A picture is worth a thousand words. And we can instantly feel any number of emotions after simply looking at a photograph. That’s why many of us have camera rolls that are littered with thousands of pics! But unfortunately, some images tell dark, disturbing stories that are impossible to forget.

Redditors have been sharing seemingly innocent images that have creepy backstories, so we’ve gathered some of the most harrowing ones below. We’ll warn you right now, pandas, that these tales are anything but uplifting. But if you can stomach true crime stories, you might find this list simultaneously heartbreaking and fascinating.

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#1

This is a picture of my wife Silvia when she was a child growing up and living in Romania in the late 70’s.

To me, I can see the beautiful woman she is to become and the future wife and mother she is now.

But at the time the situation was heart-breaking.

Silvia’s mother died due to suspected complications after giving birth to Silvia. Silvia has no memory of her birth mother. Her step-mother was an abusive nightmare of a woman who physically and emotionally beat her and her siblings.

Living in Romania in the 70’s and 80’s during the height of the Cold War was tough. Long lines for basic foods, never knowing if you had enough to feed the family, central heating which was turned off overnight, travel restrictions and secret police always watching.

Silvia’s father was imprisoned for 3 years for trying to flee Romania, but he was caught. So the family knew all too well the risks of trying to escape.

Silvia was effectively trapped with abusive parents in a repressive country with little hope of escape.

Silvia and her father did however escape Romania a few years later, lying at the border by claiming they were going on holiday to Italy, leaving behind her step-mother and siblings, lived as refugees in Italy for four months before travelling to Australia as immigrants.

They moved many times, lived in a back supply shed behind a restaurant, a caravan, a single room sharing with strangers, trying to support themselves and trying to bring out the rest of the family.

By 16 Silvia left home, dropped out of high school, slept on the floor with her siblings who had joined her in Australia, but she went many days hungry, not having enough money to buy food. Silvia spent 10 years struggling with waitress work and bar work and going through as many as 12 jobs a year.

There is a happy ending however. Eventually, she put herself through school, post graduate study, and built a successful career with the Australian federal government. I married Silvia in 2003, had a beautiful daughter of our own and are living happily ever after.

© Photo: John Neilson

#2

This one of Steven Stayner giving Timmy White a piggyback ride always pulls at my heart strings.

He was kidnapped by convicted child m*lester Kenneth Parnell and repeatedly ab*sed for nearly 7 years. But when he got too old, Parnell kidnapped 5 year old Timmy White. Steven couldn’t stand the idea of another kid going through the h**l that he suffered, so the next chance he got he carried him on his back and walked through the freezing snow to a police station. The boys were each reunited with their families.

Steven’s story is so inspiring to me in a lot of ways, the guts and guile he demonstrated is nothing short of amazing. But I have to warn you all, the story does not have a very happy ending. So if these kinds of cases are emotionally taxing for you, especially the ones that involve ab*sed children, skip this one.

© Photo: User

#3

This is my handsome husband in 1970, shortly after we got married. Our life seemed perfect and we had so much to look forward to. In 1975 I became pregnant and like most expectant parents, we were excited and were making plans. One thing we did not plan on… he starting going blind due to diabetic retinopathy half way into the pregnancy. Sad memories of waddling into a hospital for weeks on end, for laser treatments, haunt me. In 1976 we gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. That should have been the best summer ever; however the laser treatments were not effective and at some point, rather than help, they start to cause the retina to be damaged. He had too many laser treatments to count. He was hospitalized for a procedure to try to reattach his retina in one eye when our baby was six weeks old. The operation was not successful. The good news… his other eye seemed to be doing well. We had great hope.

So much for that good news. By December 1976 his other eye was acting up; hence laser treatments continued. The bleeding into his vitreous, which is what happens w diabetic retinopathy, was arrested.

However, with so much trauma to his good eye, he developed a cataract. For the next 8 years he struggled with partial sight as the cataract grew…. but was assured that, like most cataract surgeries, when it was big enough to remove he would have a good amount of vision.

We were excited when he had the surgery. When we got home, later that night, he said…”I cannot see anything.” I assured him that the next day when we have a follow up appointment, the doctors will give you a new lens. I remember him sitting in the chair while I watched. Two doctors, one old and one young were working with him. The body language of the two doctors got my attention. The tears that rolled down the face of the younger doctor told me what I didn’t want to hear.

He has been totally blind since the age of 37. He has no light perception. Against all odds, he is still here at the age of 75, challenged everyday by the dread disease that rendered him blind…. a disease he has had since age 12. Flash forward, on June 20, 2020 we celebrated our 50th anniversary. We couldn’t be with our close and loving family, but with Zoom and Facetime we had a party. Two successful, beautiful daughters, two charming son in laws, and four lively grandchildren ages 5,8,10 and 13. We came a long way from my terror of being the only breadwinner on a teacher’s salary. He went on to a very successful career at the National Institutes of Health and we have retired to a beautiful community in Southwest Florida. Yet every time I see this picture, it brings me to tears. By the way, he has never ever complained.

© Photo: Deborah West Kerr

#4

Smiling woman in Kutno, Poland. It was taken in 1939 by Hugo Jaeger, who was a photographer for the N*zis. More specifically, it was taken after they’d just invaded Poland.

I find photos like this creepy because they believe the underlying misery that is about to be forced upon these people. If she’d known the reality, a casual chat and a request for a photo by him wouldn’t have seemed so natural. You can find plenty more like it of that period.

winterisforhome:

Whenever I see photos of individual Jews or families of them from that time, I just want to burst into tears. We always hear the numbers of the h*******t, how many millions etc, but when you actually start seeing the individual faces of the victims, especially if they’re smiling or just living life, it hits so much harder. To a degree, history class has almost “depersonalized” the h*******t in a way, which is why I love the story of Anne Frank; it reminds us that the victims were people just like us, there was no huge difference between us. Just my mini-rant on my feels:/

© Photo: SmellsLikeBread

#5

This photo was taken moments before an IRA car b*mbing. The charge was inside that red car. The man and child depicted survived, though the photographer did not.

Anon:

I live(d) about 5 miles from here growing up, I was around 4 when this happened, i was with my dad at the time and he remembers hearing the explosion.. my mom was actually on her way towards here (town center), but was still a mile or so away, pretty crazy how being 5 or 10 minute early / late could entirely change so many peoples’ lives! I knew one kid that died in it, he was about 16 at the time. I still see his mom around, she never got over it, she went shopping that day with him, he went to buy some new jeans in one store and she quickly ran to another store, she survived and he died instantly.. Really sad!

© Photo: HGwells628

#6

Myra Hindley, on the Saddleworth moors with her dog, Poppet. She is looking down at the grave of John Kilbride, one of her’s, and Ian Brady’s, young victims.

Hindley and Brady used to take photos hinting to the gravesites of their child victims, and when their crimes came to light, these pictures were used to help find the bodies.

© Photo: Miss_Musket

#7

The saddest one that I’ve come across is a photo of two divers smiling together at the camera on the Great Barrier Reef. In the background, another diver can be seen laying limp on the seabed, with somebody swimming to their rescue. The diver on the reef is Tina Watson, who died before they even resurfaced. If I can remember correctly, multiple witnesses said her partner had bear-hugged her before she began to sink, realizing only later that he had most likely purposefully disconnected her breathing apparatus. He was charged with m**der, but never convicted, as the case collapsed. He was convicted for manslaughter (to which he pleaded guilty) and was sentenced to 4.5 years (under Australian law).

Edit: I previously did not realize that the case is still classed as unresolved, and wrote that her husband was not convicted after the m**der charge was dropped instead of his conviction of manslaughter.

© Photo: User

#8

The My Lai villagers picture. might not fit exactly since the picture shows the terrorized villagers right before they were gunned down, so not exactly seemingly normal. but, one often overlooked aspect is the young woman buttoning her shirt, which is interpreted as evidence that she was r**ed right before the photo.

Saelza_:

This is horrible. I don’t know why America joined that war. The actions of those soldiers is disgusting, and should be remembered so it never happens again.

© Photo: jR2wtn2KrBt

#9

Just a photo of a cute girl, right? This is Genie (not her real name, but that’s what she is called in the public sphere. (Real name was kept secret.) From the time she was an infant, around 20 months old, her father kept her in a single room, strapped down to a potty chair facing the wall. She had no human interaction beyond her parents until the age of 13, when she was rescued.

Anon:

Studied her in developmental psych. Incredibly sad, but also intriguing.

© Photo: User

#10

Snake bite captured mid strike in this family photo. Taken at a friend’s ranch.

gwtrull:

The dog actually was bit and didn’t make it. The woman was bit as well but made a full recovery. Thankful it wasn’t the child.

© Photo: Ms_Tyree

#11

This photo taken not long before Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were kidnapped and m******d.

I was young when it happened and my parents never hid things from us, but this made my parents not trust us playing out without an adult watching.

Zombeedee:

I was around the same age as these girls when this happened. This, along with other cases during my childhood such as Sarah Payne, James Bulger, Millie Dowler, I honestly feel like was a turning point for British people and the whole freedom in childhood, kids playing in the street thing.
Before these h**h profile cases I still remember being turned out in the morning every weekend, along with all the other kids in my street, and we’d just wander and play around all day. My parents had no clue where we were. And we were not safe. I’m amazed none of us got hurt, looking back.
But growing up hearing these stories, it honestly feels like blinkers were taken off. Kids were told to be more careful or not allowed out unsupervised at all. And now I’m a mum myself there is no f*****g way I let my kids wander about alone.
I really think it changed the nation and made us more wary for the most part.

© Photo: User

#12

This brings to mind the relatively recent m**ders of Abigail Williams and Libby German. This case has been discussed numerous times in this subreddit, I know, but it’s one that’s stuck with me. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, you can read up on it here.
This is the final image taken of Abigail Williams, uploaded to Libby German’s Snapchat at approximately 2:07 PM on February 13th, 2017. As depicted in the photo, Abigail is is standing on a bridge, a physical landmark that her body was found in close relation to.
Another image that has been circulated because of this case is an image of the suspect himself. Apologies for the grainy quality, but it was superimposed from a video still. As discovered through this video that retraces the crime, the suspect was only seventy-three feet behind them at this point.

© Photo: User

#13

Selfie posted by Daylenn Pua on February 24, 2015. Just two days later he vanished while hiking the Haiku Stairs in Hawaii. During the hike, he sent his grandmother numerous photos. One appeared to show a man following him.

This hike was closed to the public, and anyone caught hiking it was trespassing. His grandmother warned him against it, saying he would be locked up if he did.

On February 27, 2015, he caught a bus and ventured forth to the stairway to heaven hike. Daylenn sent texts to his grandmother with photos of the hike. He was never seen again.

After his disappearance, the photos were studied, one showed what appears to be a man in the far background. He seems to be following behind Daylenn.

The family asked for public assistance and for anyone who recognized the man to come forth.

To this day, he or his remains have never been found, and what happened to him and the identity of that strange man in the photo remains a mystery.

© Photo: 01Ade

#14

The picture of the Israeli Olympic Team marching in the opening ceremony of the 1972 Munich Olympics. They seem happy to be there and carefree. A week later, within the Olympic Village, 11 of them would be taken hostage by a terrorist group, Black September. In the end, a botched rescue attempt by the German authorities resulted in them all being m**dered (two had already died in the initial hostage taking).

© Photo: CuteyBones

#15

2004 Tsunami nears John & Jackie Knill

John and Jackie Knill were k**led in the 2004 Tsunami. Their bodies were never found but their passports and camera were discovered and returned to their children. There are more pictures that show that something terrible is about to occur. But this one is nearly tranquil.

EDIT: Their bodies apparently were found.

© Photo: CamaroNurse

#16

This is the picture of two brothers named Michael and Sean McQuilken. This photo was taken on August 20th, 1975 in Sequoia National Park in California. A few seconds after this photo the pair were struck by lightning. They both survived but Sean took his own life in 1989.

Lillipout:

This is a famous incident. It occurred on August 20, 1975 at about 4:15pm at a place called Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park, California. Moro Rock is a granite outcrop 4000 feet above a river valley. Seven people were injured but there was only one fatality – a hiker who was practically still in the parking lot among 40-50 foot tall trees. The smaller boy was reportedly knocked unconscious, but revived with CPR. Several of the injuries were caused by flying rock. There’s another image from that storm, but I’m unable to locate it. This incident was the subject of several lawsuits, including SCHIELER v. UNITED STATES where the plaintiff alleged that the Park Service was negligent in warning hikers about the dangers of lightning strikes and failing to employ safety devices. These types of lawsuits tend not to go anywhere, but today there is a warning sign advising hikers to descend and find cover if they experience piloerection.

© Photo: unconscious_grasp

#17

This is a photo of John Lennon giving an autograph to Mark David Chapman, the man who would m**der him only hours later. Chapman later said that he was incensed by Lennon’s remark that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”, calling it blasphemy. He made no attempt to flee or resist arrest.

© Photo: User

#18

Not exactly “innocuous” but this photo was taken by Dean “Candy Man” Corll. It shows a struggling boy who he presumably r***d and m******d but nobody has been able to either find his body nor give him a name. He just exists in this piece of frozen time.

© Photo: Chutzpah2

#19

Demon Core

This is a recreation photo of an accident that occurred with the infamous “demon core”. Physicist Louis Slotin was conducting an experiment to verify the exact point at which a subcritical mass of fissile material could be made critical by the positioning of neutron reflectors. Basically, the two half spheres would be adjusted around the core and the core activity would be measured.

The risk was that if the spheres were allowed to close, the core would instantaneously form a critical mass. To keep them from closing, he pried the top core up with a s***w driver. Unfortunately the s***w driver slipped, a critical mass formed, and (near) instantly gave him a lethal dose of radiation. He shielded the other people in the room and was the only fatality.

DaughterEarth:

Stuff like this is why we have safety regulations today. We rarely come up with them before an accident, at least not traditionally. We’re getting better now, and accounting for this kind of potential in a design is drilled in to engineering students heads, but yah, not always like that.
However, yah, I agree, should have been clear even then that showboating is a bad idea.

© Photo: User

#20

Musician Jeff Buckley (right), hours before he died from accidental drowning at the age of 30 in 1997.

AtBat3:

Great singer-songwriter whose debut album was phenomenal. He took a swim in a river with steel toe boots on and no one was really keeping an eye on him, next thing you know they couldn’t find him. Got caught under a current from a passing boat I think. Just a tragic accident nothing suspicious about it. It just [is bad].

MissSassifras1977:

I would like to add that this is a terrible picture of Jeff. He was very handsome. His looks were nothing compared to his talent.
He was beloved to his family. He was friendly with his ex’s and in love with a beautiful girl when he died.
So what happened to Jeff?
He was just in to town to record some music. It was late at night. He decided to jump in the river for a swim.
It was a single roadie keeping an eye on him. The guy was moving some equipment and took his eyes off Jeff for just a few minutes.
He was singing a zeppelin song (idk which) as he swam. Then he was gone, dragged under the water by the wake from a passing barge or tugboat.
His wiki and every article I’ve ever read said nothing about steel toe boots.
One moment he was there, the next gone. His body was found days later, miles away. The world mourned. Artists from every genre paid tribute to him.
Jeff was completely sober when he died. And he was happy. It wasn’t s*****e, it was foolishness.
It was all just a cluster [darn] of bad decisions that ended in a very tragic accident. 💙

© Photo: User

#21

This home video of Jeffrey Dahmer, casually saying to his dad that he should eat at home more often. However, at the time this video was filmed, Jeffrey already k**led 7 men (and ate some of their body parts).

© Photo: Kimidei

#22

This is John du Pont and Dave Schultz.

John (The man on the bottom) hosted a massive wrestling team where all of the athletes lived on the grounds. Schultz was hired to coach the team.

As time went on John started to act stranger than normal (He was already very odd). He started to think his friend Schultz was spying on him. He believed that Schultz was hiding in his walls spying and plotting to k**l him. It seems to me like John was a paranoid schizophrenic.

Eventually John snapped. He drove up to Schultz’s home and shot him in front of his family. Schultz died moments later.

© Photo: User

#23

This photo of Bart Whitaker (left) and his brother. Bart k**led his brother and his mother and attempted to k**l his father.

sydofbee:

To be fair, he did not actually k**l them himself. He hired a h****n and asked him to hurt him too, so that it wouldn’t be obvious it was an attack orchestrated by him. I think that even makes it worse because there was quite a bit of thought behind it; it wasn’t a passion k**ling if you will.

BlessedBreasts:

This story k**ls me. I saw an interview with the father and he’d lost everything. His children, his love, and his hope. He told the interviewer that he would be attending his son’s e*******n (should he receive the [intimacy], not sure if he got it) because that was his son…that he’d been there when he took his first breath and would be there beside him when he left the world. the love of parents, omg. And yes, his hand gesture was a joke. He said that later, that it was in reference to their planned deaths and how they could kiss his a*s, etc.

© Photo: User

#24

This picture was taken by a passenger of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on July 17th 2014. He posted this picture on his Facebook, saying; ‘if it goes missing, this is what it (the plane) looks like.’ Referring to another Malaysian Airlines plane (flight MH370) that went missing on March 8th 2014. Later that day the plane the man boarded was taken down by a missile fired by either Russia or Ukraine.

RealHorrorShowvv:

I still don’t understand why they thought it would have been a good idea to fly over that zone.

apple_kicks:

Planes fly over war zones a lot and usually the radar and the height they are at identifies them as passengers (as some said st the time) . Leaked radio chatter revealed the soldiers thought the same that it would be no fly zone. They had been shooting down Ukrainian military planes earlier that month.

© Photo: Maddle_R

#25

The most sinister wink of all time.

Context: This photo was taken just after LBJ was sworn in on Air Force One, immediately following the m**der of JFK. In the foreground you’ll notice Jackie Kennedy visibly grieving the loss of her husband. LBJ turned towards his longtime friend, Texas congressman Albert Thomas, who gave him a surreptitious wink and a smile. White House photographer Cecil Stoughton, who took the photo, said it could have been “innocent or sinister, and I would have leaned towards the latter.” The man in charge of Air Force One at the time, General Godfrew McHugh later said LBJ’s behavior on the plane was “obscene.”

Edit: Took out a line about blood spatter on Jackie’s coat, since people seemed to be really concerned about it. Though there was blood on her coat at the time the photo was taken, it’s not in the frame.

© Photo: Deerhoof_Fan

#26

The story goes that the picture was taken of the man on the edge goofing off with a fishing pose, but only later when the film was developed, that a boy/young man was shown behind him, unbeknownst to the guy on the edge or the photographer.

Several theories have been made about what the heck was exactly going on, some innocuous, some not, but to me it’s such a creepy picture.

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© Photo: Bowzer

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