“What happened to your second wife?” an interviewer once asked Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

He was referring to Sara Northrup, the woman who’d been at Hubbard’s side while he developed Dianetics and who later divorced him in a messy, public scandal. The whole world had watched their divorce fill the headlines of every paper. But still, when the question came, Hubbard just smirked and told the interviewer: “I’d never had a second wife.”

It’s an incredibly brazen lie—and a sign of just how much damage Sara Northrup could do to him. Her life is a story that the Church of Scientology is still trying to cover up because the amount of suffering she endured at Hubbard’s hands is nothing short of heartbreaking.

10 She Met L. Ron Hubbard In A Sex Magick Cult

Sara Northrup’s life was difficult from the start. When she met Hubbard, she was living at the home of physicist and occultist Jack Parsons. Both she and Hubbard were members of Aleister Crowley’s sex magick cult.

Northrup’s life was already filled with sexual abuse. She’d been molested by her father from a young age, a trauma that likely explains why she was already sleeping with Jack Parsons by age 13. However, he wasn’t just twice her age, he was her sister’s husband.

When Hubbard showed up, he must have seemed like a savior. Granted, he was every bit as strange as Parsons was. In fact, the two worked together to summon a Babylonian goddess, believing they could bring her to life by chanting, dabbing runes with animal blood, and masturbating on magical tablets.

But Hubbard was a war hero, injured in battle, or so he claimed. He won Northrup over by spinning stories about his heroism that most of the cult members wrote off as “tall tales.” But the young Northrup bought into them completely.

“I believed everything he said,” Northrup later said. “It just never occurred to me he was a liar.”^[1]

9 She And Hubbard Stole Jack Parsons’s Life Savings

Jack Parsons believed in free love. Bound by his own principles, he couldn’t do a thing but watch as his new friend, L. Ron Hubbard, started sleeping with his girlfriend, Sara Northrup. Parsons had to pretend to be okay with every bit of it.

Other lodgers at his house, though, could tell just how angry it made him. “There [Hubbard] was, living off Parsons’s largesse and making out with his girlfriend right in front of him,” one would later recall. “The hostility was almost tangible.”

Still, when Hubbard proposed that the two start a business together, Jack Parsons readily agreed to give him $20,000 to get things off the ground. Perhaps he just wanted to keep up appearances and pretend like it didn’t bother him. Either way, he was the only one who was surprised when Hubbard and Northrup took off to Florida with the $20,000 and a brand-new yacht, bought with Parsons’s money.

“He has given away both his girl and his money,” Karl Germer, one of Parsons’s friends, reported in a letter to Aleister Crowley. “It is the ordinary confidence trick.”^[2]

Parsons tried to sue them but quickly dropped the case. He accepted a few dollars of payment and, in exchange, let Hubbard and Northrup keep the yacht. It was a bad deal for Parsons, but he didn’t have much choice. If he didn’t comply, he was warned, Hubbard and Northrup would let the world know that Parsons had had sex with Northrup when she was 13.

8 Hubbard Was Still Married To His First Wife When They Got Married

Sara Northrup married L. Ron Hubbard because he threatened to kill himself. He’d asked her multiple times already, but she had refused every time until he made it clear: If she said no, his death would be on her conscience forever.

What Hubbard hadn’t told her, though, was that he was already married. Thirteen years earlier in 1933, he’d married Polly Grubb. She was the mother of his two children, and in exchange, Hubbard had taken off to New York to cheat on her with other women.

At this point, the two were so estranged that they hadn’t seen each other in about two years. But they were still married at Hubbard’s insistence. Polly had repeatedly asked for a divorce, but he kept turning her down.

Hubbard only agreed to a divorce after he’d been married to Sara for a good year and a half. But he still kept his marriage to Polly a secret. Instead, he took Sara with him to Polly’s house without explaining a thing, which forced her to try to figure out why these people were so hostile toward her.

It was his son, L. Ron Jr., who told her. Sara was devastated. She rushed out of the house crying and tried to get onto the next ferry that would take her as far away from Hubbard as possible.^[3]

In the end, she didn’t leave. Her new husband begged and pleaded until she stayed.

7 L. Ron Hubbard Brutally Abused Her

L. Ron Hubbard started beating his wife during summer 1946. It began when Sara’s father died. Despite her complicated feelings toward the man, Sara was overwhelmed with grief and sadness.

To Hubbard, her sadness was nothing more than an annoyance. When she cried, he would beat and strangle her into silence, complaining that she’d distracted him from his work.

Hubbard was losing his mind. He wrote a letter to Veteran Affairs (VA), begging them to help him pay for psychiatric treatment. But the VA never responded, and Hubbard got increasingly worse.^[4]

One morning, he woke up his wife by pistol-whipping her across the face. She’d been smiling in her sleep, he told her, and he was sure it was because she was thinking of someone else. Northrup fled into the night, nearly escaping her abusive husband again. But once more, she came back.

She felt sorry for him because she knew he was losing his mind. She later said, “I kept thinking that he must be suffering or he wouldn’t act that way.”

Staying only made it worse. By the time Northrup really did file for divorce, she’d gone through what the divorce proceedings described as “repeated” and “systematic torture.” He strangled her regularly. He threw her out of a moving car. He once kept her awake for four days straight and then tried to force her to overdose on sleeping pills.

Some of those scars would never heal. On Christmas 1950, Hubbard broke into such a rage that he deliberately ruptured her left eardrum. Her hearing would be impaired for the rest of her life.

6 Hubbard Tried To Beat Her Into A Miscarriage

None of those beatings, though, could compare to what he tried to do to her when she got pregnant.

One night, after Hubbard had gone into one his mad rages, he threw his pregnant wife onto the ground. They would not bring a child into this world, he had decided, and he would make sure of it. L. Ron Hubbard tried to make his wife miscarry by repeatedly stomping on her stomach.

By some strange miracle, the child survived. But this was hardly the first time that Hubbard had tried to beat an unborn baby to death.

His eldest son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr., claims that, as a child, he had caught his father standing over his mother with a coat hanger in his hand. And Hubbard Jr. says that his own birth, nearly three months premature, was the result of a failed late-term abortion:

“I wasn’t born. This is what came out as a result of their attempt to abort me.”^[5]

Hubbard admitted to some of the abortions himself. In his private memoir, he wrote that he and Polly’s marriage had resulted in “five abortions and two children.”

5 He Reported Her To The FBI As A Communist

As Dianetics started to take off and Hubbard became worth a small fortune, his eye started to wander. As he’d done with his first wife, Hubbard started to cheat on Sara with a young woman: Barbara Klowden, his 20-year-old PR assistant.

Sara didn’t take it lying down. After Hubbard forced her to go on a double date with Klowden, Sara started a revenge affair with one of his employees, Miles Hollister.

But nobody could bite back as hard as L. Ron Hubbard. He wrote the FBI a letter reporting his wife and her lover as “active and dangerous” Communists, calling Hollister “outspokenly disloyal to the US.”

J. Edgar Hoover actually answered Hubbard’s letter and invited him to meet with an FBI agent—which Hubbard did. He told them that Hollister had brainwashed his wife and driven her insane. Then Hubbard went into a mad rant about how Dianetics could bring an end to communism and how people said he was crazy but he definitely wasn’t.

The agent nodded politely, quietly making a little note in his book that just read: “Mental case.”^[6]

They never tried to bring in Northrup or Hollister. Perhaps, in part, it was because this was hardly the first time that Hubbard had tried to turn someone in. The FBI’s dossiers were full of letters from L. Ron Hubbard, reporting every German person he saw as an undercover Nazi and a “menace to the state.”

4 Scientologists Tried To Brainwash Her Into Staying With Hubbard

In their own ways, Hubbard and Northrup tried to make the marriage work. Northrup went to a psychiatrist and tried to convince Hubbard to get treatment for the paranoid schizophrenia that was destroying his life. But he wouldn’t listen.

Hubbard told her that she was in league with devils. Then he put two of his men, Richard de Mille and Dave Williams, to work at brainwashing her. As John Sanborne, one of Hubbard’s former confidants, recalls:

“He made this stupid attempt to get Northrup brainwashed so she’d do what he said. He kept her sitting up in a chair, denying her sleep, trying to use Black Dianetic principles on her, repeating over and over again whatever he wanted her to do. Things like, ‘Be his wife, have a family that looks good, not have a divorce.’ ”^[7]

It didn’t work. Northrup still wanted a divorce. In the end, Hubbard told her that he didn’t want to be with her, either. He was just worried about his reputation. There was only way out.

“If you really love me,” Hubbard told her, “you should kill yourself.”

In November 1950, Sara Northrup tried to do just that. While L. Ron Hubbard was out, she downed a bottle of sleeping pills and lay down, hoping never to wake up again.

It didn’t work. She woke up alive in a hospital bed, registered under a fake name.

3 Hubbard Kidnapped Her Baby

It was 1:00 AM on February 24, 1951, when L. Ron Hubbard and two of his friends dragged Sara Northrup out of her bed, still dressed in her nightgown. Hubbard had taken her baby. “We have Alexis,” Hubbard told her, “and you’ll never see her alive unless you come with us.”^[8]

They threw Sara into the back of a car and drove her to Yuma, Arizona. Not long after, Hubbard had a change of heart. He kicked her out, forced her to go back home, and kept the baby with him.

She tried begging Hubbard to give her back the baby, but Hubbard refused time and time again. Then, out of the blue, he called her and told her the worst thing imaginable: Alexis was dead, and he had killed her.

“He had cut her into little pieces,” Sara says he told her, “and dropped the pieces in a river and that he had seen little arms and legs floating down the river and it was my fault. I’d done it because I’d left him.”

Hubbard was lying. But Sara must have felt unimaginable pain when he said it. A little while later, he sent her a letter. He admitted that Alexis was alive and tried to blackmail Sara into giving him full custody.

“My will is all changed. Alexis will get a fortune,” he wrote, “unless she goes to you as she would then get nothing.”

He signed his blackmail note: “Goodbye. I love you. Ron.”

2 Polly Hubbard Had Gone Through All The Same Things

Sara publicized everything on the advice of a lawyer, who told her that she couldn’t keep all of this a secret any longer. “Tell the truth,” he told her, “for the truth will bring back [your] baby, if alive.”

She filed for divorce, and the papers became filled with horror stories about the man who had tortured her and taken her baby. Yes, she’d put it off too long. But now, it was clear that there was no other way to ever see her child again.

Polly Hubbard, Ron’s first wife, contacted Sara for the first time after reading about the divorce. Every word written by Sara was terrifyingly familiar to Hubbard’s first wife. Polly wrote Sara a letter of complete support:

“If I can help in any way, I’d like to. You must get Alexis in your custody. Ron is not normal. I had hoped that you could straighten him out. Your charges sound fantastic to the average person. But I’ve been through it—the beatings, threats on my life, all the sadistic traits you charge—twelve years of it.”^[9]

“Please do believe,” she wrote. “I do so want to help you get Alexis.”

1 Sara Had To Absolve Hubbard Of All Guilt To Get Her Baby Back

In June 1951, Sara Northrup got to see her baby again. For months, Hubbard had been hiding their child in Cuba, but now they were back in Wichita. Ron was willing to talk.

He’d completely given into his paranoid delusions. There was no sense of reality for him. Sara had no choice but to play along. In her words:

“He told me that I was under the influence of this communist cell. And that they were dictating to me what to do, and that I was in a state of complete madness. I told him, ‘Yep, I think you’re right. The only thing I can do is to work through it and do whatever they say.’ ”

He made her sign a paper absolving him of all blame. It was the only way that he would give her back her child.

“The things I have said about L. Ron Hubbard in courts and the public prints have been grossly exaggerated or entirely false,” the paper said. “L. Ron Hubbard is a fine and brilliant man.” That was what he cared about—not his child and not his wife, just his reputation.

But all Sara cared about was getting her child back. She signed the papers, and in exchange, he drove her and Alexis to the airport.

Hubbard stopped the car a few feet away from the airfield. He’d had a last-second change of heart. Shaking his head, he told her: “I’m not going to let you go.”

Sara clutched her child, got out of the car, and ran. She left her suitcase and all her things behind. Alexis’s shoe fell off, but Sara didn’t stop. She just kept running toward the airplane, toward freedom, with her child in her arms for the first time in four months.

“It was the 19th of June,” Sara later said, “and it was the happiest day of my life.”^[10]

On April 30, 1945, hidden in an underground bunker and waiting for the armies of the Soviet Union to fall upon them, Adolf Hitler took his own life—and, alongside him, that of his new wife, Eva Braun.

Eva Braun usually gets nothing more than a passing mention treating her as little more than a mistress who happened to present at Hitler’s death. She has even been famously written off as a “great disappointment to historians“—as someone with no real importance to the history of the world.

Regardless of her impact on politics, however, her story is fascinating. She was a woman who was truly and completely in love with the fascist leader of Nazi Germany and who suffered for that love over and over again. The story of Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler is a love story every bit as heartbreaking as a Shakespearean tragedy. It just happens to involve the evilest man who ever lived.

10She Was Truly In Love With Hitler

It’s easy to question where Eva Braun’s heart really lay. When a 17-year-old girl decides to shack up with a powerful 40-year-old, most will assume that the girl is in it for something other than his charm and good looks.

For Eva, though, it really was true love. In fact, when she met Hitler, she had no idea who he was. It was 1930, and Hitler’s rise to power was only just beginning, so he was not the recognizable face he is today. More than that, though, she received a fake name—she was told his name was “Herr Wolff.”

The two were attracted immediately. Hitler was reportedly “devouring her with his eyes” when they first met, and by the end of the day, offered her a ride home. Braun, trying on a little modesty, refused but spent the next days asking around about this “Herr Wolff.”

Hitler started inviting her everywhere he could—to movies, meals, and operas until he broke her down. Braun was charmed to pieces by the future dictator. Talking to a friend about Hitler’s affections, she asked, “Who could withstand that?”

Hitler, with his thin mustache and shrieking voice, was an absolute ladykiller—even when the girls didn’t know who he was. And their love—for Eva Braun, at least—was true love.

9Hitler Was In Love With Someone Else

When Eva and Hitler’s relationship started, Hitler was already living with another woman—Geli Raubal, who, incidentally, was his niece. Every indication suggests that Hitler loved Geli more than he loved anyone in the world, but Geli doesn’t seem to have felt the same.

In September 1931, she announced that she was leaving to Vienna to marry another man, infuriating Hitler. The two fought bitterly all through the night, and the next day Geli was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot.

Eva, already the other woman, consoled the heartbroken Hitler. Their relationship really started then. But this really should have been a warning sign. Hitler was with another when they met, and he drove her to suicide.

This pattern followed through all of Hitler’s life and all of his relationships. Hitler was romantically linked with eight different women—and every single one of them attempted suicide at least once. He had a terrible impact on the women he dated, and Eva Braun would suffer from it more than anyone.

8Hitler Cheated On Her Rampantly

Hitler was terrible to the women that loved him. Only one of those eight women he drove to suicide came before Eva—the rest came after. Hitler cheated on her, and he did it a lot.

Perhaps his most notable affair was with Renate Muller, one of Germany’s top stars of the silver screen. Hitler lured her into making propaganda films in the mid-1930s and then into a little bit more. According to one account, which Renate allegedly told directly to Adolf Zeissler, Hitler threw himself onto the floor and begged Renate to abuse him. Soon, at his demand, she was beating Hitler with a whip and cursing him out while he masturbated.

It’s impossible to know if that really happened or if it’s just propaganda—but they certainly did have an affair, and Eva Braun knew about it. And in 1937, Renate followed the path of all of Hitler’s lovers: she jumped out of a window and ended her life.

7Eva Braun Shot Herself In The Chest For Attention

Eva Braun was not the type of woman who accepted open relationships. When she saw Hitler running around with other women and leaving her in the lurch, she was heartbroken—and she decided to do something about it.

Eva got ahold of her father’s pistol, turned it to her own heart, and fired. The only thing she’d ever seen truly move Hitler was Geli’s death, and if he couldn’t take care of her, he’d have to go through the whole thing again.

Eva missed the heart, either because she wasn’t really ready to die or because she didn’t understand human anatomy. When she realized she was still alive, she called Hitler’s personal doctor.

The general assumption is that this was all a plea for attention and that she’d called Hitler’s doctor to make sure the message got passed on. If it was, it worked. The message was passed on, and Hitler showed up at the hospital with flowers and promised that he would take care of her from then on.

6Hitler Hid Their Relationship

Promises aside, Hitler never became a great boyfriend. Nobody was allowed to know that Eva Braun was his mistress—and he made her go through some humiliating experiences to hide it.

When Hitler’s old friends were at his home, he’d let Eva linger about. But if a dignitary or cabinet minister showed up, she was hidden in a private room next to Hitler’s bedroom so that no one would see her. Stuck alone in a room like a private shame, she was described by Hitler’s colleagues as deeply unhappy and deeply in love.

He would openly disrespect her as well. In front of bother her and his friends, he reportedly said, “A highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman. Imagine if, on top of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work! In my leisure time, I want to have peace.”

Over time, Hitler came up with a few excuses to be with her. In time, he named her his “private secretary” to keep her around. But even then, she was forced to sneak into the house through the back door where no one would see her.

As terrible of a man as it was that she was in love with, she loved him—and he tucked her away where no one could see her as a private shame.

5She Tried To Overdose On Sleeping Pills

In 1935, Eva Braun went a full three months without hearing a single word from Hitler. Word had gotten out that he was spending his time with another woman, and Eva realized that shooting herself had done nothing. He hadn’t changed.

This time, she decided she would make it stick. In her diary, she wrote, “God, I’m afraid he won’t answer today. I’ve decided on 35 pills this time and it’s going to really be a ‘dead certain’ business. If only he would have somebody call.” Then she took a bottle of sleeping pills, downed them all, and waited for darkness to overcome her.

Again the suicide failed, and again, Hitler showed up at her home with flowers. He begged for forgiveness and, according to her diary, promised to buy her a house. It was only the second of three suicide attempts—but it was, at least, the last one she would do alone.

4Hitler’s Family Hated Her

Eva Braun’s life still didn’t improve that much. Another problem in their relationship lived in Hitler’s home—Angela Raubal, the mother of his first love Geli. The whole time their affair was growing, Hitler kept his ex-lover’s mother in his home, where she watched the man who had driven her daughter to suicide cavort with his mistress.

Angela Raubal hated Eva Braun. She did not even try to keep her contempt a secret. It was an open hatred, as she let anyone who cared to listen know that this Eva woman had no place in Hitler’s life.

Alone except for people who hated her, Eva Braun spent most of her time reading books and watching movies by herself. Reportedly, she would even stare at photographs of Hitler during mealtimes to content herself with the imagined thought that he was there with her.

Her victory didn’t come until she tried to overdose on pills. Only when the risk of another dead lover was on Hitler’s hands did he get Angela Raubal moved out of Hitler’s home, and Eva got a rare win—she was allowed to move into Hitler’s home.

3She Refused To Leave His Side

As the war raged on and the Allied armies advanced on Germany, it soon became clear that Germany would fall. The Soviets were getting closer, and there was no question that when they arrived, Hitler would be killed, along with all associated with him.

Eva was in peril, and those around her knew it. In 1943, Henriette von Schirach, the wife of the Reich’s Youth Leader, tried to persuade her to flee Germany and Hitler’s side—but Eva Braun refused.

This wasn’t just naivete. Even as the situation grew dire, she stayed, and in 1944, she drafted up a will indicating her intention to kill herself if Hitler died. Reportedly, she said, “Do you think I would let him die alone? I will stay with him up until the last moment. I’ve thought it out exactly. No one can stop me.”

She went through with her promise. When the time came, she joined Hitler in an underground bunker, prepared to die by his side.

2Hitler Had Her Brother-In-Law Shot

With only hours of life left to live, Eva Braun still found ways to go through tragedy. From the bunker, Hitler sent for Eva’s brother-in-law, Hermann Fegelein. Fegelein had married Eva’s sister in a ceremony, with Hitler himself signing as the witness.

When they found him, though, he was drunk, carrying a suitcase, filling it with the loot he stolen from around Berlin, and getting ready to get as far from Germany as he possibly could. A strange woman who was not his wife was with him, and she made a quick escape out the window when the Nazis arrived.

Fegelein was dragged to the bunker on Hitler’s orders. He had picked a bad day to desert—Himmler had just betrayed Hitler by trying to surrender Germany behind his back. Hitler became convinced that the woman who’d escaped was a spy and that Fegelein was committing treason—and so Eva’s brother-in-law was dragged out and shot.

Eva and Hitler were married just a few short hours after. On the marriage certificate, perhaps overcome by nerves, she wrote the first “B” of “Braun” as her last name before scratching it out and replacing it with “Hitler.”

1The Dog’s Death Upset More People Than Eva’s

In the bunker with Eva were a few of Hitler’s most trusted men—and his dog, Blondi. Blondi had been a mortal enemy of Eva’s already. Eva, who must have directed some of her frustration over the coldness of the man she loved onto his dog, complained that Hitler gave it affection she never received. When the dog snuck under the dinner table, she would kick it as hard as she could and delight over Hitler’s confusion.

Even in the end, though, she would suffer in the limelight next to the dog. A nurse who was in the bunker, talking about it years later, said that Eva was dismissed by everyone there as a “young girl who had no meaning.”

When the group decided to end it, Hitler gave a cyanide capsule to Blondi first to make sure it would work. When the dog died, he let out howls of grief and was completely inconsolable. When Eva took her cyanide capsule and ended her life, according to the nurse, not a soul in the place was as upset as they were when the dog died.

And so the short and tragic life of Eva Braun ended with much the same heartache that filled it. She was hidden under the ground and unloved, following a man she was willing to die for.

Mark Oliver is a regular contributor to . He writing also appears on several other sites, including The Onion’s StarWipe and Cracked.com. His website is regularly updated with everything he writes.

The idea that life often mirrors art is one with which many of us are familiar. In most cases, these parallels between fact and fiction feel like harmless fun. There are times, however, in which the blurred line between the two can start to feel unsettling, as though there was more at play than simple coincidence.

From novels that proved eerily prophetic to famous faces who met their end in uncannily familiar ways, here are some of the most tragic examples of life imitating art.

10 Carrie Fisher And The Fate of Princess Leia

We picture her with cinnamon bun hair, a flowing white gown, and a blaster gun in hand. Indeed, actress and writer Carrie Fisher is best remembered as the woman who breathed life into the iconic Star Wars heroine, Princess Leia.

Fisher experienced a medical emergency on a flight from London to Los Angeles in late 2016. After four days in a coma, she sadly died at age 60. Shortly before her death, Fisher had finished filming scenes for Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi, her fifth official outing as Leia.

Though having the opportunity to see her once again on the big screen was welcomed by many as a touching tribute, others—including Fisher’s own brother—found certain scenes hard to swallow. He pointed out the uncomfortable irony that Episode VIII saw Leia falling into a coma, a sequence the actress had filmed mere months before suffering the same fate in real life.^[1]

Though Fisher tragically never regained consciousness, her fictional counterpart lived to fight another day. As such, Fisher’s legacy will live on through the character and the scenes she had already completed. It is a bittersweet silver lining that does not quite take the sting out of her untimely loss.

9 The Disappearance Of Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her world-famous crime stories have sold more than a billion copies in English and a further billion copies in translation. So, it is certainly fair to say that she knew a thing or two about penning a compelling mystery.

However, it was her own personal affairs that had the public gripped in December 1926. In an incident that could have been lifted right from one of her books, Christie disappeared without notice.

Her uncharacteristic and unexplained absence quickly made headlines, with thousands of volunteers scouring the country in search of clues. When her car was found abandoned near a quarry, her coat and ID discarded inside, many feared the worst. When it then emerged that her husband had recently announced plans to leave her for another woman, suspicion fell on him.^[2]

Christie would eventually be found alive, 11 days after first disappearing. But it was not exactly a happy ending. Somewhat disturbingly, she had checked into a hotel using the name of her husband’s new lover and claimed to remember nothing of the ordeal.

Doctors would diagnose concussion and amnesia, and the author would speak little of the difficult period again. New theories suggest that she had contemplated suicide and hid herself away in a bout of religion-fueled shame.

The more commonly held belief is that the stress of her husband’s betrayal added to her existing depression over the loss of her mother. The combination of the two proved to be too much and triggered a mental breakdown.

8 Mary Shelley And Her Husband’s Drowning

Mary Shelley is the author of the revered horror novel Frankenstein. Another of her major works, Mathilda, was not released until years after her death because its publication was suppressed by her father. Due to its gothic exploration of an incestuous infatuation, he feared that readers would think it was autobiographical.

In the novella, there is a scene which sees the titular heroine rushing toward the sea. She is distressed by the news that someone she loves may have drowned, but she would arrive too late to save him.^[3]

A couple of years after it was written, Shelley would find herself mirroring her character’s actions when her own husband met a similar watery end. Shelley later commented on the uncanny comparisons between the two incidents. She described how she identified with her tragic heroine’s plight and had come to consider the book “prophetic.”

7 H.G. Wells And The Atom Bomb

History best remembers H.G. Wells as the author of enduring sci-fi classics such as The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man. As Wells was a pioneer of the genre, his writing was often considered ahead of its time, with prescient ideas and technologies that would later become reality.

One of his most disturbingly accurate predictions appeared in his 1914 novel, The World Set Free. He described a weapon of unprecedented power that would be dropped from planes to unleash untold suffering on the world below. He called it the “atomic bomb.”

Three decades later, a frighteningly similar nuclear weapon did indeed emerge and was even given the same name. When the bomb was unleashed upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even those involved in its development were said to be disturbed by the sheer scale of misery that it caused. Perhaps things would have turned out differently had they paid closer attention to the moral warnings that had been present in Wells’s fiction.^[4]

6 A Famous Dog’s Grisly End

The 1989 comedy-action film K-9 is about a cop and his faithful furry companion. The movie’s climax sees the dog shot while trying to apprehend a criminal. Though greatly injured, he manages to pull through, and they all live happily ever after.

In real life, things worked out considerably less well. Koton, the four-legged star of the film, was an actual police dog away from the big screen. He had a successful career and was responsible for more than 24 arrests.

Heartbreakingly, just like his character before him, Koton was shot in 1991 while pursuing a suspect. Unlike his fictional counterpart, he sadly didn’t make it.^[5]

5 The Death Of Paul Walker

US actor Paul Walker is best known for his long-running role in the big-budget The Fast and the Furious franchise. The films are high-octane action flicks, full of high-speed car chases and dramatic stunt sequences.

It is this fact that made his death in 2013 all the more difficult for his fans and loved ones to accept. At age 40, Walker was killed in a car crash when the Porsche driven by his friend collided with a lamppost and became engulfed in flames.

Production of the seventh film in the series was already well underway at the time of his passing. Filmmakers decided to use existing footage of the star to craft a suitable outcome for his character. This was deemed an appropriate and sensitive way to preserve the actor’s memory.^[6]

4 Eva Cassidy And ‘Fields Of Gold’

Given the widespread admiration that exists for Eva Cassidy now, it is hard to believe that she was virtually unknown at the time of her death from melanoma in 1996. Then just 33 years old, she had been a regular on the local music scene in Washington DC.

But with most of her recordings unreleased, international audiences were still largely unaware of her. These various unheard tracks were compiled and released posthumously, which led to extensive radio play, platinum sales, and a whole new level of appreciation for the tragic star.

Shortly before her death, however, Cassidy had released Live at Blues Alley, a collection of intimate recordings. It would prove to be the last release made during her lifetime. This album included her version of “Fields of Gold.” Originally by Sting, it is a track that has endured as one of her most recognizable and beloved songs.^[7]

The touching irony of the final verse—with lyrics that speak of being remembered after you are gone—was not lost on many. This sentiment took on a whole new meaning when the singer was dead mere months after the song’s release. Thanks to the music she left behind, Cassidy has at least been remembered fondly, just as the song wished for.

3 Bill Turnbull And Stand Up To Cancer

Bill Turnbull is a journalist and broadcaster and a familiar face on UK television. Fans of The Great British Bake Off from around the world may also recognize him from his stint in the famous tent as part of a charity special.

The episode, which first aired in early 2018, was produced in aid of Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C). The aim was to raise both awareness about the importance of getting health checks and funds to help improve treatment and survival rates.

In a twist of painful irony, Turnbull was diagnosed with prostate cancer while filming was taking place. Though he underwent several rounds of chemotherapy to slow the disease’s spread, he subsequently announced that his case is terminal. Facing the situation with dignity, he has used his story as a means to further drive home the importance of regular health screening.^[8]

2 J.K. Rowling And The Loss Of Her Mother

J.K. Rowling is best known as the author behind the Harry Potter series. Rowling had been working on the first book for around six months when her mother died from multiple sclerosis. She was just 45 years old and completely unaware of the fame and fortune that awaited her daughter.

At this time, with the book still in an early draft form, the eponymous boy wizard had already been written as an orphan. Suddenly finding herself without parental ties of her own, however, Rowling was able to identify with her fictional hero’s sadness on a much greater level.

This clearer understanding of the grief she had written for him was so profound that it prompted Rowling to rework the scenes concerning his loss. His parents’ deaths were no longer glossed over. Instead, they were imbued with a heavy dose of poignancy and emotional weight.

As Rowling said herself, “Everything deepened and darkened.”^[9] Though this was to the benefit of the story, it should not be forgotten that Rowling had to endure Harry’s pain firsthand to gain this heartfelt insight.

1 The Sinking Of The Titanic

Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novella, Futility (aka The Wreck of the Titan), was about a vast, luxurious ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank, killing almost everyone on board.

Sound familiar?

Yes, indeed, the sinking of the Titanic is another example of a horrific real-life event that was eerily foretold in fiction. The book was published 14 years before the Titanic’s doomed voyage, but the name and fate of the two ships were not the only striking similarities.

It is little wonder that many suspected Robertson of clairvoyance once you start delving into the many unnerving parallels. These include the size and capacity of the two vessels as well as intricate, finer details such as the number of lifeboats present.^[10]

Even the time and date of each ship’s impact with the iceberg are nigh on identical. Prophecy? Coincidence? Whatever the case may be, it is one of the most tragic cases of life imitating art the world has yet seen.

Callum McLaughlin is a freelance writer based in Scotland. He writes content on a variety of subjects for blogs, websites, and magazines. He can be found on Twitter, where he’ll invariably be chatting about books, cats, and tea.

In the role of a superhero, these actors have to appear brave, strong-willed, highly skilled and are expected to act with honor. Then, once the cameras stop rolling, it’s back to reality. Sure, it might appear they have it all; money, fame, glory and a lifestyle others can only dream of but they have also had their share of some real personal demons.

See Also: 10 Outrageous Real Life Superheroes

For these following stars, they have all embodied the roles of their characters to much critical acclaim. Perhaps this is because when facing tougher scenes involving conflict and tragedy – they have had their fair share of heartbreaking experiences to draw from.

10 Mark Ruffalo

Mark Ruffalo has won over fans of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe ever since he first took on the role of Dr. Bruce Banner and his destructive alter-ego The Hulk in 2012. Like mild-mannered Bruce Banner has to face up to keep his rage under control, Ruffalo has also battled his own real-life horrors. In 2002, the actor had a benign brain tumor removed which left his face temporarily paralyzed.

Then on December 1, 2008, his brother Scott was shot in the head and killed at his L.A. home. The only key witness who was in the house at the time, Shaha Mishaal Adham, died of a drug overdose shortly after the incident and the case still remains unsolved. Speaking of the tragedy, Ruffalo said, “You never get over it; you just get used to it. You get calloused, a little bit harder maybe, so be on guard for that. But take these tragic things and turn them into something meaningful and worthy of the loss. Make it count.”^[1]

9Robert Downey Jr.

In 1996, Robert Downey Jr. was speeding down Sunset Boulevard when he was pulled over and arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, and a 357 Magnum handgun. After failing to show up for a court-ordered drug test, he was ordered to spend six months in the Los Angeles County jail. Following his release, he missed another drug test and this time spent three years back behind bars.

His career breakthrough came when he starred as the love interest of the main character in Ally McBeal. Then in 2008, he landed the role of Iron Man and the rest is Marvel history. He has won critical acclaim and praise of fans worldwide as the genius billionaire playboy and philanthropist, Tony Stark.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, he advised other addicts, “Job one is get out of that cave. A lot of people do get out but don’t change. So the thing is to get out and recognize the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal.”^[2]

8 Josh Brolin

Josh Brolin has portrayed Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018) yet he has had his own personal enemies to battle in his personal life too. Raised in California, he grew up with a lot of privileges as his father James Brolin had become famous for the tv series Marcus Welby MD, as well as a starring role in 1979’s The Amityville Horror. As a teenager, a young Brolin also found himself in the spotlight when he was cast as Brad in The Goonies (1985).

Then he became a member of a surfing gang called the Cito Rats and he began to see those he was close to fall victim to heroin addiction. He told The Guardian, “I tried heroin. That sounds so horrible when you put it like that. But yeah, I tried heroin. I mean, I never got into it and I never died from it, which is a good thing. I’ve had 19 friends who died. Most of those guys I grew up with, they’re all dead now.” It appears he just narrowly missed the Hollywood child star curse that strikes down so many.^[3]

7 Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy is known for his roles as the villain, including starring as Venom in the 2018 blockbuster, but his off-screen antics have also found him on the wrong side of the law. The British born actor was expelled from boarding school and he struggled with drink and drug problems throughout his teenage years. Arrested for stealing a car and gun possession, he finally checked into rehab to get sober after waking up from a binge covered in blood and vomit.

Now part of Hollywood’s A list stars, he has achieved great moments in his career yet his past is a constant reminder of just what obstacles he has had to overcome. Speaking with The Telegraph, he revealed, “I have all kinds of things from separation anxiety and abandonment. The loss of mother’s gaze at a certain age… the loss of a father figure… manhood… forgiveness… amendment. And recovery – natural recovery.” He added, “I spent a lot of days unhappy. So, yeah, it had its toll.”^[4]

6 Ben Affleck

Batman actor Ben Affleck, who appeared as the caped crusader in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017), has openly been in a battle with alcohol addiction since 2001. Affleck spoke publicly about his difficult childhood; growing up with his father’s drink dependency and his parents’ divorce. Since becoming one of the biggest names in Hollywood, Affleck gained a reputation for his hard partying ways and string of high profile failed relationships including his most recent; a divorce from actress Jennifer Garner with whom he has fathered three children.

The Academy Award winner opened up on social media and wrote, “As I’ve had to remind myself, if you have a problem, getting help is a sign of courage, not weakness or failure.” He revealed that he had completed a 40-day stay at a treatment center for alcohol addiction which had been a “lifelong and difficult struggle”.^[5]

5 Idris Elba

London-born actor Idris Elba is best known for his roles in The Wire and as Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Appearing as a tough guy on screen comes easy to him but his own personal life has been plagued by heartbreak. In 2010, he went public during a press conference that he had become a proud father for a second time to a newborn son. He gushed, “The celebration of having a son – from a man’s perspective, it’s massive.”

That celebration soon came to an end when he discovered via a paternity test that he was not the biological father. Elba said, “It wasn’t immediately obvious – well, it was, because he didn’t look like me. But it wasn’t immediately obvious what had gone down. To be given that and then have it taken away so harshly was like taking a full-on punch in the face.” Elba has since moved on with his life and became engaged to beauty queen and former Miss Vancouver Sabrina Dhowre in 2017.^[6]

4 Paul Bettany

Actor Paul Bettany had a notable acting career yet after suffering a few box office blows with poorly received films Transcendence (2014) and Mortdecai (2015), he thought his film career was over. The British actor was then snapped up by The Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon to play the role of Vision.

When he was 16-years-old, his younger brother died at the age of 8 in a freak accident that fractured his skull. Bettany then turned to drink and drugs to self-medicate himself through the painful loss. He said, “‘(It was) manic. I don’t know if I was aware I was numbing myself at the time. I don’t think (there was anger). It was nobody’s fault. It was the awfulness that is bad luck. Had there not been a heavy dew that morning.” He added that he now suffers from anxiety in raising his own two daughters he shares with his wife, actress Jennifer Connelly, explaining, “‘I am definitely feeling calmer on that but don’t think it will ever entirely leave. It’s an indelible worry.”^[7]

3 Samuel L. Jackson

Samuel L. Jackson is easily one of the most recognizable stars in the world, every year starring in a range of roles including Nick Fury in The Avengers. In the 1950s, he grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, during segregation and he revealed he got through the hard times because he was “a good fighter and a smart kid.”

Jackson also said, “Like many young people I faced lots of barriers. They included growing up in a segregated southern state of America. I faced racism during my whole adolescence.” He added, “On the other hand, the best advice that was given to me was that I had to be 10 times smarter, braver and more polite just to be equal. So I did. Eventually my dream of becoming an actor became a reality, which is always bigger.”

In the early 1970s, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, to study marine biology but after joining an acting group he decided to take a different path in life and the rest is Hollywood history.^[8]

2Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson is celebrated as one of the most talented and beautiful actresses in the world but she has also suffered hardships growing up. Born in New York, she grew up in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village as one of five children and her parents are of Danish-Polish descent. She admitted that her family had “little money” and that they relied on welfare to put food on the table.

In 1998, she landed her big break in The Horse Whisperer and later in her career became a household name as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Most recently, Johansson has been active in many charity campaigns including Feeding America which is a relief organization that aims to help the 1 in 8 people struggling with hunger in the U.S. Drawing on her own experiences of child hunger, she revealed, “My family grew up relying on public assistance to help provide meals for our family. Child hunger in America is a real and often overlooked problem, but one that together, we can fix.”^[9]

1 Chris Pratt

Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt became a household name with credit to his portrayal of Peter Quill. The Minnesota-born actor admitted he struggled on his journey to becoming one of the most lovable stars in Hollywood as he was once homeless and living in a van. After graduating from high school, Pratt left college following just one semester when he began working as an amateur stripper charging $40.

Aged 19-years-old, he waited tables in Maui, Hawaii, for minimum-wage pay and lived in his van. He also confessed to eating leftover food off customer’s plates to feed himself. Then in a chance encounter, he met actress and director Rae Dawn Chong who cast him in her short comedy horror ‘Cursed Part 3.’ Pratt recalled, “The moment (Chong) told me she was bringing me to L.A., I knew. I was like, ‘This is what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.” The movie was a flop and never released but it didn’t stop Pratt recognizing that acting is what he wanted to do with his life. In 2018, it was revealed that his role in Jurassic World as Owen netted him a $10 million pay day.^[10]

Between February 1692 and May 1693, colonial Massachusetts was the scene of a mass hysteria sparked by false accusations from several young girls. By the time it was over, the resulting Salem witch trials had claimed the lives of 20 innocent souls. These 10 lesser-known facts about the trials make a dark period in American history far more senseless and appalling.

10 The Afflicted Orphans

Many of the leading accusers were young girls who had been orphaned at birth and left with dismal, if any, prospects for the future. Orphans, who had no monetary or emotional support, were disregarded by society at that time. Some historians believe that this was the basis for their false accusations.

Carol Karlsen, author of The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, suggests that the grim outlook for the girls’ long-term material well-being sparked their dramatic “possession” performances to “focus the communities’ concern on their difficulties.”

Karlsen goes on to explain that this was perhaps a way for the afflicted girls to deal with the oppression they felt as orphans. In doing so, they finally attained the respect and attention of their communities within Puritan society.

9 How Do You Plead?

As the number of the accused began to rise, it became apparent that confession carried greater leniency as opposed to pleading innocent. Those who maintained their innocence were met with harsh interrogations that often led to death, such as submerging the accused in the local pond to test their magical abilities to stay afloat.

Despite popular belief, burning victims at the stake was less common than hanging them at the gallows. In a three-month period in 1692, 19 men and women were led to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging.

Those accused of witchcraft but not convicted awaited their fates as prisoners for months on end. Perhaps one of the more disturbing cases was that of Giles Corey who, after being imprisoned for five months, was pressed to death with stones. Three days later, Corey’s wife was hanged.

8 The House Below The Hill

Remarkably, it wasn’t until January 2016 that the execution site on Gallows Hill was discovered on a rocky outcropping next to a Walgreens pharmacy. Researchers from the University of Virginia set out to discover “the house below the hill,” the location where accused witch Rebecca Eames claimed to have witnessed the hangings.

It was determined that Eames was referencing a house on Boston Street, the main road that led into the courthouse. The site was identified by current topographical analysis in addition to examining the likely route for transporting prisoners in the center of Salem to their deaths.

Using ground-penetrating radar, researchers confirmed that the victims were hanged from a tree as no trace of a gallows structure was discovered. The establishment of a memorial site is currently underway by the city of Salem.

7 The Burials

The bodies of the accused were denied respectful interments and were frequently thrown in a ditch. However, in the late hours of the evening, family members often returned to Gallows Hill to exhume their loved ones for burial elsewhere. This included Salem’s most famous victim, John Proctor.

Rebecca Nurse, a frail 71–year-old woman who was hanged on July 19, 1692, was exhumed by her children and secretly buried in an unmarked grave on the family property where she had lived. Nearly 200 years later in 1885, Nurse’s descendants erected a memorial to Rebecca in the family graveyard located in Danvers, Massachusetts.

6 America’s First Witch Trial

Although the Salem witch trials have been cemented into history books, they were not the first of their kind. Almost 50 years earlier in Connecticut, Alse Young was publicly hanged for witchery in Hartford’s Meeting House Square. Five other residents met the same fate a short time later.

In 1662, seven trials took place that resulted in four innocent souls being sent to the gallows. During the trials, some were bound by their hands and feet and cast into water to test their floating ability.

The hysteria began with the death of eight-year-old Elizabeth Kelly who passed away unexpectedly. Kelly’s parents testified that their daughter had suddenly fallen ill the night after she returned home with their neighbor, Goodwife Ayres.

The Kellys insisted that their child had been possessed. Within 50 years, Connecticut saw 46 prosecutions and at least 11 executions until the state’s final witch trial in 1697.

5 Remorse

Toward the end of 1692, the public began losing faith in the witch hunts because many of the accused were devout individuals. This contradicted the concept of Puritans as faithful servants of God, and by 1693, 12 jurors had publicly apologized for their miscalculated judgments during the trials.

Four years later, the General Court ordered a day of fasting and soul-searching. In 1702, the court publicly declared the trials unlawful. In 1711, monetary compensation was granted to heirs of the accused, and the colony passed a bill restoring the rights and good names of those wrongfully imprisoned. Unfortunately, it was not until 1957 that Massachusetts formally apologized.

4 The Tragic Case Of Mr. Jacobs

Perhaps one of the more tragic tales was that of 70-year-old George Jacobs Sr. who had been accused by his own granddaughter. Jacobs laughed at his judges during his trial, proclaiming that he couldn’t believe that these events were transpiring or that the villagers were buying into the idea of witchery.

The number of his accusers only increased with his public denouncement of the “afflicted” girls. As the realization of his fate set in, Jacobs resorted to the lifesaving strategy of confession but to no avail. He was found guilty and hanged on August 19, 1692—one of the first men in Salem to be executed for witchery.

Jacobs’s remains were recovered from Gallows Hill and buried on his family’s property. In 1864, his remains were unearthed and described by his descendants as a “tall, arthritic, toothless skeleton.” As part of a ceremony marking the 300th anniversary of the trials, Jacobs’s remains were brought to Salem. They were finally laid to rest on August 2, 1992.

3 The Western Section Of The Village

Although the cause of the mass hysteria has never been determined, historians have disputed numerous theories about the root of the irrational frenzy that plagued the Salem villagers in 1692. One of the more intriguing and logical explanations focuses on the ergot fungus which grows on rye, the main grain of Salem Village.

Ergotism (ergot poisoning) comes from the potent ergot alkaloids that affect the central nervous system, causing contractions of the smooth muscle and internal organs. According to toxicologists, a person who consumes ergot-contaminated food will experience violent muscle spasm, hallucinations, crawling skin sensations, delusions, and vomiting.

All of these symptoms were described in the Salem records. In addition, the fungus thrives during warm, damp, rainy springs and summers, the exact conditions present in the western section of Salem Village where nearly all the accusers lived.

2 The Ipswich Jail

As the jails began to overflow, many of the accused had to be transferred to other prisons. Sarah Good and her four-year-old daughter, Dorothy, arrived at the Ipswich jail in spring 1692. A short time later, Sarah gave birth to her second daughter, Mercy.

The infant subsequently died in the harsh prison conditions, and on July 19, Sarah was hanged. Although never charged, Dorothy remained imprisoned for nine months until her father could pay for his child’s bond and “board.” Historic accounts claim that Dorothy went insane from the grave psychological damage she endured.

After the witch trials ended and all the accused were released, legend has it that their tortured spirits remained at the jail. For years, prisoners were found screaming in their cells because of apparitions they had seen. After the Ipswich jail was torn down, the land was used for a farm and later a school. Still, strange noises and ghostly sightings were reported throughout the years.

1 A Martyr’s Death

George Burroughs, a Harvard graduate and supposed witch ringleader, was called to serve as one of the first Puritan ministers in Salem Village in 1680. Four years earlier, Burroughs had been forced to flee his previous home in Falmouth (present-day Portland) following Native American attacks.

Burroughs’s survival of several massacres and his perceived ties to Native Americans and Satan led some members of Salem Village to suspect him of witchery. On May 4, 1692, Burroughs was forcibly dragged from his home in Wells, Maine, and subsequently jailed.

On the day of his execution, he was paraded through the streets of Salem to the noose that ended his life. In a brave final statement, Burroughs proclaimed his innocence and recited the Lord’s Prayer with strength and composure, drawing tears from spectators who unsuccessfully called for the halt of his execution.

To date, scholars see Burroughs as the sole person executed for his religious beliefs as opposed to the vivid and delusional imaginations of the Massachusetts colonists.

Adam is just a hubcap trying to hold on in the fast lane.

School is much more than just a place of learning—it’s a central part of childhood and a nurturing environment where memories are made, friendships are forged, and both academic and social growth is fostered. Whether it’s the carefree laughter at recess, the thrill of field trips, the magical moments that unfold at school dances, or the organized structure of classroom assignments and projects, these everyday moments shape the school experience as a whole. They are an integral part of growing up.

However, within the familiar routines that school days provide, students, teachers, and parents alike can often forget the delicate nature of everyday moments and the sense of normalcy we take for granted.

In this list, we will explore how even the most ordinary aspects of school life can set the stage for unexpected tragedy and sorrow. From a fatal accident on a playground slide to a teacher’s tragic death in the parent pick-up line to a mother’s devastating final act at her daughter’s graduation, this list explores ten common school events and activities that were transformed into heartbreaking, tragic events no one could have expected.

Related: 10 Bizarre (and Tragic) Food-Related Deaths

10 Recess

Recess is a cherished part of the school day, giving children a much-needed break from their academic routines and an opportunity to engage in free play and interact with their peers. Unfortunately, this much-anticipated part of the school day was marred by a tragic accident, leaving a Utah community in mourning.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m. on February 6, 2023, the Tooele County Sheriff’s Department responded to an injury report at Rose Springs Elementary School in Erda, Utah. Upon arrival, deputies discovered that as eight-year-old Dallin Cunningham came down a corkscrew slide on the school’s playground, he “flew out” 7 feet (2.1 meters) above ground, landing on his head in an area of “frozen rock-hard” ground.

When the recess monitors initially found Cunningham, he was unconscious but breathing. However, Cunningham later stopped breathing, prompting the recess monitors to perform CPR until a patrol officer arrived on the scene and took over. Cunningham was rushed to a local hospital but, sadly, never regained consciousness. He died on February 7, 2023, due to blunt force trauma to his head.

While the slide was removed from the playground, Cunningham’s parents, Kathryn and Timothy, also went on to sue the Tooele County School District for negligence, seeking $90,000 for their son’s medical expenses. Cunningham’s parents stated that the school district not only failed to properly supervise the use of the playground equipment but also allowed “unreasonably dangerous” conditions on the playground.

Aside from the circular slide being “excessively fast and steep,” the structure also had an excessive slope, lacked guardrails on the side, and lacked high banking “to keep children inside the slide instead of flying out.” In addition to the safety standards not being met on the slide, the playground also contained an inadequate amount of playground mulch to cushion Cunningham’s fall—just 1 inch (2.5 cm)—and was frozen solid underneath. Per standards, there should have been 12 inches (30 cm) of mulch filling the area below the slide.^[1]

9 Lunch

The Mid-Day Meal program was first introduced for poor and disadvantaged children in Chennai, India (formerly Madras) in 1925. It has since become one of the world’s largest school nutrition programs, reaching 120 million children in 1.2 million schools across the country. While the program was intended to put a dent in India’s chronic malnutrition problem by providing an incentive to poor families to send their children to school, nearly two dozen children lost their lives after consuming food served through the national campaign.

On July 16, 2023, two cooks, Manju Devi and Pano Devi, began preparing a meal of rice, lentils, soybeans, and potatoes for children at the Dharmasati-Gandaman Primary School in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. Devi, however, noticed that the mustard oil used to prepare the food looked and smelled bad, but when she raised concerns with the school’s principal, Meena Kumari, Devi was told to use it anyway.

Soon after their first bite of lunch, the students began fainting and vomiting, and within hours, they began dying. In total, 23 children between the ages of 5 and 12 died, and more than two dozen others became sick as a result of eating the free meal. Both Kumari and her husband—the owner of the grocery store where the ingredients were sourced—fled as soon as the students became sick.

Naturally, with dozens of innocent children dead and dozens of others hospitalized from a school meal, angry allegations of blame and violent protests throughout the region became widespread, with many refusing to eat food from the program.

Scientific tests later revealed “very toxic” levels of monocrotophos—an organophosphorus compound used as an insecticide—in the meals, specifically high contamination in the vegetable oil used to prepare the food. Investigators also later discovered that Kumari’s husband, Arjun Rai, stored pesticide at the school for use at his farm and that the chefs had cooked with it by mistake.

On July 24, 2023, 36-year-old Kumari was on the way to turn herself in when she was arrested. Both Kumari and Rai were charged with murder. However, they both denied any deliberate act on their part in harming the children. Kumari’s husband was later acquitted by the court, but on August 29, 2016, she was sentenced to a total of 17 years in jail for culpable homicide and negligence. She was also ordered to pay a $4,476.69 (Rs. 3.75 lakh) fine.^[2]

8 Parent Pick-Up Line

Parent pick-up lines are a common feature at most schools and are designed as a way to not only streamline the dismissal process but also keep children safe. These lines offer the convenience of remaining in your vehicle during pick-up, shielding parents from inclement weather and eliminating the need to navigate crowded hallways in search of students. However, these lines also bring their own set of challenges—long waits, traffic congestion, and, at times, frustration for both parents and staff alike.

Despite such a well-intentioned system, one kindergarten teacher in Missouri lost her life in a tragic incident while assisting with the school’s parent pick-up line. On September 5, 2018, 48-year-old Angel Hayes was guiding students and cars as rain fell in the parent pick-up line at Benton Elementary School in Neosho, Missouri. Eighty-eight-year-old Erwin Parker was in line that day, waiting to pick up his 12-year-old granddaughter from school.

Unfortunately, Parker’s foot became caught between the gas and brake pedals of his SUV, causing the vehicle to lurch forward and hit Hayes. The SUV continued moving through the parking lot, dragging Hayes an estimated 20 to 25 yards (18 to 22 meters) before striking another vehicle and finally coming to a stop.

Neosho Police officers were called to the school, where emergency personnel used an airbag inflation device to raise the vehicle and free Hayes from under the front right wheel well. Despite their efforts, it was sadly too late, and Hayes was pronounced dead at the scene. No charges were filed against Parker.^[3]

7 Physical Fitness Testing

For many students, physical fitness tests are the ultimate schoolyard nemesis—a rite of passage filled with push-ups, sit-ups, and the dreaded mile run. Although these tests are designed to gauge endurance, strength, and overall fitness, they often strike fear into the hearts of even the most athletic students.

However, for one young boy in Singapore, a physical fitness test proved to be much more than just adaunting school activity when it tragically claimed his life.

On May 2, 2024, 14-year-old Lu Xuanzheng was participating in a 1.5 mile (2.4 km) run as part of a physical fitness test at Woodlands Secondary School when he collapsed. Xuanzheng was rushed to the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, where he fell into a deep coma. Xuanzheng remained in a coma for 24 days, and on May 25, 2024, doctors declared him brain dead. After losing her husband to liver cancer in 2022, 52-year-old Su Yanfen had to make the difficult decision to say goodbye to her youngest son.

While Yanfen claimed there was no family history of heart conditions, it is believed that Xuanzheng experienced cardiac failure due to the intense exercise, leading to arrhythmia and then a coma.

Despite another family tragedy and the grief of Xuanzheng’s death, Yanfen stated that “her son’s greatest dream was to help others.” Therefore, given the hundreds of hospital patients waiting for organ transplants, Yanfen decided the best way to make Xuanzheng’s dream a reality was to donate his organs.^[4]

6 Graduation

On May 5, 2024, 53-year-old Larissa R. Brady, her husband, and their 12-year-old son went to The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio to attend the graduation ceremony. Brady’s daughter was one of the 12,555 Buckeyes set to graduate that day, earning her bachelor’s degree.

As her daughter entered the stadium, Brady told her “that she loved her and would always be her mother.” Little did Brady’s daughter know that this would be the last time she would speak to her mother and that a day meant for celebration would be filled with mourning instead.

From there, Brady proceeded into the stadium with her family to watch the ceremony. Once they were seated, Brady claimed she wanted to move higher in the stadium, but eventually, her family lost sight of her. Brady, however, made her way to the last row of benches, and shortly after the ceremony began, she climbed over the stadium’s concrete wall, falling 136 feet (41 meters) to the pavement below.

Brady, who had a history of bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety, was said to have been non-compliant with her medications. At 12:25 p.m., she was pronounced dead by medics who arrived on the scene. Her death was ruled a suicide.

The graduation ceremony carried on as planned following Brady’s death without any mention of what happened. The university later contacted all graduates and staff who volunteered at graduation to offer counseling services.^[5]

5 Field Trip

Field trips play a crucial role in the educational experience, offering students a unique opportunity to engage with the world outside of a traditional classroom setting. These excursions allow for hands-on learning, where students can explore, discover, and connect what they’ve learned in the classroom to real-world experiences. While these school trips offer endless opportunities for learning, one field trip in England led to a heartbreaking disaster.

On May 22, 2024, 10-year-old Leah Harrison was taking part in an outdoor education forest walk as part of a school trip at Carlton Adventure in North Yorkshire when a mudslide occurred.

Emergency services flooded the scene, with police paramedics and the Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team dispatching 30 volunteers in a desperate attempt to save Harrison. Sadly, the “happy, bubbly little girl” who dreamed of playing soccer for the Lionesses did not survive the tragic incident.

All outdoor activities in the area, which had been under a Met Office yellow weather warning for heavy rain, were temporarily suspended while the North Yorkshire Police and the Health and Safety Executive began a joint investigation into the incident.

After hearing the devastating news of Harrison’s death, the Lionesses paid tribute to the young girl on their Instagram page, stating, “To Leah, you will forever be a Lioness.” They also asked their fans to come together in the 10th minute of their game against France on May 31, 2024, in recognition of Harrison’s life and in support of her family.^[6]

4 School Concert

The Monster Concert has been a tradition at Austin High School in Austin, Texas, since 1987. The concert, which is held every October, features the school’s own various orchestras as well as orchestras from various elementary and middle schools in the area. In addition to the Halloween-themed concert, the annual community event and fundraiser also includes games, contests, food and beverages, and a haunted house.

Unfortunately, halfway through the event, on October 21, 2023, a fire started after a gas-powered generator got too close to a propane tank while it was being refueled, causing an accidental flash fire. Three people were hurt and taken to the hospital—Sam Herrera, the husband of orchestra director Ana Solis-Herrera, her son Gabriel, and Paco Guajardo, the father of two orchestra students.

Guajardo was later released from the hospital, and Solis-Herrera’s son, Gabriel, was also expected to make a full recovery. Herrera, however, suffered burns on 60% of his body, and sadly, on November 8, 2023, he died as a result of his injuries.^[]

3 Sports Practice

School sports provide students with a wide range of opportunities- physical exercise, personal growth, and learning the value of teamwork. However, beyond the physical benefits, these athletic programs also provide a sense of community and belonging among students, which also becomes an integral part of their identities. The thrill of competition and the camaraderie with their teammates often defines a student’s high school experience.

Sadly, the promising future of one high school baseball player in Gainesville, Georgia, was cut short due to a devastating accident during practice.

On November 20, 2023, Jeremy Medina, a senior at Gainesville High School who played both pitcher and catcher on the school’s baseball team, was attending a routine practice session at the school’s on-campus batting cages. However, as another player followed through on his swing, Medina leaned into the net and was struck in the head by a baseball bat.

Medina lost consciousness and was rushed to the Northeast Georgia Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage involving the left temporal lobe, a depressed skull fracture, and other trauma-related injuries. Medina remained in a coma, and on December 6, 2023, he was declared brain dead. Medina was later taken off life support and was pronounced dead on December 11, 2023.

Medina’s parents, David and Yasmira, went on to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the school system and the coaches, seeking a sum of $722,208 and a jury trial for the school officials’ negligence.

The lawsuit, which names the high school principal, assistant principal, athletic director, and multiple baseball coaches, stated that the baseball season did not officially start until January 15, 2024, but the coaches decided to call a mandatory practice. Medina’s parents described the practice as “illegal,” arguing that it violated the Georgia High School Association’s code.

Medina’s parents also claimed that no adults or school employees were present during the practice, leading to a slow response. The filing alleges that it took three minutes for an adult to arrive at the batting cages after the accident, seven minutes to call 911, and over seven minutes for the school’s athletic trainer to begin CPR. The lawsuit also claims that the athletic trainer did not have keys to access the AED, which was located in the school’s softball concession stand.^[8]

2 Back to School

Each new school year brings with it a sense of excitement and anticipation for both teachers and students alike. Teachers spend countless hours preparing their classrooms, ensuring every detail is perfect to welcome their new students. However, behind the scenes of such meticulous work lies the story of a devoted teacher whose preparations for the new school year took a tragic turn.

On September 1, 2026, 41-year-old Lynsey Haycock, a “much-loved” science and health teacher at Valley Forge High School in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, was putting up a display in her classroom in preparation for the return of her students when she fell and broke her leg. Haycock was taken to the hospital but sadly died on September 2, 2026, as a result of medical complications.^[9]

1 P.E. Class

Physical education is a cherished part of the school day for many students, offering a chance to engage in physical activity and enjoy a break from academic pressures. For those passionate about sports and fitness, P.E. class is often one of the best parts of the school day.

However, for some students, particularly those who are not as confident in their athletic abilities, P.E. can be a much more daunting and less enjoyable part of the day, filled with challenges and anxieties that overshadow the fun of physical activity. Tragically, a P.E. class that was a routine part of the school day became the setting for a gruesome freak accident.

On April 27, 2023, 16-year-old Brayden Bahme, a sophomore at Cheney High School in Cheney, Washington, was running during his 4th-period P.E. class when he fell into a goal post and was impaled through the eye.

First responders arrived at the school within one minute, and Bahme was transported to Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital but later died from his injuries.^[10]

It’s easy to look at the life of a celebrity and assume that everything is great. With all that fame and money, it should be easy to make your problems go away. But the reality is that celebrities are real people, and no amount of money can enable them to change what’s in their past. They may be on top of the world now, but for the following ten celebrities, things didn’t always look so rosy.

Top 10 Bizarre Celebrity Conspiracy Theories

10 Charlize Theron

Charlize Theron is widely regarded as one of the most talented people in Hollywood. Renowned for her ability to transform herself, Theron’s performance as Aileen Wournos earned her both an Oscar and a well-deserved place in cinematic history. But if her past had been slightly different, we may never have heard of the feisty South African we have all come to know and love.

Theron grew up on a farm with her parents, who were locked in a loveless marriage. Her father was a drunk, and although Theron says he never physically abused her, he did abuse her mother. One night, an aunt called her to warn that her father was coming home in a particularly bad mood. He soon showed up with his brother threatening to shoot Charlize and her mother. There was a lot of arguing and commotion, until he began shooting through her door into her bedroom, at which point her mother killed him with a handgun and shot his brother. Fortunately, prosecutors ruled that the mother had acted in self-defense, and Theron has gone on to achieve great things in life.^[1]

9 Pierce Brosnan

Pierce Brosnan’s hardships pretty much started at the very beginning. Born into a poor family in rural Ireland, he was swiftly abandoned by his father, who he would only go on to meet once. His mother was forced to send him to live with his grandparents while she worked as a nurse in England, then his aunt and uncle, and then onto a boarding house. His mother visited twice a year until he could move to England at age 11, at which point he became the focus of school bullies.

In 1980, Brosnan married Cassandra Harris and adopted the 3 children of her late-husband, adding one more to the mix for good measure. But in 1991, Cassandra died in his arms after a 4 year battle with ovarian cancer, which would later go on to take the life of their 41 year old daughter Charlotte in 2013. By then, he had become estranged from his son Chris, who had a major drug problem resulting in fights, thefts, and 2 drunk-driving crashes in 2 years. The crashes may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Brosnan had already narrowly avoided losing his son Sean at 13, after Sean’s cousin drunkenly drove off a 200 foot cliff.

Despite all this, Brosnan doesn’t expect any sympathy, saying that while his childhood may have been “unconventional”, it was his normal.^[2]

8 Kelsey Grammer

Kelsey Grammer’s troubles started early in life, with his parents splitting up when he was just two years old. His mother’s parents took them in, and helped raise Kelsey until he was 12, when his grandfather died of cancer. The following year, his father was murdered by a home intruder who had started a fire, all in front of his new family.

Then in 1975, Grammer’s 18 year old sister Karen was abducted, raped, and murdered by four men who left her for dead. Sadly, Karen had enough strength to make it to a nearby house, where bloody handprints revealed she was attempting to ring the door. The house was empty. Kelsey identified his sister’s body one week later. 2 years later, both of his half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident.

Shockingly, Grammer has appeared at the parole hearings of the last remaining member of the gang who killed his sister. In 2014, he spoke directly to the killer at the hearing, stating “You could not have come to a better person in the world than me to advocate for someone who has made some bad choices. I accept your apology. I forgive you. However, I cannot give your release my endorsement. To give that a blessing would be a betrayal of my sister’s life.”^[3]

7 Nicki Minaj

Love her or loathe her, there’s no denying that Niki Minaj has built a pretty successful career for herself. With triple platinum, number one albums, a litany of awards, and a net worth of over $100 million, things could certainly be worse. But according to Minaj, it’s the fact that things were worse than inspired her to work so hard.

Throughout her childhood, Minaj had to contend with her abusive, drug-addicted father, who would regularly beat her mother, punch holes in the walls, get arrested, and sell their possessions for drug money. At one point, he attempted to kill her mother by lighting the house on fire. Despite all this, the pair are still together, and dad apparently isn’t too happy when she tells that story. To this, she says “It’s the price you pay when you abuse drugs and alcohol. Maybe one day your daughter will be famous and talk to every magazine about it, so think about that, dads out there who want to be crazy.”^[4]

6 Kevin Spacey

Nothing in your past can give you licence to abuse a child, not even a history of being abused as a child. So while most of us may struggle to find any sympathy for alleged-pedophile Kevin Spacey, it is worth noting that he was apparently a victim of such abuse himself. That doesn’t excuse or justify his behavior, but it could help explain it.

According to his estranged brother Randy Fowler, Spacey’s father physically and sexually abused the boys throughout their childhood. To make matters worse, their mother apparently knew, but turned a blind eye to the whole situation. She later wrote a letter claiming that both she and the father had also been abused as children, again offering a potential psychological explanation.

But on top of the physical and sexual abuse, Spacey’s father was a white supremacist Nazi who went so far as to maintain a Hitler mustache. Interestingly, even after he himself was accused of assault, Spacey denied his brothers claims were true. Randy, meanwhile, has opted not to have children for fear of passing on the “predator gene”, a decision that is probably for the best.^[5]

Top 10 Celebrity Deaths That Never Happened

5 Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson was born in Neptune City, New Jersey, in 1937. His mother was 17 when she gave birth to him, and had been working as a showgirl when she got pregnant. Although she was married, she soon found out that her husband was already married, and was left alone with her child. There were also some doubts as to whether the real father was the married man, her stage manager, or another unknown man.

Apart from that, Nicholson had a pretty normal upbringing, one that could hardly be described as “tragic” by any stretch of the imagination. But in 1974, Nicholson’s childhood was retroactively changed forever when it was revealed that his late-sister was in fact his mother. The people who had raised him as their own were in fact his grandparents, and his other sister was his aunt. By then, his birth mother and adoptive mother had both passed.

Nicholson’s story is far from the only one of its kind, with plenty of families pulling the same trick for young, unmarried mothers. And it seems he harbors no ill-will towards those involved in the lie, stating “I’d say it was a pretty dramatic event, but it wasn’t what I’d call traumatizing… After all, by the time I found out who my mother was, I was pretty well psychologically formed. As a matter of fact, it made quite a few things clearer to me. If anything, I felt grateful.”^[6]

4 Terrence Howard

As we have seen from the other examples, the simple fact of being related to somebody makes us much more likely to let them get away with doing some pretty terrible things. Most people like to believe that there is good in those around us, even if they are flawed human beings. So when someone definitively decides to cut ties with their own flesh and blood, they usually have good reasons.

Terrence Howard suffered physical abuse not only at the hands of his father, but his mother as well. When he was two, he witnessed his father stab a man to death, for which he was convicted of manslaughter. His mother raised him until his father was released, at which point they divorced, and he was sent to live with his grandparents. At age 16, Howard had himself legally emancipated, moved to New York, and lived off welfare while he tried to make it as an actor. While that was undoubtedly one of the hardest decisions he will ever make, it seems it was the right one.^[7]

3 Jim Carrey

Carrey’s life started out pretty normal, with his accountant father providing the family with a decent middle-class life. Unfortunately, Carrey’s father lost his job, forcing the comedian to drop out of school and start working as a janitor to help support the family. Things were quite bad, with the entire family forced to live in a van at one point. Carrey even got this ridiculous notion that he could supplement his janitor’s wage by performing stand-up comedy on the side.

Obviously, things worked out for Carrey, and his comedy career took off quite quickly. But he would encounter trouble again years later, when he broke up with his girlfriend Cathriona White, who took her life just days later. A note on her iPad accused Carrey of ruining her life by introducing her to drugs, abusing her, and giving her a number of STDs.

It was soon discovered that White had married another man while dating Carrey, apparently for a green card. The husband and White’s mother then launched a wrongful death lawsuit, accusing the actor of driving White to suicide. It was later revealed that White had faked STD tests to make it look like she was clean before she met Carrey, and infected afterwards. After years of legal battles, Carrey was cleared of all charges.^[8]

2 Oprah

Oprah is probably the most famous example of a celebrity overcoming their past and achieving success. Worth anywhere between two and four billion dollars, she is one of the most recognisable and influential people in the world. This alone would be impressive enough, but the fact that she built her success on a foundation of severe abuse is what makes her such an inspiration to so many people.

For years, young Oprah was sent back and forth between her parents’ homes, moving to one of the most impoverished and dangerous Milwaukee ghettos at age 6. Her mother worked various jobs to make ends meet, and was rarely able to take care of Oprah. By age 9, a number of trusted family-friends took advantage of her mother’s absenteeism and began an extensive period of sexual abuse.

At 12, she was able to spend a few happy years living with her father, but was eventually sent back to her mother, where the abuse resumed. She also suffered a lot of physical abuse from various family members, and was once whipped by her grandmother for getting blood on her dress, which was a result of being whipped for playing with water. Eventually, she went to live with her father for good, and credits him with helping her become the woman she is today.^[9]

1 Britney Spears

Everybody knows that Britney Spears has been through some very rough times. We came perilously close to losing a generational icon, but Britney has shown there is no brink you can’t be brought back from. She got the help she needed, and has now resumed her rightful role as Queen of Pop. But while most of us will remember the drama of 2007, not everyone is familiar with her early years, which were arguably worse.

Growing up, Britney’s family was apparently so poor that her abusive, alcoholic father would apparently go out hunting for rabbit or squirrel to feed the family. While Britney denies that ever happened, the reality is they were poor. Rather than getting a job, Lynn Spears decided the best way to get rich quick was off the back of her daughter’s vocals. Unfortunately for Britney, it worked, and she became the sole breadwinner to a family of 5.

At 13, she was drinking. At 14, she was having sex, and was allowed to have boys stay over. Her mother also set her up with an 18 year old for PR purposes. At 15, she was doing drugs. Then her career skyrocketed, the meltdown happened, and she had to be placed under conservatorship. But despite the fact that her father was an abusive alcoholic who once held a reported at knifepoint for 4 hours, he was deemed a more suitable guardian than Lynn, who apparently has little contact with Britney these days.

For all her fame, money, and success, not many of us would want to trade places with Britney. But while her story may be unenviable, it is ultimately a happy one. The tale of the star who stared death in the face only to bonk him with an umbrella is one that will be told for decades to come.^[10]

Top 10 Celebrities with Strange Physical Deformities

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons database (NamUS), more than 600,000 people go missing every year in the United States alone. While the vast majority of missing persons cases are resolved quickly, such is not always the case. Sadly, the families left behind are filled with heartbreak and uncertainty and forced to endure an emotional rollercoaster as they desperately await any news or updates. Unfortunately, that also does not does not necessarily mean that families will find their loved ones alive and well.

In the instance that a loved one is found deceased, the outcome still may not bring much closure, especially when circumstances seem to defy any sort of rational logic. In some cases, the tragic fate of those who have vanished seems to elude authorities.

This list tells the stories of ten tragic incidents of missing persons where the search for truth proved much stranger than fiction. From tales of weird statues, confined spaces, and sea creatures, the cases of these vanished souls led investigators to eerie, unbelievable, and heartbreaking discoveries. Here are ten tragic missing persons cases that ended in unlikely places.

Related: 10 Missing Persons Cases Solved by YouTube Divers

10 Decorative Dinosaur Statue

On May 22, 2021, an unnamed father and son noticed a smell coming from a paper mache Stegosaurus statue in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a suburb of Barcelona, Spain. When the father looked through a crack in the dinosaur’s leg, he saw a body and contacted authorities.

Three fire brigade teams were called to the scene to help cut into the statue and remove the body. It is believed that the 39-year-old man—who was not identified—was trying to retrieve a cell phone, which he dropped inside the statue. He entered the statue head first but became trapped in the statue’s leg, unable to get out.

The man was a Spanish national whose family hadn’t heard from him for several days. Sadly, he had been reported missing just a few hours before his body was discovered. The decorative statue, used to advertise an old cinema, has since been removed from outside the city’s Cubic Building.^[1]

9 Behind Cooler in Closed Supermarket

On November 28, 2009, 25-year-old Larry Ely Murillo-Moncada became upset and ran out of his Council Bluffs, Iowa, home during a snowstorm. Despite the cold weather, Murillo-Moncada left wearing only blue jeans and a blue long-sleeved shirt, but no shoes, socks, or coat. The man’s mother, Ana Moncada, and a friend went searching for Murillo-Moncada but found no sign of him. Ana reported her son missing on November 29, 2009.

Before his disappearance, on November 27, 2009, Murillo-Moncada had returned home from work at the No Frills Supermarket and seemed disoriented, so Ana took him to see a doctor. Murillo-Moncada was prescribed an antidepressant for anxiety, but his parents believed the medication he was taking caused his irrational behavior. She said, “He was hearing voices that said ‘eat sugar.’ He felt his heart was beating too hard and thought if he ate sugar, his heart would not beat so hard.”

Sadly, it would be nearly ten years before Murillo-Moncada would be found.

On January 24, 2019, a contracting firm was removing shelving and coolers from the No Frills Supermarket, which had closed in 2016, when they discovered a body behind a cooler. They then contacted the police. The clothing on the body matched what Murillo-Moncada was wearing when he disappeared, and his parents’ DNA was later used to confirm his identity.

Investigators believe that after Murillo-Moncada ran away, he went into the storage area in the supermarket and climbed on top of one of the coolers. Former employees of the supermarket stated it was common for workers to be on top of the coolers since the space was used for storing goods. Employees would even sit on the cooling units when they wanted to take an “unofficial break.”

Unfortunately, after scaling the 12-foot (3.6-meter) cooler, it is believed that Murillo-Moncada fell into an approximately 18-inch (45-cm) gap between the cooler and the wall, leaving him trapped. Additionally, the noise from the coolers’ compressors would have muffled any sounds. An autopsy found no signs of trauma, and Murillo-Moncada’s death was deemed accidental.^[2]

8 Inside a School Shark

Just before midnight on February 18, 2023, 32-year-old Diego Barría was riding his ATV home in the Patagonian province of Chubut, Argentina. However, Barría stopped to greet some fishing friends and texted his partner, Virginia Brugger, to let her know he would be home later than expected. Unfortunately, Barría never returned home and was not responding to text messages or phone calls. On February 20, 2023, his family reported him missing.

As agents began to search the area on February 20, 2023, they discovered Barría’s damaged all-terrain vehicle, along with his cracked helmet, on a beach near Rocas Colorados. Sadly, there was still no sign of Barría. (Link 12)

On February 26, 2023, two fishermen went to the coastguard to report that they had caught three school sharks—also known as tope or soupfin sharks—near the beach where Barría’s ATV was located. Sadly, “when they were cleaning them, they found human remains in one of them.” Barría’s family identified him based on a tattoo visible in the fishermen’s findings.

Officials stated they would continue to investigate what happened to Barría. However, given that there had been a strong tidal surge the weekend Barría disappeared, police suspect that Barría had an accident in which he collided with a rock while driving his ATV, and then his body was washed out to sea.^[3]

7 Hotel Pool Pipe

Jose Daniela Jaico Ahumada rented a room at the Doubletree by Hilton Houston Brookhollow Hotel in Houston, Texas, so that her family could enjoy a day of swimming, an activity that her daughter—eight-year-old Aliyah Jaico—loved. Unfortunately, what should have been a day of fun turned into a missing persons case with an even more tragic ending.

On March 23, 2024, Aliyah was enjoying the “lazy river style” pool of the hotel with her family. Ahumada stepped away for a brief moment, and just before 5 pm, Aliyah “disappeared in a split second” in the lazy river. Ahumada frantically searched for Aliyah for approximately one hour, even asking hotel staff to look at the CCTV footage. However, Ahumada claimed that the hotel management “denied her request and explained that police would have to be present to view the video surveillance.” Around 5:45 pm, Ahumada then contacted police to report Aliyah missing.

Once police arrived, investigators reviewed security video showing Aliyah had gone underwater but never resurfaced. The search crew drained the pool, and Texas EquuSearch was called in to inspect the pool’s pipes. At 11:30 pm, Aliyah’s body was found 20 feet (6 meters) inside the piping, and it took crews approximately 13 hours to recover her body. Aliyah was pronounced dead at the scene as a result of drowning and mechanical asphyxia.

An inspection by the City of Houston’s Health Department revealed that the “Operator failed to obtain a pre-opening inspection prior to placing the pool in operation after a remodel.” While it was not certain when the remodel occurred, the new piping appeared to be malfunctioning, and rather than pushing water out, it was pulling water in. The pool was also not in compliance with federal laws meant to protect drain entrapment and child drowning, along with multiple other violations.

Ahumada has since filed a lawsuit against Doubletree’s parent company, Hilton, and the local operator of the hotel, Unique Crowne Hospitality, for $1 million.^[4]

6 Laundry Cart

On January 18, 2023, 21-year-old Rosa Chacon left her home in Little Village—a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois—and got into an Uber. Chacon left without her coat or ID, and the only thing she said to her mother was, “I’ll be back, Mom. I got the Uber ride there and the Uber ride back.” However, Chacon never returned home.

Chacon was reported missing, and on January 23, 2023, the Chicago Police Department issued a missing person bulletin to the media. Chacon’s mother stated that Uber refused to give her any information about who ordered the ride for Chacon or her destination. She also claimed that authorities did little to assist in their search, so after months of searching on their own and handing out flyers, Chacon’s family hired a private investigator.

Sadly, around 10:45 am on March 15, 2023, Chacon’s body was found in a laundry cart, just 2 miles (3.2 km) from her home. Unfortunately, the medical examiner’s office has been unable to determine the cause of Chacon’s death. To date, the case remains unsolved.^[5]

5 Department Store Bathroom

Sixty-three-year-old Bessie Durham of Columbia, South Carolina, worked for KBS, a company contracted to clean the Columbiana Mall. Durham clocked in for work at 7 am on the morning of September 15, 2022, and went into a family bathroom of the Belk department store in the mall. However, Durham never clocked out from work that day.

After not hearing from Durham for four days, her family reported her missing. Columbia Police called the store in hopes of locating Durham, but sadly, on September 19, 2022, Durham’s body was found by store employees locked inside the bathroom she went in to clean. An autopsy later revealed that Durham died from a cardiac event.

On September 19, 2023, one year after Durham’s tragic death, her family filed a lawsuit against the Belk chain for negligence, as well as the contractor Durham worked for. Durham’s family questioned why none of the store employees thought it suspicious that Durham’s cleaning cart remained outside the restroom for four days, given that the store was open for regular hours the entire time. They also claimed that a store policy—which was enacted earlier in 2022 due to a mall shooter—required that the restroom door be locked, which “further exacerbated the problem.”^[6]

4 Community College Ventilation System

On October 25, 2023, 36-year-old Jason Anthony Thompson of Clinton Township, Michigan, told his family and his girlfriend that he was running from the police. In an attempt to evade arrest, he was hiding on the roof of a building at Macomb Community College. Unfortunately, the text messages from Thompson to his family stopped, and on November 1, 2023, he was reported missing.

On November 7, 2023, Sterling Heights police asked the Macomb College police to check the performing arts center’s roof to see if anyone had entered the ventilation system, but there was no evidence of access or anyone on the roof. Sterling Heights police reached out to college police again on November 17, 2023, asking them to review video footage of the area around the facility. Unfortunately, that area had no camera coverage.

It wasn’t until November 26, 2023, over a month after Thompson’s disappearance, that police were called to look for “the source of a foul odor” coming from part of the campus building. Hours later, it was determined that the odor was coming from a mechanical room not available for public access. Using X-ray equipment and a small camera, the Michigan State Police Bomb Squad was able to determine that there was an inverted body in the vent, which was later confirmed to be Thompson.

It is believed that after entering from the roof, Thompson traveled through the ductwork, essentially burrowing deeper into the HVAC system. However, as he came to a downward vertical duct, he entered head first and became stuck in a narrowed section. Thompson’s cause of death was deemed to be accidental asphyxia/entrapment/environmental suffocation.

Although Thompson was indeed a fugitive and had five warrants for his arrest, authorities later stated there was no evidence he was being actively pursued.^[7]

3 Truck Bed Toolbox

Forty-nine-year-old Jannell Martensen of Spokane, Washington, struggled with drug addiction and had been in an on-and-off relationship with 37-year-old Colton Russell. Sadly, the relationship was riddled with violence. In one particular incident in 2021, Russell drove Martensen to a rural area, severely beat her, and simply left her there. Thankfully, a stranger found Martensen and took her home.

In June 2023, the couple called it quits. Martensen moved in with a friend, and Russell found a new girlfriend—23-year-old Kiara Morgan-Weiland. Despite the tumultuous relationship and Russell’s seemingly moving on, Martensen didn’t stay away from Russell.

On November 18, 2023, Martensen left to go camping with Russell and Morgan-Weiland. In the early morning hours of November 19, 2023, Martensen texted her cousin, Alisha Galbreath, and several other friends with messages such as “Please come get me I’m scared to death” and “I’m afraid he’s going to kill me please.” Unfortunately, because Martensen had made similar calls in the past but then refused to leave Russell, no one went to get her.

When Martensen failed to show up for Thanksgiving with her children and grandchildren and stopped answering her phone, Gilbreath reported her missing. In the following days, Martensen’s friends questioned Russell regarding her disappearance, but he frequently changed his story, claiming to have last seen her with several different people. Russell and Morgan-Weiland became suspects in Martensen’s disappearance, but before either Russell or Morgan-Weiland could be questioned, they were found dead on December 8, 2023.

On December 9, 2023, authorities searched Russell’s house and found blood splatter on the living room walls, a bloody sponge in the garbage, and large sections of carpet that had possible traces of blood. Detectives also discovered that Morgan-Weiland had been performing searches on YouTube, which included “serial killer couples” and “how to dispose of dead bodies.”

On December 14, 2023, detectives seized Russell’s truck and a truck bed toolbox, which had been abandoned on a residential property because it allegedly broke down. Sadly, Martensen’s body was discovered inside of the toolbox. Her cause of death was later revealed to be due to blunt force injuries.

On December 16, 2023, the couple’s friend, Brandon Kenny, admitted to shooting Russell and stabbing Morgan-Weiland 51 times. Kenny stated that Russell admitted to “accidentally killing” Martensen but then put a gun in Kelly’s mouth and told him he “had to move her body” or he would be killed too.

Kenny claimed he “needed to kill” Morgan-Weiland because “she was the only other person who knew anything about the situation.” Kenny has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.^[8]

2 Asian Restaurant

Twenty-nine-year-old Mingming Chen and her husband, 34-year-old Liang Zhao, had a daughter named Ashley Zhao. However, rather than raising the child together, Zhao’s mother cared for Ashley until she turned four so he could focus on his business—Ang’s Asian Cuisine in North Canton, Ohio. Unfortunately, after the couple began caring for Ashley, Chen became frustrated with how disobedient her daughter had become.

On January 9, 2017, Chen became angry with five-year-old Ashley after she had an accident, striking her on the head several times. Zhao tried to revive Ashley, but instead of calling for help, the couple drove to their restaurant and hid Ashley in a salt container in the restaurant’s freezer.

Twelve hours later, Zhao called the police and claimed that Ashley was missing. Chen and Zhao told police that they last saw Ashley sleeping in a makeshift bed near the restaurant’s back door, leading investigators to believe the little girl had wandered off. After a frantic daylong search, Ashley was found in the family’s restaurant on January 10, 2017.

On January 11, 2017, Chen was charged with first-degree murder and felonious assault. Zhao was charged with complicity to commit murder and complicity to commit felonious assault. In January 2018, Chen was sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges through a plea agreement. Chen, who was in the U.S. illegally, will also be deported to China after serving her sentence. Zhao was sentenced to 12 years for obstructing justice and corpse abuse.^[9]

1 Convention Center Walls

On the evening of August 22, 2020, 40-year-old Joseph Edward Mejica disappeared in Oakland, California. He was later reported missing by his mother, the last person believed to see him alive. Mejica was homeless at the time of his disappearance and was “known to frequent unsheltered encampments.” His family also offered a $5,000 reward for any information about his location.

Unfortunately, Mejica was not found until March 9, 2022, when a construction worker was tearing out a wall inside the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, which had been closed since 2005. While investigators were not able to immediately identify Mejica, the coroner matched a serial number on a tubular implant in Mejica’s leg to records at Highland Hospital, where he’d had surgery nearly two decades prior. From there, officials were able to confirm his DNA.

His mother said that “Mejica would often try to steal copper wiring from construction sites for money.” Therefore, authorities believe that Mejica may have fallen from the roof area above, and over time, his body slipped toward the bottom of the cavity space. His death was believed to be accidental.^[10]

Modern stadiums are the Coliseums of our time and have been witness to some of the greatest athletic and sports achievements. They have also, however, seen numerous tragedies within their walls and undoubtedly have the many ghosts of those tragedies interwoven into the framework of their structures. Here are just 10 of them.

10 Roof Collapse At Stanford-Cal ‘Big Game’
San Francisco Field, 1900

The (American) football game between Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley on Thanksgiving Day 1900, the 10th contest between the two colleges, was much anticipated, as it always was. This time, it was being referred to as the “Big Game.” Stanford’s stadium in San Francisco’s Mission District was little more than a field, with no adequate stands for the many fans who would attend. Makeshift stands were hastily built in the days leading up to the contest.

Fans who weren’t willing to pay the $1 charge to sit in the grounds perched themselves anywhere they could to get a view of the action. One of these places was atop the Pacific Glass Works building opposite the field, a vantage point which offered an unobstructed view of the game. People were hired to keep fans off the roof of the plant, which was not built to withstand any weight at all. However, it was rumored that they accepted “fees” in exchange for entry onto the roof. (They probably couldn’t have stopped the onslaught of fans, anyway.)

It was estimated that 400 people were on the structure when it finally did collapse around 20 minutes after the game commenced. Inside the building below were 15 tons of molten glass and a furnace with a surface temperature of almost 500 degrees. A workman inside told reporters that he saw a young man fall and hit the furnace, and the heat made him “curl up like a worm.”

The accident claimed 22 lives, and almost 100 more suffered serious injury. It was the worst sporting disaster in US history. San Francisco Field is no longer there, and there is no monument to mark the disaster. A university building now stands on the site of the tragedy.

9 Ibrox Stadium Disasters
Glasgow, 1902 & 1971

All stadiums will have a ghost or two roaming their stands, but the Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow must have more than its fair share, having been witness to two major disasters during the 20th century.

On April 5, 1902, during a football game between England and Scotland, a stand collapsed under the weight of the fans, killing 25 people and injuring over 500. It had rained heavily the night before the game, and the newly built wooden stand was weakened considerably. The incident took place five minutes into the second half of the contest. The game itself was continued to the end for fear that stopping and canceling the match would lead to a mass exit by the fans, potentially causing further injury or worse. The incident is regarded as the first disaster of its kind in British football.

Almost 70 years later in 1971, another major incident occurred when 66 fans were crushed to death on Stairway 13 as they exited the stadium. It appeared that a young child fell, which instantly caused a pileup on the stairway. More than 200 people were also injured. To make matters worse, two people died the same way on the same stairway in 1961. Despite continuing concerns being raised, they were not addressed until the tragedy in 1971.

8 Corralejas Bullring Stadium Collapse
Columbia, 1980

When the hastily prepared three tier-stands at the Corralejas bullring in Columbia collapsed on January 20, 1980, the tragic loss of life was enough to halt the traditional festivities for two decades.

The makeshift stands were erected in the immediate lead-in to the festival each year and then taken down again afterward. Heavy rain had battered the area, and during the bullfighting that afternoon, a sudden thunderstorm hit the area. People in the stands quickly rushed to escape the rain. With the ground underneath already reduced to a mud bath, the stand gave way.

Some people leaped from the stands in an effort to save themselves, while others ran in any direction they could, including the bull ring itself, which contained four large and angry bulls. Many people, including young children, were trampled to death in the panic. In total, 222 people lost their lives, with hundreds more injured.

Around 40,000 people were in the stadium or at nearby concession stands when the disaster occurred. The aftermath was complete carnage. One witness described seeing “blood everywhere” and corpses left where they had fallen.

7 Incidents At Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium

Although there haven’t been any mass disasters at the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, two strange incidents, one of them fatal, occurred within 10 years of each other.

On May 2, 1964, just before a baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cleveland Indians, the worst disaster in the stadium’s storied history unfolded. May 2 was Safety Patrol Day, and 20,000 free tickets had been given out to children as a reward for a year of hard work helping their classmates get to and from school safely.

As the national anthem was being sung, eager and excited young fans were crowding onto the escalator between the lower and upper decks, up to four people on a single step, in an effort to get to their seats. The gate at the top, however, only allowed one person to exit onto the concourse at a time. A bottleneck quickly formed, a mass of bodies piled up, and the children fell back onto each other—while the stairs continued to move underneath them.

By the time anyone knew that something was drastically wrong, a young girl had lost her life, and 46 others were seriously injured. An onlooker stated, “It looked like someone had gone through here with a hatchet.”

On December 19, 1976, only minutes after a football game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Colts had ended, a small plane crash-landed in the upper tier of the stadium. Miraculously, no one was killed, but the scene sent shivers down people’s spines. Had there been any kind of delay in finishing the game, chances are that the death toll would have been in the triple digits. The pilot, 33-year-old Donald Kroner, was arrested and charged with violating air safety laws as well as destruction of property.

6 Hillsborough Stadium Disaster
Sheffield, England, 1989

April 15, 1989, was undoubtedly the darkest day for English football and a low point for the game in general. At Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, (home to the Sheffield Wednesday Football Club), 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup semifinal game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. The tragedy occurred at the Leppings Lane end of the stadium as too many fans crammed onto the terrace. It all happened live on national television.

Since the 1970s, a dark element had crept into the game, namely violence. As one decade gave way to another, this explosive ingredient was becoming increasingly widespread, at least on the terraces. Consequently, crowd control in the 1980s was primarily geared toward halting hooligans.

As a consequence of this, fans were segregated, sometimes by high fencing that resembled cages. This was hardly an image that was beneficial for the sport. In fact, English clubs were eventually banned from playing in Europe, such was the severity of the violence that sometimes followed soccer matches involving teams from the English leagues.

While there was no evidence of “crowd trouble” that Saturday afternoon in April 1989, the caging around the terraces was the reason that fans couldn’t simply spill over onto the field to safety. In the aftermath and the subsequent investigations and inquiries over the years since the tragedy, the South Yorkshire Police have come under much criticism. Accusations have ranged from their priorities that day seemingly being geared more toward traffic flow around the stadium (as opposed to crowd control) to actual covering up of evidence.

5 Estadio Nacional Disaster
Peru, 1964

What was regarded at the time as the worst disaster in Association Football history began on May 24, 1964, when the referee disallowed what would have been an equalizing goal for the home team. Argentina was leading Peru 1–0 with a little over five minutes remaining when the call was made. The fans reacted angrily to the decision, and by the time the ensuing riot was over, 263 people had lost their lives. A week of national mourning was declared by the government, with Lima being described as a “disaster region.”

Many fans were crushed in the mayhem as they tried to flee the stadium while those intent on getting to the referee surged onto the field. Terraces were set on fire, and the whole stadium was awash with tear gas deployed by the police in an effort to calm things—which in reality, only added to the overall confusion and panic. Police on horseback soon entered the stadium in an effort to restore order. The field itself resembled a war zone. Some of the rioters took the violence to businesses and private homes in the immediate vicinity of the ground. Many buildings suffered serious damage.

Needless to say, the match itself was abandoned.

4 Bradford City Fire
Valley Parade, England, 1985

On the afternoon of May 11, 1985, the football ground in Valley Parade, Bradford, witnessed the horrific deaths of 56 people, as well as a further 265 injured. The afternoon had begun as a celebration for the Bradford City Football Club and their fans, who saw the team presented with their first trophy in over 50 years. Before the end of the first half of their showdown with Lincoln City, however, the main stand had become a blazing inferno.

The stand, which had not been upgraded from its original wooden structure, was the victim of a lone cigarette butt discarded by a fan in the crowd. The fire engulfed the entire stand with alarming alacrity. Fire services arrived only four minutes after the fire began, but by then, the stand had been completely obliterated.

Fans ran onto the field in a panic, some in flames, which resulted in people being trampled. Dead bodies were found on the field and at the back of the stands near the turnstiles. An elderly couple was also discovered dead in their seats after the fire was put out.

3 ‘Black Saturday’
Philadelphia, 1903

When it opened in 1887, the Philadelphia Base Ball Park (commonly called the “Baker Bowl”) was considered to be the cutting edge of ballpark design. Brickwork had been used throughout instead of wood (although wood was still very much part of its structure), and the stands themselves seated thousands of people. The home of the Philadelphia Phillies was essentially the first “modern” baseball stadium.

Prior to a game against the Baltimore Orioles on August 6, 1894, a fire in the stands burned the modern wonder to the ground. Although there were no deaths and only minor injuries, it was a precursor to the tragedy that awaited it nine years later. The stadium was rebuilt, this time entirely of concrete and steel, and opened again in 1895.

On August 8, 1903, with the stadium now officially called the National League Park, the Phillies were preparing to face off against the Boston Beaneaters. Just before 6:00 PM that evening, a bizarre incident resulted in 12 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Two men who were more than a little under the influence, were walking past the stadium and enduring insults and taunts from a group of teenagers who were following them. As they walked past the children, one of the men suddenly reached out in retaliation and grabbed one of the teenage girls by her hair, stumbling as he did so and falling on top of her.

The commotion hadn’t gone unnoticed by those in the stadium, especially given the shouts of help from the children below. A crowd began to gather on a balcony overhead, which wasn’t designed to hold that amount of people. It was only supposed to be used as a way into and out of the stand.

It was estimated that around 300 people were standing on the balcony when it came crashing to the ground. Hundreds of people were piled up to four-deep on the ground below. People from the stand kept pushing toward the balcony to see what was happening, and more fell. By the time some kind of order had been restored, 12 people were dead and over 200 were seriously injured.

2 Deaths And Cover-Up At Luzhniki Stadium
Moscow, 1982

Although the official death toll was put at 66, numerous investigations as well as eyewitness accounts into the disaster at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow put the total more in line with over 350, which would make it the worst disaster ever witnessed at a football association game.

On October 20, 1982, Spartak, the Russian team, was battling it out with Haarlem, the Dutch team, to earn the right to progress to the final 16 in that year’s UEFA championship. Spartak was down 1–0 late in the game, and due to the severe Russian winter conditions, many fans decided to leave the contest early to get a head start on their journey home.

However, when the Russian side pulled level with a late goal, many of the eager fans turned to head back into the stadium. The dark tunnels and steps of the grounds were iced over, which made footing difficult. When the fans going back into the stadium met the fans coming out, a problem soon developed. Many people were crushed underfoot, as the militia on guard at the game refused to open side entrances.

Once it became apparent that something had gone terribly wrong, the authorities appeared to “usher” the foreign fans away, opening up alternative exits for them. This was something that the powers that be wanted to keep very much behind their side of the Iron Curtain. The cover-up became more apparent when the Vechernaya Moskva (Moscow Evening Paper) made only this most basic mention of the events: “An incident occurred yesterday at Luzhniki. After the football match, some spectators were injured.”

Perhaps even more worrying is the fact that the dead were said to have been buried in a mass grave. Their relatives were given less than an hour to pay their last respects before they were told they were not to talk of the incident, “especially to foreigners.” If they did so, they could face a lengthy jail sentence.

Only when communism fell in the early 1990s did the pieces of the story begin to be put together of that fateful evening in icy-cold Moscow.

1 2022 World Cup Stadium Deaths
Qatar

If reports are to be believed, the stadiums that will host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are already haunted by the alleged 1,200 workers who have died while building them. If this figure is indeed accurate, it is a cause for concern for FIFA and many activists worldwide, who fear that workers are not only being exploited, but are working in unsafe conditions, to say the least.

While there have always been deaths while building stadiums or any colossal building, most projects suffer one or maybe two deaths at most. To have a death total in excess of 1,000 six years before the event kicks off is unprecedented. In addition to the stadiums themselves, the construction of amenities and transport links to them has also caused workers to meet untimely ends.

In a World Cup already marred with controversy amid corruption scandals and allegations of vote rigging, it’s hardly the image that Qatar or FIFA would like to project.

Marcus Lowth—writer at Me Time For The Mind, which you can also find on Facebook.

No one enjoys commercials interrupting their program, especially when you see the same one repeat over and over again. It is always the same product or service as if you forgot, pitched to you by the same faces: Think of Flo from Progressive. Then overnight, these familiar women or men disappear from the screen. Though alleviating, you question their whereabouts considering you’ve only seen them a billion times in the past year. The following ten are spokesmen you may recognize with quite the colorful background or rap sheet.

10 Childhood Icons That Are Far From Innocent

10 “Trivago Guy”

The “Trivago Guy” who lends hotel advice to weary travelers displays a demeanor as a friendly, approachable, everyday Joe and frankly, he very well may be. One notable aspect from the commercials, however, is Tim Williams’ signature disheveled, rough-and-tumble appearance. A laid back, non-caring look as if he just rolled out of bed after a rough night in Vegas. Ironically, Williams may not be acting at all. In April 2019, the pitchman was found by Houston police passed out behind the wheel of a car in the middle of traffic. Now that is how to party! Following a field sobriety test, Williams was charged with misdemeanor DUI with bail set at $100. Being fortunate to maintain his job, Williams cleaned up his image for future commercial appearances looking more polished, yet not letting go of his signature facial stubble.^[1]

9 Mike Lindell’s “MyPillow”

Before Mike Lindell became a multimillionaire, he spent his life broke due to failed business ventures, all the while battling a serious cocaine addiction. In 2004, the idea for MyPillow came to him “in a dream.” In the moments that he wasn’t dedicating his time creating the perfect pillow, Lindell took up crack cocaine as his favorite pastime. This “hard-core addiction”, as he put it, led to the loss of his house and his wife divorcing him. At times he would be awake for a full two weeks smoking crack. Nevertheless, he continued working on the project simply because he believed the idea was a message from God. On the evening of January 16, 2009, Lindell prayed, “God, I want to wake up in the morning and never have that desire again.” As luck or faith would have it, he did just that and his journey on the road to sobriety began. By 2011, MyPillow was finally getting media attention and by the end of the year, he went from having 5 employees to 500. As of today, he has 1,500 employees, sold 30 million pillows and current revenue of $300 million a year.^[2]

8 “Allstate” Dean Winters

With an impressive resume with credits such as John Wick and 30 Rock, you can easily recognize Dean Winters as the crazed pitchman in Allstate insurance commercials. His life behind the camera, however, nearly came to an end in 2009, when his heart stopped beating en route to the hospital. The Allstate spokesman whose character causes mayhem wherever he goes contracted a bacterial infection subsequently causing cardiac arrest due to septic shock. After flat- lining for “around four-and-a-half minutes,” doctors at Lenox Hill hospital in New York miraculously “brought him back to life.” After three weeks in the ICU, Winters was discharged only to develop gangrene soon after. Over the next year, he underwent multiple skin grafts, 10 operations and had to have half of a thumb and two toes amputated. As one can imagine, it wasn’t his best year, perhaps even worse than 2020 – for him. Today the actor has fully recovered and has found a new appreciation for life with a career that has yet to slow down.^[3]

7 “Billy Mays Here!”

Billy Mays was a superstar in the infomercial world, pitching items such as OxiClean. The energy he expelled to audiences was exuberant enough to keep ones attention in the wee hours of the morning. Sadly, the liveliness he exemplified burnt out at age 50 on June 28, 2009 with questions still remaining as to why. Many speculate that it was the result of a head injury he sustained as a passenger on a US Airways flight the day prior to his death. According to reports, the plane hit the runway extremely hard upon landing resulting in one of the tires to blow out. The force of the impact caused baggage and other items from the overhead compartment to fly out, some striking Mays in the head. Following the incident, Mays recounted the events to a local TV reporter describing his injury jokingly stating, “I got a hard head.” That evening, he told his family that he wasn’t feeling well and retired to his bedroom. Mays was found dead in his bed the next morning. Although rumors continue to circulate as to the exact cause of death, what is known is that he had heart disease as well as a history of cocaine use. Whether or not these two contributed to his untimely demise, you be the Judge.^[4]

6 “Sham Wow Guy”

Vince Offer, known as the spiky-haired “Sham Wow Guy” was known for his “schticky” jokes and sexual innuendos. With tremendous success, however, came a life of nonstop partying to the extent that would make Charlie Sheen proud. All of the exuberance would come to a sudden halt in 2009 after a 12-hour drinking binge with a prostitute. At some point in the evening, the lovely couple got into a fight leading to the woman biting Offer’s tongue, refusing to let go. Eventually, he was freed from the grips of her teeth only after plummeting her in the face with his fists as if he was channeling Mike Tyson. The romantic evening came to an end in the back of a police car with both parties being charged for aggravated battery. Surprisingly, Offer had a comeback four years after his infamous sex scandal slugfest. Determined to clean up his act, he began pitching a new product: a six-in-one kitchen cleaner named the “InVinceable.” These days, Offer is remaking himself and cutting back to only an “occasional glass of wine.”^[5]

10 Pop Culture And Historical Events That Started Off As Jokes

5 The Heart Attack Grill

They say any publicity is good publicity, but what about when someone dies in your establishment? That is what happened at The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas when 52-year-old John Alleman, spokesman for the restaurant, dropped dead of a heart attack. The Heart Attack Grill (HAG) is famous for serving unhealthy dishes such as its “Quadruple Bypass Burger” and “Flatliner Fries” served to you by staff dressed in nurse’s and doctor’s uniforms. Alleman was a fixture at the HAG with his face on menus, appearing in commercials and even receiving his own “Patient John” clothing line. Interestingly enough, Alleman’s death comes one year after another patron died while eating the 6,000-calorie “Triple Bypass Burger.” As he clenched his chest gasping for air, patrons believed it was a publicity stunt. Like many people these days, they stood around with their cell phones filming him take his last breath. If that weren’t enough, a woman suffered a similar incident two months later while eating a “Double Bypass Burger.” The first HAG opened in Chandler, Arizona in 2008 but closed its doors in 2011 after the death of its 29-year-old 575-pound spokesman Blair River. In closing, if you’re ever in Vegas and you want to gamble with your arteries instead of money, HAG is the place to be. Oh yea, and if you weigh over 350 pounds, your meal is free!^[6]

4 Redenbacher

Popcorn icon Orville Redenbacher, known for his Red Bow tie and cheerful commercials, had his first buttery taste of success in 1971. That year, Chicago’s department store, Marshall Fields became the only retailer carrying his product. Soon after, Redenbacher’s gourmet popcorn and wholesome image were seen in stores throughout the country. For a gentle and genuine man reminiscent of a grandfather, Redenbacher met an unflattering end in the Jacuzzi of his condominium. When his lifeless body was discovered floating in 1995 medical examiners were bewildered, questioning if there was foul play. Then again, he was 88-years-old and upon autopsy, it was reported that he had a heart attack and subsequently drowned. Today, Redenbacher remains the leading brand among microwave popcorns.^[7]

3 Colonel Sanders

Colonel Sanders, one of the most iconic figures in franchise history had quite an interesting life before his success with KFC. In 1932, Sanders was operating a service station across the street from another. To promote his business, Sanders painted advertisements on overpasses and on the side of barns. This advertising strategy angered Matt Stewart, the owner of the other service station, leading him to paint over Sanders’ signage. When Sanders became aware of this, he and two of his employees confronted Stewart. Moments later a gunfight ensued leading to the death of one of Sanders’ men who had been shot through the heart. Sanders immediately returned fire wounding Stewart bringing an end to the carnage. Sanders and his surviving employee were cleared by authorities while Stewart on the other hand was convicted but appealed. Nevertheless, Stewart would ultimately be shot and killed in another altercation a few years later. Upon hearing the news of his death, the kind-hearted Colonel offered Stewarts daughter, Ona Mae, his sincere condolences as well as financial support. Ironically, the two would become dear friends for the remainder of his life. In addition, Ona Mae went on to manage Sanders’ Café in 1940 and became a partner in the KFC franchise.^[8

2 Judith Barsi

Her name may not come to mind, but Judith Barsi had an impressive list of credits in the short years she was alive. Appearing in several films including, Jaws: The Revenge, the majority of Bari’s work was in over 50 commercials throughout the 1980s. The little starlet was on the rise when her life was violently taken by the hand of her own father, József Barsi. On July 25, 1988, 10-year-old Judith was asleep in her bed when József, in an alcohol-induced rage, shot her in the head. He then murdered his wife, Maria Virovacz, in the hallway of the home. József spent the next two days in the house before pouring gasoline on their bodies, setting them ablaze and ultimately shooting himself in the head. Though it’s been three decades, the current owners of the home believe Judiths presence remains. Soon after the Bernal family moved in, they began feeling a constant dark presence and noticed cold spots for no explicable reason. In addition, the Bernal’s daughter, Gaby, began suffering horrific nightmares while sleeping in the same bedroom where Judith was murdered. The garage door would open and close by itself at all hours of the day and footsteps would roam the halls at night. Whether or not you’re a skeptic in the paranormal, the Bernal family undoubtedly believes the little pitchgirls spirit walks the halls of the house, unable to let go of the past.^[9]

1 Jared From Subway

Let’s not pretend that we didn’t see this infamous pervert making the list. Jared Fogle, the onetime sole spokesman for Subway and a sex-crazed 38-year-old whose true appetite was not footlong subs but minors. Following a raid at his home in 2015, the FBI recovered around 400 child pornography videos that included children as young as 6. Following a lengthy interrogation, Fogle admitted to traveling across state lines to pay minors for sex. In addition, he would often pay underage prostitutes to find kids for him. Before his sentencing, Fogle stated to the court that “he will learn from his recent experience and won’t commit these crimes again.” In the end, the former mascot of Subway was ordered to pay $1.4 million in total restitution to 14 victims and sentenced to 15 years in prison.^[10]

10 Iconic Mascots And Their Surprising Backstories