#9 - Levi Ogden
In November of 2019, British woman Levi Ogden was out for dinner and drinks in Halifax,
West Yorkshire with her boyfriend, Lloyd Birkby, as well as some friends,
when a domestic dispute broke out and eventually turned deadly. It was reported that, while the
couple were on their way back to their shared Elland residence, they got into a particularly
contentious argument. At one point during the row, Birkby ragefully hurled his cell phone at Ogden,
striking her in the neck with it. The 26-year-old woman was consequently knocked unconscious and
then rushed to the hospital. Shortly thereafter, the mother-of-two was pronounced dead. In the
shocking incident’s aftermath, a medical examiner determined Ogden’s cause of death
to have been cardiac arrest, induced by the brain hemorrhage that the impact of the cell
phone had caused. Although the circumstances of Ogden’s demise proved unexpected to many,
West Yorkshire police were well aware of the tensions that existed between her and her
partner leading up to the incident. Officers had been dispatched to the couple’s home on roughly
20 previous domestic violence calls prior to the fateful November altercation. Birkby was
arrested and charged with his girlfriend’s murder, which he denied, instead admitting manslaughter.
Following a trial at Leeds Crown Court in April of 2020, he was jailed for 5 years.
#8 - Arellys Mercado Ríos
34-year-old Arellys Mercado Rios accompanied her friends for a day out on a yacht at Isla Palomino,
a popular uninhabited island in eastern Puerto Rico, on August the 18th of 2019. That night,
the group returned to the pier at Villa Marina Boulevard in Fajardo, where Rios came upon a cell
phone that had been left behind in a bathroom. She decided to keep it inside their yacht until
its owner showed up to retrieve it. However, when Jensen Medina Cardona did ultimately return
to the dock in search of his misplaced device, an argument erupted between him and Rios. He
reportedly accused the woman of intending to steal the lost item, warning her that she had
“no idea who she was getting involved with”. In a rage, Medina Cardona pulled out a firearm and
gunned Rios down before fleeing the scene with his female companion. The man was eventually
tracked down and taken into police custody, whereupon he was charged with first-degree murder,
as well as two weapons violations, in connection to the deadly incident. In October of 2021,
Fajardo Superior Court Judge Gema González Rodríguez found Medina Cardona guilty on
all counts, and he was consequently sentenced to an aggregate total of 129 years in prison.
#7 - Joshua Burwell
An Indiana man fell to his death off of the Sunset Cliffs in San Diego while looking down at his cell
phone on Christmas Day 2015. The county medical examiner's office revealed that 33-year-old Joshua
Burwell, a father of one, had gone to the popular ocean viewing site in search of a sunset to
photograph. Distracted by his electronic device, Burwell slipped and plummeted 40 feet onto the
rocks below the beach cliff. Three witnesses climbed down and administered the man CPR,
but their rescue efforts proved fruitless. In the aftermath, San Diego lifeguard Bill Bender told
reporters that people should be aware of their surroundings when visiting the cliffs, saying,
“Just like driving and using a cell phone, you don’t want to be walking and using a cell phone”.
#6 - Ana Satian
On November the 8th of 2014, New Jersey resident Ana Satian was visiting a friend’s house on 3rd
Street in Newark when she was suddenly accosted by a group of armed muggers.
The assailants reportedly snatched the woman’s cell phone, shot her, then fled the scene. The
22-year-old mother of two was taken to University Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries
the following day. Newark authorities ultimately identified 4 suspects involved in the fatal cell
phone robbery. Massai Laboo and Lauren Whatley, both in their 20s, were arrested in late 2014,
while their two accomplices, Mumit Marrow and Perry Howard, were taken into custody during
the first couple months of the following year. In May of 2015, all 4 were indicted on murder,
felony murder, robbery and weapons charges in connection to Satian’s slaying. As of the
case’s latest available updates, at least 2 of the defendants had entered not guilty pleas.
#5 - Robert Bursik
Just after 12 pm on February the 27th of 2018, a deadly accident occurred in the eastbound lanes of
Highway 36 in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. The vehicle being operated by Wisconsin man Robert Bursik
violently crashed into a semi-truck. The resulting collision was so severe, that Minnesota State
Troopers who responded to the scene couldn’t determine the make or model of 54-year-old
Bursik’s car. The motorist was killed, and the driver of the semi, identified as 28-year-old
Samuel Hicks, subsequently turned himself in at the Washington County Jail after a warrant was
issued for his arrest. Reports surfaced in the incident’s aftermath, which detailed how Hicks
had admitted to being distracted by his cell phone in the moments leading up to the fatal
crash. As investigators confirmed using the semi’s dashcam, the truck driver was looking
at his mobile device for 8 seconds before he slammed into Bursik at 63 miles per hour. The man,
who expressed remorse for his reckless actions, revealed that he’d been perusing potential houses
for sale prior to the collision. In court, Hicks addressed Bursik’s family directly,
saying, “From the bottom of my heart I'd really like to say that I’m sorry and I wished it had
never happened”. As part of a plea agreement, he was ultimately sentenced to 1 year in jail,
followed by 10 years of supervised release. He also had his commercial driving privileges revoked
and was ordered to participate in anti-distracted driving campaigns with the Minnesota State Patrol.
#4 - Roger Mirro
At about 9:30 pm on July the 30th of 2013, a woman contacted the police to report that her husband,
56-year-old Roger Mirro, had gone missing. A neighbor at the Mirros’ apartment complex in the
Chicago suburb of Palatine told investigators that he’d seen the man about 3 hours earlier
when he stopped by to ask for a key to the trash room, located in a lower level parking
garage. Roger had told the other resident that he was going to search for his lost cell phone,
which he believed might have fallen down the garbage chute in his hallway and ended up in
the trash compactor. Officers subsequently went to the trash room, where they found a ladder
propped up against the side of the large industrial compactor. Inside the machine,
they found Roger’s lifeless body, which had “obvious signs of trauma”. The police
concluded that there was no evidence of foul play in connection to Roger’s death, which
was labeled a tragic accident precipitated by a man intent on retrieving his misplaced phone.
#3 - Felon Smith
Chicago woman Felon Smith dropped her cell phone onto the railway tracks while waiting for a midday
train at the 69th Street Red Line platform on June the 27th of 2019. Although the 37-year-old woman
was repeatedly warned to stay off the tracks, she decided to climb down to retrieve her fallen
device anyway. Smith had trouble getting back up onto the platform, however, and soon found herself
staring down an oncoming northbound train. She was struck by the locomotive in front of several
horrified witnesses. Emergency medical personnel were called to the scene, but Smith’s injuries
proved too severe and she was pronounced dead. The Chicago Transit Authority subsequently launched a
full-scale investigation into the incident. City officials ultimately determined that the operator
of the train that collided with Smith had violated CTA guidelines “including attention to duty and
safe train operations” by diverting his eyes away from the tracks for more than 20 seconds, as was
captured by surveillance footage. The operator was consequently fired, and Smith’s family filed
a civil lawsuit against the CTA and its former security company. The family’s attorneys alleged
that the security guard on duty that day had “failed to provide any assistance whatsoever,
despite their close proximity to [the victim] and knowledge that she was in need of assistance”.
#2 - 2008 Chatsworth Train Accident
Shortly after 3:30 pm on September the 12th of 2008, Metrolink commuter train #111 departed from
Union Station in downtown Los Angeles bound for Moorpark in suburban Ventura County. Roughly 40
minutes later, the locomotive left Chatsworth station with 222 passengers on board. After
traveling about a mile, it collided head-on with an eastbound Union Pacific local freight train,
killing 25 and injuring another 135, 46 of whom were left in critical condition. Among
the casualties were the Metrolink train’s engineer, 46-year-old Robert Sanchez,
who died in the collision. Following a preliminary investigation into the matter, it was determined
that Sanchez was the one directly responsible for the accident, which was reported as the deadliest
in Metrolink's history, as well as the worst in the US since the Big Bayou Canot train disaster
of 1993. While distracted by text conversations he was having, Sanchez reportedly failed to obey
a stop signal that indicated it wasn’t safe to proceed into the single track section,
leading to the crash. $200 million, the maximum amount permitted under the Amtrak Reform and
Accountability Act of 1997, was allotted to compensate the victims and their families.
#1 - Evgenia Shulyatyeva
In September of 2019, reports surfaced regarding the death of a 26-year-old Russian
accountant who’d dropped her cell phone while having a bath at her home in Kirovo-Chepetsk,
approximately 500 miles from Moscow. The electronic device reportedly slipped out of
Evgenia Shulyatyeva’s hands while it was charging. Investigators later indicated that she was killed
almost instantly by way of electrocution after the phone landed in the water with her. When
Shulyatyeva’s 53-year-old mother, Vera, couldn’t get a hold of her, she rushed to her daughter’s
apartment, where she came upon the horrifying bathroom scene. In the wake of the incident,
it emerged that Shulyatyeva was the 8th documented Russian in a span of 12 months to have been killed
after dropping a charging cell phone into the bath, despite repeated government warnings.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather your cell phone randomly emitted an
electric shock once a week or be unable to lower your ringtone volume below the
maximum level? Let us know in the comments section below!