Once you know the truth about these normal-looking things, you'll never look at them the same way again. Welcome to WatchMojo and today, we’ll be counting down 50 Normal looking people, places, and things that ended up having disturbing and in some cases, downright terrifying backstories.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 "Like I said before, it gets too expensive and I have to start eating at home more."
00:05 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down 50 normal-looking people,
00:09 places, and things that ended up having disturbing,
00:12 and in some cases, downright terrifying backstories.
00:15 "Right now I don't even want to just like throw anything out there, like,
00:18 I hope that she's somewhere safe right now."
00:21 The Dating Game Killer
00:23 Serial killer Rodney Alcala is one of the most depraved murderers in American history.
00:28 He maliciously toyed with his victims, assaulted, and even killed some of them.
00:33 There were at least eight victims of his crimes,
00:36 although some estimates place the toll as high as 130.
00:40 "Between takes, you might find him skydiving or motorcycling.
00:43 Please welcome Rodney Alcala. Rod, welcome."
00:47 In 1978, Alcala appeared on the game show The Dating Game,
00:51 and won a date with bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw.
00:54 "Well, I like bananas, so I'll take one."
00:57 However, she ultimately declined to go on the date, and referred to Alcala as creepy.
01:02 Another contestant called him a "very strange guy."
01:05 At this point, Alcala had already murdered numerous people and would go on to kill again.
01:10 He died in 2021 while serving life in California state prison Corcoran.
01:16 "It is chilling to realize that this iconic show,
01:19 celebrating love and romance, would unknowingly feature a remorseless killer."
01:26 Lightning Strike
01:27 While the numbers vary, the odds of getting struck by lightning are relatively slim.
01:31 That doesn't mean you shouldn't take lightning safety seriously, though.
01:35 This photo of 18-year-old Michael McQuilken and his 12-year-old brother Sean
01:38 has served as a cautionary tale ever since it was taken in 1975.
01:42 Posing together at Morro Rock, the brothers were goofing around with their hair standing on end.
01:47 Their static hair and those storm clouds in the background were more foreboding than either
01:51 realized, as lightning struck them shortly after their sister took the picture.
01:55 Another hiker died, and while the brothers survived,
01:58 Sean was left with third-degree burns and took his own life in 1989.
02:03 Michael continues to spread awareness about the dangers and warning signs of lightning.
02:07 Christopher McCandless
02:09 With a grin across his face, the man in this picture appears to be waving hello,
02:13 but he was actually waving goodbye.
02:15 This bearded explorer is Christopher McCandless, the subject of the 2007 biopic Into the Wild,
02:24 Leaving his old life behind, McCandless decided to fend for himself in Mother Nature's backyard,
02:29 eventually seeking refuge in an abandoned Fairbanks bus 142.
02:32 In August 1992, the 24-year-old McCandless died at Stampede Trail, Alaska,
02:37 most likely due to starvation.
02:39 Based on the last self-photo he took, it's evident McCandless knew his days were numbered.
02:53 While it's hard to make out, the paper McCandless is holding is his farewell message,
02:57 reading, quote, "I have had a happy life and thank the Lord.
03:01 Goodbye, and may God bless all."
03:03 David A. Johnston
03:05 While not a household name, David A. Johnston was a revered volcanologist who,
03:10 along with the United States Geological Survey,
03:12 helped save thousands of people through his on-site work.
03:15 Tragically, Johnston lost his own life in the process.
03:18 All seems well in this photo, as Johnston sits in a chair outside, looking into the camera.
03:23 Little did anyone know that within the next 13 hours,
03:26 Johnston would perish in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
03:29 The eruption, preceded by seismic activity, was first reported by Johnston,
03:33 who radioed the message, quote, "Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it."
03:38 Within the next seconds, the signal went out and Johnston was never heard from again.
03:42 So I guess I had the realization right away that this was some kind of a tragedy.
03:48 And on the one hand, it was this huge, exciting, and interesting magmatic eruption.
03:52 And on the other hand, it was, I was pretty certain that something terrible had happened to Dave.
03:57 While his remains were never found, it's believed that Johnston died at Coldwater II,
04:01 a post that wasn't as safe as anticipated.
04:04 I think one of the things to put in perspective is that 234 square miles
04:08 of that area of Washington were devastated by that blast.
04:12 So 5.7 miles, that was within that devastation zone, the blast zone.
04:16 For diehard sports fans, you'll recognize the player on this basketball card as Mark Jackson,
04:24 who started his NBA career with the New York Knicks and later coached the Golden State Warriors.
04:28 At first glance, this card would likely blend in with the rest of your collection.
04:32 Take a closer look at the lower left-hand corner, though.
04:35 You see those two young fans sitting in the front row?
04:37 They are Lyle and Eric Menendez, two wealthy brothers who took the lives of their allegedly
04:42 abusive parents on August 20th, 1989.
04:45 The brothers who were thought to have it all, at times acting out,
04:49 even going as far as robbing houses until they were caught.
04:52 The brothers weren't arrested for these crimes until March 8th,
04:55 1990, and in between that time, they spent an extravagant amount of money.
04:59 So at the time, nothing seemed suspicious to you about them?
05:02 No.
05:03 But soon, detectives shifted their focus.
05:06 The brothers were out there spending money like it was water.
05:09 It appears that some of that fortune went towards Knicks tickets before their apprehension.
05:13 The Joseph James DeAngelo Tape
05:16 Nicknamed "The Golden State Killer," Joseph DeAngelo's spree lasted from 1973 to 1986,
05:23 and he successfully eluded police capture.
05:26 He was also known to make obscene phone calls to his victims, like in "Black Christmas."
05:31 The FBI released one of these recorded calls in 2018,
05:34 which depicted DeAngelo breathing heavily into the phone and using
05:37 crude and terrifying language against his victim.
05:40 "I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill you."
05:46 This is not the type of call you'd want to receive in the middle of the night.
05:50 It wasn't until 2018 that DeAngelo was arrested and charged,
05:54 and he was sentenced to life in prison in August 2020, when he was nearly 75 years old.
06:00 The Chernobyl Phone Call
06:02 "We need water moving through the cord, that is all that matters."
06:05 "There is no cord. It exploded."
06:08 Anyone who's watched HBO's Chernobyl has heard the nightmare-inducing
06:13 phone call that was placed shortly after the famous explosion.
06:16 It starts with a very haunting beeping sound before panicked voices begin speaking to each other.
06:27 [Beeping]
06:29 The audio is obviously not in English, but the fear and anxiety in the voices are palpable.
06:45 The call reportedly consists of an emergency service worker inquiring about the explosion
06:50 before phoning the dispatchers and ordering them to respond.
06:53 [Speaking in Russian]
06:55 Many of these firefighters would die horrible deaths owing to the fatal amounts of radiation
07:09 at the scene. It's impossible to tell how many people died in the tragedy,
07:14 but it remains the world's worst nuclear disaster.
07:17 Operation Wandering Soul
07:20 By all accounts, the Vietnam War was a never-ending nightmare for both sides.
07:25 "Sing it loud, into the Romeo-Fox-trot, shall we dance?"
07:29 The Viet Cong were subjected to psychological warfare by the United States Army,
07:45 who broadcast the so-called Operation Wandering Soul from helicopters and bases.
07:50 This recording is full of creepy sounds, including echoey reverb effects
08:00 and ghostly vocals that were intended to represent the damned souls of the dead.
08:14 The tape preyed on Vietnamese ritual, as it said that the unburied dead
08:19 wander the earth in pain and frustration. Hence, Operation Wandering Soul.
08:24 Just imagine hearing this in the pitch-black jungle late at night.
08:28 Ayano Tokumasu
08:38 Remember that scene in Superman II where a little boy falls over the rail at Niagara Falls?
08:42 "Oh my God!"
08:47 Well, that sort of thing happens more often than you think,
08:49 but Superman sadly isn't around to save the day.
08:52 On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about this photo,
08:55 which sees several people gathering at Niagara River.
08:58 The woman in the red sweater is Ayano Tokumasu, an exchange student from Japan.
09:03 If you think standing on that pillar seems kind of dangerous, you'd be right.
09:06 Not long after the photo was taken, she lost her balance and fell over the edge,
09:10 ultimately going down Horseshoe Falls.
09:13 Tokumasu was swept from the river's Canadian side to its American side,
09:16 where her lifeless body was discovered.
09:18 Bear Photographer
09:30 There are countless photos of bears out there,
09:32 and this one doesn't look much different from all the rest.
09:34 Since the picture was taken from a distance and the bear isn't charging,
09:37 the photographer seemingly isn't in any immediate danger.
09:40 After Darsh Patel snapped this pic using his phone, however,
09:43 the bear started to follow him and his friends.
09:46 The group split up as the bear began to close in on them, ultimately pursuing Patel.
09:49 His phone was eventually found with animal teeth marks,
09:52 while Patel's body was discovered at a nearby ravine.
10:04 The bear was still hanging around the 22-year-old's fatally mauled remains,
10:08 and the authorities took the wild animal out.
10:10 This photo op came at a steep price for Patel and the bear.
10:29 Dutch Girls of Panama
10:31 Scrolling through Instagram, chances are you'll stumble across a number of pleasant photos like these.
10:36 Standing against a colorful backdrop with green hills and blue skies,
10:39 22-year-old Lysana Froon appears to have a lovely day ahead of her.
10:42 Froon was on vacation with 21-year-old Kris Kramers,
10:45 a fellow Dutch student seen in another photo at the same spot.
10:48 The two set out for a hike in Panama on April 1st, 2014 when these pics were taken.
10:53 This was also the day that Froon and Kramers disappeared,
10:56 resulting in a grueling search.
10:58 Ten weeks down the line, Froon's backpack was uncovered with her camera inside.
11:02 Froon and Kramers' remains were eventually found scattered across the jungle,
11:05 with the cause of death still up for debate.
11:08 The Midlothian Church Murder Suspect
11:10 This security footage from Creekside Church in Midlothian, Texas,
11:14 shows a person in tactical gear patrolling the halls and opening various doors.
11:19 Without knowing the story, this 2016 footage comes across as relatively harmless.
11:24 It's a little weird seeing a lone person in full tactical gear inside an empty church,
11:28 but the police search and examine buildings all the time.
11:31 This person was not examining, however. They were hunting.
11:35 Inside the church was fitness instructor Missy Beavers, and she was murdered,
11:39 with the evidence pointing to the person in the video.
11:42 Unfortunately, nothing else is known about the crime.
11:45 The suspect, and their motivation for killing Beavers, remain a mystery.
11:50 Two Tahitian Women
11:52 Paul Gauguin
11:53 Paul Gauguin's life was the stuff of romantic fiction.
11:56 Sometimes the darker parts of artist biographies are glossed over in favor of artistic praise.
12:02 Paul Gauguin produced a large number of paintings during his time in Tahiti that featured bright
12:07 colors, stunning vivid landscapes, alluring locals, and what the artist called a "primitive
12:12 paradise." Tahiti had long taken root as an earthly paradise in the European imagination.
12:18 However, the women depicted in the paintings were not always simply Gauguin's muses;
12:23 they were also his mistresses. In his time in Tahiti, Gauguin infected a large female
12:28 population with syphilis. He named his home the "House of Pleasure", took strolls with an erect,
12:34 penis-handled walking stick, had a second-floor room plastered with lewd photographs, and so on.
12:40 This makes us look at the women in paintings such as Two Tahitian Women a little differently.
12:45 Radar
12:47 The world wars in the early twentieth century were also an arms race to see who could create
12:51 the next deadly weapon. One idea that fascinated scientists and military leaders alike was the
12:56 concept of a death ray. The British government feared an aerial invasion and wanted a death
13:01 ray that could knock German planes out of the sky. British scientists hoped to discover a way
13:06 to use radio waves to kill foes at a distance. However, the power requirements were enormous.
13:11 Ultimately, they hit on the idea of using the echoes of radio waves to detect incoming airplanes
13:16 in the sky, which was arguably even better, tactically speaking. During the Battle of
13:20 Britain, towers like Stenegard sent radio pulses out into the sky and measured the echoes back
13:25 to work out the direction that German raids were approaching from. While many nations came up with
13:30 the idea independently, Britain, with the help from American factories, figured it out first.
13:34 Teams from Germany, Japan, and the US were all working on their own radar systems,
13:39 but the UK's was the most advanced. Thus, radar was born.
13:43 Judith Slaying Holofernes - Artemisia Gentileschi Artemisia Gentileschi was an
13:49 Italian Baroque painter and a highly talented artist influenced primarily by Caravaggio.
13:54 The 17th century art world simply wasn't ready for her. Not only was she a woman,
13:59 but she was one who favored gory biblical scenes over demure portraits and still lives.
14:04 The majority of her works feature images from myth and religion. Judith Slaying Holofernes
14:10 depicts the biblical story of Judith, who infiltrated the Assyrian army during the
14:14 war with Palestine in order to take the life of General Holofernes.
14:18 The story is usually interpreted that she seduces the general, but he gets drunk and
14:22 falls asleep and then she takes his sword and beheads him. And that's the moment that we're
14:27 seeing here. The painting is often seen as a sort of self-portrait, as Artemisia was sexually
14:33 assaulted by family friend and painter Augustino Tassi, after which she threatened him with a knife
14:39 for taking her honor. A closer look at the painting reveals that Judith wears a bracelet
14:44 featuring the goddess Artemis, who guarded her virginity digilently and violently retaliated
14:50 against anyone who threatened it. And it looks to me like she's rolled up her sleeves in order to do
14:56 this. The naturalism is so palpable here. And of course, that is the heart of Baroque art.
15:02 Ammonia Fertilizer Fertilizer is essential in crop growing,
15:06 and natural sources can often lack the nitrogen that leads to efficient crop yields.
15:11 Enter Fritz Haber and Karl Bosch. These two German scientists created the Haber-Bosch method,
15:16 which creates ammonia from nitrogen in the atmosphere. Without this reaction,
15:21 farmers would be capable of producing enough food for only 4 billion people. Our current
15:26 population is just over 7 billion people. So without the Haber process, over 3 billion people
15:32 would be without food. Most of the world's annual food production comes as a result of
15:37 fertilizer created with this process, and it's likely that the world couldn't support as many
15:42 people as it does today without it. However, the two of them also worked on weapons development
15:47 during the First World War. Most believe he was far more interested in helping Germany
15:52 make more explosives. Because while ammonia can be made to produce fertilizer, it can also be
15:57 easily converted into nitric acid, a very important ingredient for explosives. With Haber being
16:03 considered the father of chemical warfare due to his work on chlorine gas. Something to think about
16:08 the next time you're doing yard work. Haber would create even deadlier gases, combining chlorine
16:13 with phosgene, which blocks metabolic processes and leads to pulmonary edema, death by fluid
16:19 accumulation in the lungs. The Ghent Altarpiece, Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Throughout six centuries,
16:27 the Ghent Altarpiece has been burned, forged, and raided in three different wars. It is, in fact,
16:35 the world's most stolen artwork. The Ghent Altarpiece was commissioned by Ghent, Belgium's
16:41 mayor, Jodokis Wight, and his wife, Lisbeth, in the 1420s, and completed by 1432. It is a 12-piece
16:49 installment depicting religious figures, scenes, and symbols. It's one of the most influential
16:54 artworks ever made. When Jan van Eyck completed it in Ghent in 1432, it was immediately deemed
17:02 the best painting in Europe. The piece has a volatile history. In the 16th century,
17:08 the Great Iconoclasm, or Bildungssturm, a movement to destroy religious iconography,
17:13 would have seen the destruction of the altarpiece had it not been for rapid clergymen hiding it.
17:18 In 1781, Roman Emperor Joseph II viewed the piece and declared the nudity of Adam and Eve to be
17:24 offensive, causing those panels to be removed. It was also historically dismantled and separated,
17:30 cut in half, narrowly survived a fire, was bricked into a wall, stolen, nearly blown up.
17:38 It is currently in restoration. It's a miracle that it still exists, but otherwise you only see
17:43 texts on what has happened with it. Vibrators. Let's all try to be mature about this, okay?
17:49 "One of the first five electric gadgets, besides the sewing machine,
17:53 fan, toaster, and tea kettle, was a plug-in sexual stimulator."
17:58 Vibrators are sex toys, yes, but they weren't originally used with sex in mind. Explicitly,
18:04 anyway. The electric vibrator was invented in the 19th century and used to relieve various
18:09 maladies, including pain relief, tumors, and hysteria. "The medical establishment has offered
18:14 hysterical women a veritable smorgasbord of treatments. Warm baths, ice baths, water jets,
18:21 mesmerization, horseback riding even. But I favor a more direct approach."
18:28 The last of these was most pertinent to vibrators' eventual purpose, as it was
18:33 essentially medical professionals misunderstanding women experiencing frustration. "Like a lot of
18:39 manual tasks that are difficult and possibly onerous, it was mechanized."
18:44 And so was born the vibrator. And the fact that the relief of said frustration was considered a
18:51 medical procedure at the time is just all kinds of disturbing.
18:55 GPS. Global Positioning System, or GPS, is a satellite system that can track signals all
19:02 over the globe. "These satellites are continuously beaming data down to us on Earth, which is in turn
19:07 received by devices such as your phone or navigational units in your cars, allowing you
19:11 to see where you are on the planet." It's also owned and operated by the United States military.
19:16 While some may find this disturbing, what's arguably more upsetting is why the US military
19:21 began allowing the use of it by almost anyone. In 1983, Korean Airlines Flight 007 was flying
19:28 from New York to Seoul via Alaska. A navigation error led to the plane flying into Soviet airspace
19:34 and the civilian craft was shot down. "The United States reacts with revulsion to this attack.
19:40 Loss of life appears to be heavy. We can see no excuse whatsoever for this appalling act."
19:49 While the tragic loss of life was awful and led to a rise in tensions between the two superpowers,
19:54 President Ronald Reagan decided to make GPS available on a global scale to prevent
19:59 similar avoidable losses of private aircraft. "Among the rest of us, there is one protective
20:04 measure - an international radio wavelength on which pilots can communicate with planes of other
20:09 nations if they are in trouble or lost." The charnel house, Pablo Picasso. In 1937, Picasso
20:17 painted Guernica, a depiction of the bombing aftermath of a small village during the Spanish
20:22 Civil War. It's an aggressive vision of chaos and a poignant anti-war statement. "The style
20:28 offers a profoundly overwhelming view of violence, destruction, and casualties. Multiple perspectives
20:35 only compound the horror on display." Around 1944, the artist painted something of a sequel to
20:41 Guernica in Charnel House. Picasso was said to be apolitical in that he did not concern himself with
20:47 political affairs. However, the Civil War changed that and his reaction is clear in the two pieces.
20:53 Charnel House depicts a Republican family who was murdered in their house during World War II,
20:58 turning, according to Picasso, their family home into a charnel house, meaning a storage vault
21:04 for bodies. Though the piece may initially not look striking, proper observation reveals the
21:10 grotesque nature of the subject matter within. "Picasso's work remains a searing reminder
21:15 of the true casualties of violence." Bicycles. What do climate change, a volcano, and dead horses
21:23 have to do with the creation of the bicycle? Everything. 1816 was the year without a summer.
21:28 It was so called because a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia the previous year coated
21:33 the world in ash and clouds for nearly a year. In Europe, China, India, and North America,
21:38 1816 was a year of endless winter. Snow fell in July, rivers froze in August, and crops failed
21:45 on a gigantic scale. This led people to slaughtering their horses for food when crops
21:50 could not grow. And with horses being the primary mode of transport, the inventor Baron von Dreis
21:55 was inspired the following year to invent the first hobby horse, or velocipede, known today as
22:01 a bicycle. "The machine produced by Baron von Dreis had two wheels of the same size,
22:08 handlebars, and a brake, so much of what we know from a modern bike." While cycling didn't catch
22:14 on immediately, his invention proved that a dark year for the world could lead to good things.
22:19 "By around 1900, the bicycle was a mode of transport for all. What started out as a play
22:25 thing for the nobility was now mobilizing the masses." Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Vincent
22:30 Van Gogh. Van Gogh was plagued with mental health issues throughout his life, and this self-portrait
22:35 represents one of his most infamous fits. "A cataclysmic breakdown, culminating in an act
22:43 of bloody self-mutilation." When he was roommates with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, the two got
22:48 into an argument, and Van Gogh had a mental seizure and threatened his fellow artist with a
22:52 razor. Unfortunately, he only injured himself with said razor, slicing off a piece of his own left
22:58 ear, which he then presented as a gift to a local lady of the night. "She fainted at the sight of it,
23:04 while Vincent disappeared into the night and then returned home." He claimed to have no recollection
23:11 of the episode. Van Gogh painted many self-portraits, but the couple featuring the
23:15 bandaged ear on the right side in paintings due to using a mirror while painting symbolizes the
23:20 darker psychological side of a troubled man, whether intentional or not. Treadmills. Treadmills
23:28 have been around for thousands of years in some form or another. However, while their use as a
23:33 man or animal power source for mills is well-documented, fewer people know about their
23:38 connection to prisons. In the 1800s, treadmills were created to punish English prisoners. Like
23:45 the treadmills connected to farms or actual mills, penal treadmills did power devices, but they were
23:51 also a form of punishment for prisoners sentenced to hard labor. Most often seen in England, these
23:56 torturous machines tormented prisoners in six-hour shifts. Well, it turns out prison treadmills had a
24:02 problem. They were deadly. Prisoners were expected to treadmill for at least six hours a day. That
24:08 meant prisoners logged over 10,000 feet, the equivalent of climbing the CN Tower over five
24:13 times every day. This caused prisoners' bodies to break down. Naturally, they were eventually
24:18 abolished, but they were still used for most of the 19th century. Really puts your work out into
24:23 perspective, doesn't it? When the jogging craze hit the US in the 1970s, the treadmill was thrust
24:29 back into the limelight as an easy and convenient way to improve aerobic fitness.
24:34 Black Triptychs, Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon was, like some aforementioned artists,
24:41 careful not to adhere meaning or stories to any of his works. With the record of the image
24:46 comes the mood, because you can't make an image without creating a mood.
24:51 A person or a thing, either a portrait or a figure. He did, however, admit to narrative
24:57 in his Black Triptychs, particularly Triptych August 1972 and Triptych May to June 1973. Bacon
25:05 had a romantic relationship with George Dyer, a man of unfortunate upbringing. They became
25:11 inseparable. Dyer was not sophisticated, but went to every single exhibition that Bacon had, would
25:17 travel regularly to Paris. Dyer became his artistic model and lover in the 1960s, though the relationship
25:23 was ill-fated, mostly due to Dyer's alcoholism. Dyer took his own life in an adjacent connected
25:29 hotel room in 1971, while Bacon was at the opening of his art retrospective. The Black Triptychs
25:36 depict the way in which Dyer was found, one from the perspective of Dyer's room, one from Bacon's
25:41 side. The paintings are admittedly a catharsis for Bacon's emotional grief.
25:46 The Trinity Test. The first time a nuclear bomb was ever detonated was on July 16th, 1945,
25:53 in New Mexico. Dubbed the Trinity Test, the event was carried out by the US as part of the
25:57 Manhattan Project, which sought to develop the first nuclear weapons. The videotaped recording
26:02 of this test showcased the terrifying power of the nuclear bomb. Once detonated, the explosion
26:07 produced a blinding flash followed by a massive mushroom cloud that reached over seven miles in
26:12 height. The project was initiated due to fears that the Nazis might develop nuclear weapons
26:16 first, and this test became a precursor to the bombings of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
26:21 which left an estimated 129,000 to 226,000 dead.
26:26 "I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb. Having found the atomic bomb,
26:33 we have used it."
26:34 Rajay Sharif Black's Haunting Facebook Live.
26:37 On December 11th, 2021, 44-year-old Rajay Sharif Black went on Facebook to confess to a horrendous
26:43 crime. "I would be doing this, but I gotta make it quick." The session starts off pretty normal,
26:47 with Black talking about the strained relationship with his ex-wife and the bitter custody battle
26:52 they had been engaged in. "Online records in Howard County Circuit Court show a hearing in
26:56 the custody case slated for next month, and nearly four years of accusations lodged across dozens and
27:04 dozens of filings." He then reveals that he had just taken the life of his ex-girlfriend and was
27:08 about to do the same to his former wife, Wendy, and then himself. According to reports, Black had
27:12 mental health issues and was alleged to have been violent towards Wendy during their marriage. The
27:16 divorced couple were found dead by law enforcement shortly after. Police also found their kids alive
27:21 and well inside Black's car parked outside the house. "Police Commissioner Michael Harrison
27:26 and Mayor Brandon Scott were at the Federal Hill scene today. They both condemned what happened
27:32 and said disputes like these should never end in violence." The murder of Elizabeth Barraza.
27:37 Early in the morning of January 25th, 2019, Elizabeth Barraza was standing in the driveway
27:42 outside her Tomball, Texas, home when she was murdered in cold blood. "But investigators have
27:47 found no reason why someone would want to kill the popular young woman." "I don't think that the
27:53 person that shot her is the one that wanted her dead." Barraza was setting up for an impromptu
28:01 garage sale in order to fund an anniversary trip for her and her husband. Moments after her husband
28:05 had driven out to work, a neighbor's doorbell camera showed an unknown individual walk up to
28:10 Barraza and shoot her. "Surveillance video captures a Nissan Frontier four-door truck pull up. A
28:16 person wearing go-go boots, a muumuu dress, and a wig walks up to Barraza after she says good morning.
28:23 The person fires four shots." The killer then ran back to their car and sped off. Police believe
28:29 that the same car returned to the scene later, seemingly to ensure their mission was accomplished.
28:33 Even with a sizable reward put out by the Barraza family, her killer still remains on the loose.
28:38 "There is a $50,000 reward at Crimestoppers, and that's money this family has helped raise.
28:45 They told us tonight they want to see this reward paid out."
28:48 Long Island Missing Persons Shrine
28:50 A regular hike in the woods took an extremely disturbing turn for one New York man. While
28:54 walking through the Berkeley-Jackson County Park, James Rankin stumbled upon what could easily pass
28:59 for a horror movie scene. "What the f*** is going on in here?" In what appeared to be a rudimentary
29:05 camp, someone had hung up several missing person posters of real-life cases. The hiker made a video
29:10 of the strange sight, which went viral on Facebook. "These are all different f***ing people,
29:14 and they're all just…" Rankin also forwarded his findings to the police, who investigated the case
29:20 and reportedly concluded that they were just decorations for a holiday party. But with the
29:24 decorations having been up long before Halloween, Rankin, as well as many online spectators,
29:28 believe there could be a more sinister agenda at play. "You know, what's this one? Tim?
29:34 Uh, Hamilton Police, um, 2013." Mr. Fritz the Doll
29:42 Dolls can either be fun toys for kids to play with or really creepy creations that can give you
29:47 nightmares. This one definitely falls into the latter category, known as Mr. Fritz the Doll.
29:51 This figure was filmed in the home of its owner after they'd noticed some strange occurrences.
29:55 In the clip, the doll can reportedly be seen blinking and moving its mouth. Also,
30:03 the cabinet in which it sits opens and closes seemingly without any aid.
30:06 While the video's creepy on its own, the doll's unsettling history makes it even worse. Apparently,
30:15 Mr. Fritz was made by an American prisoner in a Nazi camp during World War II. Who knows what
30:20 despicable things its eyes have seen? Chileno Sanchez's Death Note
30:27 After years of selling his music out of his trunk, Chileno Sanchez rose to become the voice
30:31 of narco-colido music. Sanchez had a particularly violent life, which culminated in his tragic
30:44 murder on May 16, 1992. The night before, Sanchez performed to a packed audience at the Salón
30:49 Bougainvilleas in Culeacán, Mexico. During his set, which was recorded on tape, someone handed
30:54 the singer a mysterious note, widely believed to have contained a death threat. In the video,
31:05 Sanchez reads the note and is immediately uneasy. He, however, crumples it and proceeds with his show.
31:09 Hours later, Sanchez was abducted by a group of armed men claiming to be police officers.
31:21 His body was found by an irrigation canal the next morning.
31:24 A Sinister Marriage Announcement When Charlie Carver's Facebook page announced
31:29 his marriage to Kayla Brown, his girlfriend, family and friends were more worried than excited.
31:34 The day before, both Carver and Brown had mysteriously disappeared, and the fact that
31:39 Brown had left her dog alone and unattended was suspicious. As days passed, several more Facebook
31:44 posts appeared, some disturbing, such as news stories about the missing couple and violent
31:49 messages. Police were able to track the location of Carver's and Brown's cell phones, which had
31:54 ended up near the property of real estate broker Todd Kolhepp. There, they found Brown, tied up in
32:00 a crate, and Carver's body. Kolhepp had abducted them both, murdered Carver and posted the Facebook
32:09 messages in Carver's name. Appearing innocent isn't enough.
32:19 When Alan Ruby posted a picture of himself relaxing in a hotel with college roommates,
32:24 probably no one who saw it guessed that his parents and sister were dead at home.
32:28 The housekeeper found them the next morning. They had all been shot.
32:31 In spite of the post on social media, which might have been an attempt to create an alibi,
32:48 suspicion fell on Ruby pretty quickly. The young college student was a compulsive and
32:52 extravagant spender, so desperate for money that he had previously stolen his grandmother's credit
32:58 card. As it turned out, Ruby had murdered his three family members in cold blood,
33:03 believing he would then inherit their money. Posting while flying
33:07 Amritpal Singh was an amateur pilot who liked to post pictures from the air to social media.
33:14 While admiring his lovely photos, friends and family members probably never stopped
33:18 to think about the possible danger to Singh himself. But sadly, it eventually caught up with
33:23 him. In May of 2014, Singh's plane crashed not far from the Front Range Airport in Colorado.
33:38 He and his passenger, a friend, were killed in the crash. Evidence showed that both of them had
33:49 been taking pictures and selfies with their phones. Authorities believe that the flashes
33:54 temporarily blinded Singh, making him lose control of the plane. Those old selfies feel
34:04 different in retrospect. At the Red Lake
34:08 In 2017, when travel vlogger Sarah Funk visited the Metsero Red Lake in Cyprus,
34:15 she and her partner probably thought the place was creepy enough. A mining company excavated there
34:20 long ago, then abandoned the site, leaving an acidic crater that fills with red water every
34:25 winter. Funk posted a video on YouTube of herself at the lake with what appeared to be an old
34:31 suitcase floating in the water nearby. Two years later, a Cypriot army captain confessed to
34:36 murdering several people, putting their bodies in suitcases and throwing them into the Red Lake.
34:41 So chances are, without realizing it, Funk was near one that day in 2017.
34:52 Off the Road Based on her social media posts,
34:56 Gabby Petito's travels across the United States with her boyfriend Brian Laundrie seemed idyllic.
35:01 An aspiring influencer, she documented them hiking, camping, and having fun on the beach.
35:07 However, all was not as it seemed. Witnesses told police that they saw an altercation between the
35:12 couple. Police found Petito distraught. About a month later, Laundrie returned to Florida in their
35:18 van, alone. Not long after, Laundrie's family was found dead in a car crash.
35:26 Not long after, Petito's body was discovered in a national park in Wyoming. Laundrie, the prime
35:31 suspect, was found dead in a swamp sometime later. He had taken his own life, and in his notebook,
35:37 he had admitted to killing Petito. Dating Turned Deadly
35:40 When Sydney Loof didn't come to work one day in November of 2017,
35:45 concerned friends and family contacted the police. Investigators saw that her last post
35:50 to social media had been a selfie with the caption "Ready for my date." She had been in contact with
35:56 a woman on Tinder named Audrey. They also found that her phone had pinged at an apartment near
36:01 Lincoln, Nebraska. However, the apartment's residents, Bailey Boswell and Aubrey Trail,
36:06 had disappeared. The couple posted videos on social media claiming they didn't know what
36:10 happened to Loof, but had fled because the police were after them. After Loof's remains
36:15 were discovered not long afterward, both were convicted of first-degree murder.
36:20 Trail said he panicked and they disposed of Loof's body in the rural Clay County field
36:24 when it was laid out. A Scam, An Escape, And A Murder
36:29 Our top pick is one of the most disturbing stories in social media history.
36:34 Dee Dee Blanchard had a joint Facebook account with her daughter, Gypsy Rose,
36:43 where she would post asking for donations. Rose was apparently suffering from leukemia,
36:49 muscular dystrophy, and other ailments. As it turned out, however, Dee Dee had been
37:00 lying to doctors and friends for years. Rose had no serious medical conditions and had been confined
37:05 to the house and forbidden to speak to anyone. When Rose was 20, she met a sympathetic young
37:11 man online and they hatched a plan to murder her mother. Once it was done, Rose announced the fact
37:16 on their Facebook page. Although Rose is now in prison, she says she feels freer than before.
37:22 The Boston Marathon Bomber Buys Milk
37:25 Security footage inside a Boston-area Whole Foods shows a man dressed in black entering,
37:30 buying a carton of milk, and leaving without incident. Nothing at all out of the ordinary
37:35 here. He was even buying the milk for his two-year-old niece. Except, this man was an
37:40 extremist, and his previous actions of placing pressure cooker bombs close to the finish line
37:45 of the Boston Marathon had just killed three people and horrifically injured another 264.
37:52 In fact, the time between detonation and milk buying was less than half an hour.
37:56 Perpetrator Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became the target of a massive manhunt,
38:01 during which his fellow perpetrator and brother Tamerlan died. Dzhokhar was found
38:05 four days after the bombing. He is currently incarcerated at Supermax Prison, ADX Florence.
38:12 Travis Alexander
38:13 Travis Alexander was 30 when this photo was taken of him in the shower.
38:17 The person behind the camera was Jody Arias, with whom Alexander had a shaky romantic relationship.
38:22 This was the last photo ever taken of Alexander alive, as his friends found his body in the
38:27 shower a few days later. It was only a matter of time until the authorities connected the dots
38:32 and arrested his ex-girlfriend. Arias constantly changed her story, originally pleading innocence,
38:37 later claiming that two intruders broke in, and ultimately testifying that she killed Alexander
38:42 in self-defense. In the end, Arias was deemed guilty of first-degree murder, receiving a life
38:55 sentence. Alexander appears off-guard in this photo. He clearly had
39:07 no idea what was coming. The Last Transmission of Vladimir Komarov
39:12 Venturing to space requires an incredible amount of bravery, and it's exactly because of disasters
39:19 like this. Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the first person to die in space when
39:24 his Soyuz 1 capsule failed to deploy its parachute during re-entry. Audio footage of his final
39:30 transmission has been released, and it depicts an agitated Komarov yelling over a din of loud
39:36 background noise with the full awareness of his impending death. A lot has been debated regarding
39:51 this audio, including the translation and even the authenticity of the audio itself. But if it is real,
39:58 then this is truly one of the most disturbing things found on the internet. Chris Watts
40:04 By now, everyone knows Chris Watts as the subject of Netflix's American Murder,
40:08 The Family Next Door.
40:10 "I have no idea who gave you the right to take their life."
40:15 But those watching Denver 7 News on August 14, 2018, would have had no idea he was a killer.
40:21 Denver 7 interviewed Watts about the disappearance of his pregnant wife and two young children.
40:25 "She came back to her people, which was very concerning, and Nicole called me when she was
40:28 at the door, and that's when I came home." Aside from Watts' curious lack of emotion,
40:33 this seems like a typical news segment about a missing person. The very next day,
40:38 Watts was arrested after failing a polygraph and admitting to killing his wife Shannon.
40:43 "And you have not shed one tear."
40:45 "Don't look into that like I don't love my kid."
40:48 "Look at me, explain to me."
40:50 Watts initially claimed that Shannon had ended the lives of their children,
40:53 and that he killed her in retaliation, but he later admitted to committing their murders as well.
40:59 "I want everybody to just come home, like wherever they're at, come home."
41:01 The following November, Watts received five life sentences.
41:05 The Happy Creepy Killer
41:08 Without any background information, the wide-eyed kid in this picture probably wouldn't strike you
41:13 as very threatening. When you know the whole story, however, that innocent smile of his will
41:17 quickly turn into a ghastly grin. This curly-haired 17-year-old is Jeffrey Franklin, who killed his
41:23 parents and attacked his three siblings. Following a car chase, the authorities cornered Franklin at
41:29 a dead end. The photo shows Franklin in the back of a police vehicle, not appearing especially
41:33 distraught over the atrocities he's committed or his impending future behind bars. Claiming he felt
41:38 like a, quote, "evil being" had taken over him, Franklin pled guilty and received three consecutive
41:44 life sentences. "I don't blame anybody for the reactions to me because I feel that I justified
41:50 most of them." Tyler Hadley and the Red Solo Cup
41:53 Mere hours before raising his Red Solo Cup in this pic, 17-year-old Tyler Hadley hid his parents'
41:58 cell phone and took three ecstasy pills. Hadley proceeded to end his mother's life with a hammer
42:03 and then did the same to his father. After cleaning up the mess, Hadley shared on Facebook he was
42:07 throwing a party that very night. At said party, Hadley told his best friend Michael Mandel all
42:13 about his heinous actions. "After he told me I didn't believe him because he's been my best
42:17 friend forever. I would never suspect anything like this. And I was looking around. He told me
42:21 if I look at enough, I can see signs. I looked on the floor, I could see signs of blood. And that's
42:26 when I went around back and looked in his parents' bedroom." Using his phone, Mandel subsequently took
42:31 this picture with Hadley, knowing it would be the last time they ever saw each other. Leaving the
42:35 party, Mandel hid the pills Hadley planned to commit suicide with and called Crime Stoppers.
42:41 This led to Hadley's arrest and life sentence without parole. "Nearly three years of pain
42:46 and worry now starting to slowly subside with the stroke of a gavel."
42:50 The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel
42:53 In the late 1960s, a German teenager named Anneliese Michel began experiencing seizures
42:59 and depression. Michel grew worse as time wore on, and she began hearing voices. By the mid-70s,
43:05 Michel's condition had not improved, and her parents turned to the Catholic Church for relief.
43:10 Michel was deemed possessed and subjected to nearly 70 exorcisms.
43:15 "Oh yeah, the villains keep scying, don't they?"
43:20 Audio of these exorcisms was recorded and eventually played in court,
43:31 depicting a gravelly-voiced Michel making horrible noises and screaming with a ghastly howl.
43:37 "We thank God for Annihilating the Devil, that he can't have his good deeds,
43:43 and do us all a kind of evil."
43:45 Unfortunately, Michel passed away at 23 from malnutrition,
43:50 as she had not been eating throughout the ordeal. Both Michel's parents and the priests
43:55 faced trial and were found guilty of manslaughter for their roles in her death.
44:00 "I am the Lord of the dead, and I will not be moved."
44:11 The Stephen Mark McDaniel Interview. In this video, viewers can pinpoint the exact moment
44:18 that murderer Stephen McDaniel realized he was going to be caught. It is incredible and incredibly
44:24 creepy. "Lauren was my neighbor. We're just trying to find out where she is at this point."
44:29 McDaniel lived next door to fellow law school student Lauren Giddings. Giddings had gone missing,
44:34 and a few days after her disappearance, her dismembered torso was found covered in plastic
44:39 in a trash bin outside the building where they both lived. McDaniel was not aware of this.
44:44 While interviewing McDaniel about Giddings' disappearance,
44:47 the reporter mentions the recent discovery of her body. The criminal completely shuts down.
44:52 "I know they've been doing a lot of, I think that's where they have recovered
44:55 the body or whatever they recovered from there."
44:58 "Body?" His eyes glaze over, he loses his words, and it looks like he's about to faint.
45:03 He eventually goes to sit down. And while unknowing viewers may think he's in shock,
45:13 the truth is far more malicious.
45:16 Goodbye John Lennon. We're all familiar with the music of John Lennon as well as his tragic fate.
45:21 Photographer Paul Gorish couldn't have predicted it at the time, but this would reportedly be the
45:25 last picture anyone took of Lennon. The image seems innocent enough, as the former Beatle
45:30 signs his autograph for an apparent admirer. Lennon's impending demise was creeping up in
45:34 the photo's corner, however. The man standing next to him is none other than Mark David Chapman,
45:39 the one responsible for Lennon's untimely demise.
45:42 "Hard to get to write at first. Then he wrote his name, John Lennon, and then underneath that,
45:46 1980. And he looked at me, as I mentioned earlier, he said, 'Is that all? Do you want anything else?'"
45:56 Six hours or so after this photo was taken, Lennon and Yoko Ono encounter Chapman again
46:00 outside of their apartment building, the Dakota. With Lennon's back turned,
46:04 Chapman drew his firearm, and the music world would never be the same again.
46:08 "So I called the Daily News. He said to me, 'You think you have what?' And he said,
46:15 'Paul, are you sure that this is the man that you believe killed him?' And I said, 'Well,
46:20 that's the man named Mark from Hawaii who was waiting out there all day with the album,
46:25 who got the autograph.'"
46:26 BTK at Graduation
46:28 Dennis Rader was his church's president, a Cub Scout leader, and an all-around pillar
46:32 of the community. As you can tell from this photo, Rader was also a family man who seemed
46:37 quite proud of his daughter Carrie at her college graduation. This would all be overshadowed,
46:41 though, when Rader was exposed as the BTK strangler, the letters standing for BIND,
46:46 TORTURE, KILL as his preferred M.O.
46:48 "When BTK came forward, everybody's life changed. He would see a woman walking,
46:54 and he would say, 'She's next.'"
46:56 Over the course of multiple decades, this seemingly ordinary guy took 10 lives. In 2005,
47:02 the authorities used Carrie Rader's DNA to link her father to a crime scene, culminating in his
47:06 arrest. "Carrie had graduated from K-State, and while there, had tests at health services,
47:13 both a pap smear and a biopsy. Investigators traveled to Manhattan with a subpoena in hand
47:19 for those smears. Her DNA, a direct match to DNA left at BTK crime scenes."
47:26 Rader pled guilty and was subsequently sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences.
47:31 About 14 years after her father was captured, Carrie released a book entitled A Serial
47:36 Killer's Daughter, My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming.
47:39 "It's been like a cathartic process of having to go do really hard work and find those memories
47:47 again of my father that I had lost and try to separate my dad back out as my dad and remove
47:53 the BTK from it."
47:54 The Eternal Shadow
47:56 At face value, this dark outline of a person could be chalked up to some harmless graffiti.
48:01 While we wish that were the case, this shadowy figure resulted from the atomic bombings of
48:05 Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In August of 1945, the U.S. dropped two nuclear weapons,
48:11 Little Boy and Fat Man, that resulted in anywhere between 129 and 226,000 deaths.
48:18 "At 8.14, it was a sunny day. At 8.15, it was a hellscape."
48:26 Whoever this person was, it appears they were using a walking stick during their final moments
48:30 when the blast hit. As a result of the bombing, an imprint of this unknown soul was left on
48:35 the steps. This wasn't an isolated incident, as numerous shadows can still be found around
48:40 the bombing sites, forever immortalizing those horrifying days.
48:44 The Jonestown Death Tape
48:46 Perhaps the most disturbing bit of audio found on the internet is the Jonestown Death Tape.
48:54 "We're all ready to go. If you tell us we have to give our lives now,
48:59 we're ready. I'm pretty sure all the rest of the brothers are with me."
49:03 Back in 1978, Jonestown, Guyana was home to a cult known as the People's Temple.
49:08 "These lovely people are all happy, none of them want to return.
49:11 They're delighted with this lovely life."
49:14 The cult was led by Jim Jones, and on November 18, 1978,
49:19 909 people died at Jonestown from cyanide poisoning.
49:23 "No other way I would rather go and give my life for socialism, communism.
49:26 I thank God very, very much."
49:28 The event is now attributed entirely to Jones, and his victims are deemed just that.
49:35 Running nearly 45 minutes in length, the tape depicts the terrifying event in full.
49:41 "It's just too late. It's too late. The Congress was dead, the Congress today is dead,
49:46 many of our traitors are dead, they're all laying out there dead."
49:50 Listening to this is certainly not for the faint of heart, as it's a disturbing historical document
49:55 that depicts one of the greatest tragedies in modern American history.
49:59 Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get
50:04 notified about our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or
50:09 all of them. If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
50:14 Jeffrey Dahmer Home Video
50:17 When it comes to American serial killers, it doesn't get much worse or more notorious than
50:23 Jeffrey Dahmer. His very name is synonymous with serial killers, having killed 17 people from 1978
50:30 to 1991. In this home video from the early '90s, Dahmer, who had already murdered multiple people
50:37 by this point, can be seen speaking to his father and nonchalantly flipping through a magazine.
50:42 "Working and working and working and working."
50:44 "Working next week, starting Monday, I go back to work Sunday night."
50:48 They talk about Dahmer's weight and eating out at McDonald's,
50:51 and Dahmer explains that he needs to start eating at home more often.
50:55 "I've been surviving mostly on McDonald's food. It's just so much easier just to pop
50:59 into a restaurant, but like I said before, it gets too expensive."
51:04 He just looks like a typical Midwestern male,
51:06 not the most notorious serial killer in American history.
51:10 "I have to start eating at home more."
51:11 The "eating at home" comment is also made creepier by the fact that Dahmer cannibalized
51:16 many of his later victims. Which of these backstories still haunts you to this day?
51:22 Let us know in the comments.
51:23 "Number one, would you say hello to Cheryl, please? We're gonna have a great time together, Cheryl."
51:28 [Music]