18 Creepy Murder Cases You've Never Heard Of

Wow.

We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us which lesser-known murder cases freak them out. Here are the frightening, heartbreaking, and downright messed-up results.

🚨 WARNING: This post contains highly disturbing images and stories. Continue at your own risk.🚨

1. The Acid Bath Murderer

Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain / Flickr Creative Commons / 林 同 / / Via flic.kr

John George Haigh was a murderer in the UK in the 1940s who thought he could avoid getting caught if there were no bodies — so he dissolved his victims in baths of acid. Unfortunately, there was still quite a bit of evidence to prove he killed six people, so he was executed.

—charlottef9

2. The Reinert Murders

youtube.com

In June 1979, Pennsylvania high school principal Jay C. Smith murdered his coworker, Susan Reinert. Her body was found weeks later in her car. Her kids went missing too, but their bodies were never found. Smith was believed to be conspiring with Reinert's boyfriend of the time to inherit Reinert's life insurance.

—maddie395

3. Erzsébet Báthory

Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain / Flickr Creative Commons / GreenLight Designs / Via flic.kr

Also known as "The Blood Countess" in the 1600s, Báthory is often referred to as the most prolific female serial killer OF ALL TIME. She killed over 650 young women with the help of four other people, and would bathe in the blood of virgins to stay young. Well, shit.

—cardanella

4. Murder of Junko Furuta

youtube.com / Flickr Creative Commons / mako / Via flic.kr

In November 1988, 17-year-old Junko Furuta was kidnapped by four boys and held hostage in one of their homes in Tokyo. After beating, raping, and torturing her for 44 days, the boys tossed her lifeless body into a giant drum filled with concrete. Just awful.

—vttt074

5. The Shoe Fetish Slayer

biography.com / Flickr Creative Commons / Cristi Sebastian Photograpy / Via flic.kr

Jerry Brudos abducted, bludgeoned, and murdered four women. He claimed that women's shoes were his "substitute for pornography," and used the severed foot of one of his victims to model shoes in his home. Police also found severed breasts being used as paperweights in his home. So messed up.

—batman1234

6. Cleveland Torso Murders/Kingsbury Run Murders

Wikipedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0

Someone killed and dismembered at least 12 people in the 1930s, and the killer was never found. Body parts were scattered all over Cleveland — the first parts found by kids playing in a field — and only two of the 12 victims were ever identified.

—sarhamac

7. The Woodchipper Murder

Wikipedia Commons / Fair Use

After learning of her husband's multiple affairs, Helle Crafts went missing in November 1986. A snowplow driver later told police he'd seen Crafts's husband using a woodchipper recently in the woods, and human remains were soon found that confirmed that her body had been frozen and then put through the chipper. This case supposedly was an inspiration for the movie Fargo.

—vickif48

8. The Butcher of Hanover

Wikipedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 / CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Fritz Haarmann sexually assaulted, mutilated, dismembered, and murdered more than 24 boys between 1919–1924 in Germany. He was found guilty for the majority of the murders, and was sentenced to death by beheading in late 1924.

—cardanella

9. Belle Gunness

Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain

She'd lure men to her farm, take out life insurance policies on them OR have them bring a bunch of money (so they could "invest in her growing property"), kill them, then feed them to her pigs. She also killed most of her boyfriends, her two husbands, and both of her daughters. She was not messing around.

—caterinen

10. The Murder Of Karina Holmer

CNN

A 20-year-old Swedish au pair disappeared outside a Boston nightclub at 3 a.m. in June 1996. Later that day, her upper body was found in a dumpster. The murder has never been solved, and her lower half has yet to be found.

—danar41

11. Joseph Kallinger

murderpedia.org / youtube.com

In July 1974, Kallinger and his son, Michael, entered four separate families' homes by pretending to be salesmen in Baltimore, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. When inside, they robbed and sexually assaulted those families and killed three people. He was sentenced to life in prison in '76, and died in 1996 of heart failure.

—victoriar46

12. Dean Corll aka The Candy Man

murderpedia.org

He abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered at least 29 young men from 1970-1973 in Houston. He used two teen accomplices to lure boys to his house with promises of a party or a ride home. One of the accomplices eventually had enough, and shot him.

—sadiemacn

13. The Brides in the Bath Murders

Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain

In the 1910s, George Joseph Smith would find a nice rich lady to marry, make sure she had life insurance that named him as the beneficiary — and then they'd mysteriously all die in bathtubs. He was suspected of having murdered three of his wives, but due to laws of the time, was only convicted of one.

—marialburton91

14. Vlado Taneski

youtube.com

A journalist from a small town in Macedonia, he murdered three women between the ages of 50 and 70. After their bodies were found, he'd go to the women's families and write about them for the paper. The day after he was imprisoned, he committed suicide, but there are theories that he was killed.

—lota22

15. The Murder of Betsy Aardsma

Fair Use / Wikipedia Commons / commons.wikimedia.org

In November 1969, 22-year-old student Aardsma was in the Pattee Library of Penn State when she was stabbed once in the chest. There was so little blood that no one knew she'd been stabbed until she arrived at the hospital. 47 years later, police are still actively taking information on the case.

—squiddlord

16. The Death of Sylvia Likens

Wikipedia Commons / Fair Use / murderpedia.org

Gertrude Baniszewski was Indiana murderer who facilitated the torture and murder of teen Sylvia Likens, with the help of Likens's friends, boyfriend, and even her sister. Her case has been called the "single worst crime perpetrated against an individual in the state's history."

—juliak46

17. The Dupont de Ligonnès Murders and Disappearance

youtube.com

Five members of a family in France were mysteriously murdered in April 2011. The father of the family has been missing ever since, and is the prime suspect. Even creepier? The family home's lease had been completely terminated, and all bank accounts closed, with a note on the mailbox that said, "Return all mail to sender."

—lanadelgay

18. And Katherine Knight

murderpedia.org

The first Australian woman to be given life imprisonment without parole, Knight stabbed her husband to death, skinned him, cooked him, and placed his body parts on plates with name place cards next to them. 

—amyg4

Note: Responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.

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