On July 18, 1984, 41-year-old James Oliver Huberty walked into a McDonald’s restaurant in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego and opened fire. In the span of 77 minutes he killed 21 people and wounded 19 others before a police sniper ended the attack. At the time it stood as the deadliest mass shooting…
In late 2012, six-year-old Christian McPhilamy from Melbourne, Florida, saw a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital commercial that featured young cancer patients without hair. The images stuck with him. That night he told his mother, Deeanna Thomas, he wanted to grow his own hair long enough to donate it so other children could have wigs….
In late November 2025, 33-year-old Russian model Angelika Tartanova suffered life-threatening injuries after her boyfriend, wealthy construction businessman Dmitry Kuzmin, attacked her in a Moscow apartment. The assault left her with severe brain damage and required doctors to remove a large portion of her skull. The Attack and Critical Injuries Tartanova and Kuzmin had been…
In April 2019, Hollywood screenwriter Heidi Van Tassel was finishing a quiet evening out when a random act of violence left her traumatized for years. After dinner at a Thai restaurant near the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she walked to her car parked just steps away. A stranger suddenly approached, pulled her from the vehicle,…
Rob Burnside, the longtime principal of Lakota East High School in Ohio, resigned in November 2024 after district officials investigated him for allowing a homeless former student to keep attending classes and eating in the cafeteria. What Happened The student, Landerius “DeDe” Hayes, had attended Lakota schools since seventh grade. In October 2024, during his…
In January 2023, 32-year-old nurse Lindsay Clancy asked her husband, Patrick, to leave their Duxbury, Massachusetts home to pick up medicine and takeout. He was gone for less than an hour. When he returned, he found Lindsay outside after she had jumped from a second-story window. She told him their three children were in the…
Per Yngve Ohlin, better known by his stage name Dead, served as the lead singer of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem from 1988 until his death in 1991. The Swedish musician helped define the extreme aesthetic of early black metal through his intense stage presence and lyrics. A Childhood Marked by Trauma Born on…
For nearly seven years, Melina Salazar was the only waitress at a Luby’s cafeteria in Brownsville, Texas, willing to regularly serve Walter “Buck” Swords. The 89-year-old World War II veteran was known for his sharp tongue, constant complaints, and refusal to tip. After he died, Salazar discovered he had left her $50,000 and his car….
British traveller Lowri Denman carefully avoided meat during a trip to India in 2007, hoping to protect herself from parasites and food-borne illness. Years later, doctors discovered 38 parasites living in her brain. The Trip and the First Sign Denman, then in her mid-twenties, spent two to three months travelling around India. She chose a…
On February 10, 2026, 12-year-old Maya Gebala tried to lock a library door at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia to keep a shooter out. She was shot before she could secure it. She survived after classmates carried her to safety and doctors performed emergency surgery. The Attack That afternoon, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar…
