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40 Bits of True Crime Trivia That Each Deserve Their Own Netflix Special

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40 Bits of True Crime Trivia That Each Deserve Their Own Netflix Special

September 26, 2024

In some ways, looks can kill.

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40

Dr. Death

The most prolific serial killer in recorded human history was a doctor. CRACKED.COM British doctor Harold Shipman (also known as 'Doctor Death') was proven to have murdered at least 250 of his patients but may have killed as many as 459 people. — BBC

39

Serial Killers Birthdays

CRACKEDCo MoRE SERTAL KILLERS ARE BORN IN ANUARY THAN ANY OTHER MONTH A study of 293 serial killer spread across 29 countries all over the world revea

38

Serial Killer Geniuses

CRACKED.COM MYTH: Serial killers are geniuses. REALITY It's mostly just the ones they make shows about. The latest studies put the average intelligence of serial killers barely above what's considered below average. One study puts it more clearly, saying that there is almost zero correlation between intelligence and psychopathy. — Source

37

John Bodkin Adams

CRACKED.COM John Bodkin Adams was a wealthy doctor (and maybe a serial killer). Doctor Adams' wealth had a dubious origin - he had his elderly female patients write him into their wills, and then he would (allegedly) alleviate their suffering with an injection. Не was never convicted for murder, but he was still found guilty of forging prescriptions and other such suspicious going-ons. — Source

36

CHECK THE NAMES IMPRISONED WITH WESLEY SNIPES AND SYLVESTER STALLONE IN DEMOLITION MAN: CRYO-PENITENTIARY MORNING HEARING SCHEDULE ID# INMATE TIME 07:00 HYDE, QUENTIN 357-M 08:15 PETERSON, SCOTT 4-NKT 07:30 PHOENIX, SIMON 468-W IT'S A MURDERER NAMED SCOTT PETERSON. Peterson would be the center of a sensational 2004 trial for killing his pregnant wife. The movie even put him in the right jail: its cryoPrison houses california's worst criminals, as does scott's san Quentin, california's last death row facility. CRACKED.COM — Source

35

The Beach Boys' Never Learn Not to Love was written by Charles Manson. Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson was close with Manson, until the band reworked and recorded one of his songs without crediting him. Manson was furious. Considering the Family's victims were murdered over much less that that, the Boys got off easy. CRACKED.COM — Source

34

WEIRD WORLD In Poland, they caught murderer because, uh, he wasn't wearing a mask. He'd been on the run for 20 years, and they finally nabbed him when he got stopped by police for not wearing a mask in a shop (which is mandatory in Poland). CRACKED.COM — Source

33

Myths with real-life consequences Ghosts (the vengeful kind) A Zimbabwean woman admitted to murdering her husband after his spirit started haunting her, keeping her up at night. She chopped him up and dumped the pieces in three toilets, which she told her family about much later. CRACKED — Source

32

JURIES AREN'T JUST FOR CRIMINAL CASES. If you're summoned for jury duty, you might have to sit through a murder case- or it might be someone suing someone else. Most civil cases, however, have fewer jurors than criminal ones, and the verdict doesn't need to be unanimous. CRACKED.COM — Clark Law Firm

31

Snoop Dogg

CRACKED SNOOP DOGG'S MURDER TRIAL BOOSTED HIS STREET CRED In 1993, Snoop was on trial for first degree murder after his associate shot a rival gang member while in Snoop's car. Snoop was acquitted, but the publicity helped his 1993 debut album Doggystyle debut at #1 on Billboard, and sell over 11 million copies. — Sterling Munksgard/Shutterstock
The Source

30

Amber Haggerman

... TELL US NOW. THE MURDER OF AMBER HAGGERMAN ARLINGTON, TEXAS Katlyn T. tells US of a 1996 unsolved murder. 8 minutes after biking away from her grandma's house, 9-year-old Amber was abducted. Her body was found in a creek bed 4 days later. The Amber Alert was named in her memory. CRACKED.COM — Source: Tell Us Now: 14 Haunting Unsolved Mysteries

29

Young Pole Gertrude Boyarski saw her whole family murdered by the Germans. She then joined the Jewish partisans and mercilessly hunted down soldiers.

28

Frailty

Underappreciated serial killer movies 2001 Frailty Bill Paxton starred in and directed this twisted religious thriller about a man murdering sinners because God told him so - and the two sons who become his accomplices. This is absolutely a cult- horror movie, dark and violent and surprising enough to deserve a more people giving it some love. CRACKED.COM — Trailer on YouTube

27

Deadly Demonstration

A lawyer shot himself demonstrating how the victim might have accidentally shot himself. GRACKED.COM Clement Vallandigham, a lawyer and Ohio politician defending a man accused of murder, had his client cleared in 1871 by his first-hand demonstration. Vallandigham died 12 hours later. — Source

26

When friends were cleaning out the closet of deceased drag performer Dorian Corey they discovered a heavy garment bag containing THE MUMMIFIED REMAINS OF A MAN WITH A BULLET HOLE IN HIS SKULL, The circumstances as to why Corey kept the body and what their relationship was to the man remain a mystery. Forensic experts determined the body had been dead for over 20 years. CRACKED.COM — Source: 20 Creepy Discoveries That People Stumbled Into

25

A 2,200 year old mummy was preserved in a mystery liquid scientists can't replicate. CRACKED.COM Lady Dais of the Han Dynasty was found over 2,000 years after her death and remains one of the world's most well-preserved mummies. She still had soft skin, internal or- gans, and blood in her veins when she was discovered. — Source

24

Mythology

Sightings of the mysterious Spring-Heeled Jack stretch from 1837 to 1904. A MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES CRACKED.COM Jack was a boogeyman that was said to ring resi- dents of Londons' door- bells dressed as a bear, a ghost or a devil and scratch them with metal claws before leaping away with unnatural agility. — Source

23

In 2016, they found a new room in the sprawling Winchester Mystery House. ETTRUT It's in the attic, and it contained paintings, a Victorian sofa, a pu — Source: Architectural Digest

36 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia That Were Destined for Greatness, But Are Squandering Their Potential in This One-Horse Town

33 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia Our Chivalrous Foe Glove-Slapped Into Our Heads When Initiating a Duel

28 Dorky Bits of TV Trivia That Stepped Out of the Transformation Chamber As Much Cooler Versions of Themselves

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25 Acrobatic Bits of Trivia We're Hoping Your Brain Catches Midair

38 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia We Shoved Into the Escape Pod Just Before the Mothership Detonated

22

GRACKED.COM See anything? Not yet, but we can hear them coming. This was the very latest in German hi-tech, around 1917, for spotting incoming aircraft. Why they're arm in arm though, remains a mystery. Source: http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/ear/ear.htm — 17 Creepy Photographs (That Aren't Fake)

21

CRACKED SOMEONE DUMPED ALMOST 400 LBS OF SPAGHETTI IN THE WOODS. In May of 2023, residents of Old Bridge, New Jersey found a massive pile of the cooked pasta along a wooded creek. One resident called the mystery, Mission Impastable. — Source

20

The mystery: the paulding Light, a light that mysteriously appears above the tree line on US Highway 45. The locals believe it's the ghost of a railro

19

Frozen helped solve a 62-year-old mystery. In 1959, nine hikers never came back from a trip to Russia's Ural mountains .. this became known as the Dyatlov Pass incident. So scientists used avalanche simulation models developed for Frozen to simulate what happened at Dyatlov Pass. That was a big help in developing a convincing argument that a freak delayed avalanche killed the hikers. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

18

CRACKED MYSTERIOUS DODECAHEDRONS FOUND IN GRAVES Since the 1700s, over 120 Roman dodecahedrons have been found, but their purpose remains a mystery. It's thought that they were used for religious or magical purposes, as they are often found in graves. — Source

17

Jimmy Savile, the JIMMY SAVILE British TV host INTRODUCES BENAMIN RABBIT AND THE whose shocking STRANGER sexual crimes DANGER against children were di

16

A Pope was once put on trial, after his death. CRACKED.COM In 897, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of a previous pope, Formosus, exhumed, perched on a throne, and questioned about his crimes. The event is known as the Cadaver Synod. — Source

15

BRAIN HACKS GOOD LOOKS Good-looking people are less likely to be convicted of a crime and less likely to get a harsh sentence. In one study, the less attractive defendant was given an average sentence of 24.71 years, while the attractive defendant only received 15.11 years. CRACKED — Source

14

Japan has the largest organized crime group in the world. CRACKED.COM Yamaguchi Gumi is worth $80 billion. By contrast, Sinaloa, Mexico's largest drug cartel, was worth $3 billion. — Source

13

Fox News aired a bizarre fake photo replacing Jeffrey Epstein with the judge who signed off on Trump's search warrant.

Fox News aired a bizarre, Photoshopped image of the judge that green-lit the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid. CRACKED COM Incensed that anyone would dare try to hold Donald Trump accountable for such a small crime as High Trea- son, Fox photoshopped Judge Bruce Reinhart onto Jeffy Epstein's body aboard a private plane. — Business Insider

12

Interrogations

40 Bits of True Crime Trivia That Each Deserve Their Own Netflix Special — Source: Law & Human Behavior

11

How did the men in the lead masks die? Two Brazilian engineers were found dead in 1966. They had a notebook which mentioned swallowing capsules, but it's not clear that they took any poison, or they intended to. Even weirder, they were wearing lead masks, of a kind used against radiation. No one could ever solve the crime-if it was a crime. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

Elderly Japanese people are committing small crimes so they can live in prison for free. GRACKED COM An increasing number of people aged more than 65 now make up more than a quarter of the prison popula- tion in Japan. — Source

9

Human Trafficking

CRACKED.COM MYTH: Human traffickers are almost always men. REALITY: Female traffickers make up a large part of all human traffickers. 37% of traffickers are female, which is a pretty large share when compared to other crimes. Female traffickers mostly target women and children, because there's more trust there. Females are also often used to recruit other female traffickers. — Source: 14 Myths About Crime We Believe (Thanks To Pop Culture)

8

The NYPD still used M typewriters as of 2015 A few years ago, if you reported a crime in New York City, the report wasn't typed on a computer, but on an old- school typewriter. This was to be expected in, say, the 1970s-but certainly { 2 20 E 1/2 not in the 21st century. - Q W E R T Y I A S D F G H Z X с V в N CRACKED.COM — Source

7

Meaning

Halloween Then vs. Now From the post-Vietnam fear to victim empowerment We're not going to overinterpret Resurrection as some metaphor for Internet culture, but there are different reasons Myers is so scary. In the late '70s, he represented the relentless threat of American defeat invading suburbia. In the post-modern Halloween H20, he stands for the fears of '90s complacency. Today, he stands for fearful communities, our true crime-obsessed era, and minority self-defense. CRACKED.COM — Muse by Clio

6

True Crime

A BIG FAN OF TRUE CRIME? DON'T WORRY, YOU'RE NOT A WEIRDO CPROBABLY. YOU'RE JUST A CURIOUS PROBLEM SOLVER WITH A MORAL COMPASS. OR SO THE EXPERTS THEO — Source: Bustle.

5

Yeardley Smith

Celebrity Side Hustles Yeardley Smith Podcaster Famous for voicing Lisa Simpson, Smith and her husband Detective Dan host the popular true crime podcast Small Town Dicks. It's had 11 series, including trips to Australia and the UK to look into small-town crimes, with Smith adding humor. CRACKED — s_bukley/Shutterstock,
David Peperkamp/Shutterstock
The Guardian

4

Selena Gomez

Celebrity Side Hustles Selena Gomez Producer Gomez signed a deal with Univision to produce a true crime docuseries called Mi Vecino, El Cartel for their streaming service. She also produced 13 Reasons Why for Netflix. CRACKED — Andrea Raffin/Shutterstock,
Netflix
The Hollywood Reporter

3

Serial Mom

Underappreciated serial killer movies 1972 Serial Mom Master of campy sleaze John Waters directed this movie about an adorable suburban, erm, serial killer. It has all the weirdness you can expect from Waters romp, while also being overt in its ahead-of-its-time criticism of true crime (and of us, for consuming it and making psychos famous). CRACKED.COM — ScreamFactoryTV/YouTube

2

TELL US NOW. NIGHT STALKER Dan W. recommends the four-part true crime documentary, saying The cinematography and sets, plus storytelling, are off the charts!

1

The True Crime Killer

A true crime fan killed someone just to watch them die. A 23-year-old in South Korea who was obsessed with true crime was charged with murder. She confessed to killing someone she had met online, saying she wanted to experience what it was like to commit murder. CRACKED — Proxima Studio/Shutterstock
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