Buzz
As telephones became widespread, phone calls turned into a routine part of everyday life. But what if, during an ordinary day, you pick up your phone and on the other end, you hear a disaster unfolding?
10. Laura McComb
On May 23, 2015, Laura McComb, her husband, children, and another family of five were vacationing in Wimberley, Texas, when a fierce storm hit. The storm caused the Blanco River to flood, with the water rising 8 meters (26 feet) in just one hour.
The floodwaters quickly surrounded McComb and her family, forcing them to retreat to the second floor of their cabin. At 11:11 PM, McComb dialed 911, informing them that she and her family were stranded upstairs. The dispatcher assured them that help was on the way, though no specific time frame was given.
Less than 18 minutes after, the cabin housing the two families detached from its foundation. McComb reached out to her sister in Austin, saying, “We are floating in a house that is now drifting down the river. Call mom and dad. I love you... and pray.”
The cabin drifted for a while before it eventually broke apart. Of the nine people inside, only one survived the flood: McComb's husband, Jonathan, who was found 20 kilometers (12 miles) away with a punctured lung and a broken rib.
9. Lisa Flormoe
On the night of August 13, 1991, Lisa Flormoe from Eugene, Oregon, was visiting a friend in Wilsonville, Oregon. At one point, 16-year-old Todd Davilla came to the door searching for a teenage girl who lived in the house where Flormoe was staying. She told him the girl wasn’t home, and Davilla left.
While alone in the house, Lisa decided to call her fiancé. As they spoke on the phone, another knock sounded at the door. When Flormoe went to answer it, her fiancé heard her scream and beg for her life before the call abruptly ended.
Her fiancé called 911, but the response came too late to save Flormoe. Davilla had returned to the house, forced his way in, and tried to assault Flormoe. After she managed to cut him with his blunt Boy Scout knife, he decided to end her life.
He stabbed her repeatedly in the neck with the knife, nearly decapitating her. After the murder, Davilla showered and then went to the county fair with friends. He was apprehended five days later after police received an anonymous tip. He pled guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
Since his plea, Davilla's convictions have been overturned multiple times. By late 2015, he had been sentenced five times and was serving a 50-year sentence, though he plans to appeal.
8. Angela Marie Hammond
At 11:45 PM on April 4, 1991, 20-year-old Angela Marie Hammond called her boyfriend, Rob Shafer, from a pay phone in a grocery store parking lot. She informed him that she wouldn't be coming over as planned but would instead head home to take a bath.
Hammond then mentioned a pickup truck that had been circling the parking lot. She told her boyfriend that the driver had parked next to the phone booth, gotten out, and pretended to search for something. Hammond described the man as filthy and bearded.
Shafer suddenly heard Hammond scream, and the call abruptly ended. Panicked, he jumped in his car and drove toward the grocery store, which was seven blocks away. Along the way, he passed a green Ford F-150 truck from the 1960s or early 1970s. He then heard Angela scream his name, so he turned around and followed the truck for about 2 kilometers (1 mile) before his car broke down.
Angela's car was found in the parking lot near the phone booth where she had made her last call, but her body was never recovered. Shafer and other witnesses gave police a description of the man.
He was wearing coveralls and a baseball cap, with glasses, long hair, a beard, and a mustache. The rear window of the man's truck had a decal of a fish jumping out of water.
After Hammond's disappearance, Shafer was cleared of any suspicion, but the bearded man in the green truck was never identified.
7. Thomas Ray Walker Jr.
On December 1, 1980, a call came into the switchboard at KDFW-TV in Dallas, Texas. The caller told the operator that he had an interesting story and was connected to someone in the newsroom. When speaking to an executive producer, he identified himself as Thomas Ray Walker Jr. and confessed to murdering his 35-year-old wife, Linda Jo, and their four children.
After the confession, the TV station notified the police. They traced the call to a grocery store and rushed to a nearby phone booth. Meanwhile, Walker recounted what happened that tragic morning. He shot his wife twice in the face while she was showering. He then called his children into the house one by one, telling them he had a surprise for them.
As each child entered the house, Walker shot them in the face, except for the youngest, who was shot behind the ear. The children were aged between 14 and 7. Walker later explained that his actions were driven by depression, and he believed his family wouldn't cope well after his planned suicide, so he decided they were better off dead.
After confessing to the murders, Walker stepped out of the phone booth, repeatedly shouting, 'Shoot me!' The police eventually complied and shot him. He succumbed to his injuries an hour later at the hospital.
6. Jonathan Hoffman
While 17-year-old Jonathan Hoffman was living with his grandparents just northwest of Detroit, Michigan, during his parents' divorce, an argument broke out between him and his 74-year-old grandmother, Sandra Layne, on May 18, 2012. The dispute was sparked by Hoffman's failure in a court-mandated drug test.
Layne claimed she feared for her life. During the altercation, she fired her Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun at least five times, hitting her grandson in the chest. Hoffman was able to call 911.
On the phone, Hoffman told the dispatcher that his grandmother had shot him. His voice was slurred as he desperately pleaded for help. A few minutes into the call, Hoffman fell silent. His grandmother reentered the room and shot him again in the abdomen. The call went quiet after Layne begged him to let go of her.
Police arrived to hear two or three more gunshots. As Layne emerged from the house, she screamed, 'I killed my grandson!' Inside, a horrific scene awaited the officers, with pools of blood scattered throughout. Hoffman had been shot five times—three times in the chest, once in the abdomen, and once in the left arm.
After her arrest, Layne claimed she acted in self-defense. However, she was convicted of first-degree murder. The 911 call was critical evidence, as Hoffman was already near death while speaking to the dispatcher. Shooting him a second time didn’t appear to be an act of self-defense. Jurors also questioned why Layne hadn’t called 911 herself. She was ultimately sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.
5. Mark Saylor
On the afternoon of August 28, 2009, California Highway Patrolman Mark Saylor was driving a loaned 2009 Lexus ES 350 from a dealership in El Cajon, California. With him in the car were his wife, Cleofe, 45, their 13-year-old daughter, Mahala, and his brother-in-law, Chris Lastrella, 38.
On their way to soccer practice, the car suddenly accelerated and the brakes failed. By the time they called 911, the car was speeding at over 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph). During the 911 call, Saylor told his family to pray as they neared an intersection at the end of the freeway.
Saylor attempted to turn left as the freeway ended, but they were traveling too fast. The car collided with a Ford Explorer, crashed through a fence, and struck a dirt embankment that launched the vehicle more than 30 meters (100 feet). Upon impact, the car caught fire. Tragically, none of the passengers survived.
The Saylor family filed lawsuits against both the dealership and Toyota, the parent company of Lexus. They reached a settlement with Toyota in 2010, receiving $10 million. In 2015, they also settled with the dealership.
The crash triggered a broader investigation into Toyota, focusing on issues with certain models accelerating unintentionally. Following the inquiry, the US Justice Department determined that Toyota had misrepresented the severity of the problem and agreed to a $1.2 billion settlement.
4. Triffie Wadman
On the evening of September 30, 2011, in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, 30-year-old Triffie Wadman was texting with her ex-boyfriend, Trevor Pardy. Pardy wanted to discuss their past relationship, but Wadman, preferring not to text, suggested they meet in person to talk.
Pardy had promised to repay money he owed Wadman, so they agreed to meet at 1:00 AM. When they met on the street, Pardy pulled out a 9 mm handgun and shot Wadman.
As Wadman lay on the ground, she called 911. When the dispatcher answered, she screamed, 'My ex... got a gun, he just shot me.' After a brief silence, Pardy remarked, 'All that for what?' He instructed Wadman to look at him and said, 'I love you. Goodbye.' Soon after, he called the dispatcher and threatened to kill himself.
When police and paramedics arrived, Pardy prevented them from aiding Wadman for 15 minutes. She later succumbed to blood loss in the hospital. Meanwhile, Pardy engaged in a tense four-hour standoff with police, ending when they tricked him into thinking they were delivering insulin for his diabetes.
In court, Pardy pleaded not guilty, claiming the shooting was an accident. However, on the trial’s first day in 2015, the chilling 911 call was played, and he was convicted. Pardy was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
3. Amber Tuccaro
On August 17, 2010, 20-year-old Amber Tuccaro arrived in Nisku, Alberta, where she spent the night at a motel with her infant son and a friend. The following day, Tuccaro decided to hitchhike to nearby Edmonton, and a stranger in a truck offered her a ride.
While riding in the truck, Amber was on a recorded phone call with her brother, who was incarcerated at the Edmonton Remand Center. Throughout the 17-minute conversation, she appeared anxious and voiced concerns about the direction the man was driving. She mentioned, 'You better not take me any place I don’t want to go.' Suddenly, the line went silent, and the call ended. That was the last time anyone heard from Tuccaro.
Two years after her disappearance, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) released a 61-second clip from the call in hopes that someone might recognize the voice of the man. Coincidentally, just four days after the audio was made public, a group of horseback riders discovered partial skeletal remains of Tuccaro's body at a farm in Leduc County, roughly 17 minutes from the motel she had stayed at.
The RCMP acknowledged that they had mishandled the initial stages of the case, which highlights a larger issue in Canada involving unsolved murders and the disappearances of Indigenous women. However, they remain hopeful that someone will identify the voice of Tuccaro's killer, so he can be brought to justice.
2. Don Spirit
On the afternoon of September 18, 2014, a 911 dispatcher in Bell, Florida received a chilling call from a man who immediately said, 'Yes, ma’am, I, I, um, I just shot my daughter. And shot all my grandkids. And I’ll be sitting on my step. And when you get here, I’m going to shoot myself.'
The dispatcher managed to gather more details from the caller, who identified himself as Don Spirit and provided his address. He revealed that he had shot his daughter and six of his grandchildren, including an infant. As the dispatcher urged him to stay on the line, Spirit grew agitated.
Eventually, Spirit told the dispatcher that he would be waiting on the back step for the police to arrive before hanging up. When the police arrived, a brief exchange occurred before Spirit took his own life. Inside the house, officers discovered the bodies of Spirit’s 28-year-old daughter and her six children, ranging in age from two months to nine years old.
In a tragic twist, this mass killing wasn’t the first time Spirit had caused the death of a family member. Back in 2001, while hunting with his eight-year-old son, Kyle, Spirit showed his son some rust on the end of his rifle. As Kyle looked at it, the rifle discharged, fatally wounding him in the head.
Spirit was sentenced to three years for being a felon in possession of a firearm. His criminal background included a felony conviction for marijuana in 1998.
1. Amina And Sarah Said
During their early years in Irving, Texas, Amina and Sarah Said faced physical and sexual abuse from their father, Yaser Abdel Said. As teenagers, he would often secretly spy on them and record videos without their consent.
The girls were prohibited from having boyfriends, but both Amina, 17, and Sarah, 18, secretly began dating. On Christmas Eve in 2007, Yaser discovered this and, in a fit of rage, waved a gun around. Amina and Sarah fled to their mother’s workplace in fear.
Later that night, the three women and the girls’ boyfriends ran away to Tulsa, Oklahoma. They rented an apartment, and one of the boyfriends found a job. However, for reasons that are still unclear, Amina, Sarah, and their mother returned to Texas for New Year's Eve.
The following day, Yaser persuaded his daughters to have lunch with him. While in his taxi, he drove them to a hotel parking lot and shot them. Afterward, he exited the vehicle and calmly walked away.
Once the girls were outside the car, one of them managed to call 911. The dispatcher with the Irving Fire Department urgently tried to gather their location, but the girl’s voice was weak and intermittent. She mentioned she was dying and that her father had shot her. An hour later, the bodies of the two girls were discovered after a passerby reported seeing a body slumped over in the passenger seat of the cab.
After killing his daughters, Yaser withdrew all the money from his savings accounts and went into hiding. He remains at large and is currently listed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.
