- 5/31/2025
Prepare yourself for a chilling journey through history's darkest corners as we explore lesser-known but deeply disturbing true crime cases. From Victorian baby farmers to modern-day cannibals, these haunting stories showcase humanity's capacity for evil. Warning: This content contains disturbing subject matter.
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00:00Oh, she was wicked. She was, I think, there's no question about it.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at 20 disturbing but lesser-known cases of true crime.
00:1626 years ago, this man murdered an Etta woman in Paris.
00:21The Denver Spider-Man.
00:24Hello, Simpsons.
00:25Artie Ziff!
00:27None other. I've been hiding in your attic, living off the moisture I can suck from the rafters.
00:34Don't let the name fool you. This guy is no hero.
00:39Theodore Conies was struggling, living in poverty and suffering from poor health.
00:45In September of 1941, he went to visit an old acquaintance, Philip Peters, hoping to ask for help.
00:53Peters wasn't home, so Conies simply moved into his attic and lived there for about five weeks, often sneaking out at night to get food.
01:05On October 17th, Conies was discovered by Peters, and Conies bludgeoned him to death in a panic.
01:12The following July, police were investigating the vacant house when they found the emaciated Conies still living in the attic.
01:21He was sentenced to life and dubbed the Denver Spider-Man, owing to his dark and reclusive lair.
01:28The woodchipper murder.
01:38So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there.
01:46And I guess that was your accomplice in the woodchipper.
01:50You know the end of Fargo, when Peter Stormare put Steve Buscemi through a woodchipper?
01:56Yeah, that actually happened.
01:59Mother of three heli-crafts disappeared on November 19th, 1986.
02:04Her unfaithful husband Richard told people that she went to visit her mother in Denmark.
02:10But this was quickly proven false.
02:13A plow driver soon reported suspicious activity involving a woodchipper near Lake Zor.
02:18And when police investigated, they found human remains, blue fibers matching Hellie's nightgown,
02:25and a chainsaw with traces of blonde human hair.
02:29Richard received 50 years in prison.
02:32And the case became the first time in Connecticut history that a murder was convicted without a body.
02:38Since the body was frozen, it produced little if any blood splatter.
02:43Most of the debris blew into the river.
02:45Only a few pieces fell short, landing on the bank.
02:50The Icebox Murders.
02:52My partner standing next to me made the comment that he thought that somebody had butchered a hog.
02:57We didn't know it was a body until we got ready to close the refrigerator.
03:00To this day, the Icebox Murders are considered one of the weirdest unsolved cases in Texas history.
03:07On June 23rd, 1965, Houston police conducted a welfare check on the elderly Fred and Edwina Rogers
03:15after the couple had not been heard from in several days.
03:19Inside the house, they opened the refrigerator and found what remained of the couple.
03:25The house itself appeared clean and tidy, suggesting that the killer was highly methodical.
03:31The prime suspect was and remains the couple's adult son, Charles Rogers, who lived with them at the time.
03:39Police found blood in Charles' bedroom, but the man disappeared after the murders and was never found.
03:45The case remains officially unsolved, and Charles Rogers was declared legally dead in 1975.
03:53I've never been able to understand how someone could commit and act like this and disappear off the face of the earth.
04:00Amelia Dyer
04:01Behold, one of the most notorious serial killers of Victorian England.
04:08Amelia Dyer initially worked as a nurse until she began baby farming,
04:13a common practice at the time which saw women adopting babies for money.
04:18Usually, they promised to raise and support them, but Dyer would, well, you know.
04:24It's unknown exactly how many, but estimates range from 6 to possibly 400 during a 20-year period.
04:33In the end, Dyer was tried for just one, but it was enough.
04:37She was found guilty and hanged at Newgate Prison on June 10, 1896.
04:43Luckily, Dyer's crimes led to widespread public outrage and spurred reforms in child protection laws
04:50and adoption procedures in the U.K.
04:54The Walk of Death
04:55One of the first mass shootings in modern American history occurred on September 6, 1949.
05:0228-year-old Howard Unruh was a World War II veteran
05:05who reportedly showed signs of psychological trauma after returning home.
05:11He was a recluse, and he kept detailed notes on perceived slights from people in his neighborhood
05:16while developing a growing list of enemies.
05:20On that fateful September morning, Unruh unleashed his pent-up fury.
05:25In a span of just 12 minutes, Unruh embarked on a massacre throughout his Camden neighborhood,
05:31injuring three and killing 13.
05:34After his arrest, Unruh was declared criminally insane and committed to a mental institution,
05:41where he remained for the rest of his life.
05:43His attack later became known as the Walk of Death.
05:48Anatoly Moskvin
05:49My granddaddy's buried here.
05:53Can we find out if anything happened to him?
05:55Russian linguist and historian Anatoly Moskvin
05:58had a lifelong interest in death and burial rituals.
06:03He was even known to walk 30 kilometers a day
06:05to visit various cemeteries around his home city in Nizhny Novgorod.
06:10In 2011, police came to the realization that someone had been exhuming bodies from these
06:16cemeteries, and their search took them to Moskvin's apartment.
06:21There, they found the mummified remains of 29 people.
06:25Moskvin had exhumed the bodies, turned them into mummies, then dressed them as dolls.
06:31His parents, who Moskvin actually lived with at the time,
06:35simply believed they were bizarre homemade dolls, and not mummified corpses.
06:40He was found to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia,
06:44and has been institutionalized ever since.
06:47Calm down. Calm down. Okay? Now.
06:50Talking to the doll, baby.
06:51Shh. Shh.
06:52There was a feeling that the ordinary compassion or emotions of warmth
06:59towards the rest of the world were not there.
07:02Britain's youngest female killer is Mary Bell,
07:06who committed her crimes in 1968 at the ages of 10 and 11.
07:11Mary had a deeply troubled childhood,
07:14growing up in an abusive and chaotic environment,
07:17with her mother allegedly trying to kill her on more than one occasion.
07:21So, in 1968, Bell killed two young victims in what psychologists believe
07:27was a mis-aimed act of exerting power and control in her life.
07:32Others believe that she was merely psychotic.
07:35Bell was eventually convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility
07:39and sentenced to indefinite detention.
07:43However, she was released in 1980 at the age of 23,
07:48granted legal anonymity, and had a family.
07:51She currently lives under a pseudonym in an unknown location.
07:56She's come out of it as a very balanced, sensible person,
07:59and has sorted out her life with some ups and downs in it,
08:02and I think has become a very good citizen.
08:06The Harp Brothers
08:07To see America's first documented serial killers,
08:19we have to go back to the late 18th century,
08:21when Macajah and Wiley Harp terrorized frontier Appalachia.
08:26After the American Revolution,
08:28the Cousins became drifters and criminals,
08:31participating in banditry and possibly joining Native American raids.
08:35They eventually settled in the area of the Appalachian Mountains,
08:39killing innkeepers and settlers who were heading south.
08:43The Harp's crimes were exceptionally brutal,
08:46even by frontier standards.
08:49And while they did rob their victims,
08:51they often killed without motive.
08:54Though exact numbers are uncertain due to poor record-keeping on the American frontier,
08:59they are believed to have killed between 40 and 50 people.
09:02Wiley was eventually caught, tried, and executed,
09:06while Macajah was violently murdered by a posse.
09:10Who is that?
09:11That sounds like Byron Sampson.
09:16Yeah.
09:18Well, what would he want?
09:19I don't want to kill,
09:23but I couldn't find any way to eat the girls' meat fresh,
09:33so I thought I have to kill.
09:36How would you feel knowing that a cannibal was freely walking your streets?
09:41On June 11th, 1981,
09:44Japanese man Issei Sagawa murdered
09:46and cannibalized Dutch student René Hartvelt in his Paris apartment.
09:52He was then caught trying to dispose of her remains in various suitcases.
09:56Declared insane by French authorities,
09:59Sagawa was institutionalized,
10:02but later extradited to Japan,
10:04where doctors found him sane.
10:06Thanks to a number of legal loopholes,
10:09Sagawa was never formally charged in Japan
10:12and was released in 1986.
10:15Sagawa lived freely until his death in 2022,
10:20profiting from his notoriety by writing a book about the murder
10:23and performing public speaking engagements.
10:26He even briefly worked as a food critic,
10:29which is grotesquely ironic,
10:31given the nature of his crime.
10:33He has never stood trial.
10:35Today, he walks the Tokyo streets a free man.
10:38A free man with an ongoing appetite for human flesh.
10:43The soap maker of Corazio.
10:45Here we are.
10:46Out of the oven.
10:49What is that?
10:51It's briefed.
10:52Have a little briefed.
10:54Is it really good?
10:55Sir, it's too good, at least.
10:57Leonardo Cianciulli thought she was cursed.
11:00She endured a troubled childhood,
11:03and only four of her 17 pregnancies resulted in children.
11:07She then became deeply paranoid and resorted to crime,
11:11driven by a distorted belief that human sacrifices
11:14would protect her eldest son, Giuseppe,
11:17who was leaving to join the Italian army.
11:19Cianciulli proceeded to murder three women
11:22in her small town of Corazio.
11:25She also made soap from their remains
11:27and baked their blood into tea cakes.
11:29Both the soap and the cakes
11:31were given to friends and acquaintances around town.
11:35She openly confessed to the crimes
11:37and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
11:39And she ultimately died
11:41in a psychiatric institution in 1970.
11:44The death of Sylvia Likens
11:51Sylvia and Jenny Likens were born
11:59to two carnival workers
12:00who regularly traveled around the country.
12:03During one of their parents' trips in 1965,
12:06the girls were left in the care
12:08of Gertrude Banaszewski,
12:10who agreed to house them
12:11for a weekly $20 payment.
12:13When this money began coming in late,
12:15Banaszewski took out her anger
12:17on the Likens girls.
12:19Eventually, she directed the extreme abuse
12:21almost entirely at Sylvia,
12:23sometimes to the point of starvation.
12:26Gertrude made her a prisoner.
12:27Gertrude encouraged others
12:29to physically abuse her,
12:32to emotionally abuse her,
12:33and she abused her.
12:35Sylvia's maltreatment
12:36came not only from Banaszewski,
12:38but also from her children
12:39and other neighborhood kids,
12:41culminating in Sylvia's tragic death
12:43on October 26, 1965.
12:47Banaszewski served less than 20 years in prison,
12:49while the others arrested for the crime
12:51were handed much shorter sentences.
12:53And to know that you're responsible
12:55for taking someone's life,
12:57it's real hard to live with.
12:59Banaszewski died five years later.
13:02The Crimes of Jerry Brutus
13:04Born in Webster, South Dakota in 1939,
13:07Jerry Brutus developed a fetish
13:09for women's shoes at a very young age.
13:12As he grew older,
13:13this obsession manifested
13:14in the form of attacking women,
13:16only to steal their shoes
13:17and keep them for himself.
13:19Jerry Brutus was married.
13:21There was nothing really
13:22that made him stand out.
13:24But yet behind closed doors,
13:26he was into a variety of fetishes.
13:29Nobody would ever know
13:30because he was doing it
13:30within the privacy of his own home.
13:32When the bodies of Linda Saley
13:33and Karen Sprinker,
13:35two young Oregon women,
13:36were discovered
13:37in the Long Tom River in 1969,
13:40police were quick
13:41to identify similarities
13:42in their deaths.
13:43They questioned students
13:45at the nearby Oregon State University
13:47and were led to Brutus,
13:48who later confessed
13:49to the murders in gory detail.
13:52Jerry took pictures
13:52of his victims
13:53in select clothing.
13:56Brutus opted for a guilty plea
13:58and was sentenced
13:58to three consecutive life terms.
14:00He died of liver cancer
14:02in 2006 while incarcerated.
14:05Dennis Rader, the BTK killer.
14:09In February 2005,
14:11Dennis Rader, a family man
14:12and local church leader
14:13in Wichita, Kansas,
14:15was arrested and charged
14:16with the murders of 10 people.
14:18He was married.
14:19He was relatively young.
14:21He was 28 years old,
14:23relatively handsome.
14:25So he should have
14:26everything going for him.
14:27Between 1974 and 1991,
14:30Rader had stalked
14:31most of his victims
14:32to their homes,
14:33where they were bound,
14:34tortured, and then killed.
14:36He derived his own nickname,
14:38the BTK killer,
14:39from this method.
14:40Rader stopped his spree
14:41after 1991,
14:43only to begin sending
14:44taunting letters
14:45to police and media houses
14:46a little over a decade later.
14:48BTK sent a letter
14:49to the office
14:50claiming responsibility
14:51for killing Vicky Wegerly
14:53in 1986.
14:55He enclosed a copy
14:56of her driver's license.
14:58He may have gotten away
14:59with the crimes,
15:00if not for a floppy disk
15:01he sent to the police,
15:03which was traced back to him.
15:05Police were able
15:06to find metadata
15:07from a deleted document
15:08that contained
15:09the name of his church
15:11and the first name Dennis.
15:13Rader pleaded guilty
15:14to the killings
15:15and was sentenced
15:15to 10 consecutive life terms.
15:18John Haig's
15:19Life of Crimes
15:20Dubbed the
15:22Acid Bath Murderer,
15:23John George Haig
15:24was a British serial killer
15:26who was active
15:27between 1944 and 1949.
15:30Haig began his life
15:31of crime
15:31selling fraudulent stocks
15:33under a false identity.
15:34Almost as soon
15:35as he left school,
15:37he began the life
15:38of a petty crook
15:39and swindler.
15:40He was eventually caught
15:41and served multiple prison terms
15:42for his scams.
15:44After leaving prison in 1943,
15:46Haig started targeting
15:47wealthy individuals
15:48and killing them
15:49for their money.
15:50He would then dissolve
15:51the bodies in sulfuric acid,
15:53believing it would leave
15:54no trace of the crime.
15:56This is what we come now
15:57to see as the quintessential
15:58image of the acid bath
16:00killer in practice.
16:03Haig claimed five lives
16:05in this manner
16:05without getting caught,
16:07but his sixth victim
16:08would prove to be
16:09his downfall.
16:10At his trial,
16:11Haig pleaded not guilty
16:12by reason of insanity,
16:14but regardless,
16:15he was convicted
16:15and executed by hanging.
16:17Nobody was fooled
16:18by these claims
16:19of drinking blood
16:20and forests of crucifixes
16:23and things like that.
16:24It had clearly been a ploy.
16:26The disappearance
16:26of the Sauter children.
16:28George and Jenny Sauter,
16:30alongside nine
16:31of their ten children,
16:32were asleep
16:32on Christmas Eve 1945
16:34when their Fayetteville,
16:36West Virginia house
16:37caught fire.
16:38The couple managed
16:39to escape
16:39with four of the children,
16:41but all attempts
16:41to rescue the other five
16:43trapped upstairs
16:44proved futile.
16:45And the five of them
16:45shared two bedrooms
16:46between them,
16:47both rooms upstairs.
16:49The family initially believed
16:50all five children died
16:51in the fire,
16:52only to find no remains
16:53of them in the rubble.
16:54Authorities scavenged
16:55the ashes of the fire
16:56looking for the remains
16:57of the five missing Sauter children,
16:59but nothing was found,
17:01and they were presumed dead
17:02due to the fire.
17:03Despite multiple theories
17:04and investigations
17:05at the state
17:06and federal levels,
17:07the case turned up
17:08no new leads
17:09and eventually grew cold.
17:11Soon after the fire,
17:12George and Jenny
17:12began to suspect
17:13their children were not dead,
17:15but instead kidnapped,
17:16believing the fire
17:17was deliberately set
17:18as a diversion.
17:19For decades,
17:20the Sauter family
17:21kept up a billboard
17:22at the site
17:23offering a $5,000 reward
17:24for any information
17:26about the disappearance.
17:27It was, however,
17:28taken down
17:29after Jenny's death
17:30in 1989.
17:32The Cleveland Torso Murders.
17:34It was one of the darkest chapters
17:36in Cleveland history.
17:38The town was in fear.
17:40And during that time,
17:41a serial killer
17:42stalked this city.
17:44In the 1930s,
17:45a serial killer
17:46reigned terror
17:47in Cleveland, Ohio,
17:49murdering and dismembering
17:50at least 12 people
17:51in the span of four years.
17:53The remains of these individuals
17:54were found scattered
17:55around the city,
17:56with most of them
17:57having died
17:57from decapitation.
17:59Of the 12 known victims,
18:00only two were positively identified
18:02as Edward Andresi
18:04and Florence Polillo.
18:06But all of the victims
18:07had one thing in common.
18:09People who would not be missed,
18:10people who had no identity.
18:12A third victim
18:12was thought to be
18:13a woman named Rose Wallace,
18:15but her identity
18:15was never confirmed.
18:17The investigation
18:18into the murders,
18:19which was the largest
18:20in Cleveland history,
18:21turned up two suspects.
18:23But no charges stuck.
18:25I'm 99% sure we pegged him.
18:27And the belief
18:28that this face,
18:29this man
18:30is Cleveland's
18:32torso killer.
18:33Francis Edward Sweeney.
18:35Nothing points away from him.
18:37Today,
18:37the identity of the torso murderer
18:39remains unknown.
18:42The Hunts of Robert Hanson.
18:44Growing up in Iowa,
18:45Robert Hanson
18:46was a shy loner
18:47who spent his free time hunting.
18:49After serving
18:50multiple jail sentences
18:51for petty theft,
18:52he moved to Anchorage, Alaska,
18:54where he settled
18:55with his family.
18:56And opened a bakery.
18:57It was a huge success.
18:59He had a wife and children.
19:01And except for his stuttered,
19:03he fit in completely.
19:04While there,
19:05Hanson began abducting
19:06young women to his home
19:08at gunpoint
19:08and assaulting them.
19:10With his private plane,
19:11he flew some of these women
19:12out into the wild,
19:13where he hunted them
19:14like prey
19:15before taking their lives.
19:17His habit was to toy
19:18with his prey
19:19before he made the kill.
19:20In total,
19:21Hanson killed
19:22at least 17 women.
19:23With the help
19:24of one of his victims
19:25who escaped,
19:26police were able
19:27to nail Hanson
19:28in 1983
19:28and succeeded
19:30in sending him to prison.
19:31Robert Hanson
19:32was convicted
19:32of murdering four women
19:34and sentenced
19:36to 461 years plus life
19:38with no chance of parole.
19:40He died in 2014
19:42of natural causes.
19:44The murder of John Price.
19:47In 2001,
19:48Catherine Knight
19:48became the first woman
19:50in Australian history
19:51to be sentenced
19:52to life imprisonment
19:53without parole.
19:54But what was most surprising
19:55was when you did see her,
19:57just how terribly ordinary
19:59she looked.
19:59She could have been
20:00a librarian.
20:01Her crime
20:01was the gruesome murder
20:02of her romantic partner,
20:04John Price.
20:05Price had kicked Knight
20:06out of his house
20:07after years of living together,
20:09during which she was
20:10reportedly violent
20:11towards him.
20:12His children say
20:13that there were scars
20:14on his body
20:14from where she'd
20:15stabbed him and hit him.
20:16On the night
20:16of February 29, 2000,
20:19Knight returned
20:19to Price's house
20:20and stabbed him
20:21repeatedly before doing
20:23and planning
20:24far more heinous actions.
20:26I just couldn't believe
20:27that one human being,
20:28either male or female,
20:29without species,
20:30could carry out
20:31such a calculated
20:33offense.
20:37Police,
20:38responding to a call
20:38from Price's neighbor
20:39and co-worker,
20:40found Knight comatose
20:42in the house
20:42and placed her
20:43under arrest.
20:45The Isabella Stewart Gardner
20:46museum heist.
20:48Around 1.24 a.m.
20:50on March 18, 1990,
20:52guards at the
20:52Isabella Stewart Gardner
20:53Museum in Boston,
20:55Massachusetts,
20:56buzzed in two men
20:57who appeared
20:57to be police officers.
20:59Once inside,
21:00the men subdued
21:01the guards
21:01and set about
21:02on what would become
21:03one of the largest
21:04museum heists
21:05in history.
21:06They handcuffed them
21:07and they wrapped
21:08duct tape around
21:09their eyes
21:09and they locked
21:10them up in the basement.
21:11Over the next hour,
21:12the robbers stole
21:1313 works of art
21:14worth over
21:15half a billion dollars,
21:17leaving empty frames
21:18hanging in their place.
21:19The FBI jumped
21:20on the case
21:21immediately,
21:22but their investigation
21:23stalled due to a lack
21:24of physical evidence
21:25at the crime scene.
21:27Those thieves
21:27were careful
21:28to cover their tracks.
21:30They went back
21:30to the security area
21:31and made sure
21:32they grabbed
21:33the video surveillance tape.
21:35The heist remains
21:36unsolved to this day,
21:37but one popular theory
21:39is that it was orchestrated
21:40by the Boston Mafia.
21:42As federal investigators
21:43listened to their
21:44informants and wiretaps,
21:45they heard Merlino
21:46talk about trying
21:47to return two
21:48of the stolen pieces.
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22:05The disappearance
22:06of Dorothy Jane Scott.
22:08Dorothy Jane Scott
22:09was a 32-year-old
22:11single mother
22:11who was working
22:12as a retail store
22:14secretary in California
22:15when she disappeared
22:16in 1980.
22:17Dorothy was going
22:18to go get the car
22:19and bring it around.
22:21Before she got
22:21to the car,
22:22there was somebody
22:23there already
22:23waiting for her.
22:24In the months
22:25leading up to the incident,
22:27Scott had received
22:27multiple calls
22:28from an anonymous man
22:29who claimed to love her,
22:31but also threatened her life.
22:32What was your reaction
22:33when you were told
22:35the specifics
22:36of what the caller said?
22:38That just almost
22:40put the final nail
22:42in the coffin.
22:43Those threats
22:44were ostensibly made
22:45manifest on May 28th
22:47when Scott was abducted
22:48in her own car
22:49after driving
22:50a co-worker
22:50to the hospital.
22:52Her car was later
22:52abandoned and set
22:53on fire in an alley
22:54where it was found
22:55the next day.
22:57The car being set
22:58on fire,
22:59it's like,
23:00wow.
23:01Scott, however,
23:02remained missing
23:02until four years later
23:04when her burnt remains
23:05were discovered
23:05by a construction worker.
23:08Do you know
23:08of any other
23:09crazy stories?
23:11Let us know
23:11in the comments below.
23:13I can see
23:14that there's
23:14an emotional
23:15coldness about it.
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