Warning: The following entries contain disturbing material and may not be suitable for everyone.
Detective work isn't all fun and games. While many are entertained by a good mystery book, movie, or show, real life crime can be extremely disturbing. Some detective are unlucky enough to be faced with cases so violent and scary that it stays with them forever.
Redditor u/ThunderPheonix21 asked detectives to share the creepiest cases they've worked on, and professionals in the field did not disappoint.
20. A whole new warrant
"A lot of my work is actually based on cell phone dumps. I once got a request from a Detective to dump a guys phone because he was attempting to sell our county jail jumpsuit...
Problem was, there was way more on the phone that what we had bargained for. Turns out the guy was REALLY into under-aged girls. To the point that he had thousands of images of CP on the device. So I called the detective up and informed him that he was going to need another warrant to cover the CP for the device. So he did, and began creating a CP case against the guy."
19. A love triangle
"I once got a case spying on a lady's husband. She thought he is cheating on her. Wanted the proof to present before judge in court. While investigating I found the husband cheating on the wife with HER boyfriend! Both were having an affair with the same guy. Needless to say I minted money from all the three. PS. The boyfriend was also their divorce attorney!"
18. A crazy fetish
"Some guy was killing women by making them explode just right so he could keep the hands, he had a fetish with them."
17. This poor woman...
"Not a detective... but my uncle was a cop... Essentially they got a call to a house... the neighbour's had called the police and told them there was a strong Odour coming from the apartment next door. They got a little worried... as this was an older woman, who only really left her home for essentials...
Police get there... after many times knocking and calling... no answer. So they had the landlord unlock her door... they weren't necessarily thinking she was dead initially.... not sure how.. it's seems fairly obvious...
hey get inside, and the odour is just awful.. like burnt hair and cooked meat..."
"The woman was taking a shower... she went to adjust the heat to be more hot... she slipped and fell on a loofah that was on the floor of the bath. And hit her head on the tap... somehow in the fall she managed to turn the heat tap WAY to much.
Essentially... she passed out. And then died from brain hemorrhaging... and then the hot shower boiled her.... the hot water was running on her for about a day and a half."
16. Life is so short...
"Girl stopped breathing in her bed, potential suffocation murder.
Turned out to just be a lung failure but it still creeped me out."
15. The mole people
"Insurance adjuster here. I'm not a detective, but I do lots of fraud investigations. The ones that aren't fraudulent sometimes just turn out to be really weird. The winner for me hands down is the man who claimed he was terrorized by mole people...
My in-person interview was about two hours. I had more than enough in the first five minutes and was trying to leave for most of it, but he kept blocking the door or directing me to wrong way to keep the mole people off my scent. It was kind of sweet in a twisted way; he genuinely thought the mole people would come after me if I didn't follow his rules.
He directed me to park ye olde company car about a mile away on a concrete parking flat he had made. We couldn't walk on the dirt road there; the mole people constantly changed where it went. The claims he filed were all in similar veins.
We decided there was no fraud, but a call to adult protective services was merited."
14. A terrible accident
"Detective here, attached to a coastal town with a fishing wharf. Started work one day when we get a call from the water police who have responded to a abandoned boat floating off the coast. They have towed it into the bay where they requested our assistance and they would advise us further on arrival.
We head down thinking someone had stolen the boat or something else routine. When we get there we are told that no one went further than the enterance before it was sealed off as a crime scene. We have a quick look below the deck and see why..."
"3 people, clearly dead with one slumped over the wheel one on the floor and the other in a chair. No struggle, no injuries and nothing out of place. Completely silent other than the water on the hull and the fenders squeaking against the police launch.
Turned out to be an accident. Lack of upkeep on the very old engine meant fumes leaked in and the 3 were poisoned, at which point the engine just ran until the diesel was gone."
13. This close call
"Someone dumped a body in an alley right by the PD, but in a spot that no one frequented. So after a few days in mid-summer heat the body melted so bad they couldn't ID by looks or tattoos, just the clothes and hair, and DNA once they figured out who she was.
Long story short it was a serial killer who had dumped her, and they found CCTV of him stalking people at the local shopping center right after he dumped the body. They watched him spend over four hours walking around, leaving to his car and changing clothes/hat and going back in, following women for a bit, changing his mind... He left empty handed, and ended up getting caught a couple states away the following week.
Creepiest part for me was that I went shopping there the same day."
12. A story from Michigan
"My teacher was a detective and he told our class that one case that he wish he got but his partner or friend or something like that did it was called jack in the box and this guys wife killed her husband with help from some dude and then they put him in a locker and burnt him if your in Michigan you've probably heard of it"
11. This is horrifying
"I was working midnights in a neighborhood with a high violent crime rate, and we got sent to a dispute at a bar... We make our way through the bar systematically booting people out, and get to the bathrooms. I open the door to the men's room and it's empty (single stall bathrooms). My female partner goes to open the women's bathroom door but it's locked. She knocks on the door and a female says, 'I'll be out in a minute.'... Female partner knocks on the door again and the female agrees to open the door. When she comes out, we ask her what took so long..."
"She's not providing any substance in her answers. She's wearing tight yoga pants, and we notice that she has a large bulge in the back of her pants/crotch... When we question her about it, she's very evasive and won't answer us. Female partner begins to search her. As she pulls back the female's pants and shines her flashlight down to look, my partner says, '****!' She sees a baby arm sticking out from the female's vagina and up through her ass cheeks. This chick had been drinking and smoking crack all day. She had a stillborn and continued to stay at the bar and drink/smoke crack."
10. That's not a turtle...
"A buddy of mine worked on this
He said there was this guy who liked to shoot turtles on a pond on his property. He sees a turtle and shoots it 2 times with a .22 rifle. He had a hunting dog that would go fetch the turtles. He would make turtle soup with them
The dog goes out and gets the turtle and an arm pops up. The 'turtle' he shot was the back of the mans head who was dead in the pond."
9. Someone was watching
"My brother, not me. I usually tell this long and dramatic, but here is the quick to the punch version.
Schizophrenic woman reported being watched by ghosts at the abandoned funeral home...
Turned out when investigating, someone (or something. dum dum dum) was actually watching the people in her building and keeping crude log books of their coming and goings and left some of them in the place. My brother's theory was that they were discovered / almost discovered and fled."
8. That's a ton of money for cartoon porn
"I had a client whose employee had used the company account for payments to a graphic designer. Except instead of marketing materials, he had commissioned $15k worth of Loli and Sonic porn."
7. Sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock movie
"My boyfriend was the detective in this case. An officer doing a wellness check on an elderly woman spoke with her son. He said she was out at the moment, but she was doing well. He spoke in detail about what she was up to lately and all that. The officer noticed a strong smell coming from the yard though. I'm sure you see where this is going, as I don't think pretending a deceased relative alive to keep receiving their benefits is uncommon..."
"The officer turned the case over to a detective (my boyfriend), who returned with a warrant. There were two houses. A main house, and a small apartment-style house in the back yard where the mother once lived. When they entered, the son seemed calm. Showed them right to the mother. Continued to speak as if she was still alive and well. In the bed, they found the body, that had clearly been there for a long time. It was like a putrid puddle. The stench was unbearable. The son adamantly refused that she was dead. Insisting she had just been up and around the main house yesterday."
6. A surprise in the basement
"They were undercover in a mob and gathered enough evidence to search a house the guys used a lot - the search led them to a basement filled with water halfway up the stairs. They shone flashlights and didn't see anything at first, then saw something glinting in the water. They turned to go up the stairs to get a brighter light and along the walls and the door frame were gouges, the back of the door too. They got their bright lights and went back down and it turns out the bad guys had 2 crocodiles in there and when someone pissed them off they put them in the basement and locked the door. Gouges had skin particles in them."
5. A mystery tenant
"A friend of mine grew up in a big family house with her immediate family plus an uncle and grandparents. Sometimes her and her brother would wake up with things written on their faces in permanent text. Just random phrases nothing too shocking. The kids were about 8 or 9 years old, they both denied doing it and no one looked any further into it.
Anyway eventually the uncle is killed in his bed, stabbed to death. The police investigate and it turns out there's a dude living in their roof."
4. Cannibalism on the lawn
"We had a case where a guy killed 5 -6 members of his family and when the police came to the scene he was eating one of his family members on the front lawn, I suppose to get their strength."
3. How was this not in the news?
"I used to work with a retired LAPD beatcop of 30 years in his retirement funmoney gig working on an ambulance. He told me this story that sent chills down my spine.
He pulls over this sedan for expired tags, and neither the driver or passenger has any paperwork, driving illegally and they're both acting shady as ****, so he calls for backup, detains them, and searches the car....
He finds two dead young teenage girls in the trunk. They're naked, bound, and gagged and had been mutilated, and there was tons of devices obviously meant for torture..."
"He calls in the homicide detectives, and the cavalry comes, the two guys are hauled away to jail, and his day wraps up after all the normal procedures and paperwork has been filed.
And he says that was the last he ever heard of that case. Nothing. No subpoenas. No testimony to a grand jury. No interviews for the homicide detectives. No stories in the paper. NOTHING."
2. This killer wanted to be Dr. Frankenstein
"My dad was a detective and told me and my siblings briefly about a case where a killer would take a different part of each body. He had collected two legs, a torso, and one arm. His motive was that he wanted someone to play with."
1. A psycho with big plans
"Private investigator here. Looking into a liability stabbing case. They were blaming the apartment complex for the resident getting stabbed by another resident. Turns out the dude was planning a mass shooting and was part of multiple right wing white supremacist groups, Trump 2020 guy, wanted to attach a gun to a drone and kill a ton of people. Instead, he was so racist he couldn't help but stab his black neighbor before he pulled it off. His social media was essentially a manifesto and the cops found a bunch of firearms laid out, fully loaded and ready to go. I feel bad for the neighbor but their getting stabbed likely saved multiple people's lives."
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "
" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk to him about it.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.