Many of us have grabbed the painkillers off the shelf without a second thought. That is exactly what happened to these victims; however, with terrible consequences.

On September 29, 1982, a seemingly ordinary day in Chicago ended in a mass murder by an unidentified assailant.

Seven random victims were poisoned with cyanide that was contained in their Extra Strength Tylenol. The authorities would like everyone to believe that this was a random madman killing people; however, the truth may be scarier. Was this a corporate incident covered up by the very people meant to be investigating the crime?

Why commit such a crime?

Mass murders are often carried out by people who simply snap one day. Some plan their operations, and if this was the work of a lone perpetrator, that was certainly true in this case.

There could be many reasons for the crime. Perhaps the person held a grudge against a group of people. Or, they may have had mental health problems that caused them to snap under pressure from an unknown personal circumstance.

All of these may be true for these murders, or none of them. With no physical evidence and a frustrated local police department, we may never know. The FBI provided no additional help in solving the murder; was this deliberate?

The Tylenol murders had far-reaching implications for the pharmaceutical industry. Tamper-proof bottles were adopted after this case.

The ‘why’ of this case remains the least investigated. Was it a lone madman or a disgruntled employee of Johnson & Johnson? We’ll never know. This fact has led many questioning whether the case was a cover-up to absolve the pharmaceutical giant of financial liability.

The Victims

The first victim was twelve-year-old Mary Kellerman, who had awoken feeling ill. Her parents had kept her off school and given her a Tylenol to ease her symptoms. Her father, Dennis, states that he heard her go to the bathroom and then something drop. When he tried to rouse her, he could not.

He opened the door and found her unconscious on the floor; unable to wake her, he called 911. The paramedics tried several drugs to bring her round, but none were successful. She was transferred to the hospital and pronounced dead at 9.56. Her body was called for autopsy because of her age and the circumstances, but foul play was never considered, so it was missed.

The next victim was Adam Janus; he was twenty-seven. After picking his children up from nursery, he stopped to pick up some Tylenol. He took a couple of painkillers and was unconscious on the kitchen floor almost immediately. He died soon after, with his death being attributed to cardiac arrest.

His distraught wife and relatives returned to the house. His younger brother and his brother’s girlfriend, distraught and with a headache, took some of the Tylenol; within minutes, both of them had collapsed too.

Lynn Reiner had just given birth to her fourth child. Feeling the effects of childbirth, she took some Tylenol. Ed Reiner arrived home and found his wife unconscious on the floor; he called 911, and she was pronounced dead at 9.30. Mary McFarland was working when she went into the back room to take some Tylenol and was found unconscious moments later.

The last victim was flight attendant Paula Prince, who was found dead when she failed to turn up for a dinner date with her sister. She had purchased Tylenol after landing from her latest flight.

Investigation

Fire chief Paul Cappitelli and fire investigator Richard Keyworth listened to the responders’ messages throughout the day and noticed they all mentioned Tylenol. They informed Nurse Jensen, who retrieved the bottle from the Janus house and sent it for testing.

What came back was shocking: each capsule of Tylenol contained 65mg of cyanide—between 100 and 1000 times the dose needed to kill a person.

All the crimes were connected; the state had a mass murderer on their hands who used Tylenol as Russian roulette bullets. A task force was set up by the FBI, with the authorities’ major concern being that more cases would happen.

The murders became international news on 4th October. Johnson & Johnson, although reluctant at first, recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol, costing the company $100 million. Overall, eight more bottles were discovered with fifty capsules of cyanide across five different stores. It may have been higher, as citizens were advised to throw all bottles away, so there is no way of knowing if any of these were poisoned or not.

It seemed a real possibility to everyone that the capsules could have been tampered with in the production plant. However, the media went into action convincing everyone that this was the work of a lone madman who had purchased the capsules, laced them with cyanide, and returned them to the shelves for purchase.

Though there was a problem with this theory.

Lynn Reiner, discharged from the hospital, didn’t buy her Tylenol from the pharmacy. It was impossible tamper with the tablets there. This was either ignored or argued to be a different bottle.

The investigators followed thousands of leads, none leading to any evidence or a suspect. Every suspect was cleared completely of any wrongdoing, even, in one case, one of the victims’ husbands.

Johnson & Johnson

On 6th October, Johnson & Johnson received an extortion letter demanding $1 million to stop the poisonings. The letter was traced to a conman, James William Lewis, who had tried to extort money out of the company but had nothing to do with the poisonings.

On 23rd September 2011, Scott Bartz published The Tylenol Mafia: Marketing, Murder and Johnson and Johnson. Bartz was a former Johnson & Johnson employee with years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. In the book, he claims that Johnson & Johnson controlled the investigation into the poisonings with the help of the FBI.

After three years of research, he analysed over 8000 documents and found evidence of tampering during the distribution and packaging process. To protect their reputation and avoid financial liability, Johnson & Johnson actively influenced both the authorities and the media to focus on the lone madman theory.

This was when the information about Lynn Reiner came to light. Her daughter stated that the Tylenol had been obtained by her mother from the hospital pharmacy. Her daughter, Michelle, had been eight at the time of the death, too young to sign the gag order Johnson & Johnson asked the victims’ families to sign.

The Aftermath

This story becomes much easier to believe now that we are all aware of the influence big pharmaceutical companies have in politics, law, and the media.

Only one per cent of the capsules were ever tested for cyanide; the rest were destroyed. At the time of writing, no one has ever been charged with the Tylenol poisonings. In 2013, the FBI formally stood down from the investigation, sending it back to local law enforcement.

Bartz’s theory was never investigated by the FBI or Johnson & Johnson.

Johnson & Johnson has never commented on the theory in Bartz’s book.

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The Phantom of Texarkana

In the spring of 1946, twenty-three years before the Zodiac Killer began terrorising the San Francisco Bay Area, a small town on the border of Texas and Arkansas was gripped by an almost identical nightmare.

The killer was dubbed “The Phantom of Texarkana.” Over ten weeks, he stalked quiet country roads and isolated lovers’ lanes, targeting young couples in parked cars. He moved like a ghost, struck without warning, and vanished into the night, leaving five people dead, three severely injured, and a community scared.

The Phantom can be described as the blueprint for the modern serial killer. The parallels between his operating style and the Zodiac’s methods are almost as striking as those between the Zodiac and Jack the Ripper.

I wonder if the Zodiac studied true crime and drew inspiration from these two killers, and possibly others.

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When a fire broke out in April 1834, neighbours and firefighters rushed in to help, what they found in a locked attic room shocked the city to its core. Bodies, mutilation, and enslaved people beaten and restrained, close to death.

In this episode, we separate rumour from reality and look at the woman many consider America's first female serial killer.

Murder Mayhem UK is an independent crime and history podcast hosted by Sam H Arnold, based in the UK. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and check out additional stories on the Murder Mayhem UK Substack.

Much is known about the two infamous serial killers never caught: Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer. What is talked about less are the similarities between the cases.

Both cases involved five confirmed victims, letters taunting officials, and weekend killings that ended abruptly without a clear reason. There are also unconfirmed victims associated with both killers.

The Zodiac killer claimed he killed as many as 37 people, although authorities have tentatively connected four others to his MO: Robert Domingos and Linda Edwards (1963), Cheri Jo Bates (1966), and the disappearance of Donna Lass (1970).

Jack the Ripper has been connected to another four murders through his signature and MO: Annie Millwood (attacked 25 February 1888), Ada Wilson (attacked 28 March 1888), Emma Elizabeth Smith (attacked 3 April 1888), and Martha Tabram (attacked 7 August 1888).

Was the Zodiac killer a copycat of Jack the Ripper? Stranger things have happened in the world of True Crime.

Lake Herman Road Attack

When Betty Lou Jensen (16) and David Arthur Faraday (17) were discovered on 20 December 1968, the police had little to go on. The scene was devoid of physical evidence; it was simply two teenagers who went for a romantic drive and never returned.

A passing driver spotted them on the roadside, their bodies illuminated by their headlights. David had been shot behind the left ear, execution-style, but was still breathing; he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Betty had made a run for it and was gunned down 8.5 metres from the rear of their car. Bullets had hit her torso from a skilled marksman, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. There was no other evidence; no sign of a struggle, and no tyre tracks.

Blue Rock Springs Attack

On 4 July 1969, Darlene Elizabeth Ferrin (22) and Michael Renault Mageau (19) were sitting in their car when a light brown Corsair or Mustang pulled up at an angle to them. This was not unusual, as the area was known locally as a “lovers’ lane”. The couple expected an officer to ask to see their ID.

Darlene reasoned she might even know the officer, as she worked in a diner popular with local law enforcement. She was described as friendly with many people in the town—some would say too friendly and trusting.

Michael’s window was lowered, and a man approached from that side, shining a bright light into the cabin that blinded the couple. Almost immediately, the unknown man started shooting into the car. Nine bullets tore through the vehicle, many passing through Michael and striking Darlene, who slumped against the steering wheel.

The killer turned and began walking away, before returning to discharge another four bullets. Michael attempted to hide from these shots by pushing himself into the back of the car.

That same night, switchboard operator Nancy Slover received a call stating there had been a shooting at Blue Rock Springs. The man reporting the shooting gave Slover the creeps; she noted he spoke with a flat, calm tone and no distinct local or regional accent. It was during this call that the killer mentioned the two previous unsolved killings of Betty and David.

Right after the shooting, three teenagers looking for their friend happened upon the car. Michael had crawled out of the vehicle by this point. They called emergency services and Michael survived his injuries; Darlene was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Lake Berryessa Attack

Bryan Calvin Hartnell (22) and Cecelia Ann Shepard (22) were supposed to be in San Francisco, but they left too late and decided to head to a local picnic area instead. The lake was not completely deserted, but it was quiet on that fateful evening.

The couple abandoned their car and strolled to a small peninsula, spreading their blanket and discussing their future. Neither saw the figure lurking by a cluster of oak trees until it was too late.

Cecelia first noticed the stranger, but Bryan ignored her until she shouted that he had a gun. The stranger approached wearing an executioner’s hood featuring a crosshair symbol. He told them he was an escaped convict from a state prison and tied them both up with a plastic clothesline. Bryan asked if the gun was loaded and was shown that it contained bullets, though the firearm was never fired.

The assailant then produced a wooden-handled knife and stabbed them both repeatedly. Bryan survived the savage attack, but Cecelia died from her injuries two days later in hospital.

Presidio Heights Attack

Similar to Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac’s last confirmed kill was in complete contrast to his previous crimes. On 11 October 1969, cab driver Paul Stine picked up his murderer at Mason and Geary Streets in San Francisco. He was asked to drive to Maple Street, before continuing one block further to the darker intersection of Washington and Cherry Streets.

It was here that a gun was placed against the back of his head, and he was shot dead.

Again, in an eerie parallel to Jack the Ripper, the killer took a grisly souvenir which he would later mail to a local newspaper alongside his taunting letters. This was not a piece of a victim’s kidney, but a bloodstained swatch of Stine’s shirt.

Letters

One of the greatest similarities between the two serial killers is how they taunted the public and authorities through written correspondence. Much has been written about the complex cyphers the Zodiac sent. In 1969, high school teacher Donald Harden and his wife, Betty, decoded the first of the four major cyphers, the Z408.

Both killers sent threatening letters to newspapers, demanding publication. We assume these letters were genuine. Forensic evidence supports the Zodiac’s letters, while many historians suspect Jack the Ripper’s were hoaxes. However, the public and police believed the Ripper letters were authentic when they were received.

In these communications, both killers gave themselves names. The Zodiac’s name was taken from a watch brand, not astrological signs, as many initially thought. Both sets of letters have strange spelling errors, which researchers believe were deliberate misspellings meant to hide the killer’s intelligence and education level.

Investigations

The Zodiac killer’s investigation was led primarily by Inspectors Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi of the San Francisco Police Department. It grew into a complex, multi-agency homicide investigation spanning several cities and counties.

Because the Zodiac committed crimes in different geographical jurisdictions, it created an immediate administrative headache. The Ripper had caused a similar crisis when he murdered Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square. While his other canonical murders occurred within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police, the Mitre Square murder fell under the jurisdiction of the City of London Police. This cross-border friction created significant operational hurdles 81 years before the Zodiac terrorised California.

In both eras, officers from different departments were often reluctant to share information, leads, and suspect files smoothly. There was no central coordination, so vital clues weren’t shared in real time. The slow pace of justice was further hindered by administrative friction in these two famous cases.

Suspects

Three main figures often dominate discussions surrounding the Zodiac’s identity. The first and most prominent is Arthur Leigh Allen. Allen became a suspect ten days after the Blue Rock Springs attack and was investigated thoroughly again in August 1971. A mountain of circumstantial evidence pointed towards him, alongside a background of severe criminal behaviour. However, fingerprints and partial DNA samples retrieved from the letters failed to match him. Allen died in 1992 without ever being charged.

Jack Tarrance was another name publicly linked to the case. Tarrance was accused in 2007 by his stepson, Dennis Kaufman, who claimed to have found damning evidence among his late stepfather’s belongings. However, official DNA and forensic comparisons once again ruled out a definitive match.

A former state trooper also came forward suspecting real estate salesman George Russell Tucker, but concrete forensic evidence failed to support the claim.

The Zodiac case seems destined to remain unsolved. The last known letter from the killer was received in January 1974. Like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac’s identity remains a mystery. While a direct copycat link is unlikely, the Zodiac probably knew the Victorian killer well and used media manipulation to create public fear. Using the playbook of Jack the Ripper.

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Let’s take a wander into the Underground for the second time this week. Instead of looking at the structure and incidents that have occurred there, we are going to look at the ghost stations: the stations that flick on the side of your vision as you speed through, wondering if you were seeing things or not.

When you ride the Piccadilly or Northern line today, you are travelling through a living system. But right behind the tiled walls, and just beyond the darkened windows of your carriage, sits another network entirely: a subterranean world frozen in time.

Transport historians believe there are over 40 abandoned or ghost stations beneath London. These forgotten hubs offer a rare, eerie glimpse into the evolution of London’s transport system and the city above its secret history.

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Navigating low to the ground with only a compass and a map, Hess evaded RAF detection and parachuted into Renfrewshire, intent on brokering a separate peace with Britain. What followed was a surreal sequence of events: a local farmer’s mother serving the captured Nazi pilot a cup of tea, a false identity, and a stunned Winston Churchill dismissing the flight as the act of a lunatic.

This episode traces Hess’s trajectory from his early days as Hitler’s loyal secretary and prison scribe to his bizarre unilateral peace mission. It examines the mystery surrounding his flight, including whether British intelligence lured him using his connections to the Duke of Hamilton, and explores Hitler’s fury, or potential complicity, in the scheme.

Finally, the narrative follows Hess from his internment in the Tower of London through the Nuremberg Trials to his 46-year imprisonment at Spandau, concluding with the persistent conspiracy theories surrounding his death in 1987.

If you thought congestion was bad in London now, that was nothing compared to Victorian England. The streets were saturated with horses, carriages, and people moving about their daily lives.

London Bridge was so congested that it would take several hours to cross. Something needed to be done to clear the roads, but what? No one thought of the congestion charge; perhaps Victorian society was more advanced than we thought.

The idea that came about was considered as strange as the congestion charge was to us: let’s build an underground railroad to travel through.

Construction

Charles Pearson was the first person to come up with the idea of an underground railway, though it took several years for this idea to be realised. Not until 1860 was work started on the Metropolitan line.

Many would have thought that Londoners would have been apprehensive about travelling underground on a train, but this was not so. On the first day, 38,000 people travelled; however, it was not the luxury it is now—the engines were steam and the carriages were open air.

The first lines were built by digging down from above, laying the track and a tunnel over it, and then filling in the hole created. You could tell where the line was being laid because of the giant hole that preceded it.

Advancing Technology

This did not last long, and as technology advanced, the line began to be built using a boring machine. Workers dug the tunnel out, and the tunnel was covered as it went before moving forward to dig the next part out.

The opening and expansion of the Underground led to London expanding, as more houses could be built further out and people could commute in.

By 1890, Londoners were sick of the steam and arriving everywhere smelling of coal. Steam was ditched and replaced with electric trains, making travel far more comfortable.

Ecosystem

The subterranean system even holds its own distinct biological history. Isolated underground since the construction of the network, populations of Culex pipiens molestus adapted to the dark, warm conditions of the tunnels.

This unique variety of mosquito, famed for biting wartime Londoners sheltering on platforms during the Blitz, evolved distinct traits, including breeding without needing an initial blood meal and losing the ability to hibernate during winter.

War Effort

The Underground was greatly utilised during both world wars. Stations were used as bomb shelters for people to flee to. During World War II, Down Street station was used as a central command centre for Winston Churchill.

However, it did not always save lives. On 3 March 1943, Bethnal Green Underground station was the site of the single largest loss of civilian life on the UK transport network during World War II.

Following the sound of air raid sirens and nearby test firings of new anti-aircraft rockets, hundreds of people hurried down the dimly lit staircase leading to the station, which was being used as a deep-level air-raid shelter. In the crowd, a woman holding a child tripped near the bottom of the unlit steps.

The sudden stumble triggered a catastrophic domino-effect crush in the dark. A total of 173 people, mostly women and children, were asphyxiated or crushed to death within minutes, even though no bombs were dropped that night.

Tunnels were also repurposed as secure storage vaults during the Second World War. The British Museum transferred some of its most precious holdings, including sections of the Parthenon Sculptures (the Elgin Marbles) and other irreplaceable ancient artefacts, into disused tube tunnels and subterranean spaces to protect them from Blitz bombing raids.

Terrorism

Decades later, London’s transport system faced tragedy again in the modern era during the 7 July 2005 suicide bombings (often referred to as 7/7), which struck three Underground trains and a double-decker bus.

These were a series of coordinated Islamist suicide bombings targeting Londoners during the morning rush hour. It was the first time suicide bombers had struck UK soil, claiming the lives of 52 commuters and injuring more than 700 others. The attack on public transport a day after London won the 2012 Olympics turned the capital’s mood from celebration to crisis.

At 8:49 am, three explosions were detonated near-simultaneously on three separate London Underground trains. The first bomb exploded on a Circle line train between Liverpool Street and Aldgate, killing seven people. Moments later, a second bomb went off on a Circle line train near Edgware Road, killing six.

The third and most devastating Underground blast occurred on a deep-level Piccadilly line train travelling between King’s Cross St Pancras and Russell Square, where the enclosed tunnel amplified the destruction and killed 26 people.

Roughly an hour after the initial Tube explosions, a fourth suicide bomber detonated his device aboard a crowded double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. The attacker had originally planned to detonate his bomb underground alongside the others, but transport delays forced him onto the streets. The explosion tore through the upper deck of the No. 30 bus, killing 13 passengers. Images of the destroyed red bus quickly became the tragic defining symbol of the tragedy.

The four perpetrators—Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay, and Hasib Hussain—were young British citizens carrying homemade explosive devices packed into backpacks. Three had grown up in West Yorkshire, while Lindsay lived in Buckinghamshire.

In the aftermath, the city faced immense logistical disruption, with the entire Tube network shut down and mobile phone networks overloaded. Today, a permanent memorial featuring 52 stainless steel pillars stands in Hyde Park to honour each of the victims who lost their lives that morning.

Curiosities.

London’s daily travel leads to a large number of lost items handled by Transport for London. The Lost Property Office processes over 350,000 items annually, with most being everyday essentials like phones and coats. Staff have also found unusual items like an inflatable boat and a kitchen sink.

The London Underground has its own breed of mosquitoes, Culex pipiens molestus, adapted to the dark, warm conditions of the tunnels. This unique mosquito, known for biting wartime Londoners sheltering on platforms during the Blitz, evolved traits like breeding without an initial blood meal and losing hibernation abilities in winter.

The London Underground was revolutionary and inspired undergrounds in cities like New York, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, and many others. It’s an engineering marvel that most people have travelled on.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

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It should have been a normal family holiday, but it ended in tragedy. Saad al-Hilli caravanned with his family in France in September 2012. They had spent the summer there the year before and had a wonderful time.

Their eldest daughter, Zainab, should have been at school, but like many families, they believed the time away would be beneficial, and it was only a week.

On 29th August, Saad drove his car onto the ferry and the fun began; it was the last time many of them would see the British coastline.

Camping

The family spent time in several locations. Upon arriving at Village Camping Europa, the family met Sandy Rambout, who would later become a key witness to the events that unfolded.

While staying at the campsite, Sandy observed a man dressed in a suit hanging around Saad’s caravan. She saw the two arguing, and the stranger then stormed over to the family’s BMW and banged on the bonnet.

Shortly after this incident, Saad left with his family, staying in several locations before arriving at the Solitaire Du Lac campsite on the edge of Lake Annecy.

Saad al-Hilli

Saad, born to a wealthy Baghdad family, fled his homeland with his father and brothers during Saddam Hussein’s rule. The reasons for his sudden departure remain unclear.

The family settled in London initially before moving to Surrey, where they bought a huge house. The house was then given to Saad as his family home when he had a young family—a fact that caused a great dispute between him and his brother when his father died.

Saad worked for various companies before securing a long-term contract with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited.

On 23rd August 2003, Saad married Iqbal, who was already married despite claiming to be single. The divorce papers were filed after her second marriage, adding to the mystery surrounding the couple.

In 2005, Zainab was born, followed three years later by Zeena. The two sisters were said to be inseparable.

Mountain Pass

At 14:30, Saad drove his car out of the campsite and headed towards the lake. Zainab sat up front with her father because she suffered from car sickness. Iqbal, her mother Suhaila, and her younger sister Zeena sat in the back.

The family’s possessions showed photos were taken at 15:15; thirty-three minutes later, the bodies would be found in a bullet-riddled car.

Witnesses recall seeing the car depart Chevaline and turn onto a winding, dead-end track. Did they make a mistake, or was there a reason for their choice of road?

Brett Martin was an ex-RAF pilot who decided to take his bike out for a ride. While riding out from the campsite, he was overtaken by a faster cyclist, forty-five-year-old Sylvain Mollier. As Brett crossed a bridge a few hundred metres from a lay-by, he heard gunshots. The running water drowned out much of the sound, and Brett continued on his way. He came around the bend and saw a car with the wheels spinning in reverse and a biker lying on the ground in front of the car.

He slowed down and went to help the biker; that was when Zainab staggered out in front of him, covered in blood. Having moved both the biker and Zainab to safety, Brett went back to turn the car off, but the doors were locked. He pushed the glass, and that is when he saw the massacre within the car.

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In this episode of Murder Mayhem UK, host Sam H Arnold delves into one of the most haunting and enduring mysteries in American true crime history. Was it a tragic accident caused by faulty wiring, or a calculated kidnapping orchestrated by the Sicilian Mafia? From cut phone lines and missing ladders to mysterious late-night phone calls and a cryptic photograph arriving two decades later, join us as we unravel the chilling evidence surrounding the disappearance of the Sodder children.

Did five young children perish in the flames, or were they taken into the night?

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Thanks for listening. Until next time - stay safe, and stay curious.

The foothills of the Sierra Nevada, although only a four-hour drive away, are in complete contrast to San Francisco. The area was a hitchhiker’s paradise and the ultimate place to escape.

In Quincy, Sierra Nevada, there is a small place called the Keddie Resort. The resort was popular for its barbecue food and fine dining. However, during the 1980s, it fell on harder financial times, and the owner, Gary Mollath, started renting the cabins to low-income families. With these families came low-level crime, mainly the sale of cannabis.

However, no crime was as horrific as the murder and kidnapping that occurred there.

The Families of Keddie

In November 1980, the Sharp family moved in. Glenna Sharp and her five children, aged five to fifteen, settled in. The children were clearly well-loved and emotionally supported by their mother, despite some comments about their lack of discipline.

Living close to their family was chef and occasional drug dealer Martin Smartt; he lived with his wife, Marilyn, and their children. His youngest stepson was Justin, who would be in the cabin during the murders.

Murder

On 11th April 1981, in Cabin 28, three people were found murdered and one missing. The three victims were Glenna Sharp (36), her son John Sharp (15), and his friend Dana Wingate (17). Dana was a troubled kid with a bad home life, known to the police. Tina Sharp, who was twelve at the time, went missing from the scene.

Also in the house at the time were: Greg, Rick, and Justin. Sheila, the other daughter, had arranged a sleepover at her friend Seabolt’s house next door.

The murder was brutal and occurred with some other cabins only mere feet away. It defies belief that no one heard anything that happened on that fateful night.

All three victims were found bound with medical tape and electrical cords. The victims had been beaten and mutilated. There were some inconsistencies, though: Dana had been strangled and his head placed on a pillow. Glenna’s murder showed signs of remorse, as she was covered with a blanket.

Two bloodied knives and one hammer were found at the scene. One of the knives, a steak knife, had been bent to a thirty-degree angle. Blood spatter showed that all three had been murdered in the living room.

Discovery

When Sheila arrived home at 7 am, she found the bodies. Sheila woke the three boys in another bedroom and helped them climb out of the window to avoid the carnage in the lounge. Greg, Rick, and Justin went out of the window and ran to the caretaker at Cabin 25, who called the police. Tina was missing from the scene.

Justin told the police that Tina was missing, but how did he know that if he had not seen the murders? He later said she had fallen overboard, and it was found that the family had watched The Love Boat before going to sleep. Blood was also found in their room, which indicated they must have been into the lounge. Justin was just a child, and his story kept changing.

Tina’s jacket and shoes were missing, along with various tools from a toolbox. There was no sign of the missing Sharp sister. The house showed no sign of forced entry.

Tina

Initially, police believed that Tina could have been involved in the murders, as items she was attached to had also left the cabin at the same time as her. This would also explain how the perpetrators had entered the building without force if Tina had let them in.

John Douglas, the profiler, even stated that he believed the murders were not premeditated due to the equipment used. Had Tina let someone into the cabin, and the murders occurred as a result of this?

The police continued this line of enquiry until her partial remains were recovered on 22nd April 1984. The skull and mandible were found a hundred miles away in Butte County. This discovery produced even more questions.

Martin Smartt

Martin Smartt was a chef and drug dealer. To anyone who listened, he would say he suffered from PTSD due to the Vietnam War. The truth was that, as a chef, he was nowhere near the fighting; he was, however, near the drugs and became a frequent user.

His behaviour on returning to the world was erratic, violent, and unpredictable. His wife and children were terrified of him.

A month before the killings, he befriended John Boubede at a local rehab facility. He moved Boubede into the family cabin without asking, and the two became inseparable. Whether they killed together remains to be proven.

Boubede was a convicted criminal with a long charge sheet for crimes such as breaking and burglary. On the night of the murder, they had asked Marilyn to invite Glenna with them for a drink, as Boubede had taken a liking to her. Glenna refused, and Marilyn later stated this put the two men in a temper.

Police questioned the two, but they each provided alibis, leading to no further charges. Smartt claimed a claw hammer, one of the murder weapons, was stolen from his house.

Many locals believe Martin Smartt was responsible for the killings and that Justin made up the two perpetrators to protect his stepfather.

Theories

Several other theories have been suggested for the murders.

Had John and Dana brought the killer home with them? On 11th April, the boys were seen hitchhiking by Glenna and given a lift home. Two hours later, around 3:30 pm, the pair hitchhiked back to Quincy to visit friends and party. Some speculate they were hitchhiking home when they gave the killer a lift home.

Was the murder a drug deal gone wrong? Dana had also allegedly stolen a quantity of LSD from a local drug dealer.

Famous serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole were also investigated as potential suspects; they have since been ruled out.

Despite these theories, the murder remains unsolved. Criticism of the police has stated that they failed to secure the crime scene, leaving DNA evidence at the scene to be missed.

The Keddie Resort never recovered from the murders. Cabin 28 became known as “Murder House”. Teenagers would dare each other to break in and spend a night. The owners put the resort up for sale in 1984, but no one would pay the $1.8 million asked.

Vagrants started moving into it, and the resort effectively became a ghost town. Cabin 28 was destroyed in 2004. The rest of the Sharp family have tried to move on from that horrific night; however, every part of their existence is plagued by the murder.

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Jill Dando was born in 1961, in Weston-super-Mare. She rose quickly through the media ranks, from her local newspaper to radio, and then into television. She hosted programmes such as Holiday, nightly news and the hugely successful Crimewatch.

Crimewatch, for those who are unaware, was a monthly show that showcased unsolved crimes and asked the public to help solve them.

Dando won accolades such as BBC’s Personality of the Year. She had a warmth on camera that drew people to her. Resembling Princess Diana, she had her appeal and was considered the nation’s favourite.

Murder

On 26th April 1999, she left her fiancé’s house to pop home. She needed to pick up some more clothes and deal with a fax she was expecting from her agent. The trip home was not part of a routine; it was a spur-of-the-moment plan. She was selling her house to move in with her fiancé, Alan Farthing.

At 11:30, she walked to her front door with her keys in her hand when she was approached by an unknown assailant and shot in the head once. A single bullet to the left temple. The killer left a single bullet casing on her doorstep. The assassination occurred in broad daylight.

A friend who worked in television spotted her unconscious body on the doorstep and called 999. Despite the attempts of the paramedics she died shortly after.

Witnesses remember seeing a tall man of Mediterranean appearance, aged between 35 and 40, in the area.

Theories ranged from a jealous ex-boyfriend, a professional hit from someone she had featured on Crimewatch, to a crazed stalker. After a year of getting nowhere, the one the police concentrated on was the stalker angle, especially when they met Barry George.

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In this episode of Murder Mayhem UK, host Sam H Arnold pulls back the curtain on the Opium Wars. Discover how the British government pushed tons of illegal opium into China, crashed an economy, and forced an imperial dynasty to its knees at gunpoint. From high-seas smuggling and destroyed summer palaces to the birth of modern Hong Kong, this is the story of how tea, silver, and drugs reshaped global power forever.

In this episode, we cover:

• The British tea crisis and why silver was flowing out of London.

• How Queen Victoria briefly became the owner of £55 billion in illicit opium.

• Lin Zexu’s heroic (and fatal) attempt to stamp out addiction in Canton.

• The unequal Treaties of Nanking and Beijing that changed the map of Asia.

• How the trauma of Western aggression shaped China into the global superpower it is today.

L​oved this episode? Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an installment!

For more deep dives into history's darkest chapters, check out our extra stories over on the Murder Mayhem UK Substack.

Stay safe, and stay curious.

On 3 January 1970, George Brown and his ten-year-old son found the decomposing body of a young woman wearing a navy-blue skirt and white slip. She was lying on her back and had a winter coat on.

The skirt was bunched up, suggesting sexual assault; her undergarments, a single shoe, and a purse lay a few feet away from her.

The remains had been partially consumed by animals. Snow had obliterated all tracks to and from the body that might have been visible.

It was not long before Captain Bud Roemer identified the body as Sister Cathy Cesnik.

On the surface, the case looked like another example of an unsolved homicide. Over the years, though, the case has grown into something much more sinister.

Sister Cathy

Sister Cathy was a twenty-six-year-old nun and high-school teacher who had vanished on 7 November 1969. Everybody remembers her as a fearsome teacher. Her students regard her as an inspiration, revering her as a saintly figure.

Catherine Cesnik is the reason I became a teacher. I still regard her as the finest teacher I ever had. - Gemma Hoskins

Her life was not without scandal. She became involved with Father Gerry Koob. She also worked at Archbishop Keough High School, which became best known for the abuse suffered by the young women there at the hands of high guidance counsellor Father Joseph Maskell.

Sister Cathy left Keough in autumn 1969 to teach at Western High School. Many noticed she seemed different in spring 1969. She appeared stressed, exhausted, and extremely nervous. Whether this was why she moved schools, we will never know.

Sister Cathy was aware of the school’s crimes, as students visited her apartment after she left to discuss them.

One student, who remains anonymous, speaks of an incident when she was at the apartment with Sister Cathy when Father Maskell and Father Neil Magnus burst in and threatened everyone with a gun. The girls were sharing stories about their abuse.

The day after this event allegedly happened, Sister Cathy was murdered and her body dumped. It was discovered two months later.

Investigation

The autopsy gave the cause of death as blunt force trauma. One blow to the throat caused suffocation, and she also had another blow to the head.

During the investigation, Father Koob, who Cathy had a relationship with, and Father Pete McKeon came forward saying that during a walk in the early hours, they had spotted Cathy’s car near her apartment block.

If the attack had been random, then how had the killer known where to return the car to and where Cathy lived? The killer must have been someone who knew Cathy, and the lack of signs of a struggle further supported this theory.

Father Koob, Father McKeon, and Sister Helen Russell Phillips, her former housemate, were the main suspects. Sister Helen had called Koob when Cathy did not return home, rather than the authorities. Why?

The two men stated they had an alibi for the night of the murder: they were watching the film Easy Rider in the cinema. Many found it unusual for men of the cloth to watch a film, like that. Koob and McKeon were giving each other alibis, but no one, not even the cinema staff, remembered seeing them there.

Koob’s relationship with Cathy was also a factor. Initially denying it, letters between them revealed their sexual relationship.

However, the priests were polygraphed several times and always passed.

Scandal

During the investigation, the church got involved and told the police they had to charge Koob or back off. By the mid-1970s, the case had died down with no fresh leads.

Theories persist that Sister Cathy was about to expose the abuse at the school and this is why she was murdered. However, we cannot be sure. Who would she have reported the abuse to?

Had she gone to the Archbishop or the Mother Superior, would they have taken action? The church had a habit of not dealing with these claims, opting instead to shuffle priests from one parish to another or send them on retreat when speculation got too bad.

In 1970, it’s unlikely that a single nun could have caused such a significant collapse. The victims would not try to get justice until the 1994s. The victims had to take the power back themselves and reclaim their story. However, when they filed it - it was outside the statute of limitations further prompting people to speculate about a cover-up

Maskell’s brother was a lieutenant in the Baltimore Police Department; he was in the perfect position to hide allegations of sexual assault and maybe even conceal a murder.

Maskell died in 2001 with mounting suspicion against him, not just for the sex crimes he committed, but also for the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik. Whether he was guilty or not remains a question he will have to answer to God.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

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Tim Hickman heard a firecracker sound at work and knew it was from the shop next door.

Six women had recently opened the Store of Many Colours. They sold an eclectic mix of natural foods, herbal supplements, water filters, jewellery, and other items.

Tim argued with himself; maybe he had been mistaken, and surely the sound was not what he thought. Why had no one else heard it? Why could he hear no other sounds, such as arguing or screaming? What he heard was an eerie silence.

The Stranger

Despite the risk to his own safety, Tim opened his door and looked out. He saw a white man with reddish-brown hair leave the store. He casually walked to the end of the block and turned right, disappearing.

Tim had recognised the man, though; he had locked eyes with him ten minutes earlier as he walked in front of his shop. Tim remembered him because he wore a grey herringbone or tweed jacket, which seemed too warm for the weather.

Tim did not stop there; he went to The Store of Many Colours and opened the door.

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Days later, their abandoned car was discovered miles off their return route in the snow-dusted, rugged terrain of Plumas National Forest. The car was fully functional, but the men had mysteriously vanished into the mountain wilderness. Months later, a horrifying scene emerged: four of the five bodies were found miles from the vehicle one inside a Forest Service trailer surrounded by enough unopened rations and fuel to keep the entire group alive for months. The fifth man, army veteran Gary Mathias, vanished without a trace.

Why did five men abandon a working vehicle to march into a freezing forest?

What kept them from using the survival supplies right in front of them?

And who or what were they running from?

Join host Sam H Arnold on Murder Mayhem UK as we unpack the chilling, bizarre details of the "American Dyatlov Pass - a baffling historical mystery that has left investigators and families haunted for over four decades.

Listen now and subscribe! For more deep dives into history's most unsettling cases, check out the Murder Mayhem UK Substack.

Highway 16, known as the Yellowhead Highway, is part of the Trans-Canada Highway system. The route runs from Masset on Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, in the west to Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the east; it is nicknamed the Highway of Tears.

Leaving the cities and towns behind, the view is breathtaking and vast, embodying the essence of wilderness. It has been described as the perfect place to go missing; the killer at the root of this story took full advantage of this remote landscape.

The murders started in 1969, and estimates suggest as many as thirty-three women have gone missing or been killed. Due to the vast size of the region, each disappearance was initially treated as an isolated incident rather than the work of one or more serial killers.

Systematic Racism

The murders are deeply tied to the lingering effects of colonialism, social injustice, and systemic poverty among First Nations communities. Because reliable public transport was non-existent along the corridor, hitchhiking became a necessary social norm.

Indigenous communities have faced not only the tragedy of loved ones vanishing or being found dead, but also callous indifference and institutional racism. When individuals vanished, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) frequently refused to investigate, dismissing concerns by telling relatives the victims had simply moved away to seek a better life.

Generational mistrust of law enforcement severely hindered investigations; First Nations families were accustomed to authority figures invading their homes, forcibly removing their children, and forbidding them from speaking their native languages. They were reluctant to talk to authorities.

Gloria Moody

The youngest victim on the list of eighteen women officially recognised by police is Monica Jack, a twelve-year-old who disappeared in 1978 while riding her bike home from a shopping trip. Her remains were discovered in 1995, twenty kilometres from her home.

Gloria Moody, aged twenty-six, is widely regarded as the first victim linked to the Highway of Tears cases. She was walking home from a pub in 1969 when her brother lost sight of her; he returned to his hotel room assuming she was safe. Less than twenty-four hours later, two hunters discovered her body ten kilometres away near Williams Lake. Gloria had been severely beaten and sexually assaulted; her clothing was recovered a short distance from the scene.

Three in One Year

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, young women and teenagers continued to vanish along Highways 5, 16, and 97. In 1994, the rate of violence escalated dramatically.

Leah Germaine (15), Roxanne Thiara (15), and Ramona Wilson (16) were all murdered within a six-month window. This sudden concentration of deaths forced investigators to consider whether a serial killer was operating in the area, though institutional bias persisted.

Roxanne was a known sex worker struggling with addiction; she remained missing for a month before her body was discovered dumped beside Highway 16.

Ramona, by contrast, was a high school student who disappeared after hitchhiking to a local dance. In January 1995, the RCMP received an anonymous tip pinpointing a search location; police failed to locate her body at the time. Her remains were ultimately found in April, just a few kilometres from her home; she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Leah was found stabbed to death behind an elementary school; all three teenagers were killed in quick succession.

A Victim Worth Noticing

The ongoing tragedy finally captured widespread mainstream media attention when Nicole Hoar vanished in 2002. She was hitchhiking from a petrol station to visit her sister in Smithers; she was gainfully employed and scheduled to begin a master’s degree in the autumn. The national media took immediate notice.

A witness reported seeing Nicole at the petrol station; she had declined a lift from a man travelling with children because he was not heading all the way to her destination. She subsequently entered a yellow car driven by a white male aged between 20 and 35.

Because her trip was intended as a surprise, six days elapsed before family and friends raised the alarm. As a white, middle-class, non-Indigenous graduate, her disappearance generated an unprecedented level of press coverage.

The RCMP searched 24,000 square kilometres of terrain before scaling back ground operations after four days. Sustained media exposure brought renewed focus to the region, enabling Indigenous groups and advocacy organisations to highlight the dozens of previous victims; the investigation finally received significant resources.

The Investigation

When the three teenagers disappeared in 1994, an FBI profiler was consulted but concluded the cases were unlinked. By 2005, public awareness campaigns and solidarity marches forced a broader reassessment.

Ironically, during one of the largest solidarity walks on 17 September 2005, twenty-two-year-old Tamara Chipman vanished from the highway; she became another victim associated with the corridor.

In 2006, the RCMP established Project E-PANA to investigate the unsolved disappearances and murders along the highway network. Communication between First Nations leadership and law enforcement improved, and the task force expanded its scope from nine initial cases to eighteen.

Throughout its operation, Project E-PANA interviewed over 1,400 people of interest, collected 750 DNA profiles, administered 100 polygraph tests, and conducted 2,500 formal interviews. Despite this effort, the task force officially solved only two cases: the 1973 murder of Colleen MacMillen—linked via DNA to serial killer Bobby Jack Fowler—and the murder of Monica Jack.

By 2015, budget cuts, staffing reallocations, and organisational downsizing left Project E-PANA largely inactive, leaving families without resolution. Subsequent reviews revealed that key physical evidence and administrative records relating to the cases had been misplaced or lost.

Women and young girls continue to go missing along the corridor. Systemic failures and deeply embedded institutional racism failed vulnerable citizens; serial predators exploited these vulnerabilities with near-total impunity.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

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On 27th December 1985, screams pierced the misty atmosphere surrounding a tiny tin hut in the middle of the brush. The shouts kept repeating, ‘Dian’s dead.’

The location was a remote research centre off the beaten track in east-central Africa. The fifty-three-year-old victim was a US-born primatologist Dian Fossey. Despite making enemies while studying gorillas, she self-funded one of the best facilities in the area.

Despite her reputation and the research she pioneered, her murder has never been solved. Theories are plentiful as to why she was killed, but no one knows for sure.

If this situation sounds familiar, it might be because Dian Fossey’s life was adapted into the popular film, Gorillas in the Mist. However, there’s a darker secret behind it.

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In this episode of Murder Mayhem UK, host Sam H Arnold uncovers three extraordinary historical and modern accounts of individuals who stared absolute certainty of death in the face—and somehow walked away to tell the tale.

Half-Hangit Maggie: The 18th-century Scottish woman executed by hanging, pronounced dead, and boxed in a coffin—only to start knocking on her own casket on the way to the graveyard.

60 Hours at the Bottom of the Sea: The miraculous survival of Nigerian ship cook Harrison Okene, who spent over two days trapped in a freezing, pitch-black 4ft air bubble 100 feet underwater inside a sunken tugboat.

127 Hours in the Canyon: The brutal, self-inflicted ordeal of hiker Aron Ralston, who made the ultimate unthinkable sacrifice to free himself from an 800-pound boulder in the Utah desert.

Whether by divine intervention, cunning manipulation, or sheer, unadulterated willpower, these three defy the odds of human survival.

This historical mystery has fascinated me more than any other. It’s comparable to the identity of Jack the Ripper and has been a subject of my research and interest since I began writing Murder Mayhem UK.

Bella down the Wych Elm is a case so bizarre that the police may never solve it, one shrouded in mystery. Who was Bella? What was her real name and who murdered her? All of these questions remain unanswered from this 1940s wartime mystery.

The Area

In 1941, war raged in Britain. The West Midlands was subjected to regular raids, comparable to the London Blitz. It was estimated that 1,852 bombs were dropped on the city and surrounding area during this time.

The Germans were convinced that Birmingham contained several munitions factories, and intelligence had suggested that spy rings and secret agents surrounded the area; a fact that could be relevant in this case.

Near Birmingham along Hagley Road is a track that looks forbidden. The trail leads to Hagley Wood, which is the location of our mystery. Standing in the centre of this is an old tree with a hollow trunk known as the Wych tree; not for its species, but because the long roots and suckers look like witch hair.

Finding Bella

On 18th of April 1943, four boys were hunting for birds’ nests in the wood. Trying to substitute their meagre rations with poaching, they were trespassing in the wood. One of the boys, Bob Farmer, found a large tree and climbed it to see if there were any nests. The other three stayed as lookouts.

At the top, he looked down, and what he saw made him freeze. There, in the hollow of the wide trunk, was a skull. That was when he noticed mousy brown hair stuck to the forehead and crooked teeth, with a piece of cloth in the mouth. This was not an animal skull.

Bob brought the skull out to his friends, knowing they would not believe him if he didn’t. The four boys, frightened that they would get into trouble for poaching, agreed never to mention it again. Bob climbed the tree again, threw the skull back, and they ran home.

However, it wasn’t long before the youngest, Thomas Willetts, broke down and told his father what he had seen. His father phoned the police, who found the body as described by the boys. The body in the tree was a complete skeleton, except for a missing hand. On the other hand was a cheap imitation wedding ring; stuffed in her mouth was a crumpled piece of taffeta. Her body also contained scraps of inexpensive clothing and a shoe. The police found the missing hand buried near the tree.

Bella

The bones were collected and taken to Professor Webster’s Forensic Science laboratory in Birmingham. He concluded that the woman was between 35 and 40 years old and 1.5 metres tall.

She had been suffocated and placed in the tree almost immediately before rigor mortis had set in. She had been murdered eighteen months before discovery. The woman had a strange lower jaw and crooked teeth. She had also been a mother to at least one child.

Investigation

Regrettably, the case quickly went cold. No dental records could identify the woman, and no one in the local area claimed to have seen or known her.

The police went through missing persons records, but due to the extensive bombing of the time, there were 3,000 missing people, yet none of them seemed to be Bella.

The police followed every lead, including locating the manufacturer of her shoes and tracing all the owners except for one pair; none provided any identification.

Then six months into the case, the woman was given the name we all refer to her by now when graffiti appeared on a wall in Upper Dean Street, Birmingham asking, “Who put Bella down the Wych Elm?“

The police then had a new line of enquiry, pursuing the writer of the graffiti as much as the murderer, presuming the two were linked. This too hit a dead end.

Theories

Even with the lack of evidence, several theories exist about what happened to Bella. A prostitute came forward claiming her fellow streetwalker Bella had disappeared about the time of the murder. The police looked into it, but they couldn’t find any proof that the two Bellas were the same person.

Una Mossop came forward claiming that her cousin Jack had hidden a woman in a tree. Jack had been talking to a Dutchman, Van Ralt, and a female companion in the local pub. The trio went for a drive, but the drunk woman passed out on the back seat. The pair dumped her body in the hollow of the tree to sleep it off. Jack had subsequently gone mad with the guilt and died in a mental hospital. The police asked why Una had taken so long to come forward and she had no answer; the lead grew cold, however several of the names would surface in a later theory.

Professor Margaret Murray stated that the murder scene resembled a witch’s black magic ritual known as the Hand of Glory. The hand was severed and placed near the body to encourage magic for all purposes. Although respected, most people thought the Professor’s explanation was not realistic.

Ten years after this was suggested, writer Byford Jones started writing several articles about the mystery. He received a mysterious letter signed by Anna Cleverly claiming she had information about the murders.

She claimed that Bella was a foreign spy who was part of a team sent to Britain to discover the location of munitions factories. They were then reporting this information to Germany. She claimed Bella was Dutch and had been killed by one of the other agents. Anna’s ex-husband had been part of the ring, whose name was Van Ralt. No evidence could be found to back this up.

Another popular theory that emerged was that she was the wife of Dutch spy Johannes Dronkers. Dronkers had been executed by the British in 1942, but his wife was described as having unusual teeth. Moreover, she had disappeared at the time of his arrest; her name was Clarabella. None of this could be substantiated until 30 years later.

Declassified MI5 files revealed that Czech Gestapo Agent Josef Jakobs, who had been arrested parachuting into Cambridgeshire, had a photograph of a woman he called Clara Bauerle, a Stuttgart-born music hall singer and secret agent. Clara was due to parachute into the Midlands in 1941 to gather intel on munitions factories, but the two had never met up.

Unfortunately for investigators, Jakobs was executed by firing squad on 15th August 1941, the last man to be put to death in the Tower of London. Investigation reveals that Bauerle had no billboards after spring 1941; she vanished. Bauerle was considered tall; Bella was only five feet. Later, authorities would discover that the actress had passed away in a German hospital in 1942.

Will We Ever Know?

After government files were released, internet detectives revisited the case. Many theories revolve around a spy ring, and the declassified documents supported these theories. However, in 2009, West Mercia Police closed the case.

You might be asking yourself if DNA has helped identify Bella, even if the killer could not be found, and this is where the case takes another strange twist. Bella’s skeleton disappeared from Birmingham University Medical School. This further led people to speculate that she may have been a spy and that removing the body was part of a cover-up by the British government.

It seems unlikely that we will ever know Bella’s story or the circumstances that surrounded her death. As a result, her identity will remain forever a mystery. As it stands, there is no body and no tree. A lightning strike killed the tree, so it was removed.

Another interesting factor was that the graffiti kept coming, the last known sighting being in 1999.

Subscribe today: I spend hours digging through archives, old testimony, and forgotten files to bring these cases to life. Free posts are just the beginning, paid subscribers keep this work possible and get access to my full vault of articles.

If you’ve enjoyed this story and want to see more, please consider upgrading. It’s readers like you who keep Murder Mayhem UK alive.

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On 26th May 2013, Nigerian sailor Harrison Okene was the twenty-nine-year-old cook on board the Jascon-4 tugboat. The tug had been helping stabilise an oil tanker, twenty miles off the coast. The ship had been fighting heavy swells when it capsized and sank thirty metres to the sea floor just off the coast.

The eleven other members of the crew were killed in this freak accident, but Harrison survived in the smallest of air pockets with only a can of Coke for company.

His story became one of the greatest feats of survival known.

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