The Creepy Truth Behind 10 Urban Myths

The Legend

As far as urban legends go, this is a true classic of the genre. A person begins to come round, perhaps after a bang on the head or a spiked drink, only to discover that it's awfully dark and cramped: They have been buried alive. The story usually ends with the discovery of a coffin with scratches on the inside of the lid, or even a miraculous escape.

The Truth

There have actually been an alarming amount of accidental live burials over the years. It became such a problem in the 18th and 19th centuries that many people even insisted that they be buried in "safety coffins" which had a cord attached to a bell on the surface for them to ring if they found they had been accidentally buried alive.

But what about he ones that aren't accidental? Just such a thing happened to a Polish woman named Michelina Lewandowska. One day in 2011, Michelina's long-term boyfriend, Marcin Kasprzak, decided that he was bored of her. Rather than taking the usual, gentlemanly route of bitter resentment and frequent infidelity, he decided that the only way to get rid of her was to put 300,000 volts through her body and bury her alive in the woods just outside of Huddersfield. Perfectly reasonable.

After tasering her, Michelina's boyfriend and his mate (who apparently at no point floated the idea of trying a break-up text first) stuffed her limp body into a cardboard box and buried her in the woods - also piling some heavy branches on top of the grave for good measure.

In the ultimate ironic twist, however, Michelina was able to use her engagement ring to cut her way out of her early grave. She managed to dig her way to the surface (apparently Marcin was as bad at digging graves as he was at breaking up with people) and was picked up by a motorist. Marcin Kasprzak has since been convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.