Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction and today we're going to look at three stories that demonstrate that but before we get into today's stories if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload three or four times every week so if that's of interest to you please give the like button a metal tin of delicious danish butter cookies and tell them it's your way of apologizing for the mistreatment over the past year but be sure to replace the cookies with anthrax before you hand it over also please subscribe to our BLOG and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads alright
1.THE RING
let's get into today's stories in may of 2011 27 year old michelina lewandowska was surprised when she got a text message from her on again off again boyfriend 27 year old marcin kaspersack the pair had actually previously been engaged and had a three-year-old son together but they just could never seem to make it work for longer than a couple of months at a time in the text message martine was asking michalina if he could take her shopping something he knew she liked to do as for michelina lately she had been turning down requests like this one from martine and she was inclined to at first but their son was already being looked after by her mother and michelina didn't have plans that day and so she thought you know what what the heck and so she said yes so michelina took a shower and got ready and even put on her engagement ring that marcine had given her and then she waited by the door a little while later martine who was an aspiring bodybuilder who had become addicted to taking steroids showed up at her huddersfield england home michelina opened the door martine came inside and then as soon as the door shut behind him he tased michelina he jumped on top of her and then he bound and gagged her and then once she was restrained on the ground with no idea what was going on martine opened the front door and waved down to his car that was parked on the curb and one of his friends this 18 year old named patrick came out and walked up to the house and came inside and then patrick and marcin worked together to cram michelina into this small rugged cardboard box and then once she was forced inside of there they closed it up taped it shut and then brought the box down to the front of the house and put it into marching's trunk and then martine and patrick hopped in the front two seats of the car and drove off once they reached the outskirts of town they parked in a parking lot right next to this huge forest and from there they took the box with michelina inside of it and two shovels and walked into the woods and at some point they left the path and walked way away from where anybody would normally be until they felt like they were far enough away that no one would see them and at that point they put michelina down and then using their shovels they dug a grave once it was deep enough they put michelina in her box inside of the grave and then they covered her back up with dirt and then put a 90-pound log on top of her and then the two of them just walked away leaving mikalina to die in the box michelina was not dead yet but she knew if she attempted to escape with martine and patrick right above her they would just kill her on the spot or they would dig an even deeper hole and then it would be impossible to get out again and so after waiting an agonizingly long amount of time to ensure martine and patrick had gone michelina jumped into action she immediately tried to wriggle her way out of her restraints but the position they had forced her into which was basically the fetal position with her hands tied behind her back it didn't allow her to move very much in any one direction and so without any movement she could not get herself to come free of these restraints and so as she's struggling trying to figure out what she's gonna do she realizes she had chosen to wear her engagement ring that martine had given her something she never wore anymore and she could potentially use the diamonds in the ring to cut through the tape that was keeping her wrists tied together and so she began working that ring until finally she did cut through her restraints and her hands were free and so she managed to force both of her arms right in front of her body and then once they were in front of her she immediately began scratching and clawing at the cardboard right above her and eventually she scratched a hole in the box itself and dirt began pouring in on her and she was already very low on oxygen she was fighting off unconsciousness by remembering that her three-year-old son needed her and she had no idea what martine was going to do to him and so she just kept on digging and fighting as the dirt's coming in on her and she's struggling to breathe and then finally she pokes all the way through and she can see sunlight and fresh air comes into the hole she can breathe again and then with this huge surge of adrenaline she forces herself and manages to push all the way up through this hole until she's standing in her grave and from there she pulls herself up and out of the dirt and she runs towards the road where she flags down a motorist and the motorist would call police and then wait with her until they arrived after martine was arrested the story came out that he had heard a rumor that michelina was going to be leaving him and going back to poland with their son and he didn't want that so he had decided he was going to kill her marching was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison and patrick was found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to four and a half years in prison
2. BAD BLOOD
In 1932 charlie pollard was a 26 year old farmer living in macon county alabama where 82 percent of the population at the time was african-american and they were all forced to live under the rules of a strictly segregated society at the time the united states was just beginning to crawl out of the great depression that it started three years earlier but you wouldn't know it riding through charlie's town like charlie many of the other residents in macon county were completely dirt poor and they lived in these wooden shacks with no screens on their windows there was no furniture inside and they would just throw some dirty rags on the ground to sleep on on average the men in the town that were lucky enough to have a job made less than one dollar per day so when charlie heard a rumor that the government was going to be coming to town and giving free medical exams to all the african-american men charlie was thrilled he had never been to a doctor before and he certainly wasn't going to turn down a free visit to one and so a couple of days later the rumor turned out to be true when a government health service worker showed up in their town and set up shop in their one-room schoolhouse charlie got in line with the hundreds of other men from macon county and then by mid-morning it was his turn and the health service worker told him that today they were just going to be doing a blood test and so charlie eagerly rolled up his sleeve and stuck his arm out a couple of days later the results from the blood test had come in and charlie was informed that he had bad blood bad blood was a commonly used term in that area at the time to describe a wide array of ailments the worker didn't get into specifics about what charlie's diagnosis meant they just told him that in virtue of his diagnosis of bad blood he was now eligible to join a government-sponsored medical treatment program if he agreed to be a part of it he would not only receive medical care for his bad blood he would also receive free rides to and from the health clinic he would get a free hot meal on examination days and in the event he died during the program his family would be given 50 if they allowed the doctors to perform a thorough autopsy on his body before they buried him despite not really understanding what it meant to have bad blood charlie decided to join the program mostly because of those free meals and because he had a deep trust and respect of the government and charlie wasn't alone about 400 other african-american men from macon county agreed to be a part of the program as well at first the program was everything they promised it would be it was just a couple of low-key medical examinations with a nice hot meal and then occasionally they would take some pills and have another blood draw but eventually they started being given regular excruciatingly painful spinal taps that would leave them bedridden for weeks afterwards but despite this painful and surprising turn of events that none of the men saw coming they were not aware they would be getting spinal taps as part of this program charlie and the other men were convinced this program was still in their best interest and that they could trust the government to eventually cure them of their bad blood and so charlie and the other men didn't resist the spinal taps or other follow-on painful and bizarre medical procedures that they were being told was good for them and would help them get rid of this bad blood less than a year later men in this program began getting sick they started developing rashes and sores all over their body their bones and joints would ache they began losing hair they had indigestion they had headaches they had constant fevers and for some of the men these symptoms would eventually subside but for others they got dramatically worse for those men they would develop tumors and their bones would start to disintegrate they would go blind or deaf or become paralyzed or they would simply die but despite the obvious ineffectiveness of this treatment program it persisted when america entered world war ii in 1941 charlie and many of the other men in this program wanted to enlist in the military and go join the fight but when they went to enlist they were told that as members of the special medical program they could only receive treatment from the doctors in that program and so they could not receive treatment from military doctors and therefore were disqualified from military service while frustrated by this rule charlie and many of the other men still consider themselves to be very fortunate to be allowed to be a part of this program that was curing them of their bad blood and charlie specifically felt like he was one of the luckiest men inside of this program because his bad blood had not led to these terrible symptoms that his friends were experiencing and so over the years in between his medical appointments charlie got married he had a child he even managed to buy a little plot of land that he farmed on nearly year round then in 1973 so over 40 years after they began this medical program charlie and the other survivors of this program had their lives completely turned upside down that year a very junior assistant within the public health service secretly mailed off all of the records of this macon county medical program to the associated press and then a couple of days later the washington star newspaper ran this huge story on their front page that said syphilis victims in united states study went untreated for 40 years it would turn out charlie and the other 400 men in this medical program they didn't have bad blood that was just kind of a made-up term to get them not to ask any questions what they had was syphilis a deadly disease that ravages the human body in three stages that can unfold over a lifetime and so these doctors that treated charlie were not actually treating him they knew he had syphilis that was why he was even part of the program to begin with when they tested his blood they were trying to see who had syphilis in macon county and then they took those people and they entered them into this phony program not to make them better because this was not a treatment program it was a u.s government-backed medical study of what happens to african-american men with syphilis if their condition goes completely untreated for their entire lives the leaders of the study did not care what happened to these men and that point was made crystal clear when in the 1940s a cure for syphilis was discovered penicillin but instead of giving it to these men and saving their lives they intentionally hid the cure from them and prevented them from getting it this is why these men were not allowed to enlist in the military or seek outside medical care because those doctors would discover these men had syphilis and they would just give them penicillin curing them but that screwed up the study and so they couldn't have that the public health service chose macon county alabama because at the time 35 of the population was already infected with syphilis and because they knew the men in this town would be largely uneducated and poor and desperate and therefore easy to trick into joining this highly unethical study at least 28 men in the study died as a result of their syphilis infections and countless others suffered from long-term side effects charlie was 66 years old when he heard the news finally he had an answer bad blood meant he had syphilis but fortunately his syphilis had either burned out or gone dormant but he thought about all the other men in the study that had not been as lucky and charlie felt so betrayed by the government he and the rest of the men had no idea they were getting taken advantage of charlie got in touch with a lawyer who eventually sued the federal government and in an out-of-court settlement charlie and the other 73 survivors of the so-called tuskegee experiment were given 38 000 each as compensation after the settlement charlie just went back to his simple life in macon county and then 27 years later on april 29th 2000 charlie passed away at the age of 94.
3.THE RITUAL
In the early morning hours of march 11 1989 four young men who were all in their 20s and all very close friends left their homes in east texas and headed south nine hours later they arrived in the beautiful resort town of south padre island which is just off the coast of southern texas they were there to enjoy their spring break by stunning on the beach drinking in bars and meeting girls when they finally arrived that night they were so exhausted from the trip that they went right to bed the next morning when they got up they went straight down to the beach and they had some drinks and then by the afternoon they were talking amongst themselves and they decided that for their first full night of being on vacation they would kick things off with a bang and they would go into mexico and party there and so they piled into their car and they drove an hour southwest to brownsville texas which is a town that sits right on the border of mexico and when they got there they parked their car and then walked right over the footbridge that crossed the rio grande river into mexico on the other side in mexico they found themselves in the town of matamoros which is very popular amongst spring break goers for their bars and their clubs and so the four friends got a quick bite to eat at a hamburger joint and then they made their way into the bars and the clubs and they danced and they drank for hours and then at some point they got tired and left the bar scene they crossed over the footbridge back into the u.s and made their way back to their hotel in south padre island the next morning when they got up and they recovered from their hangover they decided they had so much fun in matamoros the night before that they had to go back and so that night they piled back into their car they drove back down to brownsville texas they crossed over that footbridge into mexico and then all night they partied and danced and had a great time and then at some point the four decided it was time to leave and so they left their bar and began walking towards the footbridge but that night it was so crowded in matamoros that you could barely move a foot without bumping into someone and so the foursome split into two separate pairs and the lead pair they made their way ahead and they stopped at the gift shop right at the foot of that bridge going back to the u.s side and there they waited for the trail pair the trail pair which consisted of mark kilroy and bill huddleston they weren't far behind but they got sidetracked when mark saw a girl standing next to a house that he had seen earlier in the night and he just wanted to go up and talk to her and say bye to her and so they go over to this girl and while mark is talking to her bill moves on head and goes down an alleyway to urinate and then when he comes back out mark and this girl are not there bill assumed mark must have just moved on the little ways up to the bridge where the other two friends were at the gift shop and so after looking around for just a couple of seconds bill makes his way up to the bridge and he meets up with the other two friends and when he gets there he asks the other two friends you know where's mark did he come up here already and they say no we haven't seen him and so now the trio is a little bit concerned but they're thinking okay he must be with this girl he had seen and so they backtracked a little ways and they looked for mark they went back to where he had been talking to that girl and again he wasn't there and so they decided okay he must have already crossed the bridge and made it to our car and he's probably just waiting for us over there and so the trio crosses over the bridge into the u.s side they get to their car and mark's not there and so at this point they are pretty concerned about mark but they eventually convince themselves that he must have just left with this girl and they probably are back at the hotel together and so after a little while the trio decides let's just go back to the hotel we're bound to find mark so they drive all the way back to south padre island they get to their hotel room and mark's not there but again they tell themselves he's not here because he's probably with this girl in another room and so they don't worry about him they go to bed but the next morning when mark still had not come back to the hotel room they decide you know what something's wrong here we have to tell police and so they file a missing person report but the police get so many of these about spring breakers who go missing and matamoros that they don't really take them seriously at first because typically the missing person will just show up 24 hours later with a horrible hangover and no memory of how they got back from matamoros and so the police were expecting this to happen with mark but after 24 hours when mark didn't show up with a bad hangover they were convinced that something had happened to him and american and mexican police suspected foul play because matamoros and the surrounding areas are not exactly safe for tourists but they didn't have any leads and so mark's case languished three weeks later a drug smuggler drove through a police checkpoint without stopping just outside of matamoros and so the police pursued him and this guy ultimately stopped at this secluded ranch up in the mountains after the police arrested the smuggler they noticed a ranch worker was standing nearby and on a whim they showed him a picture of mark and said hey have you seen this guy and the worker despite being scared and not really sure what to do he said to police yeah i have seen him here the smuggler and his friends they brought him here in handcuffs and then the worker turned around and pointed up the mountain towards the shack that was about 400 yards up the mountain and he said that's where they took him and so authorities began walking up the hillside towards the shack and when they got about a hundred yards away they saw this big metal cauldron sitting on the front stoop of the shack and then when they got about 50 yards away they were hit with this horrible smell of death and decay and then when they got right up in front of the shack and could see inside of this cauldron and inside of the shack itself what they saw was so gruesome and horrible that even the most senior and grizzled responding officers were totally shaken up by it under intense questioning the drug smuggler that had originally led police up to the secluded ranch and the shack admitted that he was a part of a gang and that his gang had taken mark three weeks earlier while bill was urinating in that alleyway mark spoke to that girl he wanted to see and then she went off and then mark was left standing alone waiting for bill to come back and while he was waiting a man on the street parked in a red truck yelled out to him to come over he needed help or something he lured him to the truck and so mark went over to the truck and then right when he asked the man you know what do you need two men one of which included this drug smuggler jumped out from behind a building and tried to grab mark and put him inside of this red truck mark was a very fit big athletic guy and so he was able to fight the two men off and then took off running down the road but he only made it about two blocks when another car full of gangsters showed up cut him off and then at gunpoint got him to come into the second vehicle so once he was restrained inside of this vehicle they drove him out of the town of matamoros onto some back country roads up into the mountains to the secluded ranch where they left him overnight in the car the next morning the gang members came back out and they wrapped duct tape around mark's mouth and his whole face in his eyes they just left a little slit around his nostrils so he could breathe and then they pulled him out of the vehicle with his hands tied behind his back and they walked him up the hill to that shack this gang that had abducted mark that this drug smuggler was a part of was more like a cult and this cult was led by a man named constanzo who practiced a form of black magic called paulo constanzo would perform paulo rituals which he claimed to his followers would make he and all of them invincible these rituals which took place in the shack up in the mountains involved human sacrifice constanzo would tell his followers that these people who were going to be sacrificed they didn't just need to die they needed to die screaming because constanzo believed the more agony he inflicted on his victims before they ultimately died and were sacrificed to the gods the more power the gods would grant to he and his followers and so the people who got kidnapped and marched up to that shack to be sacrificed were subjected to unspeakable atrocities and mark had been selected to be the next ritual sacrifice after mark was led out of the vehicle with his face all taped up he was walked up to that shack where he spent several horrifying hours with constanzo and his cronies and then at some point mark was killed when a machete was brought down on the back of his neck afterwards mark's brain was removed and placed into their sacred cauldron and boiled and then mark's legs were removed and then a long wire was inserted into mark's torso and fished around inside of him until they hooked it onto his spinal column and then they buried his torso and his legs and they left that wire protruding from his body up out of the dirt there was basically a lead poking out of the ground and the reason they did that was because later on they could just pull on that wire and pull up mark's bones and use his bones to make jewelry mark's body was one of 15 discovered in and around the shack the total number of people that constanzo and his cult ritualistically murdered is at least 16 but believed to be closer to 26 however the police were not able to get the official number from constanzo because constanzo had his followers shoot and kill him before the police could get to him five other cult members were ultimately convicted for their roles in the cults murders and they were each given a sentence of over 60 years in prison so that's gonna do.
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