Transcription
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 those stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, you've come to the right channel because that's all we do. And we upload three or four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please secretly use the like button's toothbrush to clean a dog's teeth and then just put the brush back. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.
All right, let's get into today's stories. In 1956, the SS Andrea Doria, which was a beautiful ocean liner, was considered to be Italy's largest, fastest, and safest ship. But those things would not be what this ship was remembered for. On July 25th of that year, the ship was sailing towards the East Coast of the United States when it ran into some very heavy fog. And so, following procedure, the captain slowed the vessel down and turned on their fog whistle. A little while later, another vessel, the Swedish ocean liner called the SS Stockholm, entered the fog as well, but they were unaware of the Andrea Doria's position.
Now, both vessels were using radar, but unfortunately, both vessels misinterpreted what they were seeing. And so neither of them communicated with the other as they cared towards each other. When visual contact was finally made between the two ships, it was too late. A collision was imminent. At 11:10 p.m. that night, the bow of the Stockholm plowed directly into the side of the Andrea Doria, penetrating over 40 feet inside the ship before coming back out again. The impact killed 46 people on the Andrea Doria and five people on the Stockholm.
When the story broke, every major news outlet around the world picked it up, including ABC News in the United States. And the news correspondent that they chose to cover this story was a man named Edward Morgan. And unbeknownst to his co-workers, his 14-year-old daughter, Linda Morgan, was on board the Andrea Doria. And just before he went on, he was informed that she was amongst the missing and presumed dead. And there was virtually nothing he could do but wait for more information. And so, despite his incredible burden, Edward still went on the air and reported the story without ever losing his composure and without ever mentioning his daughter.
But after he got off the air, another story began to develop about the crash. Apparently, a girl who was asleep in one of the rooms on the Andrea Doria that experienced a direct hit from the Stockholm woke up after the crash and didn't know where she was. And she began yelling out for her mother. Meanwhile, a man on board the Stockholm heard the girl's cries and he ran towards the front of the Stockholm, which is where he heard these cries coming from. And when he got up there, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Perched on the destroyed bow of the Stockholm was a bed, and on that bed was a relatively unhurt 14-year-old girl named Linda Morgan. It would turn out when the Stockholm penetrated into the Andrea Doria, the bow of the Stockholm scooped the bed Linda Morgan was on up and kind of dragged her into the ship. And then when it retracted out of the Andrea Doria, it brought that bed and Linda Morgan with it.
When Edward Morgan found out that his daughter was the so-called Miracle Girl, he was overcome with emotions. And he would go back on the air, and this time he would talk about his daughter and her incredible survival story. And he would also talk about how hard it was to deliver the news when it was about someone he loved. Linda would make a full physical recovery. She only suffered from a broken arm, but she would suffer enormously from survivor guilt, as her stepfather and her half-sister were both killed in the crash.
On April 27th, 1997, a farmer in Indonesia was walking his livestock through a thick sugarcane field near his house when he tripped on something. After he regained his balance and looked down, he noticed a strange mound of dirt that seemed totally out of place. He wanted to dig it up just out of curiosity, but he wasn't on his property. So instead, he walked back to the village and he told the village leader about this strange pile of dirt and suggested he see what's under it. So the village leader and some other men headed back out to the field. They found this dirt pile, and the first thing they do is they poke it with a stick. The stick went right into the pile. It was a soft pile of dirt, and when they pulled it out, this horrible stench filled the air that was coming out of this mound. Worried about what they might find underneath this pile, the men decided to leave it alone and go back to the village and tell authorities about it. And the authorities promptly told them to go back out there and uncover this thing and tell them what they find.
And so the village leader and some more men head back out to the field, and they start digging. And pretty quickly, their shovel strikes something that's fairly soft inside of this mound. And so after delicately removing some more dirt, they discover a woman's face is looking right back at them. It appeared she had been buried up to her neck, and then someone had just thrown dirt on top of her head. At this point, the authorities did come out, and they were able to identify the body as belonging to a 21-year-old local woman named Dewi. After asking around the village about this girl, the police determined the last time anyone had seen her was three days earlier, when she had left her house to run an errand. But after that, no one knew what happened to her.
Just a few hours after Dewi's discovery, a 15-year-old rickshaw driver came to the police with additional information. He said three days earlier, on the evening of April 24th, so the same day that people had seen Dewi last, he said she had come to him to ask for a ride. And when she got into the rickshaw, he asked where she wanted to go, and she said she did not want to tell him specifically where she was going. Instead, she just wanted him to drive in a particular direction, and she would give him more information about how to get where she wanted to go as they got closer. And so this really intrigued the driver. And so after he began going in this direction, he turned to her again and said, "You know, can you tell me anything more about where we're going? This is really weird that you're not giving me any more information." And so finally, Dewi relented, and she told him she was going to see the shaman.
A shaman, in simple terms, is someone who uses magic to cure the sick. The driver did think it was odd that this girl was going to see the shaman in the middle of the night, and she was being so secretive about it. But after he dropped her off, he hadn't given it much thought until he found out she had died. The police approached the shaman, who was 45-year-old Ahmad Saraji, and they asked him if he had been with Dewi on the night of April 24th. Initially, Saraji said no, he had not been with her, and he had no idea what happened to her. But after police searched his house and found Dewi's belongings inside, Saraji said, "Okay, I've been lying, and I have a confession to make." And he would very nonchalantly tell police that not only had he killed Dewi, he had also killed dozens of other women the same way and buried them in the sugarcane field.
And so the police went out to the field and started looking around, and they found all these mounds of dirt all over the place, and under them were women buried up to their neck. After the excavation was all done, the police believed they found the bodies of 42 different women, but truthfully, that was just a guess. They believed there could be more. During his trial, Saraji explained in detail why he did the things he did. He said back in 1986, so 11 years earlier, he had this vivid dream where his deceased father came to him and instructed him to drink the saliva of 70 women, and if he did that, he would become immortal. When Saraji woke up, he didn't chalk up this experience as just a strange dream. He believed he had just had a real interaction with the spirit of his dead father, and so he decided he would do as he was told. But his father didn't explain to him how he was going to extract the saliva from these 70 women. And so after thinking about it for a couple of days, Saraji decided the most efficient way to do it would be to just kill the women and then forcibly take their saliva.
To find his victims, Saraji began telling people in his village that he had supernatural powers, that he was able to grant women, specifically, everlasting beauty and riches. And many people believed it. And so as this rumor spread, not only around his village but to surrounding areas, lots of women heard about it and came to him and requested his services. He would tell them to come back later that night when it was totally dark and to not tell anyone where they were going. Once they arrived, they would come inside of Saraji's house, and they would pay him a fee that was roughly equivalent to $300. And then he would tell them he needed to perform a ritual to give them their beauty and their riches. And so they would leave his house, they would cut through a cemetery, and they would enter into that sugarcane field, and they would walk for a while until Saraji stopped them. And he would hand the woman a shovel and he would tell her to dig a hole in the ground, and he would assure her this is part of the ritual. And so he would stand there as she dug the hole until it was about waist deep. And then he would tell her to get in the hole and put her hands by her side. If she was at all nervous, he would just reassure her again that this is all part of the ritual, that lots of people have done this before, that it's totally safe. And so she'd get in the hole, she'd put her hands by her side. Saraji would take the shovel and he would fill the hole back in until she was completely immobilized.
And then at this point, Saraji would pull out a cable, he would wrap it around their neck, and he would strangle them to death. And then once they were dead, he would pull their body out of the hole and then he would forcibly extract their saliva. And then after that, he would take the shovel again and dig the hole a little bit deeper, and then he would put the body back inside the hole, making sure their head was still sticking out of the ground. And he would orient them so their face was looking towards his house because he believed having these women constantly looking at him at all hours of the day gave him more power. He said as for Dewi, when she first came to his house and she had paid that fee, she was worried about leaving and going and doing this ritual. It scared her. And so Saraji told her to wait, and he went into the other room where his wife was, and he told her that, "Hey, I'm going to go kill this girl, and I need your help. I need you to calm her down." And his wife, who had no idea her husband was a mass murderer, just immediately went along with it. She came back into the room and she assured Dewi that everything was totally fine, they had done this before, it was all going to be perfectly safe, and she even said she would come with them to do this ritual. And so at this, Dewi was much more calm, and she agreed to go. And so the trio left the house, they went through the cemetery out to the field, and then only two people came back. Saraji was executed in 2008 by firing squad, and his wife was sentenced to life in prison.
Around midnight on September 3rd, 1986, Doug Wells and his wife Kristen were pulling onto their street in Western Montana when they noticed a camper parked in front of their house. Neither of them recognized the camper. And so when they pulled into their driveway, Doug got out and walked over and looked inside to see if anyone was in there. And there was. There was a man sleeping in the front seat. Doug didn't wake him up. Instead, he went back to his wife. They talked about it, and they decided that this man must have just randomly parked in front of their house, and that most likely the next day he would leave. And so the couple went inside their house and they began getting ready for bed.
At some point, Doug rounded up all the trash inside of the house and was going to bring it outside to put into the trash bin. And when he went outside, standing in his front lawn is the same guy who was just sleeping inside of the camper. And so Doug very cautiously goes down the front steps and he yells out to this guy and says, "You know, what are you doing here?" And immediately the man put his hands up and said he meant no harm. He said his name was Wayne Nance, and he actually worked with Doug's wife Kristen at the furniture store in town. Wayne went on to say that he happened to be driving down their street earlier that day, and he spotted someone standing outside one of their windows looking in their house. And he knew it was Kristen's house. And he looked in their driveway and he saw that Kristen wasn't home, and it looked like nobody was home. And so decided he would just park out front and try to scare off this person and wait for Kristen to get back. But by the time Kristen got back, he had fallen asleep.
Doug was totally caught off guard by this whole situation, the idea that there's this guy on his property talking about another guy that was lurking around his property. And so he asked Wayne, "You know, did you see this guy again after that first time you saw him?" And Wayne said no, he hadn't. But he didn't have a flashlight. And so maybe if Doug went in the house and got some flashlights, the two of them could walk the property and make sure nobody was there. Doug thanked him for the offer and said, "Okay, well, why don't you come in the house and I'll go look for those flashlights?" And so Doug led the way inside of his house. And as soon as Wayne got in the house and shut the front door behind him, he pulled out a metal pipe he was hiding and smashed Doug over the back of the head. Doug turned around and Wayne hit him again over the face. And before long, the two of them were struggling on the ground.
Kristen, who was upstairs, heard the commotion and she came running down the stairs. And she sees at the bottom her husband, who's bleeding profusely from his head, he's covering himself up on the ground while Wayne, her coworker, is standing over him punching and kicking him. Before Kristen could do anything, Wayne noticed her up on the stairs and he drew a pistol and aimed it at her and told her to come down here and tie up your husband's arms and legs. Kristen, who's in shock, is just hoping this was just a robbery and that they would have their lives spared. And so she does as she's told. She walks down. Wayne throws her some cord, she ties up her husband's arms and legs, and then afterwards, Wayne leads Kristen back upstairs to the bedroom where he ties her up as well.
After that, Wayne went back down to the main floor where Doug was still laying on the ground, and he grabbed Doug by the legs and he pulled him down the flight of stairs to the basement where he tied him up to a pole. And then he savagely beat him with the pipe. Before Wayne pulled out an 8-inch blade and plunged it directly into Doug's chest all the way in. And then when he pulled it out again, Doug slumped over. Wayne went back upstairs, all the way to the second floor to check on Kristen, and he saw she had managed to get partially out of her restraints and she was reaching for the landline. And so he jumped on top of her and managed to restrain her all over again. And then after he was confident in her restraints, he went back downstairs to make sure Doug was dead.
When he got down there, he saw Doug was still slouched over in the same position he had left him. And so Wayne assumed Doug must be dead. And Wayne went back upstairs to assault Kristen. But Wayne was wrong. Doug wasn't dead. And after Wayne went upstairs that second time, Doug, despite his horrific head and chest injuries, managed to wriggle out of his restraints. And then hobbled over to a workbench where he had a rifle laying out, because Doug was actually a gunsmith. And so he took the rifle and he loaded it with the one round he found on the table. And then he walked over to the base of the stairs. He raised his rifle and he made his way up to the main floor. He didn't come in contact with Wayne. And he looked around the first floor. He didn't see him. And he heard his wife screaming upstairs. And so he made his way to the next set upstairs and began walking up with his rifle raised.
At the top of the stairs to the second floor, there was a hallway that ran right and left out of sight. And so as Doug is making his way up, he can hear off to the left, out of view, his wife screaming in the bedroom, and can hear the sound of very heavy footsteps running down the hall towards the landing where he is. And so Doug positioned himself in the stairwell. He took aim about chest height with his rifle and he waited for their attacker to show himself. And so as soon as Wayne came flying around the corner with his knife in his hand, Doug just fired one shot that struck him right in the stomach. Wayne fell backwards, totally shocked at what had just happened. He began to stagger. And Doug, meanwhile, turned his rifle around like a baseball bat because he didn't have any more rounds. And he just starts walking down the hall, smashing Wayne as Wayne continues to stumble and fall and try to run away from Doug. And finally, he gets away from Doug, charges into the bedroom where Kristen is, and he grabs his pistol and he turns around and he fires three shots towards the door where Doug is now standing.
And Doug, he's unfazed. One round hits him in the leg, the other two miss. He doesn't care. He just walks up to Wayne and begins bashing his head in with the back of this rifle. He hits him so many times that the butt of the rifle explodes and the metal of the rifle bends like an L. And at some point, Wayne drops the gun because he's getting viciously beaten on by Doug and his rifle. And Doug sees that he grabs the pistol and he fires the remaining rounds into Wayne's head.
Police and paramedics would show up shortly thereafter, and Doug, Kristen, and their attacker, Wayne, were all rushed to the hospital. Doug and Kristen would make full recoveries. As for Wayne, he would die the following day from his injuries. After the incident, the police investigated Wayne Nance to see who this guy was, and they discovered that almost certainly he had been a serial killer that was connected to at least six cold case murders from 1974 to 1986. But because Wayne never confessed to any of these murders before he died, the true number of people he killed is still unknown.
So that's going to do it, guys. If you found the secret in today's episode, let us know in the comments what it is and where you found it. If you're the first to do that, we'll pin you at the top of the comment section. If you got something out of today's video and you haven't done this already, please secretly use the like button's toothbrush to clean a dog's teeth and then just put the brush back. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly three or four video uploads. If you want to get in touch with me, you can direct message me on Instagram or on Twitter. My username for both platforms is the same, it's JohnBallin416. I also have a ton of content over on TikTok where my username is MrBallin. I also have a second YouTube channel called MrBallin Shorts where I post random short videos and lost episodes. If you have a story suggestion, please submit it to our subreddit, just called MrBallin. It's linked in the description below. So whether I see you on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, or some combination, just know that I really appreciate your support. And until next time, that's going to do it. See you.