In 2016, a woman killed herself and her son after her husband "oinked" at her when plastic surgery left her with a "pig nose." Russian sales representative Anna Ozhigova, 33, had rhinoplasty which (she believed) made her nostrils oversized and meant she could no longer smile properly. Friends say the surgery was the catalyst for the failure of her marriage, leading to a split from her husband and a chain of events which left her without hope. Although she found a new boyfriend, she feared her ex was about to secure custody of her son, Gleb. She jumped to her death from her parents' ninth floor apartment in the Siberian city of Omsk holding the boy in her arms.

When an Argentinan couple thought the world was going to end due to global warming, they decided the best thing they could do to protect their children from such a terrible fate was to end their lives. Francisco Lotero and Miriam Coletti shot their two-year old in the back, their seven-month-old daughter in the chest and themselves in the head. Three days later, police showed up after a neighbor told them about a terrible odor emitting from their apartment. While the toddler and his parents were deceased, the infant had not only survived a shot to the chest but went without food or water for three days. Amazingly, her condition improved once she was taken to the hospital and today she is fine.

In November 2016, Christopher Cadenbach shot his sons and then killed himself. An AMBER Alert was issued after he abducted five-year-old Ethan and four-year-old Owen — police tracked him down to a park in a St Louis suburb. They approached Cadenbach, but as soon as they got close, he shot his sons and himself. Cadenbach was already wanted by police on a $100,000 domestic violence arrest warrant.

In November 2016, Lance Buckley called 911 and said he wanted to report three murders and a suicide at a home in Stafford County, Virginia. When deputies arrived, they found the 35-year-old, his wife Amy, 30, and the couple's daughters, five-year-old Claire and 17-month-old Abigail, dead. Buckley was the subject of a bizarre missing persons case a year earlier. At the time, he was a Howard University doctoral student who vanished on his way from his home to the Washington, D.C. school. His wife Amy had given birth to their second daughter only eleven days prior. He was later found at a campground in Brunswick, MD, near the state's border with West Virginia, about 60 miles northwest of the university. The circumstances surrounding his disappearance remain unclear.

Willow Short was never supposed to survive — according to doctors; she wasn't even expected to be born alive. While still in her mother's womb, doctors discovered a devastating heart defect. Six days after her birth, she received a heart transplant — and with the help of a rigorous course of daily medication, Willow thrived. Her inspiring story filled newspapers around the world. The Short family legacy, it seemed, was one of perseverance, faith, and strength. That changed in August 2016. Two years after defying death, police found the toddler and her two older siblings, Liana, 8, and Mark, Jr., 5, dead in the living room of their Pennsylvania home. Nearby were their parents, Megan and Mark Short, also dead. It's not clear whether Mark or Megan Short killed the rest of the family. A handwritten note was found in the home appeared to be a “murder/suicide” note, but police didn't specify who wrote it.

Officials say the murder-suicide of a Canadian mother and her autistic son should serve as a wake-up call that drastic changes need to be made within the system. The bodies of 40-year-old Angie Robinson and her son, Robert, 16, were found inside their home in Prince Rupert, BC in April 2014. Robert could not speak and would often express his frustration by head-butting walls and people, and shoving his loving, 100-pound single mother. A suicide note left by Angie coupled with her final Facebook post showed she felt she could longer manage Robert, and that Family Services could not provide adequate support.

In 2015, a gruesome murder-suicide rocked the jet set Cascais community of Quinta Patiño, after a husband and wife were found dead at separate locations. The body of 58-year-old Anders Christer Larsson was found at the foot of Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of Europe. Vacationers who flock to the area every weekend were shocked to see Larsson, a Swedish national, throw himself off the cliff. As firemen scrambled to recover the body, no one appeared aware of the full extent of the tragedy. Hours later, a security guard at Quinta Patiño found the body of Larsson's 60-year-old wife inside the house. Police believe Larsson killed her and then drove to Cabo da Roca to jump. Larsson's wife was a Brazilian property magnate, who owned a São Paulo company called Tranesco Empreendimentos. Quinta Patiño is “one of the most expensive and exclusive condominiums in the country.”

In January 2016, the South Australian town of Port Lincoln was rocked by unimaginable tragedy. Police found the bodies of Damien Little and his sons Koda, 4, and Hunter, nine months, inside a family car that had been intentionally driven off a pier at high speed. The laborer, truck driver, and successful football player never took anti-depressants despite "seriously struggling" with what appeared to be mental health issues for about three years. The murder-suicide left wife and mother Melissa Little alone and grief-stricken as she tried to come to terms with an event that resulted in "three lives taken too soon." She used the circumstances surrounding the incident to write a new book aimed at children. Little's manuscript is in the hands of an editor, and she expects to publish it in 2017.