35 Terrifying Real-Life Experiences People Still Can't Forget

Not a single person called an ambulance or named the sh**ter, and his m*rder remains unsolved today.

Over the course of three decades spent viciously bullying the people of Skidmore, Missouri, Ken McElroy was charged with a**ault, child m**estation, statutory r*pe, arson, animal cruelty, burglary, and attempted m*rder.

But finally, on July 10, 1981, the fed-up people of Skidmore decided they'd had enough of their town bully. That day, two people sh*t McElroy to death on the town's main street in broad daylight in front of 50 witnesses — and no one called an ambulance or ever said a word to the police. To this day, no one has been charged with his m*rder.⁠

He was hunted down and k**led on the opening day of the Dakota war of 1862, with Dakota warriors stuffing grass down his throat.

In 1851, Chief Little Crow of the Eastern Dakota signed the Treaty of Mendota, agreeing to government demands that his people resettle on a reservation south of the Minnesota River. Within a few years, trader Andrew Myrick opened two general stores on Reservation land on behalf of the Sioux Agency, where he quickly earned a reputation as a greedy, cruel merchant. By summer of 1862, the Dakota were starving, as their crops had failed and the scrubby Reservation held no game to hunt. In addition, annuity payments guaranteed to the Dakota by the terms of the treaty were deliberately withheld, driving the tribe into desperate poverty. With no other options, tribesmen begged Myrick to give them food on credit, offering to pay him back once a good harvest was had. Myrick refused, allegedly telling them they could eat grass or buffalo dung for all he cared.

When Little Crow finally led his warriors on a rebellion against the government in 1862, Myrick was the first settler hunted down and k**led. His body was found dismembered, with grass shoved between his buttocks and in the mouth of his severed head.

An Australian mother who was wrongfully convicted of m*rder after a dingo k**led and consumed her child during a camping trip in the outback.

When Lindy Chamberlain's two-month-old daughter Azaria went missing from their tent in the Australian desert on August 17, 1980, the Chamberlain family insisted that a wild dingo had snatched up the infant. At the time, however, it was widely believed that dingos weren't particularly dangerous — leading police to suspect that Lindy herself was behind Azaria's disappearance. Investigators alleged that Lindy had slit her own daughter's throat and buried the child in the desert. The case soon became an international punchline, with many pointing out the absurdity of Lindy's claim that "a dingo ate my baby." During her 1982 m*rder trial, protesters even marched outside the courthouse holding signs that read, "The dingo is innocent!"

Lindy was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Then, in 1986, the police found baby Azaria's jacket near a dingo lair in the area where she disappeared — helping to finally clear Lindy's name.

One attacker later said they kicked her head like a football. This case became one of Britain’s most horrifying hate crime stories.

Two of the attackers, Brendan Harris and Ryan Herbert, who were both 15, dragged her off Robert and repeatedly kicked her in the head. One of the witnesses later stated the boys literally jumped up and down on her head. “He stood next to her, and he turned and volley kicked her like a ball in flight”.

One attacker apparently stated, "there's nowt left to do but k**l them." Sophie and Robert were left critically injured and unconscious. The teens fled the park, bragging among themselves and their friends, saying, "There's two moshers nearly dead up Bacup park... they're a right mess."

Her ex-boyfriend, Timothy shepherd, was angry she had started seeing someone new. Days later, neighbours complained about the smell from his barbecue grills

My-Knees-Hurt-Again:
Afterwards, Shepherd returned to his place and used the electric jigsaw to cut Tynesha’s limbs and torso into bits. Fearing that the police would eventually identify Tynesha using dental records, Shepherd used pliers to dig out all of her teeth. These, he threw down the garbage disposal.

Portions of the body were cut into smaller pieces so they could fit on the outdoor charcoal grills on his patio. He mixed the pieces with portions of pork ribs and poultry to disguise them and set the grill on.

He beat him with sticks and stones then drowned him. Richard was released in 1999.

Small Overview of Case: Jamie Campbell was a 3-year-old boy from Glasgow, Scotland. In Jamie’s short life, he had experienced tragedy. Jamie and his three sisters were left in the care of his Aunt and Uncle after his mother had sadly died in a fire.
On August 24th 1990, Jamie had been playing near his Grandmother’s garden when he was lured away by 11-year-old Richard Keith. Richard then led the child to nearby Bluebell Woods where he violently beat the 3-year-old boy with sticks and stones before taking him to a stream and drowning him.

Witnesses later came forward saying that they had seen Jamie with Richard in the woods but at the time, thought nothing was amiss.
Two women later came across the horrific sight of Jamie’s dead body perched over a rock.

It was revealed at trial that Richard had a dark history of this type of behaviour. He had previously attacked another 3-year-old with a penknife and beat him.
Jamie was reported to have had 14 injuries in total from Richard’s attack.

Richard was detained at Kerelaw Secure Unit for 8 years for Jamie’s m*rder.

He was released in January 1999 as he was deemed ‘no longer a danger’, which caused heartbreak for Jamie’s family.

Jamie’s cousin Kimberly has expressed her shock and upset at the fact that Richard is living his life with his girlfriend and freely posting on social media.

Kimberly states that she feels that Jamie has been forgotten in comparison to the m*rder of 2-year-old James Bulger that took place three years after Jamie’s m*rder.

“I just wanted to share it because Jamie’s story is important and it needs to be known. It’s nothing about seeking justice or revenge – it’s just about keeping Jamie’s memory alive.’’ Kimberly said.

In 1958, Charles Bruce Longo converted to Mormonism. Over time, he began claiming to receive spiritual revelations and managed to convince several Mormons that he was a prophet chosen by God. After being excommunicated, Charles moved to Manti, Utah, changed his name to Immanuel David, and founded a small Mormon sect known as "The David Family."

Members received biblical names along with the surname David and lived according to the precepts of their leader, who claimed to be the legitimate heir of Joseph Smith and even, eventually, God himself. According to reports, life within the cult was a living h**l. Brutal physical punishments, t*****e, extreme fanaticism, and psychological manipulation were common, even against minors.

Over time, his delusions intensified. He claimed his followers were archangels and that he himself was the mythical golden plates of the Book of Mormon. Meanwhile, his followers diverted money from supposed charitable works to support Immanuel, his wife, and their seven children, who lived in luxury hotels. In late July 1978, Immanuel David, who was already being pursued by the FBI, took his own life in a car after inhaling carbon monoxide.

Days later, on the eleventh floor of the International Dunes Hotel in Salt Lake City, his widow, Rachel David, ordered her seven children to jump from the balcony. Some obeyed, while others tried to cling to the railing, crying and screaming in terror. Rachel forcibly pulled the children away and let them fall more than 30 meters before jumping herself.

There was only one survivor, one of the leader's daughters, who was 15 years old at the time. She was left confined to a wheelchair and suffered severe brain damage. Decades later, the surviving daughter and some followers were interviewed and still believed that Immanuel David was God.

The soldier had been burried for 36 hours in a shell hole, pretending to be dead, with a live grenade just inches from his hand.

She never returned. She would be found dead in a wooded area months later, over 600 miles away, wearing different clothes and with a new backpack. She had been st**bed to death.

Judy Smith, 50, was on a trip with her husband in Philadelphia. On April 10th, 1997, before Jeffrey left for a business conference, she let him know that she intended to spend the day sightseeing. However, she would never return.

After a series of bizarre sightings in multiple states, Judy’s body would eventually be discovered months later, 600 miles away from her last known location. She was found in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest, with a new backpack and wearing clothing suitable for hiking. She had been m*rdered.

Frog Boys incident is a 1991 disappearance and later m*rder of five young boys in Daegu, South Korea, who went missing while searching for frog eggs and whose bodies were found 11 years later, making it one of South Korea's most famous unsolved crimes, though the statute of limitations has since been removed, allowing for future prosecution if a suspect is found. The case gained national attention due to the massive search effort and media coverage, and it remains a subject of public interest, with documentaries and renewed investigations.

March 26, 1991, five elementary school boys (Woo Chul-won, Jo Ho-yeon, Kim Yeong-gyu, Park Chan-in, and Kim Jong-sik) went to a hill in Daegu to catch frogs but never returned home and their remains were found on the same hill in September 2002, over a decade later, showing they were m**dered.

The case was a major national event, but police never solved it and the statute of limitations expired in 2006 then in 2015, South Korea removed the statute of limitations for first-degree m*rder, meaning the case can still be prosecuted if a suspect is identified the case has reopened. They had blunt force trauma and g*n wounds. I have researched cases from different countries. I wonder who k**led these boys?

The Markley vehicle would be found abandoned within days, but John and Shelly Markley have never been found.

On December 15th, 1995, John and Shelly Markley’s children came home to an unsettling discovery: Their parents were gone, leaving behind most of their belongings—including the watch their father always wore.

The coffee pot was still on and the doors were unlocked. The safe in John and Shelly’s bedroom was open and papers were scattered around the room. It appeared as if they’d made a hasty exit from the home, but why?

Their truck, which had gone missing with them, would be discovered days later, in a parking lot 10 miles away and covered in mud. But the missing couple was nowhere to be found.

On 12 April, her strangled, decomposing body was found dumped outside the town of Gedze, Turkey.

On 8 March 2008, Italian avant garde performance artist and feminist activist Pippa Bacca departed Milan with a colleague for the Brides on Tour project for world peace — a 2 week hitchhiking trip to Jerusalem, all while wearing a wedding dress.

On 31 March, Bacca separated from her colleague and went into Istanbul alone, promising to meet up in Beirut a few days later. On 12 April, her naked, decomposing body was found in a bush outside the town of Gebze, 60 km away. A taxi driver called Murat Karatas confessed to strangling and s*xually a**aulting Bacca on 31 March, before dumping her body outside the city. Evidence suggests more than one attacker was present.

Kobi was their mutual four-year-old child, whom she had k****d after digitally harassing her ex for months over his new relationship with another woman.

Kobi Dooley Macharia was a healthy, cheerful 4-year-old boy living in Hackney, East London with his mother, Keziah Macharia, 41. His parents were separated and his father Ben Dooley had recently started dating another woman named Sasha. Keziah was very unhappy over the fact that her ex-partner had moved on, and she sent Sasha numerous ab*sive messages until the latter blocked her on social media.

On 20th December 2023, Keziah picked Kobi up from school as usual. Kobi was seen leaving the building with her, appearing happy and carrying a balloon. Later that evening, Keziah began drinking heavily, and at 10.42pm, she sent a message to Ben:

"Hi Ben, good Luck with the biteme_cups five days before Xmas! I hope you and Sasha enjoy your lives together. I can’t live knowing that she’ll have the same surname as my son Kobi, and I will not be in your life anymore. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Goodbye x"

She then messaged Sasha: "This is all your fault" and „You will never have the same surname as my son".

At 10.48pm, she texted Ben: "Kobi is dead" and "you can thank Sasha for that". Ben immediately contacted the police, who arrived at Keziah‘s home at 10.59pm. As they were coming up the stairs, Keziah sent one last message to Sasha, clearly typed in haste: "I hate iger both" (meaning "you both").

The police found Kobi‘s body, strangled and fatally st**bed, in his cot. Keziah was found in the living room in blood-stained clothes. She stated that she had tried to commit s**cide by s*******m and ove***sing. However, despite the brutality she used to k**l her son, she left the scene with just minor bruises.

Keziah was found unfit to stand trial but was found guilty by a jury. She received a hospital order. Kobi‘s funeral was held in his father‘s hometown in Ireland.

Days later, her stepdad, James Truman, was arrested for child s*xual ab*se. On may 15, Shayln’s remains were found during a search of the family’s property. Nobody has been charged for her m*rder.

On May 2, 2026, 16-year-old Shayln Shantel Harvey went missing from her home in Big Chimney, West Virginia, where she lived with her mom, stepfather, and several siblings. Her stepfather, 52-year-old James Warren Truman, reported her missing two days later.

During a May 7 interview with investigators, who were following up on his report, Truman stated that he engaged in a “s*xual relationship” with Shayln throughout April 2026. Further, he admitted that most of those encounters happened at their family home.

Truman was not arrested until the following day. He was charged with one count in*est and one count s*xual ab*se by a parent, guardian, custodian, or person in a position of trust.

On May 15, with Truman still detained, the local sheriff’s office executed a search warrant on the family’s property and discovered Shayln’s remains. Her death was ruled a homicide.

As of today, nobody has been charged in connection with her m*rder.

Sources: Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office official press releases, WV Magistrate Case Record Search, criminal complaint, and local reporting (WCHS, WSAZ, MetroNews, WBOY).

Personal note: As I poked around, I learned that the WV Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office and DA are kind of notorious for fumbling what should be open-and-shut cases. More eyes need to be on this case.

It’s that one of the most unfortunate things about the case was the cruelty with which the internet reacted to it.

Well, I don’t really know if this has already been discussed here, since I only saw a single post about it, and it was from exactly four years ago — the same year Debanhi disappeared so I assume people still haven’t really touched on what I’m about to talk about. But first, it’s worth explaining a bit more about what happened to her. I’ll try to summarize it so I can get to the conclusion I mentioned in the title.

Debanhi Escobar was an 18-year-old law student who, at 11 PM on Friday, April 8th, 2022, went out partying with two friends. What catches my attention is that it wasn’t just one party, but several private parties across different parts of the municipality, until they finally arrived at one where she was allegedly kicked out for being drunk and bothering everyone.

Because of that, her two friends contacted a rideshare driver and asked him to take only Debanhi home, since she was drunk and not in any condition to stay there. However, later that night, the driver messaged Debanhi’s friends saying that she was behaving unbearably, insulting him and distracting him while he drove, insisting she wanted to go back to the party. This is where I start to feel angry, because the driver took a picture of Debanhi after he had to let her out of the car (to let her friends know he had no choice but to leave her there), and instead of worrying, they simply replied, “Thanks, but we don’t know what to do,” saying she was so intoxicated that she had caused problems.

At 4:30 in the morning, she was captured by the security cameras of a transportation company, and at 4:33 she was captured by the cameras of a motel called Nueva Castilla. The last recording showed 4:35, but according to the DVR secured by the prosecutor’s office, the footage was actually two minutes ahead. In neither recording was anyone seen chasing her. Finally, at 4:56 — though in reality it was 4:54 because that camera was also ahead — still with nobody following her, she was recorded walking toward the area of cisterns near an inactive restaurant. The construction of that establishment was circular, so she had to walk all the way around it to get there. After this, nobody saw her again.

That area was surrounded by a 2.6 meter wall with barbed wire on top, with no exits to the street or vehicle access. Another wall separating the cisterns was shorter, only 2.20 meters tall, and from the place where Escobar was last captured to the first of the three cisterns located there — two of which were open there was a distance of 11.79 meters.

Mario Escobar reported his daughter’s disappearance to the Nuevo León prosecutor’s office. On social media and in the news, the search poster for the young woman began circulating, accompanied by the photograph taken by the driver.

On April 10th, María de la Luz Balderas Rodríguez, head of the Local Search Commission for Missing Persons in Nuevo León, announced the creation of an emergency committee to search for Escobar. On April 12th, it was reported that the driver who picked her up and abandoned her on the highway had been detained. According to the prosecutor’s office, since there was no evidence against him and because he had provided the photograph, he was released. That same day, the family called on relatives, friends, and the general public to participate in a massive search around the place where she disappeared.

On April 18th, several videos from nearby businesses and locations where she was last seen were collected and analyzed. The investigation expanded into neighboring states. Authorities also reported that people were giving false leads about the young woman’s whereabouts.

On April 19th, several businesses near the place where she disappeared were searched, including the Alcosa company and the Nueva Castilla motel, as well as an apartment in downtown Monterrey. During these searches, authorities also reportedly found other bodies of missing young women. In particular, Escobar’s father, along with a group of people, began searching wells and cisterns for miles around.

On April 21st, Mario Escobar authorized a National Search Commission unit to join the investigation. That same night, a body was found inside a four-meter-deep cistern at the Nueva Castilla motel, the same place where authorities had spent thirteen days without finding anything. The next day, after DNA testing was conducted using Escobar’s biological mother, it was confirmed the body was hers. It was in an advanced state of decomposition, indicating a postmortem interval ranging from five days to two weeks. The prosecutor’s office concluded that the cause of death was a “deep skull contusion,” a version rejected by her family. Authorities also admitted that the cistern where she was found had already been inspected four times, even in the presence of multiple state authorities.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the site was searched again after motel employees reported gases coming from the cistern. Based on this, police claimed they had failed to find her earlier due to a “massive human error.” Her father reacted by saying that his daughter had been “planted there because she had been alive for several days,” implying that someone had m*rdered her and later placed her body inside the cistern.

Dozens of politicians, including the President of Mexico himself, offered condolences regarding the case, making it one of the most protested femicide cases in the country. However, as always, the media coverage seemed to hide several things, such as claims that the autopsies showed signs of s*xual ab*se and that the media concealed this information. In the end, the official ruling stated that Debanhi died after falling into the cistern alone, but that explanation never fully convinced the country.

Now then, I don’t know whether Debanhi died alone or whether someone s*xually a**aulted her and placed her body in that cistern, so in that sense, I can’t feel completely “outraged,” because I genuinely don’t know which version is true. Debanhi’s father chose to believe the second scenario, but I can’t choose either side because I didn’t even know her personally. What does outrage me, sadden me, and even disgust me about my own country is that eventually, after her death, a “trend” of memes about her case started spreading, mocking her with incredibly stupid jokes. One of them said, “I pushed Debanhi,” while another said, “Time machine gets invented: Me in the front row,” alongside a picture of the cistern where Debanhi was found. Those memes, commonly taken from Facebook and pasted together to show how misogynistic and insensitive some people can be.

That’s the part that truly makes me angry. They excuse themselves by saying, “She brought it on herself for being drunk and stumbling around near a cistern,” but of course it’s easy to mock someone when you’re not the one in that situation. It’s hard to demand justice when there are a bunch of idiotic morons online making fun of your daughter, who died under circumstances that not even the government seems to take seriously.

Nowadays, sometimes not even death lets you rest in peace. As long as people have internet access, they won’t let you rest in peace

The story of Charles Peck is one of those rare real-life cases that sounds less like a transportation disaster and more like a ghost story wrapped inside a technical mystery. It emerged from one of the deadliest rail crashes in modern California history, the 2008 Chatsworth Metrolink disaster, and to this day, no completely satisfying explanation exists for what happened with his phone.

On September 12, 2008, a westbound Metrolink commuter train collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles. The crash happened at approximately 4:22 p.m. The impact was catastrophic. 25 people were k**led, more than 100 were injured, and passenger cars were crushed and telescoped into one another. Survivors described scenes of fire, twisted steel, screams, and bodies trapped in wreckage.

Investigators later concluded the Metrolink engineer had run a red signal while allegedly distracted by text messaging. The final text from the engineer was reportedly sent just 22 seconds before impact.

Among the passengers was Charles Peck, a 49-year-old Delta Airlines employee from Salt Lake City. He had flown to California for a job interview because he planned to move there to marry his fiancée, Andrea Katz. He never arrived.

After the collision, families rushed to the scene or began desperately calling loved ones. Andrea Katz was driving to pick Peck up from the Moorpark station when she heard news reports about the crash on the radio. Then something strange happened. Her phone rang. It was Charles, but when she answered, there was only static. No voice. No words. Just dead air and crackling noise. Then the calls kept coming. Not just to Andrea.

Over the next 11 hours, Charles Peck’s cell phone allegedly made around 35 calls to his son, his brother, his sister, his stepmother, and his fiancée. Every time they answered, they heard only static, and then the call disconnected. No voicemail messages were ever left, and no spoken words were ever heard.

At first, the family believed the obvious explanation. Charles was alive somewhere under the wreckage. This was not irrational. People had survived the crash. Rescuers were still pulling victims from twisted train cars for hours afterward. Some survivors were pinned beneath debris. The repeated calls created hope. Andrea Katz reportedly spoke into the phone during some of the calls, saying, “Hang in there baby. We’re gonna get you out.” The calls did not appear to be random spam or misdials from strangers. They seemed to target only people close to Peck, repeatedly, through the entire night.

As the hours passed, rescue operations shifted increasingly from rescue to recovery, but Peck’s phone was still generating signals. Search crews reportedly used the phone signal to narrow down his location in the wreckage.

Finally, around 4 a.m., roughly 11 hours after the crash, rescuers found Charles Peck’s body buried deep in the debris. He was dead. According to later accounts from family members and media reports, the coroner concluded he had died instantly, or nearly instantly, upon impact.

That meant he could not have consciously placed the calls during the night. Even stranger, the calls stopped shortly before his body was found. That timing became one of the eeriest details in the story.

One of the most repeated and mysterious details is that despite all the activity from his phone, Charles Peck’s phone was never found. Without his phone, investigators could not perform a technical analysis, no call logs from the physical handset could be examined, no damage assessment was possible, and no definitive explanation could be established as to how calls were coming from a dead mans phone. The absence of the phone raised a new mystery. How could Charles have made phone calls from his phone, even if he was alive, if he didn't even have his phone?

If the phone had been recovered badly crushed, investigators might have concluded that the repeated calls were a result of stuck buttons, short-circuiting, repeated redial behavior, moisture conduction, or random hardware malfunction. However, without the phone, the story remained unresolved. To this day, no one can figure out how a man can die, lose his phone, and yet still make calls to his family for 11 hours.

His mom came home later to find him gone and a note explaining that he'd be back later, if he didn't get "lost" (which was underlined twice). He has never been found.

On April 20th, 1990, Christopher Kerze, 17, told his mother that he wasn’t feeling well and stayed home from school. The intelligent and reliable Christopher wasn’t one to play hooky, so his parents saw no reason to doubt his word.

However, when his mother Loni returned home from work later that day, she was alarmed to find that both her son and the family van were missing, and that their dog was uncharacteristically running loose in the yard.

Adding to the confusion was a note from Christopher that Loni discovered in the kitchen. In it, he told her that something important had come up, but that he’d be back by 6 p.m., provided that he didn’t get “lost” (which was underlined twice).

But Christopher never came home. Within days, the Kerzes’ 1988 Dodge Caravan turned up abandoned near the George Washington State Forest in Itasca County, Minnesota. In addition to this, Jim and Loni would be the recipient of a distressing letter, as well as an odd series of phone calls, but were no closer to finding their son.

Draper and Adamcik snuck back into the basement and cut the power again. This caused Cassie to panic. The boys came up behind her in the dark, attacking her with knives. They st**bed her 29 times.

The knife wounds were concentrated on her chest, abdomen, back and neck. By all standards, it was a vicious a**ault. The scene also showed evidence of self-defence wounds with blood spatter everywhere.

After they left the house, Draper recorded a video where he said, "I just k**led Cassie. We've just left her house. I st**bed her in the throat, and I saw her lifeless body just… disappear… Dude, I just k**led Cassie."

Although their disappearances are not connected, two families both experienced the same nightmare one day apart. They both have never been found.

Bung Siriboon was 13 years old when she went missing on her walk to school on the morning of June 2 2011 in Boronia in Melbourne, Australia. Bung was seen at around 8:30am walking along her usual route to school. She never arrived. It’s thought that she was abducted by someone in a vehicle. Bung’s mother sadly passed away earlier this year without ever finding out who abducted her daughter.

Lauren Spierer was 20 years old when she went missing after a night out in Bloomington, Indiana in the early morning hours of June 3 2011. Lauren had been partying with friends at a bar and then eventually went back to a friend’s apartment. According to the friends at the apartment, she left to return to her own at approximately 4:30am. This was the last time she was ever seen. Lauren was barefoot and had no phone at the time.

He never boarded the bus. Etan was the first missing child whose photo appeared on a milk carton.

Spring had settled over New York City when six-year-old Etan Patz stepped out onto Prince Street, Manhattan, eager to walk to the bus stop alone. Etan had been pressing his parents for the chance to walk to the bus stop by himself for weeks now. His school bus stood close by, just two blocks away.

But Etan never reached the bus.

That day, the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy had worn a black Eastern Airlines cap and striped sneakers. He packed a tote bag with his favourite toy cars. His mother handed him a dollar to buy soda from the corner store, and he stepped outside onto New York’s busy streets.