No matter how terrifying a horror film may be, you can always remind yourself that it’s not real. Those are just actors in costumes on a set, and no, the Babadook isn’t actually coming after you.
What’s much more disturbing, however, is any story that’s actually true. And if you’re looking to have some nightmares tonight, pandas, you’ve come to the right place. Redditors have been sharing the most chilling true stories they’ve ever heard (or experienced themselves), so we’ve compiled the creepiest ones below. We’ll warn you right now that you might not want to read these tales before bed, but if you’re a fan of horror, be sure to upvote the ones that leave you seriously unsettled!
#1
This is second hand from my mom so I dont remember everything, but when I was younger (like 3 or 4) and she was home alone with me some guy came up to the door. This was before cellphones and people were nicer so she answered it even tho it was like 8 or 9 at night. Well the guy was asking if he could come in and use her phone but she said no. He asked a couple more times before walking in and immediately got stop by the family dog grabbing his hand and holding it tightly. He started to get nervous and my dads dog led him back to the door (he had walked further in at this point) my mom was able to push him out and lock the door before running upstairs and calling the police. The cops picked him up a little while later and they found out he had been in a bar fight and stabbed a guy a bunch of times. Without my “older brother” my mom and I could’ve been seriously hurt. He was the best dog ever and lived till the ripe age of 15.
Image source: WhiskeyTangoFaxtrot
#2
I just watched a documentary about Colleen Stan, who survived being kidnapped by a s*xual sadist, who kept her in a coffin-sized box he built under his bed, 22 hours a day, for seven years while he r***d and tortured her.
The ~~victim~~ survivor is the primary interviewee in the documentary and tells her story, on camera, for most of the documentary. The cops made mention of her bravery and ability withstand her t*****e, and manipulate her kidnapper to increase her safety.
Image source: NotMyHersheyBar, IMDb
#3
Last summer in my city a 14-year old girl was r***d near a train station. After her a****r left her she tried to get help and flagged down a vehicle and was r***d a second time in the car of the man who stopped. Two complete strangers r***d her on the same day, it happened only a few miles away from my house and I still think about it from time to time.
Image source: kkkkkggggg, Vlad Bagacian/Pexels
#4
Not the scariest thing that I know about, but the scariest thing that ever happened to ME:
I worked at a pretty well known record store in Los Angeles in the 90s. A guy in his early twenties used to come in and ask me about records a lot, and one day in conversation he let a weird detail about my life slip that I hadn’t told him (my dad is not American). I brushed it off, thinking my co-workers has mentioned it to him since he was such a regular. About a week later I was driving home and my car broke down. It was incredibly hot and I had to walk several miles to get to a payphone, which was outside an elementary school. I called a cab and hung up the phone, and after sitting a moment, it started ringing, so I picked it up. The person on the other end said, “bad luck about your car- talk to me until your ride gets there. “ I hung up the phone, but it was definitely that guy. He had to have followed me from home, trailed me from the car, called the school to ask for the payphone number, and found a way to call me at that number. There weren’t really cellphones at that time, but there was a gas station and a grocery store across the street so who knows.
I immediately quit my job and moved back in with my parents within 48 hours. I went in to visit old friends from work a few months later and they told me the guy was arrested for kidnapping. Fml.
Image source: anon, Görkem Dalgıç/Pexels
#5
The story of Mary Vincent. I love true crime and don’t usually get squeemish, but this story is probably the most disturbing true crime story I have heard yet.
Mary Vincent was 15 years old when she decided to run away from home on September 28th, 1978. She was hitchhiking along the highway in Soquel, California, standing with two other hitchhikers. A man pulled up in a van and said he only had room for her, but not the others. The man driving the van was 51-year old Larry Singleton. He offered to drive Mary to the I-5 freeway. As he drove, Mary realized that he had passed the ramp to the I-5 and demanded he turn around; Larry said it was an honest mistake and turned around. Soon after, he pulled over and told Mary he needed to go to the bathroom and couldn’t wait for a rest stop. When he got out of the van, Mary realized her shoe was untied, and got out to tie it.
As she was tying her shoelaces, Larry came behind her and hit her over the head with a sledgehammer. He then proceeded to r**e and sodomise her. This is where it gets even worse: Larry took a f*****g **hatchet and cut off both of her arms**, just below the elbow. BOTH OF HER ARMS. He then threw her down a 30 foot culvert in a canyon, and drove off. The most astounding part of the whole story is that Mary survived. She used what was left of her strength and made her way 3 miles out of the embankment, **with no f*****g arms below the elbow, n**e,** and was stumbling down the road when she saw a car. The first car she saw sped away in fear. The second car she saw was driven by a couple who were on vacation. They stopped the car, helped her into their truck, and drove her to a nearby airport where they were able to get an ambulance and she was taken to a hospital.
Mary is a f*****g badass. She then testified twice against Larry, but he only served 8 years and 4 months for attempted murder, forcible r**e, sodomy, kidnapping, mayhem, and forced oral copulation. Seriously the most f****d up story, he got out on “good behavior.” Later, he m******d a s*x worker and was sentenced to death, and died in 2001 on death row.
**edit:** okay I didn’t really expect this to blow up this much. Some things to address: first: the judge was not a bad judge, he gave him the maximum sentence (14 years) that was allowed by the law at that time. During the sentencing, he even said that he would have given Larry a life sentence if the law allowed him to. Second: Mary survived because she is a badass. She didn’t give up, and was able to pack mud around what was left of her arms in order to stop the bleeding, this in addition to keeping her arms raised was how she stayed alive. Third: I first heard this story on My Favorite Murder Podcast, but it has also been covered on other podcasts and shows like I Survived. If you like true crime, definitely check out My Favorite Murder, tons of other interesting stories.
Image source: aBowlofMacNcheese, rainman577/Reddit
#6
Fatal Familial Insomnia. The whole story is batshit and perhaps the most terrifying Wikipedia rabbit hole I’ve ever gone down. Only a few families have this genetic disorder, iirc, and once you develop it, that’s it, you die an agonizing death from an inability to sleep. It starts off like regular insomnia, but progresses over a few years until you legit go insane and finally shut down. NOTHING, not even the most potent d**g, can induce sleep. Even when they tried to put them in comas, the brain remained completely active.
Image source: Kafkamazov, cottonbro studio/Pexels
#7
This is a series of photos recovered from the camera of a Canadian couple who died during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
It shows the water level flowing out from the shore before surging back in.
The very idea of a wall of water crashing towards you, completely unstoppable, and you have no where to run, no where that is safe is perhaps one of the most terrifying things that could happen to you. By the time one could take these photos, all you can do is watch death march inexorably towards you.
#8
Issei Sagawa, the Japanese cannibal who admitted he still fantasizes about killing and eating women (after killing and eating a woman in Paris) walks free unmedicated and unmonitored in Japan to this day. Pretty creepy to know people like that walk around freely.
Image source: Juddston, Pixabay/Pexels
#9
The “honour killing” of Mona Heydari. Her husband chased her across the country (Iran), before killing her, decapitating her body and walking around smiling with a knife in his right hand and her head in his left.
Image source: anon, cottonbro studio/Pexels
#10
There was a serial killer known as the Weepy Voiced Killer. He would k**l people then call 911 from a payphone, crying and begging them to catch and stop him. You can find the recordings of his 911 calls on YouTube.
Image source: Youcatthewrongpurrsn, Luis Quintero/Pexels
#11
Check the murder of Junko Furuta story.
To sum it up : 44 days of hell for a girl who was kidnapped by teenage boys. She went through every possible t*****e imaginable and finally died after she was pushed to her limits. A mangaka called waita uziga made an adaptation. I could not even finish reading it without feeling physically sick.
According to the wiki, they :
* R***d her over 400 times.
* Hanged her body from the ceiling and used her as a “punching bag”
* Dropped barbells onto her stomach several times.
* Forced her to eat live cockroaches and drink her own urine.
* Forced her to m*sturbate in front of them.
* Shoved a still-lit light bulb into her v****a.
* Set fireworks into her a**s, v****a, mouth and ears.
* Burnt her v****a and clitoris with cigarettes and lighters.
* Pierced her breasts with sewing needles.
The horrific nature comes from the complete lack of empathy from her captors (who looked like completely innocent youngsters), and the fact she was a random girl, who were at the wrong place, at the wrong time. She could eventually be saved by the couples living in the building, but they feared the teenager boys. Imagine : having the hope you’ll eventually make it out with your sole will because you wanna see your family again, until your body finally shut down of exhaustion. I’ve never felt more rage personally for such a disturbing story…
Image source: yunase84, cottonbro studio/Pexels
#12
This is a hometown story that stayed with me. It happened literally right around the corner from where I grew up, maybe a two minute drive away.
Judy Kirby m******d six children and one adult by intentionally driving the wrong way on a divided highway in an attempt to commit s*****e. She had been hospitalized for depression, but had also just ended a relationship with her ex husband’s brother and was by some reports involved in d**g trafficking and fearing an imminent arrest.
She picked up her sister’s son, who was celebrating his tenth birthday that day. She then loaded her three children into the car, supposedly to pick up a gift for the nephew. Instead, she went missing with the carload of kids. A short time later, calls started coming in to 911 about a car going the wrong way down the highway at a high rate of speed. They made it about 90 seconds before a head-on collision with another vehicle, driven by a father with two children and another child along for the ride.
The crash annihilated both vehicles. The only survivors were Kirby herself, and the child who was along for the ride in the other car. There were pieces of children all over the highway. She was sentenced to 215 years in prison.
Image source: legitOC, Artyom Kulakov/Pexels
#13
Serial r*pist Marc O’Leary was caught in 2011 and charged with several r***d. Now, none of these women’s stories are particularly pretty, but there’s one woman whose story takes the cake. In 2008, an 18 years old woman went to police claiming she was r***d. They didn’t believe her and ended up charging her with filing a false report. She had to pay a fine, have a crime on her record, and get this: to stay in subsidized housing, they made her confess that she made the whole thing up. Her photo was later found among his belongings.
Image source: pm-me-puppypics, cottonbro studio/Pexels
#14
The killing of mobster William “Action” Jackson
>Jackson was impaled through his r****m with a meat hook, hanging a foot in the air, while being questioned by mob enforcers. Jackson kept insisting he was not an informer but his torturers did not believe him. They stripped him naked, smashed his kneecaps with a bat, one of them shot him with a g*n, broke his ribs, stuck him with sharp objects, used a cattle prod on his p***s and a**s making him lose his bowels, burned parts of his body with a blow torch, and told him how they were going to k**l his wife and children if he did not confess. Then they left him for three days until he finally succumbed to his wound
Image source: lolzsupbrah, Maël BALLAND/Pexels
#15
My idiot distant (emphasis on distant) cousins started a church/cult that prayed instead of going to doctors.
Wife of one of them had a breach birth that they attempted to rectify at home by giving her an apiseotomy with a pair of kitchen shears. Baby died, wife got an infection that could have easily been cured if they had gone to the hospital and died a month later.
Wife’s family sued them and won 100M for wrongful death. They were still appealing last I knew.
Edit: if you want the details. The appeal itself is public and goes into even more detail if your want to see how a cult works.
Image source: non_clever_username
#16
For me, I was walking back home at like 11PM when I notice this hooded guy behind me. I do what I read somewhere you should do and took 3 right turns in a row to see if he was actually following me, and he was. I managed to gather all my courage and yelled at him “What the f**k do you want” with the most menacing tone I could muster and he just turned around and left.
Image source: _Tono, Jakson Martins/Pexels
#17
The guy who died in nutty putty cave. He basically crawled into narrower and narrower passageways thinking it would eventually open up. He was trapped for many hours unable to get a full breath. After he died, they decided it would be too difficult to get him out so they closed the cave and left him in there. I can’t think of anything worse than dealing with that kind of claustrophobia. Edited to include detail I forgot: he was trapped *upside down*.
Image source: pm-me-puppypics, ProfessionalShow8373/Reddit
#18
I lived in an apartment in Marina del Rey, California. 9 years ago, just before Halloween, a third-floor balcony was decorated with a prop of a dead man slumped over in a chair. For a few days, every time I’d come home I’d look up and think how cool looking it was and wondering why they didn’t have lights shining on it at night. After a few days, people realized it was actually the resident of the apartment who k**led himself. I was looking at a corpse thinking how cool it was.
Image source: markeees, Toni Cuenca/Pexels
#19
There is a a rural cemetery outside the small town where I live and grew up where something that sounds like a scene from a horror film took place. In the late 80s/early 90s there was a rash of serial r*pes/murders around the area. One of the victims, a young woman, escaped from the car of the r*pist and found herself running away from the car and into the cemetery. She saw lights on a farmhouse in the distance and hope for survival flickered in her eyes. Unbeknownst to her, the darkness hid the fence surrounding the perimeter of the cemetery. She ran blindingly into it and was knocked down allowing the r*pist to catch up to her. He then beat her to death with a toppled headstone.
Terrifying.
Here is a link for the curious: Keen Murder Solved.
Image source: AmIAllTheThings, Vladimir Gladkov/Pexels
#20
Not sure if posted here but a woman was abducted and r***d by 2 men and then stabbed over 30 times. Her neck muscle completely removed, her guts spilling out. She crawled to the hospital WITH HER HEAD ALMOST DETACHED and survived. She wrote a book and now is a motivational speaker with 2 kids, despite the fact that she was disemboweled.
Image source: OneStarvingEli
#21
This is ongoing. Maybe too late to get noticed. I live in a modest house on a quiet street. 9 years ago, someone bought the house next to me to basically shelve their 18yo schizophrenic son. They pay the rent and utilities and occasionally drop off cash. He has done about as well as an unmanaged schizophrenic can do on his own. To paint an image, he is a muscular black guy with telltale crazy eyes. He stands on his balcony around 3am most nights screaming and threatening… someone (voices, me, I can’t tell). The first major incident was when he shot a deer from his second-story balcony. It was standing across the street about 4ft from a neighbor’s bedroom. The police came and left when he didn’t answer. I woke up to swat in my bushes the next morning with some serious scoped weapons. He left with them but returned in a few weeks. Astonishingly, I discovered that he incurred no charges for this. Aside from this, it has been general weirdness: running down the street yelling, wearing winter clothing in the summer/sometimes boxers in the winter, collecting shopping carts, breaking windows, etc.
Over the last 2 years, he has become focused more on me. I first noticed when he told me to stop contacting him. As in, I had become one of the voices. I had always been neighborly to him and helped how I could, but it is becoming clear that he is directing his paranoia at me (40ish dude). He is becoming more aggressive. Slashed tires, trampled plants, things missing. I call the police, they take a record and say there is nothing they can do. I call his father and he tells me he is an adult and can’t make him check into a facility. He won’t sell the house or move him. For reference, they are from somewhere in the world that attempting an exorcism is a reasonable course of action.
Last week, he began banging on my door at 3am nightly. He thinks I am stealing his rap lyrics (like I am going to publish an album about killing and raping white people). My family is terrified and he runs by the time I make it outside. I report it every time, but he doesn’t answer the door and the cops/crisis team just leave. I really feel like the system is dropping the ball here, and it is going to take an incident for something to be done. Maybe not the scariest thing in the world to you, dear reader, but it is in mine.
Edit: Thanks for all of the thoughtful replies. Thought I would answer some. I’m pretty broke, so moving or lawyering is not really an option. We are in the process of a protection order, but that requires several trips to the downtown courthouse. I am saving for a few cameras. I’m a bit ashamed, but I did purchase a handg*n a few years ago (because of him). I wouldn’t use it unless he forced his way into my house. I have done everything I can think of to get the system to work. We have gone to the police station multiple times. We have the mobile health crisis unit’s number and call them when it seems like he needs an evaluation. We have asked his parents to intervene. We have asked him personally to contact his case worker to get help. We really want him to be able to live a good life, but I can’t personally do it for him, and the *system* seems to be reactionary.
Image source: cincymatt
#22
Two engineers died when the windmill they were working on caught fire this is the last picture of them alive hugging.
#23
The Lake Nyos Disaster. There was an earthquake/eruption that released an unbelievable amount of carbon dioxide from a volcanic lake… and CO2 being heavier than air it settled over the nearby village. Over 1,700 people asphyxiated to death in a clear blue sky having no clue what was happening and almost no chance of surviving if they had. I remember horrifying photos of dead livestock covering a field in a high school science textbook.
Image source: Amish_Cyberbully
#24
The serial killer H.H. Holmes is the man that the term psychopath was created for. He would visit the fair and dazzle women with his beautiful eyes. Sometimes he’d k**l them pretty immediately. Sometimes he’d take them as lovers or even marry them and live with them for a while before killing them. Of course, psychopaths can’t actually feel love, so it was really just to escalate the trauma once he killed them.
He killed them merely because he was curious. Sometimes using surgical tools. Sometimes by suffocating them in an airtight room. Sometimes by letting gas into said airtight room. And he’d take notes on his observations as they died. Then he’d dig around in their insides for a bit to further sate his curiosity.
He was jailed and hanged for unrelated crimes (back when capital punishment wasn’t just for murderers). Only later did they find the meticulous documentation of everything he’d done.
Image source: Youcatthewrongpurrsn
#25
Cant see if someone mentioned it, but that guy on Japan that was exposed to so much radiation his skin fell off and they kept him alive to monitor him.
Image source: Seggo13, Anna Shvets/Pexels
#26
Newspaper report of a woman being stalked by a psychopathic ex boyfriend
One day at work she went for her lunch break when she came back to the *open plan office* her tin opener from her kitchen at home was in the middle of her desk.
Image source: Gsurhijrsee
#27
Over the course of 70 years, the Catholic Church in Ireland r***d and a****d tens of thousands of children.
They starved orphans to death and buried them in mass graves.
They sold children into adoption.
They allowed babies in their care to be used in experimental d**g and radiation tests.
They forced women who got pregnant out of wedlock into indentured servitude for life.
And they actively and deliberately worked to cover it all up.
Image source: Roanokian
#28
I have two, and they’re both tangentially related.
The first is of the ant-walking alligator people of Hiroshima. Of all the horrifying things that happened in the wake of that nuclear strike, in my opinion, the alligator people are by far the most horrific. They were horribly marred and disfigured by the blast, should much so that they could no longer speak. Apparently, the only sound they made was a scream that sounded like cicadas buzzing.
The other is Hisashi Ouchi. He was a worker on a nuclear plant when an accident occurred, and a tank of radioactive material reached critical mass. He received a fatal dose of radiation, but was kept alive for 83 days. At one point he even told the doctors to “stop treating me like a guinea pig”, but they still kept him alive. They should have let him die after a few weeks, but they used him for experiments.
Image source: EtherBlossomDance
#29
The toolbox killers. Since one of the killer accepted a plea deal of a life sentence with parole after 30 years, he gave very detail explanation on what happened during the murders. It’s a lot to read but man you really get the feel for what those poor girls went through when they got abducted.
Edit: since a lot of people are shocked read at your own risk. Just know that it’s a m******r confession, very detailed. Their gruesome actions include inserting foreign objects into the body.
Image source: Artm1562
#30
Pictures of the Black Dahlia. S***s not high definition but it is awfully f****d up. If you look it up, you’ll find Elizabeth Short was m******d on skid row. Her body was found a day after she was m******d. She was found with a Glasgow smile, her body was severed in half at the hips with all of the blood drained out and the killer communicated with the cops but was never found.
Image source: Choochmeister
#31
That one underwater proposal where the guy’s girlfriend was in an underwater hotel room and the guy swam outside of it to propose. You could see him struggling, couldn’t hold his breath any longer and swam up but never made it to the surface. One of the happiest moments in their lives only to end in tragedy.
Image source: I_ama_Borat, Francesco Ungaro/Pexels
#32
Hinterkaifeck. On a small farm in Germany in 1922, someone brutally m******d the entire family and their maid, then lived in the house for days after. The killer lured family members to the attic one by one – the daughter was m******d in the barn with a pickaxe, and evidence shows she stayed alive in agony for hours.
The father had reported hearing footsteps in the attic in the days leading up to the killings, but could find no one. He also saw footprints in the snow leading to the machine room, where the lock was broken. It took four days for the bodies to be discovered, in which time people reported seeing and smelling smoke from the fireplace – the smell was “disgusting”. It’s unknown what was being burned.
The previous family maid had quit six months before the killings, citing sounds in the attic and claiming the place was haunted. Six months.
To this day, there has been nothing close to a conclusive end to the story. It still haunts me. There are pictures of the bodies online if you look for them. Gruesome stuff.
Image source: Verbluffen
#33
That fire in the bar where the doors were chained and there was one entrance and exit. The sounds of that video haunt me. The fire grew so fast that dozens died quickly. I don’t want to look it up again but it could have been over a hundred dead.
Image source: davidtheartist
#34
Not a photo but there was that video of the guy in Russia that was live streaming in his apartment and he locked his naked girlfriend outside on the balcony. It was the middle of winter so she froze to death and then the sick b*****d drags her dead body back inside and keeps livestreaming like nothing just happened. Do not recommend watching that one.
Image source: DemandZestyclose7145, Elina Volkova/Pexels
#35
So, over 3k comments in this thread so I doubt this will get any attention but~~ I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this rather recent case yet – but the security footage inside of Danvers Highschool showing Philip Chism following his math teacher Colleen Ritzer through a hallway and into the womens bathroom only to emerge a few moments later with what appears to be blood on his jeans. He comes back some time later with a large heavy duty trash can, where he then wheels it out of the bathroom and out of school grounds into the woods where he dumps her body and makes off with her wallet. Of which he takes and goes to the movies with.
She was just trying to help the new kid in class adjust to the new school. She cared about her students and he was visibly struggling. He brought a knife to school that day- no idea if this was premeditated for *her* specifically, or if he was just waiting for someone to p**s him off that day and she just happened to be the one to be there. The security footage is… chilling, to say the least.
Image source: rucbarbird
#36
I work at a pizza place in St. Louis called IMO’s. About 10 years ago, there was a guy who was a manager at our store named Michael Devlin. He abducted 2 children in total but quickly got caught a few days after abducting the second child. The terrifying thing is that he had held the first child (who was 11 when abducted) captive for over 4 years and pretended that he was his son. The kid even went by the last name Devlin after the whole charade was over! He abducted the second kid by following a school bus to somewhere in buttfuck Missouri, somewhere where hardly anyone would be able to see him. When he pulled up in his truck, a kid in the back of the bus noticed how it was weird that there was a car in the area other than the usual one’s he saw on most commutes. Next thing he knew, the kid they dropped off went missing, so he gave the police a description of it. A few days later, after reading the paper, my pizza shop owner, Mike, recognized the description and ended up filing a report on his own manager. Devlin is serving like 70 life sentences or some crazy s**t.
Also, I work with some people who worked with him- most I’ve heard them say about him is that he was a d**k 😂.
Image source: anon, Yaseminmsl/Pexels
#37
A relative of mine (distant, like 5th or 6th cousin i think) was a professional diver for an oil company, he would dive to check things below the surface at depths great enough to require mixed gas air tanks. He had a suit malfunction, and had to be kept in one of those pressure chambers to slowly let the gasses out of his body.
While he was breathing through a sealed face mask, someone changed the tank at the end out, and a safety device meant to keep the air from being pulled back through the (from inside the chamber to the outside) failed and literally pulled his lungs and stomach out through his mouth, killing instantly.
My mother has the news article somewhere, this was in the late 8os i think, and happened off the coast of Louisianan in the Gulf of Mexico.
Image source: WeirdWolfGuy, Hossam Ashoor/Pexels
#38
The 2011 San Fernando m******e. Mexican cartel members (Los Zetas) abducted people from buses in Mexico. They executed the old and weak, r***d and tortured the women, threw the children in acid, and separated the men. The men were then forced into gladiatorial combat to the death, all in some kind of game to find new cartel recruits. They even forced the bus driver to run the bus over living people. It still blows my mind that this happened right there in Mexico, just a few years ago.
Image source: kingofforest, Luis Ariza/Pexels
#39
If you climb Everest, you are basically guaranteed to see at least one dead, frozen carcass on your way up.
Image source: anon, 8Percent Media/Pexels
#40
A friend of a friend was travelling in the UK and had to hitch-hike. He dropped her off at home. The next day police came knocking and proceeded to take her to the station and demand how she knows this man, what is their relationship etc. She finds out that the man had killed another female hitch-hiker that same day and had her in the trunk at the same time he was driving her (the friend). For some unknown reason he hadn’t killed her. She couldn’t sleep and cried for days and her home was placed on watch.
Image source: this-is-nice, Vitaly Gariev/Pexels
#41
Ronald Stoecker picked up an underage teen(Jean Marie Humble) near Peoria, IL. He then drove her several miles out to the country, proceeded to r**e her with a knife in a very old and unused farm shed. She crawled her way at least 500 yards to nearest house and got help. That was my house. She ended up dying a week or so later. Parents never liked talking about it and still don’t, really. He fled to Costa Rica and eventually was caught. What a piece of garbage. Happened around ’97 or ’98
Image source: jackhackett80
#42
The story of Vladimir Komarov. A cosmonaut who was burned to a crisp on reentry into the atmosphere. This was caused by someone on the job screwing up and he made them promise that he would have an open casket funeral so everyone could see what happens when you screw up on the team of a space crew. The picture is pretty NSFL and they say he screamed bloody murder as he was being burned to death. Pretty sure you can find that recording as well if you are so inclined
Edit: according to reddit he knew it would happen. Also he didn’t burn up until he crashed into the ground because allegedly the parachutes didn’t go off. Regardless he was screaming and cursing those who put him in what he knew was a botched shuttle from the beginning so it’s not much less scary that way anyway.
Image source: fluffyluv
#43
That Netflix documentary about the pizza guy in Erie, Pennsylvania who had a b*mb collar put around his neck then was forced to rob a bank. As a former delivery driver I was scared shitless the entire time, but also super intrigued by the investigation and the people involved.
I’m really blanking on the name of the mini series right now, but I’ll try to find it and make an edit if no one comments before.
Image source: DatBowl
#44
The murder of Yvonne Pearson, she was targeted by Peter Sutcliffe (A serial killer known as The Yorkshire Ripper) for being a prostitute.
He hit her on the back of her head with a hammer several times, He then noticed that there was a taxi nearby so he dragged her behind an old sofa and to stop her from making noise, he shoved horse hair down her throat while pinching her nose shut. When the taxi left she was still alive, so he kicked her and even jumped on her chest with all his body weight and eventually she died.
She had two young children which makes the story even worse.
Image source: hhakki
#45
I have posted this before too from a different ID I used to have. This still haunts me to date.
This is from the days when I used to live back home (I used to live in Karachi, Pakistan but now moved to UK).
We used live very close to a CID (Police Investigation Department aka Pakistani FBI) building which we all were unaware of and always thought it was just an ordinary government building till on 11th, Nov 2010. On that day I around evening time coming home from work I thought I better hit the gym (because they had a sauna and after being tired from all day work that sounded like a good idea) which was hardly 0.3 miles away so I decided to walk to the gym. I change quickly and leave for the gym and start walking towards the gym.
This is almost I’ve hardly walked like 10 minutes and I’m 0.1 miles away roughly and all of a sudden for a nano second I feel that ground is shaking and the next thing I hear is a loudest bang I’ve ever heard followed by a pressure kick into my chest. Now to let you guys know, my both the ear started bleeding because the bang was so loud and for the reference the kick in the chest was as bad as Big Show wearing military boots and kicking you in the chest straight
with full force.
Next thing? I’m on the ground covering my ears because they are in agony and covered in dirt trying to figure out what’s happening. As I am trying to figure out I can see all the cars alarms have gone off. Anything made up of glass has been shattered in roughly 1-2 miles area. I’m still trying to figure out what has happened and I start smelling g*n powder and as if someone is making a BBQ and is being burnt. I will always remember that smell which was something unsettling. Next things rock and dust particle starts landing on me and the surrounding areas which had 1-1.5 inches long of pieces of human skin and flesh. I am not believing that I have another human skin piece stuck to my arm. I brush up my clothes and arms getting up and covering my ear recovering from that pressure kick.
As I move closer to a spot in a street where I am hearing loads of people screaming and crying I see a few 3-5ft cracks between some walls of the building which have been destroyed by the shockwave of the bang. I see the gap between a wall and move into the area where I see these scenes straight from a Hollywood movie where people are crying, cars on fire and dead bodies on the ground. By this time I’m thinking its a b*mb blast and that’s what has happened. As I move closer I see a 10ft and 30ft wide crater which has been filled with the water and the building which was a CID building is no longer there. There are hundreds of people lying on the ground crying for help as some of them don’t even have legs or limbs or some don’t have their complete bottom. I am still in a state of shock looking around and I see a woman crying and hitting herself because she had her husband dead who’s legs and torso was missing. I seen that later. I see several people without legs, brains out and no hands. One thing, which haunted me for sure was a 18-20yr old guy who was dead and lying on the floor towards his chest on the floor with his neck turned towards me. I can still remember him looking straight into my eyes. His feet were flipped the other way around. After the police arrived and media arrived I came back home after it got crowded. After I came home after the dusk everyday, I would see that 18-20yr old boy standing and starring into my eyes. I would wake up screaming through out the night and see that guy standing at the door way just staring at me. For two to three weeks I would see this guy regularly during midnight standing in my hallway staring through my soul. I still remember that guy’s face and the shockwave and the sound of the blast.
According to BBC it said “Eyewitnesses said the blast left a crater 12 metres (40ft) wide in front of the gutted building in Pakistan’s financial and commercial capital.”
Here’s the news article covering the event.
Image source: kelvindesignuk
#46
My great aunt was buried alive when she was only in her 20s. The casket was brought up when the cemetery had to be relocated. The casket had broken, and she was upside down. Claw marks everywhere inside the casket.
Image source: anon
#47
My great uncle had an experience with a chainsaw that was less than pleasant. In front of my mum’s cousin, (his daughter) he was showing her how to use a chainsaw. Unfortunately he lost control of the chainsaw and it swung towards his neck and well. He beheaded himself with this chainsaw in front of her.
Image source: JIAKC
#48
My Aunt’s ex-husband was the last victim of the Ohio Craigslist killer (who offered jobs to men through Craigslist to steal their money/credit cards). He only survived because the man’s g*n jammed before a fatal headshot. He ran and hid in the woods for hours before finding a house and someone to call 911. Richard Beasley was charged with killing 3 men and the attempted murder of my Aunt’s ex. It’s the closest a murder has come in my family (and hopefully it stays that way. We have been lucky in this day and age).
Image source: 69ShadesofPurple
#49
Probably the Delphi murders where the girls took a photo and recorded audio/video of the killer. Still hasn’t been caught :(
Image source: funktacious, Wikipedia
#50
The final photo of Regina Kay Walters, who ran away from home with her boyfriend and they were picked up and m******d by a serial killer.
Image source: erst77
#51
The story of Omayra Sanchez. The story is chilling, but the photograph will haunt you for life (seriously, click at your own risk).
After a volcano eruption, her legs were trapped underneath rubble, but there was water up to her chest. Rescuers worked for days but couldn’t get her out, and eventually everyone including the doctors came to realize there was no way to save her, and even if they removed the rubble it would just sever her legs and she would bleed to death. They had to just let her die where she was. After 3 days, Omayra eventually said goodbye to her mother, said she would get some rest, then passed away.
Edit: To clarify, this photo is not gory, and was published by mainstream news outlets. However, it is a photo of a dying child and many people find it disturbing. Again, click at your own risk.
Image source: jamesphw
#52
Tara Calico. Even if it ISN’T her in that photo, what creeps me out the most is her eyes. It’s not fear that I see, it seems more like a dead, dull acceptance of a horrible situation.
Image source: MySweetAudrina
#53
Albert Fish is a pretty terrifying story. He was a very disturbed serial killer and child r*pist/cannibal during the early 20th century. Here is a letter he sent to the mother of one of his victims:
>My dear Mrs Budd,
>In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the steamer Tacoma, Capt John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco to Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was a famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1 to 3 Dollars a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold to the Butchers to be cut up and sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak – chops – or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girls behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price. John staid there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys one 7 one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them – tortured them – to make their meat good and tender. First he killed the 11 yr old boy, because he had the fattest a*s and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except Head – bones and guts. He was roasted in the oven, (all of his a*s) boiled, broiled, fried, stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time I was living at 409 E 100 St, rear – right side. He told me so often how good human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it. On Sunday June the 3 – 1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese – strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her, on the pretense of taking her to a party. You said Yes she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wild flowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them. When all was ready I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mama. First I stripped her naked. How she did kick – bite and scratch. I choked her to death then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms, cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little a*s was roasted in the oven. It took me 9 days to eat her entire body. I did not f**k her, though, I could of [sic] had I wished. She died a virgin.
Image source: -eDgAR-
#54
One day we will be so physically debilitated that some young nurse aid will be changing our diapers and feeding us every day while we just sit around waiting to die.
Image source: strawhat8ouy
#55
Probably Garley Building fire in the urban area of Hong Kong during 1996 which took 41 lives.
There was TV live that day and there was just one guy who clinged to the window trying to shout for help. But the fire took him and he was burnt to death on live. Later the corpse just kept clinging to the window with fire burning behind him.
Image source: tldfr
#56
Issei Sagawa. He was obsessed with a fellow student while studying in Paris. Her name was Renée Hartevelt and she was of Dutch origin. He invited her over to dinner and proceeded to k**l her, r**e her corpse, mutilate her, and eat some of her body parts. There are pictures of the gruesome death readily available with a quick Google image search.
Worst part? He got out of it because “insanity” and went back to Japan, where, for a while, he became a pseudo-celebrity and was invited onto shows to tell the story.
He was not allowed to attend the funerals of his parents.
Edited to include link and corrected victim’s nationality.
Image source: anon
#57
Waking up to a notification on my phone that a ballistic missile was incoming to my state and to seek shelter immediately. Screenshot it and it’s the one picture that I was sure to copy onto my computer when my old phone took a swim.
Image source: SpecificallyNerd
#58
America’s most wanted. That whole series used to run on my grandmas TV and nothing made me more anxious than knowing each and every perp described on that show was running free. I used to have super bad anxiety over where my siblings were at theme parks or grocery stores because of all the kidnapping stories.
Image source: ALoneCorgi
#59
The United States has lost 11 nuclear weapons, a plane carrying 1 fell off an aircraft carrier 80 miles off the coast of Japan. A b*mber was carrying 2 over the Mediterranean sea and was lost to a storm. A plane crashed over North Carolina and 1 was found in a tree and the other was 50 meters underground. It was never found and the government bought the land around the area. A plane crashed over Greenland and dropped 4, 3 were found but 1 buried itself in the ice. The worst is when a b*mber crashed over Georgia and dropped a b*mb into the Atlantic ocean less than half a mile from the state. If that’s not bad enough Russia has also lost about 40.
Edit 1: The nuke off the coast of Georgia is only 12 miles from the city of Savannah which has a population of more than 146k, so its best it doesn’t explode.
Image source: IWaterboardKids, Pixabay/Pexels
#60
Hometown friend was tripping on mushrooms and saw a couple going at it in the back seat of a neighbors car. Went in for a closer look and noticed he was actually witnessing a murder. Next day the house was flooded with cop cars but never heard anything more of it.
Image source: snowpotato88, kat wilcox/Pexels
#61
Guy was killed and cannibalized on a Greyhound bus by another passenger because apparently there were voices telling him to do it.
Image source: Taygr, Deybson Mallony/Pexels
#62
My mom stayed in a hospital for a week at the same time that a serial killer worked there that was killing patients. The scariest part is I didn’t even realize how close of a call she could have had until 20 years later when I was researching famous serial killers.
**Editing to add since people have been asking: It was Charles Cullen.
Image source: PBandJoe
#63
Friend of a friend was offshore welding and his line was snagged by a fishing boats. It pulled him up and killed him, because of his depth. My friend said the saddest part was the funeral… His five year old daughter just staring and the coffin, left completely alone in the world.
Image source: anon
#64
A kid in my town almost got kidnapped waiting for the school bus. Her mom came outside right as the men grabbed her.
Image source: anon
#65
So many from the Cold War.
For instance, we almost obliterated North Carolina by accident when a nuke being transported by a b*mber was accidentally released.
Also, in the Soviet Union, the alarm signaling an impending nuclear strike from the US went off and it came down to one Nan’s judgment call whether or not to retaliate. The alarm was faulty and thankfully that gentleman had enough sense not to hit a red button launching the USSR’s nukes.
Image source: anon
#66
Got told this story the other day. There was a girl in England who had been using the tinder app and met a guy and planned to go on a date with him. He picked her up from her apartment and they went to a restaurant however during the entree just started to feel ill and asked him to drop her home. While at home she went straight upstairs to her room and was just chilling in bed as she felt ill. Eventually she hears something happening downstairs and as she lives alone, she freaks out and called the police that there was an intruder in her house. Eventually the police come and arrest the dude she had been on the date with but tell her not to come downstairs until they can clean up. The police beg her not too but she insists as it’s her house. She comes down and all the furniture in her lounge has been moved to the sides, there were white sheets covering everything and a set of machetes lined up perfectly. Her date had planned to murder her and had spiked her drink hence her feeling ill.
Image source: cupake99
#67
My first post on this account was an encounter that happened to me just a month ago. And yes, I’m still waiting on the police report.
Edit: No I’m not in Florida so the police can be rather stingy with information.
Image source: PM_ME_INTERNET_SCAMS
#68
Doubt anyone will read this. My mum’s friends grandmother I think lived on her own and was an older woman so people didn’t really take her seriously when she said things. Anyway so she said she kept hearing noises near her not sure where it was coming from, on multiple occasions. Turns out the noises were her next door neighbor who had some mental issues and found a way to come into her house from the attic. When the banging got louder one day, the old lady was scared and so locked all her doors (not sure exactly where the noise was coming from) which made everything a lot worse because he came in with an axe and ended up murdering her with it, and it was difficult for her to escape because she locked all the doors and windows.
Image source: Vadavadaa
#69
I just learned about it, a classmate from my brother’s middle school recently killed himself in a shootout with police and might have m******d and mutilated a woman in Seattle. It happened 3 days ago. I knew him as a socially awkward kid, smart, but didn’t get into the same academy as my brother. Apparently after school, he joined the military, and then, this happened. I just am struck thinking how different his life would have been had he gotten into that school, or anything else changed. It’s really shocking when it’s someone you know.
Image source: Swqordfish
#70
So a couple of buddies and I got done having a movie night with a friend, and we were driving home late. As we were driving home we were jamming to some music, and we were talking about people getting mugged and zombies and some more random stuff. As we were getting close to home, my buddy decided to show off his new car and speed down some roads. Well we come up to this one road and there’s this girl walking in the middle of the road. She starts to move to the side as we drive down the street, and as we get closer she moves back out to the middle of the road. My buddy slams on his brakes to avoid hitting her. As we sit there she was just staring at us, dead face. Thinking about the previous conversations we start to freak out, and as we freak out she starts to reach into her pocket and walk towards our passenger door. As she walks towards the door my buddy driving slams it into reverse, and we back straight out of there. We take a side street close to it and get away from the area quickly. The creepiest thing, we went up a block and looked back down the road to see if we saw her, this was maybe a minute later, and she had just vanished. We got home and freaked out a bit more, as we didn’t know if we were gonna get mugged or what, but that was definitely one of the scariest moments of our lives.
Image source: bigzoholl
#71
My mum was watching tv with her stepdad one day when all of a sudden their dog went f*****g crazy barking. After going outside to check what was happening she dismissed it as the dog just having a dog freak out for no reason.
Cut to 2 hours later my mum heads upstairs to go to bed and sees that her door is ajar. Thinking that her brother must have arrived back at the house and had gone into her room to play a prank on her she opened the door.
Her room was completely messed up, everything was on the floor. Sitting on her bed was a women dressed in her clothes. When my mum entered the room she turned around holding a pair of clothing scissors and said “I’m going to k**l you”.
My mum gapped it out of there and got her stepdad who subdued the lady while my mum called the cops.
Turned out that she had escaped from the local asylum and snuck into the house while my mum was watching TV (which is why the dog freaked out). My mum had never been able to watch any kind of horror films since then.
Image source: coypug1994
#72
A man took a photo of his family at the exact moment he was g*nned down. This happened on New Year’s Eve of 2011, and it was very tragic. Not sure if you can consider this scary, but to me, it was and still is.
Image source: anon
#73
I mean, for fear of sounding like a broken record, I would very much not like to be on a prisoner train bound for Amon Göth’s Plazsow concentration camp circa 1943.
Dude would straight up pick off random prisoners from his office window, or sic his two specially trained dogs on prisoners to tear them limb from limb. F*****g s***o.
Image source: SaltRevolutionary917
#74
There are a few pictures of Dahmers apartment, inside of which they found:
4 human heads
7 human skulls
2 full human skeletons
3 human torsos in a drum of acid
2 human hearts.
Image source: Privateaccount84
#75
The story of Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist Monk in Vietnam who set himself on fire with petrol to protest the terrible persecution of Buddhists by their Roman Catholic president Ngo Dinh Diem in the 50’s and early 60’s. Its one of the most well-known photographs in history.
Image source: holydrokk437
#76
Not a specific story, but my dad was the coroner for our small county for a long time. He didn’t have a “coroner’s office” so a lot of the files and pictures were just kept in filing cabinets in our home since he was on call all the time. I would get into it as a teenager and look at some of the photos. When I say a picture is worth a thousand words….. There’s nothing scarier than just real death. Normal people photographed in detail who got into car accidents, drowned, o*****ses, various methods of s*****e, murders. I didn’t know the whole story for every photo, but every photo was haunting.
Image source: ThatDudeMichaelYeah
#77
The picture of Samantha Koenig used as ransom. She was already dead and Israel Keyes sewed her eyes open for this picture.
Edit: I had no idea the picture was a reenactment. Awful thing to happen anyway.
Image source: chemfit
#78
The little Vietnamese girl running down the street, burned by American napalm, jellied gasoline.
Image source: zenos_dog
#79
The dashcam footage of a brick flying out of a covered truck and through the windshield of the driver’s car – straight into the passenger’s seat. You see the cracks in the window, then hear a baby crying and a man sobbing as he realizes his wife is dead.
I don’t have the heart to find the link right now, but it’s probably on youtube.
Image source: LadySerenity
#80
My aunt was on a flight with the killer/cannibal Luka Magnotta, who sent body pieces of his victims to members of parliament. He was apparently throwing up chunks of human during the flight. This was his escape flight out of the country, he was arrested in Europe soon after.
Image source: anon
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