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People Who Personally Knew Someone That Went Missing Break Down What Happened

People Who Personally Knew Someone That Went Missing Break Down What Happened
StockSnap from Pixabay

WARNING: some sensitive material ahead

There is something so unnerving about disappearances.

There are so many stories out there about people who went out one day, never to be seen again.

What must that be like for those left behind to ponder what happened, to go through life without any closure or definitive answers?


Redditor ikalwewe asked the online community:

"Redditors who personally knew someone who went missing, what happened?"

"He went missing from a small town..."

Jacob Wetterling was a friend of mine. He went missing from a small town in MN in 1989. A guy in a car approached three kids and asked their age. They told him and he told two of them to leave and Jacob to get in the car. He was never seen again. Remains were found in 2016 of an 11-year-old believed to be him. His mom had become an advocate for missing child laws and the Wetterling Act.

discostud1515

An interesting fact:

Jacob Wetterling's parents, Jerry and Patty Wetterling, formed the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, an advocacy group for children's safety, just a few months after their son disappeared. The Jacob Wetterling Act, which instituted a state sex-offender registry, became federal law in 1994.

"The country where she went missing..."

An acquaintance from college who is legally blind and loved to travel went missing while visiting South America. She is of South American descent and speaks Spanish, but something must have happened to her. The country where she went missing and the U.S. have investigated and her family has gone there to look, but there are no leads. She just vanished.

InfiniteMetal

How horrible.

I can imagine it's all the more devastating when you just don't know.

"I think about it a lot."

The younger sister of a girl I knew in my hometown went missing while riding her bike home late at night back in 2012. She was 21 or 22 at the time. Really pretty, vivacious girl. The whole community was upset over it.

They found her smashed-up bike a week or so later 25 miles or so from where she was last seen. She rode past several businesses on her way home, so there was a lot of video surveillance footage. Police tracked down a truck that seemed like it was following her.

The owner of the truck was arrested and they found her body about a week later. She apparently put up a good fight when she was abducted - her killer checked into the hospital the next day with multiple stab wounds. He confessed to the crime in exchange for no chance of getting the death penalty and said that she pepper-sprayed him as well. I remember her sister talking to the press while she was missing saying, "Keep an eye out for someone that looks beat up, like they got in a fight". She knew her sister would go down swinging.

Really sad story, I think about it a lot. It's a college town and it wasn't uncommon at all for young adults to walk or bike home after a night out. At her age, my friends and I were doing the same thing. I feel like the city was never really the same after she was killed.

SpeedingsRise

And truthfully, how could it be?

At the very least, this person was arrested and taken off the streets. However, that is by no means a balm for the family that has to live with the loss.

"Her car turned up..."

A friend and co-worker of my mom's just didn't make it home from work one night. Her car turned up beside a dirt roadway outside town a few weeks later with her purse still in it. This was in the early-mid 80s, so there was no cell phone to track, no indication she stopped anywhere with security cameras, she was just gone.

Her skeletal remains were found by a hunter in a completely different place from her car about 2 years later, and as far as I know, I'm pretty sure her murder is still unsolved today.

talidrow​

Wow.

This is scary to read and honestly, it's an example of what a lot of people would find baffling today. It's quite difficult to just disappear but it still happens (and at the time this crime took place, it was much easier to do or get away with).

"Nobody is sure..."

My cousin's toddler disappeared somewhere between eight to ten years ago, having been last seen by a neighbour wandering on the road in front of their house. This is a small village where most everyone knows everyone else, but it's very racially divided (natives vs immigrants). One of the neighbours said they saw a truck owned by a couple of natives with poor reputations drive slowly by the house right around the time the little girl (immigrant) went missing.

Nobody is sure what happened, but the child was found days later, dead, in a field about two miles from the house. This was a baby less than two years old.

shoopvedoobop

A child taken away.

For many parents, there is no greater pain. And a crime like this ultimately leaves a stain on a community.

"He went to San Diego..."

A cousin left his wife and a newborn boy, which he claimed was not his, in our Midwestern state. He went to San Diego, worked his way through law school, passed the California bar on the first try. Mid-nineties he's living with a girlfriend helping her prepare for the bar exam. By the end of the decade, he's vanished, none of us family know what happened to him.

hucksire

Side note:

My own family experienced something similar, though this story involves an aunt of mine. She pretty much vanished and we heard nothing from her for over 12 years. We didn't have an idea of where to find her. It turned out she was in the same city but had been dealing with mental health problems that contributed to her falling off the map.

"A hunter found her remains..."

8-year-old kid. She took a shortcut between her house and the neighbors' (rural area). Her sister and friend made it home but she never did. The army was in town for the entire summer and they had heat-seeking helicopters looking for her. A hunter found her remains outside the search area 5 months later. Super sad.

MizElaneous

And no one was able to figure out what happened?

Terribly sad for everyone involved.

"One day his wife reported..."

Local man went missing. Town of 300 and he hitch-hiked from one side to the other every single day because nobody's works and he was a bored 65-year-old.

One day his wife reported that he'd never come home. It wasn't entirely impossible that he'd huddled in the woods for the night, but after two days without his heart meds, they assumed the worst.

His body has still not been found, but a guy was arrested four weeks later after his ditched truck was found in a random place. There was blood on the front that he claimed to be moose blood, but it turned out to be Andy's blood. He had run him over and didn't know what to do, so he drove his body to the causeway and dumped him into the ocean. RIP Andy.

Rescue320

This is horrific. To hit and run (and attempt to cover up the crime) is egregious.

"We hired a PI..."

My uncle went missing. He was kind of the black sheep of the family. Stole money, he was an alcoholic, absentee father. It didn't raise too many questions initially. A missing person's report was filed, but nothing was really done due to his track record. We hired a PI, and they traced where he ended up. He'd been murdered by his then-girlfriend and the girlfriend's son. Legal proceedings are still going on over a decade later.

miniature-lesbian

It is sadly not astonishing that legal proceedings are still going on.

Legal battles can take years and the court system can revictimize families. We extend our condolences.

"He went hunting..."

Good friend of mine disappeared 12 years ago. He went hunting with a couple of good friends of ours and one morning they woke up and he was just gone. His tent was perfectly fine and it didn't even look like he had slept that night. His truck, rifle, and dog were still there, but he was gone. The only thing he took was his knife and .44 Magnum. We spent a full month looking and never found a trace. Four years ago I went back and I found him. He had probably gone to take a sh!t and fell into a cave. He had lived for maybe two weeks before he died. His funeral was in 2018.

lehombrejoker

These stories are heartbreaking...

...but they are sadly a reality for far too many people out there. Remember, even when you read the paper or watch a true crime documentary, that the people being discussed were often once part of a family and had people who loved them.

If you have your own stories to share, feel free to share them in the comments below.

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People Share The Best Little-Known Movie Facts They Know

Reddit user Kuli24 asked: 'What's a movie fact you know that pretty much no one else knows?'

movie set
Chris Murray on Unsplash

Easter eggs, bloopers, trivia, behind the scenes anecdotes... cinephiles live collecting them and sharing their knowledge with others.

Some trivia is well known—like Eric Stoltz was replaced by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Other tidbits are more obscure, like Arnold Schwarzenegger was first considered for the Michael Biehn role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator.

Some stories are conspiracy theories or urban legends—like the body in the forest on The Wizard of Oz set.

But what about just film facts? The obscure ones?

Keep reading...Show less
An illuminated mansion at night
Photo by Daniel Barnes on Unsplash

It's no secret that as a person starts to make more money, they may forget how difficult they had it when there was less money coming into their bank account.

Not only are rich people often incredibly out-of-touch with the realities of most people's lives, but what they choose to prioritize and bring into their home is often pretty bizarre, too.

Already side-eyeing, Redditor Jerswar asked:

"What's the weirdest thing you've witnessed in the home of a rich person?"

Love Can't Be Bought

"Rich grandparents had a brand new house built, had a $100,000 splash pad built for their only grandchild who has never visited them at their new house."

- wyoflyboy68

"This reminds me of when my sister built her house. She had a barrier-free ground-floor apartment built in it, so my grandmother could visit. She never did."

- P44

A Separate Hoarder's House

"I had a rich neighbor growing up who'd always invite us over for parties and always insisted on giving us gifts and leftovers. They did this with every guest."

"They were also hoarders but built a separate house to keep their crap in. It was filled with whatever they bought but never used and even never got out of the packaging it was delivered in."

"They told my mom to take a box of what she wanted, and for s**ts and giggles, she did. It was a knife collection and sharpener set."

- MUSTARDUNAVAILABLE

Unusual Art

"I was at John Waters’ house for his birthday and he has a room set up as a lifelike recreation of a meth lab (it wasn’t a real meth lab, it’s an art piece)."

"He told me that when Bill Clinton visited him the secret service agents were extremely concerned about the room."

- writeleahwrite

Weird Pet Relationships

"One client had a whole separate house on their property just for their dogs. They'd referred to it as the 'dog house,' and I was expecting like maybe a little building in the yard where they kept their toys or something, but this was a fully furnished home with king-sized beds and a huge playroom on the main floor."

"They had a full training and feeding staff to care for the dogs and everything. They lived in their own house and would come over to visit. Seemed like a weird dynamic to have with your pet..."

"One client didn't have a litterbox for the cats, their cats I guess didn't like using the boxes in the basement and they didn't want to put boxes upstairs so they put down pond liner and kitty litter across an entire room in the basement and had their housekeeper run a rake through it daily."

- daabilge

Special Needs Kitty Mystery Mansion

"As a kid back in the Mesozoic Era (I'm old), my best friend and I used to play in a converted racquetball court and lounge under the old West Coast mansion her family had lived in since its construction."

"The stairs to it were hidden behind a closet off of the abandoned servants' quarters. Halfway down the stairs was a wine cellar. A decoy as the actual wine cellar for the home was under the kitchen….. Another staircase behind a rack of dusty bottles led two stories down to our giant play area beneath this."

"At the beginning of WWII, before Pearl Harbor, my friend’s paranoid WWI vet grandfather had dug out the space over fear of Japanese (or German) invasion. Her dad made the giant room regulation designed for racquetball years later. Maybe originally squash. Not sure, but the lounge area was also glassed off above it so one could look down into the court like a gallery."

"It was really neat. Also upstairs in the living room was a wall straight out of an old mystery novel. If you pushed a spot just right, the wall opened to a hidden room. Super tiny and had a button to ring certain other rooms in the house as the home had these already to call for staff. My friend's mom said it was so if someone quickly had to hide, they could alert the household of danger."

"We used to pretend to be on Nancy Drew cases all the time... so fun."

"The family was wealthy, but despite the amazing home, they lived a completely pretentious free life. Normal cars, camping vacations, frugal living as sport."

"But they were philanthropists too, especially supporting organizations like the humane society. One thing about this family’s home was all the cats. I loved kitties but had a mother who preferred her animals well-seasoned. The family had the space so they always had, and were looking to adopt out but often didn’t, at least 20 rescue cats, many with special needs."

"I’m old, I didn’t know how to write that. Special needs kitty mystery mansion really is actually an appropriate description..."

- waltersmama

"Special needs kitty mystery mansion with hidden panic rooms and decoy wine cellars is like, the best possible fever dream."

- ConneisseurOfDanger

A Unique Viewing Experience

"In Naples, FL., I was at a house with a sensory deprivation room. Flat black walls with acoustic dampening baffles, in the middle was a coffin-like bathtub. It had speakers and a flat-screen display in the lid."

"I heard that the room cost over $100K to build."

- frank_sarno

A Christmas Village

"They had part of the house permanently decorated for Christmas and it included a fully decorated Christmas tree that was suspended upside down from the ceiling. Which was pretty awesome."

- lithecello

New Meaning to "Don't Take Your Work Home"

"My wife and I used to babysit for this wealthy couple when they went on ski trips etc."

"Except for the children's schoolbooks, there wasn't a book, magazine, or newspaper in the house."

"The man was a publisher."

- Texbadger349

The End of Laundry

"I knew someone who didn't like to do laundry so she just bought new clothes for each of her 4 kids every week. They were always high-quality or designer clothes. At the time, all her kids were 10 to 16 years old."

"What would happen if they liked an item a lot and couldn't find it again? Why not just teach the kids to do their own laundry? Why not hire a housekeeper who can do it?"

"There are so many options, other than spending thousands every month just to avoid laundry. Plus, they rarely donated it. Just bagged it up and threw it out. I never could wrap my head around it."

- coffee-jnky

Can We Be the Trivia Guy?

"I know someone who's worked for a very rich person, probably worth billions. He had more than 100 staff on site, including chefs for the staff...all while divorced and living alone. He had a 'trivia' staff member... someone hired to tell him interesting facts and stories daily. That was his only job."

"Someone else was hired to maintain his shoes. Polish, shine, the works."

"If I didn't hear it firsthand, I wouldn't have believed it."

- mambo-nr4

A Mud Room, Indeed!

​"I used to work as an exterminator, mostly pest control. This had me walking through houses from the poor to the rich."

"One day, I pulled up to a four-story mansion with more rooms than I could count."

"I spoke with the lady at the door and got started. As I sprayed, I noticed there wasn’t much furniture in the house. As I went, I made a game of counting the furniture I could find. Over 50 rooms and the whole building had 13 pieces of furniture."

"Pretty odd, but then I went into the very last room, a mud room right by the door I came into."

"I stopped as I walked in, completely shocked. A huge, full-sized (alive) adult pig stretched from one end of the room to the other, resting on the tile floor. I’m talking five or six feet stretched out across the room. Flies buzzed around its head as it stared at me."

"Suddenly, the lady (who I hadn’t seen since she let me in) said, 'Oh, don’t go in there. She doesn’t like men,' and then she walked me out, paid me, and went back inside."

- Moist-Exchange2890

His Very Own Hot Wheels Garage

"Buddy of mine has a car elevator."

"Instead of just building a bigger garage, he stores his cars stacked onto each other, like some kind of Hot Wheels accessory. It's very surreal."

- SmackEh

Make Yourself at Home

​"My friend's dad growing up was one of the top lawyers in our state. Their house was so d**n big, I got confused (lost as h**l) on all the staircases they had everywhere. They would split in a few places and lead to banisters that had different connections to different parts of the house."

"They had a room just for dishes. Her mom had a huge room for sewing and another for different crafts. They both had an office. Many guest rooms. A small kitchen in one part with a sink, coffee pot, and fridge. Their main bathroom for guests had heated floors and rainfall showers and everything. I LOVED HER SHOWER."

"Her room had a balcony and a table outside."

"They had a pool and hot tub. Horses and a barn and lots of cute barn cats."

"I was very poor and had a messed up situation in my childhood. I stayed there a lot and they would even take me for weeks in the summer because my mother was not there. They are really great people."

" They didn't give handouts or anything, I would literally scoop up horse shit and clean stalls and help with everything for those horses when I stayed. I wanted to help."

"They had a maid, but we still cleaned up after ourselves. Their kitchen was gigantic, and I always loved the fancy pasta water arm over the stove. I had so much fun cooking with her mom and us having the big dinners (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) with them."

"They were so magnificent and beyond anything I would have ever experienced without them. I got my first pair of cowboy boots from them for Christmas. Her dad bought me a plane ticket one time out of the blue because I wanted to visit my grandmother. Never forget them."

- xNinjaNoPants

So Much Wasted Food

"A very rich person I know does not eat leftover food. They will cook a feast and after, everything goes straight in the garbage no matter how much is left over."

- duckduckroosebolton

"My husband won’t eat leftovers because he thinks it will give him diarrhea. His family is preoccupied with food poisoning but doesn’t know any of the actual food safety rules."

"Oh well, more for me."

- jendet010

"My brother-in-law’s family does this but they are middle class. It’s such a waste!"

- outlawjoseymeow

An Art Enthusiast

"Not weird but a Van Gogh, just chillin' in the hallway. I took a selfie with the flash on, whoops."

- Raccoon_Expert_69

"When I did executive level IT support years back, I found a Monet dangling haphazardly on an office chair in the CEO's extra office (which was unused for storage, and had an extra desktop computer I would sometimes use for quick tasks when on that floor)."

"Another time, I was admiring a Joan Miro coffee table book in his main office, and when his assistant noticed, he showed me into a side room I didn’t realize was there, which had a mini gallery of original Miro drawings."

- spymusicspy

It's amazing what people will spend money on when they have the money to spare. It would be so interesting to see how much more a person would explore a hobby if they had the money to spend.

There's nothing like leaving a movie theater having just seen an excellent movie.

Particularly one that took you by surprise.

Perhaps it was deeper and more meaningful than it purported itself to be, or on the flip side, had much more warmth and humor that you would have expected.

Or, the film took an unexpected twist that you never saw coming.

Resulting in your needing to bite your tongue until the rest of your friends and family see the film, and not spoil the surprise for them.

Redditor HornyCorny was curious to hear which plot twists left viewers utterly speechless, leading them to ask:

"What’s a movie twist that caught you completely off guard?"

He Didn't See It Coming Either!

"Brad Pitt in 'Burn After Reading'."

"So surprising and downright freaking hilarious."- thefirehairman

If The Shoe Fits...

"'The Shawshank Redemption'."

"Come on."

"It's not always a man notices another man's shoes."- FUBARspecimenT-89

Lucky For Some, Not For All...

"'Lucky Number Slevin'."

"Huge twist and very satisfying."- kvlr954

angry josh hartnett GIFGiphy

Rosie O'Donnell Would Agree...

"Fight Club."- BuchseeI

"once watched it with a friend who had never even heard of it, and she called the twist like, a half hour in."

"She said it as a joke and didn't realize she was right until the actual reveal, but still I was shook."- yugosaki

I See You Keyser Söze

"The ending of 'The Usual Suspects'."- Schwarzes__Loch

Definitive Shyamalan

''The Sixth Sense'."

'I love movies with plot twists, but I never imagined this one. It caught me completely off guard."- lucasduka

Haley Joel Osment Movie GIFGiphy

The Title Is Also Misleading...

"The second half of 'Parasite'."- iwontrememberthat4

Appropriately, They Really Toyed With Your Cognition

"'The Game'."- DudeHeadAwesome

"Good one!'

"I spent the entire movie going 'is it a game? Is it real?'"- fastpixels

There Were Definitely Ghosts...

"'The Others'."

"Unsuspected end."- NeckComprehensive743

scared horror film GIF by FilmStruckGiphy

One Unforgettable Opening Scene

"'Scream'."

"The Drew Barrymore role."- LivingTheLife53

The Real Reason Everyone Is Terrified Of Bees...

"When I was a kid, I wanted to feel good and happy."

"So at the video store, I decided to rent a movie with two happy laughing kids on the DVD cover, thinking it would be a feel-good playful story."

"That movie was 'My Girl'."

"Eff that movie."

"Seriously."

'The DVD cover lies."

"IT LIES."- buckyhermit

You THOUGHT you knew who the villains were...

"'From Dusk to Dawn' — midway point."

"Didn’t know at all what I was walking into when saw it in the theatre decades ago — just, you know, Salma Hayek. Good enough."

"Quentin Tarantino slurping tequila from her foot after it ran down the entire length of her leg — that was already a 'Holy WTF' moment."

"But then, well.. . you know."

"And if you don’t know — quick, go watch it. "

"No trailer, no synopsis, no summary."

"Find it and load it 'blind' and fasten your seatbelt."

"You’re in for a wild ride."- canada11235813

George Clooney Tarantino GIF by MIRAMAXGiphy

It's Title Is More Than Accurate!

"'Crazy Stupid Love'."

"The scene when the whole movie goes apesh*t in the yard is one of my all time favorite movie scenes."- Fimbulvintern

Trifecta Of Twists

"'The Others'."

"The end of 'The Mist'."

"'The Prestige' (though, I ALMOST had it figured out, but not quite)."- Krinks1

There's nothing better than when a movie surprises you.

Even if it does make talking about said movie with people who haven't seen it a bit more challenging.

Case in point, people who saw The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects after their endings were spoiled for them, don't seem to like those movies as much as those who went in blind.