Delve into the shadowy world of assassination conspiracies. From JFK's magic bullet to Diana's alleged inside job, we explore the most chilling theories that challenge official narratives. Uncover the unsettling claims surrounding famous deaths, including MLK, Marilyn Monroe, and Kurt Cobain. Are these just wild speculations, or is there more to these stories?
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00:00The NYPD says Mangione considered Thompson's murder a symbolic takedown of UnitedHealthcare over perceived corruption,
00:07adding the suspect likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices.
00:13On December 4th, 2024, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed in New York.
00:19Five days later, a 26-year-old suspect, Luigi Mangione, was arrested.
00:24The case caught worldwide attention,
00:26with one of many immediate public responses being to cast doubt over whether Mangione was really the shooter.
00:32Over time, a reported manifesto written by Mangione emerged, and details of his life became known.
00:38Bizarrely, the number 286 was flagged by some as a repeating and spooky link.
00:44It's the number of posts Mangione had made on Twitter.
00:47It's the Pokedex number of a Pokemon he featured on his profile.
00:50It's a specific health insurance denial code.
00:54And it ties back to some seemingly prophetic passages in the Bible.
00:58More broadly, we've seen time and again how seeming patterns and troubling questions
01:03have continually triggered conspiracy when it comes to infamous assassinations.
01:07I've still been in a little state of disbelief that this kid that I knew from high school eight years ago
01:13is now the most high-profile killer allegedly in the country.
01:17I would never have had anything bad to say about him.
01:20Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're taking a closer look at 10 of the most disturbing
01:25assassination conspiracy theories in history.
01:28From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.
01:372 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.
01:43Number 10, they never caught John Wilkes Booth.
01:46This notion that John Wilkes Booth survived is one that fuels a lot of myths about the time period.
01:55The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is remembered as one of the darkest moments in 19th century America.
02:00The man behind the trigger that fateful night at Ford's Theater in D.C. was a one-time aspiring
02:06actor turned disgruntled Confederate supporter, John Wilkes Booth.
02:10So the mainstream story goes, Booth fled the scene immediately after the shooting and holed
02:15up for days, including at a barn in Virginia.
02:18He was eventually tracked down, the barn was set ablaze, and Booth was shot in the neck
02:23and killed.
02:24However, for decades, there have been persistent rumors that actually Booth didn't die, that
02:29either the man in the barn was a lookalike, or that he simply escaped and was never found again.
02:34It's even said that he lived for decades afterwards, under a slew of new names, and mostly in Texas.
02:40People have been discussing and arguing whether it was really Booth killed in the Garrett
02:44barn or not for a hundred years, and that will not change until we have a definitive
02:49answer.
02:50And the only thing that can be definitive is DNA testing.
02:53Number 9.
02:54Marilyn Monroe was murdered.
02:56Fifty years after her death, new classified files just released reveal the FBI believed
03:00Marilyn and her one-time husband, Arthur Miller, were communists.
03:04What we didn't know was that the FBI was keeping a close watch on her circle of Hollywood friends
03:08and her frequent trips to Mexico.
03:10According to the official line, Marilyn Monroe died of a barbiturate overdose at her Los
03:14Angeles home on August 4th, 1962.
03:18According to a multitude of conspiracy theories, however, there's a lot more to the story.
03:22Rumors have invariably swirled that Monroe, who was one of the most famous people on the
03:26planet at the time, was targeted and killed due to her ties with John and Robert Kennedy.
03:31In some versions, Robert Kennedy is said to have orchestrated her death to avoid the scandal
03:36that would break if Monroe ever spoke out.
03:38In others, it was the CIA, FBI, or both that ultimately murdered Marilyn because she had
03:44come to know too much about what should have been state secrets.
03:47We also learned more today about the FBI's secret files on Marilyn Monroe.
03:52They reveal some of her friends were suspected communists and she once considered traveling
03:57to the Soviet Union.
03:59The FBI kept files on her from 1955 until her death in 1962.
04:04Number 8.
04:05Jeffrey Epstein was murdered.
04:07In breaking news right now, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein has taken his own life while
04:12he was behind bars here in New York City.
04:15The financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2019 on charges relating to sex trafficking
04:20and abuse of minors.
04:22After just over a month in jail, he died in his cell with it reported that he took his
04:26own life.
04:27But in the years since, huge doubt has been cast over exactly how and why he died via
04:32multiple conspiracy theories.
04:34It's known that Epstein was connected with many wealthy and influential people from celebrities
04:39to politicians.
04:40Therefore, it's said that Epstein, who was alone in his cell at the time of his death,
04:45was killed.
04:46It was an incident that occurred several weeks ago where he injured himself.
04:50It wasn't quite clear if that was an attempt on his life, an attempt to perhaps stage an
04:55attack.
04:56The details of that were never really kind of hashed out, if you will.
05:01The guards who should have been checking him on the night of his death reportedly fell
05:04asleep at their desks.
05:06The cameras that should have been monitoring his cell allegedly malfunctioned.
05:10For some, if Epstein was killed, then it was on the orders of one of many other high profile
05:16figures who may have been implicated in whatever Epstein might have said during trial.
05:21To avoid jail time, the guards struck a deal with prosecutors and admitted falsifying records.
05:27They're now learning of serious irregularities at this facility that are deeply concerning.
05:33Number 7.
05:34Anastasia Survived Shortly after midnight on July 17th, 1918,
05:39the course of Russian history was changed with one act of brutal violence.
05:45Tsar Nicholas II and the Royal Romanov family were executed on orders from the revolutionaries
05:50who had taken control of their country.
05:52For more than 300 years, the Romanovs ruled Imperial Russia, but their reign ended with
05:57a revolution in 1917.
06:00And in 1918, the Romanov family line was quashed forever in one of the most brutal and notorious
06:05hit jobs ever executed.
06:07Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their five children, and a number of their household
06:13were led to the basement of the Empatyev house where they'd been staying under Bolshevik
06:17guard.
06:18Here, they were shot and killed by a band of revolutionaries in a bloody and frantic
06:23execution said to have taken more than 20 minutes to complete.
06:27But as per one of the most enduring conspiracy theories of the 20th century, it's said that
06:31one of the Romanov children, Anastasia, actually didn't die and somehow escaped.
06:37If true, it's impossible to imagine how disturbing the experience must have been for the former
06:41Grand Duchess, who was just 17 at the time.
06:44Number 6.
06:45Vatican Killed the Pope John Paul I was also known as the Smiling
06:50Pope and the September Pope.
06:51The first was simply a nod to his general demeanor.
06:54The second, though, refers to the shockingly short length of his papacy.
06:58He sat as head of the Catholic Church for just 33 days in 1978, from August 26th until
07:04his sudden death on September 28th.
07:07He was deemed to have had a heart attack in bed.
07:09However, alternative theories point to his death being a targeted killing, most likely
07:14tied up in now-confirmed corruption at the time involving the Vatican Bank.
07:19It's said that John Paul I became aware of several corrupt officials and archbishops,
07:24who then killed him off in a bid to cover their tracks and maintain control of the finances.
07:30Officially speaking, this has never been confirmed, but the whispers have never truly disappeared.
07:35Number 5.
07:36Courtney Love Killed Kurt Cobain On one of music's darkest days, the Nirvana
07:51frontman Kurt Cobain took his own life on April 8th, 1994.
07:56But for many, there were elements to his death that didn't and don't add up.
08:00As a result, there have been conspiracy theories that Cobain was murdered, rather than killed
08:06I'm Kurt Loder with an MTV News special report on a very sad day.
08:09Kurt Cobain, the leader of one of rock's most gifted and promising bands, Nirvana, is dead
08:14and this is the story as we know it so far.
08:16The counter-story first erupted within days of his passing, with the Seattle broadcaster
08:20Richard Lee being the first to make the claim of homicide.
08:23There are alleged inconsistencies in the toxology reports, in the police reports, and in the
08:29nature of his shotgun wound.
08:31Perhaps most notoriously of all, it's alleged that the note that Kurt Cobain left was doctored,
08:36particularly towards its close.
08:38Ultimately, one conspiracy hits an extremely disturbing tone, with it said by some that
08:44Cobain's wife, Courtney Love, may have had a hand in what happened.
08:48All official police investigations maintain, however, that Cobain did die by his own hand.
09:01I found it hard, it's hard to find a way out, whatever, never.
09:09Number 4.
09:10Sirhan Sirhan Mind Control
09:12Now it's on to Chicago and let's win there.
09:15When Robert F. Kennedy stepped from the stage at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, his
09:21walk through the kitchen moments later would become the violent bookend to one of the most
09:26turbulent stretches in American history.
09:29The death of Senator Robert Kennedy on June 5th, 1968 is another with multiple alternate
09:35theories attached to it.
09:36For one, his son and serving politician, Robert Kennedy Jr., went on record in 2018 with his
09:41belief that the wrong man had been charged with the murder.
09:45Nevertheless, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted in 1969 and sentenced first to death and then
09:50to life imprisonment.
09:51He certainly at least fired shots in the melee that ultimately killed RFK.
09:56Sirhan has always maintained, however, that he remembers nothing of the incident.
10:00And here's where an especially unsettling claim comes into play.
10:04According to the Manchurian Candidate Hypothesis, Sirhan may have been brainwashed or psychologically
10:10programmed by another entity to shoot Kennedy, before he was made via mind control tactics
10:15to forget the whole thing.
10:17The other entity, according to the hypothesis, was America's own CIA.
10:22Robert Kennedy was eulogized by his brother Ted.
10:26Some men see things as they are and say why.
10:30I dream things that never were and say why not.
10:34Number three, MLK was killed by the U.S. government.
10:37Good evening.
10:38The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, 39 years old and a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the
10:43leader of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States was assassinated in Memphis
10:48tonight.
10:49A sniper's bullet cut down Dr. King as he stood on a hotel balcony in Memphis.
10:53History has it that it was James Earl Ray who gunned down the figurehead of the civil
10:57rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4th, 1968.
11:02But many, including members of the King family, have for years said that Ray, while he may
11:06have been generally involved in a plot against MLK, was merely a scapegoat.
11:11Instead, there are theories that King was killed on orders from either the mafia or
11:15from the U.S. government.
11:17God knows this is the most tragic thing that has ever happened in my life.
11:20I cannot in any way try to describe to you the pain and the shock that I feel or this
11:27very dreary moment in the life of this city and the life of this nation and in my own
11:33personal life.
11:34In 1993, a restaurant owner named Lloyd Jowers appeared on ABC's Primetime Live, claiming
11:41that he had been directly involved in a multifaceted conspiracy to kill King, suggesting
11:46that the assassination was really carried out by Lieutenant Earl Clark of the Memphis
11:51Police.
11:52James Earl Ray died in prison in 1998, while a civil trial in 1999 found that he had been
11:59framed for the murder.
12:00What we need in the United States is not division.
12:04What we need in the United States is not hatred.
12:08What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom and
12:15compassion toward one another.
12:17Number two, Diana was an inside job.
12:20We have reports from Paris that Diana, Princess of Wales, has been killed in a car accident
12:26and that her partner, Dodi Fired, has also been killed.
12:31They were apparently being pursued by paparazzi on two motorcycles.
12:36Diana, Princess of Wales, died in the early hours of August 31st, 1997, following a devastating
12:42car crash in a tunnel in Paris on the evening of August 30th.
12:46Her partner, Dodi Fired, also died in the crash, as did her driver, Henri Paul.
12:52Her bodyguard, Trevor Rhys-Jones, was the only survivor, but he suffered such traumatic
12:56head injuries that he recalls nothing of what happened.
12:59Officially, it was a tragic accident.
13:01She was the most loved member of the royal family, as she still is even a member of the
13:06royal family.
13:07She's the one that I think we all connected with.
13:09But the conspiracies surrounding Diana's death are huge.
13:12For one, it's been alleged that Paul, the driver, may have been bought and controlled
13:16by any number of secret service agencies.
13:19For another, it's been claimed that MI6 was at the heart of the matter, and that the staging
13:23of Diana's death mirrored a known plot to assassinate the President of Serbia, Slobodan
13:28Milosevic, in the early 1990s.
13:31As for motive, conspiracies suggest that the British royal family were so incensed by Diana's
13:37relationship with the non-Christian Dodi Fayed that the orders came from within.
13:42The letter alleged that a fellow special ops soldier told his wife their unit orchestrated
13:48the princess's death and cover-up.
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14:06Number 1.
14:07The Magic Bullet.
14:09From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1pm Central
14:16Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.
14:23President John F. Kennedy was infamously killed on November 22nd, 1963, while riding in an
14:29open-topped motorcade through Dallas, Texas.
14:32The official line is that Lee Harvey Oswald was the man who took the shot, before Oswald
14:36himself was quickly killed by Jack Ruby.
14:39But of course, that version of events has never been universally accepted.
15:02The so-called Magic Bullet is at the heart of the mystery, with it deemed that no single
15:07fatal bullet could have travelled in quite the same way as the Warren Commission concluded.
15:11As such, there have been claims of multiple shooters from multiple locations, including
15:15one on the notorious Grassy Knoll.
15:18An array of apparent bystanders have also been implicated over the years, such as the
15:22Umbrella Man, who conspiracists believe was there only as a signal for a possible team
15:27of waiting assassins.
15:29As for who was really controlling the events on that day, there have been countless allegations
15:33over the years, from the CIA, to Cuba, to the KGB.
15:44Which of these assassination conspiracy theories do you find most unnerving?
15:49Let us know your thoughts in the comments.