True crime novels have all the best elements: grisly crimes, complex characters, beautiful language, well-crafted storytelling, and the sad and sickening fact that every detail really happened. This list contains information on true crime novels, ranked from best to worst by user votes. The best true crime novels come in many forms. Some good true crime novels are about one specific crime, while other popular true crime novels are about serial killers. A few of the greatest true crime novels even give readers inside information about the mafia.

What books will you find on this true crime reading list? Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi has to be near the top. Used as the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece, Goodfellas, this true crime book follows the story of Mafia informant, Henry Hill. Helter Skelter is another one of the best true crime novels ever written.

Truman Capote detailed the 1959 killings of the Herbert Clutter family in his non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood. Other good books featured on this top true crime novels list include The Devil in the White City, The Executioner's Song, and Devil's Knot.

Which true crime novel is your favorite? Vote the best books up to the top of this list and get in on the conversation in the comments section.

Anyone who's watched a television crime drama knows that when building a murder case, the police always look for a motive. But what happens when a killer has no motive? As this list of killers with no motives will shows, sometimes people kill out of boredom, curiosity - or simply for no reason at all...

While murderers who commit their crimes for anger, jealousy, revenge, or profit are terrifying, these murderers with no motive are truly the stuff of horror movies.

Donato Bilancia is known as Italy's worst serial killer. He was convicted of killing 17 people in 1997. His first murder victim allegedly cheated while playing cards with Bilancia, but investigators never established a motive for any of his other killings.

While some possible causes have been suggested for Bilancia's behavior - including shame at having a small penis - he seemed to have no particular reason for the murders and no pattern for whom he'd attack and why.

At his trial, Bilancia asked if doctors could explain why he did what he did.

The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs are two teenaged Ukrainian serial killers who killed 21 people in 2007 for seemingly no reason. They recorded many of the murders, and one of the videos ended up on the Internet.

Initially some theorized that the killers were trying to profit from making snuff videos, but police found no evidence to support that claim. Instead, Detective Bogdan Vlasenko said, "We think they were doing it as a hobby," while Deputy Interior Minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy added, "For these young men, murder was like entertainment or hunting."

Israel Keyes confessed to killing eight people all over the United States, and hinted that he had committed more murders. 

Keyes traveled extremely long distances to kill some of his victims, and he maintained weapons caches and body disposal kits in hidden spots all over the US. Yet despite that level of effort and preparation, Keyes could offer no real motive for his behavior. When asked why he killed, he would answer, "Why not?"

Keyes committed suicide in prison while awaiting trial for one of his crimes.

In 1979, sixteen-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer began shooting at students who attended the elementary school across the street from her house. Nine children were wounded, and a principle and a custodian died while protecting the children. Spencer told a reporter that she started shooting because she "didn't like Mondays" and that the shooting "livens up the day."

Craig Walter snapped and stabbed his best friend Maurice Wilson 17 times while he was drunk and high, because Wilson's optimistic outlook made him extremely angry.

Apparently, Walter had recently become paranoid enough to carry a knife around with him everywhere. After murdering his friend, Walter went directly to the police and tearfully confessed his crime.

Sailson Jose das Gracas confessed to killing 38 women in Brazil over a period of 10 years, as well as two men and a two-year-old child. He said he murdered simply because it was fun. He showed no remorse, and claimed that if he were ever released from jail, he'd go back to killing again.

Joanna Dennehy is a British serial killer who murdered for fun and notoriety. She killed three men in just two weeks and attempted to kill two others, all while bragging about her kills to multiple people, before she eventually confessed to the police and pleaded guilty.

According to testimony from one of her victims who survived the attack, she showed little emotion while stabbing him, saying simply, "Oh, look, you’re bleeding, I’d better do some more.”

Alfredo Galan murdered six people in Spain in 2003. He was dubbed the Playing Card Killer because he left a single playing card next to each of his victims.

When police began their investigation, they could find no apparent motive for the killing spree. After Galan was eventually apprehended, he said he just wanted "to know what it felt like to kill."

Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb were two highly intelligent students at the University of Chicago who kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy in 1924, in order to prove that they were capable of committing the perfect crime.

Leopold and Loeb spent seven months planning every aspect of the crime, from selecting a victim to deciding how to dispose of the body - but despite all their preparation, they still made a mistake. Leopold left his eyeglasses at the crime scene, and police quickly traced them and apprehended the pair.

In their confession, the killers said they committed murder as an "experiment." Leopold said, "It is just as easy to justify such a death as it is to justify an entomologist killing a beetle on a pin."

Have you ever heard of hybristophilia? It's a psychological condition where someone is aroused by the idea of someone else committing a terrible act, including murder, rape, and robbery. Read on to find a number of men and women who may suffer from hybristophilia, because they all chose to marry people who had committed horrifying violent crimes.

While it may seem insane to most people, believe it or not, there are people who are attracted to murderers. Many of these people get married to serial killers even after their convictions - though in some cases, they continue to believe their partner is innocent even when the evidence suggests otherwise.

Zayd Rashid killed a woman during a botched robbery in New York. While imprisoned, Rashid read poetry at a class his future wife, former Essence Editor-at-large Asha Bandele, was taking. Bandele would later write a book detailing their romance called A Prisoner's Wife.

The younger of the Menendez Brothers, who killed their own parents for financial gain, Erik Menendez married Tammi Ruth Saccoman in the waiting room of Folsom State Prison.

Tammi Menendez described the marriage as"something that I've dreamed about for a long time. And it's just something very special that I never thought that I would ever have."

Erik is not allowed conjugal visits, and Tammi has said, "Not having sex in my life is difficult, but it's not a problem for me. I have to be physically detached, and I'm emotionally attached to Erik."

Tammi and her daughter Talia drive 150 miles every weekend to visit Erik. Talia calls her stepfather "Earth Dad," in contrast to her deceased biological father.

Tammi published a book, They Said We'd Never Make It - My Life With Erik Menendez, covering her relationship with Erik.

One half of the Hillside Stranglers, who claimed the lives of 10 women in the late 1970s, Kenneth Bianchi would go on to marry Shirlee Joyce Book, a pen pal, via phone call while he was imprisoned in 1989. 

Susan Atkins is another infamous member of the Manson Family. She was convicted for eight of the nine murders committed by the group.

Atkins would go on to marry twice while imprisoned. First she married Donald Lee Laisure in 1981 - after Donald had previously been married 35 times. The two divorced after he planned to marry yet another woman.

Then Atkins married James Whitehouse in 1987. He was a Harvard Law graduate who was 15 years younger than she.

Tex Watson was a member of the Manson Family, who together murdered five people, most notably actress Sharon Tate. After converting to Christianity in 1975 and publishing the book Will You Die For Me? in 1978, Watson married Kristin Joan Svege in 1979.

Together through conjugal visits, they had four children. The couple divorced in 2003 after being married for 24 years, though the two remain friends.

Charles Manson was the leader of the Manson Family, a group of young people who famously killed nine people in Los Angeles over the course of five weeks during the summer of 1969, though Manson was never convicted of killing anyone personally.

Manson intended to marry Afton Elaine "Star" Buron, who was 53 years his junior, but their wedding was called off after it was discovered that Burton was attempting to make money from Manson by allegedly planning to display his corpse in LA once he'd died.

Richard Ramirez was the famous "Night Stalker" serial killer and rapist, who terrorized the Los Angeles and San Francisco area from 1984 to 1985. Ramirez received hundreds of letters from women in prison, including more than 75 from Doreen Lioy.

Ramirez proposed to Lioy in 1988, and the two were married eight years later, in San Quentin Prison. Lioy insists that her husband is innocent.

"He's kind, he's funny, he's charming," she said. "I think he's really a great person. He's my best friend; he's my buddy."

Oscar Bolin was a carnival worker who killed three women in Florida and was executed in 2016. He was famously married to Rosalie Martinez, who was a member of his own legal defense team, while he was on death row in 1996.

Martinez left her husband, also a lawyer, to marry Bolin. Martinez said she made the dramatic move in part to demonstrate Bolin's innocence.

Martinez never stopped believing in that innocence. The two remained married until his execution in Florida in January 2016. 

Notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was famous for killing more than 30 women. He was also known for being extremely handsome and charming. Perhaps that's why a former coworker of Bundy's, Carole Ann Boone, married the murderer after he famously proposed to her in court. (In fact, Bundy married her right then and there, using a bizarre loophole in Florida law stating that just a declaration of marriage in the presence of a judge constitutes a legal marriage.)

Boone would later give birth to Bundy's daughter, even though conjugal visits weren't allowed in his Florida prison.

One half of the infamous Menendez Brothers, who killed their own parents for financial gain, older brother Lyle Menendez married his prison pen pal and former model Anna Eriksson on July 2, 1996. The two were subsequently divorced on April 1, 2001, after Eriksson discovered that Menendez was cheating on her by writing to another woman.

Two years later, Menendez remarried, this time to his long-time friend Rebeccea Snead, at a ceremony in the maximum security visiting area of Mule Creek State Prison.

Scary crime movies are even more horrifying when we know they’re based on true stories. It’s terrifying to think someone actually encountered a serial-killing monster masquerading as a human being. Reality always hits close to home, and these movies are some of the best films in horror. Here are the scariest true crime movies ever.

Not all the movies on this list are, strictly speaking, crime films. Not in the sense that The Departed or The French Connection or Heat are crime films. However, they all have their roots in real crimes or bizarre cases, such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose, in which priests and a girl's parents may have been responsible for her death. 

Okay, it’s true, Freddy Krueger wasn’t actually a real person who killed teenagers in their sleep. However, the premise of A Nightmare on Elm Street was based on the story of a perfectly healthy young Cambodian refugee who was having terrible nightmares before finally dying in his sleep. Famed serial killer and grave robber Ed Gein was so heinous and psychotic, some of the most iconic film characters in the history of cinema are based on him. Gein served as the inspiration for three characters from a few of the scariest true crime movies ever: Norman Bates from Psycho, Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Some of the crime films based on true stories from this list are more factual than others. For example, Dahmer and Monster are not horror films inspired by actual murders, they are biopics of the real murderers. Not every single aspect of those films are 100% factual, but for the most part, they tell the stories of Jeffrey Dahmer’s and Aileen Wuornos’s twisted lives.

It’s not just a movie. These films should and will haunt you, once you know there were actual victims behind the massacres. Make your voice heard and vote up for your favorite scary movies based on true stories. If you can't get enough of this list and want more crime, horror, and just kind of straight up disturbing movies based on real crimes, see 13 Horror Movies and the True Stories They're Based On, The Best Scary Movies Based on True Stories, and Hard-to-Sit-Through Movies Based on Real Atrocities.

Perhaps the be-all, end-all of slasher films, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) follows a group of teenagers who are slaughtered by the film's scary boogieman Leatherface and his cannibal family. The plot of the movie is total fiction, but it was marketed as a true story in order to boost ticket sales. However, Leatherface is based on real-life notorious serial killer and grave robber Ed Gein, who was known to keep his victim's body parts as trophies.

Gregory M Wilson's 2007 horror film The Girl Next Door was based on Jack Ketchum's 1989 novel of the same name, which was inspired by real-life events. In 1965, in Indiana, 16-year-old Sylvia Likens was tortured and killed by Gertrude Baniszewski. The prosecutor called the case, "the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana."

You might find it hard to believe A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was based on a true story. The narrative device of Wes Craven's slasher film, in which knife-for-fingers Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) kills innocent teenagers in their sleep, is entirely fictionalized. However, Craven based the movie on an Los Angeles Times article he read.

Craven described the idea for the premise of A Nightmare on Elm Street:

"I’d read an article in the LA Times about a family who had escaped the Killing Fields in Cambodia and managed to get to the U.S. Things were fine, and then suddenly the young son was having very disturbing nightmares. He told his parents he was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time. When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis was over. Then they heard screams in the middle of the night. By the time they got to him, he was dead. He died in the middle of a nightmare. Here was a youngster having a vision of a horror that everyone older was denying. That became the central line of Nightmare on Elm Street."

Although a true-crime movie, 2003's Monster featured all the gory, horrifying killing you expect from the horror genre. Charlize Theron uglied herself up for her Oscar-winning portrayal of real life serial-killing prostitute Aileen Wuornos, who was charged with murdering six men in Florida. The film added ever-important, totally fictionalized, same-sex love interest Selby (Christina Ricci). Wuornos claimed she killed in self-defense. The state didn't buy it. She was executed by lethal injection in 2002.

The Amityville Horror (1979), based on the book by Jay Anson, is typically the first film we think of when we were hear, "scary movie based on a true story." The movie follows the Lutz family as they move to a new house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY. After a series of odd paranormal-like events, the Lutz's believe the house is haunted, only to discover that a past owner killed his whole family in their home by way of an axe (in reality, he shot them with a rifle, at first claiming voices told him to do it, later admitting he was drunk and high on heroin at the time).  

There are currently 17 films and 1 remake in the Amityville film series. Though these films are primarily supernatural horror, the first movie in the series is rooted in the true story of the Lutz family murders. 

The 2005 film is based on the life of young Anneliese Michel, who was believed to be possessed by demons. She was so possessed, in fact, that she underwent multiple exorcisms over the course of several months, after she was diagnosed with epilepsy and began having extreme seizures and depression. She also heard demonic voices (one told her she would "stew in hell") and experienced hellish visions. In th end, she died, but not before telling the priests who performed her final exorcism they should "beg for absolution." 

SPOILERS

In the film, Emily (Jennifer Carpenter) dies from what appears to be malnutrition. However, the exorcising priest, Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), is put on trial for her murder. The film is actually more legal drama than horror movie, though the flashback scenes of Emily's possession are truly horrifying to watch.

The Exorcist (1973) was based on a book written by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the screenplay. The story was inspired by a real young boy, pseudonym Roland Doe, who was reportedly possessed by demons. Doe's Catholic parents felt his behavior was demonic, and sought a priest to perform an exorcism. Director William Friedkin stayed as true as possible to the real events, and was even given access to the priests's diaries. One major change in the film, the possessed was a 12-year-old girl (Linda Blair), not a young a boy.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) became just the third movie to win the Big Five at the Academy Award, taking home Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also turned the film's refined cannibal antagonist, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), into a pop culture phenomenon.

The film's source material, a novel by author Thomas Harris, based the villain in the story, Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), on several serial killers, including Ed Gein. Following the death of Gein's beloved mother, he decided he wanted to become a woman. Just like Buffalo Bill did in the movie, Gein began constructing a "woman suit" by collecting body parts from newly deceased females. 

A young couple (Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler) is terrorized by three mentally deranged, masked lunatics in The Strangers (2008). The film's writer-director, Bryan Bertino, revealed that the home invasion premise was inspired by a time during his childhood when a stranger knocked on his door and asked for someone who wasn't there. The director later found out that a series of break-ins had occurred in his neighborhood, the perpetrators of which would knock front doors and, if no one was home, enter the house. Bertino was also inspired by Manson Family murder true crime novel Helter Skelter.

The film opens with the following narration: "What you are about to see is inspired by true events. According to the FBI, there are an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes in America each year. On the night of February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt left a friend's wedding reception and returned to the Hoyt summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known."

The Conjuring (2013) follows a pair of paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). They are called on by the Perron family, a married couple with five daughters, to figure out what's haunting their Rhode Island farmhouse. The actual Warrens are real-life paranormal investigators, and their reports are the alleged foundation for the film The Amityville Horror. The marketing campaign for The Conjuring centered on the "based on a true story" concept. Commercials for the movie even featured the actual Perron family.

Art has played a significant role throughout human history - but so has art theft. Art heists have been rampant around the world ever since artwork first became incredibly valuable. This list explores the most outrageous art thefts throughout history. 

These thieves lifted millions of dollars' worth of art and they composed a number of shrewd plans to do so. Some of them used force, while others used distractions like fireworks and alarms. One criminal even replaced over 100 pieces of famous art with his own paintings and drawings. Another thief simply walked out of a museum with a renowned painting stuffed inside his coat. Some of the stolen pieces have since been found, but most of them have never been recovered. Ultimately, every art heist on this list required clever planning, good luck, and immense self-confidence!

Poppy Flowers by Vincent Van Gogh was stolen from the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo, Egypt, in 2010, 33 years after the last time it was stolen from the same museum.

The thieves got very lucky, since only seven of the usual 24 security guards were working that day. Two Italian suspects were initially detained and questioned because they matched the description and they were traveling with a similarly-sized canvas. However, these two individuals were most likely decoys who adequately distracted investigators while the real thieves escaped successfully.

The painting has never been found, and billionaire Naguib Sawiris is currently offering a $175,000 reward for relevant information. 

Seven paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in the fall of 2012. Some of the stolen pieces were painted by famous artists like Monet, de Haan, and Gauguin. The thieves were able to deactivate the security system and complete the entire heist in only 3 minutes.

Even more outrageous: one of the robbers, Radu Dogaru, threatened to sue the museum for making the robbery too easy. 

While everyone else was celebrating the coming of the new millennium on the night of December 31, 1999, one British thief successfully stole a painting worth nearly $5 million. The heist took place at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.

The thief broke into the museum while the entire city was distracted by loud fireworks. He cut a hole in the museum's roof and dropped down using a rope ladder. Once inside, he released a smoke bomb to obfuscate himself from the cameras once inside. This stolen painting by Paul Cezanne has never been recovered. 

In the winter of 2002, robbers lifted Van Gogh's View of the Sea at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The thieves entered the premises through the roof, and they managed to obscure their faces from the security cameras.

Although two suspects were arrested and later convicted for the robbery in 2004, the paintings have still not been found. There is still a €100,000 reward for anyone with pertinent information. 

In the course of only two years, from 2004 to 2006, a chief librarian at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts gradually replaced 140 paintings with his own works of art. The thief, Xiao Yuan, sold the pieces at various auctions for a total of $6 million. When he was caught, he still had another $11 million worth of stolen art in his possession.

While confessing, Xiao defended himself by claiming that such deceptive thievery was extremely common in the art community. He even claimed that unknown thieves had replaced his fakes with their own fakes.  

In the spring of 1990, two thieves cleverly posed as police officers to steal 13 pieces of art worth $500 million. The art heist occurred in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, where the thieves showed up in fake uniforms and a wax mustache, claiming they had received a call about a disturbance.

After gaining entrance with their false identities, the robbers tied up the security guards and carried out the art theft in under an hour. They stole pieces from well-known artists including Rembrandt, Vermeer, Manet, and Flinck. These valuable pieces have never been recovered, and the FBI is still offering a $5 million reward for information regarding their whereabouts. 

The famous Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 from the world's largest museum, the Louvre. After two years of intense investigating, the culprit was finally found. He contacted an Italian art dealer, who helped the French authorities by setting up a fake meeting. The thief was revealed to be Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee of the Louvre.

Peruggia admitted that he decided to steal the painting on an impulse, and he only did so because he noticed that the guard was temporarily out of the room. He simply removed the painting from its frame and he stuffed it in his coat before casually leaving the museum. 

In 2004, four prison guards at Rikers Island plotted together to steal a valuable sketch from their place of employment. The sketch was donated by its creator, Salvador Dali, who felt guilty for declining to teach art classes at the prison. The guards set off a fire alarm to distract the lobby's night guard while they lifted the piece and replaced it with a replica.

This "replica" was drawn very poorly, however - according to those who saw it, it appeared to be the work of a child. Even worse, the thieves stole the original frame, then simply stapled the fake Dali onto the back of the display case.

''It was incredibly stupid,'' said one of the thieves' lawyers. Not surprisingly, the guards were caught immediately and the drawing was recovered.

In 1934, a sneaky thief stole Jan Van Eyck's The Just Judges from Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. The piece is part of a 12-part altarpiece called the Adoration of the Lamb.

The thief reached out to government officials to ransom the piece for one million Belgian Francs. He also left a note stating, "Taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles."

On his deathbed, Arsène Goedertier eventually revealed his identity as the painting's thief, but he refused to tell anyone where it was hidden. 

Caravaggio's Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence was snatched from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily, during the fall of 1969. The large painting was removed from its frame and folded up tightly by two thieves.

According to his 1996 confession, Francesco Marino Mannoia stole the piece under the command of a powerful mobster. Infamous mobsters Rosario Riccobono, Gerlando Alberti, and Gaspare Spatuzza are all rumored to have owned the stolen painting at different points in time.

Although it has never been found, the painting was scientifically reconstructed last year. (Tragically, the real painting may have been accidentally destroyed while it was hidden in a barn.)

Accused of: Possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and possession within 1,000 feet of a school and within 500 feet of public housing.

Hakem High, a 25-year-old Hoboken, NJ resident, was arrested on August 29, 2016 on various marijuana-related charges. He was also charged with aggravated assault and trespassing on public housing property. Hoboken police spokesperson Sgt. Eduardo Cruz had little to say on the incident other than, "Ironic." High apparently gave someone a black eye, and was arrested with 16 small bags of weed. 

This wasn't High's first run in with the law. He was arrested in 2013, along with seven other people, after a violent fracas involving a handgun, and just a week previous to the weed bust, after shoving a police officer. 

Police had an easy time tracking down Floridian Mack Yearwood, wanted in connection with an assault that took place over Labor Day weekend 2016, after he used his own wanted poster as his Facebook profile picture. One of Yearwood's friends commented "Nice mug shot," to which Yearwood responded "Thanks buddy!" Another friend expressed more concern: "Holy sh*t ding dong, are you planning on getting this sh*t squared away? I'd like to see you again at least before they find you."

Cops in Stuart, FL, north of Miami, used Yearwood's FB to track him to his brother's house, where he was arrested. According to the arresting officers, a bag of weed tumbled out of Yearwood's pocket as he was cuffed, and he politely asked the cops not to charge him for possession.

Writing on the Stuart Police Department Facebook page, Cpl. Brian Bossio noted "Facebook is a great way to communicate and connect with old friends and family... If you are wanted by the police, it's probably not a good idea to use the 'Wanted of the Week' poster of yourself as your profile pic." 

American student Amanda Knox was charged with murder after British college student Meredith Kercher was found dead in November 2007, her throat slashed in an Italian villa she shared with Knox. Knox, her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and a drifter named Rudy Guede were tried for murder. The victim, Meredth Kercher was a college-aged student who was studying in Italy and who allegedly refused to take part in a sex orgy with Amanda Knox and two Italian guys that she brought back to their apartment. Knox was acquitted in 2010, but the Italian Supreme Court judges re-opened the case in 2013.

Source

Foxy Knoxy has nothing on this girl, who will make you blush.

Unsolved mysteries from Japan are surprisingly rare. Though the reality behind the number is a point of contention, Japan does boast a 99% conviction rate. Violent crimes are rare. The murder rate is under one per 100,000, less than a quarter of the rate in the US. For this reason, these bizarre Japanese crimes are all the more striking.

These murders, disappearances, and other unsolved mysteries are the strangest and most interesting to come from the land of the rising sun. This is Japan-level weirdness. Many of these mysteries have gone unsolved for decades. Some will probably never be solved.

In Japan, tales of people being spirited away have existed for centuries. These stories are just accepted. People would walk off to the mountains and be swallowed up by the spirit world. While police are looking for more corporeal causes, what did happen to these people? Who was really responsible?

Whatever the case, these are accounts of the facts. This is what we do know about these unsolved mysteries. It is up to you to fill in the blanks.

On December 30, 2000, a gruesome murder occurred in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo, Japan. That night, Mikio Miyazawa (44), Yasuko Miyazawa (41), and their children Niina (10) and Rei (6) were all stabbed to death by an unknown assailant. The killer stayed in the house for several hours after the killing, even using the restroom without bothering to flush. Despite finding a great deal of evidence, including the killer's DNA, police still have not been able to identify him.

On April 21, 1996, a group of junior high students found a futon bag in a bamboo grove, located in the Haga district of the Tochigi Prefecture. After poking the bag with a stick, they discovered it contained a dead body, an autopsy for which found the man had been dead for about a month. The body has never been identified, nor has the person who stuffed it in the futon bag.

On April 29, 2005, Yuki Onishi, a five-year-old girl, was digging up bamboo shoots to celebrate Greenery Day. After finding her first shoot and showing it to her mother, she ran off to find more. About 20 minutes later, her mother realized she was not with the other diggers and a search began. A police dog was brought in to track the scent; it reached a spot in the nearby forest and then stopped. Four other dogs were brought in, and all led the search party to the same exact spot. No trace of Yuki has never been found, almost as if she disappeared into thin air.

On January 14, 1997, Tama City municipal workers were working on an overflowing manhole. They discovered what turned out to be a body causing the drainage problem. Said body was badly decomposed, but forensics did note a broken nose and fractured skull. Dental records determined the body belonged to Fukiko Yagihashi, a kindergarten teacher who had disappeared a year prior. The case remains unsolved to this day.

On August 31, 1998, Ichijuro Nakazawa (58) drank a can of oolong tea with breakfast. By the time he got to the hospital, he was in cardiac arrest and he was dead less than two hours after his breakfast. Doctors were baffled as to how someone in good health could inexplicably die from sudden heart failure.

The next morning the manager at the grocery store where Nakazawa bought the oolong tea noticed something strange. Some of the canned teas looked as if they had been tampered with. It turned out these cans had small holes poked in the bottom, and then were sealed with an adhesive. Analysis revealed each can contained 5 grams of cyanide. Police then found that the remaining cans of oolong Nakazawa had bought also contained cyanide.

Nakazawa was the only one to drink the poisoned tea, but the poisoner was never found.

On March 18, 1988, a man came home to his apartment in Nagoya to find the door unlocked and the lights off. After changing clothes, he heard a baby crying. He then discovered the mutilated body of his pregnant wife and his now newborn son lying at her feet. His wife had been bound and strangled to death before the killer preceded to cut open her stomach and deliver the baby, even cutting the umbilical cord. The infant miraculously survived, but the killer was never found. The names of the victims were never publicly released by police.

Off the coast of the Japanese island Yonaguni, just below the waves, lie the remains of a 5,000-year-old city. The largest structure is what appears to be a monolithic stepped pyramid. Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus, has been studying the structure for years. The formations were discovered in 1986, but their true origin still remains unknown.

On April 23, 1994, a garbage bag was found by a cleaning staff worker in Tokyo's Inokashira Park. Inside the bag were 24 pieces of human flesh, including two hands, two feet, and a shoulder. The parts had been completely drained of blood and each was cut to exactly 20 centimeters. The head was never found, and although the autopsy could not determine a cause of death, the body was identified as Seiichi Kawamura (35). The case has never been solved.

Between 1975 and 1989, there was a total of seven unsolved murders in the Saga prefecture, all believed to be linked. Five of the victims were strangled to death (the other two bodies were found too badly decomposed to tell the cause of death). Six of the victims disappeared on a Wednesday, and all of the victims were female, though their ages ranged from 11 to 50. No arrests were ever made in connection to the crimes.

On May 23, 1979, Keiko Mizuno (32) and Hideko Akashi (43) went to Nohara Hill to collect ferns. Two days later their dead bodies were found savagely beaten, Mizuno over 50 times and Akashi over 30. Akashi was also stabbed, while Mizuno was strangled to death, had her pants removed, and was raped with a branch. Both had their Achilles tendons cut.

The knife was left at the scene of the crime, and investigators also found semen. In the pocket of Akashi's pants, police found a note on the back of a receipt that read (translated), "Being followed. Please help. This guy is a bad guy." Despite these clues and evidence, the killer was never identified.

Women were once considered the "fairer sex," and though almost nobody uses that term anymore, the lingering attitude still makes it a matter of great fanfare when women commit murder.  The most ruthless or prolific female murderers become famous black widows, ladies assumed to have used their feminine nature in some way to lure their victims.

Deadly black widows hold a particular fascination for crime buffs, horror fans, and internet man-babies alike, so it's only fitting that we examine some of them in a historical context. This list looks at high-profile cases of female murderers from times past, giving a run down of their alleged crimes, body counts, and ultimate fates.

Aileen was the first woman to fit the FBI's official definition of a serial killer.

Between 1989 and 1990, Aileen killed seven men along Florida highways whom she later claimed had been trying to rape her (she was a sex worker at the time, supporting herself and her girlfriend, Tyria Moore, with the money she earned). But the fact that she robbed her victims' bodies and went out of her way to hide them helped convince a jury that the killings were more sinister.

Aileen's killing career came to an end when investigators were able to track her and Moore down using fingerprints and palm prints left behind in one of Aileen's victim's cars.

Moore cut a deal with police, and eventually got Aileen to confess over the phone to all seven murders, taking sole responsibility for them.

She was convicted of first-degree murder in one of the victim's cases, and sentenced to death in 1992.  During the next 10 years on death row, she eventually confessed to all of the murders she'd been accused of, and was put to death in 2002.

Body Count: 7

Fate: Death by lethal injection. Her story was the subject of the 2003 film Monster, starring Charlize Theron (who won an Oscar for her performance) in the role of Aileen.

Amy ran a nursing home in Connecticut from 1907 to 1917, where a lot of people died. That, by itself, probably wouldn't have raised suspicions at the time, since medical science wasn't very advanced at the time.

It was the deaths of Amy's two husbands that first rose suspicions. Her first, James Archer, died in 1910, making Amy the beneficiary of his recently-purchased life insurance policy.  Her second husband, Michael Gilligan, died after only three months of marriage, also leaving Amy a substantial life insurance policy. Some people close to Amy began to have doubts about her.

Then, a complaint from a relative of one of the patients who'd died under Amy's care led to a police investigation, and several exhumations.  Both of her husband's bodies and those of all the patients who were exhumed tested positive for arsenic (are we seeing a pattern here?).

Nonetheless, she was tried on only one count of murder, and sentenced to death. But a new trial was granted to Amy, and her death sentence was commuted to life in prison.

Body Count: Possibly as high as 48.

Fate: Died in a mental hospital in 1962. Her story inspired Joseph Kesselring's classic play, Arsenic and Old Lace.

The one who (probably) got away with it.

Born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth in Norway, Belle Gunness emigrated to the U.S. with her sister and eventually married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorenson, in 1884.  The marriage produced four children, two of whom died in infancy, and the couple ran a candy shop in Chicago. That business burned down a year later, paying out an insurance policy, and in 1900, Mads conveniently died on a day when his two life insurance policies overlapped.

Belle remarried Peter Gunness in 1902, and it wasn't long before mysterious deaths and disappearances surrounded her again. First to go was one of Peter's children from a previous marriage. Soon after came Peter himself, and then his adopted daughter, Jennie Olsen, vanished after raising questions about Belle's role in her father's death. Then, Belle started writing to men through a lonely hearts' club, and several of them disappeared after visiting with her, as well.

In 1908, her house burned to the ground. In its ruins were discovered: four bodies under the piano, including Gunness's three children and a decapitated woman whose measurements did not fit Belle's; the bodies of six of her suitors; and the bodies of two other children unrelated to Belle.  Her hired hand, Ray Lamphere, was arrested and convicted of arson. Before dying in prison, he told a minister that he had buried bodies for Belle after she murdered victims with strychnine or a meat cleaver and dismembered them.

Body Count: At least 15 people.

Fate: Unknown. None of the bodies in her burned-down house were identified as Belle, but she was never heard from again.

Reviled through the ages as a Renaissance femme fatale who carried poison in her ring and used it to kill husbands and political rivals, Lucrezia Borgia's image has recently undergone a revision.  Historians now largely consider her a scapegoat who was actually quite pleasant, especially compared to her kinfolk, Spanish nobles who emigrated to Italy in the 15th Century and swiftly gained control of the Vatican.

Married three times (scandalous!), Lucrezia was often a pawn in the schemes of her father and brothers, and she is likely the only woman on this list who never actually killed anyone (though she has been accused of doing so for centuries).

Body Count: Unknown; likely zero.

Fate: Died after delivering her eighth child on June 14, 1519.

England's first documented serial killer isn't Jack the Ripper.

Mary Ann Cotton likely killed 21 people, including three husbands, 12 of her 13 children, a lover, and her mother.  And her weapon of choice was - you guessed it - arsenic poisoning.

Three of her total four husbands and 12 of her children died of strangely similar gastric illnesses between 1852 and 1872. She avoided suspicion for years by moving constantly between towns throughout England.

Her killing spree ended when she predicted to a government official that her stepson, Charles Edward, would soon die.  Since Charles didn't look sick, the official reported his conversation to the police... and since he also happened to be the coroner, they listened.

Sure enough, Charles turned up dead a few days later, and the family doctor turned her in because he'd been warned by the coroner.  An examination of Charles's body found traces of arsenic poisoning, and this led to the exhumation of two other bodies of Mary's dead family members. They, too, showed signs of arsenic poisoning.

Mary was arrested, tried, and convicted of  murdering Charles, and was hanged for her trouble.

Body Count: 21

Fate: Death by hanging, 1873.

Tillie had probably the most inventive alibi of all: she claimed to be a psychic, so when people whose deaths she predicted actually began dying off, she had built-in deniability.

Among her predictions were: her first, second, third, and fourth husbands; three children from a family that had given her some trouble; several dogs in the neighborhood; and her fifth husband, Anton, who was saved only because family members found him sick and had his stomach pumped.

Sure enough, his food had been poisoned with arsenic, and Tillie was arrested. She confessed to trying to kill him, and was given a life sentence.

She was not allowed to cook for any fellow inmates in prison, either, and suddenly, her psychic powers went away.

Body Count: 7

Fate: Died in prison in 1936.

A Swiss immigrant to England, Manning is on our list not so much for the span of her crimes (she had only one victim) as for the sensation her crime spawned.

Marie had two suitors - a young man close to her age named Frederick Manning, and an older gentleman named Patrick O'Connor - who both proposed marriage. She chose Manning, who had promised he had an inheritance coming, but she maintained a "friendship" with O'Connor than many believe to have been sexual.

When it became clear that Frederick's inheritance was not forthcoming (he may have lied about that part), Marie hatched a plan with him to murder O'Connor and rob his house of everything they could find.  She invited O'Connor to dinner one night, where Marie shot him in the back of the head, and Frederick finished him off with a crowbar.  They then stashed his body in a hole they'd dug under the floorboards ahead of time, and packed it with quicklime to speed up the body's decomposition.

Over the next two days, Marie gathered whatever valuables and stock certificates she could find at O'Connor's residence.  But Frederick had squealed to friends, so they both had to flee London.  Marie went to Edinburgh, where she was arrested after trying to sell some of O'Connor's stock certificates.

The couple blamed one another at trial, and both were found guilty and publicly executed in 1849. Their case was such a sensation that 40,000 people showed up to witness their deaths. One of those people was Charles Dickens, whose letter of disgust to the Times of London helped pave the way for the abolition of public executions in Britain.

Body Count: 1

Fate: Publicly hanged alongside her husband and accomplice. They were the first married couple to be executed together in England since 1700. Marie became the inspiration for one of Dickens's characters, Madamoiselle Hortense, the maid in his novel Bleak House.

Dubbed "the Queen of Poisoners" by the French press, Marie Besnard was ultimately charged with 12 counts of murder, including both her husbands, her father, her mother, a father-in-law, a mother-in-law, two friends, and a handful of relatives who left her their estate. Her second husband, Leon, confided to his mistress (both he and Marie had lovers on the side) that he was certain Marie was planning to kill him.  When he finally died, Marie became a suspect. Leon's body tested positive for arsenic poisoning, and several other bodies associated with Marie were exhumed and also tested positive for arsenic.

Marie was tried three times over 10 years in French courts. Her first two trials were declared mistrials, and her third got her an acquittal, even though few people doubted her guilt.

Body Count: Possibly 12.

Fate: Died a free woman in 1980.

Because sometimes, the only way to protect your drafted son from the terrors of war is a little human sacrifice and cannibalism.

When Leonarda learned that her favorite son, Giuseppe, was being drafted into the Italian Army to fight in World War II, something in her mind snapped.  She became convinced that protecting him required an offering of human blood, and hatched a plan to lure three neighbor women to their deaths.

She only had three victims, so it's not her body count that shocked people. It's the fact that she turned her victims' bodies into soap and teacakes, the latter of which she actually served to neighbors and her beloved Giuseppe.

Leonarda was caught because the sister of her last victim became suspicious of the woman's disappearance, and when police arrived at Leonarda's as part of their investigation, she calmly confessed to the killings and offered no protest when she was arrested. At her trial, she tried to put a patriotic spin on the grisly affair by pointing out that she had donated the copper ladles she'd used to skim victims' fat from her soap concoctions to Italy's war effort, because the country needed the metal.

Leonarda was sentenced to 30 years in prison and 3 years in a mental asylum.

Body Count: 3

Fate: Died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1970.

Throughout history, ransom letters have been used to make fast cash, throw off the police, and inspire legions of graphic designers. If you’re going to be a famous criminal, you should study the creepy ransom notes that we’ve collected here. They range from the mundane yet horrific to the downright haunting.

Most of these terrifying kidnapping notes were just the beginning of a series of events that would usually lead to the death of the abducted, and sometimes the captor, as well. The sad truth of the matter is that most kidnapping victims rarely make it away from their captors; in fact, most of them are murdered before the ransom note is even sent. Keep reading to delve into the cryptic world of ransom notes.

Some of the stories behind the creepy ransom notes that we’ve put together actually have a happy ending; the families were brought back together, and no one got hurt. But most of the stories that you’re about to read end with someone getting killed, and a lifetime of speculation. Interestingly enough, only one of the ransom notes that we wrote about was put together with the cut-and-paste style of writing that we’ve come to associate with ransom letters. To find out which one it was, start reading this list of creepy and horrifying ransom notes. 

When you're the grandson of an oil tycoon, you're probably always 10 seconds away from being kidnapped. While on holiday in Rome at the age of 16, Getty was abducted by members of the 'Ndrangheta, a mafia-type organization that operates out of Italy, and taken to a mountain hideaway. Shortly afterwards, Getty's parents received a ransom note asking for $17 million. The family refused to pay the ransom, so the next letter they received came with one of Getty's ears and the threat, "This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits."

Getty's family reluctantly paid the decreased ransom and their son was safely returned. Two of his kidnappers were convicted, but the rest of the men involved were acquitted due to lack of proper evidence. 

This is quite possibly the most famous and heavily debated ransom letter ever. On Christmas morning 1996, Patsy Ramsey discovered a 2.5-page letter on her kitchen staircase demanding $118,000 for the safe return of her daughter. Some of the letter reads:

You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested.

The day after receiving the letter, Patsy's husband and JonBenet's father John discovered her body in the family's basement. Due to a mishandling of the investigation by local and federal authorities, the murder of JonBenet is still largely a mystery. However, there are a considerable amount of theories floating around the internet that range from accidental death to sex game gone wrong, and even to an international conspiracy. 

Marion Parker was a 12-year-old girl who was abducted from her school in Los Angeles in 1927. After the abduction, her kidnapper began sending letters to her father demanding to be paid in gold certificates, and signing them as "The Fox." One letter read, "Your daughter's life hangs by a thread and I have a Gillette [a razor brand] ready and able to handle the situation." Multiple attempts were made to pay the Fox for Marion's return, but their final confrontation ended in tragedy.

After changing meeting places multiple times, the Fox and Marion's father finally met on a street corner, where Marion's father could see his daughter sitting in the passenger seat of the kidnapper's car concealed up to her neck by clothing and unable to move. Once her father handed over the ransom, Marion's body was thrown out of the car and a coroner later testified that she'd been dead for 12 hours. Her body had been disemboweled and stuffed with rags, her arms and legs had been cut off, and her eyes were being held open by wires. 

Prior to the Jonbenet Ramsey case, the disappearance of the Linbergh Baby was the biggest child abduction case that the world had ever seen. The son of a world-famous pilot was only two when he was abducted from his home and replaced with a note that demanded $50,000 in exchange for the child and made a few veiled threats: "We warn you for making anyding [sic] public or for notify the Police The child is in gut [sic] care."

Over the course of more ransom notes the fee was bumped up to $70,000. 

After paying the fee, the kidnappers told the Linbergh's that the baby was on a ship named "The Nelly," but that was simply a lie to throw investigators off while they got out of town. The baby's lifeless body was discovered less than a mile away from its home. Coroners believed that the child had died the night of its abduction. 

In 1934, June Robles, daughter of Fernando Robles, owner of the Robles Electric Company, was abducted outside of her school by a "dirty and emaciated man." After the kidnapping, the mystery man paid a young boy 25 cents to deliver a note to Fernando demanding $15,000 for June's safe return. The emaciated mystery man only referred to himself as "Z" and instructed Fernando not to speak with the police.

After a lot of back and forth, "Z" cut contact with Fernando. But then the Governor of Arizona received a post card mailed from Chicago that gave him instructions as to where June was being kept in the desert. It took highway patrolmen two hours to find June, who was locked in a small metal cage and buried under some shrubbery but miraculously still alive.

In 1988, the wife of Robert Herrin, the owner Mississippi's largest gas distribution company, Mississippi Valley Gas Co. (among other properties), was abducted from their home after a violent attack. During the initial investigation, police found a typed ransom letter that read:

Mr. Robert Herrin, Put these people back in the shape they was in before they got mixed up with School Pictures. Pay them whatever damages they want and tell them all this so then can no what you are doing but dont tell them why you are doing it. Do this before ten days pass. Don't call police.

Rather than pay the ransom, Robert made a public appeal for his wife's return a few months later, and then he received a second note, this time allegedly from Annie, that read,

Bob, If you don't do what these people want you to do, they are going to seal me up in the cellar of this house with only a few jugs of water. Please save me, Annie Laurie.

Even after paying out the ransom, he never saw his wife again. 

What may quite possibly be the first ransom notes in American history were once thought to be love letters by the school librarian who had come into their possession.

In 1874, Charlie Ross was abducted from Northeast Philadelphia, and despite the police claiming that he'd accidentally fallen in with some drunks (which is definitely a thing people do), a ransom note appeared three days after the boy's disappearance that read: "You wil have to pay us before you git him from us, and pay us a big cent to. if you put the cops hunting for him you is only defeeting yu own end.”

And then a second letter appeared that raised the stakes. “This is the lever that moved the rock that hides him from yu $20,000. Not one doler les - impossible - impossible - you cannot get him without it.”

In spite of the Ross family's lifelong efforts, they were never able to find Charlie, and although William Westervelt was convicted of being complicit in Charlie's kidnapping, there's some debate about whether he was just a scapegoat or if he had actual knowledge of the abduction. 



 

When Virginia Piper was kidnapped, her ransom note led her husband on a hellish scavenger hunt across the Twin Cities in order to unload $1 million. According to the letter, if the person delivering the money made one wrong move, Virginia would be killed.

After depositing the cash, Virginia was released from a tree where she'd been chained up for two days. Despite two arrests for Piper's kidnapping, no one ever went to prison for the abduction and her family has differing opinions on who may have committed the crime.  

As far as kidnapping and murders go, this might be the douchiest crime of the 20th century. Leopold and Loeb were a pair of friends from the University of Chicago who were obsessed with Nietzsche's concept of supermen, who because of their higher intellect, could do as they pleased and ignore the rules of society.

In order to prove their superiority to the rest of the world, they orchestrated "the perfect crime," wherein they kidnapped one of their second cousins, murdered him in a rental car, and disposed of his body. Then they devised a series of steps that the boy's family would have to take in order to pay a ransom and discover that their son was dead. The ransom note was typed on a stolen Underwood 3 typewriter, which is pretty classy as far as ransom notes go. The note is mostly a description of a building, but it ends with "this is the only chance to recover your son," which is an incredibly evil thing to type, especially when you've already killed the kid with a chisel. 

Shortly afterwards, a police investigation began into Leopold and Loeb because Leopold's glasses were found near Bobby's body, and also Leopold couldn't stop talking to reporters about what he would have done had he killed Bobby. Ubermensches indeed. 

In 1945, the Lipstick Killer murdered two people before leaving a note for the police scrawled in lipstick on the wall of their second victim's Chicago-area apartment. "For heavens Sake catch me Before I kill more I cannot control myself."

One month after that message was left, six-year-old Suzanne Degnan was found missing from her room and outside her bedroom window, a ransom note was found that read, "GeI $20,000 Reddy & wAITe foR WoRd. do NoT NoTify FBI oR Police. Bills IN 5's & 10's" and on the back of the note, "BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY."

At the same time, the mayor of Chicago received a note that read, "This is to tell you how sorry I am not to not get ole Degnan instead of his girl. Roosevelt and the OPA made their own laws. Why shouldn't I and a lot more?"

After an anonymous tip suggesting they look in the sewer near the Degnan home, police found the severed head and torso of Suzanne Degnan. After a city-wide man hunt, and a few false starts, the police arrested William Heirens. Even though Heirens ended up going down for the crime (and dying in prison), there's still speculation as to whether he committed any of the murders or the kidnapping of Suzanne Degnan. 

In May 2016, a man at a train station outside Munich, Germany began screaming "Allahu ackbar" and stabbing anyone in his path. One man was killed and three others wounded when the attacker, who hasn't been identified, began randomly knifing people. He stabbed two men on the platform, then ran across and stabbed two more men on bicycles before being subdued by police. Authorities claim the man had no connection to Islamic terror groups, and had been in and out of mental health treatment for years.

On September 17, 2016, a man dressed in a security uniform entered Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud, MN around 8:00 pm, made some comments about Allah, asked at least one person whether s/he was Muslim, then attacked random shoppers with a knife, injuring nine, one of whom is in life threatening condition the week after the attack. The attacker was shot dead by an off duty police officer. 

Ashley Bane, an employee of the JC Penny in the mall, said of the attack, "There was a bunch of people running into the JCPenney mall entrance, and they were just screaming that someone was going around the mall stabbing people, and that there was blood everywhere."

An ISIS-affiliated group took credit for the attack, though its doing so follows a pattern of such groups taking credit for random acts of violence committed by isolated individuals throughout the world. Though the FBI remains wary of possible terrorist connections, Blair Anderson, St. Cloud chief of police, said, "We haven't uncovered anything that would suggest other than a lone attacker..."

Siblings have a strange relationship with one another that no one else can really penetrate. Unfortunately, these close bonds can also lead siblings to some very dark places. History is filled with brothers and sisters that committed crimes together, and it seems none of the crimes are simple.

Every crime committed by a sibling duo has a strange energy surrounding it. In some cases, that energy is sexual; and in others, it is simply mysterious. It often seems like there’s something missing from the reports of these crimes. Maybe it’s the unknown allegiances between the killer siblings that give these stories an unhinged air. Whatever it is, brothers and sisters that kill people are disturbing and fascinating.

Most of the sibling crimes that are detailed in this collection of creepy brothers and sisters have a similar narrative arc. The stories involve fairly normal siblings who snap out of nowhere and murder their families, or people that they’ve known for years. Some of the siblings were fueled by jealously, others were definitely aided by a chemical substance, but all of these crimes committed by brothers and sisters are incredibly unsettling.

Do you and your sibling share an unnatural bond? Do you feel like no one else in the world understands what it’s like to be in your shared mental connection? Tell us about your creepy relationship with your brother or sister in the comments. 

Everyone loves a secret, but some secrets need to be more well-guarded than others. For instance, this two-decade-long marriage between a brother and sister in Austria who are going by names of "Tom" and "Lena."

Their relationship began after one of Lena's boyfriends cheated on her when she was 17. She and her brother had a heart-to-heart, and after a few glasses of wine, things progressed naturally. After 20 years, the couple have a child together, but they have to keep the nature of their relationship a secret out of fear of persecution from their friends, and Germany's strict laws regarding incest. 

In February 2016, Robert and Michael Bever went on a late-night killing spree throughout their household and stabbed their parents and one younger sibling to death as they slept. Two of their other siblings managed to survive the attack and call 911. 

The 19- and 17-year-old brothers had planned to cut up the bodies and store them in bins in the attic before taking the family vehicle along with guns and enough ammunition to randomly kill ten people in unspecified locations.

According to Detective Rhianna Russell, the brothers wanted to be mentioned alongside mass murderers like Eric Harris, Dylan Klebod, and James Holmes. 

Hasib bin Golamrabbi and Omar Golamrabbi, two brothers from Northern California, shot their parents to death before heading off to Oakland to enjoy Kraken Con where they were seen "behaving normally." (What a great plug for Kraken Con.)

The day after the slayings, family members forced their way into the Rabbi home and found a note next to one of the bodies that read, "Sorry, my first kill was clumsy," along with more writings on the walls and floor. The two brothers were arrested with two counts of murder each, though charges were later dismissed against the younger brother.

In 2014, Sabrina and Kenneth Cummins, a brother and sister from Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, tortured a mentally disabled man to death after committing a petty robbery. In order to cover up the slow asphyxiation of Thomas Horan, a 63-year-old man with the mental capacity of a 12-year-old, the nightmarish duo attempted to make it look like their victim had killed himself by flushing his insides with cleaning fluids.

According to court records, the two killers took a break from choking Horan to death to have a beer. 

Aren't grandparents the worst? Kenneth and Kari Allen, a brother and sister duo from Indianapolis, certainly thought so. In 2004, the Allens killed their mother, grandmother, and grandfather with a hammer before dismembering their bodies, encasing them in concrete, and burying them in their grandfather's basement. Why? So they could cash in on their grandfather's $200,000 in savings. That kind of money goes a long way in Indiana. 

Um, we're pretty sure this couldn't happen anywhere else but Oklahoma. In September of 2016, a man from Duncan, Oklahoma, came forward to offer support to his brother and sister, who were both somehow married to their mother.

Cody Spann tells a very confusing story about how his older brother married their mother; then, after that marriage was annulled, his mother married their sister, Misty. 

And don't worry about Cody, he doesn't feel left out of his mother's incestuous love triangle. When asked if she ever propositioned to him, he said, "She only tried it once and I told her to get lost, I would never be with my biological mom, that is disgusting, I came from that woman."

The Menendez Brothers are easily one of the creepiest sibling duos in recent memory. These 80s bad-guy-wannabes were so upset with their lot in life that they murdered their parents before cashing a hefty inheritance check and flashing their cash all around Los Angeles.

After their inevitable capture by the police, their team of lawyers tried to mount a defense that centered around the non-existent sexual assault they had allegedly suffered under their father, but juries saw through that and sent these Ralph Lauren rejects straight to prison. 

No one wants to meet their mom's new boyfriend, but these three teenage siblings from Fort Bend, Texas took it to the extreme when they shot their mom's boo to death after an unknown argument in 2016.

In 2005, Linda and Charlotte Mulhall got into an argument with Farah Swaleh Noor, a Kenyan immigrant whom their mother was dating and things escalated to such a fever pitch that the sisters ended up smashing in Noor's head with a hammer, cutting off his penis, and dismembering the rest of the body before throwing him in Dublin's Royal Canal. The judge presiding over the trial called the gruesome attack, "the most grotesque killing that has occurred in my professional lifetime."

It's been proven that Richard Gosling's The Notebook can cause severe emotional and sexual reactions in its viewers, and if you happen to be watching the sexy film with your brother or sister, you better be wearing your chastity belt.

Siblings from Georgia, Christopher Buckner (a woman) and Timothy Savoy were arrested for prowling, sodomy, and incest after they admitted to the police that they had sex three times in a tractor trailer parked outside of a Baptist church after watching the classic romance. 

Thousands of crimes go unsolved every year, but the murders and disappearances that have an air of the occult about them are the most unsettling. As you’ll come to find, all it takes for local crime to become a satanic murder spree are the whispers of a few neighbors, and suddenly an entire town can be turned on its head.

The satanic crimes described here don’t maintain a straight narrative; instead, they tend to twist and curve until the only thing you’re certain about is that no one will ever have all of the answers they need to definitively close any of these cases. In some instances there were arrests, but they were done with a shrug rather than a celebratory drink. Even the stories of satanic ritual that have a somewhat clear antagonist only lead to more questions with unclear answers.

One of the through-lines in these unsolved satanic mysteries is that there are people with answers about each of the crimes that have failed to come clean about their involvement in the incident. In some instances, entire towns seem to be at fault, while other stories only have a few people who know the full story of the mystery, and they’re keeping their mouths shut. Quite often, the truth behind stories of ritualistic satanic murder is like a handful of sand; the more you try to grasp it, the less you can carry. Keep reading to try and wrap your head around some of the most disturbing unsolved occult mysteries. 

The Axeman of New Orleans takes everything that's great about The Big Easy and rolls it into one creepy ball. From 1918 to 1919, a series of axe murders occurred across New Orleans, and even though the murderer contacted local authorities, no arrests were ever made. In the Axeman's letter to the police, he states that he's a demon from Hell and that if there's one thing he loves more than killing people with an axe - it's jazz. 

Esteemed Mortal:

They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell... I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.

Spring break is supposed to be the greatest week ever in the life of a coed, but for Mark Kilroy, spring break 1989 was the last week he would spend alive. He disappeared while checking out Matamoros with some of his buddies, and his body wouldn't be found until about a month later, when Mexican Federales were investigating Serafin Hernandez Garcia, the nephew of a drug lord. While searching Garcia's ranch the Federales discovered a shed that held multiple cauldrons, candles, and a collection of other black magic related items. It was only after the Federales had called in a curandero (a Native healer) to cleanse the site that they were able to determine that Kilroy had been on the wrong end of a ritual sacrifice. 

After Federales discovered his body, which had had its heart removed, they began excavating the mutilated bodies of 14 other people who had been sacrificed by the cartel. After the bodies were discovered, the cartel's leader, Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, had his personal priest kill him with a machine gun, and the Federales burned the ranch where Kilroy's body was discovered to the ground. It's a bizarre story that provides few answers despite being a somewhat open and shut case. 

In March 2016, an Australian woman was charged with the murder of her 16-month-old daughter 15 years after she went missing. Police have yet to find a body, and because of the mother's belief in the occult, some people believe that she used her daughter in a satanic ritual sacrifice. 

The disappearance and subsequent death of the Jamison Family is one of the strangest tales of modern America. In October 2009, Bobby and Sherilynn Jamison went missing along with their six-year-old daughter Madyson. After the family's truck was discovered, it would take another four years before their bodies were found, face down in the dirt, three miles away from where their vehicle had been.

The family's pastor believes that the Jamisons were in the middle of an intense bout of "spiritual warfare" at the time of their disappearance, and went on to say that Bobby had asked him for "special bullets" and a "satanic bible" to help expel the ghosts of deceased family members from his home. 

While there's the "family ghost" theory, there's also the possibility that the Jamisons were murdered by a coven of witches for killing their cats. This is based on two key pieces of evidence. The first is an alleged "witch's bible" that was found in the Jamison's home during the investigation, and the more circumstantial of the already incredibly circumstantial evidence is some graffiti that was found inside a moving container the family was using for house-side storage that read "3 cats killed to date buy [sic] people in this area … Witches don’t like there [sic] black cat killed.” If we're being honest, no one likes their cats being killed. 

In 1981, the headless body of Leroy Clark Jr. was found with a chicken wing and two kernels of corn jammed into his bloody neck stump. He was wrapped in a sleeping bag in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Due to the ritualistic nature of the murder, the case was turned over to Inspector Sandi Gallant, who had recently worked on a series of local investigations related to the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana. With little to go on, she tracked down an expert in santeria who told the detective that the murderer would return the severed head to the park 42 days after the murder to complete the ritual. When she told her superiors what she learned she was "laughed at by [her] homicide investigators, and [her] chief of detectives," but on the 42nd day, Leroy Clark Jr.'s head showed up in Golden Gate Park. 

The quiet desolation of Texas provides a backdrop to some of the strangest murders and unsolved mysteries that have taken place in recent history. And the story of the death of a brother and sister in Childress, TX, is one of the most chilling tales to come out of the state.

The first sibling to die, Tate Rowland, was 17 years old when he was found hanging from a tree in 1988, and although it was ruled a suicide, there were people in the town who believed that he had been murdered as part of a satanic ritual. Three years later, Rowland's 27-year-old sister, Terrie Trosper, was found dead, face down on her mattress. It was believed that she'd learned too much about the cult who had claimed the life of her brother and was dealt with accordingly. 

Because this story takes place in the middle of the late '80s/early '90s satanic panic, the entire community folded in on itself. People were dropping dime on their neighbors for being members of a satanic cult, an expert on satanic cults came to town in order to help the Sheriff deal with his devil worshipper problem, and some citizens were subpoenaed to tell the grand jury what they knew about the cult and the murders. By 1992, the town had cast blame on anyone that they could think of, leaving almost no room for a true suspect. 

Jeanette DePalma's death is one of the spookiest unsolved mysteries to come out of the spookiest state in the union, New Jersey. In 1972, DePalma's body was discovered by a dog who brought her severed arm back to town. Locals believe that the spot where DePalma's body was found (atop a cliff known as "the Devil's Teeth") was the site of multiple satanic rituals and that the police have somehow covered up the more cult-like aspects of the girl's death. 

On July 4th, 1988, young couple Sally McNelly and Shane Stewart went missing from San Angelo, TX, leaving only Shane's car as evidence that something had happened. Four months later their skeletons were found near a lake in central Texas' Hill Country, 17 miles from where they were last scene. Prior to their disappearance, Sally told some of her friends that she was involved with a group who was into ritualistic sex, and that she and Shane were trying to leave the cult and that she was afraid someone was trying to kill them. As of 2016 the murders remain unsolved, and no word of a satanic cult has been uttered in central Texas. 

In 1974, the body of Arliss Perry was found draped across the altar of the Memorial Church on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, CA. The woman had been raped, beaten, and stabbed with an ice pick behind her left ear. Her murderers had shoved a votive candle into her vagina and placed a second candle in her hands, which they draped across her chest. Perry's murder has gone unsolved, and many people (including the priest that discovered her body) believe that her rape and murder was a part of a satanic ritual. 

Elisa Lam's body was found in the water tower of the now-renovated Cecil Hotel in 2012, and other than some truly strange video evidence, no one has any idea about what may have happened to her. Although one theory suggests that her death was caused when her body was inhabited by a spirit that also took over the body of Richard Ramirez, who also spent some time at the Cecil Hotel.