21 Normal-Looking Photos With Very Disturbing Backstories

1.

A father and his daughter posing for a family photo. In actuality, the little girl is Franklin Delano Floyd's stepdaughter, Suzanne Marie Sevakis, who he'd kidnapped around 1974, when Suzanne was under 10 years old. He would go on to raise her as his daughter, putting her through highschool under several pseudonyms, then have a son with her in 19881 and marry her in 1989, under the name Tonya Hughes. By 1990, Tonya/Suzanne had decided to leave Floyd, and take her son, Michael, with her. In April of that year, she was found beaten and bruised on the side of a highway, and subsequently died in hospital. Michael went into foster care and was adopted by a loving family, only to be kidnapped by Floyd in 1994 and to never be seen again. Floyd was arrested in late 1994. The news about his late 2nd wife being his kidnapped step daughter didn't come out until 2014.

2.

This is a pic of the 1970's-era gameshow, The Dating Game. The circled man is serial killer Rodney Alcala. By the time of that appearance on the show, he had raped several women and murdered at least one. He won the game, but the woman refused to go on the date with him because she felt like there were a lot of red flags. You can imagine how relieved she was.

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4.

Lewis Powell was a co-conspirator of John Wilkes Booth and he attempted to assassinate William Henry Seward; the US Secretary of State.

5.

This is the photo Kurt Diemberger took after his companion, the illustrious alpinist Hermann Buhl, fell into the abyss on the Himalayan mountain Chogolisa. Buhl was walking behind Diemberger and momentarily left the trail after which he fell through an overhanging cornice. He remains in the ice.

6.

This man kidnapped, raped, and abused the son of Gary Plauche. As he was walking through the airport, Gary was at a payphone, and when he passed by, Gary turned and shot him in the head. I don't believe he served any jail time.

7.

This old photo of mountaineers from 1924. The men in the picture are George Mallory (left), the greatest mountaineer of the early 20th century, and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine (right), at their advance camp on Everest. Two days later they would attempt the summit and disappear without a trace.

8.

This looks like a stock photo of a violin. The instrument in that picture is the Hartley Violin. It was owned by Wallace Hartley, the bandmaster and lead violinist on the Titanic. It was the one he carried with him on the night the ship sank. Survivors reported seeing Hartley and his band on the deck of the ship during the sinking, playing to calm passengers as they boarded the insufficient lifeboats. This is the exact instrument he played. We have his violin because at some unknown point before his death, Hartley tucked the violin back into its monogrammed case for safekeeping.

9.

There is a photo of an American volcanologist sitting down while studying volcanic activity at Mount St. Helens. 13 hours after the photograph was taken, on May 18, 1980, the volcano erupted and killed 57 people including the volcanologist.

10.

“Eyes of Hate,” a candid photograph of Goebbels after he finds out his photographer was Jewish, 1933. “He looked up at me with an expression full of hate. The result, however, was a much stronger photograph.”

11.

This photo of Nightclub KISS posted on facebook by one of the DJ's. Later that night, 245 people would die and more than 680+ would be injured when the band "Gurizada Fandangueira" lit a flare that ignited the flammable acoustic foam in the ceiling. There weren't enough emergency exits, it was overcrowded by hundreds and the security guards trapped the victims inside in an attempt to organize the crowd.

12.

Politician Budd Dwyer opening an envelope. He was holding a televised press conference about a scandal he was being accused of when the envelope was delivered to him during the press conference. He'd continue by opening the envelope, revealing a handgun that he promptly put in his mouth, and used to kill himself live on national television. This is one of the primary reasons many "live" news reports are preempted by a few minutes.

13.

John Edwards Robinson, (yellow sweater), is holding baby Tiffany, whose mother he murdered the day before. He gave baby Tiffany to his brother, saying she was adopted. His brother, along with Tiffany, didn’t find out the truth for 15 years.

14.

A man who swam to his girlfriend in their underwater hotel room while on vacation in Tanzania, and proposed to her with a note and a ring. He died before he could resurface from the water.

15.

Two brothers smiling, Kevin and Bart Whitaker. Hours later after arriving home from dinner, Bart killed Kevin and his mother after conspiring with a friend. He tried to kill his father as well, but he survived. It's a horrible story. I don't know what became of Bart though, all I know is that his father somehow found the courage to forgive him.

16.

This Physicist, Harold Agnew, is holding the nuclear core of the Fat Man atomic bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki.

17.

The Lawson Family Portrait always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Wikipedia tells their awful tale, which has been memorialized in murder ballads. Dressed in their finest, a picture made for the holidays, and no one knowing that the father would kill most of the family days later. Brutal stuff.

18.

Chalino Sanchez, Mexican singer, reads his death note as given to him by the cartel. He was killed hours later.

19.

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka at their wedding at the same time one of their victims was being discovered.

20.

A kid went missing hiking on a spot on the Big Island of Hawaii. He texted some pictures of the scenery while he was hiking. After he never showed up at home, his family noticed somebody lurking in bushes in the photos he sent. (It’s a head in the very middle.)

21.

This image may seem quite insignificant, but this was Marco Simoncelli’s (#58, white and red motorcycle in the middle of the pack), in his last race. It’s on YouTube and there are plenty of articles about it, but there was a crash and his helmet came off. His good friend, Valentino Rossi (also in that shot, #46) was unable to avoid him. Ten years ago this year, still one of the most horrific live sporting events I have witnessed.