Japanese Legends And Myth
The exciting and mysterious Japanese legends reveal much about the culture and way of life of this fascinating country. We invite you to know them in this post.
Japanese legends
The millennial Japan, a country of so many riches in terms of myths and legends, offers us through its stories the opportunity to know its culture, its moral foundations and its way of conceiving the world.
Based on these foundations, the Japanese people have managed to build a mythology that fascinates the Western world, by virtue of the different perspective with which they approach the situations that arise daily. This has been the case for a long time and the myths of antiquity reflect it and are still valid in the legends of today.
A particularity of Japan is that it is one of the places where everything related to terror is enjoyed and it is assumed in a very different way from other latitudes, especially in Latin America. This particularity is also found in Celtic mythology.
This has generated that the Japanese legends in which not only ghosts abound, but also spirits, which are always immersed in the plots of the stories. In them, the psychological factor plays a very important role, since through suggestion it is possible to create tension in who hears or reads them.
Such a peculiarity, of course, produces curiosity in our western society, which has encouraged its popularity and increased the interest of the audience in this part of the world.
In the past, there were numerous Japanese myths and legends that were transmitted from the ancient inhabitants of the island, who tried to explain the world from its primitive approach, until today, with a plot that continues to inspire multiple writers and artists.
In this post we want to invite you to meet Japan through its various legends with themes that deal with love, terror, moral principles, urban customs, among others.
Characteristics Regarding the characteristics, it is important to keep in mind that the legends of Japan include stories with distinctive aspects that identify them culturally with the country, of course keeping the particularities of the moment in which they were written and of the genre developed. The Mexican mythology also presents indigenous aspects of the country. Let's look at some of those features:
At first they were an important part of the oral tradition of the country, in the absence of writing.
They are imaginary stories that people create by mixing fantastic and supernatural elements, which in many cases come from folklore.
A combination of authentic information is made with fictional data, which cannot be verified.
They are based on their customs and folk beliefs.
Questions are raised about the existence of elements of nature.
They include gods, creatures and spirits typical of their mythological creation.
Likewise, the personification of animals, trees, flowers or any other object is used.
Some of the Japanese legends are fables that leave a sobering message.
Many of them are dedicated to highlighting important elements of the geography of your country.
Categories of Japanese legends
The most popular categories that we normally find in the mythology of Japan are presented below. In each of them it is possible to identify ancient legends and other more modern ones. There are several types of categories that could be pointed out, but we have wanted to include them into four main types; namely:
Japanese legends of love
Japanese horror legends
Japanese Urban legends
Pretty Japanese legends
A succinct description of the category follows and the best-known Japanese legends are noted for the reader's enjoyment and to encourage them to inquire and read others.
Japanese legends of love
This is a very common theme in Japanese legends due to the interest that this feeling arouses in the population. Some are so famous that writers, playwrights and film producers have taken them to make books, plays, films, series and cartoons in which they seek to exalt and promote this beautiful feeling.
Certainly, there are many Japanese legends inspired by love in which its creators have captured it as the central element, evidencing their own experiences or those of their closest ones, sometimes with a certain tinge of veracity, others invented.
A peculiarity in the Japanese tradition about these stories is that the couple or lovers involved can be represented by men and women, but also by animals, trees, flowers or any other object.
In general, we can say that Japanese mythology is emotional and romantic and its legends reflect its opinion regarding the predestination of love when it has to occur.
There are many short Japanese myths that have become popular and become world famous, and in this sense. some of the most relevant are presented below.
Examples
These stories have been selected considering their popularity for being the most requested by lovers of Japanese mythology and, also, because they reflect the uniqueness of Japanese on this subject.
Sakura and Yohiro
This is one of the Japanese legends that explains, from a love story, the birth and development of one of the most beautiful and symbolic trees of the Japanese Nation: the cherry tree.
This story began hundreds of years ago in ancient Japan at a time of many bloody strife. In it we are told that in a certain region there was a forest in which beautiful trees grew with abundant crowns full of flowers, which gave them great splendor.
Fortunately, there was no fighting in this forest, which allowed all the trees to remain intact. Except for one, who was a young specimen whose flowers never bloomed.
He looked like he was dead, which caused no one to approach him because of his dry and decrepit-looking appearance, resulting in him always being alone. Even the animals did not approach because their appearance caused fear and around them did not grow grass, which increased their loneliness.
One good day a compassionate fairy, seeing the sad and deplorable situation of the tree, was moved and decided to help him. He proposed to her that he would cast a spell on her whereby she could feel the same as a human heart for twenty years.
In this way, the fairy hoped that with the experience of this emotion the tree would manage to bloom again. In addition, the fairy told him that during that period he could transform into a human being, if he so desired.
However, he pointed out that there was a condition to fulfill and that was that, if after those years he did not manage to regain his vitality and flourish, he would die immediately.
The tree accepted the proposal to have the ability to feel and transform and for a time it became human. but, by virtue of the war and death that he found in the mortal world, disappointed he decided to become a tree again.
The years went by slowly and the tree could not feel any emotion to bloom again, so I was losing hope. However, one afternoon, the tree died of boredom, decided to become human again and went to a stream, where he met a beautiful and sweet young woman, named Sakura, who greeted him and treated him with kindness.
Impressed by its beauty, the tree approached and to reciprocate it helped her carry water to her home. They talked about many topics and thus the friendship between them began.
Sakura asked the tree its name and it managed to stammer Yohiro, which means hope. They began to see each other every day to talk, laugh and sing. They also read books with wonderful stories. A deep friendship was emerging that little deepened until it became love.
Yohiro felt the need to always be by her side, so one day he confessed his love to Sakura , along with the fact that she was a tree about to die. The young woman was very impressed and was silent for a few minutes. She loved him too much, so she couldn't stop looking at the tree.
Time passed and the end of the twenty years of the spell came and Yohiro became a tree again. But even though he didn't expect it, Sakura confessed her love to him and hugged him.
It happened, at that moment, that the moved fairy appeared and asked Sakura that she had to choose if she wanted to remain a woman or be part of the tree and be united forever with Yohiro. She thought about it for only a few seconds and chose to forever merge with Yohiro.
Thus the miracle was done and, instantly, the dry tree in the middle of the forest grew green, filling with splendorous flowers. Since then it has been called the Sakura tree , which means "cherry blossom". Since then, the love of both can be seen during the cherry blossom. perfuming the fields of Japan.
The red thread of destiny
In Japanese mythology it is taken as a reliable fact that every human being is predestined, from birth, to have an affective bond with the love of his life, which is carried out by means of a red thread that unites the couple regardless the years how long it takes to materialize it.
In fact, there is a popular belief among the Japanese who asserts that this red thread really exists regardless of when and how the couples are to meet and that said thread cannot be broken, although it sometimes seems to be very tense.
That thread leaves our little finger, which receives blood from the same artery that leads to the middle finger, and then it arrives and is tied to the little finger of the person we are destined to meet and establish a close bond with.
The legend that we present to you now tells us about predestination applied to love and specifically refers to that link that is established by the red thread.
She tells us that many years ago, an emperor received the news that in one of the provinces of his kingdom lived a powerful sorceress with the ability to visualize the red thread of destiny.
The emperor ordered the witch to be brought before him to ask her to help him find what was to be his wife. When the sorceress arrived, the emperor ordered her to find the other end of the thread tied to her little finger and take it to the place where her future wife would be.
The witch agreed to this request and began her search, which led them to a market. There he went to a stall for selling products run by a peasant woman who was holding a baby in her arms.
The sorceress then told the emperor that her thread ended there. But upon hearing this and seeing that it was a poor peasant, the emperor thought that the sorceress was mocking and enraged pushed the peasant who still had her little laden. The push made the baby fall to the ground and make a large wound on her forehead.
The really annoying emperor ordered his guards to arrest the witch and execute her by cutting off her head and returned to the palace.
Years later, the moment came, that according to what was indicated by the advisers, the emperor should marry and his court recommended that the best thing was that he marry the daughter of a very powerful general of the country, whom he could not see until today. of the wedding. He accepted.
On the day of the wedding, it was time to see for the first time the face of his wife, who entered the temple dressed in a beautiful and elegant outfit and a veil that covered her completely.
When he saw her face for the first time, the emperor realized that his future wife had a scar on her forehead, the product of a fall when she was a baby, with which the prediction of the sorceress was evidently fulfilled; In other words, the woman who was going to share his life was the peasant's baby.
The legend of the weaver princess, origin of Tanabata
Japanese legends surprise us both for the beauty or terror they produce, as well as for the depth and sensitivity with which they treat their themes. In the story that we present to you below that reflects that quality. It refers to the celebration of Tanabata , which is one of the most popular festivals in Japan.
From this festival, exciting legends have been derived that have given rise to rituals and traditions, in which the streets and houses of Japan are adorned, once a year, with colorful colored papers, always coinciding with the seventh day of the seventh month of the calendar lunar.
This story of the weaver princess tells us about the young Orihime, daughter of Tentei , the heavenly king, who wears a monotonous and routine, since her only task was to weave beautiful fabrics always on the banks of the Amanogawa River. She was, yes, the best weaver in the whole kingdom and her fabrics were truly magnificent, which filled her father with great pride.
This Tentei king had the power to control the weather at will, so that it was always clean and clear, if he was in a good mood, but if he got angry, the whole sky would turn overcast and a torrential rain would fall.
The responsibility of always knitting to keep her father pleased took up most of Orihime's day. This, of course, prevented him from meeting other people, much less falling in love.
Her father, worried for her seeing her so sad, arranged a meeting with a shepherd who lived on the other side of the river. This one was called Hikoboshi, who was a good boy, of noble feelings, hard-working and, in addition, attractive.
Upon seeing each other, the young people fell in love immediately and were soon married. But once they were married, they both began to neglect each other's work by taking care of each other and their relationship. Orihime stopped weaving and no longer remembered her obligation to the king, and Hikoboshi no longer tended to her flock, which dispersed throughout the field.
Such was the abandonment of the couple that made the king enraged, so he made the decision to separate the lovers. He ordered each one to stand to one side of the Amanogawa River , unable to see each other, speak to each other, or touch each other.
Poor Orihime , desperate to no longer have her husband with her, crying uncontrollably, begged her father to let her see him at least once more. Even if it was only once a year.
The king agreed with a single condition, that she continue doing her work as a weaver, only then would she allow them to see each other once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
However, there was a small trap in that agreement and that is that they could only see each other, but not touch, because there was the river that separated them, which they were forbidden to cross, because the bridge there was not very safe and you could fall.
This, of course, caused Orihime great sorrow , which again made her cry bitterly for not being able to be near her beloved, that a flock of magpies passing by took pity and came to her aid. They formed a bridge with their wings a bridge so that the lovers could embrace.
And they continue to do so every year, because the magpies promised to return to form the bridge, as long as it did not rain, because if it did rain, they would have to wait until the following year.
Tradition in Japan
That day scheduled for Orihime and Hikoboshi to meet is the day of Tanabata or the "festival of the stars", which is celebrated in Japan on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Japanese circumsolar calendar.
For this tradition, people in Japan usually celebrate it by writing their wishes on small strips of colored paper, called tanzaku . They are then hung on the branches of bamboo trees near rivers.
Japanese horror legends
These legends are an important part of Japanese mythology, they are truly chilling and due to their strong content and the way they are told, they are preferred by people who are passionate about horror literature and because of this they have gained popularity.
They have spread throughout the world thanks to the making of very famous films such as The Ring and The Curse of the Mummy and many others that are based on these legends. The appearance of ghosts, dead and ghosts are essential to capture the attention of the reader or viewer.
Examples
There are numerous horror stories that Japanese mythology offers us. In this case we will present two of the best known.
Kuchisake-onna or the woman with the cut face
It is a story that despite time continues to be of public interest, generating fascination for lovers of terror and the supernatural.
It is the legend that says that a long time ago there was a woman of great beauty, but in whose soul there was only vanity. She was married to a samurai, but for her beauty she was courted by many men, whom she accepted and with whom she cheated on her husband. It was called Kuchisake-onna.
The samurai learned of his wife's adventures and infidelities, so one day, rapt by jealousy, in a moment of fury, he cut her mouth from one side of her face to the other, while yelling at her: Do you think you are beautiful? Now who's going to think that you're beautiful?
Since then it is said that at nightfall an enigmatic woman with her face covered with a mask appears wandering the streets of Japan and when she meets a young man she approaches him and asks: Am I beautiful?
In Japan it is normal to wear face masks to avoid diseases and not to breathe polluted air, so when men see the beautiful eyes of this woman and her delicate features, they answer that yes, she is beautiful.
At that moment Kuchisake-onna uncovers her face by removing the mask and showing the horrible slit that extends from ear to ear with a creepy smile. And he asks again: What do you think now? Anyone who answers NO, or who is scared, or shouts or shows their fear, the spirit of the woman cuts off her head immediately with giant scissors.
If the victim tells her again that YES, she is beautiful, then she will only cut her mouth from side to side so that she feels and suffers the same thing that she is suffering.
It should be noted that there are versions that indicate that if the woman answers affirmatively both times, what she does is follow the victim to the front door of the house where she finally murders him.
Most versions say that you cannot escape from Kuchisake-Onna, because, even if you try to run away, she will appear from the other side. However, there are other legends that ensure that there is the possibility of slipping away in various ways.
Some say that the woman can be answered with another question, such as: And me? Am I beautiful ?, in such a way as to confuse her, which will give time to escape. Other versions indicate that you have to have candy to offer her and leave her happy and entertained with the sweets.
The Legend of Yuki-Onna
The story is about a yokai , which is a spirit, in this case in a female form, called Yuki-Onna, which means snow woman, since it appears on nights of snow storms. This yokai seeks, every time it appears, to feed on the vital energy of those who have dared to enter its territory and lose themselves in it.
Once all of their energy has been removed, he transforms their bodies into frozen statues. This is what happened to Mosaku and Minokichi , in the story that we relate below and that shows us death by freezing.
The legend tells us of the day when the two lumberjacks and carpenters, Mosaku, the teacher, and Minokichi , were going back to their house in the forest, when suddenly a heavy snowstorm broke out that blocked the roads, so they had to take refuge in a cabin they found, where they fell asleep.
Suddenly a strong gust opened the door and a woman dressed in white appeared, who approached Master Mosaku directly , absorbing all his life energy, freezing him and killing him. Young Minokichi froze in fear.
Seeing his youth, Yuki-Onna decided to forgive him, as long as he never revealed what happened and, if he did not comply, he would kill him immediately. The young man agreed.
A year later, Minokichi met a young woman named O-Yuki and soon married her. They had children and had a happy relationship. Until one day, the young man decided to tell his wife what he had experienced and, just at that moment, O-Yuki changed his appearance, discovering himself as Yuki-Onna.
She was already willing to kill Minokichi for having broken the pact, but she decided to forgive him because he had been a good father, so she left her children and left never to return.
Japanese Urban legends
These are those stories that the ancient inhabitants of the island told each other, and even wrote them, recounting strange situations in their daily lives, which in turn were exaggerated to attract attention and cause tension to those who listen or read.
Many of them have endured through the years and have served as inspiration for many other writers in the modern world.
Of these urban stories, a compilation has been made of the most outstanding and those that have caused the greatest impact on the reading public. This is the Kojiki , which is a compilation of all those ancient legends. It is considered the oldest book on myths and stories in Japan. There is also the work Nihonshoki , which would be the second book on this subject.
Among these Japanese legends we can mention in this urban genre, and that are already part of the Japanese cultural heritage, the following:
Aka Mantle
There are numerous urban legends that exist and among them the one about Aka Manto stands out, which means "Red Cape" in Japanese, and which tells us the story of the woman murdered in a public bathroom, whose ghost was cloistered in the depths of all the public toilets in Japan where he appears with a long red cloak, in order to identify his murderer and take revenge.
It is said that he usually hides in the last of the toilets to frighten and then murder whoever uses it. Part of the legend reveals that in the past, Aka Manto was always humiliated by her classmates.
To the point that on one occasion they took her to the toilet in the last bathroom and they buried her head in it for several seconds that she almost drowned. This was done to her several times, which created hatred and despair in this girl, until one day she took a rope and hung herself in the last bathroom.
Since then, her spirit hides in the most secluded toilet of the public baths and waits for anyone to enter to approach her. Once inside he asks the person: "Red or blue paper?" showing two rolls of paper with these colors.
If the person chooses red, Aka Manto appears to him and peels off the skin little by little so that he feels the pain as he bleeds out. But if the victim chooses the blue paper, the evil spirit strangles her until her skin turns blue.
According to mystery connoisseurs, there is no way to escape this spirit, as dodging the question does not work, as Aka Manto will harass until a color is chosen.
Likewise, if a color other than red or blue is chosen, a hole will open from one of the walls from which white hands will emerge, dragging the victim into absolute darkness.
In some versions of the legend it is said that to get rid of the diabolical spirit, you have to run away as soon as you hear the voice. But in other stories it is said that if this is done, Aka Manto could appear at the door blocking the exit and ending the person's life in the same way.
Other versions are even more terrifying, since they assert when the spirit appears, the bathroom is hermetically closed so that the victim cannot leave.
Even though it seems that there is no escape from this horrifying apparition, some say that it could be answered calmly that no paper is needed, with the slight hope that Aka Manto will allow the person to continue living.
Teke-teke
This modern-day urban horror story tells us how a young introvert, who was bullied, was transformed into a spirit that roams the country's train stations.
Legend has it that she was the victim of constant humiliation and humiliation and, due to her weak character, she did not know how to defend herself. One day his bullies played a very bad joke on him, which ended worse than expected.
On that occasion the young woman was alone at the train station, absorbed in her thoughts, waiting to board him to return home. Her bullies saw her and taking advantage of the fact that it was the cicada season, they took a cicada from the road and, stealthily, one of them approached her and placed it on her shoulder.
When the shy young woman felt something move on her shoulder and saw that it was an insect, she jumped in fright, shaking it off, but slipped and fell to the track just as the train passed. The girl died dismembered with her body split in two.
Horrified, the bullies fled the place and never said anything and everyone in the town thought that the young woman had committed suicide.
Since then it is said that at night a strange noise that sounded was heard in lonely stations: teke-teke. As the noise grew louder, the dead girl's upper body would appear crawling with her clawed nails, desperately seeking her other half.
When he meets on his way, he asks if he has seen his legs, and sometimes of the hatred that seizes him, he attacks with his claws and it is said that he has tried to push some people to the train track to kill them and transform them into creatures like her.
Pretty Japanese Legends
Japanese mythology also includes among its legends, beautiful stories, many of which have real life foundations. Some of these Japanese legends have become famous for their beauty of content that has even received recognition, not only nationally but also internationally. In addition, that with them it has been possible to exalt and strengthen many human principles and values.
In particular, they have been very well received in the Western world, so much so that they have been used to produce great classics for film and television.
Mirror
It is a beautiful story that tells us the life of a young samurai and his family. He lived in a humble home with his beautiful and shy wife and daughter, in which there was little furniture, only the essentials.
One day, there was a change of king in the kingdom, so all the young samurai were summoned to attend the palace to appear before the new monarch and enjoy a party that he had prepared for them. The samurai attended the meeting, but his wife, who was introverted, stayed home with her daughter.
While in the kingdom, the husband decided to bring his wife and daughter a present from the party, so with all his savings he bought his daughter a beautiful doll and his wife, a small mirror, because he knew that she I did not have.
For the woman it turned out to be a mysterious gift because she had never seen a mirror and when she looked into it for the first time, she asked her husband in surprise:
- Who is this beautiful woman in the mirror,?
- What do you mean, who is it? Are you! It's your reflection, my dear!
The woman felt bad and sorry to know that this was a mirror. She took it and put it in a drawer so that her husband's gift wouldn't break.
Time passed and the girl was already a beautiful young woman, while the woman had aged. A few years passed and the woman fell ill and shortly before dying, she said to her daughter:
- My dear daughter, I know that I have little time left, but I will always be with you. I want to ask you that when I die, you take out an object that is in the drawer of my dresser and when you look in it, you will see me.
Finally, the woman died and the daughter remembered the request that she had made. So he went to the drawer and took out the mirror. Looking at herself, she saw a very pretty young woman who was smiling just like her.
He dedicated himself to looking in the mirror every day and said words of love that came from his heart. One day her father found her talking to the mirror and asked her:
- What are you doing, my daughter?
She excitedly showed him the mirror and said:
- Look dad, it's mom! He laughs with me every time I smile at him. He is here with us. She is beautiful and looks young, right?
His father, surprised and very excited, could not help but smile and replied:
- It certainly is. Is beautiful. You see it in that mirror and I see it in you.
The Bamboo Cutter and the Princess of the Moon
The legend below tells us about a married couple who always wanted to have children, but despite everything they tried to have them, they never succeeded.
They were very poor, but very humble. They both worked collecting bamboo and with this they manufactured various objects, which they later sold in the village market.
One night when the man was doing his routine job of choosing the best bamboo pieces to use, he was suddenly struck by one that had a glow inside. He moved closer to look at her more carefully and found that there was a tiny girl inside.
Exalted, the man took her in his arms and running began to call his wife and gave him the little girl. The emotion was so great that they decided to keep it, because they considered it a reward that the moon had sent them for the great love they had for each other and because they never lost faith. They called her Princess Moonlight. The girl grew up and during all those years she was a good daughter of great company and happiness for the couple.
Furthermore, the bamboo branch where the man found the girl, prodigiously and magically began to produce gold and gems, which made the bamboo cutter a rich man in no time.
The girl grew up and became a beautiful woman of normal size, and over time she became known in the village of her great beauty. so many gentlemen began to claim her, who came to ask for her hand.
On one occasion, five honorable gentlemen came to the house, invited by the bamboo cutter, who wanted to convince his adopted daughter to marry, since he was already very old and did not want to leave her alone. She refused and every time she could, she asked each suitor for things that were difficult to obtain to make them discouraged.
News of the existence of such a beautiful young woman reached the emperor of the region, so he asked her to go to his court. She, of course, refused, so he went to visit her.
When he saw her, he was captivated with love for her, so he tried to make her go with him to his palace and start preparing for the wedding. She again refused and warned that if forced, she would transform into a shadow, disappearing.
Luz de Luna only observed the sky every night and was saddened, because the time was coming to return to her place of origin, so she had to confess to her adoptive father with tears that her stay on earth should end, because she had come from the moon and there he had to return.
The emperor learned of this and wanted to prevent it by sending his guards to the house of the bamboo cutter, to prevent the princess from returning to her home planet.
Some time later, in one night it was observed that the moon was covered with a cloud that descended towards the earth, obscuring the sky. Then a chariot guided by luminous beings looked for the princess.
She left a letter and a small bottle containing the Elixir of Life to be delivered to the emperor, but the emperor, frightened, ordered that both be burned on the highest and most sacred mountain in that region.
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Discover Everything About the Legend of Teke Teke
The legend of Teke Teke consists of a Japanese urban legend, referring to a young woman who died after falling to the subway rails and being cut in half, they say that her ghost wanders throughout Japan specifically in subway stations. Here we tell you the whole reality.
History of the legend of Teke Teke
There have been many versions of this mysterious urban legend, in this case we will describe the two most widespread versions in people who live and have heard about the story, which from being interesting becomes a very dangerous science fiction story within urban legends from Japan.
First version of Teke Teke
According to the legend, a young student who was returning from high school very late at night, met a young woman who was looking at him from her window and when he observed her, they both smiled, however when he asked what he was doing in the window of the school in men, she gave a huge jump towards the young man, revealing that the girl did not have the back waist, scared to death the young man tried to flee but the girl split him in half.
Second version of Teke Teke
A young high school student received many jokes weekly from her classmates, and one day the young people decide to make a very heavy prank, for this they placed a very large insect on her shoulder, the girl was heading towards the subway station and when He was near the platform, he observed the insect, its size was the scare of the girl who fell on the subway rails, due to bad luck that it was happening at that moment. The car ended the life of the young woman, cutting her into two parts, the young people had not realized what had happened until after a while, when as an excuse they said that the girl had thrown herself onto the subway rails because she was depressed, the The story spread throughout the city and so many people believed it. After a while the same young people were on their way to the subway station and suddenly they began to hear a strange noise similar to a click, when suddenly they observed the young woman who was dragging herself along the platform supported by her arms bathed in blood and without the lower part of her body, terrified, the young people decide to escape, which they do not achieve since the girl cuts the three of them at the waist, ending their lives and starting an urban legend.
References of Teke Teke
It is said that it belongs to a vengeful type spirit called Onryo, others suggest that it belongs to the evil spirits of Japanese Yokai mythology, it is achieved many times, according to people who say they have observed it, crawling with the help of its hands and elbows, and with its torso it makes a characteristic sound similar to teke teke, hence its name, the victims are generally single people, who are near the subway stations, especially on nights with a full moon.
Teke teke in popular culture
Recently the legend was made into a film under the direction of Japanese director Koji Shiraishi in 2009, previously during 2006 the film called Otoshimono was released, directed by Takeshi Furusawa, a series called Hakano and the terror of Allegory was about the investigation of some deadly urban legends, and of course several chapters were devoted to this teke teke urban legend.
In the same way among the population, especially the little ones, they report that they get very scared when they narrate the story, since they say that she carries a sharp saw or a scythe, with which she cuts people in order to look like her, for That is why many children avoid being alone at night on the streets, fearfully respecting this legend.
In other countries there are similar stories, in Japan itself there is a legend called "The woman with the cut mouth, "Kuchisake Onna", where very similar events are recounted, also in the United States there is an identical version called "Click Clack" , in the least of the cases, the victims become part of the legend where they begin to take other victims and by cutting them in half they begin to produce the famous “teke teke” sound.
To conclude, it is important to point out that despite being a world power, the outstanding characteristics of the Japanese lie in their belief in many myths and legends, where there are still many Japanese citizens who believe in demons and infernal figures, due to this the legend of the teke teke is not a story to scare children, but a real enough reason not to be alone in a subway station at night or at any time.
5 Creepiest Urban Legends
5. The Man Who Spoke With God
Picture this scene: The year is 1983. A group of religious scientists have come up with an interesting new theory that any human brain untroubled by stimuli would be able to sense the presence of God. Finding a willing volunteer, an old man with a terminal illness, they painstakingly seal off his nerve endings. Then they sit back and wait. What happened next is like H.P Lovecraft's worst nightmare. For a couple of days, the old man whispered about his deteriorating state of mind. On the fourth day, he claimed to hear distant voices. On the sixth, his dead wife began speaking to him.
Then things really went downhill. As the days passed, the voices of the dead began to grow louder, more hostile. They became angry, mocking, and started to tell the man things nobody should ever have to hear. According to the legend, the man began to scream and tear at his unseeing eyes, shrieking no heaven, no forgiveness, over and over and over. Finally he began to hysterically bite at his own flesh, saying he'd met God and he has abandoned us. Luckily, the tale is nothing more than a particularly spine-chilling example of an urban legend. But it's creepy enough to have utterly freaked some people out, and now seems to periodically resurface whenever the Internet is in need of some gut-wrenching terror.
4. Farmer John's Suicide
The story goes that the owner of a meat-packing plant woke up one day to find his kids missing. With the help of his brother, the two scoured the farm but could find no trace of the missing kids. After a few hours they called in the police, who made a horrifying discovery. The stuff coming out the meat grinder that day was human flesh, pulped and ground down to goo. Realizing this could only be his missing kids, the owner retreated to the plant's boiler room and quietly hanged himself.
Twenty years after the kids were murdered, workers at the plant stumbled across a terrifying scene. The brother of the former owner had been strung up in the boiler room, the words I did it carved across his chest. At the same time, visitors to the town cemetery reported that the soil above the owner's grave had been disturbed sometime in the night. Fast forward to the present, and it's said that you can see the ghosts of the two children falling into the grinder every October, while on Halloween the two hanged men make their way back to the boiler room.
3. The Staring Video
It's a video of a man looking into a camera without expression for roughly two minutes. It's been up on YouTube without comment and seen by hundreds of people. Known as the "Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv" video, the legend goes that it was pulled by YouTube in the early days after they realized its effects. According to the story, those who watched through to the end would see the expressionless man smile an evil smile.
After that they'd lose it. People were said to have clawed their own eyes out after seeing the whole video. Others were said to have taken knives and hacked their own arms up. Yet others were supposed to have killed themselves. It is said that nobody can get even 45 seconds in without screaming, and to go any further is to sacrifice the last shreds of your sanity. At least, that's the story. In reality, the video is of a guy called Bryan Cortez and you can see him today looking suitably non-demonic and friendly.
2. The Suicide Portrait
A few years back, an internet rumor surfaced about the suicide of a young Japanese girl. Shortly before killing herself, the teen had drawn a self-portrait, which she then posted online. Curious to see this slice of suicide memorabilia, a number of Korean forums picked up the image and began re-posting it. That's where things got weird. Users had a hard time looking away from this melancholy picture. Some began re-posting it time and time again, saying that its eyes were drawing them in.
Others noticed that if you stared at the picture for any length of time, it began to alter subtly, the faintest trace of a smile surfacing around the dead girl's mouth. Yet others reported feelings of intense sadness after seeing it. It is said that one or two even killed themselves. It is now thought that anyone who spends too long looking at the image runs the risk of falling into this same deadly obsession. At least it would be, if the original artist hadn't found out about this rumor and posted a fed-up message on his website, debunking the whole thing.
1. Mickey Mouse In Hell
The creepy "lost episod" is a whole sub genre of modern urban legend. But none has ever been quite so twisted as the legend that started them all: the story of the lost Mickey Mouse cartoon. According to the legend, this cartoon is nothing special. It features a black and white Mickey walking past a repeating background, white noise playing on the soundtrack. At two minutes in it cuts to black and that's it. Wait until the sixth minute, and the cartoon is meant to reappear. Only now the white noise has been replaced by the distant murmur of voices. The background Mickey was walking against has begun to distort in ways painful for the human eye to see, and Mickey himself is smirking unpleasantly.
From then on, the cartoon supposedly becomes a nightmare. A scream starts to rise up on the soundtrack as Mickey himself seems to decay, his eyeballs falling out and his grin getting ever wider. Impossible colors begin flickering across the screen, burning rubble rises in the background, and then it is said that nobody knows what happens next. The only Disney employee to ever watch to the end committed suicide shortly after. All he left was a note describing the final frame: a piece of Russian text that translates as "the sights of hell bring its viewers back in." And now, it is somewhere out there on the Internet, waiting for you to find it.
5 Most Evil People in History
5. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was and Iranian religious leader for a decade beginning in 1979. He had led the Iranian Revolution during which up to sixty thousand people were killed. The doctrine of the Shia Islamic Law was incredible strict, enforcing specific dress codes and eliminating equal rights. Brutal punishments were administered for breaking the rules. People were sent to prison and tortured just for listening to music. Anyone caught sharing a kiss in public was given one hundred lashes.
Those who chose not to believe in Allah were tortured and murdered by shooting, hanging, gassing, stabbing, stoning or burning. Anyone caught stealing would have a hand amputated, people were blinded and women's faces were slashed or damaged with acid. During the Iranian Massacres of 1988, everyone who was serving time in prison was killed. Over five months more than thirty thousand people lost their lives, including children who were hung from cranes. Khomeini kept fifty two American nationals hostage. Some were imprisoned for more than four hundred days, some spent six years in captivity. The hostages were blindfolded for their entire imprisonment.
Khomeini wasn't content with just ruling Iran, he had ambitions to conquer the Middle East. Saddam Hussein decided to attack first and between one and two million people were killed during the Iran Iraq war. Children were sent to fight by Khomeini. Saddam Hussein attempted peace talks but to no avail. The economy of Iran crashed and up to a million Iranian people died during this time. Khomeini's aggression towards the US is thought to have been the beginning of terrorist thinking, inspiring groups such as Al Qaeda. He is also thought to have inspired the Islamic Holy War during which over two million people died. In 1989 Khomeini lost his own fight, with cancer.
4. Delphine LaLaurie
When Delphine LaLaurie's New Orleans house caught fire in 1834, the emergency services who attended the scene made some very disturbing discoveries.Two people who were clearly being kept as slaves were found inside the house, chained up to the stove in the kitchen. Both were found to have had terrible injuries afflicted upon them during their life. But this was just the start. Upstairs in the attic more than twelve bodies were found, all of them chained to the floor or the walls.
They bore the disfigurement of serious abuse, having suffered a range of medical experiments conducted upon them by LaLaurie. She had trialled sex change surgery, had broken limbs and reset them in odd positions, performed amputations and taken flesh samples. Some of her victims had had their mouths sewn up, resulting in them dying of starvation. There were some victims who had had their hands attached to other parts of their bodies. LaLaurie never paid for her crimes as she escaped and went into hiding.
3. Beverly Allitt Nurse
Beverley Gail Allitt is said to be amongst the top ten most evil women of all time. Dubbed the Angel of Death, she killed four children and tried to kill another three. And that's not all, she also caused grievous bodily harm to another six. These terrible deeds were committed in 1991 whilst Allit was working in a children's hospital ward in Lincolnshire. It was found that two of the children had been given massive overdoses of insulin whilst another child was found to have a big air bubble inside their body. How the other children were killed and injured remains uncertain. Allitt was sentenced to life in prison, thirteen times over, when she was put on trial in 1993. The judge emphasised that Allitt posed a serious threat to society and would probably reamin in jail for the rest of her life.
2. Adolf Hitler
The German Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, was the leader of Germany between 1933 and 1945. As a young man he had aspirations of becoming an artist but these were not realised when he failed to gain admittance to art school. He enlisted as a solider in the German army during the First World War. He was furious when Germany surrendered. After returning to Germany at the end of the war, Hitler began considering the role of the Jews in terms of the problems Germany was facing.
He blamed the Jews for everything and his bitterness developed into a belief that Jews were not human beings at all. He began to plan for the elimination of all of Europe's Jews. Part of this plan included the fulfilment of his ambition to control the entire world. Hitler believed that the power of persuasion could achieve anything and propaganda was a fundamental strategy in his plans. Hitler took to killing anyone who stood against him. He would experiment on hospital inpatients for new methods of killing people; one thing he trialled in this way was the use of carbon dioxide gas.
More than three hundred thousand people were killed due to Hitler's experiments. Hitler rounded up all of the Jews living in Germany and put them into concentration camps. Jews living in other countries were not safe from this threat and over ninety percent of Polish Jews died during this time. Those incarcerated in these prison camps were put to work. Some died from overwork whilst others were killed in the gas chambers. This wasn't the only way that Hitler killed the people in the camps. He also used a firing squad, death marches, the lethal injection, starvation, poisoning and medical experimentation.
Many people died from disease, starvation and exposure too. The Jewish people were forced to watch their friends and family die. The lives of millions of children were lost because of Hitler's breeding programme. Children were judged against the Nazi scale of perfection and those found to be lacking were executed. He wasn't loyal to friends and allies and would betray them without a second thought. Over eleven million people were killed as a direct result of Hitler's power.
This figure includes six million Jewish people, three million Polish people and another three million Russian people, seven hundred and fifty thousand Slavs, half a million gypsies, one hundred thousand people suffering from mental illness, another hundred thousand Freemasons, five thousand Jehovah's Witnesses and fifteen thousand homosexual people. In all, more than fifty million people died due to Hitler's actions. He died in 1945 when he commit suicide after taking cyanide poisoning then shooting himself.
1. Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was the dictator at the helm of the Soviet Union for thirty-one years, between 1922 and 1953. Prior to his appointment to government, he had been an assassin, a bank robber and an agitator. It took him many years to progress to his place in power and he turned into a ruthless, aggressive, vengeful dictator who was ruled by his paranoia, bringing terror, violence and murder to his country. Those who crossed him were put to death so woe betide anyone who attempted to spy on him or anger him in any way. Anyone who voted against him suffered the same fate.
His ambition was to promote the Soviet Union to an industrial superpower but in working towards this goal many, many people were killed. Soviet citizens were forced into slave labour, many literally being worked to death. Enormous industrial schemes were established and became a source of perhaps millions of people's misery. Stalin's name appears on tens of thousands of death warrants. The only way to escape Stalin's brutality was to adhere to his word entirely. Anyone who spoke against him, who displayed independence or intelligence, was subjected to torture, imprisonment or murdered.
Family made no difference to Stalin and he was as likely to murder his supporters families as he was his enemies; in fact, he murdered the parents of a girl he had made a favourite of. She believed that he extended his love for her to her family, but she was wrong. He is even said to have had wives of his friends killed. Stalin's family didn't escape his ruthlessness either. He sent his daughter's boyfriend into exile and his wife commit suicide in order to escape his horrific treatment.
When his son was captured and put into a Nazi concentration camp, Stalin would not make a trade for his release; his son died in the camp. The means of murder were varied and brutal: it's said that Stalin even had people killed with ice picks. It wasn't only by brute force that people lost their lives. During Stalin's time in power, around ten million people starved to death. He is known to have said that an individual death can be regarded as a tragedy but in high numbers deaths are merely a statistic.
Stalin showed no respect for those who were fighting for his country during the Second World War, even having Soviet soldiers killed. Prisoners were released in order to join the army; when they returned from war, even if they were injured, they were thrown back in prison. He was just as brutal to people from other countries with hundreds of thousands of foreigners raped, tortured and murdered; one and a half million women from Germany were raped by Stalin's men. Stalin regularly used mustard gas explosives to kill large numbers of people. His aim was for his country to become as strong as America, with the ultimate goal being to take on the United States. He was responsible for the deaths of up to sixty million people. He lived until 1953 when he died after having a stroke.
5 Unsolved Mysteries With Strange Writteb Clues
5. John Hill
Ottumwa is a small city in southern Iowa and it is home to a disturbing unsolved mystery. Early on the morning of November of 22, 1976, two men walked into the Ottumwa Launderette and in a small room they found the dead body of the 51 year old owner of the launderette John Hill. He had been stabbed multiple times and shot. The police were called to the scene and they found a .25 caliber handgun on the floor near Hill's body.
Near the entrance of the launderette the police found five bullet holes. The police concluded that Hill died as a result of a robbery gone wrong. Hill fired his gun five times at the robber and missed with each shot. The robber attacked Hill stabbing and shooting him. The police said that it was a long drawn-out struggle. Then the killer did something really unusual.
Despite having multiple gunshots go off, which would have drawn a lot of attention, the killer took the time to write something in the victim's blood at the crime scene. It either said black or lack and then the second word was older. The police are unsure what the words refer to or their significance. There were two suspects in the case who are a couple, but neither were charged because they had strong alibis. Unfortunately the case has never been solved and Hill's family is still looking for answers as to who is responsible for his brutal and senseless murder.
4. Tracey Neilson
After a day of classes at Medical School on January 5, 1981, Jeff Neilson returned home to the apartment that he shared with his wife of five months, Tracy Nielsen, in Moore Oklahoma It was Tracey's birthday, she had turned 21. When Jeff got to the apartment he found the door unlocked. Inside the apartment, he found Tracy on the bed. She was lying face up. Her throat had been slit and she had been stabbed multiple times in the chest. During the police investigation they were quickly able to rule Jeff out as a suspect. What the police learned is that on the morning of her birthday, Tracy ran around and did some errands.
Then a neighbor saw Tracy finishing up her chores around the apartment at about noon. During the afternoon her friends and family have been calling to wish her a happy birthday but no one answered the phone. The medical examiner placed her time of death at some time around noon. She had not been sexually assaulted. There was no evidence of a break-in and there was no signs of a struggle inside the apartment. Robbery doesn't appear to be a motive because there was only one item missing from the apartment. It was a one inch by four inch keychain that Tracy used, which had her name on it.
The police think that the killer took it with him as a souvenir. The killer left several clues in the apartment, notably a single fingerprint but unfortunately no match to it has ever been found. The second clue is a cable ticket book from Southwestern Bell for cable repair, which may explain how the killer got into the apartment without breaking in or forcing his way in because Tracy may have let him in since he was a repairman.
The last ticket in the book lists Tracy's address as the service address Whoever filled out the ticket said that the work was completed and then they signed or initialed it at the bottom. The ticket said that the work was finished at 11:51 a.m. on the day of the murder. The police and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation are hoping that someone will recognize the signature or the handwriting Since the murder the police have followed up on 1500 leads, but after 35 years they are no closer to figuring out who killed Tracy Nielsen on her 21st birthday.
3. Gary Grant Jr.
January 12 1984, was a Thursday, but 7-year-old Gary Grant Jr. of Atlantic City, New Jersey, had the day off of school because there was a teacher conference. Gary left his house at about 2:30 in the afternoon and he told his mother that he had an appointment. His mother never thought to ask what he meant by appointment. Gary was supposed to return home by four o'clock and when he didn't, his mother called the police His neighborhood was searched and two days after he went missing his body was found two blocks from his house in the vacant lot.
The 7-year-old had been bludgeoned to death with a metal pipe. The last person seen with gary was his 12-year old friend Carl Mason, whose nickname was "Boo." The police interviewed Carl, who has developmental disability and was smaller than Gary, without a guardian or a lawyer present and he confessed to the murder. He was arrested and sent to juvenile detention. Once he was incarcerated Carl said that he was innocent.
He was given two polygraph tests; one was inconclusive and the other showed that he was telling the truth about being innocent. The judge eventually threw out the confession and Carl was released. Not long afterwards, the investigation into Gary's murder frosted over. This was especially tough on Gary Grant Sr., who was a police officer with the Atlantic City Police Department.
On January 4, 1986, a message was found scrawled on the side of an Atlantic City police car. It read: "Gary Grant's dead. I am living. Another will die on January 12th if all goes right." January 12th was the second anniversary of Gary's murder. Luckily, January 12th, came and went and no one was murdered in Atlantic City on that day. A few weeks later, a second message was found. This time it was scratched onto a sidewalk. It said: "Gary Grant Jr. lives. I still killed him. Son of the pig officer. Payback is a M.F."
The last message led to speculation that grant may have been killed and his payback against his father because he arrested somebody. However, that theory has never been proven. In fact, to this day the police are uncertain if the killer actually wrote the messages or if they were just a horrible prank. The case has sat cold ever since. The new clue emerged in 2006. Gary Grant senior was converting some audio tapes to mp3 files when he came across one that was labeled phone calls.
On the audiotape, he heard the following call that was made to the 911 dispatch on March 8, 1986, weeks after the messages were found. This wasn't the only mysterious phone call on the audiotape A few weeks after the bizarre confession, the 911 dispatch received a second strange phone call regarding the murder of Gary Grant. The caller didn't identify themselves but they accused the man of killing Gary because his father was a cop. The man's name was never made public because he was never charged.
Gary Grant Sr. knows the man, but says that he never had a problem with him. We should also point out that the accused man was arrested in 2011 for sexual contact with a child under the age of five and child endangerment. He ended up pleading guilty to child endangerment in 2013. Again, it is unclear at the calls are genuine or just a disturbing prank. Tragically, despite his father conducting his own investigation the murder of Gary Grant Jr. remains unsolved.
2. The Freeway Phantom
The evening of April 25th, 1971, was a warm one in Prince George's County, Maryland, and it was just an ordinary Sunday for 13-year-old Carol Spinks and her family. Around dinnertime Carol's older sister asked her to walk to the 7-Eleven, which was about a half a mile away from the family's home to pick up some TV dinners, bread and soft drinks Carol made it to the store and purchased her items but then she disappeared on her way home. Her body was found six days later on a grassy embankment next to a highway.
A few months later on the morning of July 8, 16-year-old Darleina Johnson, who lived a few blocks away from Carol, left her home to go to her summer job at a local recreation center. Sadly, she never made it to work. Her body was found 11 days after she went missing. She had been dumped about 15 feet away from where Carroll's body was found. 19 days after Darlenia disappeared 10-year-old Brenda Crockett was sent to the store by her mother.
When she didn't return home her family searched the neighborhood for her. Three hours after Brenda left for the store, her, 7-year-old sister was at home and the phone rang. She answered it and it was Brenda. She was crying. She said that a white man picked her up and she was heading home in the cab. She also said that she thought she was in Virginia. she then hung up the phone quickly. Minutes later the phone rang again.
Brenda's mother's boyfriend answered it this time. Again it was Brenda calling. She repeated what she told her sister and then she added that she was alone in the house with a man. The boyfriend told Brenda to put the man on the phone to tell him where she was and he'd come get her. Brenda then asked, "Did my mother see me?" The boyfriend responded, "How could she see you when you're in Virginia? Tell the man to come to the phone."
The boyfriend then heard the sound of heavy footsteps and Brenda said "I'll see you..." And then the line went dead. Hours later Brenda's body was found along the highway in Prince George's County. Her body wasn't hidden like the first two victims. She had been raped and strangled to death. A scarf was tied around her neck. The police think that the killer made Brenda call her home to give them false information to throw investigators off his track.
On October 8, 12 year old Nenomoshia Yates went missing while walking home from the store in Prince George's County Her corpse was found dumped along the side of the road just hours after she went missing She had been raped and strangled Then around 10:25 on November 15, 18 year-old Brenda Woodward was seen getting off the bus to transfer to another one Her body was found near an access ramp early the next morning. She had been strangled and stabbed.
Her coat was then laid gently over her body in her coat pocket there was a note that said: A handwriting analysis was performed on the note and the handwriting expert said that the note was written by Brenda herself; meaning the Phantom dictated the note to her. At this point the FBI was called in and they got thousands of tips, but none of the tips led anywhere. Around the same time that the FBI got involved the killer took a hiatus. But then on September 5, 1972, he popped back up again On that day, witnesses saw 17-year-old Diane William heading home on the bus after visiting her boyfriend, but she never made it home she was found strangled to death off the side of the road hours after she was seen exiting the bus After the murder of Diane Williams the Freeway Phantom killings came to it end.
Over the course of two years he claimed at least six lives. All the girls were between the ages of 10 and 18 and all of them were african-american. The FBI continued to work on the case but then in 1974 they reassigned the agents that were working on the case because manpower was needed to investigate the Watergate scandal and the freeway phantom killings went cold. In the ensuing years cold-case investigators have continued to look into the string of murders.
One conclusion they drew, which is based on the areas where the girls were kidnapped and the locations where their bodies were dumped, that the Phantom's anchor spot is Congress Heights, which is a neighborhood in Washington DC, suggesting that he lived or worked in the area during the time of the murders. There have been several attempts to pull testable DNA from evidence left on the victims, but so far they have not been able to. They also found fibers from a green synthetic carpet on five of the six girls, however they have not been able to find the carpet that it belongs to.
Finally, something that may just be a total coincidence, but three of the six victims had the middle name Denise Over the years the police have had over 100 potential suspects. The strongest suspect is a man named Robert Askins. Before the freeway phantom murders he had been charged with murder three different times and he was convicted of one of them in 1938 proposing a prostitute with cyanide He was released 20 years later because of a legal technicality.
In 1977, Askins was arrested for raping a 24 year old woman in his house after the arrest the police searched his house. In his desk, they found his appellate court opinion and in one of the footnotes was the word "tantamount" However, there's no physical evidence tying Askins to the Freeway Phantom murders and he was never charged Askins ended up being found guilty of raping and kidnapping the 24 year old woman and he was sentenced to life in prison in the late 1970s He died in prison in 2010, at the age of 91, without ever confessing to the Freeway Phantom murders. The police are hoping that in the future some new technology will help them crack the case
1. Jeanne French, Elizabeth Short, Mimi Boomhower and Jean Spangler
February 10, 1947, was a Monday, and a construction worker on his way to work happened upon a woman's body in a field off of an isolated road in West Los Angeles. The body was identified as 45-year-old Jeanne French. When she was in her 30s, Jean was a pioneering female aviator, but in 1947, her glory days were long gone.
She was estranged from her fourth husband, Frank French who possibly suffered from PTSD, and was supposedly abusive. Jeanne herself was an alcoholic who liked to go out and party. On the night before her body was found, Jeanne was having dinner and drinks at a diner with two men During the meal she got up from the table and made a phone call. From the way she talked on the phone a waitress at the diner could tell that Jeanne was drunk on the phone Jeanne said, "don't bring a bottle the landlord doesn't allow it."
She then yelled over to the two men that she was dining with not to put any liquor in the car and not to take any liquor. About two hours later Jeanne was alone and she stopped in at a drive-in diner where she had coffee with the owner. She talked about her troubles and complained about her estranged husband Frank.
At 10:30, Jeanne was seen at a bar where she told the other patrons that she was going to commit her husband to the neuropsychiatric ward at the Veterans Hospital the following day Jeanne then made her way over to her estranged husband's rooming house. She asked him to come out with her and he turned her down. She hit him in the head with her purse and left. Next, Jeanne was seen at another drive-in diner with a man who had a dark complexion and was small to medium in size People remembered them because the man bragged about leaving a large tip.
After the diner, Jeanne and her friend were seen at a bar They were there from 1:30 until 2:00 when the bar closed as it closed. The bartender Jeanne arguing with her friend. When the bartender stepped out of the bar, he saw Jeanne and her friend get into an old beat-up sedan and they drove off into the night. Then, just hours later, James body was found in the field by the construction worker.
Jeanne had been viciously beaten and stomped. She had massive internal bleeding, her heart was punctured, her neck was broken. On her torso someone had written "F--- you B.D.and under it were the letters "T-E-X" The message was written in Jeanne's lipstick. The police and the media immediately knew what BD stood for. It stood for Black Dahlia.
Just four weeks before Jeanne French was beaten to death, 22-year-old Elizabeth Short's body was found in los angeles Short had been cut in half and her intestines had been removed. Her body was drained of blood, her skin was scrubbed, and her lips were slashed from ear to ear, making it look like she had a horrifying smile.
Like Jeanne French, Short had been dumped in the field. Supposedly Short also had something written on her body in lipstick. It was too small swear words. Eight days after Short's body was found, the story dropped from the front page and an editor at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner got a call from someone claiming to be the Black Dahlia Avenger The caller told the editor that it seemed like they were running out of material on the Black Dahlia murder, so he would send them some of Short's personal belongings, like her birth certificate and her address book.
Sure enough, a package arrived at the newspaper two days later which containing several personal items that belong to Short. A note was also included with the belongings indicating that a letter would follow Four letters were sent in all. They were all signed off as the Black Dahlia Avenger, but the police are unsure at the letters were from the killer or from someone who knew Short well enough, or who had access to her apartment, like a landlord.
The police were hesitant to say that the killings of Short and Jeanne branch were connected The victims did share similar physical features, but the methods of the murders were very different from one another Newspapers, on the other hand, thought that one person was responsible for both murders. Instead of focusing on the serial killer theory when investigating Jean French's murder, the police immediately looked at the most likely culprit in any murder - the romantic partner of the victim.
After all, Frank did seem like a plausible suspect. The couple did have a volatile relationship and Frank did see her on a night that she died. Frank's swore that he had nothing to do with the murder and he took a lie detector test to prove it. He ultimately passed the polygraph test. The police interviewed Jeanne's son and he said that Frank had tolerated a lot from his mother and that she was more than capable of getting herself into trouble.
After that, Frank was dropped as a suspect. However, without Frank the police were out of suspects. Nothing happened with the case for two years. But then two years later, there was another odd case that happened in Los Angeles that may or may not be related to the murders of Jean French and Elizabeth Short.
On August 18, 1949, a friend talked to 48 year old Mimi Boomhower over the phone sometime between seven o'clock and eight o'clock p.m. The call was upbeat and the women talked about an upcoming social event. However that day was the sixth anniversary of Boomhower's husband's death. Later that night, the police were summoned to her upscale house. The front door was open her lights were on and her car was in her garage.
Inside the house there was a salad on the table that Boomhower didn't eat, there was fresh food in the kitchen, and a dress that had recently been worn was lying on the bed. The house showed no signs of a struggle and nothing was out of place. However, the 48 year old widow was nowhere to be found. The immediate conclusion was that Boomhower who was having financial problems committed suicide.
In fact, on the night that she disappeared she was supposed to meet an unidentified man at her house. She was hoping that the man would be interested in purchasing the house. Boomhower's friends and family said that she seemed happy with her life, and was looking forward to upcoming social events so they thought it was unlikely that she would have killed herself Five days after she went missing her purse was found in a telephone booth in a supermarket in Los Angeles.
Nothing appeared to be missing from her purse but written on its side big letters was: "Police Department found this on the beach on Thursday." Thursday was the night that Boomhower disappeared. The purse didn't show any traces of seawater or sands weeks. After Boomhauer disappeared from her house, another woman in Los Angeles disappeared.
26 year old Jean Spangler was an actress that had bit parts in movies and she had recently acquired a powerful agents. On October 7, 1949 she walked out of her front door to go to the farmers market and she never returned home. Two days later, her purse was found at the entrance to a nearby park. One strap had been ripped and inside the purse was a note that read: The police looked into her disappearance and discovered that Spangler was three months pregnant leading to speculation that Dr. Scott was an abortionist.
However, they were never able to find out the true identity of Dr. Scott. Rhe police were also unsure who Kirk was and then they received a rather unusual phone call from movie star Kirk Douglas. He was on vacation and called specifically to tell the police that he wasn't the Kirk in the letter. The police thought that this was suspicious because they never considered him to be the Kirk in the letter. Because of the bizarre call, the police considered Douglas a suspect, and then they discover that Spangler had recently acted in a movie that had yet to be a release, which starred Kirk Douglas, However, Kirk Douglas was eventually cleared in the disappearance.
The bodies of Mimi Boomhower and Jean Spangler have never been found. Newspapers at the time thought that the murders and the disappearances were all connected, but the LAPD weren't convinced. Unfortunately, the LAPD never brought anyone to justice for any of the crimes. However, there is at least one former LAPD homicide detective who thinks that the crimes are all connected, but he didn't join the force until decades after the murders and disappearances Steve Hodel, who is now retired from the LAPD, believes that his father who was an unusual and sadistic doctor named George Hill Hodel is responsible for the four crimes plus five other murders.
George Hodel was on the police's radar and he was a suspect in the Elizabeth Short murder because of an incident that happened in 1945. His secretary died of a drug overdose, but the police thought that Dr. Hodel had killed her to cover up some financial fraud. The police weren't able to prove anything conclusively and Dr. Hodel was never charged.
After his father died in 1999, he wrote several books on the Black Dahlia murder arguing that his father is the real killer. For his investigation, he had the handwriting on Boomhower's purse compared to his father's handwriting, and the examiner said that was highly probable that it was the same handwriting. The theory of George Hodel being the murder of Short and the other women is still controversial. It is even unclear if one person is responsible for all the murders and the disappearances. Unfortunately, there's a good chance that these cases may never be solved.
10 Creepy Urban Legends From Around the World
1. Meat Is Murder (Germany)
The legend goes that in post-war Berlin a woman who was walking through a crowd one day saw a blind man struggling. She offered to help him. He told her he was trying to deliver a letter - would she take it for him? It was on the way she was heading, so she said 'sure'. She set off with the letter, but remembered to check and see if the blind man was doing okay. She caught sight of him without his glasses and cane, hurrying down an alley. Feeling suspicious, she went to the police. When they went to the address on the letter she'd been given, they found bags of human flesh. The letter itself read: "This is today's serving". 1947 was known as the "Year of Hunger' in Germany, a country recently decimated by World War Two. People avoided starvation by eating what they could find: dogs, cats, rats, frogs, snails, as this rumor attests to, people.
2. The Well To Hell (Russia)
In 1984 a team of Russian scientists drilled deeper than ever before into the Earth's crust. It was on a remote peninsula in Northern Russia that hell was purportedly discovered, 12 kilometers below the surface. Supposeedly they through a point that reached 2000 degrees when the drill started sspinning strangely. They lowered their microphones in to take measurements and listened. It was then that they heard thousands of human voices, all screaming in agony. Were they souls trapped in hell? An explosion followed and a winged devil burst from the hole in the ground, killing 13 of the workers.
The story was reported around the world, but originated with a Christian group in Finland that heard of the experimental drilling. As might be expected, this is an exaggeration that has compounded over the years.
3. The Crying Boy (UK)
In 1985 The Sun newspaper in Britain printed a story title 'Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy'. The Crying Boy in question was a painting by Giovanni Bragolin that was found in perfect condtion after a house had been burned inside out. What's more, a firefighter at the scene said he knew of numerous other fires where the 'Crying Boy' painting had been. An investigation was carried out, but not before panicked members of the public began throwing their paintings onto bonfires. Over 50,000 versions of the cursed painting had been sold at this point. The investigators found that the paintings were varnished with flame retardant and so survived the fires. Although this didn't explain why no other varnished paintings were turning up.
4. The Lucifer Statue (Philippines)
Satan standing triumphant over Angel Michael makes for an odd sight in the Catholic Philippines. This is the grave of Don Simeon Bernardo, who ordered the statue be placed there on his death in 1934. Bernardo was tortured and, as a result, didn't have particularly rosy view of the world.
The evil on display shocked residents, but it's just a statue - or is it?
Locals say the statue was initially much smaller than it currently is and has been growing over the years. Others say that the demon files off at night so the wrought iron cage has been places around the statue to keep it from escaping. The surprising truth is that the statue has grown, but in a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. Phone to vandalism due to its irreligious nature the damaged statue was replaced by a slightly larger version in the 1970s and protected from abuse by a large cage.
5. Kaala Bandar (India)
Fifteen years ago mass hysteria swept the city of Delhi in India. During a 5-day period, the terrifying Kala Bandar roamed the streets. It pounced on people in the middle of the night, gouging their arms and necks. Described as 4 feet tall, with the horrifying face of a chimp and bearing iron claws, it was given the nickname the 'Monkey-Man of Delhi'. One man even fell to his death when he thought he saw the Monkey-Man. Another eyewitness described the terrifying situation: "The creature had its hands on my tights when I woke up. When my mother picked up a broomstick, it jumped out of the balcony". No monkey, man or monkey-man was ever caught, but the legend of Kala Bandar lives on, frightening children.
6. Under The Bed (USA)
This is a classic from the USA, a teenage girl is home alone and starts to receive strange messages on to her phone. She keeps ignoring the messages and carries on watching TV, putting them out of her mind. When the messages become more threatening, she phone the police, who trace the messages and tell her that they are coming from within the house! Just a story, right? Well in 2014 one 16-year-old girl started receiving some pretty scary texts. But she thought it was all a joke. She went to bed and just before she fell asleep she received the text: "I'm in your house!" The man had broken in and was hiding underneath her bed. Thankfully though, the police caught him in time.
7. Sacamantecas (Spain)
In Spanish, Sacamantecas means 'fat extractor' and is a kind of disguised monster or drifter that steals the fat from children to feed on. The myth is thought to have begun with Spain's first recorded serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta. In the late 19th Century, Romasanta was convicted of killing 13 people. He rendered their fat in order to make high quality soap, which he then sold - along with the victims'clothes. Romasanta was only one of several people caught for selling human fat in this era and so the myth of the Sacamantecas was born and used to frighten children into behaving.
8. The Black Volga (Poland)
The Black Volga was a classic Russian car and signified wealth and status in the Soviet States during the Cold War. If one was ever seen stalking the Warsaw cith streets, people would flee because it was said that the people inside kidnapped children. No one ever saw who was driving them. One story suggested that the Soviet leader Brezhnev was mortally ill and requested the blood of children to keep his hold on the empire. The Volgas, which were associated with Soviet officials, went out to abduct children and drain them of their young blood. Other versions of the story described the blood being sold to wealthy Arabs to cure leukemia or spoke of vicars, nuns, Satanists, and even the devil driving the car and making children disappear.
9. El Chupacabra (Puerto Rico)
The goat-sucking, spiny and reptile-like Chupacabra was first seen in 1995 in Puerto Rico. This modern legendary beast is thought to drain the blood, vampire-like, from the livestock of Central and South American farmers. The uproar around the first sighting, in which 150 animals were killed, led to a year of weekly chupacabra hunts around Puerto Rico. To unearth the origin of this monster, Benjamin Radford of the Skeptical Inquirer tracked down Madelyne Tolentino, the woman who first reported seeing the creature. He had a hunch: there was a sci-fi B-Movie called 'Species' that featured a creature in the final act that was remarkably similar to her description.nWhat's more, Species was set in Puerto Rico, it came out in the weeks before the first Chupacabra sighting, and Madelyne Tolentino had watched it.
10. Kuchisake Onna (Japan)
Japan never fails to disappoint with creepy myths and ghosts. Kuchisake-Onna is the malicious spirit of a woman who wears a surgical mask. She appears and asks you: "Am I Pretty?" If you say no. she kills you on the spot. If you say yes, she removes her surgical mask to reveal the her mouth has been slit at the corners like The Joker, and then asks:"How about now?" If you say no, she cuts you in half. But if you say yes, she slits your mouth to look like hers. This tale caused widespread panic the the late 1970s. Schools arranged for students to walk home in groups because of their fear of being attracked by the ghost. There is even a rumor that a coroner's report from 1979 showed a woman who'd been hit by a car - in pursuit of a child who had her cheeks slit.
Sources: The Guardian, Live Science, Time, Snopes, 'Folklore and Journalism' (Dr.David Clarke), ABS-CBN News, The Chester Chronicle
10 Deadliest Assassins of All Time
When you think of assassins, you probably think of agile, methodic, secretive characters that hide in the shadows, but as it turns out, some of the deadliest assassins of all time were not only not that secretive, but they had some of the craziest methods for carrying out their work that you will not believe. Here are the 10 deadliest assassins of all time.
10. Axe-Wielding Bear
17th century Swiss political leader Jorg Jenatsch's murder might be the most bearish assassination in history, pun intended. Jenatsch was a vicious Protestant leader with contempt for Spanish Catholics. He even pinned his political rival, Pompeius von Planta, to the floor and murdered him. Well flash forward 18 years to Carnival in the town of Chur. Jorg is drinking with his entourage, all in costume, so no one thinks twice about inviting a man in a bear costume, who's wielding an axe, to the revelry. Jorg tried to shake the bear's hand, but it was Rudolph von Planta, son of Pompeius in disguise, who shot his father's murderer in the stomach, and yet, Jenatsch still grabbed a giant candlestick and was able to fight back before eventually just dying. You know, I get it, the guy was in a bear costume, all snugly snugly, oh how cute, but the guy was holding an axe. Yep, nobody would have saw that coming, big sharp axe in your face.
9. Exotic Dancer Spy
World War I in Europe was an incredibly dangerous place to be, and in the rationale of the time, no place for a woman. But don't tell that to Margaretha MacLeod. This German intelligence officer is considered to be the greatest woman spy of the 20th century, but what's most interesting is that she went by the name Mata Hari, an exotic dancer who performed the dance of seven veils across Europe for English and French soldiers. MacLeod had a Dutch passport, so she could freely travel around wartime Europe, taking many high-ranking officers as lovers, many of whom she murdered before stealing military secrets. Hari ended up passing along her stolen intel to the Germans, that led to the deaths of almost 50,000 French soldiers. Even after she was caught as a spy and executed, she was a flirt, blowing a kiss at the firing squad before they shot her in 1917.
8. She-Tiger
Just like Hari, this person used her femininity and sexual prowess to fight for Basque independence from Spain in the 1980s. Known as La Tigresa, meaning The She-Tiger, she was a dedicated commando in the ETA, which stands for Basque Homeland in Liberty. She was responsible for 23 deaths. Specifically in 1986 at the age of just 20, La Tigresa set a car bomb in Madrid that killed 12 civil guards, another car bomb that killed five civilians, and seduced a police officer in order to gain access to police stations, before shooting him and another five police officers. In 2003, she was sentenced to 2,000 years in jail, but in 2011, apologized, and unbelievably was released early in June of 2017.
7. The Iceman
Richard Leonard Kuklinksi is considered America's most prolific contract killer, nicknamed The Iceman, because he froze his victims to hide the time of their death. He was only ever convicted for two murders, but claims to have killed up to 250 people over 30 years. That means one murder every six weeks. Kuklinski was the go-to killer for the Gambino mafia crime family, and unlike many other serial killers, he had no routine. Specifically, he would use guns, knives, bats, lumber, tire irons, ice picks, fire, cyanide, and even his bare fists, that he claimed he did for the exercise. Oh yes, getting a good one in today. The strangest thing is that when he wasn't murdering people for money, he was a family man living a quiet life in New Jersey. He was even an usher in his church, but his luck ran out in 1988 when he was sentenced to two life sentences, but freely spoke about his crimes up until his death in 2006.
6. The Superkiller
Agent 47 from the video game Hitman was actually inspired by Alexander Solonik, known as The Superkiller to the Russian criminal underworld. As a Soviet special forces member in East Berlin, he was tasked as an assassin of NATO diplomats. Believe it or not, what landed him in jail was not murders, but a rape conviction, and he ended up breaking out of the Siberian gulag and became a hit man for hire. He immediately started taking out high-ranking Russian mafia bosses, protected by armies of bodyguards, and he'd either do this as a sniper from great distances, or show up at nightclubs and kill his target and crew with dual pistols blaring. Police eventually caught up with him in 1995, but he ended up taking out five cops with a hidden machine gun before eventually returning to jail, escaping again, and created his own 50-strong assassin squad in Greece. Eventually he was found strangled in Athens in 1997. How appropriate, an assassin was assassinated, that's just irony.
5. Caesarea
In 1989, Palestinian political organization Hamas's chief weapons maker, Mahmoud al Habu, shot an Israeli soldier in cold blood. However, Israel had the last laugh in 2010, after Habu's body was discovered in the luxury Al Bustan Rotana in Dubai. His cause of death was a brain hemorrhage, which seemed improbable, so Dubai investigators looked into it. What they discovered was that 27 people from Massad's Caesarea unit flew in under different passports and left soon after. A German immigration attorney ended up discovering that multiple people in the Caesarea forged identities and documents to acquire German passports used to enter Dubai without notice. Seriously, these people must be really good at what they do, because I can't even bring a dang bottle of water through the airport, it's like I'm a criminal.
4. The Cartel Hit Man
Martin Corona's book Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man, released in July of 2017, details his violent life as an enforcer for the Arellano-Felix organization. It was this organization that inspired the movie Traffic, with their sadistic methods like Mexican stew, where they stuffed men into 55 gallon drums of hot lye. Corona was recruited to David Popeye Barin's death squad in 1993 after he saved Ramon Arellano's life fighting off 40 gunmen sent by the El Chapo Guzman, with a single AK-47. This guy's like an assassin Rambo. He tried to retaliate against El Chapo inside the Guadalajara Airport, but missed, but he still continued on to a long and lucrative murder for hire spree on both sides of the US-Mexico border. He would often wear disguises to trick his victims, like nerdy glasses, but in 2000, he turned on his bosses, working with the California Justice Department to dismantle the AFO.
3. The Camel
Jesus Ernesto Chavez Castillo's street gang, Barrio Azteca, were the Juarez drug cartel's go-to hit men until 2014. That was, until Castillo testified against his former boss, Arturo Gallegos Castrellon. Chavez confessed to 800 murders, but says that he lost count, and claims to have had a daily murder quota to instill fear in cops, politicians, and the people of Cuidad Juarez, the murder capital of the world. His confessions came after Mexican police allegedly tortured him with electric shocks to the testicles. But killing wasn't enough to please his boss, Castrellon, so he would often dismember and behead his victims, leaving their bodies in public places to make sure he made headlines. Unbelievably, since his imprisonment at the end of the drug cartel war, the Juarez murder rate dropped by two thirds.
2. The Political Assassin
Photographer Burhan Ozbilici's stark image of Mevlut Mert Altintas with a gun and his finger in the air while Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov lies dead beside him, was declared 2016's photo of the year. The Ankara Modern Arts Center was hosting an exhibition created by the Russian embassy on December 19th, 2016. Ambassador Karlov was a few minutes into his speech about improving strained Turkish-Russian relations when a man in a suit shot him nine times in the back, shouting "revenge for Syria and Aleppo." The gunman, who engaged in a 15-minute shootout with police before ultimately being killed, was Altintas. He was an off-duty member of the Ankara police riot squad and a member of the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Man, even police are assassins, you can't trust anybody.
1. The Lady Killers
Kim Jong Nam was a playboy living in exile when he was suddenly poisoned in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia on Valentine's Day 2016. His assassins were Indonesians Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, who sprayed the poison in his face, claiming it was a prank. The reason that they were so unsuspecting was because Miss Huong was wearing really casual clothing, specifically a sweater that said "LOL" on it. Well, getting sprayed in the face with a V.X. nerve agent isn't exactly LOL. It's more like OMG.
10 Deadliest Female Serial Killers
From the femme fatale’s with countless victims to the bohemian body counts that rival any Ted Bundy, we count down the top 10 deadliest female serial killers.
10. Delphine LaLaurie
Perhaps the real inspiration for American Horror Story season three, Delphine LaLaurie inspired her slaves to commit suicide. The reason? They were trying to get away from her lucid torture schemes. LaLaurie would keep droves of slaves on the brink of death and starvation, seemingly for her own enjoyment. Sadly, LaLaurie was never arrested, and although rumors of her atrocities run rampant throughout New Orleans, she never suffered the same way she treated those around her.
9. Belle Sorensen Gunness
No, it’s probably not because gun is in her name, or the fact that her children look terrified in every family photo. In what can only be described as ‘gold digging pioneering’, Belle would murder family members for money. After murdering her husband and two of her very own children and cashing in on their life insurance, she moved to Indiana. There, she dropped a meat grinder on her next husband’s head—and then advertised in the paper that she was looking for yet another husband. In gold digging irony, suitors rushed to the ever increasingly wealthy Belle, who murdered them all. Eventually, her whole estate burned to the ground, killing her children and revealing dozens of corpses for police to find. The weird part was, her teeth were found in the ashes—but her body wasn’t.
8. Amy Archer’s Murder House
Amy Archer-Gilligan murdered the elderly for fun. It’s horrible to hear out loud, but listen to this: in the early 1900’s Archer’s Connecticut home for the Elderly and Infirm saw 60 deaths, not including the deaths of several husbands. Eventually, family and friends of the deceased elderly caught on that Archer was feeding poison to her patients and was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder. She died in 1962 in an insane asylum. Asylum sounds too nice for someone like that.
7. Lavinia Fisher
Notoriously famed as the first American serial killer, and perhaps the inspiration for American Horror Story season five, Lavinia Fisher and her husband ran a hotel that—can you guess?—made fun out of murdering guests. What started as murder and robbery turned into an all-out killing spree. It took local police years to nail Lavinia and her husband for their crimes, and the two were eventually sentenced to death in 1820.
6. Jane Toppan
The further we get down this list, the more we see several things. First, women seem to have bored of serial killing as time has gone on, and second, if a woman is a nurse or part of a medical environment, buyer beware! Jane Toppan was no exception. She is famous for casually experiment on her own patients for her own enjoyment. Now, take that sentence seriously, because this next statement might gross you out. She later told authorities that she felt sexual pleasure in watching her victims die. After killing close friends, her landlord, and her sister, time finally caught up with Toppan and she was sent to Taunton Insane Hospital, where she likely Taunted the world for being foolish enough to send her to a place that would give her another 30 years of life.
5. Bertha Gifford
The ‘Textbook’ Case - Falling in line with the majority of serial killers both male and female—Gifford fits the typical profile of, ‘Oh, she was nice and gentle’. Her murderous rampage is a complete surprise’. Gifford was a quiet and unassuming person who apparently was feeding arsenic to patients. No wonder American folklore is drenched in the blood of terrifying hospitals, insane asylums and medical wards. It seems like one in three had a vicious murderer traipsing around in it. Gifford’s body count made it to almost 20 before she was caught.
4. Dorothea Puente
And the modern era of female serial killers. If you’re in the shipping industry, it’s usually a bit taboo to open packages. Well, in 1985, a handyman failed to open a box given to him by Dorothea Puente to dump—and it was a good thing he didn’t open it, as it contained a decomposing human body. Luckily, fisherman found the body days later and reported it to police. After searches began to plague her premises, Puente suffered a devastating blow when police found seven dead bodies buried under her boarding house—where she had been doing most of her killing. She died in 2011.
3. Nannie Doss
Wait a minute. There’s a female serial killer with eleven bodies to her name and her first name is the word we use to describe a profession that takes care of children? Wow. Who okay’d that one? Nannie Doss married at sixteen, and then murdered two of that marriages four children. Unlike virtually every other husband on this list, that guy ran, but the Doss wasn’t done. Doss used this marriage to murder her grandchildren for insurance money. As if she were pissed about the first one getting away, husbands two, three, four, and five were all murdered. Husband five seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, because the police finally nabbed her. Could you imagine husband number one—living his life in fear hearing about all these other guys dying. Who was husband five, by the way? What insane kind of deathwish did he have?
2. Dynamic Duo of Death
Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood, two serial killers with 80’s skin-flick names, murdered elderly patients for sexual pleasure in the 1980’s. You can’t make that up if you want to. Others thought they were however, when Gwen and Cathy bragged about how awesome they were at killing and no one believed them. In 1989, after Cathy’s ex-husband demanded that the police follow up on them, Cathy threw Gwen under the bus and struck a plea deal, resulting in Gwen serving five life sentences while Cathy only got slapped with 20-40 years. The scariest part—she may be released some day.
1. Aileen Wuornos
Some People Just Want to Watch The World Burn. Aileen Wuornos lands at number one. Unlike most of the women on this list, she didn’t use poison. Unlike most of the women on this list, she wasn’t after money. No—Aileen Wuornos wore her heart on her sleeve and her trigger finger itched. What’s insane about Aileen is that her motive, although completely different thab most of the people on this list, is almost all the more insane. For all seven of her victims that she shot in cold blood, she claimed self-defense—because, as she put it—they were trying to rape her. Wuornos claimed self-defense in the face of rape for years—all while she openly plead guilty to the actual murders. With seven counts under her belt, she was sentenced to death in 2002 by lethal injection.
10 Horror Animals Movie
Number 10: The mosquitoes from "Mosquito"
Kicking off our list is a film that's so bad, it's good. This movie answers a timeless question: What happens when ordinary mosquitoes feed on alien carcasses? The answer involves a campy, good time filled with horrible dialogue, bad acting, terrible effects and buckets full of gore. If you thought you hated these pests before imagine meeting one this big, without a can of bug spray.
Number 9: The crocodile from "Lake Placid"
This film is a similarly funny, yet scary tale of animal cruelty on man. A 30 foot crocodile has begun snapping at victims in Maine. This water dwelling amphibian is a vicious killing machine that not only devours people but also loves munching on cows.
Number 8: The sheep from "Black Sheep"
In this off-beat horror, the dangers of genetic engineering are explored when experiments turn harmless sheep into bloodthirsty killers. As a result, these modified animals go on a rampage of a New Zealand farm, bringing new meaning to the term "Baaad".
Number 7: The snake from "Anaconda"
A National Geographic film crew is taken on a trip to hunt the world's largest giant anaconda in the Amazon rainforest. Unfortunately for them, this snake is so massive, it is capable of consuming a live person.
Number 6: The ants from "Them"
Now we're getting serious and delving into the real questions of radioactivity. Here, atomic testing in New Mexico causes regular sized ants to mutate into massive man-eating monsters that are hell-bent on devouring human civilization.
Number 5: The piranhas from "Piranha"
In this 70s horror flick, military scientists have genetically modified piranhas for use in the Vietnam war However, these man-eaters are accidentally released into the river and find their way to a day camp, where they begin to multiply and feed on the guests.
Number 4: The spiders from "Arachnophobia"
A Venezuelan spider stows away on a boat to America It mates with a local spider and their offspring eat their way through the inhabitants of a small town in California. This is easily the scariest flick to ever star 8-legged freaks with large fangs.
Number 3: The St Bernard from "Cujo"
In this Stephen King tale, a rabid bat bites a friendly St Bernard named Cujo. As a result, the dog becomes incredibly violent and goes on a killing spree through a small town in America.
Number 2: The birds from "The Birds"
Terror from the sky reigns in this iconic horror film by the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. The anticipation of a feathery attack never lets up and is especially nerve-wracking when the winged killers decide to converge on a child's party.
Number 1: The shark from "Jaws"
Rounding out our top 10 list is the great white that made us afraid to go to the beach. The film combines an excellent score by John Williams with suspense and pools of blood. Jaws will grip you and never let go.
10 Most Bizarre Curses in the World
From a cursed painting, to a cursed movie character, we have 10 most bizarre curses in the world.
10. The Iceman
An ice man was discovered in the Alps in 1991 and it was estimated to be over 5,000 years old. But, after his discovery, seven of the people who found him died over the course of thirteen years and not by natural causes. For instance, one person died in a car accident, another was killed in an avalanche, another died from accidentally falling off a cliff and another from a blood disorder. The Iceman curse is currently one of the most famous curses of modern times.
9. The Crying Boy Painting
This painting of a young boy was set on the walls of multiple homes throughout Europe. But, many of the homes the painting was placed in became the victims of fires and explosions. Even though the homes would be burned down to the ground, The Crying Boy painting was always found to be completely intact in the aftermath. But, what's really bizarre about this "supposed curse" is the fact that the painter of the painting from Madrid said that he had made the painting of a wondering orphan whose parents have died in a house fire.
Even a priest had warned the painter that the each home the boy was led into was destroyed due to a fire at one time or another, the painter did not believe him and took the boy into his studio to paint him. But sure enough, his studio caught on fire as well, and burned down. Causing the painter to banish the orphan from his presence.
8. Hope Diamond
This is one of the most famous diamonds in the entire world. But, there is a curse associated with it. The diamond was stolen from the head of of an idol in the 1600 and it is said that the priest of the temple of the idol was cursed in the stone. Sure enough, each and every owner of the diamond met a horrible demise including the Princess of France who was murdered by a mob in Paris. Even the jewelers who kept the diamond in their shop died mysterious deaths as well. The diamond is currently on display in the United States.
7. Koh-i-nor
The curse surrounding this diamond is very similar to the curse of the Hope Diamond. But what is unique about this diamond is that every female owner of it was brought great fortune and luck in their lives. But every male who has owned the diamond has been met with a terrible deaths. Diamonds are truly a girl's best friend. Number 6, the Superman curse. Most of the actors who have portrayed superman in either films or television shows have died of ways other than natural causes, ranging from suicide to complications from being paralyzed.
This curse began because the original comic book creators of Superman cursed their own superhero after they were denied the rights and money to the character. The Superman curse remains one of the most infamous curses of modern times. So, it's only a matter of time until we see what happens to the Superman actors from the more recent years.
5. The Bambino curse
The Bambino curse is one of the most famous sports curse in the world. The Boston Red Sox team had a string of bad luck after Babe Ruth was traded to the New York Yankees in the 1920s, but up until then, the Yankees were the ones with the bad luck. Following Ruth's trade, the Yankees won World Series after World Series while the Red Sox lost again and again. But, that changed in 2004 when the Red Sox finally won a World Series, during a total lunar eclipse. What was even more bizarre about this curse is that they won against the Yankees.
4. The 27 club
The 27 club refers to the rockers and musicians who all died at the age of 27 under controversial circumstances. Musicians included here are Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, all of who were very famous rock stars at their time. What is even more bizarre about this curse is that all of them became famous at the age of 25, and then died two years later.
3. 0888-888-888
There is really no cursed phone number in the world unless you are thinking about count spam or trash messages. But the notable exception here is the phone number 0888-888-888. This curses phone number has been the number of many people throughout the 2000's up until now. But every single person who had the number has died. Some owners died of cancer while others were shot to death or died in a gun shot accident. So, who knows what's going to happen to the current person who has this phone number.
2. Blarney Stone
The Blarney Stone in Ireland is notable throughout the world not because it is a curse, but on the contrary because it is a piece of good luck. Kissing the stone means that good luck will come to your life. But, it does not apply if any part of the stone is removed or stolen. In fact, if that becomes the case, bad luck with ensure. People who have stolen a small piece of the stone have reported suffering from depression and bad financial conditions among other things. So bad was the curse that multiple people who stole a piece of the stone sent it back to Ireland.
1. Tecumseh's curse
This curse was bestowed upon every american president in the White House. Elected every 20 years from William Henry Harrison up until John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The curse originated when William Henry Harrison, governor of Indiana Territory in 1811 broke a treaty with chief Tecumseh. This led to a war between the US and the Shawnee in which many of Tecumseh's men were killed and Harrison's reputation continued to grow. Finally, Tecumseh cursed Harrison to death when he was elected to the White House, in addition to every president elected after Harrison every 20 years.
Sure enough, every president elected each twenty years died while in office. Harrison in 1840, Lincoln in 1860, Garfield in 1880, McKinley in 1900, Harding in 1920, Roosevelt in 1940, and JFK in 1960. President Reagan who was elected in 1980 was the victim of an assassination attempt, but survived. Supposedly breaking the curse as George W Bush, who was elected in 2000 and survived as well.