11 Disturbing Photos With Even More Horrifying Backstories

1. Just Seconds Before A Bomb Went Off

This photo was taken on August 15th, 1998 in Omagh, Northern Ireland. The subjects in the photo are a Spanish father and son who were on vacation with a group. The red car directly behind and to the right of them contained a car bomb that went off shortly after the photo was taken. The father and son lived however the photographer, another Spaniard traveling with the group, died. He was only of the 29 killed by the bomb. 220 more were injured. The bombing was carried out by a group that had splintered off from the Irish Republican Army and that called itself the Real IRA.

2. A Kidnapping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLWjiPzN-24

This CCTV still shows two-year-old James Patrick Bulger being led away from his mother at a shopping center in England. The boy leading him away is one of the two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson or Jon Venables, who kidnapped Bulger and later tortured and killed him. It was later discovered that Thompson and Venables were at the shopping center that day for the express purpose of kidnapping and murdering a small child and the duo became the youngest people in the history of England to be convicted of murder.

Even more disgusting is the torment Bulger went through before dying.

At the trial it was established that at this location, one of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had shoplifted earlier, into Bulger’s left eye. They kicked and stomped on him, and threw bricks and stones at him. Batteries were placed in Bulger’s mouth. Police believed some batteries may have been inserted into his anus, although none were found there. Finally, a 22-pound (10.0 kg) iron bar, described in court as a railway fishplate, was dropped on him. Bulger suffered ten skull fractures as a result of the iron bar striking his head. Dr. Alan Williams, the case’s pathologist, stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries—42 in total—that none could be isolated as the fatal blow.

The two young killers then placed the toddler’s body on a pair of train tracks believing that his death would then be blamed on being hit by a train.

Venables was released in 2010 but rearrested after being charged with child pornography possession.

3. The Genesee Hotel, 1942

In 1942, a woman named Mary Miller entered the women’s restroom of the Genesee Hotel in Buffalo, New York, climbed onto the ledge and committed suicide. The photo was taken by I. Russel Sorgi, a photographer for the Buffalo Courier Express who had only arrived on the scene because he’d followed the sirens of police responding to Miller standing on the hotel ledge.

Sorgi’s description of how the photo taken is both fascinating and macabre.

“I snatched my camera from the car and took two quick shots as [Miller] seemed to hesitate . . . As quickly as possible I shoved the exposed film into the case and reached for a fresh holder. I no sooner had pulled the slide out and got set for another shot than she waved to the crowd below and pushed herself into space. Screams and shouts burst from the horrified onlookers as her body plummeted toward the street. I took a firm grip on myself, waited until the woman passed the second or third story, and then shot.”

Despite the popular media asserting that divorce was the reason for Miller’s suicide this was apparently not the case. Miller’s sister later said she had no idea why she had taken her own life and no concrete reason was ever given.

4. Honeymoon Murder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b_Kx32URM0

The above photo is of Tina Watson. In 2003, it has been asserted that she was killed by her husband while they were honeymooning in Queensland, Australia. Some claim that shortly after the photo was taken, Watson’s husband, Gabe Watson, turned off Tina’s regulator and held her in a bear hug until she passed out from lack of oxygen then swam to their nearby boat to ask for help.

Watson was eventually cleared of all charges in the matter but the speculation continues. Regardless of the circumstances, this photo captures Tina, a trained rescue diver, not long before she drown.

5. Heaven’s Gate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca2LhJdlK3U

Founded in the 1970s, the Heaven’s Gate group believed that an alien spacecraft was following on the heels of Hale Bopp, a comet that passed close to the Earth in 1997 and was visible without a telescope for eighteen months. Heaven’s Gate members, believing that death was a doorway by which they could board the supposed alien craft, committed mass suicide on March 26th, 1997. All told, thirty-nine people killed themselves while lying in beds similar to those in the above photo in a rented home of a San Diego suburb.

Just as creepy, their website remains up, seemingly frozen in time, forever prophesying the arrival of Hale Bopp.

6. Columbine Class Picture

https://youtu.be/RUJCemtwIHY?t=276

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who perpetrated the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 can be clearly seen in this class picture pointing their fingers at the camera in a pretense at shooting it. Not long afterward, the duo would go on to murder twelve students and one teacher while injuring 21 more and shocking the nation.

7. The Prisoner

While it looks like something from an old horror movie, the above is a real photo taken in 1901 of Blanche Monnier, a French woman who was imprisoned in a padlocked room for 25 years prior to being discovered. Monnier was initially imprisoned by her mother and brother because they didn’t approve of her marrying an attorney she was in love with. Years later, even after the object of her affection had died, the mother and brother still refused to free her.

She was finally discovered by police after they recieved an anonymous letter which read: “Monsieur Attorney General: I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence. I speak of a spinster who is locked up in Madame Monnier’s house, half starved, and living on a putrid litter for the past twenty-five years – in a word, in her own filth.”

Both the mother and brother were subsequently imprisoned. The mother died fifteen days later but the brother was ultimately acquitted and set free. Blanche Monnier, apparently driven mad by her 25 years in solitary, never regained her sanity completely and died twelve years later in a mental hospital.

8. Workers Trapped On A Burning Turbine

The above is a still of the aftermath of a 2013 turbine fire in the Netherlands. The original still below, depicts two maintenance workers, aged 19 and 21, who became stuck on top of the turbine as it caught fire with no way to get down. Both died, although you can see the two prior to the turbine’s explosion clutching one another tightly.

9. The Murder Of Travis Alexander

This photo depicts the last photo of Travis Alexander while he was still alive in 2008. Shortly afterward, his ex-girlfriend Jodi Arias attacked him with a knife and murdered him, stabbing him a total of  27 or 29 times before shooting him in the head with a .25 caliber handgun. Arias also took photos of Alexander after she had killed him.

Arias was finally convicted of Alexander’s murder in April 2015 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

10. Tyler Hadley’s Party Pic

In 2011, 17-year-old Tyler Hadley of Port St. Lucie, Florida murdered both of his parents with a hammer and then spent three hours cleaning up the evidence before throwing a 60-person, highly destructive party where furniture was broken and cigarettes were put out on the couches. The bodies of his parents were in their bedroom the entire time the party was taking place. The above photo was taken by a person who attended the party.

Even sicker, according to a friend, Hadley had planned the whole thing.

“But two weeks before that they had been hanging out at Markey’s house when Tyler blurted out, in the middle of a conversation, that he “wanted to kill his parents and have a big party after.” Nobody had ever done that before, Tyler said — throw a huge party with the bodies still in the house.”

11. Televised Suicide

Robert “Budd” Dwyer was a Republican State Senator in the 1970s and 1980s who, in 1986, was convicted of taking a bribe despite declaring his innocence. In 1987, after calling a press conference, Dwyer shot himself in the head in full view of the press. The above photo is of Dwyer warning members of the press back even as they became more and more agitated begging him not to do it.

It was later revealed that Dwyer actually had been innocent of the bribery charges when the state’s primary witness revealed that he had made up his testimony in order to receive a lighter sentence on a separate charge.