Is there anything scarier than a severed head? While severed heads are not particularly common, there are instances where people come across these gruesome discoveries. Those unlucky few are forced to deal with what to do with the discovered remains.
When encountering these gruesome crimes, law enforcement officers try to piece together what happened to these victims. A single head, without any additional body parts, can be tricky to positively identify, especially if there's any decay. The shocking crimes that led to the severed head are usually as disturbing as the body parts themselves. And often these crimes go unsolved, at least in part, because of the many mysteries surrounding who these heads belong to and how exactly they got there.
7 Creepy and Shocking Severed Head Mysteries,
Severed Head and Dismembered Corpse Found in Freezer
Two Americans and one British citizen were arrested in Bangkok, Thailand after a severed head and several other dismembered body parts were found in a freezer. The head - and possibly the body - belonged to a blond man who remains unidentified. Investigators found guns, forged passports, and numerous other illegal things in the apartment that housed the freezer.
In September 2016, Thai police said the unidentified man might have had a romantic relationship with his killer. Police did not reveal the identity of the killer, saying only the suspect was a British citizen.
Head Found in McKinley Park Lagoon
A severed head in a bag, as well as number of other human remains, were found in the McKinley Park Lagoon in Chicago, IL, in September 2016. Park employees tasked with cleaning the lagoon made the gruesome discovery. At this time, no details have been released, so the gender and identity of the head and the body parts (if they even belong to the same person) remain unknown.
Children Find Head Washed Ashore in Scotland
Two girls playing on the beach made the type of discovery that makes even adults cringe: a severed head wrapped in a black plastic bag. The head washed ashore on Arbroath Beach in Scotland in 2008. Police search teams also found two severed hands, both wrapped separately in similar bags.
Eventually, the rest of the woman's body turned up inside a brief case that investigators pulled from the water. DNA testing revealed her identity to be Jolanta Bledaite. Authorities also discovered her killer to be a former Russian soldier, Vitas Plytnykas, who along with his accomplice, Aleksandras Skirda, forced Bledaite to give him access to her life savings, then murdered her, dismembered her body, and threw the parts in the sea.
A Severed Head Washed Up on the Beach
Fiji is best known for its white sand beaches and clear blue water - not murder mysteries. That is, until a pair of feet and a severed head were found in a fishing net on the beach. A tourist found the grisly remains of what are believed to be missing Russian tourists Yuri and Natalia Shipulin. They couple rented a farm in Fiji until their disappearance in May 2016. Their vehicle was found on a nearby beach with the keys in the ignition. Also inside was Natalia's clothing and passport. Besides the head and feet, no other body parts have been recovered. There are no suspects, either.
Discovered in an English Quarry
A quarry worker in Cambridgeshire, England stumbled upon a severed head on the ground. He first thought it was a mannequin head, as it still had hair and eyebrows, and showed few signs of decomposition. Police determined that the head was cut from a body that had been dead for more than a year, and traced it to a construction site in Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire. However, no other body parts have been found, and the head's identity is still a mystery.
The Missing Head of Alys Elaine Rankin
Alys Elaine Rankin was found dead in her Houston, TX, apartment back in 1979. Her coworker discovered her body when he went to pick her up one morning while her car was in the shop. Rankin's body was nude, her feet were tied together, she had been sexually assaulted, and her head was missing. A bloody trail led from her bed to the parking lot. The killer remains unidentified, and Rankin's head has never been found.
An Embalmed Severed Head with Rubber Balls in the Eye Sockets
Back in 2014, a severed head was found in a wooded area of Beaver County, PA. Tests showed the woman died from cardiac arrest, and her head had been embalmed. They also revealed the woman probably grew up near the area. The head was roughly cut from her body, and red rubber balls had been placed in her eye sockets. Despite all of the testing, and despite creating a full facial reconstruction, no one has come forward to identify her. The rest of her body was never found.