Warning: Graphic content ahead including mentions of murder and suicide.
1.In 2004, a man named Peter Porco was brutally attacked in his bed by his son, Christopher (pictured below), with an axe. However, despite multiple blows, Peter did not die right away. He actually stumbled out of bed while spraying blood across the walls and doorways and went about his typical morning routine. Seemingly unaware of what had just happened to him, Peter tried to get dressed, make breakfast, and even made a check out to his son. He eventually collapsed and died, leaving a trail of blood.
2.The 1918 mundial flu pandemic lasted only 15 months but killed an estimated 50 million people (for comparison, it’s estimated that about 7 million people worldwide have died from COVID since 2020). The virus moved so fast, in fact, that some victims would die within hours. Typically, their lungs filled with fluid, and they would suffocate to death.
3.On April 28, 1988, Aloha Airlines flight 243 “broke apart” mid-flight at 24,000 feet, sending a flight attendant to her death. The nightmare scenario lasted 13 minutes. Miraculously, the pilots were able to safely land the plane without any other people dying. However, 65 people were injured, and of course, everyone was left traumatized.
4.Just last month, a human head washed ashore in Key Biscayne, Florida. It was discovered by someone raking the beach early in the morning. A few days later, it was determined the head belonged to a missing 19-year-old swimmer named Victor Enrique Castaneda Jr.
5.Earlier this year, a woman in Kansas died after backing into a plane propeller while she was taking a photo at an airfield.
6.A woman named Paulette Landrieux inexplicably disappeared in 2020, but her case was surprisingly solved with the help of Google Maps. Paulette disappeared one day in November near her home in Belgium. She was never found despite an intense search involving dogs, thermal vision, helicopters, and drones. However, two years later, a policeman was using Google Street View to look at Paulette’s house and spotted her crossing the street toward her neighbor’s garden. Police returned to the scene and found her body at the bottom of a hill, right below the neighbor’s garden. They discovered that she had fallen from an open section and died not long after.
7.A few years ago, a woman in England, Virginia McCullough, murdered her parents and then lived with their dead bodies for four years. The discovery happened in 2023 after her parents’ doctor raised concerns about not hearing from them.
8.In October, a young employee was found dead inside the walk-in oven at a Walmart in Canada. The 19-year-old, Gursimran Kaur, was reportedly found by her mother (also an employee at the store) after she hadn’t seen her for an hour, which was unusual.
9.On May 14, 2008, Brandon Swanson, a 19-year-old college student in Marshall, Minnesota, was last seen leaving a friend’s house. After apparently driving into a ditch, he called his parents to pick him up. However, even after talking to him several times on the way, they could never find him. Eventually, during one of the calls he yelled out, “Oh shit!” and that was the last time anyone ever heard from him. His car was later found abandoned in a ditch with the car doors open and keys missing, roughly 25 miles from where he had said he was.
10.A grandmother was killed after a man jumped off of a freeway bridge in Southern California and landed on the car where she was a passenger.
11.A man was found dead inside a tanning bed at a Planet Fitness in Indianapolis back in November. The man, 39-year-old Derek Sink, reportedly went into a tanning bed on Friday, Nov. 8, and was found there dead on Monday morning.
12.Just last month, a decomposing body was found in a hole alongside the 101 Freeway at the foot of Los Angeles’s Hollywood Hills. Preliminary investigations revealed the body was found at the interchange of the infamous Mulholland Drive and Cahuenga Boulevard.
13.In October this year, a woman in Kentucky, Torilena Fields, was accused of killing, dismembering, and then cooking her mother inside a pot on the stove.
14.A few months ago, a body was found days after an explosion sent a home up in flames in Monrovia, California.
15.In 2022, a 15-year-old girl, Savannah Graziano, was abducted by her father and then subsequently shot and killed by law enforcement as she was (following instructions) walking toward them on the highway near Hesperia in California.
16.A man, Michael Sparks, who was living in a nudist colony in Redlands, California, was charged with murdering his neighbors back in September. During the investigation, authorities even discovered more human remains on his property.
17.Back in 2017, a ride at the Ohio State Fair collapsed killing one person and injuring seven others. The ride, called the “Fire Ball,” consisted of six rows of seats that spun around 40 feet up in the air as the entire thing moved like a pendulum. According to witnesses, when the ride collapsed, people “flew through the air at least 20 feet before landing on their backs on the concrete.”
18.In 2022, a man, Jose Rafael Solano Landaeta, used a samurai sword to decapitate his ex-girlfriend, Karino Castro, out in public in the middle of a neighborhood street. According to reports, “horrified witnesses” said they watched Castro “run for her life,” as Landaeta chased her with the sword. Castro’s grandmother called the killing a “public execution,” while a family friend said that Castro’s daughters “saw everything.”
19.Last summer, a man in Oregon, Michael Meyden, was accused of drugging three 12-year-old girls who were staying over at his house for a sleepover with Meyden’s daughter.
20.A 63-year-old man died a horrific death during a flight from Bangkok to Munich this month after experiencing a “medical emergency,” and losing “liters of blood.” According to witnesses, blood gushed out of his nose and mouth, with some of it even splattering onto the plane’s walls. “It was absolute horror. Everyone was screaming,” said a passenger.
21.Finally, this is a bit more uplifting (albeit still shocking): Earlier this year, a boy who had been abducted over 70 years ago when he was just 6 years old was found alive. Luis Armando Albino was abducted while playing at a park in Oakland, California, in 1951. His niece found him after the assistance of an online DNA test, newspaper clippings, photos, and the help of authorities.
Dial 988 in the US to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.