonous substances such as arsenic and plant toxins, which she sold to clients—often women seeking to get rid of husbands or relatives.
Her victims typically died within days, and she gained both fear and respect in her community for her supposed supernatural abilities. In the 1920s, police eventually uncovered her involvement in several murders linked to these poisonings.
She was arrested in 1928 at the age of about 90 and sentenced in 1929 to 15 years in prison as an accomplice in murder. Due to her age, she was released after about eight years and died in 1938 at around 100 years old.
Today, she is remembered as a notorious historical figure who exploited folk medicine beliefs to carry out poisonings over many decades.
#12
The parents had imprisoned, beaten and strangled their 13 children, allowing them to eat just once per day and shower just once per year. The 29-year-old weighed just 82 pounds. Some appeared to lack basic knowledge of the world, being unfamiliar with what medicine and police were.
The Turpin case involved David and Louise Turpin, a couple from Perris, California, who were arrested in 2018 after authorities discovered they had abused and imprisoned their 13 children for years. The children, aged between 2 and 29, were severely malnourished and many were found chained to beds or restrained inside the home.
The case came to light when one of the daughters, then 17-year-old Jordan Turpin, escaped the house and called emergency services, leading police to discover the conditions inside.
Investigations revealed long-term abuse including starvation, physical violence, and severe neglect, with the children reportedly allowed very limited food, bathing, and outside contact.
In 2019, both parents pleaded guilty to multiple charges including torture, false imprisonment, and child abuse, and were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
After their rescue, the children received medical treatment and entered foster care, but some later reported further difficulties and alleged abuse in certain placements, leading to additional legal actions and investigations in the years following the case.
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
Disgusting people. I've seen the police body cam video of when they were arrested. The officers were horrified. And the parents tried to hide some of the kids from them. I hope they never get out of jail. They're probably treated better there than they ever treated their own children.
#13
Green Boots is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, who died during the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster, though his official identity is not confirmed. While of the most famous, he is one of many bodies on Everest frozen in time, and even used as a landmark for other climbers.
“Green Boots” is the nickname given to an unidentified climber’s body on Mount Everest, located on the northeast ridge route at about 8,500 meters in the “death zone.” The body became famous because it lies in a small limestone cave directly along the path to the summit, so climbers regularly passed by it for years and used it as an informal landmark.
Most sources believe the body is that of Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber from an Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition who died during the 1996 Everest disaster after being caught in a severe storm while descending from an attempted summit.
The nickname comes from the climber’s distinctive bright green boots, which helped identify the body. Because of the extreme altitude and conditions, the body was not recovered and remained in place for decades, becoming one of several well-known tragic “markers” on Everest.
In 2014, the body was reportedly moved slightly off the main route to reduce its visibility, though it has remained a symbol of the dangers of high-altitude climbing.
Today, Green Boots is remembered as a haunting reminder of Everest’s risks and the fact that many who die there cannot be brought down.
hannahbahngswife 6 hours ago (edited)
I discovered about "EverestTok" last year, and I still can't believe that it's a thing. What can possibly happen when non-professionals climb the highest mountain in the world for views? I wonder.
#14
In 1966 an 18 year old man entered the Rose-Mar College of Beauty in Arizona. He shot the seven people inside, five women, a toddler and a 3 month old baby. When questioned on his motive, he said he did it simply to get his name out there.
On November 12, 1966, 18-year-old Robert Benjamin Smith carried out a mass shooting at the Rose-Mar College of Beauty in Mesa, Arizona. He entered the school armed with a .22-caliber revolver and forced five students, a customer, and two young children into a back room. He then arranged them on the floor and attempted to suffocate them with plastic bags before opening fire.
Smith killed five people—four young women and a 3-year-old girl—and injured two others, including a baby who survived after being shielded by her mother. One surviving victim survived by pretending to be dead. The attacker was arrested at the scene without resistance.
He later told investigators he was motivated by a desire for notoriety and was inspired by other mass killers earlier that year, including Charles Whitman and Richard Speck. The case is often described as one of the earliest examples of a “copycat” mass shooting.
Smith was convicted, initially sentenced to death, but later resentenced to life imprisonment after appeals and legal changes. He spent the rest of his life in prison and died in 2024.
Today, the shooting is remembered as a particularly early and influential example of fame-seeking mass violence in the United States.
#15
For years, Cindy James claimed she was harassed, poisoned, stabbed, had her house set on fire and dead animals left in her yard. She was later found dead, having been hog-tied and choked with a stocking. The police ruled she’d died from an “unknown event” as they never found signs of her stalker.
From 1982 to 1989, Cindy James reported around 90–100 incidents of stalking and violent harassment, including threatening phone calls, break-ins, arson attempts, physical attacks, and anonymous threats. She claimed she was being targeted by an unknown assailant who repeatedly invaded her home and assaulted her.
The RCMP investigated extensively but found no solid evidence of a stalker or any consistent physical proof linking the incidents to an external attacker. Over time, authorities began to suspect that the events may have been staged or self-inflicted, especially given inconsistencies in the evidence and her documented mental health struggles, including depression and prior suicidal thoughts.
Despite this, James continued to report escalating attacks over the years, and the case became one of the most expensive and prolonged police investigations in British Columbia at the time.
After her death in 1989—found bound and with a fatal drug overdose—the harassment claims became central to the controversy: some believed she had been a real victim of an unseen attacker, while others believed the harassment was fabricated and connected to her death being a staged suicide or self-inflicted act.
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
There wasn't a stalker. She was mentally ill. Her d.eath is weird though.
#16
JFK's sister Rosemary Kennedy, was lobotomized at 23yo for being "irritable," leaving her incapacitated and unable to speak for rest of her life.
Rose Marie “Rosemary” Kennedy (1918–2005) was the eldest daughter of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy, and the sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
From early childhood, she showed developmental delays and learning difficulties, and as a young adult she also experienced mood swings and behavioral struggles. In 1941, when she was 23, her father arranged for her to undergo a prefrontal lobotomy, a procedure that was then considered a treatment for mental illness but is now widely discredited.
The surgery severely damaged her brain, leaving her permanently incapacitated and unable to speak or care for herself. Afterward, she was placed in long-term institutional care in Wisconsin, where she remained for the rest of her life. For many years, her condition and location were kept largely private from the public and even from some family members.
In later decades, the truth about her lobotomy became known, and her story is often cited as a major example of the risks and ethical failures of early psychosurgery. Her experience also influenced members of her family, particularly Eunice Kennedy Shriver, in advocating for people with intellectual disabilities and founding the Special Olympics.
Lesley Ganserer 17 minutes ago
Karma delivered to the Kennedy family because of what they did to Rosemary.
#17
Missy Bevers was a fitness instructor who was killed while setting up for a class inside a church. The case became famous for cctv footage showing a person wearing a swat team uniform walking through the church before Missy arrived.
Before dawn on April 18, 2016, 45-year-old fitness instructor Terri Leann "Missy" Bevers was murdered inside the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, Texas, where she had arrived early to set up an indoor boot camp class. Her body was discovered shortly after 5:00 a.m. by her arriving students.
The case gained widespread attention due to security footage capturing the killer roaming the church hallways just before the murder. The suspect was uniquely disguised in full tactical police gear, including a helmet, gloves, and a vest labeled "POLICE." Investigators noted that the killer walked with a highly distinct, asymmetrical gait, but their face and gender could not be identified. Because nothing was stolen from the church and Bevers' valuables were left untouched, police determined she was deliberately targeted.
Despite an extensive investigation into Bevers' personal life, thousands of tips, and the analysis of a suspicious vehicle seen nearby, no suspects have ever been arrested, and the murder remains unsolved.
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
This story is absolutely terrifying. I've seen the video of the guy and it's chilling. He was obviously waiting for her and she had no idea he was there. Poor woman.
#18
In 2006, an Ohio State medical student named Brian Shaffer entered a bar with friends. After being recorded entering through the bar's only publicly accessible entrance by security cameras, Shaffer was never seen exiting the bar and has never been seen or heard from since.
In the early hours of April 1, 2006, 27-year-old medical student Brian Shaffer mysteriously vanished after celebrating the start of spring break with friends at the Ugly Tuna Saloona bar near the Ohio State University campus. Security footage from the building's only public entrance recorded Shaffer talking with two women at 1:55 a.m. before stepping off-camera toward the bar entrance. Despite extensive frame-by-frame analysis, no video evidence ever captured him exiting the building when the bar closed at 2:00 a.m., leading investigators to conclude with 100-percent certainty that he did not leave via the main escalator exit.
The case became an enduring mystery because the establishment had no other publicly accessible exits aside from a service door leading to a poorly lit construction site. Police canine units, landfill searches, and a thorough inspection of Columbus's sewer system yielded no trace of Shaffer, and his car and personal belongings remained untouched at his apartment. While some friends and family suspected a companion from that night was withholding information after refusing a polygraph test, police also investigated theories that Shaffer ran away to start a new life or fell victim to foul play. The tragedy deepened in 2008 when Brian's father, Randy Shaffer, who spent his remaining years desperately searching for his son, was killed by a falling tree branch during a storm. Shaffer remains missing, and his disappearance is widely considered one of the most baffling missing person cases in modern history.
#19
Sometime around midnight on July 18 1969, US Senator Ted Kennedy would lose control of his car, plunging into a pond. Kennedy was able to escape and flee the scene, however, his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne was trapped in the car. Authorities weren’t notified and the body wasn’t recovered for 9 hours.
On the night of July 18, 1969, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, driving an Oldsmobile 88 with 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign worker for his late brother Robert Kennedy. According to his testimony, Kennedy made a wrong turn onto an unlit dirt road and accidentally drove his vehicle off the narrow, guardrail-less Dike Bridge into the tidal Poucha Pond. While Kennedy managed to escape the submerged, overturned car and swim to safety, Kopechne remained trapped inside and died.
Instead of alerting authorities immediately, Kennedy failed to report the accident to the police for ten hours. During that time, he returned to the party to get help from his cousin and a friend for failed rescue attempts, impulsively swam across the channel back to his hotel in Edgartown, and went to sleep. The body and vehicle were discovered the following morning by fishermen.
A subsequent judicial inquest concluded that Kennedy’s turn toward the bridge was intentional and that he had operated his vehicle negligently. He ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident causing bodily injury, receiving a two-month suspended jail sentence and a 16-month driver's license suspension. The resulting national scandal and accusations of a political cover-up deeply damaged Kennedy's reputation, derailed his aspirations for the U.S. presidency in 1972 and 1976, and permanently altered his political trajectory.
#20
James Sligo Jameson -He is most remembered for his role in causing a slave girl to be killed and eaten by cannibals. "a man appeared, leading a young girl of about ten years old at the hand, and I then witnessed the most horribly sickening sight I am ever likely to see in my life...."
James Sligo Jameson (1856–1888) was a Scottish naturalist, traveler, and a grandson of the founder of Jameson Irish Whiskey. Early in his career, he led several successful expeditions through Asia and Africa, discovering new animal species and having three African birds named after him. Hoping to continue his scientific pursuits, Jameson joined Henry Morton Stanley’s 1887 Emin Pasha Relief Expedition in the Congo Basin, contributing funding and serving as a naturalist and second-in-command of the expedition's rear guard at Yambuya.
While Jameson died of a severe fever during the trip at age 32, his legacy became defined by a horrific event known as the "Jameson Affair." In May 1888, while visiting a local chief alongside the slave trader Tippu Tip, Jameson allegedly expressed curiosity about cannibalism. According to his own diary, an associate offered to demonstrate the practice in exchange for cloth. Jameson purchased a ten-year-old enslaved girl for six handkerchiefs, and watched as she was immediately stabbed to death, dismembered, and eaten by locals. While Jameson claimed in his diary that he believed the transaction was a joke and did not expect the girl to be killed, eyewitnesses and expedition survivors accused him of intentionally orchestrating the slaughter so he could calmly sit by and sketch the murder and subsequent feast. The massive scandal permanently damaged the reputation of African expeditions and is widely believed to have served as the inspiration for the character of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's famous novella, Heart of Darkness.
#21
In 2008 suspected serial murderer Ricky Simonds was found dead of heat stroke in the trunk of his ex-girlfriends car. Investigators on the case believe Simonds was waiting in the trunk to ambush and murder his ex-girlfriend, when he became locked in the vehicle.
The disappearance of Jamie Fraley occurred in the early hours of April 8, 2008, in Gastonia, North Carolina. The 22-year-old, who was suffering from a severe stomach flu, had already visited the local hospital twice that day. At approximately 1:30 a.m., she called a friend to mention she was returning to the hospital for a third time but abruptly cut the call short when she saw her ride arrive, referring to the driver simply as "him." Fraley never checked into the hospital and was never seen again. Her apartment was found locked with her wallet, keys, and purse left inside, while her cell phone was later found discarded on a nearby roadside.
The initial investigation centered heavily on Ricky Simonds Sr., the father of Fraley’s incarcerated fiancé. Simonds lived in the same apartment complex, worked as its maintenance man, and had driven Fraley to the hospital for one of her visits earlier that day. He also possessed a criminal record that included a prior conviction for manslaughter. However, two months after Fraley vanished, the investigation into Simonds came to a bizarre end when his body was discovered inside the trunk of a former girlfriend's car, having suffocated from extreme heat.
With their primary person of interest dead, detectives faced a stalled investigation. In 2015, a convicted prison inmate confessed to murdering Fraley, but investigators quickly ruled him out after confirming he was incarcerated at the time of her disappearance. Despite extensive searches, multiple tips, and national true-crime coverage, no concrete evidence or remains have ever been found, and Fraley's case remains an open, unsolved mystery.
Remi (He/Him) 3 hours ago
The guy should be on the Darwin Awards list. Shame he didn't manage that before ending Fraley though
#22
Woo In-hee, one of the most famous actresses in North Korea, was Kim Jong-Il's mistress. After she spoke of the affair, he had her publicly executed and ordered her to be erased from history.
Woo In-hee (c. 1940–1981) was a prominent North Korean actress and the prestigious recipient of the "People's Actress" title. Renowned for her beauty, her career flourished during the 1960s and 1970s, during which she starred in dozens of successful films. Though married to a famous film director, she was involved in various extramarital relationships, eventually becoming a secret mistress to future leader Kim Jong Il in the late 1970s.
In the winter of 1980, Woo was discovered suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning inside a closed vehicle alongside a dead Zainichi Korean man with whom she was having an affair. During the subsequent investigation into the man's death, Woo broke her protocol of secrecy by speaking about her relationship with Kim Jong Il. In response, Kim ordered her execution. In 1981, Woo was publicly executed by a 12-man firing squad at a military academy in front of 6,000 onlookers, including her husband. Following her death, her image and name were systematically purged and edited out of North Korean films and media catalogs.
#23
Essex (whaleship) that was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale about 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) from the coast, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in three whaleboats and suffered dehydration, starvation, the survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism. It inspired the novel Moby-Dick.
The Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, that became the subject of one of the most harrowing survival stories in maritime history. In November 1820, while hunting in a remote region of the South Pacific under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was repeatedly and deliberately rammed by an immense, 85-foot sperm whale bull. The devastating attack crushed the ship's bow, causing it to rapidly capsize and sink, leaving the 20-man crew stranded thousands of miles from land.
Forced to abandon ship, the crew split into three small, makeshift whaleboats with very limited food and water. Fearing false rumors of cannibals on the closer islands to their west, the officers made the tragic decision to sail thousands of miles east toward South America. After a month at sea, they briefly found refuge on the uninhabited Henderson Island, where three men chose to stay behind. The remaining seventeen sailors pushed back out into the open ocean, where they quickly succumbed to severe dehydration, exposure, and starvation.
As the weeks dragged on and men began to die, the desperate survivors resorted to necessity cannibalism to stay alive. When those bodies were exhausted, the men in the captain's boat were forced to draw lots to determine who would be executed for sustenance; Pollard’s own 16-year-old cousin, Owen Coffin, drew the fatal straw and was shot. By the time the survivors were rescued in February 1821—nearly three months after the sinking—only five men remained alive in the boats, while the three on the island were rescued later that April. The extraordinary tragedy later served as the primary inspiration for Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.
#24
Frog Boys: 5 kids disappeared while searching for salamander eggs on a mountain near a military base in 1991. Their bones were found 11 years later with their clothes tied together with bullets wrapped in them. The police refused to ever investigate the military and the case remains unsolved.
The Frog Boys was the nickname given to a group of five South Korean children—aged 9 to 13—who disappeared on March 26, 1991, while searching for frog eggs on Mount Waryong in Daegu. The case gripped the nation, prompting President Roh Tae-woo to deploy over 300,000 military personnel and police officers to conduct one of the largest manhunts in South Korean history. Despite Mount Waryong being searched over 500 times and the boys' fathers quitting their jobs to look for them, no trace was found for over a decade.
On September 26, 2002, two men searching for acorns discovered the boys' skeletonized remains on Mount Waryong, in an area that had been previously searched. Police initially attributed their deaths to hypothermia, but their parents strongly rejected this, pointing to suspicious details like a boy's clothes being tied in strange knots. Forensic analysis ultimately revealed that three of the skulls suffered severe blunt-force trauma, likely inflicted by metal farming tools or a similar object, confirming they had been murdered.
The case remains one of South Korea's most infamous unsolved crimes. While the 15-year statute of limitations for murder originally expired in 2006, immense public outcry surrounding high-profile cold cases like the Frog Boys eventually led South Korea to completely abolish the statute of limitations for first-degree murder in 2015.
#25
The Victoria Hall disaster of 1883 occurred when during a children’s show, prizes offered on stage lead a surge of children on the top balcony to rush downstairs to barred doors. A horrifically large human crush occurred. The disaster was crucial in the future implementation of push-bar doors.
On June 16, 1883, a horrific crowd crush occurred at the Victoria Hall theater in Sunderland, England, resulting in the deaths of 183 children aged between 3 and 14. The disaster unfolded at the conclusion of a popular children's variety show presented by traveling entertainers. When it was announced that children with certain numbered tickets would receive free toys upon exiting, an estimated 1,100 children seated in the upper gallery panicked that they would miss out and stampeded down the narrow stairwell toward the exit.
Unbeknownst to the rushing crowd, the inward-opening door at the bottom of the staircase had been purposely bolted partially shut by management to leave a restrictive opening of only about 20 inches—a measure meant to easily check tickets and control the flow of children. With virtually no adults present in the gallery to supervise or maintain order, the children at the front of the surge were instantly trapped against the barricaded door and buried under a pile of bodies six feet high. Trapped under the immense pressure of hundreds of children continuing to push from above, 183 children died of compressive asphyxia. The tragedy caused massive national grief, drawing condolences and financial support from Queen Victoria, and led directly to a major overhaul of British safety codes. The government instituted strict laws requiring public entertainment venues to be equipped with outward-opening doors, leading directly to the invention and widespread legal mandate of the modern emergency exit "push bar."
#26
Taylor Mitchell was a 19 year old folk musician from Canada. In 2009, on her downtime between concerts she went for a hike, where she was attacked and killed by two eastern coyotes. She is currently the only known adult to be killed by coyotes.
Taylor Mitchell (born Taylor Josephine Stephanie Luciow; 1990–2009) was a Canadian country-folk singer and songwriter from Toronto. Her debut studio album, For Your Consideration, was released in March 2009 to encouraging reviews and earned her a nomination for Young Performer of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards.
On October 27, 2009, while on a solo musical tour of the Maritime provinces, the 19-year-old was mauled by eastern coyotes while hiking alone on the Skyline Trail in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Other hikers discovered her and managed to drive the coyotes away, but Mitchell died the next day in a Halifax hospital from severe injuries and blood loss. Her death remains the only confirmed fatal coyote attack on an adult, as well as the only fatal human coyote attack ever recorded in Canada, which shocked wildlife experts and led to a thorough reassessment of the predatory risk coyotes pose to humans.
#27
Duncan MacPherson - a Canadian professional ice hockey player who disappeared in Austria in 1989. In 2003, his remains were found in a melting glacier.
Duncan MacPherson (1966–1989) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who disappeared mysteriously in Austria, only to be found frozen in a glacier 14 years later. A first-round NHL draft pick by the New York Islanders in 1984, MacPherson was traveling through central Europe in August 1989 before heading to Scotland to take a job as a player-coach. He planned to visit the Stubai Glacier Resort in the Austrian Alps for a brief snowboarding excursion but never arrived at his final destination. His family launched an extensive search, discovering his borrowed car in the resort's parking lot six weeks later, though no trace of him was found at the time.
In 2003, a resort employee spotted a glove emerging from the melting Schaufelferner Glacier in the middle of a ski run, leading to the recovery of MacPherson's perfectly preserved body. While local authorities initially deemed his death an ordinary alpine accident, independent investigations and forensic analyses revealed that his limbs and snowboard had suffered severe, uniform structural trauma consistent with rotating machinery. Investigating author John Leake proposed that MacPherson was injured on the slope and subsequently run over on a foggy day by a heavy snow-grooming machine. Instead of reporting the accident, the operator or resort management allegedly concealed his body in a shallow crevasse, leaving his death officially unsolved and a subject of permanent controversy.
#28
Hyatt Regency walkway collapse- 114 people were killed and 216 injured when two walkways made of glass and concrete (weighing about 64,000 lbs.) collapsed onto a tea dance that was being held in the atrium of the hotel. There had been about 1,600 people in attendance.
The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse occurred on July 17, 1981, in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others. During a crowded tea dance in the hotel's atrium, the fourth-floor concrete walkway collapsed onto the second-floor walkway directly underneath it, sending both platforms crashing into the crowded lobby. It remains one of the deadliest structural failures in U.S. history.
An investigation revealed that the catastrophe was caused by a fatal design change made during construction. The original blueprints called for continuous steel hanger rods to suspend both walkways from the ceiling. However, the steel fabricator changed this to two separate, offset sets of rods to simplify installation. This modification inadvertently doubled the load on the fourth-floor cross-beams, leaving the structure unable to support its own weight and violating local building codes.
The engineering firm, Jack D. Gillum and Associates, approved the fatal alteration over a telephone call without performing necessary safety calculations. While the engineers were acquitted of criminal charges, they were found guilty of gross negligence and misconduct, losing their professional licenses. The disaster became a landmark case study in engineering ethics and led to sweeping industry reforms, establishing that structural engineers bear ultimate legal responsibility for reviewing all fabricator drawings.
#29
John Leonard Orr was a fire captain and arson investigator who set around 2000 fires over a thirty year period, making him the most prolific serial arsonist in American history.
John Leonard Orr (born 1949) is an American convicted serial arsonist and mass murderer who previously served as a fire captain and arson investigator for the Glendale Fire Department in California. He is believed to have set nearly 2,000 fires during a 30-year spree between 1984 and 1991, making him the most prolific serial arsonist in United States history. Orr typically used a signature time-delay incendiary device, consisting of a lit cigarette, matches, writing paper, and a rubber band, to set fires inside crowded retail stores during business hours.
His pattern was uncovered after a series of suspicious fires erupted near fire investigator conventions in Fresno and Pacific Grove. Investigators linked a fingerprint recovered from one of the crime scenes to Orr's law enforcement application records. Following his arrest in December 1991, a forensic re-evaluation tied him to a catastrophic 1984 hardware store fire in South Pasadena that killed four people, including a two-year-old child. Investigators discovered that Orr had written an unpublished novel, Points of Origin, detailing a firefighter who was a serial arsonist, featuring highly specific similarities to the 1984 tragedy.
Orr was convicted in federal court of arson in 1992 and sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 1998, a California state court convicted him on four counts of first-degree murder and multiple counts of arson, resulting in a consecutive sentence of life without parole. Following his arrest, the number of brush fires in the surrounding Southern California foothills decreased by more than 90 percent. Orr is currently serving his life sentence at Mule Creek State Prison.
Catlady6000 2 hours ago (edited)
"Glendale Fire Department in California. He is believed to have set nearly 2,000 fires during a 30-year spree between 1984 and 1991, making him the most prolific serial arsonist in United States history. ""The math ain't mathing
#30
Ervil LeBaron was the founder of the Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God, a Mormon sect who practiced the doctrine of Blood Atonement, wherein nonbelievers’ souls can be redeemed through being righteously killed. Ervil is believed to be responsible for the deaths of at least 35 people.
Ervil Morrell LeBaron (1925–1981), dubbed the "Mormon Manson," was the leader of the Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God, a polygamous Mormon fundamentalist cult. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, LeBaron orchestrated a violent murder spree, utilizing the religious doctrine of "blood atonement" to justify the execution of more than 25 people. His targets included rival polygamous leaders, defectors, and members of his own family, including his older brother Joel LeBaron and his own pregnant 17-year-old daughter, Rebecca, who had attempted to leave the sect. LeBaron controlled his followers—which included at least 13 wives and over 50 children—through intense psychological manipulation and fear, often ordering his underage brides and stepchildren to carry out the contract killings.
Following a multi-year manhunt, LeBaron was apprehended in Mexico in 1979 and extradited to the United States, where he was convicted of ordering the murder of rival fundamentalist leader Rulon C. Allred. He was sentenced to life in prison and died by an apparent suicide at the Utah State Prison in August 1981. Even after his death, LeBaron's violent influence persisted; while incarcerated, he authored a 400-page manifesto called The Book of the New Covenants, which contained a hit list of disobedient members. In accordance with his written commands, his remaining fanatical followers executed several coordinated assassinations—most notably the 1988 "4 O'Clock Murders" in Texas, where three former members and an eight-year-old child were killed simultaneously, leading to subsequent federal prosecutions of his children well into the 2010s.
#31
Nine days after her disappearance, Seberg's decomposing body was found wrapped in a blanket in the back seat of her Renault, parked close to her apartment in the 16th arrondissement... Seberg's second husband, called a press conference shortly after her death at which he blamed the FBI's campaign.
Jean Seberg (1938–1979) was an American actress who became an icon of French New Wave cinema, most notably starring as Patricia in Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece Breathless (1960). Discovered by director Otto Preminger for Saint Joan (1957), she appeared in 34 films across Europe and Hollywood, including Bonjour Tristesse, Lilith, and Airport.
Seberg's life was tragically derailed when she became a primary target of the FBI's illegal COINTELPRO operation, ordered by J. Edgar Hoover in retaliation for her financial support of the Black Panther Party and civil rights groups. The FBI engaged in severe psychological warfare and defamation against her. In 1970, the Bureau planted a false media rumor that her unborn child was fathered by a Black Panther. The trauma caused Seberg to go into premature labor; the baby died two days later, and Seberg held an open-casket funeral to prove the child was white.
The campaign effectively blacklisted Seberg from Hollywood and permanently shattered her mental health. In August 1979, at age 40, she died of a barbiturate overdose in Paris in a probable suicide. Her ex-husband publicly blamed the FBI's relentless smear campaign for directly causing her destruction.
#32
This is the last painting Théodore Géricault ever did. It shows him gaunt and withered as a result of tuberculosis. He is known for painting the macabre, including portraits of psychiatric patients, severed head and limbs. Many of his family members struggled with insanity, including himself.
Théodore Géricault (1791–1824) was a profoundly influential French painter and a pioneer of the Romantic art movement, best known for his monumental masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa. Géricault possessed a lifelong fascination with the macabre, the grotesque, and the limits of human suffering, frequently visiting hospitals and morgues to study and paint severed limbs and the heads of guillotine victims to achieve anatomical realism. Toward the end of his short life, he famously collaborated with a psychiatrist to paint a groundbreaking series of ten hyper-realistic portraits documenting psychiatric hospital patients, capturing the distinct expressions of various mental illnesses.
Géricault's final years were plagued by a rapid, agonizing physical decline caused by chronic tuberculosis and a series of severe horse-riding accidents that left his spine badly damaged. Bedridden and facing his impending death at the age of 32, he completed his final poignant work: a raw, unflinching self-portrait drawing that captured his own gaunt, withered, and hollowed face. He died in Paris in January 1824, leaving behind a legacy that fundamentally shifted European art away from rigid Neoclassicism toward raw, emotional realism.
#33
Liam Ashley was a 17 year old boy from New Zealand who had criminal charges pressed against him by his parents for using their car without permission. His parents denied bail so he would be sent to prison. While being transported in a prison van, Liam was attacked by a dangerous offender and killed.
The murder of Liam Ashley occurred on August 24, 2006, when a 17-year-old was choked and beaten to death inside a New Zealand prison transport van.
Ashley had been arrested for minor, non-violent offenses. His parents declined bail, hoping a brief stay in custody would reform his behavior, under the impression that minors were safely separated from adult offenders. Instead, due to systemic administrative errors, Ashley was placed in an unmonitored compartment of a transit van alongside 25-year-old George Charlie Baker—a dangerous recidivist with 79 prior convictions and a history of extreme violence.
During the drive, Baker became paranoid that Ashley was a police informant. He launched a brutal 15-minute assault, strangling Ashley and stomping on his head. The attack was only discovered when the van reached its destination. Ashley suffered severe brain damage and died the following day after being removed from life support.
The tragedy provoked national outrage and intense criticism of the justice system. Official inquiries labeled the prisoner transport policies "inhumane" and the death "preventable." In response, the contracted security firm withdrew from the business, the government introduced tighter prisoner restraints, and the Ashley family received a compensation settlement. Baker pleaded guilty to the murder and received a life sentence; he remains one of New Zealand's most notorious inmates after launching further violent attacks behind bars.
#34
Sahar Khodayari was an Iranian woman known for setting herself on fire in front of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran on 2 September 2019. She was protesting a possible sentence of six months in prison for having tried to enter a public stadium to watch a football game.
The death of Sahar Khodayari occurred on September 9, 2019, after she committed suicide by self-immolation to protest Iran’s de facto ban on female sports spectators. A 29-year-old football fan, she was known online as the "Blue Girl" after the color of her favorite club, Esteghlal FC.
In March 2019, Khodayari was arrested by the morality police after attempting to enter Tehran's Azadi Stadium disguised as a man. She was detained for three nights at the notorious Shahr-e Rey prison, an experience that severely deteriorated her mental health. On September 2, 2019, after visiting a Tehran courthouse and learning she could face a six-month prison sentence for appearing in public without a hijab, she set herself on fire outside the building. She suffered burns over 90% of her body and died a week later.
Her death sparked massive international outrage and condemnation from human rights groups, celebrities, and athletes. Under immense public pressure and threats of suspension from football's governing body, FIFA, the Iranian government relented. One month later, on October 10, 2019, thousands of Iranian women were allowed into a stadium to watch a men's national match for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
#35
Verrückt was the world’s tallest waterslide infamous for its incredibly sketchy construction and safety record. These details came to the public following it’s closure in 2016, when a young boy riding it was decapitated.
Verrückt (German for "crazy") was a record-breaking water slide at the Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, Kansas. Standing at 168 feet 7 inches, it was certified as the tallest water slide in the world when it opened in July 2014. The attraction featured a 17-story initial drop followed by a five-story uphill crest, sending riders in three-person rafts plummeting at speeds of up to 70 mph.
From its inception, the slide faced severe engineering issues, as early test rafts routinely went airborne off the uphill hump. Rather than fundamentally altering the ride's physics, designers installed a metal hoop structure covered in netting directly over the chute to prevent rafts from flying off. Over its two years of operation, this hazardous design caused at least thirteen riders to suffer injuries from slamming into the overhead supports.
The ride permanently closed following a tragedy on August 7, 2016, when 10-year-old Caleb Schwab was killed. Due to uneven weight distribution, his raft went airborne at the crest of the hill, throwing him into a metal support pole and resulting in his immediate decapitation. In the aftermath, Verrückt was demolished, the Schwab family received a $20 million settlement, and Kansas dramatically tightened its amusement park regulations. Criminal charges against the park's owners and designers were later dismissed due to procedural issues, but the disaster ultimately forced the permanent closure of the water park.
#36
The Iroquois Theatre fire is the worst theatre fire to occur in the US, taking 602 deaths and 250 injuries. The more I read about this fire, the more disturbing it became.
The Iroquois Theatre fire occurred on December 30, 1903, in Chicago, Illinois, and remains the deadliest single-building fire in United States history, claiming 602 lives. During a packed holiday matinee of the musical Mr. Blue Beard, sparks from a faulty stage light ignited a curtain. The venue had been advertised as "absolutely fireproof," but it lacked basic safety features. The fire quickly intensified when the asbestos curtain jammed, and fleeing cast members opened the rear doors, creating a backdraft that blew a fireball directly into the audience.
Panicked patrons, mostly women and children, rushed for the exits in total darkness after the power failed. They encountered fatal bottlenecks: many doors opened inward, others were hidden by drapery or locked with unfamiliar European latches, and iron gates barred the stairways to keep balcony ticket-holders out of the main floor. Hundreds were crushed or suffocated at these chokepoints, while others died jumping from uncompleted fire escapes. While no one was criminally convicted for the disaster, the tragedy sparked global reforms, mandating outward-opening exit doors, automatic roof vents, and the invention of the crash bar.
#37
The 1888 Schoolhouse Blizzard is notable for its incredibly sudden arrival during a warm work/school day, trapping many within it, and making it the 10th deadliest winter storm on record. Teachers generally kept children in their schoolrooms. Exceptions nearly always resulted in disaster.
The Schoolhouse Blizzard (also known as the Children's Blizzard) struck the U.S. Great Plains on January 12, 1888. The storm was precipitated by the collision of an immense Arctic cold front with warm, moisture-laden air from the Gulf of Mexico. This caused temperatures to drop from above freezing to −20 °F (−29 °C) (and as low as −40 °F in some areas) within a few hours. Accompanied by hurricane-force winds and powdery snow, visibility on the open plains was reduced to zero. With an estimated 235 to 1,000 fatalities, it is one of the deadliest winter storms in history.
What made the blizzard exceptionally lethal was its suddenness and timing during work and school hours on what had started as a remarkably warm winter day. Many people, including thousands of children attending rural one-room schoolhouses, were caught completely unaware. Teachers who attempted to walk their pupils home often met with disaster, such as Lois Royce, who became lost just 82 yards from her boarding house, resulting in the freezing deaths of her three students. Conversely, some teachers became heroes; Minnie Freeman successfully guided 13 children a mile and a half through the blinding storm to safety, an exploit later commemorated in song and a mural in the Nebraska State Capitol.
Upstaged75 6 hours ago
I read a book about this. It's called The Children's Blizzard. Very interesting.
#38
Missing white woman syndrome is a phrase used to describe the disproportionately higher coverage of white women and girls in the upper-middle-class who disappear.
Missing white woman syndrome is a term used by social scientists and media commentators to describe the disproportionate media coverage—particularly on television—given to missing-person cases involving young, attractive, white, upper-middle-class women and girls, compared to cases involving men, boys, or people of color. Coined by American news anchor Gwen Ifill in 2004, the term highlights a cultural and racial hierarchy in media reporting, where white women are uniquely cast in a privileged role as "damsels in distress" worthy of urgent national rescue.
Empirical research, including a prominent 2016 study by sociologist Zach Sommers, confirms this disparity, showing that Black missing persons are significantly underrepresented in news coverage relative to actual missing person database rates. Furthermore, when Black or Indigenous victims are covered, the media tone is statistically more likely to focus on the victim’s perceived problems—such as addiction, criminal history, or unstable relationships—effectively blaming them for their disappearance. Conversely, coverage of white women typically emphasizes their positive societal contributions as mothers, daughters, and students. In Canada, studies found that missing Indigenous women receive up to 27 times less news coverage than white women, often featuring detached, less-detailed headlines. This systemic bias not only distorts public perception of who goes missing, but has historically influenced legislative priorities, driving "tough-on-crime" laws named almost exclusively after white female victims.
#39
Smile mask syndrome is a psychological disorder in which subjects develop depression and physical illness as a result of prolonged, unnatural smiling. It can lead to severe physical strain of the mouth and can result in an inability to stop smiling, even when upset or agitated.
Smile mask syndrome (SMS) is a proposed psychological disorder where individuals develop depression and physical illness from unnaturally prolonged, forced smiling. The term was coined by Professor Makoto Natsume in Japan, who noticed that patients who faked smiles for too long would unconsciously smile even while recounting stressful or upsetting experiences.
The condition is heavily linked to the Japanese and South Korean service industries, where an obligatory workplace smile has been demanded of employees—especially young women—since the 1980s. According to Natsume, constantly forcing an artificial smile causes people to suppress their true emotions, leading to depression. It also causes physical symptoms, such as severe muscle aches and headaches, similar to a repetitive strain injury.
#40
Shiloh Baptist Church stampede- 115 people lost their lives after someone called out ‘There’s a fight!’ Which people misheard for ‘Fire!’ and stampeded towards the exits resulting in a crowd crush. There had been 3,000 people in attendance to see Booker T Washington give a speech.
The Shiloh Baptist Church stampede occurred on September 19, 1902, in Birmingham, Alabama, resulting in the deaths of 115 people. Approximately 3,000 people had gathered at the church to hear a speech by prominent educator Booker T. Washington at the National Convention of Negro Baptists.
Shortly after Washington finished speaking, a dispute broke out between a convention delegate and the choir leader. Someone yelled, "There's a fight!", which members of the congregation mistook for "Fire!". A minister attempted to calm the crowd by shouting "Quiet!", but panicked attendees misheard this as a second fire alarm, triggering a mass rush toward the exits.
The building's layout created a severe bottleneck. The church floor sat 15 feet above ground level, forcing the crowd onto a set of long steps flanked by brick walls. As people at the front tripped or were pushed down, a pile of bodies accumulated up to 10 feet high, trapping and suffocating those underneath. The majority of the victims were women who fainted from fright and died of suffocation. Firefighters and police eventually cleared the entrance, but at least 15 of the injured died on the scene before they could be moved.
#41
Branson Perry was a young man from Skidmore, Missouri who disappeared without a trace on April 11, 2001. He was last seen by a friend who was visiting him. He told her that he was going to return a pair of jumper cables to the shed and was never seen again.
The disappearance of Branson Perry occurred on April 11, 2001, when the 20-year-old vanished from his hometown of Skidmore, Missouri. On the afternoon of his disappearance, Perry was at his house with a female friend, cleaning the residence in anticipation of his father’s return from the hospital. At the same time, two men were outside in the driveway working on a vehicle. Around 3:00 p.m., Perry told his friend he was taking a pair of jumper cables out to a shed on the property. He was never seen again.
The case immediately presented baffling clues. When police first searched the property, the jumper cables were missing from the shed. However, two weeks later, the cables inexplicably reappeared just inside the shed door. Extensive searches of the surrounding fields, farms, and abandoned buildings yielded no traces of Perry. The case drew national interest and later gained further notoriety because Perry was the cousin of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a pregnant Skidmore woman whose brutal 2004 murder became a widely publicized international news story.
Over the years, several disturbing leads and dark theories emerged. Investigators looked into local drug acquaintances and explored a potential connection to Jack Wayne Rogers, a man later imprisoned for child pornography and performing illegal surgeries. Police discovered message board posts on Rogers' computer detailing a first-hand account of the assault and murder of a man matching Perry's description, though Rogers denied any involvement and was never charged in the case. Over the years, authorities have executed deep ground excavations based on tips and noted they have identified primary suspects, but the case remains an unsolved mystery
#42
Kelly Thomas was a homeless man diagnosed with schizophrenia who lived on the streets of California. He was beaten to death by six members of the Fullerton Police Department while screaming for his father on July 5, 2011.
The killing of Kelly Thomas occurred on July 5, 2011, when a 37-year-old homeless man diagnosed with schizophrenia was severely beaten by six Fullerton Police Department officers in California. Confronted after a report of vandalism, an uncooperative Thomas was threatened by Officer Manuel Ramos before the encounter escalated into a violent, 10-minute struggle. Captured on surveillance video, the unarmed Thomas was repeatedly struck with a flashlight, tased, and heard begging for his life. He suffered severe facial fractures and suffocated from chest compression, slipping into a coma and dying five days later.
The incident sparked massive protests and a recall of city council members, becoming a national symbol of police brutality against the mentally ill. Three officers were criminally charged—Ramos with second-degree murder, and Corporal Jay Cicinelli and Officer Joseph Wolfe with involuntary manslaughter and excessive force. In January 2014, a jury acquitted Ramos and Cicinelli of all charges, prompting prosecutors to drop the case against Wolfe. While no officers were criminally convicted, the city of Fullerton ultimately paid $5.9 million to settle wrongful death lawsuits filed by Thomas's parents.
#43
The murder of Leigh Leigh Mears: a young girl attends a party where a group of a dozen boys take turns harassing, beating, mocking, assaulting and spitting on her while onlookers do nothing. The next day she’s found in a sand dune with her skull split open and genitals severely mutilated.
The murder of Leigh Leigh occurred on November 3, 1989, at Stockton Beach in New South Wales, Australia. The 14-year-old girl was attending an un-chaperoned 16th birthday party at a surf club. After returning from a non-consensual sexual encounter on the beach with a 15-year-old boy, a distressed and bleeding Leigh sought help. Instead of receiving assistance, she was surrounded by a large group of teenagers who verbally abused, kicked, and spat on her. She eventually staggered away to find refuge. Her naked body was found in nearby sand dunes the following morning. A postmortem revealed that she had been choked and severely sexually assaulted before dying from a crushed skull inflicted by a 5.6 kg rock.
The case became highly controversial and sparked intense national media scrutiny. Much of the early coverage was widely criticized by criminologists and social commentators as a prominent example of victim-blaming, as media focus shifted heavily toward Leigh's alleged sexual promiscuity, her looks, and the lack of parental supervision, rather than the violence committed against her. The police investigation was also heavily criticized for procedural failures and suspected cover-ups, leading to official inquiries by the New South Wales Crime Commission and the Police Integrity Commission.
Matthew Grant Webster, an 18-year-old acting as a bouncer at the party, pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison; he was released on parole in 2004. Guy Charles Wilson, another 18-year-old bouncer, received a six-month sentence for assault, while the 15-year-old boy was sentenced to community service for having s*x with a minor. No one was ever charged with her sexual assault. The tragedy inspired the notable Australian theatrical play A Property of the Clan, which was later adapted into the movie Blackrock.
Explore more of these tags
What do you think ?
Related on Bored Panda
