A journalist was able to buy a dead man’s spine for $300, so where are your remains really going when you die? — In the mostly unregulated industry of body brokering, thousands of bodies are being donated to companies under the deception that they’re going to be used to further science. However, many loved one’s remains are being used for something far more sinister. When Megan Hess and Shirley Koch were arrested for…

You are welcome to all of them. — It’s been a while! My last writing prompt list was published over a year ago. I’ve been working, but I’ve been keeping a list of writing prompts for me that I’ve still not gotten around to. Write a short story with yourself as the main character. Write about the history…

The sincerest way to tell yourself to relax, or not. — Right my fellow human, today is the day you’ll start/ finish/ rewrite that article that’s been sitting in your drafts since January last year. Today, you will fill your emotional hot water bottle up to the max of it teetering on explosion. How are you going to do that? …

Will you stick with the classics or dare to try something else? — The week leading up to Halloween is that turning point of autumn into the darker depths of welcoming winter. During those seven days, adults and children across the country try to fit in as many Halloween and horror films as possible. However, going down the well-beaten track of classics like…

Escatawpa Jane Doe finally has a name. — A couple of days after Christmas 1977, two men went hunting in the woods near Jackson County, just off Interstate 10, which was still being built. They were looking for game, but instead, they found the remains of a woman who’d been dead between three and four months. The police…

Marvin Heemeyer built a weapon to flatten anything that stood in his way, and the internet called him a hero. — On Friday the 4th June 2004, a man with a grudge secretly built a death machine out of a bulldozer and went on a rampage around the sleepy town of Granby. The spree lasted over two hours before finally coming to a deadly standstill. Granby is a small town in…

Maureen Brubaker Farley’s murderer has been identified after 50 years of hiding in plain sight. — The autumn season hadn’t yet hit Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and teenagers Kevin Coppess and Danny Lineweaver had one thing on their minds; they wanted to hunt. They’d taken their guns down to the woods and come across a woman asleep on top of a car in the ravine just off…

The musician was bludgeoned to death in his Skid Row loft, but no one has ever been arrested for the crime. — Peter Ivers had a knack for the odd and the curious. A gifted musician, the Harvard Alum had friends in high places, including Harold Ramis, David Lynch, and John Belushi. The Illinois native moved around during his formative years. With an ill father who eventually died, his mother married a…

20-month-old Asiah was left alone in an apartment while her mother went on a birthday bender with friends. — Verphy Kudi raised her arm to acknowledge the DJ shouting her name and wishing her a happy birthday over the microphone, while she and her friends partied at a nightclub in Elephant and Castle in London. The 18-year-old didn’t have a care in the world at that moment, nor in…