Major Crimes and True Crime

In November 1942, the ocean swallowed the SS Benlomond in less than 120 seconds Amid the waves, a Chinese man named Poon Lim, second steward on board, managed to free himself from the wreckage and floated for hours until he found a wooden raft. It wasn't salvation, but limbo: biscuits, chocolate, sugar, a jug of water, a few flares, two funnels, and a flashlight. No company, no route, just the void of the Atlantic. The attack was the work of the German submarine U-172. Of the 54 crew members, only six managed to leave the ship. Lim was the only survivor. For 133 days, the sea was his only home. He caught birds, drank their blood, fished with improvised lines, faced a shark, hauled it aboard, killed it with a jug, and ate it. Every day was a pact with hunger, every night a duel with loneliness. When the Brazilian coast finally appeared on the horizon, Poon was a man, nine kilos lighter, but still able to walk. Local fishermen found him and helped him, but they didn't save him:...

The haunting photos show 16-year-old German soldier Hans-Georg Henke moments after his capture by the U.S. 9th Army on April 3rd, 1945, in the final, chaotic weeks of World War II. A member of the Luftwaffe anti-aircraft auxiliary, Henke was among the many teenagers conscripted in the desperate last efforts of the collapsing Nazi regime. In the images some of the most emotionally charged to emerge from the war he is visibly overwhelmed, weeping uncontrollably, his face contorted in shock, fear, and exhaustion. The photos, taken by American war photographer John Florea, have since become emblematic of the human cost of war especially for the young and unwilling caught in its machinery. Henke’s raw emotion cuts through politics and propaganda, showing a boy still in uniform, but utterly broken by the trauma of battle, the collapse of everything he was told to believe in, and the grim reality of defeat. His image stands as a sobering reminder of how war consumes not just nations, but indi...

William Leonard Hunt, widely known by his stage name "The Great Farini," holding his adopted daughter Krao Farini | 1883 Krao Farini was a prominent 19th-century sideshow performer who was born with hypertrichosis, a rare genetic condition characterized by an excessive amount of hair growth all over the body. In the Victorian era, she was commonly exhibited by promoters under the sensationalized moniker of "The Missing Link" between humans and apes. Despite how she was marketed, Krao was highly intelligent, highly educated, and became fluent in several languages. To escape public harassment, she routinely wore a thick veil whenever she traveled through city streets outside of the circus tent. Krao Farini spent over 40 years as a sideshow performer before dying of influenza in her Brooklyn home on April 16, 1926, at approximately 50 years old. Krao was born in Southeast Asia—in what was then the northern Rattanakosin Kingdom (modern-day Laos / Thailand). She spent he...

 Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, the younger sister of John F. Kennedy, lived a remarkably short life that was repeatedly overshadowed by loss Her first marriage in 1944 was already controversial within her family because she had chosen William Cavendish, a British aristocrat who was Protestant, something that strongly displeased her Catholic parents. The tragedy surrounding her marriage became even worse only weeks later. Her older brother Joe Kennedy Jr. was killed while serving during World War II. Not long afterward, Kathleen suffered another devastating loss when Cavendish was also killed in the war. After the conflict ended, Kathleen eventually found love again, this time with Peter Fitzwilliam, the 8th Earl Fitzwilliam. Their relationship was complicated from the beginning. Fitzwilliam was also Protestant, and he was still married to another woman when their romance began. He eventually divorced his wife, and the couple decided to travel to France in an attempt to obtain Kath...

On December 24, 2007, three generations were wiped out in the Carnation Massacre, which took place close to Carnation, Washington, a tiny rural community located 40 kilometers east of Seattle. The killings took place in Wayne Scott and Judy Anderson's house. Victims Of The Carnation Massacre Six family members lost their lives on the fateful day. Wayne Scott Anderson, 60, a Boeing engineer and husband of Judy Anderson Judy Anderson, 61, a postal worker, and wife of Wayne Scott Anderson Scott Anderson, 32, son of Wayne and Judy Erica Mantle Anderson, 32, wife of Scott Olivia Anderson, 5, daughter of Scott and Erica Nathan Anderson, 3, son of Scott and Erica Michele Kristen Anderson who was 29 was the younger sister of Scott Anderson. She claimed her brother owed her money and that her parents and brother had treated her unfairly. The Day Of The Crime According to report, on the afternoon of December 24, 2007, Joseph Thomas McEnroe and Michele Kristen Anders...

The slender man stabbing was an incident that took place on May 31, 2014, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. That night, two 12-year-old girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, lured their best friend, Payton Leutner, into the woods and brutally stabbed her 19 times. Their motive? To please the fictional internet character known as Slender Man. The Story Weier and Geyser had become obsessed with the Slender Man, a tall, faceless entity that had originated from an online Photoshop contest and later expanded into a complex supernatural legend. The girls believed that in order to become Slender Man's "proxies" and protect their families from him, they needed to kill Payton. The friends before the incident Weier later told investigators that Geyser had proposed the idea of killing Leutner in late 2013 or early 2014, and that Geyser had made it seem "necessary." The two girls kept their sinister plot a secret for months, waiting for the perfect opportun...

On May 26, 2016, the lifeless body of 30-year-old Iana Kasian was discovered in the West Hollywood apartment she shared with her fiancé, Blake Leibel. Kasian's body was found lying on the bed, with Leibel at her side. She had been subjected to horrific torture, mutilation, and exsanguination. Authorities described the crime scene as unlike anything they had ever encountered before. The Victim and Perpetrator Iana Kasian was a Ukrainian immigrant who had worked as a tax lawyer in her home country before moving to the United States in 2014 to pursue a career as a model. She had recently given birth to a daughter with her fiancé, Blake Leibel, just three weeks before her murder. Leibel, Kasian's killer, was a former Canadian comic book creator and graphic novelist who came from a wealthy family. His father, Lorne Leibel, was a prominent Toronto real estate mogul and Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee, while his mother was an heiress to the Alros Pr...

  In the late 1990s, Sharee Miller, a young mother of three in her twenties, crossed paths with Bruce Miller while working at his auto salvage yard in Flint, Michigan. Their whirlwind romance quickly blossomed, and within just four months, the couple tied the knot at a Las Vegas chapel. Sadly, the seemingly idyllic union was soon overshadowed by a web of deceit that would ultimately lead to a shocking tragedy. Sharee's Online Escapades Despite her newfound marital status, Sharee spent extensive hours engaging in online chat rooms, a habit that consumed much of her attention while her husband, Bruce, was occupied with running his business. A photo of Sharee Miller's computer set-up in Flint, Michigan. This was what she used to chat with men online. It was during these virtual interactions that Sharee encountered Jerry Cassaday, a former homicide investigator from Kansas City, Missouri, who was struggling with the aftermath of a failed marriage and a downward spiral in his career...