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Pictured above is Annie Laurie Hearin, who was 72 years old when she was abducted on July 26, 1988.

Annie was well known within the community of Jackson, where she and her wealthy husband Robert Hearin lived, and she hosted a meeting for her bridge club at her home every other week. On this particular day in 1988, it is believed that the meeting commenced at 10:15 am, and the last guest left at approximately 2:30 pm. The Hearins’ housekeeper then allegedly left the house at around 3:00 pm, leaving Annie alone in the house. Robert returned home at approximately 4:30 pm, and saw his wife’s car on the driveway, however when it became apparent that Annie was not at home, he began to worry. After allowing some time to pass to see if Annie had possibly left the house with her friends from the meeting, Robert called the police just before 10 pm, as his wife did not return home.

The authorities arrived and found drops of blood, that were determined to match the blood type of Annie, near the front door into the house, along with a ransom note that told Robert not to call the police. Also on the ransom note was the demand for Robert to pay ‘damages’ to 12 businessmen who were all in some way connected to Robert’s company - one of these businessmen was called Newton Alfred Winn. 

The media held off for 24 hours after the initial disappearance, however Robert  soon issued a plea for the safe return of his wife. Annie was frail and was required to take medication daily.

Several days after his appeal, Robert received a note in the mail. The handwriting was familiar to him - the note had been written by Annie, and it read;

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

Robert mailed almost 1 million dollars to the 12 businessmen listed on the original ransom note, however the abductor(s) never contacted Robert again and Annie was never released or heard from again. The aforementioned Newton Alfred Winn was arrested and convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, extortion, and perjury in 1990, however he continued to maintain his innocence, and was released from prison in 2006. Nobody has ever been formally charged with the kidnapping of Annie.

Sadly, Robert Hearin passed away in 1990 without ever knowing what happened to his wife. Annie Laurie Hearin was declared legally dead in 1991.

[strangerbesideme]

Pictured above is Annie Laurie Hearin, who was 72 years old when she was abducted on July 26, 1988.

Annie was well known within the community of Jackson, where she and her wealthy husband Robert Hearin lived, and she hosted a meeting for her bridge club at her home every other week. On this particular day in 1988, it is believed that the meeting commenced at 10:15 am, and the last guest left at approximately 2:30 pm. The Hearins’ housekeeper then allegedly left the house at around 3:00 pm, leaving Annie alone in the house. Robert returned home at approximately 4:30 pm, and saw his wife’s car on the driveway, however when it became apparent that Annie was not at home, he began to worry. After allowing some time to pass to see if Annie had possibly left the house with her friends from the meeting, Robert called the police just before 10 pm, as his wife did not return home.

The authorities arrived and found drops of blood, that were determined to match the blood type of Annie, near the front door into the house, along with a ransom note that told Robert not to call the police. Also on the ransom note was the demand for Robert to pay ‘damages’ to 12 businessmen who were all in some way connected to Robert’s company - one of these businessmen was called Newton Alfred Winn. 

The media held off for 24 hours after the initial disappearance, however Robert  soon issued a plea for the safe return of his wife. Annie was frail and was required to take medication daily.

Several days after his appeal, Robert received a note in the mail. The handwriting was familiar to him - the note had been written by Annie, and it read;

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

Robert mailed almost 1 million dollars to the 12 businessmen listed on the original ransom note, however the abductor(s) never contacted Robert again and Annie was never released or heard from again. The aforementioned Newton Alfred Winn was arrested and convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, extortion, and perjury in 1990, however he continued to maintain his innocence, and was released from prison in 2006. Nobody has ever been formally charged with the kidnapping of Annie.

Sadly, Robert Hearin passed away in 1990 without ever knowing what happened to his wife. Annie Laurie Hearin was declared legally dead in 1991.

[strangerbesideme]

A couple rarely seen photographs of Albert Fish.

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Gypsy just looks so much healthier and happier!

Gypsy Blanchard in an interview with Dr. Phil

Gypsy Rose Blanchard was sentenced to ten years of prison in July 2016, after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. Gypsy was 24 years old when she and her then boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn (26), planned to kill her mother, Clauddine Blanchard (48). Nicholas stabbed Clauddine to death on the 14th of June 2015.

Clauddine had been abusing Gypsy for her whole life by pretending she was ill and had various disabilities (Munchausen by Proxy). Gypsy had to endure a lot of abuse such as being forced to sit in a wheelchair, getting an unnecessary and painful feeding tube, having to take lots of unneeded prescription medications - some of which made her teeth rot, getting her head shaved and so on. Clauddine tried to get sympathy by exploiting Gypsy, but she was also doing it for donations and free trips.

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The last image of Andrew McAuley, an avid sea kayaker who remains missing at sea. In January of 2007, Andrew attempted to cross the Tasman Sea in a one man kayak. The following month, his partially capsized kayak was found 56km short of his destination at Milford Sound. A tape was recovered from his kayak in which he says he has “bitten off more than I can chew.” The video was played at his memorial.

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Ben McDaniel’s parents believe two things: That their 30-year-old son dived into an underwater cave in Vortex Springs in Florida on the 18th of August, 2010. And that he is dead. What happened in between those two events has completely turned their life upside down.

Ben was an avid diver; his parents lived just a short distance from Vortex Springs and he was there weekly. While he frequented the spring, he never received sufficient training and wasn’t experienced. The spring consists of of a 200ft basin which leads to an underground cave system. At the entrance to the grace is an ominous sign, warning divers that continuing past that point could be dangerous. In the 1990s, 13 divers perished in the cave.

On the 20th of August, it was noticed that Ben’s car was still in the parking lot where it had remained for two days. Witnesses came forward to say they had encountered Ben on the evening of the 18th of August. He was descending down into the cave. He reached the lock gate which is only opened for experienced divers and tried to give the gate open. Eduardo Taran, an experienced diver who worked at the springs, witnessed this and opened the gate for him. This was the last time he was ever seen.

The spring was closed while his disappearance was investigated. There was no sign of a struggle at his car and his belongings say untouched. Over the forthcoming years, police and experienced divers alike have searched every nook and cranny of the cave system. Many divers are adamant that Ben isn’t inside the cave. Some theorise that he was murdered while others theorise he faked his own death. His family, however, are sure that he is dead and that his body still remains submerged. Nevertheless, his body has never been found.

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Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.

Charlotte Eriksson (via wordsnquotes)

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When Katharina Reitz Brow was robbed and brutally stabbed to death in her home, a 3 year investigation led to the door of local chef Kenny Waters.  He and Brow were next door neighbours, and she would frequently visit Waters’ workplace, Park Street Diner.  Despite his alibi that he was at work at the time of the murder, and a total lack of any DNA evidence linking him to the crime, coerced statements from Waters’ ex-girlfriends ensured a guilty verdict, and he was sentenced to life in prison in 1983.

Convinced of his innocence, Waters’ sister Betty-Anne, a single mother and high school drop out, decided to take matters into her own hands.  She put herself through college and law school, and graduated in 1998.  Upon passing her bar exams, she began to work as Waters’ attorney, and searched tirelessly to locate the blood-soaked evidence from the scene of the crime that she knew would exonerate her brother.  With the help of the Innocence Project, Betty Anne had the evidence tested by a private lab, who were able to exclude Waters’ DNA from the scene of the crime.  After nearly 18 years in prison, Waters was freed, and in 2001 all charges were officially dropped against him.  In a tragic twist to the tale, 47-year-old Waters died following a fall just 6 months after his release.  His sister Betty-Anne has never practiced law again.

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Gary Butler returned home after work on January 25th, 2006, to find his two young sons left unattended. He immediately suspected something was amiss, as his wife, Teresa Butler, was nowhere to be found and she would have never left the kids alone. Gary contacted police and an investigation of the case was immediately launched. Police found no signs of forced entry but a few items, however, were missing. The items missing included a video camera, a flashlight, Teresa’s purse and cell phone, a PlayStation with games, and lastly, a stereo from the couple’s jeep. The only thing Teresa appeared to have left behind were her wedding rings; Teresa took them off every night and placed them on her nightstand and that’s where they remained, untouched. She also appeared to have left her jacket behind, something you would normally not leave the house without during the cold winter months. What makes her disappearance all the more puzzling is that Teresa’s cell phone had made two phone calls since her disappearance, both to two separate people who have never heard of Teresa Butler. And when they answered the phone, no one was on the line. Nine years later and friends and family of Teresa are still left with more questions than answers.

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Kelly Bates was an English girl who started dating a 48-year-old man named James Smith when she was only 14. James had a long history of abusing his girlfriends, and Kelly would come to taste the worst of it. In 1996, when Kelly was 17, her partner tortured her over a harrowing period of four weeks. She had been beaten, burned, and starved; her kneecaps had been smashed so she couldn’t walk, and she had been stabbed with scissors, knives, and forks in multiple areas of her body, including the inside of her mouth. He had crushed both of her hands, mutilated her eyes, ears, nose, eyebrows, mouth, lips, and genitalia, partially scalped her, and gouged out both of her eyes and stabbed the empty sockets. James finally ended the poor girl’s suffering by drowning her in the bathtub. He received life imprisonment, and every single member of the jury were offered and accepted counseling for being shown the gruesome evidence in the case. 

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interviewer: “i think that’s where they have recovered the body…”

in june of 2011, stephen mcdaniel finally broke into friend lauren giddings’ apartment after stalking and secretly taping her for months. wearing a mask, he attacked her and strangled her to death, and after taking a day to cool off, returned to dismember her body. he distributed her limbs and head into the university dumpster, and put her torso into a trashcan. 

two days later, stephen was casually interviewed by the local news, as he was lauren’s neighbor, classmate and friend. the interviewer mentioned offhand that the body had been found (as the news had already broke that morning), but was the first to make mention of it to stephen. 

stephen’s reaction to hearing that the outcome of his crime had been discovered was caught on camera, and was the first piece of suspicious behavior to make him a suspect. 

stephen eventually confessed to the murder, and will not be eligible for parole until 2048.

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On the morning of Valentine’s Day in 2000, the Degrees planned to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary. But when Iquilla opened her children’s bedroom door to get them ready for school, her son was still sleeping in bed, but her 9-year-old daughter, Asha, was nowhere in the room. Nor was she anywhere in the house. The Degrees went into panic mode after that. The night before, Asha had gone to bed at 8 PM. When her father checked on her and her brother at 2:30 AM, both were sound asleep. Shortly after, Asha got out of bed and grabbed her pre-packed schoolbag containing clothing and other personal items and quietly escaped the house. Between 3:45 and 4:15 AM, two drivers spotted her marching along Highway 18 in the raging storm. One of the witnesses claimed that he turned around because he found it strange that such a young girl would be out by herself at that hour, but she dashed into the woods and disappeared. Three days later, Asha’s hairbow, marker, and pencil were found in a tool shed near the highway. Among them were candy wrappers. A year later, her bag was unearthed during a construction project off the highway. This would be the last trace of Asha. Asha was a shy girl, but she had a good home life, so it is unknown why she would pack up and leave. 

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Pictured above is Patrick Hildebrand, who went missing in 1987 at the age of 9, and has never been found. Patrick and his family were on a walk at Lilly Pilly Gully, which is a nature walk in Victoria, Australia. Patrick allegedly loved to bushwalk. He ran slightly ahead of his family - he turned around a bend, out of sight, and has never been seen since.  Patrick’s disappearance prompted a massive search of the area, and widespread media coverage. Only a yellow rain hat was found, and this was believed to belong to Patrick. No further trace of Patrick has ever been found since. Recently, Patrick’s elder brother Joe Hildebrand, who was just about to turn 11 when his brother disappeared, has opened up about the loss of Patrick. He says this of the car ride home after Patrick’s disappearance - “It was so utterly dark. The sky was turning black and the trees silhouetted against the horizon were even blacker. It was just so penetratingly hopeless and dark and forlorn of all optimism, and I knew we were leaving my brother behind somewhere out in all that blackness”. It’s such a tragedy to think that Patrick was able to go unnoticed, with so many people searching for him.

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In Brampton, Ontario, 2003, sisters 16-year-old Sandra Anderson and Beth Anderson, only a year younger, called 911 to report that their mother is in the bathtub showing no signs of life. As much as the dispatcher implored them to get her out and instruct them how to perform CPR, the girls just wouldn’t cooperate. By the time police arrived, the girls’ mother was dead, and her death was deemed an accident. The sisters’ mother was a depressed alcoholic who worked two jobs to provide for her family. However, Sandra and Beth were not satisfied and hated that their mother spent all their money on alcohol when their friends wore expensive clothing and owned swimming pools. That’s when they hacked a plot to kill their mother. If she were to die, each of the girls would inherit $68 000. With their newfound wealth, they planned to buy a nice house and marijuana farm and take all their friends on vacation. After months of thorough research, they settled on their murder method and shared their plans with their friends, who kept their mouths shut. 

Sandra and Beth made an alcoholic drink, mixed with codeine, and served it to their mother. They prepared a warm bath once she was sedated and put her in the tub. Sandra wearing latex gloves, forced her head under the water until their mother was dead.  After the murder, Sandra bragged about the killing to almost everyone she met while under the influence at parties. Police eventually caught on and a friend of theirs agreed to wear a wire as Sandra once again bragged of the killing. The sisters were charged with first-degree murder and were given a lenient sentence of ten years in prison. However, Sandra and Beth were released on parole after serving only four years. Today, the girls have been granted new identities and are now in their mid-20′s and attend college. 

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Sometime in the late 1990’s, an unnamed 26-year-old Polish man killed his father and extensively mutilated his corpse in ways police rarely see. He spent hours carefully skinning his decapitated head and sewed it into a mask. He dressed in his father’s clothes and called his grandfather pretending to be his dead father while wearing the scalp mask. He sensed something wrong and police found the body posed in an upside down cross. The son was diagnosed with Schizoid personality disorder but his trial outcome/current whereabouts are unknown. This case is literally straight from a horror movie.

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Martin John Bryant, born May 7, 1967 is known as Australia’s worst mass murderer. He is the perpetrator of the Port Arthur massacre, which took place in Tasmania, Australia. He was charged with the murder of 35 people after pleading guilty. He currently resides in Risdon Prison. He is currently serving 35 life sentences and 1035 years without parole.

As a kid, Martin had always broken his toys and his mother, Carleen Bryant described him as an “annoying” or “different” child compared to those of his age. Teachers described him as unemotional. During school hours, he was a victim of bullying and was disruptive to other children’s learning. 

During high school, he was transferred to the special education unit. Whilst in high school, he was noted as possibly having an “intellectual disability”. After an IQ test, he was revealed to have an IQ of 66, the equivalent to that of an eleven-year-old. After being arrested, he was further tested and was shown to have an IQ of 64 verbally, and cognitive functioning and non-verbal reasoning IQ of 68.

On April 28, 1996, Martin had shot dead the owners he had held a grudge against of the guesthouse known as Seascape. Once killing them, he decided he’d go to the Port Arthur historical site. Once he got there, he got a meal. After eating it and returning the tray, he set down a duffel bag containing a Colt AR-15 with a 30-round magazine. That’s when he fired the gun rapidly and shot dead 12 people in the span of approximately 15-30 seconds. Once at the gift shop, Martin fired the AR-15 again at multiple people, killing 10 more, putting the total body count up to 22 people.

During the chaos, some people had escaped into the car park. After Martin had finished shooting up the cafe, he made his way out into the car park, where he fired at scared escapees, and made his way to the coaches, where he shot at more people. Now, he’d killed a total of 26. 

Martin got back into his car and made his way to the toll booth. After shooting at more afraid civilians, he had shot dead 33 in total. 

At a service station, he shot dead his 34th victim, Zoe Hall after hijacking a car and locking Zoe’s boyfriend in the boot. Martin had gone back to the Seascape house, and handcuffed Glenn Pears, Zoe’s boyfriend, to a railing in the house. During the police stand-off, Martin had killed Glenn, his final victim. He was eventually captured after attempting to set himself on fire and running out of the house.

After being arrested, Bryant was evaluated and was diagnosed with Asperger’s, with symptoms of conduct disorder and ADHD.