Top 10 Normal Photos That Hide Shocking Murders

The old saying goes that a picture can paint a thousand words. Yet we know that everything can change in an instant when we tell a story from a different perspective. These following photos are all seemingly normal at first glance – but when you read their sinister backstories you will be shocked to find out the real-life murders these images hide. It’s time to look again and see things as they really are.

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10 A Twisted Alibi

19-year-old Alan Hruby posted this photo on Instagram with the caption: “College wouldn’t be half as great without these two peaches.” Whilst he was partying with his friends and acting as if everything was normal, Hruby had shot and killed his parents and his sister just two days earlier.

On Friday October 10th, 2014, Hruby used a 9mm pistol he had stolen from his father’s truck to kill his family in cold blood before disposing of the weapon and the DVR disc from the home security system in a nearby lake.

Hruby then traveled to Dallas for OU-Texas weekend and stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in an attempt to form an alibi. The bodies of his family members were discovered by the housekeeper on Monday morning. His motive was later revealed in court – he wanted to kill his parents so he could use his $3,000 in inheritance to pay off a loan shark.

District Attorney Jason Hicks said, “He felt like if he murdered his mother, his father and his sister, he would be the only one, the only heir, to their estate.” Adding, “The only remorse we’ve seen is because he got caught. Any tears that he shed, they were crocodile tears.”^[1]

9 The Last Photo of Jolee Callan

One of the most haunting photos online is the image of 18-year-old Jolee Callan seen here taking a break whilst on a hike in Cheaha State Park, Alabama, in August 2015. Her ex-boyfriend Loren Bunner convinced her to go for a hike together even though they had split up months earlier. Bunner also posted a photo of his girlfriend sitting in the car with a dog on her lap and the caption: “On our way to go hiking <3”.

During the hike, Bunner then shot Callan in the back of the head with a Bear Claw .22 firearm before pushing her body off the edge of a cliff and leaving her. Whilst driving home, Bunner dialed 911 to confess to the murder and pulled over waiting for his arrest. Even more disturbing is the night before her murder, Callan messaged a friend: “If something happens to me, you’ll know who I was with.”

Bunner, who was 18-years-old at the time of the murder, was tried as an adult and received a 52-year prison sentence.^[2]

8 Body In The Suitcase

Popular YouTuber Sarah Funk has more than 100,000 subscribers to her channel who love watching videos of her travels around the globe. During a visit to Mitsero Red Lake in Cyprus with her boyfriend in 2017, she managed to capture more on camera than she bargained for.

The lake, which is popular with tourists, has a dark red hue caused by the acid levels in the water. As Funk can be seen crouching by the water, there is also a suitcase in the shot and – with some very accurate foreboding – her boyfriend jokes, “This is what murder episodes are made of.” Funk also adds, “I just feel death in the air.”

Fast forward two years later and Cypriot army captain Nicos Metaxas confesses to murdering five women and two children. He told authorities that the bodies were disposed of in suitcases at the Red Lake and one of those suitcases was still not recovered.

When it was revealed that Funk had captured the suitcase on camera she wrote a blog post explaining, “This is terrible and I am devastated for the victim’s families.”^[3]

7 Deadly Deep Sea Dive

This photo of a diver was captured at the Great Barrier Reef in October 2003. Yet the photographer did not know they were actually taking a picture of a crime scene.

Just 11 days after Gabe and Tina Watson tied the knot they went on the dive to see a shipwreck at the popular diving spot. Tina became panicked and tried to reach for her husband’s oxygen mask, however, Gabe did not help her and watched her body drift down to the seabed as he chose, instead, to swim back up to the surface.

Prosecutor Brendan Campbell told the Queensland court, “It must have been clear to the accused if he left her she would most certainly die. It’s almost inexplicable he would make the decision to leave her.” The court also heard that it was Gabe – an experienced diver himself – who had turned off his wife’s oxygen tank. Tina’s lifeless body can be seen in the background of this photo.^[4]

6 Murder On A Submarine

Freelance journalist Kim Wall had been trying to interview Danish inventor and “semi-celebrity” Peter Madsen for months before he finally invited her onto his homemade submarine near Copenhagen. Wall had been on the submarine for 90 minutes when a passing ship captured her smiling from the conning tower of the UC3 Nautilus. She sent a text message to her husband that read: “I’m still alive btw. But I’m going down now. I love you!”

When Wall didn’t return home by midnight, her worried husband raised the alarm. Madsen told police he had dropped Wall off at a restaurant at around 22.30. Then he changed his story and said Wall hit her head on a hatch in the submarine and he had left her body in Koge Bay; 30 miles south of Copenhagen. Two weeks after Wall’s disappearance, her mutilated torso was discovered on a beach. A further search carried out by police divers recovered her head and legs.

Police found several videos on Madsen’s phone of women being killed, mutilated and beheaded. They believed the sinister murder was planned and he was sentenced to life in prison.^[5]

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5 Selfie With A Killer

In 2011, 17-year-old Tyler Hadley invited friends to his family home in Port St. Lucie, Florida, for a house party and he posed for this selfie. As 60 people played beer pong, smoked cigars, and enjoyed alcohol – the bodies of Hadley’s murdered parents were upstairs in the bedroom. Blake and Mary Jo Hadley had been bludgeoned to death by their son with a claw hammer.

Hadley later confessed around 1 am when he was drunk: “I killed my parents.” When a friend refused to believe him, he stated, “I’m not lying to you. If you look closely enough, you can see signs.” He then said to look in the driveway and they would still see his parent’s car parked there.

One school friend told the news the motive for the murders was likely the extreme pressure he was under, explaining, “His parents would never let him be himself and honestly, I think that they caused everything that just happened. His parents always expected him to be someone else that he wasn’t and that’s not right. Anything Tyler would do, he’d be wrong for it… he just broke.” He is currently serving life behind bars.^[6]

4 Tinder Date Tragedy

This is the last image of Sydney Loofe before she was murdered by her Tinder date in November 2017. Her family knew something was amiss when they had not received a phone call in four days and her cat was left unfed.

52-year-old Aubrey Trail and 25-year-old Bailey Boswell, who was using the pseudonym “Audrey” on Tinder, had arranged to meet with Loofe. Authorities first became suspicious of Trail and Boswell when they posted Facebook videos in which they adamantly professed their innocence – before police even charged them or found Loofe’s body.

Loofe’s body was then discovered. The remains were brought to the morgue in 6 separate bags as she had been cut into 14 pieces – part of her upper left arm was never found. Trail claimed Loofe’s death was accidental; that she was unintentionally asphyxiated during a “sexual fantasy”. He said he only dismembered her and removed her organs because he panicked.

Trail was convicted of first-degree murder and Boswell, who faces first-degree murder charges, will stand trial in September 2020.^[7]

3 The Valentine’s Day Killings

In 1971, 19-year-old Jesse McBane and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Patricia Mann, posed for a romantic photo together before they attended Valentine’s Dance at Watts Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, where Mann was training as a nurse. The young couple were both happy and had their whole lives ahead of them both as promising students.

The couple had left the dance early and when they did not return home that night a search party was formed. McBane’s locked car was found parked at Hillandale Golf Course on a secluded road known as Lovers Lane. Later on February 25th, a man found what he believed to be a mannequin’s leg in the nearby woods and when he looked closer; the bodies of the young couple could be seen lying next to each other. Both had been tied to a tree, their upper bodies slumped over and there were signs they had been tortured to death with ropes used for strangulation.

The case is known now as the “Valentine’s Day Killings” and still remains unsolved to this day.^[8]

2 The Last Photo of Travis Alexander

On June 4th, 2008, Travis Alexander was killed by his ex-girlfriend, Jodi Arias, whilst he was in the shower at his home in Mesa, Arizona. The couple were in a long-distance relationship together but when they broke up, Arias moved to where Alexander was living.

Arias took this chilling photo of Alexander in the shower before stabbing him 29 times. Alexander’s injuries were some of the most brutal ever seen; his jugular vein, common carotid artery, and trachea had been slashed alongside sustaining several defensive wounds on his hands. He was found with a gunshot wound to the head but the autopsy stated he was likely already dead before he was shot.

A close friend of Alexander told “20/20” that he could see the warning signs early on in the relationship. He said, “I started seeing things that were just disturbing. I said, ‘Travis, I’m afraid we’re gonna find you chopped up in her freezer.’ From very early on, she was completely obsessed with him.” Arias was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013 and sentenced to life in state prison.^[9]

1 Best Friend From Hell

In March 2015, best friends Cheyenne Antoine (left) and Brittney Gargol, then both 18-years-old, took this photo together before heading out for a night in Saskatoon, Canada. When Gargol failed to return home, Antoine claimed they had been to a few bars before getting into a fight and she left her friend with an unknown man. Antoine had also posted on Gargol’s Facebook wall, “Where are you? Haven’t heard from you. Hope you made it home safe.”

It was later made clear that Antoine’s Facebook post was an attempt to throw investigators off the scent as she knew exactly what had really happened to her friend that night. The black belt Antoine can be seen wearing in the photo was found by Gargol’s body which had been recovered from the side of a road.

A witness then came forward and revealed that Antoine had admitted to choking her friend to death when she was drunk. Antoine later told the court she had blacked out during the murder, stating, “I will never forgive myself. Nothing I say or do will ever bring her back. I am very, very sorry… It shouldn’t have ever happened,” she said in a statement.” Her charges were reduced to manslaughter.^[10]

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