10 mysterious stories behind unmarked graves

1. Billy Cook- Billy Cook was a spree killer who was born in Joplin Missouri in the 1920s. He lost his mother abruptly to a cerebral Brain hemmorage when he was only 5 years old, Shortly after losing his wife, Billy's father, William Sr. abandoned the boy in a mine shaft with his 10 siblings. Billy would later toss the body of his first victim down a similar mine shaft, before going on to murder an entire family- and their dog. Billy was found " sane but not sane enough to get the death sentence " [ link 1]in Oklahoma and sentenced to 300 years in Alcatraz. After outrage from the public, he was expedited to California where he was executed in 1952, infamously uttering the last words " I hate everybody's guts, and everybody hates mine." His body was buried in Peace church cemetery in Webb City MO, which is rumored to be haunted. Locals say that the statue of Mother Mary, who overlooks the forsaken burial ground, cries at night. I am sure you have heard of him, or at least a song about him. Jim Morrison of The Doors wrote ' Riders on the Storm" about him. " If you give this man a ride, sweet family will die."

2. H.H. Holmes - The man widely regarded as America's first serial killer; H.H. Holmes built the infamous "murder castle" in Chicago. Legend has it, Chicago was not the first place he killed. Some folks believe he was the JACK THE RIPPER, who was never caught, that he simply relocated to the central US to blend in when his trail got hot. Holmes confessed to as many as 27 murders, but the confession was in exchange for a monetary compensation, to the tune of $7500, and most of his confessions turned out to be untrue. During his confessions He admitted that "I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.”

He was tried for killing an entire family, including three children. For those crimes, Holmes was found guilty and sentenced to be hung to death. Upon execution, however, his neck did not break. He hung, twitching, for all of fifteen minutes while he slowly suffocated to death. His body was placed in an unmarked grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.

3. Ed Gein - Maybe you don't recognize his name, but you know him none the less. As Norman Bates or Leather face, his story has been retold through pop culture numerous times. He was dubbed the butcher of Plainfield as well as the Plainfield ghoul. Ed Gein was not only convicted of murder, but also body snatching, or stealing corpses from their graves. Gein came to garner national attention in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed bodies from local graves and fastened trophies out of their bones and skin. In his home, numerous fragments of bones were found Including a bowl fastened out of a human skull and a trash can made out of human skin. Gein would recount that he visited his mothers grave regularly, and upon one visit hers became the first grave he dug up. He claimed to have twisted her head off with his bare hands before shrinking it.

Gein was tried twice, found guilty initially and later found not guilty on grounds of insanity. He was committed to Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he would eventually die of respiratory failure, at 77. Ed Gein was buried in Plainfield WI, where his headstone was stolen in 2000. It was recovered but never replaced.

4. Lilias Aidie - If you find yourself in Torry burn, Scotland on a dreary day, you might opt for a walk along their mud beach. A dark place, that was once thought to be barren of all life, and there you will most certainly notice a six foot slab of concrete standing out amongst the darkness, unmarked and unmovable. A witches grave. The only known witches grave in Scotland as most other accused witches were burned, and never interred at all. Poor Lilias admitted; under torture, to meeting ( among other things) with the devil She was sentenced to burn at the stake, but died in jail awaiting execution. Some say she died as a result of the torture. Her body was placed in a wooden box and buried in the mud before being covered in a half- ton of concrete in order to stop the devil reanimating her corpse. It did not, however, stop grave robbers from absconding with her skull, which was on display for a while in several different private collections before ultimately disappearing. It was last recorded being seen in 1938. Her story is still being told today though, as pictures of her skull were taken before it's tragic misplacement. Pictures that have allowed for professionals to reconstruct her face, giving her humanity even now, centuries after her death. I suppose that is pretty witchy, huh?

5. Jimmy Saville - You may already know his name, Jimmy Saville was a Dj and tv host, who was known for donating millions to charity in his life. He was even knighted before passing away in 2011. Jimmy Saville had a final wish, upon his death to be buried standing up, at a 45 degree angle so he could over look the sea. He got the burial that he desired, at Woodlands Cemetery in Scarboroughl. The coffin had to be fitted with concrete so it could stand erect, and at one point there was a massive four foot headstone; that cost a clean £4000. Shortly after his death though Saville was the center of scandal as multiple allegations of sexual abuse came out. Decades worth. Eventually the revered celebrity was stripped of his knighthood and his family had his tombstone destroyed under the veil of night, in secrecy to be left, forever unmarked.

6. Louis Till - The father of Emmett Till, who was only 14 when he was lynched, after being accused of offending a white woman. That tragedy, Emmit Tills death, is a chapter in our American history books, a devastation to those fighting for civil rights in America. But his father's story, Louis Tills story, you might not know. Louis; whose guilt is still debated to this day, enrolled in the army where he was accused of murder and rape while serving his time in Italy. Louis Till was hung for the crimes and interred in Oise- Aisne American Cemetery, alongside 93 other American Military prisoners all of whom were executed for crimes committed during (or shortly after) World War II. Their remains are buried in a space that is separate from the rest of the cemetery, across the street and hidden from view, simply called Plot E.

7. Cherif Kouachi - Cherif Kouachi and his brother, Said claimed to have trained alongside al Qaeda before commiting mass murder in their name. In 2015, the brothers stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, armed to the teeth, rocket launcher and all. The pair killed 12 people and injured 11 more and the event was only the first of several attacks in the area. The brothers Kouachi escaped capture and remained fugitives at large, inciting a mass manhunt that lasted for two days and ended in gunfire. Both brothers were killed in the shootout. Cherif Kouachi was buried, at his widow's bequest, in an unmarked grave near Paris.

8. Tamerlan Tsarnaev - Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar were found responsible for the Boston Marathon Bombing. The tragedy took the lives of three people while injuring as many as 267 more. The brothers were identified by the FBI, and subsequently killed an MIT policeman named Sean Collier before engaging in a shootout with Boston Police. During the shootout, Tamerlan was dragged by his brothers vehicle twenty feet before he was shot and transported to hospital. He is said to have sat up and screamed violently from his stretcher in the ambulance, but died shortly after arriving at the hospital. His remains were laid to rest in an unmarked grave in Virginia. His brother managed to escape the shootout in the SUV that he ran Tamerlan over in kick-starting an unprecedented man hunt that saw him arrested alive. Under interrogation the brother admitted to allegedly planning another attack, to be committed at Times Square.

9. Pete Panto - Pete was a dockworker in the 1930s, who was attempting to organize hundreds of other workers to fight for better working conditions. Unfortunately for poor Pete Panto, the organization he was up against, The International Longshoreman's Association, was rife with Mafia corruption. He was killed on orders of Albert Anastasia; who cofounded Murder Inc and was known as the mad hatter. In 1939 the infamous Crime boss had Panto's body tossed in a lime pit near Lyndhurst, New Jersey. It took 2 years for his body to be found and moved to an unmarked grave in St. Charles Cemetery.

10. The White House boys - The Dozier school for boys in Marianna, FL operated from 1900 to 2011 as a reform school for boys. As early as 1903 there were allegations of abuse and scandal, news getting out that the boys were regularly kept in leg irons. A fire broke out a decade later, killing 8 people who are buried on the grounds. By the 80's the school openly admitted to hog-tying the boys and leaving them isolated for weeks as well as hanging them by their arms in their cells as punishment, regularly. In 2007, the public learned about " the White House Boys" who were reportedly taken behind the school, to a separate, small white house for punishment, cruel punishments, including apparently stuffing a boy into a dryer, who was said to have come out dead. In 2013, exhumations in the schools burial ground started, and 51 young men were found, almost double what the school had on record. The majority of which were African American students, highlighting that historically, they are three times more likely to be unnamed in historical records and laid to rest in unmarked graves.