Farmville is a sleepy little town about sixty miles west of Richmond, Virginia. It is a college town hosting Longwood University and the second oldest college in the country, Hampden-Sydney, just down the road. It's the kind of place where, as the saying goes, "nothing ever happens." Until something did. In September of 2009, the town became the site of the four brutal murders of a local college professor, a local church minister, and two teenage girls.

Local police were initially baffled and the residents of Farmville were horrified. Police eventually discovered the murderer was Richard Samuel "Syko Sam" McCroskey, a teenaged boy from California, who had been visiting his online girlfriend in Virginia. Several factors caused the young man's troubled mind to become completed unhinged, including a devastating rejection and a haunting concert by one of America's Horrorcore bands.

The Farmville murders were ferocious. Officials at the crime scene referred to the setting as that of "a slaughterhouse." The press quickly began calling it "the Horrorcore Murders," or the Juggalo Murders, since the young couple identified with the Horrorcore rap subculture ("Juggalo" is the label given to fans of Psychopathic Records hip hop groups). Some were quick to blame the music and the performers because of the history of violent Juggalo attacks. While music of all genres can serve as inspirations both good and bad, in this case, the real evil clearly lay in the heart and mind of Richard McCroskey. 

Emma and her mother picked up McCroskey from the Richmond airport. The teens were both giddy with nerves and excited at the prospect of meeting for the first time in-person. But, right away, things didn't seem to be quite right. McCroskey was open, his heart on his sleeve, his vulnerable, needy self revealed to the young woman whom he was convinced would love and protect him. It probably wouldn't have mattered what she looked like, or talked like, or said - he remained smitten.

Such was not the case with Emma. She pulled back and became mostly aloof right after the two met. She apparently confided later with her friend, Melanie, that McCroskey was not nearly as cool and tough as he'd portrayed himself online. She also did not seem to find him as attractive as she'd expected. The rejection must have been shocking to McCroskey. He'd built up such unrealistic expectations, had arrived so needy, and now he was stuck a long way from home with two girls who giggled and taunted him just out of earshot. And they still hadn't left for the Michigan concert. 

Though it remains only a rumor and a story told by some of the concert's attendees, Emma may have had sex with one of the Horrorcore performers at an after-party. What is certain is that she spent her time at the event flirting with other men and studiously avoided McCroskey, who mostly stood to the side. Looking back, it may well be that his already troubled mind began to turn murderous at the concert. 

Eighteen-year-old Melanie Wells was born and raised in Louisville, KY, but had moved with her family to West Virginia when she was in high school. The family had made the decision to allow Melanie to complete her high school diploma at home, since the move was a major adjustment for her. Described as a sweet and friendly girl who loved music, Melanie met Emma Niederbrock online and the two became good friends, sharing an interest in all things Horrorcore. When Emma knew she'd be going to the concert in Michigan, she invited Melanie to join the group. Melanie really was an innocent bystander but McCroskey took no pity on her.

Following the murders, Melanie's parents became concerned when their daughter did not return home and could not be reached online or by phone. They made calls to the Niederbrock-Kelly household, but to no avail. McCroskey left voicemail messages on Melanie's mother's phone, but this only made the Wells family more suspicious. Her father actually drove to Farmville to check on her, but no one answered the door. Finally, Melanie's parents contacted Emma's father, Mark Niederbrock, who told the worried couple he would check in at the Farmville house the next day. 

Some might argue that the murders would never have happened if Emma Niederbrock's parents had not been so tolerant of her interest in Horrorcore rap, the culture, and her online boyfriend, Richard McCroskey. Dr. Debra Kelly and Rev. Mark Neiderbrock were in a difficult position as parents. Both were open-minded, tolerant people who understood that young people such as their daughter were bound to dabble in cultures and experiences that were not to parental liking or even known to be terribly safe. Yet, they were afraid to crack down on Emma's interest out of fear of immature, teenage retaliation.

So, when Emma and her online boyfriend, Richard McCroskey, known as "Syko Sam," made plans to meet at a major Horrorcore event in Michigan that September, her parents' protective instincts went into overdrive. The couple, who were in the final stages of divorcing, decided to pull together and protect their daughter. They agreed to provide the two online lovebirds with transportation and accommodation to and from the Michigan concert.

McCroskey would just need to fly to Virginia and they would all drive together to the event. Emma even had an online friend from West Virginia who would join the group. It sounded like a great plan and a wise decision on the part of Emma's parents. They intended to keep their daughter and the other two youngsters safe from harm. 

Not that every person who enjoys or is involved with the so-called "horrorcore" rap scene (where performers rap about death, murder, and other atrocities) is a disaffected youth with low esteem, but Richard McCroskey certainly fits that profile. Described by his sister as a meek and humble boy with low self-esteem, McCroskey seemed to have become involved with the tough-looking, tough-sounding Horrorcore and Juggalo subculture as an attempt to project his own tough image. One might say he wore the persona and the gear as a type of armor, to protect him from a world that he felt misjudged and humiliated him.

He also appears to have lived in something of an online fantasy world, where he could project himself as a mean, tough rap artist. He clearly sought to present an image of a strong, confident, "in control" sort of guy. Some of his musical efforts remain online today, serving as reminders of how an online persona can prove to be fake and disastrous.

Emma Niederbrock was described as a beautiful, sweet, and smart young woman who left public schools during middle school in order to be educated at home. She dreamed of becoming a fashion designer and was fond of modeling her creations to her family. She fancied herself something of a Goth, wore black, dyed her hair bright pink, and took up the nickname "Rag Doll." She was active in the online Horrorcore websites and discussion forums, and posted regularly on her MySpace account. Some of the last messages she posted were in anticipation of McCroskey's arrival. Their shared excitement is palpable and tragic, in light of the murderous rage that followed.

It's normal for people meet online in modern society. That's exactly how Emma and McCroskey met and "fell in love." The two "dated" online for more than a year before they met. They had pet names and cutesy, private catch phrases known only to one another. He loved that she looked up to him as a tough Horrorcore rapper; he thought she was smart and beautiful. McCroskey seems to have made her into a paragon, not only of perfection, but of devotion, all for him. She, to his mind, was someone who would never let him down. Misplaced expectations would lead to heartbreak and murder.

Since the case never went to trial, any evidence of how McCroskey spent his time with the rotting corpses has not been revealed. Rumors abound that police had photos and videos in their custody of how the murderer desecrated the bodies. He may also have performed rap songs and recorded those in the presence of the dead. What is known is that his already fragile mental state deteriorated during the days and nights he spent watching and smelling the death around him. 

If taxi driver Curtis Gibson knew what he was in for, he probably would not have picked up Richard McCroskey and agreed to take him to the Richmond airport. To put it bluntly, a horrendous odor emanated from McCroskey's body. Gibson described the odor as "foul," and he had to drive the taxi with the windows down to keep from gagging. Others who encountered McCroskey during his escape attempt expressed similar sentiments, including a statement that the odor was akin to that of "rotting flesh." Apparently, the killer had neither bathed nor changed his clothes since the night of the murders several days earlier. His clothes were described by witnesses as caked in gore. 

McCroskey remained with the corpses for two days in the two-story home, which was only a few blocks from Longwood University. On the third day, he committed the fourth and final murder in his one-man killing spree. Rev. Mark Niederbrock, Emma's father and Debra's estranged husband, dropped by the house on his way to a meeting in Richmond. He'd been asked by Melanie Wells's family and others to try to find out why no one had heard from the three women.

McCroskey met him at the door. It is unclear if anything was said before the youth began his attack on the Presbyterian minister. What is known is that Mark tried to defend himself against the blows of the sledgehammer, but he was soon on the floor, where McCroskey pummeled his head and face. The attack was so ferocious that the hardwood flooring beneath Niederbrock was damaged and soaked through with blood. Shortly after the final murder, McCroskey stole the Reverend's car and attempted to make his way to the Richmond airport.

Jilted teen lover and would-be "horrorcore" rap artist Richard "Syko Sam" McCroskey found himself stuck in a house with the girl who had just rejected him, one of her friends, and her mother. It was several days before he was due to leave the small Virginia town and fly back to his home in California, which he wasn't looking forward to; he'd left home bragging of his romantic success.

Always a meek and insecure youth, McCroskey was now profoundly and unbearably hurt by all that had happened in his life in the preceding weeks of late summer. As the hours passed, his emotional pain turned into something evil. In the wee hours of September 15, 2009, he violently took a sledgehammer to the sleeping heads of his former paramour, 16-year-old Emma Niederbrock, her visiting friend, Melanie Wells, and Emma's mother, a college professor named Debra Kelly. 

When Melanie Wells's mother finally contacted the Farmville police, two officers were sent to the Niederbrock-Kelly home. McCroskey opened the door and reassured the officers that the three women were out to the movies. The police bought the story, but when Wells's mother called again, the officers returned to the home. However, by then McCroskey had murdered Mark Niederbrock and left the crime scene, stealing the Reverend's car.

Within minutes, McCroskey wrecked the 2000 Honda. Police arrived to file a report, totally unaware, at that point, of the murders. McCroskey was released and caught a ride with the tow truck driver, then called a taxi for a ride to Richmond International Airport, which was about an hour's drive from Farmville. The murderer was at last heading home to California. Or so he thought. According to the taxi driver, Curtis Gibson, McCroskey "spoke calmly and never raised [any] suspicion." Gibson said that McCroskey told him Emma became angry with him when she caught him going through her phone and accused him of invading her privacy. So, McCroskey claimed he didn't want to argue with her anymore and wanted to go home. 

McCroskey and Gibson continued on to the airport in Richmond, where the former hid in the baggage claim area until it was time to board his flight west. It would be a long wait, as the flight did not depart until late the next day. However, it was just enough time for police to locate and arrest McCroskey. He was indicted on six charges of first-degree murder, the two extra charges due to the intense brutality involved. 

There have been multiple cases where murder victims left messages and notes for the police to point them toward the killer. In some situations, victims created a digital trail for investigators to follow. These brave souls were able to exact their revenge on their murderers by letting the world know who killed them. Without their actions, police or prosecutors may not have been able to bring them to justice. 

Crimes solved by small clues are increasing more and more, thanks to technology. And not all hints are left on cell phones and laptops - some are posted on blogs and online boards like Reddit and WordPress, while others are written on good, old-fashioned paper. Check out these stories of victims who helped catch the culprits of their own murders from beyond the grave.

Modern technological advances in DNA have enabled victims to help police find their attacks. And in some cases, even their murders. One such example is Vanessa Marcotte. Marcotte was an up-and-coming accounts manager at Google, living a fascinating life in Silicon Valley. She was visiting her mother in Massachusetts when she went for a jog, during which she was attacked, raped, and murdered. Police had no clues, except for discovering that Marcotte had fought her attacker. Experts were able to extract the killer's DNA from beneath Marcotte's fingernails.

Tests were conducted and police found a match that led them straight to the killer. Angel Colon-Ortiz was arrested and charged with aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and assault with intent to rape and murder. 

Alexander Litvinenko was a former Russian intelligence expert who carried certain information and secrets with him to London. It was 2006 when Russia was still having its own version of the Wild West. Litvinenko thought he had escaped the clutches of the Putin regime and thus, welcomed a visit from a couple of former colleagues who met him for tea at a local cafe. 

Litvinenko was, of course, highly trained in observation of all others and all items around him. So, when he was taken exceedingly ill after taking tea with his old friends, he remembered that there was a certain pot from which only he had poured into his cup. He realized he was poisoned and informed police of the situation. While Litvinenko suffered and lingered in agonizing pain for weeks before passing, authorities searched and conducted tests on nearly every bit of crockery in the cafe where he'd taken the poison. His colleagues, of course, had long vanished.

One particular teapot in the cafe answered the question as to whether or not the poisoning had occurred and by what specific means. Police discovered the poison was the radio-active and fast-acting polonium. There was enough in the teapot's spout alone to kill several people. Unknowingly, the cafe staff had put the used teapot into the dishwasher and served it up to customers. 

Two young Indiana girls disappeared in February of 2017, striking fear into the hearts of their families and their community. The bodies of 14-year-old Liberty German and 13-year-old Abigail Williams were found on Valentine's Day, which made the deaths even more heartbreaking. The police immediately classified their deaths as a double homicide, the first in 20 years in the city.

Shortly after their bodies were discovered, the Indiana State Police released to the public an audio clip from German's cell phone that they believe is the voice of the murderer. It is only three seconds in length, but you can clearly hear a man's voice saying, "- down the hill." Police commended the maturity and cool-headedness of German for recording the voice of the suspect, calling her a "hero." They also found a photograph of the killer on the phone, and have commented that these are solid pieces of evidence that will hopefully point them toward catching the killer(s). 

Karen Perez was fifteen years old and had just completed her first year of high school in June of 2016. She went missing that same month. Initially, her family, community, and even her boyfriend helped search for her and spread the word of her disappearance. Rumor had it that she was last seen at her boyfriend's home. Within days, her body was found partially nude and crammed into a cabinet under the sink in a tawdry, empty apartment in Houston, Texas.

Even though she seemed helpless in death, Perez left texts on her cell phone and her boyfriend's cell phone that clarified what happened to her. Those text messages revealed that the boyfriend demanded she skip school on the Friday she disappeared and meet him by a local tennis court. His messages even came with a threat, with his final text stating that if she refused to meet him, he would kill her and that her life would "end on bloods."

More incriminating evidence was found on the boyfriend's phone, including audio that preserved Perez's last moments alive. Police listening to the audio could hear the boyfriend demanding Perez have sex with him, even calling her by name. She refused him and he began choking her. Perez cried out, "I don't want to die!" towards the end of the recording. The boyfriend was charged with murder and taken to juvenile court for prosecution. 

Amarjit Chohan, an English resident and businessman, was murdered in 2003 with his wife, children, and his mother-in-law. His killers dumped his body into the sea, thinking they had destroyed any and all evidence of their vicious crime. And yet, messages can come back from the grave, even when the grave is underwater. When searchers discovered his body, they found a piece of paper tucked into one of his socks. It was a letter that was addressed to one of his murderers, Kenneth Regan.

The subsequent police investigation suggests that Chohan was kidnapped by Regan, Bill Horncy, and Peter Rees. He was tied up and held prisoner in a house for several days. Police speculate that Chohan, anticipating his own murder, used the letter in his sock as a way to provide police with a clue. 

Arturo Gallegos and Juan Gallegos-Rodriguez were hanging out at Arturo's apartment in Spokane Valley, WA, in early November of 2014 when they were shot at close range by an unknown assailant. When investigators searched the apartment, they found a journal kept by Gallegos. One of the entries helped to enlighten the police and led to the arrest of a suspect. While the murders occurred in November, the pertinent entry was written in July, four months earlier. On that occasion, Gallegos recorded the following:

"This morning my nephew Chris Ramirez knocked on my door and woke up, I opened the door, but I never thought he would come at me with a kitchen knife threatening me and saying he was going to stab me. I kept telling him that I hadn't done anything, that's when he started accusing me of being with his girlfriend."

No harm came to Gallegos that day, according to his journal. He was able to escape that time by locking himself in his bedroom. Local police have no record that he contacted them about the July incident. While that was not enough evidence to charge Ramirez with the murders, police were able to arrest him on an unrelated charge, so that they could hold him while the investigation continued. Later that year, Ramirez was charged with double homicide. 

South African teacher Cebisile Happiness Khoza went for a country drive with her boyfriend and fellow school teacher, Siyamamkela Odwa Nompumza. Their destination was isolated and on a quiet dirt road. It was there that Mompumza took a knife and brutally stabbed Khoza repeatedly, then doused her with gasoline and set her ablaze. He left the scene, confident that no one would have a clue as to what happened. He even had an alibi prepared for the police.

What Nompumza did not know is that as his girlfriend lay mortally wounded and on fire, she was able to scratch the first three digits of his phone number into the dirt road. This heartbreaking evidence enabled police to question and subsequently arrest her murderer. 

This one was the first of its kind: a blogger recorded what led to his and his sister's murder in his final post. It was 2005 and Simon Ng had been living in the United States for a while. Finding himself lonely, Ng enrolled in college courses and started his own blog. Then, one day, Simon and Sharon were found dead in their apartment, both stabbed to death. Without Simon's blog, police would probably still be searching for the murderer. It turned out to be one of Sharon's ex-boyfriends, a man named Jin Lin. 

On the day of the murders, Simon had blogged the following: 

“Anyway today has been weird, at 3 some guy ringed the bell. I went down and recognized it was my sister’s former boyfriend. He told me he wants to get his fishing poles back. I told him to wait downstair while I get them for him. While I was searching them, he is already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house with his shoes on which btw I just washed the floor 2 days ago! Hopefully he will leave soon...”

Police speculate that it was only minutes later that Lin attacked Simon, stabbing him over and over in the chest with a kitchen butcher's knife. He then tied Simon up and began searching the apartment for money or anything of value. Disappointed with his findings, Lin lay in wait for Sharon's return. She arrived home at 9:30 and Lin immediately began stabbing her and returned to stabbing the bound Simon. Simon died at the apartment while Sharon died about an hour later in a hospital. Lin was convicted of the double murder in 2008 and is now serving a life sentence in prison without parole.

Cannibalism remains one of the strangest and most disgusting crimes a person can possibly commit, and famous cannibal serial killers possess a level of infamy unique to their crimes. While some cultures around the world cannibalize as part of their society, the lone cannibal killers in this list acted on their own selfish and twisted impulses. Childhood abuse and psychological trauma account for many of these cannibals' motives, but many simply wanted to know what human flesh tasted like, and used dirty methods to find out. In some cases, these cannibals roam free, either escaped from their holding cells or released on a technicality. 

In addition to eating victims' flesh, cannibal murderers performed all types of psychological and physical torture not only on their victims but also their relatives. Some killers even tricked people into eating human flesh. Hailing from all around the world, from urban epicenters to rural villages, cannibal killers know no restrictions when it comes to location. Read further if you dare, but be warned; this isn't a list to peruse during your lunchbreak.

Matej Curko, a resident of Slovakia, used the Internet to lure in his victims - with the promise of being eaten. In many cases, Curko lured victims into meeting with him so he could kill them; allegedly two of his female victims consented to Curko's request. When Curko began online-chatting with Markus Dubach, a suicidal man in Switzerland, Curko was honest about his intentions. Curko kept an extensive amount of murder "trophies" in his home, including the bodies of two women who had disappeared the previous year. After Curko revealed these trophies, Dubach informed authorities.

During a sting operation, an undercover agent met up with him. This turned into a gun battle, in which Curko was shot five times. He died later that day in the hospital. Despite Curko's online interactions where he claimed his victims allowed his cannibalism, the high number of missing persons surrounding him suggests otherwise.

Suspected murderer Matthew Williams, 34, had just been released from prison a few weeks, after served a five-year prison sentence for a violent attack on his partner. While at the hotel, which also served as a bail hostel, Williams lured a young woman back to his room despite the building's rules against guests. When staff came to his room to notify Williams of the policy, they found him eating the woman's face off.

According to Jill Edwards, a local resident who described Williams as "an animal," they entered his room after not getting a response from Williams. This attack would prove to be his last, as he was struck by a high voltage taser when apprehended by police. Though formally arrested following the tasing, William became "unresponsive" moments later and died.

 

On May 26th, 2012, 31 year-old Rudy Eugene told his girlfriend "I'm going to be late. I love you and I'll be back." Sometime thereafter, Eugene ripped off his clothes and attacked a homeless man in broad daylight in Miami, FL. At the time thought to be on the drug commonly known as "bath salts," Eugene began by tearing away at the homeless man's face with his teeth. This happened over the course of 18 minutes.

The victim, Ronald Poppo (age 65), was just an innocent person in the way of Eugene's bath salt-induced rage. Footage of the crime showed Eugene jumping onto the homeless man, who was sleeping at the time, stripping off the man's clothing, and then attacking Poppo with his teeth. The man survived, but lost 75% of his face. Eugene was shot to death by police at the scene; since the toxicology report ruled out the presence of bath salts, the cause of Eugene's violent episode remains unknown.

Born Hamilton Howard Fish on May 19, 1870, the man who would later be known as "The Gray Man," "The Werewolf," "The Brooklyn Vampire," and "The Boogey Man," grew up in an orphanage. Albert Fish, the name he chose to go by, horrifically spent his early years drinking urine and eating feces. By 1890, he lived in New York City and became a male prostitute. At that time, he also started raping young boys under the age of six.

A male lover once took him to a wax museum where he saw and was fascinated by a bisection of a penis (which is when a penis is split directly in half), which led to his obsession with castration. He wound up trying this on a few of his victims.

Fish boasted that he abused, tortured, or even cannibalized one child in every U.S state, but was only ever actually suspected of and convicted for about eight of them. The case that made him famous (as it led to his final arrest) was the abduction and murder of Grace Budd. He pretended to be taking her to his niece's birthday party, to which her parents consented, but Budd was never brought back.

He later sent a letter to her parents that described exactly how he coerced her into trusting him. It also contained details about how he killed her and ate some of her flesh. He was executed via the electric chair in 1936, with his "final statements" withheld by his lawyer for being "the most filthy string of obscentities." 

In 2012, Vince Weiguang Li, who recently acquired Canadian citizenship, suffered a break with reality. Eight years prior, Li claimed "the voice of God" began speaking to him, which told him he was the second coming of Jesus destined to fight against an alien invasion. While traveling on a Greyhoud bus, Li snapped and began stabbing fellow passenger, Tim McLean, believing the man to be one such alien.

Li wound up decapitating McLean while on the bus, in full view of everyone else on it, and then began eating pieces of the man's flesh and licking blood off of his hands. Needless to say, the bus stopped and everyone fled, leaving Li on the bus where he continued to slice McLean's body into small pieces until the authorities intervened. Li has since been diagnosed with schizophrenia. 
 

Issei Sagawa famously committed a brutal crime, and remains free to do it again. Sagawa became a notorious semi-celebrity in his native Japan in 1981 after killing and eating a Dutch exchange student named Renee Hartevelt. After inviting Hartevelt to his apartment in Paris to read and study poetry, he shot her in the neck, fornicated with her corpse, and then spent two days carving up and eating her body. Sagawa later said he had hoped by eating the beautiful Hartevelt to absorb her healthy energy.

Initially imprisoned in France for the crime, Sagawa was later extradited in Japan, where his crime became a subject of intense public fascination. Sagawa is currently a free man, living in Tokyo and working as a writer, restaurant reviewer, and guest speaker.

Before his current residency at a psychiatric hospital, Alexander Spesivtsev shared an apartment with his mother, where he killed up to 80 people (but was only convicted of 19) and ate a good majority of them. Unsurprisingly, he's been declared insane and is thankfully behind government-secured doors in Russia. If not for a bit of building maintenance, Spesivtsev might never have been captured. When radiators began malfunctioning in Spesivtsev's apartment complex, his neighbors called a plumber, who ended up opening the door by force when Spesivtsev failed to answer.

The plumber found a mutilated, headless body in the bathtub, bowls with pieces of human meat in them in the kitchen, and a mutilated Olga Galtseva somehow still alive on the sofa. She died shortly after, but was able to tell her story. The creepiest part is that Spesivtsev's mother lured the women into the apartment for him to rape, beat, kill, and eat.

Shortly after giving birth to her newborn son, 24-year-old Li Zhenghua clamped her jaws down on the infant's arm. When a nurse attempted to save the child, Zhenghua tightened her bite, requiring multiple workers to loosen it. Hospital staff eventually pried the woman's mouth open and rescued the little boy, but not before he sustained heavy bruising and bleeding. The hospital sedated Zhenghua. and transferred her child to a more secure room in the hospital.

Authorities never determined what went wrong, but apparently, Zhenghua lived on the streets for several weeks after her mother-in-law kicked her out of the house due to her unusual behavior. The family didn't tell anyone Zhenghua was pregnant, and she was only rushed to the hospital when strangers saw her going into labor. 

Yoo Young-chul, a South Korean resident, murdered 21 people between 2003 and 2004, and occasionally at their livers. His victims fell into two categories: prostitutes (he was apparently upset with women in general after his girlfriend broke up with him), and elderly folks. Initially, Yoo broke into elderly residences, where he would bludgeon victims with a hammer, covering his tracks by making them looking like homicide-home invasions. In one instance, Yoo burned down a building to hide his crimes. 

When police intensified their investigation, Yoo relocated to a Seoul apartment, where he made appointments with female masseuses. To dispose of their remains, Yoo cut the bodies into pieces, removing their fingerprints, and scattering the bags throughout the mountainside. Initially captured after a massage parlor relayed Yoo's requests for a masseuse to authorities, Yoo managed escape after feigning epilepsy to get his restraints removed. He was sentenced to death for his crimes, the first person sentenced since 1997.

On April 9th of 2002, rapper Big Lurch, aka Antron Singleton, and his friend, Thomas Moore, spent the night smoking PCP, which they blame for Singleton's actions during the next 24 hours.

Singleton subsequently murdered his roommate, Tynisha Ysais, and consumed parts of her body. Tooth marks were found on her face and lungs, which were completely torn from her chest cavity. When finally arrested, Singleton was naked, covered in blood, and standing in the middle of the street yelling at the sky. Serving a life-sentence in California, Singleton occasionally gives interviews detailing the dangers of drugs like PCP upon everyday citizens.

No reason to beat around the burning bush: people are fascinated by Satan. Some love to hate Mr. 666, others straight-up love the infernal homeslice. The canon of Western literature is replete with works featuring the devil and his demons. Then you've got your Satanic metal bands, which span a number of subgenres. Black Sabbath's music had devilish themes, as did that of post-Sabbath doom pioneers like Pentagram. Even proto-metal groups like Coven and Led Zeppelin dabbled in the occult. 

Yet classic and psychedelic rock and metal is child's play compared to the savage assault and pitch-black lyrics of black, death, and blackened death metal. The members of bands like Mayhem, Burzum, Gorgoroth, and Empire have committed crimes in the name of black metal, Satan, and the occult ranging from murder to kidnapping, torture, and the burning of centuries-old churches. When asked about the foundational philosophy of his band's music, former Gorgoroth frontman Gaahl replied "Satan." The members of these bands were reacting against the imposition of Christianity on their culture, which was in part destroyed by monotheism. 

Enter the Beasts of Satan, a group of Italian metal devotees who discovered Satan and the occult through music and took things way too far, committing heinous crimes in the name of the Dark Lord. Facts about the Beasts of Satan take you back to the 1990s, to a town outside Milan, Italy, where a group of young men and their girlfriends formed a black or death metal band (media reports are unclear on which it was, in part because the band never released any recorded material). The band's name? The Beasts of Satan.

The band was associated with a sect of Satanism that made up its own demented occult rituals rooted heavily in drug use, which resulted in the brutal murders of at least three people. Beasts of Satan stories may seem like a demented real-life take on dark teen movies like The Lost Boys, but they are very true, and all the more terrifying for it. If you're curious how the Beasts of Satan killed, or went from being metalheads to murdering their best friends, or are looking for details of ritual murders committed by Beasts of Satan, sally forth. But be forewarned: media reports were filtered through many channels and mostly translated from Italian, resulting in some fuzzy, contradictory, and confusing details. 

When 16-year-old Fabio Tollis disappeared with his girlfriend Chiara Marino, his parents were told he had run off with Marnio. Michele Tollis, Fabio's father, refused to accept this explanation, and spent six years pursuing the truth. His journey led him to heavy music festivals across Europe, where he passed out fliers, and to the belief that Satanism was involved in his son's disappearance, in part because Marino's bedroom was supposedly filled with Satanic literature and paraphernalia. "No one can contradict me when I say that heavy metal and satanism are closely linked," he said. 

When Michele saw news of Volpe's arrest for the murder of Pezzotta, he recalled that his son had played in a band with Volpe. He contacted the authorities investigating Volpe and made his case that Volpe might know something about Fabio and Marino. As Italian investigator Teniente Enzo Molinari recalled:

"It was a strange story, the one Michele Tollis told. But he didn't only tell a story; he backed it up with a very convincing body of paperwork and photographs which he had gathered over the past six years. He had carried out a true investigation on the disappearance of his son and his son's girlfriend, all on his own."

Michele's story led to police questioning Volpe about the disappearance of Fabio and Marino. Volpe admitted to murdering the two, and took police to their grave. 

According to some reports, members of the Beasts of Satan tried, and failed, to kill Marino and Tollis a few weeks before successfully doing so. As per these reports, the group tried lighting the couple on fire in their car on December 31, 1997. Why Tollis and Marino would go into the woods with people who tried to burn them to death in a car is unclear - maybe the plan to do so never got past the ideation stage. 

Fueled by Italy's rampant Catholicism, the local media went into a frenzy when news of the killings broke. In the midst of this, reporters began looking into the lives of the victims. Italian newspaper reports painted Chiara Marino as a depraved Satanist whose bedroom was filled with goat skulls and black candles and who, according to alleged witness reports, engaged in acts of sexual violence. This is the same young woman who was murdered for being a personification of the Virgin Mary. 

Beasts of Satan drummer Andrea Bontade, who refused to take part in the murders of Tollis and Mariano, died after crashing a car into a wall at high speeds in 1998. He was drunk, and maybe high, at the time. According to the BBC, Bontade was "terrorized into committing suicide" by the other members of Beasts of Satan. Other reports suggest he was drugged by members of the band/cult and forced to commit suicide. When arrested, members of the group were tried for three murders - Mariano, Tollis, and Pezzotta - and one forced suicide.

In the wake of the Beasts of Satan murders, the Vatican elected to hold a course for priests and novices alike on the "phenomenon" of Satanism. The courses were held at Regina Apostolorum, a pontifical university in Rome, taught by Carlo Climati, and focused, according to the Los Angeles Times, "on the history, theology and sociology of Satanism and black magic, and the healing power of exorcism."  

According to Climati:

"There is a growing interest in satanic cults among youth today. They hear it in music, they find it on the Internet. Ten years ago when young people wanted to find out about Satanism, it was difficult. Now it's very easy...

It would be a big mistake to see the devil everywhere. There is no reason to panic. What we are teaching is how to know the language of Satanism, how to identify where [the phenomenon] is, and where it is not."

According to trial testimony, Chiara Marino, one of the first murder victims of the Beasts of Satan, was chosen for a ritual killing because she personified the Virgin Mary to the members of the group. Perhaps ironically, Marino's bedroom was supposedly found filled with Satanic literature and paraphernalia.

Some reports on the Beasts of Satan state Italian police tried to pin three additional deaths on the group. The deceased, Antonio Lombardo, Stefano Longone, and Luca Colombo were all friends of Sapone who died in 2003, 1998, and 2004, respectively. Lombardo lit himself on fire, Longone was run over by a truck, and Colombo was found hanged. 

The Beasts of Satan quietly subsisted for six years after the murders of Marino and Tollis before killing again on January 24, 2004. Andrea Volpe and his girlfriend Elizabeth Ballarin lured Volpe's ex, Mariangela Pezzota, 27 at the time, to a remote location with the promise of a meal. Volpe believed she knew too much about the deaths of Mariano and Tollis and might go to the police. 

Volpe, who was high on a mixture of cocaine and heroin (as was Ballarin), shot Pezzota in the face after an argument erupted while they were drinking champagne. She didn't die from the gunshot, so Volpe they called Sappone for assistance. He arrived, reprimanded Volpe for being an inept murderer, and helped him bury Pezzota alive after carting her away from the scene of the crime.

After disposing of Pezzota, Volpe and Ballarin, the latter of whom was 18 at the time, decided to get rid of Pezzota's car by sinking it in the Ticino river. On their way to doing so, Ballarin, who was driving Pezzota's car, crashed. Volpe, who was following in his car, came to her aid. Police then showed up and took them both to the hospital after realizing they were out of their minds on drugs. While under observation and still high, Ballarin muttered various things that led police to Pezzota's body the next morning.  

While most accounts of Pezzotta's killing note she was buried alive, at least two - one in the Los Angeles Times, another in the Independent - state Sapone killed her with a shovel upon discovering she was still alive. According to the Independent, Sapone shouted "This is disgusting you don't even know how to kill someone" at Volpe before killing Pezzotta. 

Writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2005, Tracy Wilkinson made a case for the occult and Satanic aspects of the Beasts of Satan crimes being symptoms of a more predictable disease - social conditions. "Experts warn against exaggerating the phenomenon. Drugs, for example, appear to have played at least as much of a role in the killings as the devil," Wilkinson wrote. As she reported, one of the accused tried to plead insanity on the basis of being so high on LSD she had no idea what she was doing. 

Citing the work of sociologists, Wilkinson points to a high number of disaffected youth in the Milan area, where migration and various other factors weakened typically strong Italian family structure and poverty and housing projects gave rise to drug use and other petty crime, as well as the modern disease of alienation. 

Chiara Marino, 19, and Fabio Tollis, 16, had no idea what they were getting into when they left the heavy metal bar Midnight Pub and went off into the woods with friends Andrea Volpe, Nicola Sappone, and Mario Maccione on January 17, 1998. All five were involved in the underground metal scene around Milan, Italy, and had gotten heavily invested in Satanism and the occult through lyrical themes prominent in black and death metal. Tollis, who was dating Marino, played in a death metal band with some of the others; you can hear Ferocity, for which Maccione contributed guitar and vocals, here.

On account of their interest in the occult and Satan, the friends belonged to a sect of Satanism called Beasts of Satan, which may or may not have extended beyond a small group of eight or so friends (media coverage in strictly Catholic Italy was predictably hysterical and prone to invention and hyperbole, so it's hard to tell what this sect actually constituted). Volpe, Sappone, and Maccione were also members of a band called Beasts of Satan, which revolved around the Satanic sect. They dabbled in a hodgepodge of occult rites and beliefs with Satan at the center; their brand of Satanism was a far cry from established religious and philosophical Satanism such as of The Church of Satan or the Satanic Temple. 

On that fateful night in January '98, Marino and Tollis were murdered in what has been described as a "drug-fueled Satanic ritual in woods near Somma Lombardo, northwest of Milan." Marino was stabbed in the heart and Tollis bludgeoned with a hammer when he tried to protect her; he was then gagged and had his throat slit. The Italian media dubbed the crime "an orgy of violence."

The evening ended with Marino and Tollis being dumped in a pit, which Volpe, Sappone, Maccione, and other members of the Beasts of Satan filled with dirt and urinated on. According to Volpe, one member of the group danced on the grave while shouting "Zombies, now you're only zombies."

Sometimes, the smallest towns hide the biggest secrets. That was the case with the Texas Slave Ranch, one of the state's creepiest stories. Walter Wesley Ellebracht Sr. and his extended family had lived in Mountain Home, TX, for generations, and they were known as decent folk. But something strange began happening on their ranch in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. People - mostly drifters - began disappearing around the property.

What happened at the Texas Slave Ranch? True stories from Mountain Home lay out the chilling details. Walter Ellebracht, along with accomplices, had kidnapped, enslaved, and tortured people on the property. At least one man was presumed dead. Finally, in 1984, the authorities raided the property on a tip. They rescued six people, but what else they discovered was nothing short of gruesome: bone fragments and tapes of torture sessions.

Ellebracht and a few others went to trial in 1986 and were ultimately convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping. However, they were effectively acquitted of murder, and there are many who believe justice has yet to be served. The men involved might have been found guilty, but they barely saw any jail time. These Texas Slave Ranch facts illustrate a sordid chapter in the South's history.

Prisoners at the Ellebracht ranch performed a number of duties, almost always the most labor-intensive and punishing available. One of the primary tasks was the cutting of firewood and harvesting of cedar trees. They performed these jobs chained together, and when they were done with the cutting and sawing, they were forced to carve pieces of cedar into keychains that were sold in stores around the Mountain Home community.

Though there were no claims of sexual assault made by the men and women held captive at the Ellebracht ranch, the wife of a foreman on the ranch did make such a claim. Sheri Hamilton said that every morning she was forced to kiss the ranch owner's son, Walter Ellebracht Jr., and to do it in front of her husband. She claimed the abuse led to rape:

"He [Walter Ellebracht, Jr.] made me take my clothes off. He took off his clothes. He then made me have sex with him."

None of Hamilton's testimony ever made it into the court room, since Ellebracht Jr. wasn't on trial for sexual assault. The trial judge later stated that "it would have led to an automatic reversal of a verdict in the case" - that is, Ellebracht Jr.'s conviction for conspiracy to commit murder and aggravated kidnapping

According to victim testimonies, inmates at the Texas Slave Ranch knew to keep their mouths shut and to keep working, no matter how exhausted they became. If they talked back, they would be on the receiving end of twisted mind games.

Joyce Ellebracht would shoot at stones and bottles placed near the slaves' feet to see how close she could get without injuring them. Other slaves were ordered to dig holes they were told would be their graves. On another occasion, the Ellebrachts showed up in the slave quarters with a bag containing red Jello and pieces of beef; they told the prisoners the bag held the remains of a slave who "got smart."

When Texas police raided the Ellebracht ranch in 1984, they found five men and one woman living in a barn there. They all claimed that they had been brought to the property with the promise of a hot meal.

According to ranch records, at least 75 people had been employed there at one time or another. One had escaped and alerted the authorities, triggering the raid.

Walter Wesley Ellebracht III was only 9 years old when Texas police raided his family's ranch in 1984. The child had spent some of his early years in an environment that can only be described as perverse. Over the next two years, due to the trial and massive media coverage, Ellebracht learned more about the sordid activities on his family's property. He was shunned for being an Ellebracht as well.

The man who eventually came to be known as "Wes" later changed his last name to distance himself from his family. He died in a car accident in 2012, at the age of 38.

For Anthony Bates, the punishments doled out on the Ellebracht ranch proved to be fatal. Bates had injured his leg while working on the ranch, and was mostly incapacitated. That didn't matter to the Ellebrachts; they began to torture him with the cattle prod. Bates did not survive, and his body was doused in gasoline and set aflame - apparently while his captors listened to Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."

Survivors of the slave ranch pointed police to bones that remained after the attempted cremation.

Life for the abused captives on the Texas Slave Ranch was a never-ending nightmare. They even slept chained in the dirt. Survivors reported being shackled at the end of each work day, and being put to bed in a metal barn. The building was freezing in the winter and burning hot in the summer, and the captives were denied pillows and blankets. There were no bathroom facilities, either, so they had to sleep in their own filth.

Men held as slaves at the ranch endured a variety of tortures. Some of the torture sessions were even audio-recorded, and played later in court during the trial. On the tape, voices can be heard begging someone named "Robert" to stop shocking them. A male voice responds, "Tell Robert it feels good. Say it feels good... I love to see the sparks fly."

The sparks came from an electric cattle prod used by the torturer. The actual prod was discovered when police entered and searched the Ellebrachts' ranch in 1984. The battery-operated device released up to 4,0000 volts of electricity.

One of the slave ranch victims, Mark Allen Hamilton, claimed in a court deposition that even some of the victims participated in the torture of fellow prisoners. He cited the case of Anthony Bates, who, due to an injured leg, was unable to work. Bates was shocked by the cattle prod sometimes more than 30 times in a torture session, including shocks administered to his genitals and tongue.

By the time the Texas Slave Ranch case went to trial in 1986, the shocking story had made its way around the country and the world. Ten people were charged with crimes, and the major players - Walter Ellebracht Sr., Walter Ellebracht Jr., and a ranch foreman, Carlton Robert Caldwell - were convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping. However, no one was convicted of the murder of Anthony Bates. It's unclear why, but the lack of solid physical evidence may have let the men off. Only bone fragments were found at the property.

The case prosecutor, Ronald Sutton, asked the judge for life sentences for the three convicted defendants, but the judge had other ideas. Walter Ellebracht Sr. only received probation. Walter Jr. was given a 15-year sentence, but remained free thanks to a number of appeals. Caldwell was sentenced to 14 years, but served only three. The men continued to live in the area after the trial, though the ranch was sold off.

Why the light sentences? A local attorney theorized that, because the victims were drifters, "they were seen as less entitled to the benefits than the rest of us are."

Travis Boyd, a 38-year-old construction worker from Las Vegas, was hitchhiking when Walter Wesley Ellebracht Sr. picked him up and offered him a job on his ranch. Boyd stayed the night, but decided to leave the next day. Before he could exit the property, though, Ellebracht, his son and wife, and some ranch hands approached him, armed to the teeth.

Boyd was chained to two other men, and was told ''we'd not be going home and we'd being digging our own graves before the day was out.''

Can you think of anything more terrifying than hearing someone being murdered over the telephone? Today nearly everyone carries a phone with them everywhere they go, which has led to an increasing number of people who have had to experience the paralyzing fear that comes with listening to a murder being committed over the phone with no way to help. 

In some cases, individuals were simply having a conversation with a friend or family member when tragedy struck. In other cases, witnesses or victims have contacted 911 dispatchers, who then have to listen to the murders as their happening over the phone. Still others place a call just to make sure that a record of their murder is preserved as evidence. Murders that occur during phone calls can indeed help to convict a killer, but the experience of listening to it as it is happening has to be one of the most frightening and heartbreaking experiences one can endure.

Once more people began carrying cell phones, the opportunity for emergency phone calls to be placed has increased significantly. Such was the case in the tragic event that occurred in Orlando, FL, in 2016, which ended with the deaths of a mother and her two young children.

The first call that came in concerning the case came from a local Chili's restaurant, where the caller reported that a fight had broken out in the parking lot. Within minutes, numerous calls were coming in to 911 reporting a fatality at the same location. Recordings of those calls reveal the heartbreaking last moments of thirty-one-year-old Chericia Brown. Her estranged husband, Henry Romone Brown, was clearly a deeply troubled man with ferocious anger in his heart. He approached his wife in the parking lot and took his anger out on her by stabbing her, and then driving a car into her and two others.

One of the 911 callers was by Chericia's side when she fell, and was helping to care for her wounds. The caller stated "It looks like she got stabbed, She's awake. She keeps saying, 'Help me, help me.' She's not being very responsive." Seconds later, the voice of another woman cried out, "Oh my God!" and the horrifying sound of a car hitting bodies came across the phone line. At that point, chaos erupted, and the 911 operator could hear only screaming and the sounds of running. One of the callers then told the operator that a car had hit three people, including Brown: "There's two [knocked] out, and another one's crying." The dispatcher asked for more details as to the victims' conditions, and the caller responded, "There's one that's dead, so..."

That one fatality was Chericia Brown, who was pronounced dead later that evening at the hospital. The two people helping her, one a nurse and the other a paramedic, were also injured, but thankfully survived.

Unfortunately, the evening held still more tragedy. Henry Brown managed to get away from the scene of the crime and drove to a nearby hospital, where he engaged in a shootout with local authorities. He then fled the hospital parking lot, with the police hot on his heels. When they finally caught up to him, the couple's two children were found dead inside their father's vehicle.

Rachel Jeantel was on the phone with Trayvon Martin just moments before he was shot by neighborhood vigilante, George Zimmerman. Jeantel was a good friend of Martin's, and the two were catching up on the phone as he walked down the street in Sanford, FL, on a late February night in 2012.

As the two were talking, Martin mentioned that a "man was watching" him, describing the man as a "creepy-a** cracker." Both Martin and Jeantel became a little anxious at that point, but continued their conversation. Jeantel testified that Martin told her he was trying to lose the man by walking back home. But Zimmerman continued to follow Martin, who was clearly becoming more anxious, according to Jeantel.

Soon, Martin told her that the man was right behind him. She advised him to run, which he did, and then the call was dropped. She called him back immediately and he was able to pick up and answer. She heard Martin say, "Why are you following me for?" Jeantel said she then heard the heavy breathing of the man standing next to Martin. "What are you doing around here?" he demanded of Martin. Then Jeantel heard some shuffling as Martin's phone headset fell off. She heard Martin shout, "Get off!" and then the call was lost again. Jeantel looked at her phone to see that the call ended at 7:16 p.m.

Sometimes people not only hear murders being committed over the phone, but actually witness the crimes via Skype or Facetime. Famed boxer, Floyd Mayweather, unfortunately became one of these people when he bore witness to a criminal act being committed by his friend, rapper Earl Hayes.

Hayes had called Mayweather claiming to be severely depressed and that he was thinking of killing himself. Mayweather spent two hours on Facetime trying to convince his friend not to commit suicide. At some point, though, Hayes put the phone down with Mayweather still connected and listening. Mayweather then heard Hayes walk away into the bathroom where he suddenly shot his wife, Stephanie Moseley. He then calmly returned to the phone and resumed his Facetime conversation with Mayweather, who was horrified. According to the boxer, Hayes was still determined to kill himself. Mayweather continued to plead with this friend, but it was of no use - the troubled rapper shot and killed himself, too.

In 2004, drug-crazed killer Danielle Lee Fels decided to make a phone call while in the midst of her murder spree in Brisbane, Queensland. Fels went to the home of siblings April and Ian Bailey in order to scare them into giving their drugs to her. However, things didn't go as planned, and when she called her friend Jacqueline Graham, she had already killed Ian Bailey, telling Graham, "I think he is dead."

Next, according to Graham, she heard "blood curdling screams" from an unknown woman. “It sounded like the woman was terrified and the scream was a blood-curdling sort,” Graham told police. Fels, who was 34 at the time and the mother of five children, wasn't charged until 2016, when she was finally brought in for murdering the Bailey siblings.

One evening, Prabha Arun was walking home from her job at an IT department in Sydney, Australia. She was chatting on the phone with her husband, Kumar, when out of nowhere, Prabha was stabbed only a few feet away from her home. Her husband, of course, had no idea what was happening to her, but became terrified when he heard her scream, "I think I've been stabbed!" He then heard her pleading with her attacker and screaming for help. She begged the man to not harm her and offered up all of her possessions if he would just leave her alone. Those may have been her last words, as the phone line then went dead and her husband was left horrified.

Police quickly found Prabha, who was still alive, and took her to a nearby hospital where she later died.

Nicola Cross was at her home in St. Albans, England, with her children when someone suddenly began banging on the front door. Nicola did not recognize the stranger and refused to open the door. She made a call to the police, and then phoned her husband, Daniel, who was away on business, and was assessing the situation with him when the man at the door broke into the home.

Nicola, 37, calmly told her husband to hang on while she investigated. Then, her husband heard frightening sounds from over the phone. Nicola was shouting at the intruder, "Get out of my house! What do you want?" Then he heard her beg, "You don't need to do this, you don't." A male voice then responded, "I do, I do." It turned out to be the voice of Marcin Porczynsk, a Polish auto mechanic, and the crazed individual who had broken in to the family's home. Daniel suddenly heard his wife scream, and then there was silence.

Court and medical experts later stated that Porczynsk brutally stabbed her, and that Nicola likely died almost instantly. Daniel, was quoted in his victim impact statement as stating, “I was on the phone before, during, and after. That phone call plays over and over in my head, along with Nik’s screams and her pleading for her life. I will never forgive myself for not being there to protect her. I am totally and utterly heartbroken. Our family had been broken and our futures taken away from us in a blink of an eye.”

Nicola Cross was murdered in front of her children, who survived the attack. Porczynsk pled guilty to a lower murder charge and is now in prison.

Joe Horn, of Pasadena, TX, was a man who minded his own business and was considered by many in his neighborhood to be a grandfatherly figure - but he was also very protective of his property. In 2007, when some neighborhood burglars came into his yard and began stealing some of his belongings, he called 911 and reported the activity along with his intentions to defend his property using a shotgun.

He reminded the dispatcher that Texas had a castle law, which under certain circumstances permitted a property owner to use firearms against intruders. The dispatcher remained on the line with Horn, trying to persuade him not to venture outside the house. "It's not worth killing anyone over," he pleaded with Horn. The dispatcher also warned Horn that officers were on their way to the scene, and that Horn should exercise extreme care so that he would not be shot and that the arriving officers would not be harmed.

Horn continued to speak to the dispatcher, one hand on the phone, the other on his shotgun. Finally, he announced that he was going out. He would not stand for anyone coming onto his property and stealing from him. The dispatcher continued to listen and then heard Horn say loudly, "Bang! You're dead!" followed by a series of gunshots. The suspected thief fell to the ground and was later pronounced dead.

In March 2013, a Dallas, TX, 911 dispatcher received a call from a woman named Deanna Cook, who was frightened for her life. The dispatcher remained on the line with her for at least eleven minutes. The dispatcher initially tried to get an address from Cook, but to no avail. The terrified Cook pleads over and over, "I'm not doing anything. Baby, please..." while her attacker mutters, angrily, "I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you."

Within moments, the dispatcher hears Cook choking and apparently being strangled. Cook never speaks again on the call, but the dispatcher continues to listen, without notifying police that a murder is taking place. The only sound that is heard after the choking is the frightened barking of Cook's dog. Police finally arrived at the residence fifty minutes after the call ended. No one answered the door, but Cook was later found strangled to death inside the home. The dispatcher was severely questioned as to why she did not label the call as a murder case when she notified the police department. Cook's ex-husband, Delvecchio "Red" Patrick was charged with her murder.

In January 2016, Michelle Enright of Victoria, Australia, answered her phone to hear the frightened voice of her cousin, 39-year-old Samantha Kelly. Kelly told her that "they" had put something strange into her drink and that she was feeling "drowsy and funny in the head." Kelly pleaded with Enright to stay on the line with her and help her stay calm.

"Then she told me that they were planning on killing her," Enright said. Allegedly the "they" Kelly had referred to were Christine and Ronald Lyons and Christine's ex-husband, Peter Arthur. Kelly had long suspected the three of wanting to kill her so that they could take her children away. "She told me that she overheard them...they were arguing about how they were going to do it," continued Enfield. "Toward the end, she said 'they're here now' and that's when they've gone in and I heard...and then she's muffled," Right after that, according to Enfield, she heard Kelly make "a funny noise," and then the call disconnected. Three weeks later Kelly was found dead in a dry creek bed. Police said she had been bludgeoned to death.

Hearing someone suffer - and even die - over the phone is, unfortunately, part of the job for 911 operators. Training and experience don't make this aspect of the job any easier, and emergency operators are regularly exposed to frightening situations - all over the phone.

In 2014, a Denver 911 operator was on the phone for 12 minutes trying to get help to a woman whose husband was trying to murder her. The caller identified herself as Kristine Kirk, and said that she was terrified of what her husband, Richard Kirk, was doing in the couple's home. Kristine told the operator that her husband had started rambling on about how the end of the world was coming, and that he wanted her to shoot him. She told the operator that he was hallucinating and that the couple's three young children were frightened. The operator asked Kristine if there was a gun in the house, and she said there was, but that it was locked in a safe.

Immediately following that statement, the operator heard scuffling over the line, then screams and gunshots. According to the operator, "the victim was not heard again." Police finally arrived to the home and discovered that Kristine Kirk had been shot and killed. Her husband later confessed to the crime.

John Lynch, also known by his pseudonym, John Dunleavy, was one of several well-known Australian serial killers. He went down in history as the Berrima Axe Murderer, due his weapon of choice - a tomahawk. Few serial killers are axe murderers, as it requires that they get very close to the victim to deliver the final blow. However, Lynch had the habit of sneaking up on his targets from behind, giving them little chance to fight back. 

Lynch was born in Ireland in 1813. In the early 1830s, he was found guilty of a crime and sent to Australia as punishment. At the time, Australia was like a penal colony where convicts were sent to do hard labor. There, Lynch eventually joined the ranks of Bushrangers, who were the criminals and murderers prowling around Australia's outback. He was found guilty of serial murder in 1841 and was hung on April 22, 1842. 

In 1835, Lynch and several other men were put on trial for the murder of Thomas Smith. Smith had apparently witnessed the men committing a number of crimes and told law enforcement about them. He was found dead shortly thereafter, made to be an "example" of people who snitched. Lynch and his criminal gang admitted to the murders. Despite his confession, Lynch was somehow acquitted of the crime. However, his two cohorts were sentenced to death and hung. 

John Lynch apparently carried his tomahawk with him everywhere. Although a gun would have been a safer weapon to have on hand in the Australian outback, Lynch carried an axe. He used the same tomahawk to kill all nine of his known victims, as well as any others that he wasn't charged with murdering. This earned him the nickname, "Berrima Axe Murderer."

On February 19, 1841, a man noticed that a dingo was madly digging at some shrubs near the road. Upon closer inspection, he found the dead body of Kearns Landregan, who was last seen alive with John Lynch (though he was known in the area as John Dunleavy). Landregan had been murdered and beaten to death from behind. Lynch was brought in and questioned, found with Landregan's hat, and then charged with Landregan's murder. The rest of his crimes unraveled from there. 

The patriarch of the Mulligan family was a known fencer of stolen goods. Lynch tried to sell him cattle and other goods at certain points throughout his Australian crime spree, but the two had a falling out. Lynch believed that John Mulligan owed him money, so he went and confronted the man. When Mulligan refused to pay, Lynch killed him and his entire family - Mulligan's wife, Bridget, and their two children, John and Mary. Before Lynch killed Mary, he raped her. Then, he beat them all with his tomahawk before dragging their bodies into a pile and setting them on fire. 

Afterwards, Lynch claimed the Mulligan ranch as his own property. He wrote to the debt holder, claiming that Mulligan sold it to him (presenting himself as John Dunleavy). He stated in a letter that he would be making payments on the property now. This ruse worked for about six months until people grew suspicious of Lynch. 

Although John Lynch was born in Ireland, he spent part of his adult life in Australia. Lynch was convicted of the crime of "false pretenses" and sentenced to seven years of hard labor in Australia when he was 17 years old. He arrived in the land down under in 1832 and began working as a farmhand as part of his sentence. 

The Frazers, a father and son duo, were last seen alive was on August 14, 1841. They were traveling with Lynch when they contacted Samuel Bawtree, the man who had hired them to haul goods through the outback. Shortly afterward, they were never seen or heard from again. Lynch had apparently lured the son into the woods and bashed his head in, then did the same to the father. He hid their bodies, as well as their cart, and took off with the cattle and goods the Frazers had been transporting. 

After Lynch's arrest, he told law enforcement that God had been watching him the entire time that he was committing crimes and that God approved of the murders. On the night before he was executed, Lynch requested that a priest and a local magistrate come to his jail cell. There, he told both of them everything that he had done. 

After serving his seven-year sentence in Australia, the first thing that Lynch did was steal some cattle. He tried to sell them for quick money, but turned down what he felt wasn't a fair price. He decided to take the livestock to Sydney in hopes of securing a more favorable sale.

On the way there, he ran into a man named Edmund Ireland, who was traveling with a young Aboriginal boy. They had a wagonload of goods to sell and were also heading to Sydney. At one point during the journey, Lynch distracted them and killed the boy by smashing the back of his head in with a tomahawk. Later, Ireland shared a similar fate. Lynch hid both of their bodies in some brush and stole their wagon. 

Lynch was charged with the deaths of nine people. He had killed Edmund Ireland, Ireland's traveling companion (the unnamed Aboriginal boy), both of the Frazers, and the Mulligan family. His last victim, Kearns Landregan, was his undoing, as Lynch uncharacteristically left clues in his wake. However, when Lynch gave his confession right before his execution by hanging, he stated that he killed ten people. 

Lynch was supposed to serve as a farmhand in Australia to pay for his crimes in Britain. However, shortly after he arrived, he joined a gang of bushrangers. Bushrangers were criminals who wandered the Australian outback during the 18th and 19th centuries. They usually committed petty crimes and preyed on miners, Aboriginal people, farmers, ranchers, settlers, and just about anyone else who crossed their paths. 

Because of his murdering spree, Lynch is considered one of the most brutal bushrangers. He didn't always resort to cutting down people with his axe - Lynch also had a penchant for stealing valuable goods and fencing them.