24 Of The Nastiest And Most Gruesome Plot Twists In Infamous True Crime Cases Around The World

Just before Christmas in 1997, a fire started in the Philadelphia home of Luz Cuevas. Fighting through the smoke and flames, she ran into the room where her 10-day-old daughter, Delimar, was sleeping in her crib, but saw no sign of her. Suffering burns to her face and at risk of passing out from smoke inhalation, she got out of the house with her two other children. Firefighters quickly put the blaze out, which was primarily contained to the baby's room. After an initial search for the newborn, authorities determined she had perished in the fire, which they said was caused by an overheated extension cord on a space heater. Human remains were never found in the debris, but investigators concluded any remains had been incinerated in the flames. Cuevas, however, insisted that her child had been kidnapped. But, because there was no evidence of a kidnapping aside from her desperate pleas, it was considered a closed case. For six years, Cuevas mourned the loss of her child and wondered what had truly become of her. In 2003, at a birthday party for an acquaintance, Cuevas saw a little girl who looked strikingly like her other children and was the exact same age as her lost Delimar. She was able to obtain some of the girl's hair that day under the ruse of getting bubblegum out of her hair. With assistance from a state legislator, she had police open an investigation and test the hair for DNA. The test proved that 6-year-old "Aaliyah Hernandez" was actually her daughter, Delimar Vera. The woman who kidnapped Delimar was Carolyn Correa, a cousin of the child's father, Pedro Vera. Cuevas and Correa had only met the day before the fire, when Correa came by the house. The following day, Correa returned, claiming she had left her purse upstairs. The blaze started as Correa left the house. Delimar, still going by Aaliyah, was reunited with her parents the next year, who were both given custody. Her abductor was convicted of kidnapping, arson, and other crimes.

Dave Kroupa had been dating casually after his 12-year relationship ended and ended up meeting a woman named Cari Farver. They hit it off instantly and spent a lot of time together over the next few weeks. This was until Cari texted Dave at work and asked if they could move in together - this was a shock to Dave and he said no. Cari then sent a super nasty response.

Dave then started getting bombarded with texts and emails from Cari. The harassment, already relentless and almost daily, started to expand to include other people in Dave’s life, like his recent ex (sort of) girlfriend Liz Golyar. Liz became a constant target of Cari’s stalking and harassment. Things escalated - at one point Liz’s house burned down. (I suggest looking up this case for the full details because there’s so much more to this story).

As it turned out, Liz had k****d Cari - ostensibly out of jealousy of Cari’s quickly growing relationship with Dave. Liz then began impersonating Cari and sending messages pretending to be Cari. That’s right, Liz was the one behind all those messages.

In 2015, a prostitute/[working woman] named Heather Saul met with a man named Neal Falls. They’d spoken online before, but this was the first time they met in real-life. However, Neal attacked Heather almost immediately after entering her house. It’s unclear if he was invited in or if he broke in. Either way, Heather ended up in a fight for her life. Neal grabbed her neck and squeezed it hard, telling her that he’d k**l her if she didn’t do as she was told. With his other hand, he pointed a gun at her. Heather managed to slip away momentarily, and a fight ensued. As Heather fought with Neal, she realized that he wasn’t going to shoot her; he actually wanted to keep her alive, at least in the short-term. Once Heather realized that Neal wouldn’t shoot her, she was able to fight back more effectively. She grabbed a small rake from her kitchen, the kind used to clean up dog p**p. Heather swung the rake at Neal. This turned out to be the best thing she could have done, because Neal set down his gun so he could use both hands to grab the rake away from her. As soon as she saw that, Heather let the rake get pulled away from her and dove for the gun instead. She immediately shot Neal in the head as soon as it was in her hands. The whole encounter, from the time Neal entered the house to the time he was shot, lasted less than a few minutes. Many people in town would later call her "Heather the Hero" for her actions that night, but Heather didn’t feel like a hero; she felt sick. She’d never wanted to k**l anybody; she never asked for this. When police showed up, she was sobbing hysterically. She was also injured; she had a broken back and dislocated shoulder from her fight with Neal. This was by far the most traumatic experience of Heather's entire life; she cried profusely throughout her interview with detectives. When a police officer searched Neal’s deceased body, he found 4 pairs of handcuffs; right away that was seen as a red flag. A search of Neal Falls’ car revealed an enormous k**l kit. In Neal Falls' vehicle, police found an axe, a shovel, a sledgehammer, bowie knives, bleach, cleaning supplies, handcuffs, duct tape, guns, and a bulletproof vest. "It's likely that Mr. Falls is a serial k****r," said Steve Cooper, Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives. "I believe she saved lives by shooting Mr. Falls, based on what he did to her and based on the items found in his car.” It would eventually be confirmed that Neal Falls had kidnapped, tortured, and k****d at least several other women before he met Heather.

Whilst digging up the backyard, something in the dirt caught Aaron’s eye: a plastic bag. Something hard was inside. Upon pulling it out, Aaron discovered it was a coconut. He was puzzled: Why would someone bury a coconut, especially this deep, in a plastic bag? A closer inspection of the coconut revealed a full set of teeth and eye sockets. He was holding a human skull—not just any skull, but that of his mother.

Short story of it is that she showed up at a hospital claiming a strange man had accosted her and her three children, tried to carjack her, then started shooting. One of her daughters was already deceased, her other daughter had a stroke, and her son was injured so severely that he was left paralyzed from the waist down.

Well, turns out what actually happened was that Diane had been involved with a guy at her work. The man was married, but had an affair with her; he had wanted just a casual fling and ended up reconciling with his wife, but Diane had become obsessed with him and wanted more. He had been pretty open/vocal about not wanting children, so Diane tried to "take care of the problem" by k*****g her kids, thus (in her mind) getting rid of any obstacle to them having a relationship.

Anyone Remember The Serial K****r Brothers Of Kalamazoo, Larry And Danny Ranes? One Brother Robbed And Shot Five Men In 1964; The Other K****d Four Women Eight Years Later. Only Family In America To Produce Two Serial Killers That Went On Independent Crime Sprees.
They committed their m*****s separately and independent of one another. Their MO’s & m****r weapons were also different. The only twisted similarity, they were married to the same woman!!!

Tore Hedin was a Swedish mass murderer and police officer. The act perpetrated by Hedin, commonly known as Hurvamorden, is infamous for being the worst known act of spree k*****g in Swedish criminal history, and for the fact that Hedin, as a police officer, had been assigned to investigate his own first m****r for an extended period.

Hedin also employed a medium, itself unique for a Swedish homicide investigation. The medium, Olof Jönsson, claimed to be able to "see" the k****r anywhere in the world by touching objects belonging to the victim. He could not.

The police officer, Tore Hedin, had k****d his friend after a game of poker and stolen his money. A year later he k****d 9 more people, including his parents, before finally k*****g himself.

Kathleen Megan Folbigg is an Australian woman who was wrongfully convicted in 2003 of m*******g her four infant children. She was pardoned in 2023 after 20 years in jail following a long campaign for justice by her supporters, and had her convictions overturned on appeal a few months later.

No direct evidence of the alleged crimes was ever found, but in the personal diary discovered by her husband and handed over to the police, several entries seemed to suggest she might have harmed, and indeed m******d, her children. She was arrested in 2001 and convicted in 2003, sentenced to 40 years with a non-parole period of 30 years. Folbigg maintained her innocence, however, claiming the four children had died from natural causes.

Scientific and medical research suggesting the daughters might indeed have died of natural causes was rejected by a judicial inquiry in 2019. Subsequent research published in 2020 led ninety eminent Australian scientists and medical professionals, in March 2021, to petition the NSW Governor to pardon Folbigg. The petition succinctly demonstrated that all four deaths could be explained as the effects of very rare genetic factors. On 5 June 2023, Folbigg was unconditionally pardoned by NSW Governor Margaret Beazley and was released from prison.

Mackenzie Shirilla, her boyfriend and another friend were involved in a crash that k****d the boyfriend and the friend. She was a driver and she survived. At first it seemed like maybe there was some fault in the car or that she simply lost control of the vehicle, but as the investigation went on they realized she planned the crash and ran into that wall on purpose.

Sometimes it takes a long time before a twist is finally recognized, and in the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, it took many years for his neighbors to realize the personal impact of Dahmer's violence. Pamela Bass was one of Jeffrey Dahmer's neighbors when he lived in Milwaukee. The two were congenial, so much so that when he offered her a sandwich one day before his arrest, she accepted it. After it was discovered that Dahmer was a cannibal as well as an amateur mad scientist, Bass began to worry that she might have eaten human meat. In the film The Jeffrey Dahmer Files she said, "I have probably eaten someone's body part."

Colleen Stan Was Kidnapped In 1977 By Janice And Cameron [working woman] And Held As A S*x S***e In Their Ca Home For Over 7 Years. They Tortured Colleen And Kept Her Locked In A Box Under Their Bed For 23 Hours A Day. In 1984, Colleen Escaped. Janice Was Granted Immunity And Cameron Was Sentenced 104 Years.

On May 19, 1977, 20-year-old Colleen Stan was hitchhiking from her home in Eugene, Oregon, to a friend's home in Westwood, California, where she was going to attend a birthday party. Cameron [working woman] kidnapped Stan after picking her up along Interstate 5 in Red Bluff, California. Stan stated that she was an experienced hitchhiker and earlier had declined two rides before accepting [working woman]. She reportedly "felt confident climbing into the blue van", because [working woman]'s wife, Janice, and their baby were in the car.

When they stopped at a gas station along the way, Stan went to use the restroom. "A voice told me to run and jump out a window and never look back," she recalled, but she calmed her fears and went back to the car. Around 20 minutes into the ride Cameron pulled off the highway, claiming to be interested in investigating some nearby caves. It was at this point, Stan said, that "Janice got out of the car and went down to a lake with the baby. They were playing when Cameron got into the back seat and held a knife to my throat. He tied me up and placed a box over my head." She was subsequently locked in a wooden "headbox" that was designed to prevent light, sound, and fresh air from entering.

On December 1, 1987, LaPlante entered the Townsend home of Priscilla Gustafson, a nursery school teacher. Gustafson, who was pregnant, was found face-down on her bed, her pillows covered in her blood. LaPlante had raped her and shot her multiple times at point-blank range. LaPlante drowned both of her children (7-year-old Abigail and 5-year-old William) in separate bathrooms.

LaPlante was questioned by police about two days after the m*****s but at the time there was not enough evidence to arrest him. Later the same day police went to LaPlante's home to interview him further and seeing the police approach LaPlante leapt off the porch and fled. A manhunt was launched involving police, police dogs and helicopters. Meanwhile LaPlante had made his way on foot to a home in the neighbourhood where he stole a van and briefly took the woman who owned the van hostage. He then drove towards Ayer where he was spotted and pulled over by a policeman. LaPlante left the vehicle and escaped into a lumberyard where he threatened the owner with a gun and then hid in a dumpster. LaPlante was then apprehended by two policemen who kept him under guard until reinforcement arrived at the scene- where LaPlante could be arrested and taken into custody.

A year later, LaPlante was sentenced to three life sentences for the m*****s of the Gustafsons. On March 22, 2017, a re-sentencing hearing for LaPlante was held at Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, Massachusetts. LaPlante asked for a reduction in his sentence. At the hearing, it was mentioned that during his first appeal, previous court rulings were cited saying that juveniles convicted of m****r should be given a meaningful opportunity to re-engage with society. There was also a new law allowing “juveniles convicted of m****r with extreme cruelty and atrocity to ask for parole after they’ve been behind bars for a minimum of 30 years.” The judge, however, affirmed LaPlante's sentence of three consecutive terms of life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole after 45 years, after a forensic psychiatrist evaluated LaPlante and found that he was not remorseful for his crimes.

Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo were a serial k****r couple from Canada who raped and m******d 3 young girls and raped a 4th one between December 1990 and April 1992 including Karla's little sister Tammy.

Karla Leanne Homolka, the “Barbie” in “The Barbie and Ken Killers.” She was thought of as the victim of Paul Bernado’s abuse, being forced into participating in his rapes and m*****s.

She went to the police to report Paul after a particularly bad beating from him that left her in hospital. She was given a plea deal and her lawyer covered up the tape recordings that showed her willingly participating in the rapes and m*****s. Once this information was let out, it was too late. The plea deal was made, Paul was arrested and is still in prison and she got out and now is working around children in a school.

Shortly after her release she married her LAWYER'S BROTHER. They ended up having 3 children together and live a quiet life although several years ago Karla was volunteering at her children's school but after public outrage she couldn't anymore...

Jasmine Richardson, a 12 year old who helped k**l her parents and younger brother. She was originally thought to be kidnapped by the man who turned out to be her partner in the crimes. (Granted, she is in part a victim herself due to her age)

Three members of the Richardson family were m******d in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada in April 2006. The m*****s were planned and committed by the family's 12-year-old daughter Jasmine Richardson and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke, now going by the name Jackson May. Richardson and Steinke were each convicted on three counts of first-degree m****r. Richardson, who had turned 13 before being convicted, is thought to be the youngest person in Canada ever convicted of multiple first-degree m****r counts. Her 10-year sentence was completed on May 6, 2016.

Also the money didn't exist. It was just an email scam.

In the mid '90s, Stanford graduate Sandra Boss was getting her MBA at Harvard when her sister introduced her to a man named Clark Rockefeller, descendant of the famous business family. He wore custom-made designer clothing, collected expensive art, and had an upscale New York apartment. Boss was charmed, and the two married shortly thereafter.

Boss and Rockefeller spent the next 11 years together. They enjoyed a stable life, thanks in large part to Boss's job as a consultant and personal wealth. The two had a daughter, Reigh Storrow Mills Rockefeller, lovingly referred to as "Snooks," in 2001. Rockefeller was a stay-at-home dad, and didn't hesitate to spend Boss's money to keep up his appearances. His stories, too, became inconsistent. And Boss was often baffled when Rockefeller would suddenly insist, seemingly out of the blue, that they needed to move. Again.

Boss served Rockefeller with divorce papers in 2007. Since her husband was jobless and a complete mystery, Boss was awarded full custody. In 2008, Clark Rockefeller was enjoying one of the three court-approved visitations with his daughter as his ex-wife waited in a Boston hotel room nearby. While walking through Boston Common, Rockefeller disappeared with his daughter.

As investigators attempted to track down Rockefeller, they found more questions than answers. He didn't have a Social Security card, a driver's license, or even a credit card in his own name. When his picture was shown on the news asking for leads, callers gave at least four different identities to go with the man shown on-screen. Investigators were flummoxed.

Then, a friend came forward with what would become crucial evidence: Rockefeller had had a glass of wine at his house the night before, and the glass had not been washed. Police lifted prints off the glass and got a match to one Christian Karl Gerhartstreiter, a German immigrant who had come to the United States almost 30 years earlier.

Gerhartstreiter grew up in a middle-class family in a small town in Germany. He moved to the US as a teenager, where he stayed with a Connecticut family while claiming to be an exchange student at a local h**h school. He later got married and divorced, landing a green card, and moved to Los Angeles under the name of Christopher Chichester. He made himself at home in an upper-class neighborhood, weaving a tale of royal English ancestry and proclaiming himself a TV producer. He lived in the back house of a woman named Didi Sohus. Her son and daughter-in-law, John and Linda Sohus, lived on the property, as well. The two went missing in 1985, and Christopher Chichester disappeared shortly afterwards.

The skeletal remains of the couple were discovered in the backyard of the house in 1994, but by that time, Christopher Chichester had become Christopher Crowe. Crowe worked at (and was fired from) a number of h**h-level jobs on Wall Street, with no degree, no experience, and no Social Security number. As people began to catch wind of his act, and investigators tracked Sohus's missing truck back to him, he disappeared again, later turning up in Sandra Boss's life as Clark Rockefeller.

After a five-day manhunt for him and his kidnapped daughter, Clark Rockefeller had become Chip Smith. But his newest alias didn't last long; the owner of the carriage house he rented called investigators, and Snooks was safely returned to her mother while Christian/Christopher/Clark/Chip was finally taken into custody.

Gerhartstreiter was convicted of kidnapping his daughter as well as the m****r of John Sohus (Linda's body has never been found). He is serving a sentence of 27 years to life in prison.

Usually, criminals aren't apt to tell the police about their crimes. Not Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River K****r. In a weird twist on the typical interrogation story, Ridgway was so excited about being able to revel in the glory of being "accomplished" that he immediately gave the police information about everyone he hurt. During his confession, while police were trying to pin him for 49 different attacks, Ridgway one-upped them and admitted to ending 80 victims' lives.

Edmund Emil Kemper III is an American serial k****r convicted of m*******g seven women and one girl, between May 1972 and April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had m******d his paternal grandparents. Kemper was nicknamed the "Co-ed K****r", as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California. Most of his m*****s included necrophilia, decapitation, and dismemberment.

Serial k****r Ed Kemper befriended the very police officers investigating his m*****s, and would socialize with them at a bar called the "Jury Room". They called him "Big Ed" and never suspected him. When he initially confessed, they thought he was pulling a prank.

Prosecutors argued that David Camm k****d his family and staged the scene, leaving his wife's shoes neatly lined up on top of her Bronco. Five years later, DNA from a felon who attacks women and steals their shoes was found at the scene.

David Ray Camm is a former trooper of the Indiana State Police (ISP) who spent 13 years in prison after twice being wrongfully convicted of the m*****s of his wife, Kimberly, and his two young children at their home in Georgetown, Indiana, on September 28, 2000. He was released from custody in 2013 after his third trial resulted in an acquittal. Charles Boney is currently serving time for the m*****s of Camm's wife and two children.

Linda Laura Hazzard, nicknamed the "Starvation Doctor", was an American quack, swindler and convicted serial k****r noted for her promotion of fasting, pummeling and hours-long enemas as treatments. In 1911, Hazzard was found guilty of manslaughter in the state of Washington and was sentenced to 2 to 20 years of hard labor for k*****g at least 15 people for financial gain at a sanitarium she operated near Seattle in the early 20th century. She was released on parole after only serving two years and later, on the condition that she move to New Zealand, received a full pardon from Governor Ernest Lister in 1916. Hazzard died at 70 after subjecting herself to her treatment methods.

Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK K****r, was cocky - so cocky that he would send taunting messages to the police officers investigating him. Police used one of those messages to trace Rader to his home and arrest him. Rader acted maliciously over a period of 17 years, taking lengthy breaks between casualties. He was obsessed with being considered the best and scariest criminal and getting credit for his work. He taunted the Wichita Police Department, sending them poems about victims and snapshots of the bodies. He left cereal boxes around town with information that only he could know. In 2004, The Wichita Eagle wrote an article speculating that the unnamed criminal had either died or been put in jail, since there hadn't been a BTK attack in a decade. Angered by this, Rader began sending the paper letters telling them he was still alive and free. In a message left at a hardware store, he asked whether a message left on a floppy disk could be traced. Investigators said no, and Rader sent a floppy disk with a document saved on it. Also saved on the disk was the name "Dennis" and a location of where the disk was used - Rader's church. He was arrested, and DNA evidence from the scenes matched Rader. Some believe Rader knew exactly what he was doing and that he wanted to be caught. Others believe he wasn't as smart as he thought he was and ended up telegraphing his final play completely on accident.

Ana Julia Quezada She was dating a divorced man who had an 8 year old son. One day, the kid goes missing and the news started interviewing the parents. She would always stand next to the dad crying and begging the kidnapper that, if they're watching, to please give back the kid. Turns out, there was no kidnapping. She'd k****d the kid the very first day of his disappearance and played her part around her boyfriend and the news. People believe she did it out of jealousy and in hopes of convincing her boyfriend to move to her country to get over his kid. Her 4 year old daughter had also died in 1996 in some strange circumstances.

Cruz disappeared while travelling from his grandmother's residence to his cousins', only 100 metres (330 ft) away, and remained missing for twelve days. A search and rescue operation consisting of over 5,000 people, including 3,000 volunteers and 2,000 professionals, was established. It was the largest coordinated search for a missing person in Spanish history.

On 11 March 2018, Cruz's body was found in the boot of a vehicle belonging to Ana Julia Quezada. Quezada had k****d and buried Cruz on a farm owned by his father's family in the town of Rodalquilar, and had dug up and transported the body to her home in La Puebla de Vícar when she was detained by the Civil Guard. She confessed to the crime two days later.

Laci Denise Peterson was an American woman m******d by her husband, Scott Lee Peterson, while eight months pregnant with their first child.

On December 24, 2002, Scott reported Laci missing from their home in Modesto, California. Four months later, Laci's body and the body of her unborn son, whom the couple had planned to name Conner, were discovered on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Scott Peterson was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts of m****r. In 2004, Scott was found guilty of the first-degree m****r of Laci and the second-degree m****r of Conner.

The nationwide media coverage produced several tips and possible sightings, one of which was from a woman who identified herself as Scott's girlfriend. On December 30, 2002, Amber Frey informed detectives she had met Scott on November 20, and he said he was single. Additionally, Frey told detectives Scott said on December 9, he was a widower and this Christmas would be his first without his wife. Based on the dates and information Frey provided, detectives now believed Scott began planning to k**l Laci two weeks before Laci's disappearance.

Blood is thicker than water, unless your brother is the Unabomber. Ted Kaczynski, more commonly referred to as the Unabomber, wrote a manifesto that he wanted published by the biggest US media outlets in 1995. In it, he stated that if his demands were not met, he would continue his bombing campaign. Unfortunately for Kaczynski, his life's work was also his life's undoing. His brother David read the manifesto, recognized his brother's handwriting and turned him into the federal authorities. To hear David tell it, he never planned on reading the manifesto, even after recognizing similarities between the bomber's theories and his brother's letters that were written while he was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Despite Ted's arrest, David had trouble believing his brother was the Unabomber: "I had never seen him violent, not toward me, not toward anyone. I tended to see his anger turned inward."

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