If you’ve got the blues about being single this Valentine’s Day, just remember that it could easily be worse. Sure, you’re not exchanging flowers with your love or surprising them with a cute breakfast, but at the very least, you’re not like these unlucky people who celebrated Valentine’s Day as their last day alive.

Tiana Nitice had it going for her. At 25 years of age, she was beautiful, intelligent, and on her way to receiving her Master’s Degree. However, she fell hard and fast for James Carter II, who had all the makings of a bad boy. After a six month relationship together, James was arrested for domestic abuse against an ex-girlfriend, and Tiana saw a sliver of his darker side.

Suspecting that he’d also been cheating her, she broke up with him, and due to his sinister nature, she took out a restraining order. James began to send her cruel messages and threatening emails. But every time Tiana went to the police about it, she was dismissed and turned away. A fatal mistake by the police department. The family even became desperate enough to install security cameras outside her apartment, but as luck would have it, the tapes ran out each time James arrived to pull a stunt. Tiana ended up staying at her parents’ house for peace of mind.

But on Valentine’s Day, she dropped by her place to grab a change of clothes, and James was lying in wait. He assaulted her furiously, stabbing her twenty times in the heart before running away. Tiana was able to call 911, and her dying breaths in the hospital identified James and put him in prison.

Richard Shoeck was a kind family man who enjoyed the simple life; his favorite pastimes were piloting hot air balloons, leading the boy scout troop, and spoiling his three adopted children. The children came from his wife, Stacey, and he had been husband number five. That should’ve been his first warning, right?

The evening of Valentine’s Day, Stacey asked Richard to meet her in the local park so they could romantically exchange cards as the sun was setting. Eagerly, Richard set out, but when he arrived, not all was as it seemed. Lurking in the dark shadows was someone else, and the tender-hearted man was swiftly filled with five bullets. Stacey arrived at the park 30 minutes later, and she immediately called the police, which ruled her out as a suspect.

For some unknown reason, with her husband’s rapidly stiffening body lying in front of her, she began to talk. Stacey mentioned how she’d been having an affair for years, and the police immediately thought that her paramour was the culprit. An intensive line of questioning soon found him to be innocent.

On a hunch, the police took a look at Stacey. After searching her emails and her phone, they found multiple pieces of a puzzle clicking together. In her phone, they found a contact named “Mr. Results”, who ended up being a hitman that had been found through a mutual friend. The three had cooked up the murder, and the trio will now spend all the rest of their Valentine’s Days behind bars.

One Valentine’s Day, the police of Peoria received a distressed call from Nathan Leuthold, claiming that someone had broken into his house and killed his wife in a robbery. Upon inspection of the home, they found that a gunshot had indeed killed the wife to the head, but the house was far from burglarized. The kitchen drawers had carefully been placed on the ground, a fair amount of cash was still lying around the house, and electronics are belonging to Nathan’s children were still sitting in open view. The only thing missing was a Glock .40, which incidentally matched the bullet that was in the dearly departed wife.

A quick search through Nathan’s browser history showed that he’d Googled numerous methods of killing someone, including how to silence a Glock .40, and the police also found a note from Denise, the wife, accusing Nathan of an affair and of wanting her dead. This would perhaps seem dramatic, but Denise might have also browsed through Nathan’s search history herself shortly before the murder. When the affair was uncovered as true, and Nathan’s history with a 20-year-old Lithuanian woman came to light, the police wondered if the murder accusation in the note was accurate as well.

It didn’t take long for the police and the judge to add up the evidence and find Nathan guilty. Perhaps the scariest part was Nathan’s lack of remorse and emotion throughout the entire trial; even when he was convicted, he remained cold.

Dr. John Hamilton was a man entirely, irreversibly, and unconditionally in love with his wife, Susan. One Valentine’s Day, the police were summoned to his house to find him hysterically performing CPR on Susan’s clearly dead corpse. Nearby was an expensive arrangement of red orchids, which he’d never had the chance to give to her. As he was ushered away from her, the police wondered who could have killed her in such a horrific fashion; Susan’s head had been smashed in, and she’d been strangled with two of John’s neckties. A terrible sight for John to arrive home to while on a break between surgeries.

While examining the scene of the crime, the police found a nearby letter to John that told a drastically different story than the one presented by love-struck John. The letter stated, “I bought my card two weeks ago, so I guess maybe they don’t seem as appropriate now. But I do love you. Have a good day. Susan”. In addition to the bittersweet note, one of Susan’s close friends attested that she’d been considering leaving him because John had developed a habit of calling a stripper and having R-rated calls with her.

However, the final nail in the coffin for John was surprisingly brought up by a testimony presented by an expert hired by his defense attorney. During the trial, Tom Bevel, a crime scene investigator, testified that the blood spatter found on Tom’s shirt lined up with a hysterical man giving his deceased wife CPR. After a moment of hesitation, Tom admitted that there was also a spatter on John’s sleeve that was consistent with violence; it would specifically have been caused by John beating his wife in a murderous rage. He was swiftly sentenced to life in prison.

For a more vintage murder, let’s take a look back at 1971. Jesse McBane and Patricia Mann were a happy couple, and although they were young, they were excited to spend the rest of their lives together – that time was shorter than either of them knew. The couple went to Valentine’s dance together, but neither returned.

Immediately, Patricia’s roommate called the police. Patricia had been known as a good girl who followed rules and wouldn’t have dreamed of misbehaving. The search initially brought no results; the cops wrote off their disappearance as lovebirds nesting somewhere together.

More than a week later, a surveyor discovered the couple’s bodies hidden in the woods. They were tied up, and it was clear that they’d had a horrible, drawn-out death. It appeared that ropes had been tightened around their throats, loosened, and then tightened again repeatedly.

Although there’d been a few suspects in the crime, the case ended up going cold due to an inability to cooperate with multiple counties, and a lack of technology in the 1970’s. The murder of the couple is still possibly at large.

Hopefully, this article doesn’t have you spending Valentine’s Day clutching a knife and peeking around corners for a murderer. If you do end up dateless for Valentine’s Day, don’t forget to treat yo’self. Although you may not be exchanging flowers or making a cute breakfast with your love, at least you’re not expecting a knife to your back on this day.