It's no secret that religion has been the excuse for mass killings and other terrible acts of violence throughout history. Whether that includes the Crusades, the Jihads, or the Jim Joneses, there are also the added cases that happen in our midst, sometimes in a neighborhood as innocuous as yours.
It's the unpredictability of those who think God or Satan or a little pink ferry is telling them to murder that is the scariest thought of all. And it is also what makes these diabolical mysteries so interesting. What caused these people to really do it? Was it a man upstairs, or a psychotic voice from within?
Mother Tries Drowning Three-Year-Old in Puddle
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One Spring day in Arizona, a neighbor heard screams coming from next door. He saw
Victoria Soliz, 30, pushing her toddler's head into a puddle in an attempt to drown him. He called the police. She told the police that Jesus made her do it and that she was "self-medicating" with crystal meth for schizophrenia. Not the best treatment in my humble opinion.
"God Told Me to Cut Off Children's Heads"
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When decapitated corpses began showing up in the Ivory Coast, parents were afraid to let their children go outside and play. It was a mystery until a witness saw
Drissa Coulibaly, 30, attacking two kids aged 14 and 10 with a machete.
"I would be made king," Coulibaly told police. Decapitations and mutilations happened until he was detained. Coulibaly confessed to at least three murders, but the verdict is still out on the other 17.
Missionary Rapes Children, Says, "The Devil Made Me Do It"
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Matthew Durham, a 19-year-old from Oklahoma, volunteered at an orphanage in Kenya. Between April and June of 2014, he would rape and force oral sex on victims aged 6 to 9, both girls and boys. In a deposition he wrote, "I took her to the bathroom and forced her to have sex with me. This happened on more than one occasion."
Durham told a friend that he had a
demon living inside him named Luke who would force him to do such things. It was only when church members began noticing the children's strange behavior that they decided to confront Durham, forcing him to confess. He is currently on trial and has pled not guilty.
Greyhound Killer Thought Victim He Beheaded Was an Alien
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Remember this sick bastard? In 2008 Vince Li was accused of beheading and chowing on a fellow Greyhound passenger. Everyone gasped in horror and fled the bus, and the bus driver locked Li in, as everyone was forced to witness Li taunting the passengers with victim Tim McLean's head.
Anyway, the fucker thought God was telling him to save the world from an alien attack, and he thought McLean was an alien. Li is now receiving treatment for his schizophrenia in a mental health facility in Manitoba, Canada.
Mother Kills Baby in Public Because She Was "Afraid Someone Was Going to Eat Him"
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In March, a restaurant worker in Manhattan discovered a woman with a baby foaming at the mouth lying on her lap. "I put him to sleep with my hand," she said.
Latisha Fisher, 35, believed her one-year-old would be eaten. She blamed the devil. Fisher was charged with second-degree murder.
Mom Crushes Children's Heads with Rock
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God allegedly told
Deanna Laney, mother of three, that the world was going to end and that she needed to "get her house in order." Apparently that included murdering her three sons.
On Mother's Day of 2003, Laney smashed her Biblically-named children, Joshua and Luke, 8 and 6, with a large stone. The last thing they saw was their mother standing over their heads about to crush them. When she called the police, she told the 911 operator, "I just killed my boys. I don't think I did right by Aaron." Thankfully, she didn't, and the 15-month-old Aaron survived.
Laney was released in May 2012 after serving eight years in Kerrville State Hospital. Shit.
Boyfriend Cooks Girlfriend on Stovetop
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In 2008, police found an ear boiling in a pot and a hunk of flesh on a fork ready to be served at the residence of
Christopher McCuin. The 25-year-old killed his 21-year-old girlfriend (who died of blunt force trauma to the head) and cooked parts of her body. McCuin later told investigators that God made him do it.
Mom Botches Home Circumcision
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One Portland woman thought she was too late to have a doctor perform a circumcision on her three-month-old son. So she did it herself.
Inspired by the Old Testament, 30-year-old
Keemonta Peterson sat down to watch YouTube videos in order to train herself. Once ready, she took a knife to her child's penis and uncontrollable bleeding ensued. Luckily, the infant recovered. They sentenced Peterson to five years probation for being such a dunderhead.
Russian Teenagers Stab Four Victims 666 Times Each ... Then Eat Them
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Four Russian goths disappeared from their parents' home in June of 2008. In September, their limbs, hearts and scalps were discovered in a fire pit 300 miles north-east of Moscow.
Eight teenagers were arrested. Police discovered each victim had been stabbed exactly 666 times each, and later learned their body parts were consumed as part of a sickening Satanic ritual. They also found a dead rodent crucified on an upside-down cross.
One of the teens told investigators, "Satan will help me to avoid responsibility. I made lots of sacrifices to him." It was also disclosed that they once dug up a dead girl from her grave and ate her heart.
Jim Jones
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If you don't know who Jim Jones is by now, please crawl back under that rock.
Jones was the leader of the Peoples Temple, a religious cult based out of California. But they would eventually move to Guyana - those damn Cali living expenses - and set up camp in what they would call Jonestown.
On November 18, 1978, Jones would
convince 918 people to "swallow the Kool-Aid." Before 9/11 it was considered the greatest single loss of life in American history. Originally dubbed a socialist paradise, it would literally turn into hell, with Jones scaring the bejesus out of his followers by telling them the government would inevitably come and kill them. He told them a more dignified death would be mass suicide.
While it is up to debate to say that God made Jim Jones kill, it is clear that his followers deemed Jones God himself, thus making them commit the unthinkable atrocity of ingesting cyanide.
