Georgia Tann thought it was okay to take babies from poor and unwed mothers, as long as you gave them to wealthy couples. Well, "gave" is kind of a strong word, more like "sold," but that $750 adoption fee definitely helped her feel less guilty.

According to the LA Times, Tann's black market baby business was in operation from the 1920s to the 1940s, and it's estimated she took more than 5,000 babies from their parents. Tann used her position as the county director of the Tennessee Children's Home Society to gain trust and avoid prosecution, and parents who fought back found themselves up against judges who were on Tann's payroll. And so she got away with this for decades — she died in 1950, just three days before investigators finally closed in.

Unsolved Mysteries featured the story in December 1989, and the show prompted more than 600 calls from people who thought they might be victims. At least 50 of those cases were solved in the first eight months after the program aired, including Lynn Heinz, who was "sold to a doctor" at the age of 5, and Sandra Kimbrell, whose mother was told she'd died of pneumonia after Georgia Tann took her to a hospital "for a checkup." Any way you look at it, this story only has a happy ending for the sole fact that many of these people learned the truth.