On May 6, 1848, fifteen-year-old Sarah Wrench died at her home in Peldon, near Colchester, Essex, England. Her death certificate listed the cause as tuberculosis, and her father Robert Wrench was present at her death. Sarah was the second daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Wrench.

Sarah was buried on the north side of St. Edmund's Church in East Mersea, in unconsecrated ground typically reserved for suicides, criminals, or those considered social outcasts. Local legend suggested she may have had a child out of wedlock, which would have been a severe social stigma in Victorian England. Other theories claimed she was considered a witch.

Her grave is unusual because it is covered by an iron cage known as a mortsafe. While such cages were commonly used in Scotland to protect graves from body snatchers who sold corpses to medical schools, they were rare in England. The 1832 Anatomy Act had already eliminated the need for grave-robbing by allowing medical schools to obtain cadavers legally.

On 23 August 1937, Dorothy Lucas was shopping in Chicago with her three-month-old daughter, Diane. She briefly left Diane in her pram outside a grocery store while she went inside to pay for an item. When Dorothy returned moments later, the pram was empty and the baby was gone.

Diane was found 23 hours later, unharmed, after police received an anonymous phone call revealing her location. Several days after her return, the Lucas family received an unsigned letter from a person who claimed to be a 28-year-old woman. The writer said her husband and daughter had recently died and that she had taken Diane after seeing her alone outside the store.

In the 1930s, if you strolled through Coney Island in New York, you’d encounter all kinds of sideshow performances, but one in particular was unlike any other: Martin Couney’s “incubator babies” exhibit. For 25c, visitors could observe rows of premature infants in glass incubators, each fighting for survival in a pioneering display of neonatal care.

Martin Couney’s background remains shrouded in mystery, as he often altered his story to fit his work. Born in Poland in 1869 as Michael Cohn, he claimed he had trained under Dr. Pierre-Constant Budin, a leader in neonatal medicine, although no evidence of formal medical training has been found.

Despite this, Couney’s dedication to saving premature babies was undeniable. Couney married a nurse named Annabelle, and in 1907, his own premature daughter was saved through incubator care. Inspired, he launched exhibits at Coney Island’s Dreamland and Luna Park, funding his “child hatcheries” through admissions. When Dreamland tragically burned in 1911, all the infants were safely evacuated and transferred to Luna Park, where the exhibit continued for four decades.

Through his work, Couney saved over 6,500 lives, pioneering care for premature infants when the medical community hesitated to invest in incubators. By the 1940s, hospitals began adopting his techniques, and Couney closed his sideshow in 1943.

On 10 February, 1996, 14-year-old Tanya Nicole Kach disappeared from McKeesport, Pennsylvania. She was unhappy at home after her parents' divorce and felt unwanted. She had befriended Thomas Hose, a 38-year-old security guard at her middle school who groomed her by giving her gifts, cigarettes, and showing favouritism. When Tanya told him she planned to run away, he offered to take her in.

Hose kept Tanya locked in his second-floor bedroom for the first four years. She lived with Hose, his parents, and his son, though his family didn't know she was there. She had to use a bucket as a toilet. Hose sexually abused her, threatened to kill her daily, and made her keep a journal recording how many times he sexually abused her. Tanya was so convinced he would kill her that she wrote a will.

In 2000, Hose gave her a fake identity, "Nikki Allen," and introduced her to his parents as his girlfriend. He began allowing her limited freedom with strict curfews. In her final months of captivity, she worked part-time at a local deli where she befriended owner Joe Sparico.

On 21 March, 2006, after realising her relationship wasn't normal, Tanya revealed her identity to Sparico. His son was a retired detective who had worked her missing person case. Police arrived that evening and rescued her. She was 24 years old and had been held captive for 10 years.

On 15 May, 2021, four-year-old Cash Gernon was abducted from his bedroom in southwest Dallas while sleeping alongside his twin brother. Surveillance footage captured an intruder lifting the boy from his bed around 5AM.

Hours later, a jogger discovered Cash's body on a residential street approximately half a mile from the home where he'd been staying with his father's girlfriend. He had been stabbed to death.

Dallas police arrested 18-year-old Darriynn Brown later that day after the home's security cameras provided clear images of the suspect. Brown lived nearby and nvestigators also linked him to an earlier incident where he allegedly entered the same home.

In February 2016, Filipino fishermen discovered a white yacht named "Sayo" drifting 62 miles off the coast of Barobo in the Philippines. When they boarded the battered vessel with a broken mast, they found the mummified body of 59-year-old German sailor Manfred Fritz Bajorat slumped at his desk near the radio telephone, his head resting on his arm.

An autopsy revealed Bajorat had died of a heart attack around 7 years earlier. The dry, salty ocean air preserved his body. He had been sailing around the world for 20 years on his 40-foot yacht. His wife Claudia had sailed with him until 2008, when they separated. She died of cancer in 2010 at age 53.

In October 1867, an unknown man was found wandering in the yard of J. S. Donaldson's residence in Ladonia, Texas. He was very sick and incoherent, unable to tell anyone his name or where he had come from. Despite the care given to him, the stranger died on October 4, 1867, without ever regaining enough clarity to reveal his identity.

The community buried him in Ladonia Cemetery and erected a headstone that reads: "THE STRANGER'S TOMB DIED AT THE RESIDENCE OF J. S. DONALDSON ON THE 4TH DAY OF OCTOBER 1867."

A photograph showing the survivors of the Andes flight disaster. A human spine can be seen in the snow to the right of the survivors.

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was carrying 45 passengers, including members of a Uruguayan rugby team, their friends and family, when it crashed into the Andes mountains on the 13th of October, 1972. Upon impact, the fuselage of the plane broke apart, and many passengers were killed instantly.

However, a group of survivors, consisting of 27 individuals, managed to endure in the harsh, freezing conditions of the Andes for an astonishing 72 days before being rescued. They faced numerous challenges, including injuries, avalanches, and extreme hunger.

On February 28, 2013, 36-year-old Jeff Bush was asleep in his bedroom in Seffner, Florida, when a massive sinkhole suddenly opened beneath his house, swallowing him and part of the house.

The sinkhole, estimated to be about 20 feet in diameter and 60 feet deep, formed rapidly, giving Bush's family little time to react. His brother, Jeremy Bush, heard his brother screaming and attempted to rescue him but was unable to reach him due to the unstable ground.

First responders arrived at the scene and made efforts to assess the situation and rescue Jeff, but the sinkhole continued to grow, posing significant risks to rescuers and further complicating rescue efforts.

This 11-year-old girl was taken to hospital after a large mass protruded from her back. When she was examined, it was discovered that the growth contained recognisable structures including a mammary gland, scapula, humerus, and two fingers, as well as a sac secreting mucosal fluid.

On the night of 18 December, 1994, Alison Botha was attacked near her home in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She had returned to her flat around 1AM after dropping off a friend when a man armed with a knife forced his way into her car. The attacker was later identified as Frans du Toit, who soon picked up an accomplice, Theuns Kruger.

The two men drove Alison to a remote area outside the city, where they repeatedly assaulted and raped her over several hours. Afterward, they attempted to kill her by slitting her throat multiple times and stabbing her in the abdomen. Believing she was dead, they left her at the scene.

Despite catastrophic injuries, including a severed windpipe and exposed intestines, Alison managed to survive. She held her wounds together and crawled to a nearby road, where she was discovered by a passing motorist.

In January 2019, 18-year-old Berfin Özek's life changed forever when her ex-boyfriend ambushed her and threw sulphuric acid at her face as she was returning home from school. The attack in Iskenderun, Hatay province, left her severely disfigured and blind in one eye.

Casim Ozan Çeltik was arrested the same day and imprisoned, initially receiving a 13 and a half year sentence. Özek spent four months hospitalised and has since been confined indoors, as her injuries are severely affected by sunlight.

This is the last photograph of Regina Walters, snapped by her killer. In the image, she stands in an abandoned barn, wearing a black dress and heels she never owned, her hair roughly cut, her face frozen in terror. The photo was taken by Robert Ben Rhoades, a long-haul trucker and sadistic serial killer who turned his 18-wheeler into a mobile torture chamber.

Regina was just 14-years-old when she ran away from her Texas home in 1990 with her boyfriend, Ricky Jones. The couple hitchhiked, and at some point, they crossed paths with Rhoades. He murdered Ricky almost immediately, dumping his body along a highway in Mississippi. Regina, however, he kept alive, torturing her for weeks as he travelled cross-country.

Rhoades was methodical and cruel. He photographed Regina in various states of distress, documenting her fear for his own pleasure. That final photo in the barn was taken moments before he killed her. Her body was later found in that same building in Illinois, her neck broken.