Hello everyone, and welcome back to Scary Interesting, and to another edition of The Creepiest Cases of People Disappearing. There are disappearances that are mysterious and seem impossible, and are fascinating for that reason, but then there are others that are fascinating for a different reason. These are the cases that are so horrifying once solved that it almost seems as though it would have been better if the case was never solved at all.
Almost. Two of the stories in today's video are exactly that, and as always, viewer discretion is advised. [intro music] This video is sponsored by MANSCAPED, the brand that's transforming men's grooming.
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And with that said, let's get into today's video. Before we get into this first story, bear with me for 30 seconds through a brief bit of history to frame the events. In North Africa sits the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, which is the continent's largest country in terms of area.
Its population of 44 million people lives across almost 920,000 square miles, and it's been inhabited since long before we began to write our history in books. Some of the world's earliest civilizations made their mark on the country, including the Romans and Greeks, but the group with the greatest influence on Algeria over its history, is its Arab population. Today, the country is very much a reflection of the Islamic dynasties of the past, but the country had to endure tumultuous times to get here.
Algeria was invaded by the French in 1830 who took control of the government in 1901. The result of the European rule was European migration, and many Algerians were either pushed out of their homes or killed by disease, starvation, or warfare. This eventually led to the Algerian War, which lasted all the way until 1962, when the country won its independence back.
Unfortunately, however, post-independence Algeria continued to face economic hardship and political corruption, which culminated in the cancelling of the 1992 elections. What followed was a complex bloody conflict between multiple groups that raged for 10 years. Several parties formed, including some considered extremists, and the consequences for the average Algerian was immense, as families were torn apart or obliterated outright in seemingly countless civilian mass casualties.
So, when 19-year-old Omar bin Omran suddenly went missing one morning in 1998, his family was left to assume he'd just become another war statistic. The country was also in total chaos, and there wasn't any authority his family could turn to in hopes of finding Omar. Instead, they had to mount their own search, which was a dangerous thing, considering what was happening in the country at the time.
And as you might imagine, the war also limited the area and the scope of the search. In the end, sadly, years passed without any developments in Omar's disappearance; not that anyone could really seek them out with the war going on anyway. Fighting between the parties and the horrific civilian tragedies continued into the new millennium until the armed wing of one of the groups fighting against Algeria's military dissolved, and a peace deal was struck.
When the dust finally settled and Algeria could start picking up the pieces, the toll from the conflict was unclear. Other than that, it was devastating. His family hoped that Omar would turn up once the fighting ceased, and they could probably look for him.
But several years after his disappearance, the chances of learning his fate, let alone finding him, were somewhere between slim and none. In 2013, Omar's mother passed away tragically, going to her grave, having no idea what happened to her son. By the middle of 2024, his family had long ago accepted that his disappearance would remain unsolved.
They just had little choice but to move on with their lives. However, all it took was one social media post for everything to change. It's not often that we cover recent events in the channel, and this is because in most cases, a full picture of what happened doesn't come to light until much later, and Omar's disappearance looks to be no exception.
There is still much that has yet to be released, but Omar's story is so unbelievable, even in what little is known as the time of this recording. While we can't currently connect all the dots, the following is what is known so far. In early May of 2024, a sibling of one of Omar's neighbors published a post to Facebook that hinted at the neighbor being involved in Omar's disappearance.
The siblings were involved in some sort of inheritance dispute, and the post was intended to remove the neighbor from the equation. While this could have been written off as a ploy considering those circumstances, the post was seen by members of Omar's family, and they quickly alerted the police to it. In the days that followed, the public prosecutor found the claims in the post to be credible and gave the "okay" to search the home of the Facebook poster's brother.
Police then turned up at the property, and what they found at 8 pm on May 12th, 2024 shocked everyone. In the neighbor's stable, police found a floor covered in loose straw with hay bales stacked up in one particular section. In moving the bales and clearing the loose straw to reveal the stable's wooden floor, police found what the Facebook post was alleging.
The bales were hiding a trap door leading to a secret compartment. When police swung the door open, they could hardly believe what they were seeing. Looking up at them was Omar.
A video from the moment he was discovered shows him squatting in a small pen called a sheepfold, wearing a sweater, a full unkempt beard, and a surprised look on his face. He was even so confused by what was happening that he remained in the pen for a few moments and needed to be convinced to leave the extremely small space. It was immediately clear to police that he had not been allowed outside the tiny prison in a very long time.
26 years to be exact. The reason Omar was kidnapped and held captive for nearly three decades is unclear as the publishing of this video, but the neighbor, known currently only by the initials "B. A.
", tried to flee and was quickly captured. And since the discovery, seven others have been arrested in connection with concealing his kidnapping. The man known only as B.
A. is reportedly 61 years old, making him 35 at the time he took 19 year old Omar and stashed him beneath the floor of his stable. On the other hand, Omar is now 45 years old.
And after being checked out by doctors, it's reported that he understandably has physical and mental issues from his time in captivity. As mentioned, few details have emerged so far, but those that have been are chilling. In the first few weeks after Omar disappeared, his German Shepherd dog had begun doing something it had never done before.
Every day, the dog would go to B. A. 's house and sit outside whining as if waiting for someone.
One morning, Omar's family awoke to find the dog lying dead in front of the door. It was devastation obviously added onto an already tragic situation as the dog was a beloved part of the family, as well as the family's strongest connection to Omar. It's thought that 26 years earlier, fearing the dog would give him away, B.
A. killed him. Little is known about B.
A. thus far, but neighbors say he was a civil servant who kept to himself and wouldn't let anyone into his house or stable. Apparently, they also found it odd that despite living alone, B.
A. always ordered food for two people. Since his release, Omar has been able to communicate with his uncle about his ordeal, and in perhaps the saddest detail that's come out so far, he said he saw members of his family outside the neighbor's house throughout his time beneath the floor.
He couldn't draw their attention however because Omar claims that B. A. put some sort of spell on him the prevented him from yelling.
The investigation into B. A. is currently ongoing, but Algeria's judicial court told the reporters that charges shall be numerous.
And for 26 years the entire time he was missing, Omar was no more than 650 feet, or 200 meters from his home. It was a slow snowy evening for the police of Haverhill New Hampshire on February 9th, 2004, when the phone rang at dispatch. A woman was on the line to report a minor accident that had just taken place outside her house.
It didn't look terribly serious, but after she heard the loud thump of a car's impact and saw the young woman standing outside the vehicle looking distraught, she figured she'd better call for help. The operator then sent out the information to available units, and about 15 minutes later, the first officer showed up to the scene. Just like it was described, there was a black 1996 Saturn sedan parked against a snowbank, but when the officer got up to contact the driver, he couldn't find her anywhere.
He then started to walk around the car, and immediately noticed that this didn't look like a fender bender. The front of the car was smashed in enough to disable the engine. The windshield was cracked, and both airbags went off on impact.
Then, shining his flashlight on the interior of the locked car, he spotted several bottles of liquor, a damaged box of red wine that had apparently been spilled both inside and outside the car, and an empty beer bottle. On top of that, up front, well within the driver's reach, was a Coke bottle that was filled with red wine Almost immediately, the officer believed he was looking at a DUI-related accident, but weirdly, there was no one there to assess. When the ambulance showed up, the officer turned them away, and after firefighters checked the car for any threat of fire, they too left the scene and returned to the station.
It was like the driver of the car evaporated in the time between the call to 911 and the officer's arrival. So next, in running the Massachusetts license plate on the Saturn, the officer at least determined who he needed to be looking for. Her name was Maura Murray.
Maura grew up as the baby among five children on the south shore of Massachusetts. When she was six years old, Maura's parents divorced, and she lived most of the time that followed with her mother. She went on to be a celebrated and accomplished student in grade school and graduated at the top of her class.
She also excelled athletically as a cross-country track star. When it came time to think about where to go to college, schools were falling all over each other to offer her a scholarship. However, instead of going the traditional college route, she accepted a congressional nomination to attend the prestigious US Military Academy at West Point.
To absolutely no one's surprise, Maura was a high-performer at West Point in academics and athletics too, but after giving the military a shot, she couldn't shake the feeling that the military just wasn't for her. She then transferred to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to enter the school's nursing program, and once again, no one was surprised when she proved herself head and shoulders above her classmates. In her personal life, Maura was also dating a guy she met at West Point, and from all appearances, she was an average thriving student with a bright future ahead of her.
That's the image Maura portrayed anyway, but things weren't exactly as they seemed. It's true that she was an excellent student, a stellar athlete, and a shining example of how to balance the two for aspiring college student athletes. It's also true that Maura was troubled and perhaps struggling with the pressure from expectations she had for herself and those placed upon her by others.
She also didn't leave West Point of her own free will; Maura was apparently asked to leave after she was caught stealing a few dollars' worth of makeup from a campus store. Then while at UMass Amherst, Maura stole the credit card numbers from another student's credit card and used them to make several purchases. She eventually admitted to this and was sentenced to probation, which was supposed to be dismissed after three months of good behavior.
But, just two days before her accident, she was involved in another accident that was seen as suspicious. Her dad had come to the town to accompany Maura car shopping, and after a full afternoon of checking out vehicles, the father and daughter went to dinner before Maura drove him back to his motel for the night. Her night wasn't quite over yet, though.
She borrowed her father's car to return to campus for a party. Then, after four hours of socializing, which likely included drinking, she hopped back into the car and drove back toward the motel and hit a guardrail on the way, causing almost $10,000 worth of damage. Police arrived shortly after to document the accident, but records don't mention any field sobriety tests that Maura had done, so it's unknown if she was intoxicated or under the influence when the accident occurred.
In addition to these issues, Maura was also exhibiting strange behavior leading up to the accident. On February 5th, she received a phone call from her sister, Kathleen, while Maura was working a shift as a campus security guard. During the call, the two discussed Kathleen's fiancé and the problems she was having with him.
Earlier that day, Kathleen's fiancé picked her up from rehab where she had managed to achieve sobriety. On the way home, however, he apparently took her directly to the liquor store, causing her to relapse. The two sisters were close, and the news must have hit Maura hard because she burst into tears shortly after the call ended.
When her supervisor came to the desk a bit later, however, Maura was described as being almost catatonic. She wasn't replying to any effort to snap her out of it until she finally uttered the words "My sister. " And after that, until she was escorted back to her dorm room at 1:20 the following morning, Maura remained silent with her gaze fixed on nothing in particular.
A couple days later, on the evening of the crash in Haverhill, a passing bus stopped at the accident site shortly after it happened. The bus driver then asked Maura if she needed help or for him to call the police. There was no cell reception in such a remote area, but she told him that she had already gotten a hold of AAA and pleaded with him not to call the police.
The driver obviously saw this as odd, and with his home just down the street from the site of Maura's car, he pulled his bus into his driveway, parked, and went inside to call the police anyway. Several hours later, after the officer oversaw the towing of Maura's car, he made his way over to the driver's house to question him and ask if he'd help look for the missing woman. The driver was happy to assist, and the two drove west on Route 112.
Other officers then joined the effort, but there was no sign of Maura anywhere. There weren't even footprints near the accident that would indicate that she walked off, either down the road or into the woods. So afterwards, she was officially listed as a missing person.
After Maura's family was notified, and while her family traveled to Haverhill to search for her, police decided to wait another day before they got involved. This meant that it wasn't until February 11th that an official search effort was mounted, and investigators started to gather information that may be related to her disappearance. Police then went on to search her dorm room and found it odd that Maura had removed everything from the walls, and that most of her belongings were packed in boxes.
It sort of looked as if she was planning to move out, but the semester was far from over. A piece of printed paper was also found on top of the boxes that contained a letter from Maura to her boyfriend, about the problems they had been having. However, nothing in the letter mentioned anything about where she was heading on February 9th, and in all the interviews with her family, friends, and classmates, police learned that Maura didn't verbally share the information with anyone either.
Detectives were, however, able to piece together what her day looked like leading up to the secret trip she was making. Earlier that day, Maura turned in an assignment online and emailed her professors to let them know that she would be out of town for the rest of the week due to a death in the family. Only no one in the family had passed away.
It was also found that she had placed calls to several lodgings in Vermont and New Hampshire before appearing on an ATM security camera alone at 3:30 pm. In the video, Maura withdrew $280, almost emptying her checking account, and the next day made her way to a liquor store where she bought $40 worth of spirits, including a box of red wine. Because of all of this, police were initially working off two theories: She was either running away to start a new life, or heading somewhere to "end things".
As time went on, however, Maura's parents believed her disappearance was the result of foul play. Based on what was found at the scene, there was really only one way Maura would have left the scene of the accident, and that was by getting into a vehicle with someone. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be until April when police put out a press release to establish a more concrete theory.
And this was that they were working off the assumption that she'd left the scene with someone who was passing by, likely to continue on to her planned destination. Now, even with this as the primary theory, searches continued to take place near the crash site. And for a while, there was minimal to go on, until later that year, Maura's father was contacted by a man who gave him a rusty stained knife and said that it was used to kill Maura.
This man had supposedly taken it from his brother who he believed was the person who took her. When the police looked into this, they found that the man's brother lived less than one mile from the crash site, and that he had a criminal record. This man also did nothing to reverse the growing suspicion surrounding him when he sold his Volvo for scrap.
But, the family members of both brothers also claimed that the one who approached her father had drug problems and was just making things up so he could get the reward money. From that point onward, leads would come and go with nothing credible related to Maura's disappearance. And all anyone found was more red herrings and dead ends.
About a year and a half after she vanished, a two-day search was conducted by volunteers near the crash site, which included dogs trained to track scents and locate human remains. And searchers had identified five areas of interest near the site where Maura's car was disabled on the side of the road. A cadaver dog was then brought to explore an area near an abandoned A-frame house with its handler that was located about a mile from the crash site.
Inside this house, the dog wasn't registering anything of interest until it reached a small closet. There, though, the dog went crazy, indicating the presence of human remains or blood. And interestingly, when police looked at the last owner, they learned that the house had once belonged to the brother of the man who gave Maura's dad the knife.
As promising as this may have seemed though, there were other details that made it unlikely that Maura's remains were in the house. The spot the dog hid on was a small square of carpet and not a terribly large area. So canine handlers believe the dog likely just picked up the scent of a few droplets of blood from a bloody nose or something similar.
Unfortunately, developments in the past 18 years have been scarce, and sadly, the case of Maura's disappearance is not much closer to being solved today than it was back then. This leaves us with a few possibilities. The first is that she really did run away, and she somehow managed to get away from the crash site and start a new life.
The second is that she managed to get away, but successfully carried out her plan to "end things". And the final, and most sinister, is that she was picked up by someone else with bad intentions. Unfortunately, without anything else to go on, for the time being, it's still a mystery.
The Carpathian Mountains are among the most well-known mountains in Central Europe, largely because they played such a prominent role in Bram Stoker's classic novel, Drcula. But among locals, the Tribeč Mountains have always been just as steeped in legend and folklore. The range is located in the west central portion of Slovakia and covers about 300 square miles.
The highest peak in the range is only about 2,700 feet, or 830 meters tall, but even still, the conditions can be harsh and unpredictable, especially during the winter months. The range is popular with hikers, sportsmen, and outdoor enthusiasts for much of the year, but according to local legend, they're also inhabited by creatures and supernatural beings that don't take kindly to human intruders. Like other areas that have this mythical reputation, these stories have come out of areas in the range that seem to have abnormally high numbers of disappearances and mysterious deaths.
One of the first cases in the area dates all the way back to the early 1900s, when eight merchants returning from a market were found together, but in pieces. It's been theorized that they killed one another after a particularly heated dispute, and this makes sense because none of their money or possessions were taken, but it is creepy nonetheless. A few decades later, in the winter of 1929, a middle-aged forester and surveyor disappeared nearby, but despite a thorough search, he was never found.
Then the following winter, an 18-year-old girl named Maria vanished in broad daylight while returning from a neighboring village, where her mother sent her to buy food. And again, neither Maria or any of her possessions were ever found. These stories are just a few of dozens of similar cases that have occurred throughout the 20th century.
Some locals claim that these older stories may have been embellished or totally made up, but these disappearances and strange deaths continued well into the 1990s. And eventually, one area of the range became known as The Slovak Bermuda Triangle, or simply The Slovak Triangle. And while there are still disappearances in the area today, maybe the strangest incident of all occurred right before the start of World War II.
In 1939, a man named Walter Fischer worked in a shoe factory in the town of Partizánske at the north end of the Slovak trial in what was then Czechoslovakia. Times were tough and tensions were high in Europe as the war seemed more and more inevitable. It's not clear how long Walter worked at the factory, what he did, or how much he made, but he must have valued the job because he and his family lived nearly 40 miles, or 67 kilometers away.
Back then, this drive probably took well over an hour when conditions were good, and even longer in the winter when the roads were covered in ice and snow. So because commuting was expensive and obviously time-consuming, Walter usually stayed with a coworker or at a cheap boarding house from Monday to Saturday. Then, at the end of his Saturday shift, he usually drove home and spent the evening and following Sunday with his wife and children.
Just before the end of the workday, on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 24th, 1939, Walter told two of his coworkers that he was hiking to the ruins of Castle Black about 15 miles, or 23 kilometers away. They were understandably a bit surprised that he'd set out such an ambitious mountain hike so late in the afternoon, especially in winter. And although he'd be able to follow roads some of the way, he'd also have to traverse miles of rugged mountain terrain going to and returning from the castle.
Walter almost certainly knew how far away the castle was and that he'd face treacherous conditions along the way, and that's led to speculation that he may not have been truthful about his plans. Instead, he may have fabricated the story to cover for something else. Unfortunately, there are almost no records of accounts of Walter's life, so we have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth or if he had something to hide, or some ulterior motive.
Whatever the case, at the end of the day, he apparently did set off in the direction of Castle Black. As you might have expected, he didn't show up for work the next morning or at home the following Saturday evening like he usually did. His wife then waited nearly four weeks before asking her brother-in-law to go into town and see if she could find him, or at the very least, to figure out what happened to him.
When he stopped by the shoe factory where Walter worked, his friends told him that they hadn't seen or heard from him since the afternoon of Tuesday, January 24. So afterward, the brother-in-law went to the local police station to see if they could help at all, but the police weren't much help either. So, with no other options, Walter's family resorted to posting missing persons posters and distributing them in towns and villages in the area.
Sadly though, nothing came of this either. By the following spring, everyone assumed they'd never see Walter again. The fact was that most people who disappeared in the Tribeč Mountains stayed gone.
But, surprisingly, Walter turned up nearly four months later on the other side of the mountains. This was also about 20 miles south of where he was last seen, and interestingly, in the vicinity of Castle Black. Even more surprisingly though was the state that Walter was in.
When he was found, Walter was dirty, emaciated, and unresponsive, but most bizarrely of all, his body was covered with dozens of horrible burns. Because he was in such horrible shape, Walter was immediately taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and observation. His physical wounds eventually healed, but his mental state was an entirely different matter.
Even the slightest thing, like a mild sound or a gentle touch, sent him into a horrific panic where he would cower in corners and under beds and tables. In addition, Walter couldn't or wouldn't speak with the hospital staff or his shocked wife, who came to visit him on multiple occasions. Walter also made absolutely no progress no matter how much kindness, compassion, and patience his wife and the hospital staff exhibited.
In fact, he remained in such a horrible and seemingly irreversible state that taking him home was out of the question. And likewise, the hospital was just unequipped to deal with a patient like Walter. In the end, the only alternative was to send him to a mental institution where he spent the rest of his life in the exact state in which he was found in the spring of 1939.
The staff at this institution probably kept detailed records of Walter's condition and of any treatments that were administered, but since the hospital was destroyed during the war, we'll never know how he spent the last years of his tragic life. So in the end, what is known is that Walter apparently went into the woods one night in January, and when he exited them, he was a completely broken person due to some unknown but horrific circumstance. If you made it this far, thanks so much for watching.
I'm curious to hear what you think happened in each of the stories. Also, if you have a story suggestion, feel free to send it to the form found in the description, and hopefully, I will see you in the next one.
