ID’s ‘Curious Case Of…’ Has Our Jaws on the Floor: See the 5 Most Bizarre Cases

Warning: The following post contains discussions of suicide.

For fans of true crime and stranger-than-fiction stories, Investigation Discovery’s The Curious Case Of… series is becoming appointment television.

After captivating us (and, yes, occasionally disgusting us) with its first season, The Curious Case Of… returned for an eight-episode second season last month to “venture even deeper into inconceivably shocking true crime stories that are filled with deception, obsession, and the unbelievable,” as ID puts it.

And some of the most eyebrow-raising is yet to come with the Season 2 finale, “The Corpse Who Came to Dinner,” airing on Monday, March 9 at 10/9c, as you’ll see below.

Here are our picks for the docuseries’ most peculiar cases yet…

5. “The Killer Cheesecake” (Season 2, Episode 2)

The case: In 2016, New York City eyelash technician Olga Tsvyk accepted a last-minute appointment request — and a slice of cheesecake — from a client named Viktoria Nasyrova. Then Tsvyk ended up in the hospital — subsequent tests revealed the cheesecake container had traces of the sedative phenazepam — and Tsvyk reported that thousands of dollars, her purse, her passport, her work visa, and some clothing had been stolen.

The outcome: Nasyrova has denied poisoning Tsvyk, but she was convicted of attempted murder in the second degree, attempted assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree, unlawful imprisonment in the first degree, and petty larceny in 2023, People reports. Tsvyk said Nasyrova wanted to assume her identity, as she was allegedly a fugitive in Russia. Nasyrova was ultimately sentenced to 21 years in prison.

4. “The Girl Who Died Twice” (Season 1, Episode 2)

The case: 13-year-old Mary Day disappeared from her home in Seaside, California, in 1981, but her parents didn’t report her missing at the time. Half-sister Sherrie Calgado later recounted that Charlotte Houle, Day’s mother and Calgado’s birth mother, claimed Day had run away. Calgado was the one who first reported Day missing, doing so in 1992. Investigators suspected that William Houle, Charlotte’s third husband, had killed Day. But then in 2003, one Mary Day was found by police in Phoenix, Arizona, and a DNA test confirmed she was Charlotte’s daughter. Even so, Calgado had her doubts…

The outcome: “Phoenix Mary,” as she was called, lived with Calgado in North Carolina for a time before turning to Arizona, E! News reports. She died of cancer in 2017, but not before convincing Seaside’s then-acting chief of police she was the same Mary Day who disappeared that day in 1981. Calgado, meanwhile, maintains that her half-sister died that day.

3. “The Corpse Who Came to Dinner” (Season 2, Episode 9)

The case: Jean Stevens lost her husband in 1999 and her twin sister a decade later, but she had their embalmed corpses returned to her so they could keep her company at her home in rural Pennsylvania. She dressed her husband in a suit and positioned him on a couch in her garage, and she dressed her sister in a housecoat and put her on a couch in a spare room, according to the Associated Press.

The outcome: Authorities in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, confiscated the bodies in 2010, but the following year, Stevens constructed a mausoleum on her property after the authorities told her that’s how she could have the bodies returned to her, as the AP reported.

2. “The Principal Who Hypnotized His School” (Season 2, Episode 5)

The case: Three teens at North Port High School in North Port, Florida, died within weeks of each other in 2011. One froze behind the wheel of his car. Two others died by suicide. Then it emerged that all three had undergone private hypnosis sessions with George Kenney, the school’s principal.

The outcome: There’s no clear link between hypnosis and suicide, but a lawyer for the families of the deceased told The Washington Post Kenney “altered the underdeveloped brains of teenagers.” Kenney was placed on leave in 2011, and the following year, he was charged with practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license, and he served a year of probation. In 2015, the parents of the three teens won a total of $600,000 in a wrongful death suit against the local school board, according to People.

1. “The Town with Tourette’s” (Season 2, Episode 7)

The case: Between 2011 and 2012, nearly 20 teenagers at Le Roy Junior-Senior High School in Le Roy, New York, started exhibiting Tourette-like tics, spasms, and outbursts, leaving the blue-collar community baffled. Was it copycat behavior? Or was environmental poisoning to blame? After all, Le Roy is not far from Love Canal, which had been polluted with toxic waste, or the site of a 1970 train derailment that dumped 30,000 gallons of toxic solvents into the groundwater and soil.

The outcome: Environmental possibilities and viral contagions were both ruled out in the Le Roy investigation. The consensus, still disputed by the residents of Le Roy, is that the teenagers fell victim to “conversion disorder,” in which the human body finds physical outlets for stress or emotional trauma, that became a “mass psychogenic” event as more people unconsciously replicated the symptoms, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or dial 988. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

The Curious Case Of…, Season 2 Finale, Monday, March 9, 10/9c, Investigation Discovery