In 1976, people in Circleville, Ohio, began receiving anonymous letters written in block capitals. Many went to Mary Gillispie, a school bus driver, and accused her of an affair with a school official. The writer claimed to be watching her house. In August 1977, her husband Ron Gillispie left home after a phone call, apparently to confront the letter writer. His truck ran off the road and hit a tree. His gun had been fired once. His death was ruled an accident. The letters continued and spread to hundreds of residents, officials and businesses across the county. In 1983, Mary stopped at a roadside sign that insulted her daughter. Behind it was a pistol rigged to fire at anyone who pulled the sign down. The gun was traced to Paul Freshour, her former brother-in-law. Freshour was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to seven to twenty-five years. A handwriting expert testified that he had written the letters. The letters did not stop. They kept arriving while he was locked up, including one sent to Freshour himself in prison. He was paroled in 1994, and the letters tapered off around the same time. He denied any involvement until his death in 2012. The writer has never been identified. The creepiest photos ever taken:

Between February 1964 and February 1965, the bodies of six women were found in or near the River Thames in west London. All had worked as prostitutes, all were found undressed, and most appeared to have suffocated rather than to have died of obvious violence. The victims were Hannah Tailford, Irene Lockwood, Helen Barthelemy, Mary Fleming, Frances Brown and Bridget O'Hara. Two earlier deaths, in 1959 and 1963, are sometimes linked to the same man. Newspapers called him Jack the Stripper, and the killings became known as the Hammersmith nude murders. Forensic scientists found tiny flecks of spray paint on several of the bodies. The particles were traced to a covered area near a paint workshop on an industrial estate in Acton, which suggested the killer had kept the women there before moving them. Scotland Yard, under Chief Superintendent John Du Rose, interviewed thousands of men and watched the area at night. After O'Hara, the killings stopped. Du Rose later said his leading suspect had taken his own life, but the man was never named in court and the claim has been disputed by other researchers. No one was charged, and much of the original evidence has since been lost or destroyed. More creepy moments:

Kitty Genovese, twenty-eight, was attacked outside her apartment building in Kew Gardens, Queens, in the early hours of March 13, 1964. Winston Moseley stabbed her, fled when a neighbor shouted from a window, then returned about ten minutes later and found her in a back hallway, where he attacked her again. She died on the way to hospital. Two weeks later, the New York Times ran a report stating that thirty-seven people had watched the murder and not called the police. It became one of the best-known stories in American journalism, taught in psychology courses as the origin of the bystander effect. Most of it does not hold up. Later reporting and a 2007 review published in American Psychologist found no evidence that 38 people witnessed the attack or that those who noticed something understood what they were hearing. The layout of the buildings meant almost no one could see the second attack. At least two neighbors did contact the police, and a woman came down and held Genovese as she was dying. In 2016, the Times acknowledged that its original account had greatly exaggerated the witnesses. Moseley, serving life, died in prison that same year. More creepy moments:

In early May 1932, a woman in Stockholm went to the police because she had not heard from her friend Lilly Lindestrom for several days. The two lived in the same building in the Atlas district, near Sankt Eriksplan. Officers opened Lindestrom's flat on May 4 and found her dead on her bed. She was in her early thirties and worked as a prostitute. She had been killed by blows to the head and had been dead for days. What made the case notorious was the condition of the body, which had been drained of blood, and a ladle found at the scene that police believed the killer had used to drink it. Swedish newspapers began calling the unknown man the Atlas Vampire. Detectives questioned men known to have visited the flat and followed leads for years. Other residents of the building had heard nothing unusual. Fingerprints and the few traces left behind led nowhere. No one was ever charged. Material from the investigation, including hair samples and crime scene sketches, is held by the Stockholm police museum. More than ninety years later, the killing of Lilly Lindestrom is still the best-known unsolved murder in Sweden. The creepiest photos ever taken:

The POWs who met with Jane Fonda in 1972 have confirmed that they never handed her slips of paper proving their captivity, and the one man routinely mentioned never met Jane Fonda. It has been debunked as early as 1975. See more photos:

On the morning of April 12, 1981, a 14-year-old girl returning to her family's cabin at the Keddie resort in the Sierra Nevada of northern California found three people dead inside. Sue Sharp, 36, her son John, 15, and John's friend Dana Wingate, 17, had been killed in the living room with a hammer and knives. Two younger Sharp boys and a friend had slept through the attack in a back bedroom and were unharmed. Sue's 12-year-old daughter Tina was missing. In 1984, a bottle collector found her skull about sixty miles away in Butte County, and it was identified that June. The investigation drew criticism for years over mishandled evidence. Cabin 28 was demolished in 2004. Two men who knew the family, Martin Smartt and John Boubede, have long been named by investigators as the likeliest suspects. Both died without being charged, Boubede in 1988 and Smartt in 2000. In 2016, a hammer was recovered from a pond nearby and taken into evidence. In 2018, the sheriff's office said DNA from the tape found at the scene matched that of a living person of interest. No one has been charged, and the case remains open. The most haunting photos ever taken:

Lucy Thomas has breathed fresh life into Unchained Melody, a song that has seen countless renditions since its creation but remains most associated with the Righteous Brothers. Her version begins delicately, with only piano beneath her voice, allowing the clarity and purity of her tone to take center stage. Watch it here:

On the night of January 6, 1982, a passenger on a plane flying over the Colorado Mountains spotted headlights blinking an SOS signal. He alerted the pilots, who radioed the location to the police. Rescuers launched a large operation and found Alan Lee Phillips stranded in a snowdrift during a severe snowstorm, with temperatures as low as -22°F. Without the passenger’s alert, Alan likely wouldn’t have survived the night. For 40 years, Alan’s rescue was seen as miraculous—until DNA linked him to the cold case murders of two women, Barbara Jo Oberholtzer and Annette Kay Schnee, who vanished the same night in Breckenridge, Colorado. The two women were later found shot to death. A key clue was Annette’s orange sock, which matched one found near Barbara Jo’s body, confirming they had been killed by the same person. The most haunting photos ever taken: