Professional wrestler Jerry Bibb Balisok turned his back on the law. After facing charges of fraud, Balisok disappeared for six months. Then his mom saw the Jonestown Massacre in LIFE Magazine. Balisok’s picture appeared there alongside the other dead cult members.

But was it really Jerry? Apparently no.

In 1990, a man named Ricky A. Wetta was arrested for attempted murder. When authorities did a fingerprint check, Ricky turned out to be Jerry Bibb Balisok!

So Balisok is now in prison, but his tombstone stone remains as a memory of his disappearing act.

There are many tombstones out there with an explicit reminder of your own mortality. But this one really does feel like more of a threat than a reminder.

It comes from an old poem usually seen on Irish, English, and Scottish headstones that traces its origins all the way back to the 1600s.

A sideshow performer called Ironfoot Eva is supposedly buried here. The statue was built by John Ehn and is located at Old Trapper’s Lodge in California.

But no one really knows if such a person was buried here or if it’s just someone’s amazing work of art.

If it is indeed Ironfoot Eva, then her story must be so tragic. And that deserves to be told someday.

Charles Salmon had a bad cold, so he went to a drugstore to get some quinine. Salmon took lots of quinine but an hour later, became lethargic. Doctors working nearby gave him an injection of morphine rendering Salmon unconscious.

Salmon died shortly after.

A post-mortem examination revealed that Charles took huge number of doses of morphine, not quinine. It was the fault of a very careless store clerk, and his tombstone won’t let anyone forget it!

The Salem Witch Trials in the early 1690s saw around 20 people hung. Except for Giles Corey, who received a different sentence.

Torturers would pile rocks on his chest, trying to get Corey to admit that he practiced black magic.

Giles would say “more weight” rather than confess to a crime he didn’t do. So he met a stony death and onlookers could only watch.

A woman named Mary fell victim to a coyote attack while tending a chicken coop. Without treatment, her rabies got the better of her and soon she began acting violently.

Mary was pregnant, but her rabies meant she had to literally be restrained. By the time her husband got back from a business trip, Mary and her unborn child were already gone.

In the Salt Lake City Cemetery, there’s a gravestone that says the deceased was a victim of the beast. Not much is known of what really happened though.

It might have been her husband (who was imprisoned in the past for criminal activity).

British occultist Aleister Crowley’s followers also frequented the area so maybe he and his devoted followers played a part in Gray’s death.

She was so horrible to her own children that they still carry scars of her treatment. The children did not attend their mother’s funeral but agreed with Michael who wrote this note on the tombstone for their mother. As one of the children, Jackie, tells it:

“The sentiments on her grave barely covers the brutal treatment we each received. I got the worst as I looked and acted like my father who I never saw as a little child. He was killed in WWII.”

Leo Matlovich’s name isn’t even on the front of the grave. This heartbreaking tombstone instead shows the title “A Gay Vietnam Veteran.”

Matlovich challenged the Air Force’s policy on homosexuality in the military as a member of the Air Force.

Gay military servicemen and women have Leo to thank as he won many rights for them. Matlovich got the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during service, before being discharged for homosexual activity.

He died from complications due to HIV/AIDS, breathing his last breath in San Francisco in 1988.

Herman Harband is not buried there. He divorced his wife and ordered the stone ahead of time.

He was probably in a different state of mind, as Herman honestly believed his wife wanted to kill him. He eventually remarried.

Herman passed away in 2011, in Raleigh, North Carolina. The old headstone remains in storage with the plot he originally planned to be buried in, resold.

Clay Allison fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. He was a war hero. Then he became a rancher and a gunfighter.

Allison would fight anyone when challenged, even men of the law.

It wasn’t beyond him to break into jail just to extract revenge on prisoners.

Ironically, it wasn’t a bullet that killed Clay. He was 46 when a wagon rolled over his body and broke his neck.

Mary C. Dolencie had no love for her neighbors. She would have paranoid delusions that her fellow villagers conspired against her and wished her harm.

Dolencie was s loner and a cat lady (nothing wrong with that last part!). She left what she had to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Neighbors say that when she was alive, Mary would pick fights with different people. The curse she left them has had no impact on the community though.

This poor girl died in poverty and in shame from her family after she tried to get an abortion. This was in the 1870s, yet her death left those who created the tombstone feeling guilty. The story is written on the tombstone:

“Kate McCormick Seduced and pregnant by her father’s friend, unwed, she died from abortion, her only choice. Abandoned in life and death by family. With but a single rose from her mother. Buried only through the kindness of unknown benefactors. Died Feb.1875 age 21.

Victim of an unforgiving society, Have mercy on us.”

Jeffery Hudson was known as the Dwarf to the King. He lived as companion to King Charles and the queen where he possibly worked as a spy, served as a slave, then as an amazing storyteller in English court.

His introduction to court was in a pie. Hudson leapt out to surprise his king, earning him the nickname, Lord Minimus. Jeff died in the late sixteen hundreds. He was unknown and in exile, buried in a mass grave.

The “Monster” on this gravestone could be the last name rather than a descriptor. But it was still a time that used the word “monster” to describe deformity. So the child could have been deformed in a way.

Still, this five-month-old child was never given a name. Just “Monster.”

The cemetery in the Ohio Asylum has numerous gravestones, but two of them have people asking questions. No names, no dates, nothing. All it says is “Specimens.”

The asylum had a questionable reputation. Theories abound as to the grave’s contents. Were they children experimented on? Body parts? No one knows.

It was in 1929, on a side road in Ohio, that the body of an older black man was found. No one knew who he was so there was no identification.

The only address on him was to a vacant lot where a neighbor named Eugene lived close by. Authorities gave the body the name of Eugene but instead of burying him, they put the body on display as a roadside attraction.

They would even dress him up for 35 years. He was finally laid to rest and given a headstone in 1964.

It’s more of a sad story than a scary one. Way back in 1917, Dr. A.H. Yates faced charges for performing an abortion that resulted in death.

Abortions were illegal in those days. Available procedures carried huge risks.

The operation accidentally killed Katherine and her unborn child. The doctor was eventually released with charges dismissed.

The words on her gravestone were from Katherine’s parents. The headstone was stolen in 2016, and as of March 2021, is still missing.

In Cedar Ridge Cemetery in Warren County, New Jersey, a body of a teenage girl was found. The poor young girl was beaten to death before being thrown into a ravine next to a cemetery. This happened in July of 1982.

The victim was in good health. She also wore nice clothing. Unfortunately, Doe has never been identified nor were her killers ever found. Her gravestone reads “Princess Doe” and will probably remain forever so.

It’s not so much the words but the life-size statue on this little girl’s grave that sends chills down your spine. Graceland Cemetery hosts Inez Clarke, an intricate statue that rests inside a plastic box.

Legends say the six-year-old was struck by lightning while out on a picnic, or when she was locked outside as punishment.

There are reported sightings of her ghost, or of children reporting to have played with a little girl. Night-time guards even claim that the box is empty during thunderstorms. The problem is there is no “Inez Clarke” in the cemetery records or the city’s census information.

So who was she?