Mysterious Stories

Little Lord Fauntleroy On March 8, 1921, the body of a young boy was found in some water behind the O’Laughlin Quarry in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. He was believed to be between five and seven years old and had been struck on the head with a blunt instrument. Five weeks before the boy was discovered, a quarry employee reported that a couple had stopped by in a vehicle to ask if he’d seen a young boy, and the woman appeared to be crying. In spite of this, no one ever came forward to claim the boy’s body, even after a reward was offered for information. Curiously, the boy was dressed in upscale clothing, suggesting that he hailed from a wealthy family. Since the victim bore a resemblance to the title character in Francis Hodgson Burnett’s famous children’s novel, he was nicknamed “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” The case remained cold for 28 years, till a connection was made between Little Lord Fauntleroy and Homer Lemay, a six-year-old Milwaukee child who seemed to disappear i

Monica Libao Throughout her childhood, Monica Libao moved around a lot and spent the first 15 years of her life living at 28 different addresses with her parents, Pablo and Burma. After she turned 16, Monica discovered a secret after her mother became ill and Monica caught a glimpse of her medical records. She noticed that Burma underwent a hysterectomy nearly two decades before Monica was even born. After confronting Burma about this, Monica was told that one of her older half-sisters was her real biological mother. After giving birth to Monica when she was 19, the sister gave her up and let Burma and Pablo raise her instead. However, when Monica questioned her sister, she was informed that Burma’s story was a complete lie and that Monica’s real mother had actually sold her to the Libaos in exchange for a bus ticket. The story got even more bizarre when Monica found her old birth certificate, which stated she was born in Chicago but listed no hospital or doctor and had been

The Toledo Clubber There are many notorious serial killers who have never have been identified, but few of them were as unpredictable as the “Toledo Clubber,” who committed a strange, random series of crimes in Toledo, Ohio, during the mid-1920s. The unknown assailant started off his crime spree by setting fire to a series of lumberyards in 1925. When the city responded by posting guards at lumberyards, the perpetrator decided to start bombing homes and tenements. When federal agents were called in to investigate, the bombings suddenly came to an end, and the assailant soon turned to murder. Over the course of one week in November, at least nine women were attacked by an unknown male, who proceeded to rape them and club their helpless bodies with a heavy object before leaving them for dead. Four of these women lost their lives, and the attacker became known as the “Toldeo Clubber.” After a reward was offered for the Clubber’s capture, the violence ended for a year. However, on

The Boy In The Dean Corll Polaroid One of the worst serial killers in the history of the United States is Dean Corll, who is believed to have raped, tortured, and murdered at least 28 victims during the early 1970s. Corll exclusively targeted teenage boys and was nicknamed “The Candy Man” because his family owned a candy factory and he often handed out candy to children. Corll worked alongside two teenage accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. and David Brooks, who helped lure Corll’s victims to his home. In 1973, Henley shot Corll to death to prevent him from murdering one of his friends. Henley and Brooks both received life sentences for their roles in Corll’s murders, but a recent piece of evidence suggests that the horrific saga of The Candy Man may not be completely over. In 2012, filmmaker Josh Vargas was doing research for a movie about Henley’s life and went through an old box containing Henley’s personal effects. He uncovered a faded Polaroid of what appeared to be

B. Traven It’s not uncommon for writers to publish works of literature under a pseudonym, but few of them went to greater lengths to conceal their identity than a mysterious author named “B. Traven.” Over the course of two decades, B. Traven published 12 novels and several short stories under this pseudonym. His most famous novel is probably The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , a 1927 adventure story that was eventually adapted into an acclaimed, Academy Award–winning film starring Humphrey Bogart. Yet in spite of writing such an iconic piece of work, Traven managed to take the secret of his true identity to his grave. When he died in 1969, he left behind a will claiming his real name was “ Traven Torsvan Croves ” and that he was born in Chicago in 1890. However, there is no evidence that anyone named Traven Torsvan Croves actually existed. It is believed that B. Traven spent the early part of his life living in Europe, as many of his works were written in German before they we

Mr. Bojangles On May 5, 1993, the town of West Memphis, Arkansas, would be plagued by one of the most controversial criminal cases of all time after the brutal murder of three eight-year-old boys: Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Steve Branch. Three local teenagers—Damian Echols, Jesse Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin (the “West Memphis Three”)—were convicted of the crime but soon acquired a slew of supporters who believed they were wrongfully convicted. The case generated so much controversy that the West Memphis Three were released from prison in 2011 after entering an Alford plea. There has always been much debate about who the real killer of the three boys might be, but a major wild card in this story is an unidentified individual known only as “Mr. Bojangles.” On the night the boys went missing, West Memphis police received a phone call from the manager of a Bojangles’ chicken restaurant, which happened to be located near the wooded area where the victims were eventually

Lady Of The Dunes Thousands of deceased John and Jane Does are found and never identified, but one of the most famous examples is a woman known only as “Lady of the Dunes.” On July 26, 1974, the naked decomposed body of a young female was discovered at the Race Point dunes near Provincetown, Massachusetts. The left side of her skull had been bludgeoned, and her throat was slashed all the way to her spine. The victim’s hands and some of her teeth were removed in a presumed attempt to prevent identification. She was also lying on top of a beach towel with a bandana and pair of jeans being used as a pillow beneath her head. Her age was believed to be between 20 and 40 years old. There is some speculation that the unidentified woman might have been Rory Gene Kissinger, a 25-year-old criminal who escaped from jail in 1974 after being arrested in a drug raid. One possible suspect in the woman’s death is notorious mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, who was one of the world’s most wa

Andrea Jerome Walker In 2006, a black man was convicted in Toronto after being caught with $10 worth of crack cocaine. Authorities could not have guessed that this routine drug bust would open the doors to a bizarre mystery that has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. One year earlier, the man had arrived in Canada using an American passport stating his name as “Andrea Jerome Walker.” However, when the Canada Border Services Agency now tried to deport him back to the United States, they learned the passport was fraudulent and Andrea Jerome Walker was not his real name. As a result, “Walker” was incarcerated in an immigration detention facility while officials tried to uncover his true identity. He has since earned the moniker “The Man with No Name.” Walker has remained in immigration detention for nearly nine years because authorities cannot figure out what to do with him. He cannot be deported back to his home country until it can be determined which country he actually orig

Mr. Cruel One of the most infamous unidentified criminals in Australia’s history victimized four Melbourne children and earned the nickname “Mr. Cruel.” The assailant’s first known attack occurred in the middle of the night on August 22, 1987, when he broke into a family’s home. After tying up the couple and their young son, Mr. Cruel proceeded to sexually assault their 11-year-old daughter. On December 27, 1988, he broke into the home of another family, tying up the parents and kidnapping their 10-year-old daughter. She was sexually assaulted before being released 18 hours later. On July 3, 1990, Mr. Cruel broke into another home and kidnapped a 13-year-old girl. She was held captive and sexually assaulted in a house for 50 hours before he released her. Finally, Mr. Cruel’s next crime would end in murder. On April 13, 1991, 13-year-old Karmein Chan was abducted from her home. This time, the perpetrator left a spray-painted message on her parents’ vehicle implying that the abducti

The Charfield Railway Disaster Children In the early morning hours of October 13, 1928, the village of Charfield, England became the site of a terrible tragedy. A mail train was traveling from Leeds to Bristol with 50 passengers aboard, but because of the thick fog, the crew failed to see a red signal before reaching Charfield railway station. They wound up crashing into a freight train, and the derailment ignited some gas cylinders, causing a massive fire. A total of 15 passengers lost their lives, and 23 others were injured. This incident would open up a most unexpected mystery after it was discovered that two of the deceased passengers were an unidentified young boy and girl. The fire burned these two children beyond recognition. They could not be matched to any of the other passengers, and no one ever came forward to claim them. There were even some far-fetched theories that the charred victims were not even children but a pair of small jockeys or some ventriloquist’s du

The Mass Disappearance of Children from National Parks Over the past 100 years, more than 1100 people have disappeared without a trace from national parks across the US. Most of these disappearances have been those of children younger than 10. This is especially insane considering that these children have vanished on federal land, which is known for being closely watched by law enforcement.   You would think that such a high number of disappearances would have left angry loved ones behind looking for answers, and led to some sort of public outcry, but instead, the issue is not widely known. This is, perhaps, because getting accurate statistics is incredibly difficult, meaning that it is impossible to know exactly how many children have vanished. When author David Paulides asked for a record of missing persons from different national parks, he was told that they don't keep those records. Later he was told if he wanted those records, it would cost him over $1 million. What

The S.S. Ourang Medan Photo: Public Domain/ via Wikimedia Around 1947-1948, a bizarre radio message was received by a number of ships traveling through the Straits of Malacca near Sumatra and Malaysia. The message was delivered in Morse code and partially indecipherable. According to those who received the transcript, it said. "All Officers, including the Captain, are dead. Lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead. … I die."  Two American ships came to the Dutch ship's rescue and found the distress calls horrifyingly accurate. The ship was littered with the corpses of the crew, all in states of complete terror. Even the crew's pet dog was found dead, its teeth bared mid-snarl. While there was no sign of physical harm on any of the corpses, they all appeared to be rotting rapidly. Suddenly the  Ourang Medan  caught fire and exploded, sinking into the sea. Click on the Subscribe  Button on top for more such mysterious stories. Thank you!

The Man with a Horrifying  Appetite In the 1700s in France, a man named  Tarrare  stalked the streets eating literally anything in his path. At the age of 17, he weighed only 100 pounds and could eat a quarter of an entire cow in a day. He could also wrap the skin of his stomach around his entire body. After being kicked out of his house for being terrifying, he traveled as part of a freak show, consuming anything put in front of him. Tarrare would eat anything from garbage to flint to even live animals.   Tarrare enlisted in the army and was quickly sent to a hospital after almost starving to death on a diet meant for only one normal man. There he became the test subject of curious doctors, who fed him everything from live snakes and eels to meals meant for 15 people. Tarrare, however, was kicked out of the hospital after getting caught trying to eat corpses. During his stay a 14-month-old baby mysteriously disappeared from the infirmary, and it's believed he ate it. A