On the afternoon of January 22, 2024, an elderly woman named Janet Lee sat at her computer on the second floor of her home in Newcastle, England. She was trying to focus on reviewing her recent bank statements, but it wasn’t easy—her boyfriend’s voice downstairs kept pulling her attention away. Janet’s longtime partner, Richard O’Connell, […]
On April 5, 2018, a young man named Luis Hernandez sat inside a small stone shack with a metal roof, located on a remote property in northern Venezuela. Luis was a painter, and for the past year or so, this humble shack had doubled as both his home and his art studio. The place was
On the afternoon of October 11, 2023, a 48-year-old man named Samuel Gomez stood in the lobby of the Moxy Hotel in Portland, Oregon, chatting with the concierge. Samuel had flown in from Phoenix earlier that morning to speak at a conference later in the week. But for now, he planned to explore the city
At 10 p.m. on January 31st, 2012, a 23-year-old man named Chen Rong-Yu walked into an internet café in New Taipei City, Taiwan. The café had a front counter where a cashier would check you in and sell snacks and drinks. Behind the counter, there were long rows of tables, each set up with computer
On the afternoon of May 21st, 1974, a 39-year-old man named Polar Gomez was walking through a dense forest in Argentina. In one hand, he carried a machete, and in the other, an axe. As he made his way through the underbrush, he used the machete to clear the path ahead. Eventually, he came upon
At 6:30 p.m. on July 29th, 2023, 15-year-old Talia Deila Diaz stood just outside the back door of her house, staring into the thick, shadowy rainforest that made up her backyard. She lived in a tiny, isolated village in Peru—right in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. As she looked out into the jungle, she
On the evening of December 24, 2001, 48-year-old businessman Kevin Butler was in the kitchen of his Dallas, Texas home, preparing food for a Christmas party he planned to attend the following day. As he focused on the task, he suddenly heard his friend Larry—who spent a lot of time at his house—calling to him
One evening in late 2003, a 22-year-old man named Michael Bridges sat in the stands of a professional hockey game in Calgary, a major city in Canada. As he stared out at the rink, waiting for the players to file in, he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be there. Michael lived about 700
On the morning of August 30th, 2001, a middle-aged police sergeant named Alan McGregor drove with his partner, Officer Mark David, toward the Huron National Forest — a sprawling nature preserve in northern Michigan. The two officers were headed there to meet a very unlikely detective. One that McGregor believed might finally help him solve
At 7:20 p.m. on Friday, January 12th, 2007, 19-year-old college freshman Wade Steffey walked into Ford Dining Hall, one of five dining halls on Purdue University’s campus. Purdue, a prestigious university in Indiana, is well known for its excellence in both athletics and academics. Wade was an aviation technology student attending Purdue on a full
