Who held masterpieces ransom?
Who hid dead bodies in their yard?
We count 15 people that kept secrets from the world.
· 15 - Arsene Goedertier
● The Ghent Altarpiece is a 12 panel long masterpiece that was made in the early 15th
century and somehow managed to survive historical riots and fires throughout its existence.
● However in 1934, two masked men stole a couple of the painting’s panels in the
middle of the night and held them ransom.
The thieves returned one of the panels but kept the other.
Eventually a man called Arsene Goedertier declared on his deathbed that he was the only
person who knew where the last panel was hidden, but died without ever telling anyone.
● The whereabouts of the panel are still unknown to this day.
14 - Derek Percy ● One of the most notorious murderers in
Australia’s history died before police found out his most terrible secrets.
● After being convicted of murdering a twelve year old girl in 1969, police were pretty
sure Derek Percy was responsible for the murders of other children but they didn’t have proof.
After he died of lung cancer in 2013, authorities found a storage facility full of Percy’s
darkest fantasies scrawled in thousands of documents.
● One of his diaries helped police trace a map of his travels, which coincided with
a map of eight other murder sites.
13 - Evariste Galois ● The father of modern algebra might have
been an even bigger contributor to history if he hadn’t died violently at a young age.
● Evariste Galois wrote a revolutionary manuscript to a friend, but in his haste to
write it, he didn’t explain it completely.
In 1832, Galois was challenged to a duel.
No one is sure what the duel was about.
Some say it was over a scandalous love affair, some say it was due to his radical political
views.
Either way, he was brutally killed.
● It took specialists decades to figure out Galois’ unfinished manuscript, which
is now called Galois Theory.
12 - Nacho Bitch ● Before Facebook, people tended to live
more private and adventurous lives, sometimes they even had double lives.
● A user called, Nacho Bitch on Reddit described how after her grandmother died, she made a
startling discovery.
As she was taking her grandmother’s clothes to a charity store, she found a love letter
addressed to her grandmother in a coat pocket.
The note was not written by her grandfather, but a soldier from World War II who died shortly
after writing it.
● For 60 years her grandmother carried around the mysterious love letter, right up until
the day she died.
11 - Hollywood ● Sometimes it seems like celebrities can
get away with just about anything, even a little bit of murder.
● During the filming of the timeless Hollywood classic, Noah’s Ark, the director had some
pretty questionable ways of capturing a scene.
There is a rumour that director Michael Curtiz was responsible for three extras drowning
in a water scene because they were in heavy costumes with no floatation devices, and apparently
he didn’t them they were going to be submerged in water for several hours.
● The stuntman who apparently witnessed the drownings said Hollywood brushed it all
under the rug and no charges were ever laid.
10 - Judy Garland ● Hollywood seems to be a place full of
grim secrets behind the big screens.
● The actress whose most famous role was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz was known to the
public as an American sweetheart, but behind the scenes she was literally being pushed
to the edge of her sanity.
The actress was allegedly tormented and abused so badly by the people around her that she
ended up attempting suicide in a mental asylum.
● Her deteriorated health was covered up in order to please the Hollywood audiences
and public image of her agents.
9 - Beethoven’s Crush ● Imagine living your entire life knowing
that you’re in love with someone but you could never tell them.
● Famous German composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven left a mysterious 10 page letter to an unknown
recipient in his personal belongings after his death.
It was entitled, ‘Immortal Beloved’ and was obviously intended for a woman who he
was deeply in love with.
None of his biographers know who Beethoven’s secret love was.
● He took his secret to the grave.
8 - Moto Grandad ● When a grandparent dies, people will often
share stories about their lives and sometimes those stories can be quite surprising.
● A reddit user whose Grandfather passed away found an old medal in his belongings.
There was an image of two men balancing on a motorbike on the medallion.
After asking his father what it was for, he found out that his grandfather had been an
acrobat in the late 1960’s, specialising in motorcycle stunts.
● Something as fascinating as that, and his grandfather didn’t even mention it once!
7 - Thomas Mair ● Sometimes you think you know your neighbours,
and sometimes they turn out to be murderers.
● In 2016, a town in England was rattled when Thomas Mair, a disability assistant and
volunteer worker, brutally murdered a member of Parliament with his bare hands.
After shooting and stabbing his victim to death, police seized Mair’s belongings and
found out he was a raging nazi sympathiser.
● People who knew him were astounded at the revelation of his extremist views and
couldn’t believe he was capable of murder.
6 -James Black ● In a time when craftsmanship and technical
mastery were booming, one American blacksmith was doing pretty damn well for himself.
● James Black was renowned for the sharpness and quality of his steel.
Whenever he worked on his steel, he did so behind a leather curtain so that nobody could
see his technique.
Unfortunately, Black’s father-in-law was deranged and after a spontaneous and violent
altercation, Black was left completely blind.
● He lived out the rest of his days silently, not telling a single soul his mysterious steelmaking
processes.
5 – Vivian Maier ● We’ve all got hobbies but some of us
feel like society can’t handle our secret passions.
● A woman called Vivian Maier spent all 86 years of her life taking tens of thousands
of photos of the world around her, without showing a single photo to anyone.
A film director bought her mysterious box of undeveloped film in 2007, and printed every
single image.
Her photographs were considered some of the most important works from the 20th century.
● Vivian Maier was an instant star, but she died shortly after, never to realise the
masterpieces she made.
4 - Josef Fritzl ● Unlike Vivian Maier, this guy had less
of a hobby and more of like, a sinister psychopathic impulse.
● Josef Fritzl became a notorious name recognised around the world when it was revealed in 2008
that he had kept his daughter in an underground cellar for 24 years, starting when she was
18.
He even violently impregnated his own daughter, who gave birth to seven children, three of
which never saw daylight until their discovery and one twin who died after birth.
● For 24 years, Elisabeth Fritzl lived a life of horrors, and since her escape she
now lives in the countryside with her children.
3 - Milli Vanilli ● When a new soul-pop music duo appeared
on the charts in Germany, people were pretty surprised to find out their secret.
● Fans of their music discovered that their beloved Milli Vanilli didn’t actually sing.
Not on stage, and not even on their own records.
On stage they lip-synched, and on their albums they got completely different people to sing.
Basically all they did was mime.
● They even fooled people enough to win a Grammy for Best New Artist.
Unsurprisingly it was taken back from them when they were exposed.
2 - Margaret Bulkley ● James Barry was the top ranked doctor
in the British Army, first surgeon to ever succeed in performing a caesarean section,
and even healed Napolean’s son.
● His secret was pretty shocking though.
After dying of dysentery, the nurses who performed an autopsy on James Barry found out that not
only was he not James Barry, but also he wasn’t even a man.
Her real name was Margaret Bulkley and she was forced to pretend to be a man in order
to become a doctor because women weren’t allowed.
● No one suspected a thing her entire life, which is weird because the autopsy showed
she even gave birth while she masqueraded as a man.
1 - Ahmad Suradji ● In 1997, some field workers found a lone
corpse laying in a field, which was the start of a morbid investigation.
● Another body was uncovered slowly after which led invesitgators to the property of
Ahmad Suradji.
After his arrest, police found that Suradji had strangled and murdered up to 42 women
and girls, and even drank their salive because he believed it would give him superpowers.
● After an elevn year killing spree, the self-proclaimed shaman was sentenced to death
by firing squad.
His wife was also convicted for assisting in the murders and was convicted to life in
prison.