Number 8 Nathan Drew Morgan Boater John Dotson and his wife Debra,
both in their 70s, saw that a jet-ski rider and his companion had gotten into trouble on
Lake Keowee, South Carolina, in March of 2022. After losing control of the watercraft at high
speed, 29-year-old Nathan Drew Morgan had ended up in the water along with his friend Hannah Ayers,
aged 19. Neither of them was wearing a life vest and, as Ayers struggled to remain afloat
in the frigid water, Dotson approached her in the pontoon boat. He and Debra helped the
teenager into the vessel and wrapped a blanket around her. They then went after Morgan, who’d
begun swimming towards his unmanned jet-ski while it was circling the water. As soon as Morgan was
pulled into the pontoon boat, as Ayers would later confirm, he began behaving aggressively, demanding
that the elderly couple go after his jet-ski and even trying to take control of their vessel.
Dotson urged him to calm down, claiming that they would continue to help him. Nevertheless,
an altercation ensued in which the younger man started grappling with Dotson, who was reported as
a veteran of the Vietnam War, and his wife. Ayers eventually intervened and pushed Morgan in the
lake in an attempt to deescalate the situation. The couple didn’t want to leave him behind and
helped him aboard once more, but he resumed his violent behavior. He started choking Dotson,
eventually prompting him to brandish a handgun and pistol-whip him. The war veteran fired a warning
shot in the air, repeatedly telling Morgan that he didn’t want to hurt him. Ayers would later
tell the police that Morgan was acting “like a demon possessed his body” and wouldn’t relent,
charging the elderly man once more. Dotson ultimately shot him in the chest and he bled
to death in the boat as Debra fruitlessly tried to administer CPR. Ayers described Dotson’s actions
as “self-defense in every possible way”, the same conclusion reached by the Sheriff’s Office
following a brief investigation. Number 7 Andrew Pasek
In late August of 2017, Houston man Andrew Pasek went to check on his sister’s cat, D’Artagnan,
as floodwater from Hurricane Harvey ravaged the metropolitan area. Upon evacuating her home,
Alyssa Pasek had left the Maine Coon behind with an automatic feeder and a reserve of fresh water.
“He was just trying to be my hero” the woman later told a media outlet. 25-year-old Andrew had called
Alyssa to say that he was in her neighborhood and heading to check on D’Artagnan. The Army Corps
of Engineers had done a controlled release of the Addicks Reservoir and Alyssa’s house
had five feet of water inside. The power in her neighborhood hadn’t been turned off prior to the
reservoir’s release. In 2011, during his sophomore year at the University of Texas-San Antonio,
a car had run over Andrew’s ankle, resulting in plates and metal screws being inserted
to set his bone. As he stepped in the knee-deep water, the man touched a live wire with his foot
and the current jumped to the metal in his leg. He immediately felt the shock and, according to later
reports, told a friend walking behind him “Don’t touch me…I’m dying”. He then fell into the water
as his friend ran to higher ground and called 911. Because the power was still on, rescue workers
couldn’t reach him in time and Andrew passed away. His body was retrieved about an hour and a half
after the initial shock. Number 6 Donald Wright
In June of 2018, Arkansas kayaker Donald Wright died at Saddler Falls, along the Spring River,
while trying to rescue two other paddlers. 64-year-old Wright had taken a group of roughly
twenty people down the river. They were part of the Life Recovery Center, in Searcy, where
counselor Wright had reportedly been helping them recover from addiction, through faith and positive
reinforcement. During their day out, Doug Grey and James Hisel pitched up and fell from their shared
kayak after being sucked into a whirlpool caused by a rock collapse on the river. Wright paddled
out in a heroic attempt to save them. Hisel went through the whirlpool and came up the other end of
the sinkhole while Grey was able to swim to shore. The former was airlifted to a hospital and both
men escaped the incident with their lives. When Wright reached the turbulent spot on the water,
he became overturned and couldn’t get back up. He suffered fatal injuries after being hit in the
head by his kayak. Wright, described as an amazing man and “big old hippie” by his son, was mourned
by many of those on whom he’d had a positive influence on, in their struggle with addiction.
Number 5 Dennishia Smith
21-year-old Dennishia Smith, from East Point, Georgia, was gunned down in May of 2022 by a
man whom, according to family members, she’d been trying to help out. By all accounts, Smith thought
that Shelton Handspike was her friend and they weren’t reported as being romantically involved.
She’d been helping him get back on his feet by allowing him to live rent-free at her apartment.
However, while going through a period of financial difficulty, the young woman asked Handspike to
move out. He became enraged when the subject was brought up and grabbed a handgun from another
woman living in the apartment. Smith tried to fight back but was overpowered and fatally shot.
Upon learning about her death, the victim’s mother told a media outlet "I feel like someone
snatched my soul out of my body". She remarked upon the situation’s iniquity by adding that
her child had been “slaughtered” for trying to be a Good Samaritan. In the aftermath, Hanspike was
arrested and charged with murder. Number 4 Brittany Booker
Wisconsin woman Brittany Booker intervened when her friend was attacked by her abusive partner,
41-year-old Terry “Scooter Man” Jackson, at a home in Racine, on February the 27th of 2022. The
latter beat both Booker and his partner, whose identity wasn’t released, with a claw hammer,
inflicting serious injuries from which they ultimately recovered. He fled Racine,
in the attack’s wake, and a warrant was put out for his arrest on charges of attempted murder.
Jackson returned, less than two months later, and broke into 30-year-old Booker’s home
on April the 24th. He assaulted and forcefully removed the mother-of-six from the residence. The
Racine Police Department later found the woman’s lifeless body, in her vehicle, and determined
she’d sustained a fatal gunshot to the head. Her selfless attempt to help her friend had resulted
in Booker being battered and ultimately brutally murdered. A manhunt for Jackson was launched by
the US Marshals Service that stretched through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, and Arizona.
The investigation ultimately led the authorities back to Illinois in May, after Jackson was
located in Chicago following a tip. He was spotted through a window, while he was holding a firearm,
but eventually surrendered after a brief standoff and negotiations. As reported by law enforcement,
he confessed to his crimes during subsequent interviews. His ensuing charges included first
degree intentional homicide, kidnapping and firearms possession in addition to bail jumping
and multiple counts of domestic abuse. Number 3 Jacob McClanahan
Kentucky father-of-eight Justin Moore ran out of gas while driving on Indiana’s state road 135,
in May of 2022. He was left stranded on the side of the road, near a school, and reportedly asked
residents in the area if they could help him with money and gas. 31-year-old Moore was eventually
approached by Palmyra Police Officer Zachary Holly and volunteer firefighter Jacob McClanahan,
who’d been traveling with a coworker and had stepped out of his vehicle to lend assistance.
Holly asked Moore if he had any weapons on him, to which the latter responded that he was carrying a
small pocket knife. The police officer asked that he place it back in his vehicle and Moore obliged.
What followed was captured by Holly’s bodycam and dashcam. Within moments of reaching into his
vehicle, Moore pulled out a shotgun and opened fire, nearly striking the officer. A second
shot hit and resulted in the death of 24-year-old McClanahan. The officer returned fire, killing
Moore, and subsequent reviews of the footage left “zero doubt” that he’d acted within his authority.
In the tragedy’s wake, Moore’s mother extended her condolences to the volunteer firefighter’s family
for the “senseless” death he’d suffered while trying to help her son. She also revealed that
Moore had been recently plagued by troublesome hallucinations in which he was a werewolf being
followed and targeted by vampires. The woman offered no further information to indicate if
his hallucinations had been a product of mental health, substance abuse or a combination of both.
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Number 2 Adreian Payne 31-year-old Adreian Payne, a former basketball
star at Michigan State University who also played in the NBA, went to a home in Orlando, Florida,
with the intention of a helping a woman engaged in a domestic dispute. On May the 9th of 2022,
Tatiana Mesa had called Payne’s girlfriend to act as a mediator during a conflict she
was having with her boyfriend, 29-year-old Lawrence Dority. Payne and his girlfriend
agreed to help and parked near the latter’s residence. He arrived at the address a short while
later, with his father in the man’s car. Dority approached Payne but the former’s account of what
followed would later be deemed to be contradictory of witness reports. Dority claimed that he felt
intimated by Payne’s 6 foot 10 inch stature, more than a foot over his own, and believed he had a
firearm. He went back into his residence, emerged with a 9mm handgun and fired a single shot,
which struck the former basketball star. Dority’s father got out of his vehicle and tried to help
the fallen athlete but, about an hour after the shooting, he passed away in a local hospital.
Dority called 911 claiming that an intruder had threatened to kill him and tried to force his way
into his house. The police interviewed witnesses and it emerged that Payne’s girlfriend had told
Dority "do not pull your gun out" while adding that they’d been asked to be on the premises.
The authorities determined that Dority wasn’t protected by Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law
as Payne hadn’t posed an immediate threat. He was consequently arrested on murder charges.
Number 1 Brittany Merrick On Boxing Day, 2015, Brittany Merrick and her
housemate, Brittany Norris, were on a girls’ night out in Newcastle, north of Sydney, Australia. The
pair were inside Finnegans nightclub where an incident unfolded involving 26-year-old
Shaun Rudder. As shown by CCTV footage, Merrick repeatedly punched and then took him down by
the throat after he’d allegedly called her “a psycho”. Rudder retaliated by spitting on her
and they were both ejected from the club. According to Merrick’s version of events,
she later spotted Rudder following Norris and tried to warn her friend by sending her a text
that read “behind you”. When she turned around, the man punched her in the side of the head,
which resulted in her collapsing to the ground. As Merrick rushed to help her, Rudder reportedly
responded with three rapid strikes that knocked the woman out and sent her plummeting face-first
into the pavement. In the attack’s aftermath, she shared pictures of her bloodied and swollen face
on social media, earning widespread support from online users. Rudder, who’d initially fled the
scene on foot was arrested and charged with two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
However, in what many deemed an infuriating decision, he was acquitted of all charges,
roughly eight months later. He denied having had any contact with Norris while claiming that he’d
knocked Merrick out with a single strike, in self-defense, after she’d charged him with
a flurry of punches. A court concluded that his argument held weight because of the “extraordinary
level of physical capacity” Merrick had shown during the earlier confrontation at Finnegans.
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