Extremely dark true crimes from around the world

1. Australia — The recent case of Lesley Trotter, a 78-year-old woman from Brisbane who was missing for almost a month before being declared dead by police at the beginning of April 2023. It is believed that her body was "collected from a wheelie bin [and then] compacted in a rubbish pit

"It's just been found that she was likely killed and put into a wheelie bin before bin day, so her body got trash compacted and dumped in a garbage dump. They're doing mass searches at all nearby garbage dumps right now. The craziest thing is that she was apparently widely disliked in her neighborhood for going through her neighbors' bins to make sure they were recycling, so much so that some people think she may have been murdered for it."

2. Japan — The Setagaya family murder, aka the "Goldilocks Murder," which refers to the unsolved murder of the Miyazawa family who lived in the Setagaya neighborhood of Tokyo where they were brutally stabbed to death in December 2000.

The husband, wife, and their two kids were murdered during a home invasion by an unknown assailant who then remained in the family's house for several hours before disappearing. He ate their food, used their toilet, and computer, and napped on their couch. There was so much DNA evidence left behind, but the killer was never caught.

3. Mexico — The death of Paulette Gebara Farah, a 4-year-old girl who disappeared, but was later found dead under suspicious circumstances. Her body was discovered seemingly hidden in her own bed.

Back in 2010, a wealthy family in Mexico City was coming back from their country house with a driver and one or two nannies in a heavily gated community with security guards and cameras everywhere. At some point between getting out of the car and getting in the house, Paulette disappeared but no one noticed until the next morning when they called the police and a heavily media-covered search for her began.

Paulette’s face was literally everywhere and the parents were giving interviews from the girl's room, crying on her bed begging for someone to give a clue of where their baby could be. The whole country was hooked following the case.

A few days later her body was found wrapped in blankets in a gap between the mattress and the bed frame on the exact same bed her parents had given interviews. The parents started turning on each other, the mom was particularly suspicious, and they divorced soon after.

It was declared an accident. The whole country is still angry about that one."

4. Canada — The "Highway of Tears", which is a 450-mile corridor of Highway 16 in British Columbia, and a location where many Indigenous women have gone missing and or been murdered since at least 1986.

According to the Highway of Tears Governing Body, "From 1989 to 2006, nine young women went missing or were found murdered along the 724-kilometer length of highway 16 — now commonly referred to as the "Highway of Tears." All but one of these victims were Indigenous women. Additionally, they explain, "There is still much debate over the exact number of women who have gone missing in northern BC, but many people living in the north believe that the number exceeds 30."

5. Italy — The story of serial killer Leonarda Cianciulli who lured, then killed three women in her Italian village, and then turned them into soap to give to other people in the neighborhood.

Cianciullii started her crimes in the 1930s. Apparently, when she learned her eldest son would join the army, she wanted to protect him and decided that the way to do this would be with human "sacrifices."

6. Finland — The Lake Bodom murders, which involved the killing of three friends and the surprising survival of a fourth, is considered one of the most infamous unsolved homicide cases in Finland's history.

In June 1960, four teens went camping on the shore of Lake Bodom in Finland. Three of the teens were stabbed and bludgeoned to death. The only survivor, Nils Gustafsson, sustained a concussion and some facial fractures. He claimed to have only gotten a glimpse of the attacker. There was a large investigation, and authorities came up with a few suspects, but no killer (or killers) has ever been officially identified.

Many years later, in 2004, Gustafsson was arrested on suspicion of being the murderer — the theory being that he killed his three friends, walked away to hide the evidence, and then returned to injure himself, too — however, he was tried and acquitted a year later.

7. Bulgaria — The mysterious and confusing disappearance of Lars Mittank, a young German man on vacation in Bulgaria who was last seen on security footage running out of an airport and into a nearby forest

I am neither Bulgarian nor German, but Lars Mittank's disappearance has always fascinated (and scared) me. Mittank, a 28-year-old German man, joined his friends in Bulgaria on holiday in 2014 but never made it back home. Mittank was involved in a fight a few days before the flight home, and he was treated by a doctor for a head injury. Necessary medication delayed him from joining his friend's home on the same flight. Although they offered to stay with him, he demurred. Shortly before he was scheduled to board his flight, he was overheard saying, 'I don’t want to die here. I have to get out of here.' He then dropped his belongings and fled the airport to the forest. He left his wallet, passport, and luggage behind. The video of him fleeing the airport and being seen — possibly alive for the last time — is haunting.

8. France — The Dupont de Ligonnès murders, which involved the murder of five members of the Dupont de Ligonnès family (as well as their two dogs) and the disappearance of the father, Xavier, who is considered the prime suspect, in 2011.

"Agnès Dupont de Ligonnès, her four children, and two dogs were found murdered underneath the garden in the backyard of their house in France while her husband went on a three-week road trip down the coast of France. He allegedly murdered them and then just casually visited restaurants and hotels. He disappeared without a trace into the hills after the last town he visited and hasn't been seen since, even after an extensive manhunt search was held. This episode on Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix was wild!"

9. South Korea — The deeply upsetting "Frog Boys" case about a group of five young boys who went missing for over a decade, until their remains were found with evidence of trauma.

The "Frog Boys" were a group of five boys who disappeared while out trying to catch frogs on the outskirts of Daegu, South Korea in 1991. Although the case received a lot of media attention, and a large search was conducted by police and the military, the boys were not immediately found. However, in 2002, the remains of the boys were finally discovered. Although authorities believe the boys were likely murdered (three of the boys had signs of blunt force trauma to their heads), what exactly happened has never been solved.

10. Panama — The deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, Dutch students who went on a hike in Boquete, a small mountain town in Panama, in 2014 and never return

"Kremers' phone was found and showed 77 attempts to emergency services and had numerous strange pictures on it. Their bones were later found, seemingly bleached, and according to a forensic anthropologist had no marks on them. I usually don't find disappearances that creepy but this one always sends a chill up my spine. You have to wonder what happened to them. If they called emergency services 77 times in the space of three days, it must have been really *bad*. Imagine being in a state of terror for that long