At 13-years-old Paul Martin Andrews was asked by a man in a van to help him move some furniture, which he happily agreed to do. However when Martin was taken nearly 30 miles away from his home and brought into the woods, he realized something was very wrong. The man had Martin follow him deep into the woods and jump into a small box that was buried underground. After nearly a week in a box Martin was subjected to unimaginable horror, and yet through it all, he refused to give up. 

In August 2016, the Tromp family mysteriously fled their successful berry farm in Silvan, Australia, on a spontaneous "off-grid" road trip without phones, credit cards, or passports. Over a six-day period, they split up, and were eventually found scattered across multiple states in paranoid, catatonic, or agitated states.

On Saturday June 8th 2019, Maike Hohnen took his son, 7 year old Julian Hohnen, and best friend Steven Jaecocke on what was supposed to be an overnight fishing trip off the coast of Queensland Australia. Around 1:30AM Maike was woken up to the boat very swiftly taking on water and within a matter of minutes the boat went down. Maike, Julian, and Stephen were left stranded in the ocean with no lifejackets, floating on a pair of old buckets with no idea what would come next.

Judy Buenoano was an American serial killer who poisoned two of her husbands with arsenic, attempted to kill her fiancé, and murdered her own son. Driven by greed, she collected substantial life insurance payouts after each murder. She was the first woman executed in Florida in 150 years and the first to die in the state's electric chair

On September 29th 2016, 45 year old Elizabeth Wettlaufer voluntarily reported herself as a serial killer to Toronto Police. Wettlaufer injected her victims with fatal doses of insulin because she believed God was telling her to. Her victims were elderly and vulnerable, ranging in age from 75 to 96.

Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escape artist, renowned as the "Handcuff King" for his death-defying escapes. He became world-renowned for escaping from handcuffs, straitjackets, milk cans, and locked chests, often while submerged in water. While his death was not a direct result of his performances, he had a few terrifying brushes with death and another magician who attempted one of his acts did tragically die on stage when something went wrong.

In this Listener story episode we discuss almost falling into an upside down volcano, a parent who was held at gunpoint, very creepy characters in Disneyland Paris, and more!

The Word of Life Christian Church began as a tiny bible study led by self proclaimed prophet, Jerry Irwin. Eventually the bible study progressed into a fully fledged cult with around 80 members at its peak. When the paranoid and power-hungry Jerry Irwin suddenly died, his eldest daughter Tiffanie took his place. As the leader, Tiffanie subjected the group to extreme isolation, control, and abuse which ultimately would result in the brutal murder of 19-year-old Lucas Leonard.

22-year-old Hannah Pettey, a married mother of two from Alabama, suffered debilitating pain and lost more than 45 pounds as her health rapidly declined. As doctors worked to figure out what was causing the months of Hannah’s pain, they concluded someone had been poisoning her and whoever it was, they were probably pretty close to her.

In 2003 Ken Jones spent four agonizing days in the frozen wilderness of Romania’s Transylvanian Alps, dragging himself to safety after getting hit by an avalanche that left him with a shattered pelvis and broken femur.