Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962)

Marilyn Monroe, in those days, was an extremely famous actress and socialite, much like Paris Hilton, but from an older era, to an even larger scale. She was the biggest name in Hollywood, having a star role in numerous critically and commercially successful films throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s. She had a very difficult childhood, living in foster homes and constantly moving. Her mother had psychological problems, and her father was nowhere to be seen. She was able to overcome her past, however, and become one of the most iconic and recognizable women in history. She became a sex symbol, and a relatable, vulnerable person for the world to adore.

She was married at a young age, but when her new husband went overseas for the United States Navy, she was offered a modeling gig and started to pursue a career in acting. When her husband got back, he asked her to choose between marriage and acting, and shortly after the couple divorced. She then changed her name to Marilyn Monroe (she was born as Norma Jean Mortensen), dyed her hair blonde, and became a movie star. She was hooked up with Joe DiMaggio, the New York Yankee great, for a dinner date, and the two fell in love. She was the ideal Hollywood celebrity. She was young, beautiful, and married to a famous athlete. But she had a rough past and was relatable to the general public. Everyone wanted to be like her, and teenage girls around the world dyed their hair blonde and tried to be like her. To this day, Marilyn Monroe is still someone who is looked up to. She was the ideal celebrity, but unfortunately her life didn’t end the way most would have expected.

With her enchanting voice and perfect body, Monroe became a star who everyone wanted to be, even thoughmarilyn-monroe-then she personally had self-esteem issues. She had a serious mental condition where she would get anxiety attacks before appearing on set. This would cause her to show up late a lot, which made the casts and directors of the movies she was in angry and confused, but it also became one of her trademarks. Monroe would star in many films, but she was commonly displayed as a dumb blonde, which she didn’t like.

Monroe moved to New York City to escape the usual roles thrown at her and also to study the art of acting more. She acted in many more movies in different roles than she had before, gaining more critical success than she ever had.

What happened to Marilyn Monroe?
She died August 5, 1962 in the bedroom of her Brentwood, Los Angeles, home. The actress was found dead by housekeeper Eunice Murray, who called Monroe’s psychiatrist, Ralph Greenson, before alerting authorities. She was 36 years old at the time of her death.At the young age of 36, she died of a drug overdose. However there were speculations of sucide or the murder.Police broke into her home after family and friends had been unable to contact her for days. They found a bottle of sleeping pills next to her still body, empty. Her death had become an interesting study. It is unknown if her death was intentional, by herself or someone else, or accidental. Michael Jackson, the iconic singer and dancer, died in a similar fashion. Both died of drug overdose, but no one knows why.

Some say that she was murdered. At the time, she was close with President of the United States John F. Kennedy as well as his brother Bobby Kennedy, and many think that her relationship with them made her a target, and someone poisoned her pills. Others suggest that she committed suicide, and that while on the outside she was a fun loving, wild, and happy young girl, she was still haunted by her past on the inside and had demons no one knew about. There are other theories that suggest that she accidentally took too many sleeping pills, and simply died accidentally. Some conspiracy theories are really out there, saying that the CIA or Mafia had a hand in the murder. Most likely, however, the high life of being a celebrity, her publicly stated anxiety and self-esteem problems, and her past demons took a hold of her, and when she was unable to escape from these; she took her own life in a painless, fast way.



marilyn-monroe-primeAfter her death, she was lowered into a casket (which was a Cadillac casket, one of the most expensive caskets one could possibly buy, but it was fitting for such a revolutionary and iconic star) and buried, while wearing a dress she often said was her favorite. The funeral was small, as only friends and family were there. But the whole world was in shock. Their beloved actress, Mrs. Hollywood, the most relatable yet vulnerable celebrity there was, was no more. However, one could argue that she still did exist, as she continued to live on as inspiration for the next wave of actresses and Hollywood stars, and all the movies she played a part in continue to be re-mastered and watched to this very day. Her former husband, Joe DiMaggio, would go to her grave with red roses for the next twenty years following her death, and it goes to show just how impactful she was as a person.

Monroe’s films made over $200 million dollars, and her impact still looms largely over cinema. Even to this very day, Monroe is considered to be the world’s most popular symbol of beauty and sex. She is remembered for her conniving nature and wittiness. Popular celebrities Madonna, Gwen Stefani, and Lady Gaga all model their looks and personality off of Monroe, and they try to replicate her charm. Many books and films have been created based on her life, as well as countless documentaries on her life and mysterious death. The world hasn’t been the same since she died, as the sad event shook it to its core; however she has inspired a whole new generation and will continue to. Marilyn Monroe was everything cinema wanted, and then some. Her charming, carefree personality was a great one that surely won’t be forgotten for as long as civilization stands.

The Early Deaths: Whitney Houston and Bobbi Kristina Brown

Whitney Houston Bobbi Kristina Brown at The Ckive Davis And The Recording

Whitney Houston was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. She is one of pop music's best-selling music artists of all-time, with an estimated 170–200 million records sold worldwide.She released six studio albums, one holiday album and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for "How Will I Know", has influenced several African American women artists who follow in her footsteps.

Whitney Houston, known as America’s Sweetheart, sold more than 50m records in the United States alone during her career. Her voice, an ideal blend of power, grace and beauty, made classics out of songs like Saving All My Love For You, I Will Always Love You and The Greatest Love of All. She earned six Grammys and starred in the films The Bodyguard and The Preacher’s Wife.

On February 9, 2012, Houston visited singers Brandy and Monica, together with Clive Davis, at their rehearsals for Davis' pre-Grammy Awards party at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills.That same day, she made her last public performance, when she joined Kelly Price on stage in Hollywood, California, and sang "Jesus Loves Me".

Two days later, on February 11, Houston was found unconscious in Suite 434 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, submerged in the bathtub.Beverly Hills paramedics arrived at approximately 3:30 p.m. and found the singer unresponsive and performed CPR. Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. PST. The cause of death was not immediately known. Local police said there were "no obvious signs of criminal intent." On March 22, 2012, the Los Angeles County coroner's office reported the cause of Houston's death was drowning and the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use".The office stated the amount of cocaine found in Houston's body indicated that she used the substance shortly before her death.Toxicology results revealed additional drugs in her system: diphenhydramine, alprazolam, cannabis and cyclobenzaprine. The manner of death was listed as an "accident".Bobbi Kristina, then 18, was at the hotel and became so hysterical she had to be hospitalised. “She wasn’t only a mother, she was a best friend,” she later told Oprah Winfrey



Houston had an invitation-only memorial on Saturday, February 18, 2012, at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. The service was scheduled for two hours, but lasted four. Among those who performed at the funeral were Stevie Wonder (rewritten version of "Ribbon in the Sky", and "Love's in Need of Love Today"), CeCe Winans ("Don't Cry", and "Jesus Loves Me"), Alicia Keys ("Send Me an Angel"), Kim Burrell (rewritten version of "A Change Is Gonna Come"), and R. Kelly ("I Look to You"). The performances were interspersed with hymns by the church choir and remarks by Clive Davis, Houston's record producer; Kevin Costner; Rickey Minor, her music director; her cousin, Dionne Warwick; and Ray Watson, her security guard for the past 11 years. Aretha Franklin was listed on the program and was expected to sing, but was unable to attend the service.Bobby Brown, Houston's ex-husband, was also invited to the funeral but he left before the service began.Houston was buried on Sunday, February 19, 2012, in Fairview Cemetery, in Westfield, New Jersey, next to her father, John Russell Houston, who died in 2003. In June 2012, the McDonald's Gospelfest in Newark became a tribute to Houston.

Bobbi Kristina Brown, the daughter of the late singer Whitney Houston, has died six months after going into a coma at the age of 22 on 27 July 2015 at a hospice in Duluth, Georgia.
. Brown, who was found unresponsive in her bathtub in Atlanta in January 31 2015 was found by her boyfriend, Nick Gordon, and friend Max Lomas who attempted to revive her. The incident that led to her death echoed her mother’s death three years earlier. As Whitney Houston was also found dead in her bathtub.

The police report into the discovery of Brown called it a “drowning”. Nick Gordon, her foster brother and the man she called her husband, found her in the bath. He said at the time that it seemed she wasn’t breathing and lacked a pulse before help arrived.

Funeral

On August 3 2015, Bobbi Kristina Brown was buried next to her mother, Whitney Houston at  cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey.

A Mother Saved Her Son Before Being Pulled by The Escalator at a Shopping Mall in China’s Hubei Province

A woman was killed over the weekend at a shopping mall China’s Hubei province as she was pulled into the inner workings of an escalator — but she shoved her son to safety as she disappeared into the machinery.

Surveillance footage posted online showed Xiang Liujuan, 30, riding the up-escalator with her 2-year-old son. As she neared the top, she scooped him up and stepped from the escalator onto a faulty floor panel that gave way under her weight. Xiang immediately pushed her toddler into the arms of a shopping assistant, who pulled him to safety. Another assistant attempted to pull Xiang up from the floor but she was swiftly swallowed by the escalator.

Firefighters worked more than four hours to retrieve the body, which showed “no signs of life,” Agence France-Presse said, citing the Wuhan Evening News.

The Chinese newspaper cited unnamed sources saying maintenance workers at the Anliang shopping mall in Jingzhou in Hubei had just finished working on the escalator and had neglected to screw the floor plate back into place.

The news had been seen by millions on China’s social media site Sina Weibo. Many expressed anger over the shopping mall’s negligence.

“Why didn’t the staffers stop customers at the entrance to the machine or just turn it off?” one wrote, according to AFP. “The department store is definitely responsible.”

Others were inspired by the mother’s heroic actions.

“I was appalled when I saw her sink and at the same time felt the greatness of maternal love — the mother wasted no time pushing the child out when it happened,” one said.



Family members told the South China Morning Post that Xiang was shopping with her husband, who was had not yet made his way up the escalator.

Such accidents are not unheard of in China, where “regulations and standards are often flouted and enforcement is lax, sometimes due to corruption,” according to AFP.

In 2011, a 13-year-old boy was killed in a Beijing subway station when an escalator went in reverse. More than 20 others were injured in the accident. The next year, a 9-year-old boy was killed when he got trapped in a department store escalator in the city. Last year, 12 people were injured in Shanghai when an escalator a subway station started moving backward.

Video: 

Paul Walker Died at 40 (1973-2013)

Paul Walker

On November 30, 2013, at approximately 3:30 p.m. PST, Walker and Roger Rodas, 38, left an event for Walker's charity Reach Out Worldwide for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. Walker and Rodas had planned Saturday as a day to help survivors of victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The car shop website invited customers to the Charity Toy Drive & Automotive Social Gathering. Walker was in the passenger seat of a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT, driven by a racing team partner, that slammed into a light pole and burst into flames in an office park in the community of Valencia in Santa Clarita, about 30 miles, Hercules Street north of Hollywood. The car, in a 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) speed zone near Kelly Johnson Parkway in Valencia, Santa Clarita, California, after which the vehicle burst into flames. The crash was caught on film by a security camera. Authorities determined that Rodas was driving the car, while Walker was the passenger.The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department declared both victims dead at the scene.Rodas died of multiple traumatic injuries, while Walker died from the combined effects of traumatic and thermal injuries, according to the Los Angeles county coroner's office. Both of their bodies were burned beyond recognition.

Crash Site Of  Paul Walkers Car

The curve where Walker and Rodas were killed is a popular spot for drifting cars. The coroner's report stated that the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT was traveling at a speed possibly as high as 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) before the crash. The coroner's report further stated that no alcohol or other drugs were found in the systems of either man. Furthermore, it states that there were no hints of technical problems with the car and neither a damaged surface of the street nor parts on the street played a role in the accident. Police investigated as to whether drag racing played a role, but were unable to find evidence of a second car's involvement.A piece of the car was stolen off the tow truck as the wreckage was towed away on a flatbed. Two men, Jameson Brooks Witty and Anthony Janow, were arrested for grand theft. Walker's autopsy showed "scant soot" in his trachea, leading investigators to believe he died before the car was engulfed in fire, where Rodas was killed on or shortly after impact by head, neck, and chest trauma.

In March 2014, further investigation revealed that the speed of the car was the main reason for the crash. The car was said to be traveling between 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) and 93 miles per hour (150 km/h), and had nine-year-old tires that were seldom driven on. 

Numerous friends and movie stars posted tributes to Walker on social media. His body was cremated and his ashes were buried in a non-denominational ceremony at Forest Lawn Memorial Park – Hollywood Hills.

Despite his financial success from the Fast & The Furious franchise, Walker lived a relatively modest and simple life and did not get caught up in the trappings of being a movie star. He was a likeable young man who was devoted to his family.


Tribute Song to Paul Walker:  See You Again from Furious 7

Famous People Afterdeath Controversies

Nobody gets out of life alive. But what happens to our bodies after death? Most end up buried, cremated, or laid to rest in some form or fashion, but sometimes some people end up with controversies. Bodies are stolen, misplaced, or even mutilated postmortem. When weird stuff happens to the rich and famous, it’s frightening. This are some of the people whose afterdeath have controversies

1 Ludwig van Beethoven

While he gave us some truly memorable pieces of music, Ludwig van Beethoven lived a difficult life that ended with a mysterious death in 1827. Diagnosed with pneumonia, Beethoven suffered some weird symptoms, including a swollen belly, a black spleen, and a dried-up liver. Even stranger, his remains were scattered across the planet, thanks to souvenir hunters and idiot doctors.

During Beethoven’s autopsy, the surgeon hastily chopped up his skull, spraying bone fragments everywhere. By the time he was finished, the skull looked like a puzzle with several pieces missing. Beethoven’s temples were lumpy, his jaw was out of place, and he was missing his ear bones. The surgeon removed the ossicles with the hope of discovering the source of the maestro’s deafness. Predictably, the bones disappeared.

The next time any bones showed up was in 1990. Paul Kauffman was poking around an attic when he found a box labeled “Beethoven.” Inside was a fragmented skull. Kauffman discovered that his great-great-uncle was a doctor who had dug up Beethoven’s body in 1863 and possibly snatched his head. Of course, Kauffman was suspicious, so he asked experts at San Jose State University to take a look. After a DNA test, the scientists were pretty positive Kauffman had the real deal.

What did experts compare the skull to? Beethoven’s hair, of course. The composer’s unruly mane attracted mobs with scissors and those strands ended up, well, everywhere. For example, we’ve mentioned the company that turned a lock of Ludwig’s hair into a diamond worth $202,700. Other clippings made their way to establishments like the Library of Congress, the British Library, and the Beethoven-Haus, but the most fascinating story is that of the Guevara Lock.

Shortly after Beethoven’s death, a young composer named Ferdinand Miller snipped a few strands from his hero’s head. In 1883, Miller passed the hairs to his son, at which point the lock disappeared until 1943. That’s when the clippings somehow ended up in the possession of a Danish doctor named Kay Fremming. It’s believed that a Jewish refugee gave him Beethoven’s hair as payment for smuggling them out of Nazi-occupied Denmark. Finally, the lock traveled to London, where Dr. Alfredo Guevara and company purchased it for $7,300 at Sotheby’s before donating it to the Beethoven Center at San Jose. Now that is one incredible journey.

2 Johannes Brahms And Johann Strauss

Even if you don’t know the difference between a symphony and a sonata, you probably know the works of Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss. Strauss’s “The Blue Danube” has shown up in everything from Looney Tunes cartoons to 2001: A Space Odyssey. If your mom ever sang you to sleep, you’ve undoubtedly heard Brahms’s classic “Lullaby.” In addition to creating timeless music, the Austrian composers were good friends and were buried next to each other in the Central Viennese graveyard.

Sadly, neither musician rested in peace for very long. In 2002, a Slovak man named Ondrej Jajcaj sneaked into the cemetery, opened their crypts, and yanked out their teeth with a pair of pliers. Why? He was adding their dentures to his growing collection. For several years, this psychotic amateur dentist collected hundreds of skulls and teeth from Viennese graves and planned to exhibit them in his own museum. In 2012, he even created a video of his prized possessions and uploaded the footage to YouTube. “Here, I, as an amateur,” he boasted while showing off his displays, “have managed to build an illegal historical collection of dental works.”

Officials are hoping to charge with him burglary and “disturbing the peace of the dead,” but Jajcaj may very well escape justice. He isn’t Austrian, which would make it difficult to try him. More importantly, since Jajcaj committed his crimes in 2002, the statute of limitations might have expired. Two years later, there isn’t much news on the situation. Jajcaj uploaded his latest YouTube video in 2013, so he was free as of then. If prosecutors can’t charge him, Strauss and Brahms might go through eternity without their chompers.


3 Thomas Paine

Harvey Dent once said “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” That sums up Thomas Paine’s life perfectly. Paine’s Common Sense led to America’s independence from Great Britain, but just a few years later, Paine was despised across the country. He was scorned by the government for condemning the elite and was branded an atheist for attacking organized religion. Towards the end of his life, Paine sank into poverty and depression. He turned to alcohol and died in 1809, miserable and alone.

Paine did have one fan, a radical writer named William Cobbett. In fact, Cobbett was such an admirer that he decided America wasn’t good enough for Paine’s corpse. He deemed England a better resting place for the man’s bones—after all, he had lived there for 37 years. He hoped Paine’s body and a proper monument to it would kick-start England’s democracy movement. In 1819, Cobbett armed himself with a shovel and visited Paine’s grave in New Rochelle, New York.

Evidently, early American customs officials were pretty lazy, because Cobbett smuggled the remains back to England without a problem. Unfortunately, once he got back home, nobody was interested in his box of bones. His plans for a memorial slowly faded and Paine’s skeleton was left in Cobbett’s attic until the writer’s death. After his passing, Cobbett’s kids had the pleasure of disposing of Paine’s bones, and that’s where things get mysterious.

Nobody is sure what happened to poor Thomas Paine. He might have been buried in Cobbett’s backyard, or he might have been sold off, one bone at a time. In the 1850s, an English pastor claimed to own Paine’s right hand, and in the 1930s, a Brighton woman swore she had his jawbone. There’s a possibility his rib ended up in France and some think his bones were fashioned into buttons for English coats. In 1987, an Australian man named John Burgess claimed he bought Paine’s skull while traveling in London, but no one has verified his claims. The only positively identified remains of Thomas Paine are his brain stem, which is buried on his farm, and a snippet of his hair that’s locked safely away where no crazy fanboys can find it.




4 Richard The Lionheart

Despite the fact that he was King of England, Richard the Lionheart didn’t spend much time in the British Isles. Richard lived most of his life in continental Europe, only visiting England for a few weeks after his coronation. In addition to speaking Occitan, his kingdom included regions like Normandy, Touraine, and Aquitaine. As we’ve mentioned before, he even died in France after taking a crossbow bolt to the shoulder.

By no means did the Lionheart’s story end there. Richard was gutted and his entrails were buried in Chalus, the town where he met his end. His body was shipped to Fontevraud Abbey, where he was interred with his parents. However, he wasn’t just missing his intestines. Richard was buried without his eponymous organ. The King’s heart was plucked out of his chest and mummified using a concoction of myrtle, daisy, mint, frankincense, and mercury. It was then placed in its own special casket and taken to the Church of Notre Dame in Rouen.

It may sound strange, but carving up kings was a common occurrence back in the Middle Ages. The body parts were strewn across the kingdom and served as markers. It was a gesture that meant “This guy was powerful, he controlled this territory, and now it belongs to his heir.” The heart was the most important part of this grisly process, which is why it was placed in Rouen. After all, Rouen was the capital of Normandy, the most important region in Richard’s domain. It remained there for over 600 years until 1838, when a historian stumbled across the old lead box. Of course, time had taken its toll, and the mighty Lionheart was just a pile of dust.

5 Mary Bateman

Mary Bateman was quite the villainess back in the day. Born in Yorkshire in 1768, Bateman was constantly in trouble with the law, earning a reputation as a thief before her 13th birthday. As a housemaid, she stole everything she could get her hands on. However, it was her second occupation that earned her the nickname “The Yorkshire Witch.” When Bateman wasn’t cleaning, she was predicting the future and offering spells to superstitious locals.

In addition to scamming folks by magical means, Mary provided abortions and dreamed up cons like the Prophet Hen of Leeds. Bateman owned a bird that laid eggs supposedly inscribed with the apocalyptic warning “Christ is Coming.” Religious fervor swept the land and people came from miles around to visit Mary’s farm and see her doomsday chicken. Of course, they had to pay a pretty penny. Eventually, her fowl scheme was discovered when a group of skeptics found out Mary was writing the messages and shoving the eggs back inside the poor bird.

Bateman’s conniving ways led to her undoing. A young woman named Rebecca Perigo was suffering from a “flutter” of the heart and assumed there was witchcraft involved. She and her husband, William, asked Mary to nullify the spell. Bateman was only too happy to bilk the couple out of their cash, offering bizarre charms to counteract the curse. Perhaps to hide her deeds, Mary eventually decided to off the Perigos. She laced half a pound of honey with mercury chloride and told them to eat all of it. While William survived, Rebecca died a horrible death, and Bateman was executed via hanging.

Even in death, the locals were enchanted by Mary. First, she was put on display, where people paid to gawk at her body. Next, doctors dissected her remains, studied her organs, and decided to make a few bucks off the neighborhood sorceress. They skinned her corpse, cured the skin, and sold strips as magic charms to ward off evil. Even then, Mary’s body had one last stop. Her skeleton ended up in the Thackray Museum, where people still come to see the infamous Yorkshire Witch.


6 Alistair Cooke

For over 20 years, Alistair Cooke hosted PBS’s Masterpiece Theater, introducing TV dramas with his trademark, “Good evening, I’m Alistair Cooke.” He was also known across the pond for his BBC radio program, Letter from America, where he put a distinctly British spin on American events. As he grew older, Cooke developed lung cancer, and the beloved broadcaster passed away in 2004. Shortly before Cooke’s cremation, his story took a ghastly turn.

Michael Mastromarino was an ex-dentist who dealt in human flesh. Working with a string of funeral homes, Mastromarino secretly paid undertakers $1,000 per body and stripped corpses of bones, skin, and cardiac valves. He sold the parts to tissue-processing companies, which used the remains for dental implants, skin grafts, and heart procedures. Mastromarino and his ghoulish gang raked in millions of dollars, and to cover their tracks, they sewed PVC pipes back into the sagging bodies.

After Cooke died, Mastromarino bought his body and sold his cancer-ridden bones for $11,000. However, the buyers didn’t know they were dealing with infected remains. Since it’s illegal to use cancerous body parts, Mastromarino doctored the paperwork to say Cooke died of a heart attack.

This wasn’t the first time he’d altered a death certificate. Quite a few of his bodies were plagued with hepatitis and HIV, exposing innocent patients to horrible diseases. He even changed Cooke’s age from 95 to 85, since companies can’t buy the remains of the very old.

Fortunately, Mastromarino’s crimes came to light in 2005. Hoping to avoid heavy sentences, he and seven funeral directors pleaded guilty to their nightmarish crimes. However, Mastromarino never served out his sentence of 15–30 years, as he died in 2013 of metastatic liver cancer. As for Cooke’s remains, chances are good that his bones were implanted in somewhere between 15–20 people living across the US, Canada, and Europe. That means someone reading this list could have a piece of Alistair Cooke somewhere in their system.

7 Pope John Paul II

Even though he passed away in 2005, Pope John Paul II can’t seem to stay in one place. Originally, he was laid to rest in the Grottoes beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, but after his beatification in 2011, he was placed in the main room of the church. His corpse hasn’t moved around much since then, but for some strange reason, people keep stealing his blood.

In 2013, Father Augusto Baldini was traveling outside of Rome when thieves snatched his backpack. The poor priest probably had a heart attack when he realized what had happened, because the bag held just one of three samples of John Paul’s blood. After he was shot in 1981, the Vatican preserved some of the pontiff’s plasma, and Baldini was supposed to deliver the relic to a church near Rome. Panicking, he called the police, who found the backpack a few hours later. It was just lying in the grass, the vial untouched.

That wasn’t the last time crooks would swipe the Pope’s bodily fluids. In 2014, Italian cops received an emergency call from the Church of St. Peter of Ienca reporting that someone had broken into the church and filched a container holding a piece of cloth stained with John Paul’s blood. The media freaked out, suspecting a Satanist plot. More level-headed minds assumed a collector stole the relic, knowing its price would skyrocket after the Pope is canonized. It turns out that the scrap was stolen by junkies who were probably more interested in the gold and glass case than the strip of bloody cassock.


8 Mata Hari

We’ve mentioned Margarethe Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, quite a few times on Listverse. After all, she’s one of the most famous spies of the 20th century. Originally an exotic dancer, Mata Hari was hired by the French to charm information out of German officials. She was accused of working as a double agent and executed by firing squad in 1917. Historians debate whether she was actually guilty, but there’s one fact that no one can dispute—her body is missing.

When no one claimed her cadaver, the Museum of Anatomy in Paris swooped in and added her corpse to their collection. What happened next would have made Vincent Price faint in horror. Museum curators chopped off her head, dipped her dome in wax, and mounted the new trophy in their “notorious criminals” wing.

In 2000, the French government decided to shut down the anatomy museum, so the director set about cataloging all the valuable attractions the museum had to offer. At the top of the list were the heads of the dead and infamous, but when he started inspecting the skull collection, he realized Mata Hari’s head was gone. As if that weren’t bad enough, her entire body had disappeared, along with all the paperwork related to her acquisition. Some suspect her body was lost when the museum moved buildings in the ‘50s, while more macabre minds think a creepy fan might have stolen her skull. Either way, the dancer has disappeared for good, and that’s the naked truth.


9 King Tut

King Tut, how’d you get so funky? And so . . . burnt? That question puzzled archaeologist Christ Naunton. As director of the Egypt Exploration Society, he was flipping through the notes left by Howard Carter—one of the guys who discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb—when he came across an odd observation. Carter believed the boy king had once caught on fire. Curious, Naunton phoned Robert Connolly, an Egyptologist who had a few samples of Tut’s flesh lying around the office. Naunton borrowed a few bits of bone and muscle tissue and, after observing them under an electron microscope, determined Carter was right.

How exactly did Tut go up in smoke? It was probably thanks to a hasty burial. While researchers are divided on how the boy king died (some say malaria, others think assassination, and Naunton says he was struck by a chariot), most archaeologists agree he had a fast funeral. The paint in his tomb wasn’t even dry before the sarcophagus was set inside. Due to this rushed atmosphere, one of the embalmers got sloppy.

Mummification involved a lot of flammable chemicals. Embalmers drained the kingly bodies of fluid and preserved the corpses with a mixture of plant oils and resin. Since these particular undertakers were in such a hurry, Naunton thinks they spilled some of the oil on King Tut’s burial shroud. Over time, the oxygen probably started a chemical reaction, lighting the linen and frying Tut’s body. With all that oil and oxygen, the fire probably reached nearly 200 degrees Celsius (390 °F), leaving the Pharaoh nice and crispy.

10 John F. Kennedy

Whether you think there was a lone gunman or a conspiracy of Oliver Stone proportions, there’s no denying the JFK assassination was weird. From magic bullets to changes in parade routes, the case is full of bizarre circumstances and odd coincidences, but perhaps the strangest mystery of all is the case of JFK’s missing brain.

Of course, there wasn’t much of a brain to go missing. One of Oswald’s bullets hit Kennedy in the head, spraying bits of skull and matter everywhere. When Kennedy finally arrived at the hospital, doctors noticed Jackie Kennedy was clutching something in her hands, which turned out to be a big glob of the President’s brain. But what happened to the rest of it?

After the autopsy, the brain was placed in a stainless steel container, which the Secret Service locked away in a White House cabinet. In 1965, Robert Kennedy transferred the brain to the National Archives along with a locker of other autopsy materials, like blood samples and bone fragments. The next year, officials were going through the materials when they noticed a few items were gone—like the locker full of tissue and the President’s brain. Baffled, officials searched for the missing body parts and questioned over 30 people, but no one had any clue where JFK’s brain had gone.

The disappearance was kept secret until 1978, when the House Select Committee on Assassinations publicly revealed that someone had misplaced JFK’s gray matter. Conspiracy theories abound over Kennedy’s missing brain. Most conspiracy theorists suspect the government “lost” the brain to make sure no one found out how many bullets actually hit Kennedy or what angle they had really come from.

Another theory posits that Robert Kennedy stole his brother’s brain to cover up JFK’s health problems or possibly his drug use. While it’s true Kennedy was using large amounts of medication to deal with back pain, Kent Sepkowitz of The Daily Beast makes a strong argument against this theory. According to Sepkowitz, analysis of Kennedy’s brain in 1966 would have revealed little about his physical health. Even today, doctors couldn’t determine if JFK abused drugs simply by studying his cerebrum.

Regardless, the brain is still very much missing. Perhaps there’s some conspiracy afoot, or perhaps the brain got lost in the bureaucratic shuffle, proving that you can’t trust Washington with anything.