We previously asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about a true crime story we haven't already heard 100x before. There were so many comments and responses to that post that we decided to do a part two. Here are more terrifying stories people shared:
Warning: Graphic and disturbing content ahead including mentions of abuse, rape, and murder.
1. The 1980 "Amana Ax murders," where a couple, Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison, were murdered in their hotel room after checking in to a Holiday Inn in Amana, Iowa. Both victims were discovered face down on the bed with their skulls beaten by either a hatchet or machete.
2. The murder of Joseph Augustus Zarelli, aka the "Boy in the Box," whose naked, malnourished, and severely beaten body was found on the side of a road in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1957.
3. Savanna Greywind, a 22-year-old woman from Fargo, North Dakota, who died in 2017 after her unborn daughter was cut from her womb by a woman named Brooke Lynn Crews. According to prosecutors, Savanna was still alive when the baby was removed.
4. The suspicious death of John "Jack" Parsons Wheeler, a former White House aide who, in 2010, was killed by blunt force trauma.
5. The gruesome and unsolved murder of two West Virginia University students, Karen Ferrell and Mared Malarik, whose decomposed, decapitated bodies were found in 1970.
6. Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins Jr., a serial killer from South Carolina who murdered more than a dozen people over the course of several decades from the 1950s–1980s.
7. The strange and inexplicable disappearance of 25-year-old Atlanta resident Mary Shotwell Little in 1965. Little was last seen by her friend and co-worker around 8 p.m. after they had dinner and parted ways.
8. Israel Keyes, a serial killer who murdered at least three people and committed many other crimes including robbery, arson, and rape throughout the United States for over a decade from 2001 to 2012.
9. The disappearance and murder of Gina Renee Hall in Radford, Virginia in 1980 whose killer was convicted without a body having been found.
10. The 2001 Dartmouth College murders of professors Half and Susanne Zantop. The Zantops, who had been teaching at Dartmouth since the '70s, were stabbed to death in their home in Etna, New Hampshire by high schoolers James J. Parker and Robert W. Tulloch.
11. The bowling alley massacre in Las Cruces, New Mexico where seven people were shot, resulting in four people being killed, by unidentified robbers in 1990.
12. The murder of Maddie Clifton, an 8-year-old girl who was killed by her 14-year-old friend and neighbor, Josh Phillips, in 1998.
13. Michael Alig, an infamous New York "Club Kid," who killed fellow Club Kid Andre "Angel" Melendez in 1996.
14. The Bricca family murders from 1966 in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is believed by investigators to have been carried out by someone who knew the family.
15. John Norman Collins, aka the "Michigan Murderer," who was responsible for killing at least one young woman (although it's believed to be more) in southeastern Michigan during the late 1960s.
16. Viktor Sayenko and Igor Suprunyuk, aka "The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs," two Ukrainian serial killers who committed a string of murders in June and July of 2007.
17. The disappearance and death of Mitrice Richardson, a 24-year-old recent Cal State Fullerton grad who went missing on Sept. 17, 2019 after allegedly leaving a sheriff's station in Malibu.
18. Audrey Groat, a 41-year-old mother from Northfield, Vermont who was dropped off at her truck by her boyfriend in 1993, and then never seen again.
19. The horrifying Villisca axe murders, which occurred between the evening of June 9, 1912 and the early morning of June 10, 1912, in the town of Villisca, Iowa.
20. Herb Baumeister, a suspected serial killer who was believed to have murdered over a dozen men in the early '90s in the Westfield, Indiana area.
21. Geza de Kaplany, a Hungarian-born physician who, after emigrating to the US, was convicted of murdering his wife with a scalpel and corrosive acid in 1963.
22. The Setagaya family murder, aka the "Goldilocks" killings, the unsolved case of the Miyazawa family who lived in the Setagaya neighborhood of Tokyo where they were brutally stabbed to death in December 2000.
23. The disappearance of Jodi Huisentruit, a news anchor in Mason City, Iowa who went missing on the way to work on June 27, 1995.
24. The murder of Jun Lin, a university student in Montreal, Canada, who was murdered and then dismembered by a man named Luka Magnotta in 2012.
25. The extremely brutal murder of 14-year-old Peggy Reber in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, more than 40 years ago, in 1968.
26. The murder of 39-year-old former high school principal Gary Beverly, who was shot on a packed freeway in Compton, California in 2000. No motive was determined, although there are theories of road rage, misguided gang violence, and even assassination.
27. The Bigham family murders which is about a powerful family active in Florence County, South Carolina during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is believed that, over three generations, the family was responsible for nearly 20 murders, including their own family members.
28. The 1985 violent unsolved murders of Cassie Rundle and her two children, 12-year-old Detrick and 10-year-old Melanie, in Colorado Springs.
29. The disappearance of 17-year-old Leanne Green who was last seen on Highway 46 in Dickson, Tennessee in 1987 after being left to wait for her brother to get gas. The case remains unsolved.
30. The disappearance and murder of Judith Hand, a 15-year-old girl from Farmington, Maine whose case has remained unsolved for over 50 years.
31. Finally, the 2007 murder and beheading of Daniel Sorensen, a sex offender, in Plymouth, Michigan. Two teens were arrested for the crime, and one, Jean Pierre Orlewicz, was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder, felony murder, and mutilation of a corpse.
Note: some submissions were edited for length and/or clarity.
If you or anyone you know has information on a missing person case, call local law enforcement first. You can also contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 (THE-LOST) or visit the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System site for regional case assistance.