Juana Barraza (1957 -) Is A Mexican former professional Wrestler and serial Killer, Dubbed La

Tamara Samsonova, known as the “Granny Ripper,” defied the common stereotype of a serial killer, as she was a 68-year-old grandmother. Her arrest in 2015 shocked the world and launched one of the most bizarre true crime cases in history.

Authorities arrested Samsonova on suspicion of murdering 79-year-old Valentina Ulanova, whose dismembered body was found in a pond. Samsonova shared an apartment with Ulanova and was caught on CCTV disposing of her body, which led to her becoming a suspect. When police searched the apartment, they discovered a gruesome diary containing details of not just this murder, but several others.

The diary contained Samsonova’s confession to killing at least 13 people, including her husband, whom she murdered in 2005, and another tenant. She described how she dismembered their bodies with a knife in the bathroom and disposed of the remains in different locations. Shockingly, Samsonova also confessed to cannibalizing her victims and getting rid of unwanted body parts and organs.

The Bleeding House on Fountain Drive

One day in Sept of 1987, Atlanta Georgia resident, Minnie Winston awoke to find dark red splotches of blood in several rooms (on both the walls and floor) of her house. There was blood on the bathroom’s lower walls, the kitchen, living room, bedroom, hallways, and basement. Blood was also found in a crawlspace and under a television set.

The police came, collected samples of the blood and sent them to the state crime lab. It was concluded that the blood samples belonged to a human but the police had no idea where it came from. It didn’t belong to either Minnie or her husband. There was no evidence of a break-in or wrong doing. The couple had never witnessed anything like this before and were terrified. Given the amount of blood they found, it appeared to have been placed, or dripped, on the spot from a very lively source. In other words, someone inside their home had been bleeding profusely. To this day, there has been no explanation of how the blood got there and who it belonged to. The source of the blood was never found.

NY Times Article

Additional Source (since NY Times has a paywall now)

The Cape Intruder

June 06, 2022

Cape Elizabeth is a small town in Maine, US, with a population of around 9,535 in 2020. Cape Elizabeth was known to be a desirable place to live, however, in 2005, the residents became terrified of an unidentified man who watched them as they slept. 

In 2005, what was described as a young man began to sneak into people’s homes in the area, watching them sleep. The strange part was that this man would never break or steal anything from the homes, he didn’t attack or touch anyone, just simply watched them sleep. 

Victims of the man who was dubbed “The Cape Intruder” or “Cape Trespasser” claimed they would wake up to find him standing over their beds, but he would flee the scene before they could catch him or even get a great look at him. 

A police sketch of the man came out, and many believed he was in his 20′s. The police received several calls from various people claiming they believed to know who the Cape Intruder was. Two of the people who called in actually named the same man, but after a while the incidents stopped. One police officer said that everyone who called in seems to think the sketch looks like someone they know or have seen around. 

While the Cape Intruder was active, a neighbourhood watch group would set up on Mitchell Road, where multiple houses had been targeted by the strange man. 

The Cape Intruder was never caught, and the incidents stopped suddenly. The case remains unsolved. 

On the morning of the 6th of December, 2009, Susan Powell, from West Valley City, Utah, took her two sons, four-year-old Charles and two-year-old Braden, to a church service. Afterwards, a neighbour visited before leaving at around 5PM. This was the last time Susan was ever seen.

The following day, Susan, her husband, Josh, and their two children were reported missing. The boys hadn’t shown up at daycare and Susan hadn’t appeared at work. When authorities searched the home, they found two fans pointing at a damp spot on the floor but there was no sign of the family.

At approximately 5PM, Josh, Charles, and Braden appeared back at home. Josh claimed he had left Susan at midnight to take the boys camping at Simpson Springs Campground in western Utah despite the freezing cold temperatures. Susan was still missing, however, and a search of the marital home turned up some suspicions. 

Investigators found traces of Susan’s blood on the floor as well as a life insurance policy on her life for $1.5 million. Also found was a handwritten letter from Susan in which she expressed fear for her husband and her potential death. Nevertheless, Josh was still not arrested. Years later, a prosecutor in Washington state said that he should have been arrested then and there, stating: “There is direct evidence. There is circumstantial evidence. There is motive. There is everything but the body.”

By 2009, Josh was named a suspect in the disappearance of his wife but was never arrested. Following her disappearance, he had refused to aid in the investigation and had even quickly filed paperwork to withdraw Susan’s retirement account money. He and their two sons moved in with his father, Steven Powell. 

However, Steven too fell under a cloud of suspicion. He had a history of bizarre and inappropriate behaviour, including voyeurism. In fact, he was shortly arrested and charged with voyeurism after being caught taking photographs of his neighbours’ children through the bathroom window. In January of 2012, Josh was denied custody of Charles and Braden; custody was awarded to Susan’s parents, Charles and Judy Cox.

Just the following week, a social worker dropped the two boys over at Josh’s home for what was supposed to be a supervised visit. Josh opened the door and grabbed Charles and Braden before slamming the door in the social worker’s face. Just moments later, the house exploded and burst into flames. Josh, Charles and Braden all died in a double murder-suicide. 

It appeared as though Josh had planned the fire for some time, dropping off their toys at local charities and sending final emails to friends and acquaintances. He sent emails explaining where to find his money and how to shut off his utilities. Inside the home, investigators found two five-gallon gasoline cans; the home had been saturated with gasoline to use as an accelerant.

It was theorised that Josh had killed his sons to prevent them from talking about what happened to Susan. The lawyer for Susan’s parents said that they had recently started to recall things they remembered from that fateful night. “They were beginning to verbalize more. The oldest boy talked about that they went camping and that mommy was in the trunk. Mom and dad got out of the car and mom disappeared.”

A dakhma (Persian: دخمه), also known as a Tower of Silence, is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation (that is, the exposure of human corpses to the elements for decomposition), in order to avert contamination of the soil and other natural elements by the dead bodies.Carrion birds, usually vultures and other scavengers, consume the flesh. Skeletal remains are gathered into a central pit where further weathering and continued breakdown occurs.

In a chilling revelation, the discovery of a 14-year-old girl’s skull in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony provided irrefutable evidence of cannibalistic practices during the bleak winter of 1609, known as the “Starving Time.” In 2012, this relic was unearthed, shedding light on a dark chapter in the colony’s history. The girl’s remains were interred alongside a macabre collection of butchered horse and dog bones, painting a grim picture of the desperation faced by the settlers.

Amid persistent rumors and conjecture surrounding the settlers’ resort to cannibalism for survival, this archaeological find marked the first concrete proof. The deeply etched scratch marks on the skull indicated that the flesh that was methodically sliced away. Examining the trauma at the frontal region of the skull, forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley concluded that it resulted from the brutal force used to access the brain.

Were there ever any Western depictions of the himantopodes? They became popular in the Middle East but I've never seen any European art of them...

i've never heard of them before and i don't remember seeing anything like that, but i'll keep an eye out for them. i'm not an expert though. maybe some professional art historians/medievalists etc know more?

for context (from the wikipedia article on iranian folklore): "Himantopodes (davālpā): an evil creature that uses its flexible, leather-like legs as tentacles to grip and capture human beings. The captives will be enslaved and forced to carry the creature until they die of fatigue."

Here's a more in-depth lexicon entry

The Anatomical Machines, Giuseppe Salerno, c. 1756-64

In the Underground Chamber of the Sansevero Chapel, housed in two glass cases, are the famous Anatomical Machines, or Anatomical Studies, i.e. the skeletons of a man and a woman in upright position with their arteriovenous system almost perfectly intact. The circulatory system depicted on the anatomical machines was artificially fabricated with waxes, an iron wire and silk fibers, probably following techniques commonly used by anatomists of that time

These disquieting objects were kept in a room in the palace of the Prince of Sansevero called “the Apartment of the Phoenix”, as a number of travellers and the Breve nota di quel che si vede in casa del principe di Sansevero, an anonymous eighteenth-century guide to the Palace and the Sansevero Chapel, attest. This source describes the Machines in detail, from the blood vessels of the head to those of the tongue and adds that at the feet of the woman was placed “the tiny body of a foetus”, alongside which there was even the open placenta, connected to the foetus by the umbilical cord. The two anatomical studies were moved to the Chapel, and in this way saved from destruction or loss, long after the death of the Prince. The remains of the foetus were still visible up to a few decades ago, when they were stolen.

In 2004, Mohammed Bijeh assaulted and killed as many as 16 boys in Iran, ranging from 8-years-old to 15-years-old. He would lure the boys out to the desert under the pretense of taking them hunting. Once here, he would then assault them and bludgeon them to death before burying their bodies in shallow graves. He received 16 death sentences and 100 lashes for the assaults.

On 16 March, 2005, Bijeh was handcuffed to a pole where he received those lashings. The crowd booed and threw rocks at him and at one point during the public execution, the brother of one of his victims broke out of the crowd and stabbed him in the back.

Following this, the mother of one of his victims placed a noose around his neck and he was hoisted up in the air by a crane, ending his life.