Okay. Put down whatever it is your doing or eating and go get yourself a bottle of vodka; or whatever libation or sin you need to cope. The things you will read will be some Dateline NBC/ID Discovery/20/20 drama.
The world is full of scary and crazy and these stories are living proof. We aren't safe pretty much ever. We still have to go on and live but be vigilant. **WARNING**... don't read this after dusk.
Redditor OneStarvingEli wanted to know... What's the scariest story you know that is 100% true? This is why Dateline NBC tells you... "Don't watch alone!"
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Don't read this while eating...
GiphyA woman was abducted by 2 men who stabbed her 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.
Netflix, Pizza Guy & Chill.
That Netflix documentary "Evil Genius" about the pizza guy in Erie, Pennsylvania who had a bomb collar put around his neck then was forced to rob a bank. As a former delivery driver I was scared the entire time, but also super intrigued by the investigation and the people involved.
There was a young girl kidnapped in the middle of the day on a neighborhood street in a Springfield, MO. Someone in the street witnessed the event and tried chasing the car on foot to at least get the plate number and call the police. They sent out an amber alert after a few hours, identified the owner of the vehicle and his residence but by the time they got to his house, they found her body in a plastic tub in his basement and she had been shot dead.
The most messed up thing was that this guy was a middle school coach. We found out at my catholic high school that the murderer was the son of our theology teacher. Our teacher left school for over a week I'm sure trying to fathom how his own son could commit such a heinous crime.
The murderer was sentenced to death this year for the death of the girl, Hailey Owens. Her family, as well as the family of the murderer, lobbied to change amber alert laws so they can be issued faster after a kidnapping is reported.
Lord the things you can find on YouTube.
GiphyThere was a serial killer known as the Weepy Voiced Killer. He would kill 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.
Why must people take others with them?
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 murdered six children and one adult by intentionally driving the wrong way on a divided highway in an attempt to commit suicide. 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 drug 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. She was sentenced to 215 years in prison.
Talk about family issues...
GiphyMy great-aunt and her husband owned a successful horse farm and found out that their son was stealing money from them. After he found out he went into their house while they were asleep and shot them to death, first my great-uncle while he sleeping and my great-aunt was found shot in her back laying across the front porch steps. He's currently in jail for a long time.
Mind-boggling
The 2011 San Fernando massacre. Mexican cartel members (Los Zetas) abducted people from buses in Mexico. They executed the old and weak, 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.
Don't be cheap... PAY FOR THE UBER!
A friend of a friend was traveling in the UK and had to hitch-hike. The guy 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.
Grandpa's got it!
Back in the 90's, my mom was on the highway heading home from a friends house late at night. She was driving a really nice thunderbird. After a while this big white van drove next to her and the driver started performing some very rude gestures and being young and dumb, my mom reciprocated the gestures. Then the dude pulled up a big Bowie knife to the window. My mom started panicking and sped up to get away and the van was following right along. Then the guy tried to run her off the road. Keep in mind they're probably going about 100 miles per hour. She gets on the exit to get home and he's still following her. When she does get back to her house, which she shared with my grandparents, she pulled into the drive way honking the horn and screaming trying to wake someone up. The van pulls into the driveway just as my grandfather comes out in his underwear with a gun. The dude got scared and drove off. My mom wouldn't leave her house for month except for school, but never at night.
This is a thing? I'm in trouble...
GiphyFatal Familial Insomnia. The whole story is crazy 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 drug, can induce sleep. Even when they tried to put them in comas, the brain remained completely active.
Well Japan is OFF my travel itinerary!
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. Here's the Wikipedia entry
Fido for the win!
GiphyWhen 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 stopped by the family dog grabbing his hand and holding it tightly.
He started to get nervous and my dad's 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.
Next time check for a pulse.
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 killed himself. I was looking at a corpse thinking how cool it was.
What if...
GiphyThis is a incident that happened to me about 10 years ago. I live in Melbourne, Australia.
I was driving home from work one night around 9pm midweek so the roads were quiet. As I was driving downhill I heard a sound that was like a jet engine roaring behind me. The next thing I know a car goes flying past me going twice the speed limit. It looked like a fairly old crappy car. The car started to get the speed wobbles and then one of the tyres came flying off and rolled at speeds downhill whilst the car spun out and crashed. I stopped my car to make sure whoever inside was ok. A guy got out of the car and looked over at me then started moving extremely quickly towards me. I dont know why but I hit my internal locks on the car which was fortunate because no more then 2 seconds later the guy started grabbing at the drivers side door and smashing on my windscreen with his fists trying to get in, ill never forget the crazy look he had in his eyes. I put my foot down on the accelerator and drove off back home.
I decided to swap cars once I got home and drove back to see what was going on. I saw 2 fire trucks and about 4 police close to where the incident happened. When I got back to the crash site the guy was no longer there so I decided to head home.
The next day at work I was online bored reading the news when I saw an article that shocked me. The article was about a guy who had been in a police chase for 1 hour and the police stopped chasing him because it was becoming to dangerous. Turns out the guy was high on meth, had stolen a car an hours drive away and had been in a hot pursuit since. After crashing the car the guy apparently crossed to the other side of the road and hailed the first car that appeared which was a taxi. He got into the taxi and stole it, in the process he pushed the driver out of the driver side door and the driver got stuck and dragged at speeds. The driver died from the incident. I called the police and had a detectiive assigned to me. He fingerprint checked my car and got a statement.
I had to testify in the supreme court as a key witness in a murder trial. The guy got 30 years and they told me that my testimony was one of the main factors in convicting him. I often think back to that night and wonder if I hadn't locked my doors would I have been the one who got murdered.
I once received a random phone call from a girl who found my number from a google search of my address listed on a resume.
She was freaking out and wanted me to check up on her father who lived a few doors down in an apartment complex I resided in. While she was still on the phone with me I walked over to his door and knocked on it, no answer. She pleaded for me to enter the unit and I got nervous and refused, instead reporting the incident to the building manager. The manager said she would call the police to perform a wellness check. The father had killed himself.
This is why I only fly...
Guy was killed and cannibalized on a Greyhound bus by another passenger because apparently there were voices telling him to do it.
Knock. Knock. Hey neighbor.
GiphyMy grandmother used to work at a mental illness facility when I was little, it was a place prisoners went after committing crimes that were so horrific they were deemed very mentally unstable and not suitable for a prison. One of her patients (who was VERY fond of her) was put into this place because he had strangled his mum and dad one night, hid their bodies under the floor boards. He was caught after a few months because the smell of rotting corpses had reached the neighbors, and they were cornered that they hadn't seen them in a while.
My grandmother lived within walking distance from this facility and so the prisoners that were deemed well enough to roam around the grounds were able to see her walking home. One of the other patients most have told him about where she lived because one night he escaped and went straight to my grandmother's house, knocking on the door and begging to come in.
Safe to say he was caught very quickly and my grandparents later moved house. Still scary to imagine though.
Too close for comfort...
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.
It was Charles Cullen.
Always trust your gut!
GiphyA year or two ago, I was living in the suburbs. I would walk the 20 minutes to the cheap grocery store and walk back if I didn't have that much stuff. Otherwise I would call a cab. I was a 21/22 year old boney female
Anyway, I noticed this man following me through the parking lot as I made my way across the parking lot to the store. He's huge. Probably late 30's or early 40's. Starts asking me questions, like what my name is, what my plans are and the like. I brush him off and keep walking. He's tailing me now. Follows me into the store. As I'm walking around, I notice him handling things in the produce section but not really paying attention to them.
I go to the cracker isle, and he's doing the same thing. As I go towards the till go pay, he leaves the store. I call my dad and he comes to get me. We see the man standing in a corner, where I would have had to walk through to get home. The man was waiting for me to leave.
"What’s something that is incredibly unhealthy that most people don’t even realize?"
Having Friends Is Good For Ones Health!
"Loneliness."- CaptainGrabality
Always Good To Get On A Routine
"Shift work."
"Nights, followed by lates, followed by earliest."
"Physiologically so destructive."
"I work for the emergency services so it's essential 24/7."
"The management are pretty good but we've been shafted on pay at a national level."
"Still attritional on the body."- PhatNick
Always Try To Get Those Eight Hours
"Chronic lack of sleep."
"Sleep deprivation."- CoolPotatoTomato
Tired Stewie Griffin GIF by Family GuyGiphyNot The Kind Of Energy You Want
"The amount of people who drink soda or Mountain Dew or energy drinks 24/7 and say ‘I feel fine so it must be fine’ is INSANE." - WildFemmeFatale
Get Up And Stretch Those Legs
"Sitting for long periods."
"Both unhealthy and as you get older dangerous."- JoeMorgue
Careful What You Breathe In
"Honestly, most cleaning supplies."
"They’re fine to use in your house, but if you can smell it and your lungs aren’t happy smelling it, you should be wearing an n95 or respirator."
"Bleach is a big one."
"Anything that makes you cough in a small room."
"I know everybody kind of goes crazy about shower stains but your bathroom is too small of an enclosed space to be using strong chemicals without some type of breathing protection."
"Turn the fan on, open the window and use a damn mask."
"Your lungs will thank you in 20 years."
"I never even thought about any of that until I started glassblowing."
"Glass blowing works with a lot of stuff that we have to wear masks for, cold working like sanding down glass, the colored powders, mold materials, enamel paints, asbestos pads, etc."
"Once I got into the habit of protecting my lungs, I realized just how much stuff at home is probably pretty bad to be breathing in also."
"Good news is, a reusable respirator is pretty cheap at any hardware store, the filters aren’t crazy expensive, and it’s surprisingly useful to have."
"Painting, cleaning, replacing 50 year old carpet, any stinky job like when a 70lbs dog has diarrhea all over the house, etc. It’s just handy to have."- huskeya4
clean sailor moon GIFGiphyIt's Important To Have a Little Fun Every Now And Then!
"Stopping yourself from enjoying/doing anything just because other people might not approve of it."
"It can end up being one of the most detrimental things you can do to your health, physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally."- LustxInfinity·
Just How Much Fruit Exactly Is There?
"A lotta name brand fruit juices have lot more sugar than folks like to pay attention to."- TeriosNaija
Use Those Vacation Days!
"Working so much w only 2 vacation weeks (10 days) a year."- skoldane
Out Of Office Summer GIF by Merge MansionGiphySo, next time you find yourself sitting at home, alone, with nothing to do, take yourself for a nice long walk, or even just a short walk around the block.
Your mind and body will be very grateful for it when you get home.
As a little escape is just what the soul needs, every now and then.
Redditor odeus120 wanted to hear about the signs that make us see how some people should be raising their kids better.
"What screams trashy parents?"
Having waited tables, it's all a red flag. The list is too ling.
Oh Mother
Mean Girls Movie GIF by filmeditorGiphy"Mothers who see their daughter as competition."
Salt-Direction4885
"I see you've met my mom."
MYHAUNTEDPOCKET
On the Socials
"Social media influencers whose entire content is their children. People who publicly punish their kids online, parents who give out way too many details about their children giving them lack of privacy. Child exploitation at its finest."
Rooster-Wild
"There’s a lady on TikTok who posts constant videos of her daughter naked in the bath. Someone else called her out on it and how it’s only harming her daughter so what does she do? Turn off all comments so people will stop harassing her about taking down those videos. And keeps on posting for the pedos."
yorkiewho
The Trashers
"Kids running around a store trashing the place and not a parent in sight."
makeski25
"Many years ago when I worked at WalMart, parents would routinely 'drop off' their kids in the toy department and then just walk through the store, or, worse, go across the street to eat out or shop. So it wasn't unusual to see numerous unsupervised kids just wrecking the toy and sporting goods department."
"I once fussed at a manager to do something about a pair of kids who had put together a bunch of pool noodles and were running down aisle after aisle, just clearing the shelves and knocking stuff to the floor. Manager pulls the kids aside, parents show up, yell at the kids, and the manager comes to me and goes: 'well, I hope you feel better, you made me ruin that kid's night.'"
Blametheorangejuice
It's just a game...
"Cussing out the officials at a little league game. Telling your child to punch another player they tripped over."
SnooChipmunks126
"I coached t-ball, the kids were pre-k to 2nd grade. I had a mother inches from my face screaming at me because I asked her child to sit down for an inning... Because he was hitting kids in the head (with a helmet on) with a bat. It was one of the wildest things I had happen to me. Not the last though."
BitofaCrochetHooker
Any Pepsi?
Baby Drinking GIF by reactionseditorGiphy"When I waited tables in college, I saw a mother fill her young toddler’s bottle with Coca-cola. I thought it was just horrible."
lobsters_love_butter
This is a mess. At least it wasn't a Jack and coke.
Blame
Yup Thats Right GIF by Katelyn TarverGiphy"When their kids could literally set the world on fire and they'll blame anyone else to avoid responsibility."
Difficult_Shine3675
"My sister in law does this. Her kid could set someone on fire and she'd go 'well it's not HIS fault she has on such flammable clothes!'"
HavingALittleFit
Destruction
"Kids destroying other people's stuff/property and the parents are just standing there and laughing like it's a form of amusement. Once went into an older movie store and there was a child bashing the glass with his ball and throwing the movies all over the floors. The mother (presumedly) let her child continue to do that despite others' protests including the manager's. I don't fault the child, doesn't know any better. The mother should've been asked to leave the store with her son."
InfiniteWords117
Stop Yelling
"There is a kid (maybe 8-10 years old) on the other side of my street right now yelling slurs and telling everyone who walks by to go f**k themselves while their parent sits on the porch smoking weed and laughing. This is a regular occurrence. I'm fairly certain the kid has a mental disorder but the fact that the parent seems to be encouraging the behavior is pretty trashy."
SternCoats
The Stench
"Kids that smell like smoke because their parents smoke indoors. It was my parents. Everybody hated when we came over because everything we'd touch would smell like cigarettes as well. Couldn't convince my parents to smoke outside of the home because 'it's their house and they'll do as they please.'"
bumblingbirdy
Control
Frustrated Skip Bayless GIFGiphy"Parents emotionally blackmailing their kids. Using guilt and obligation to control their children."
SuvenPan
We know that raising a family is hard, but these folks need to do better for their kids.
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Redditor jumpjoom wanted to hear some thoughts on who everyone thought might be today's greatest smarty pants.
"Who is the closest person alive to a modern-day Einstein?"
I know I'm not on this list. So easy place to start.
The Unknown
excited genius GIFGiphy"We probably don't know about them. They're probably buried in some pharma, rocket science, technology company and are content to do their thing."
believeTheError
"I know this absolute child prodigy genius of a mathematician that went to Harvard and was easily one of the best there. He’s currently a professor of a 3rd tier state college."
gigawort
Just as good...
"Even at the time Einstein was alive, it wasn't that he had the most powerful brain or best math ability (many surpassed him here). He worked on and solved some of the most outstanding problems in physics at the time. The late 19th/early 20th century was a special time for physics; classical physics was failing apart but how to fix it wasn't known - Einstein (amongst others) offered some ways to fix things."
"Tons and tons of people are just as 'bright' as Einstein by almost any metric but their work essentially can't as impactful. We're too many decimals deep into measurements now."
Jorrissss
"Emmy Noether comes to mind as a contemporary of Einstein who was easily a better mathematician than he was."
CoastingUphill
Impossible
"I’m going to give a weird answer: John Carmack."
"Just go read some of the things he has done and is doing. From inventing some of the math and programming that gave us the modern computer gaming revolution (this is the guy behind the original doom), to running a rocket company trying to achieve orbit and complete propulsive landings similar to what Space X does today, to dropping everything to create the future of VR."
"Now he’s immersed in AI research on top of everything else. The guy is a walking talking genius who sees things on a whole different level. He spent his whole career doing 'impossible' things in software and hardware. Whether you know his name or not, his work has had a real effect on all of our lives, and likely will be even more impactful in the future as we move toward a more virtually-centered life."
Exodi
Advanced Study in Princeton...
"Ed Witten..."
"American mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He received his Ph.D. in physics in 1976 from Princeton University. He has made landmark contributions to string theory from the 1980's to the present day, most notably the development of M-theory in 1995. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his contributions to mathematics and mathematical physics"
Heap_Good_Firewater
It's all Relative
Good Witch Smile GIF by Hallmark ChannelGiphy"Thomas Einstein, Albert Einsteins great grandson."
XRomaniaIsInSomaliaX
"That dude is a doctor. Imagine living your life having people refer to you as 'Dr. Einstein.' I'd develop a superiority complex."
blue4029
Those Einsteins. They should do a sitcom.
Math Guy
Confused Thinking GIF by JKGiphy"Grigori Perelman the Russian mathematician?"
OverLurking
"My man solved the Poincaré Conjecture and just dipped. I love math and I tried to read his paper and I did not understand a single word. The surgery thing seems like magic to me."
Lufernaal
Tao
"Terrence Tao."
david_rohan
"Apparently a strategy, if you're stuck on a problem at higher level maths is to get Tao interested in what you're working on."
JVM_
"From his Wiki. His research topics include 'harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, algebraic combinatorics, arithmetic combinatorics, geometric combinatorics, probability theory, compressed sensing and analytic number theory.' Just look down the rabbit hole of any one of those theories or topics and your mind will explode."
KardelSharpeyes
And the family...
"All of the Tao siblings are terrifyingly intelligent. I had the pleasure of playing a concert alongside Terence's brother, Trevor. I perform my set and am feeling pretty good about myself, and then Trevor gets up and performs gymnopedie no 1, which is a pretty difficult piece, but the dude did it while solving a Rubik's cube. Needless i say, I, and all the other performers that day, felt quite upstaged."
Haverwolf
"Trevor Tao is also an international chess master and is one of Australia’s top players."
Askyourdaughter
Thought
"Miguel Nicolelis. He created the theory and proofs of the brain net, basically telepathy. Thanks to this he managed to create a machine that a quadriplegic could walk using the power of thought. And it worked. The power of thought From someone else for this quadriplegic to relearn how to think about walking."
DELAIZ
The One and Only
albert einstein GIF by US National ArchivesGiphy"In some fields, science can be so complex and multi-disciplinary that 100s of people have contributed to e.g. gene therapy, CO2 capture or other major contributions to society. So major discoveries can't be attributed to a single person. And most of this science, if published, generally needs affiliations to academia to be taken seriously."
"Einstein was truly one-of-a-kind from his multitude of publications in 1905. I'm 90 percent sure that he wasn't even affiliated with any university at the time. He did it solo, out of nowhere. This makes his discoveries even more impressive! Einstein experts, please confirm that he did in fact not work at a university in 1905. I believe he worked at a patent office."
TheGhettoKidd
I'm not smart enough for this thread but we applaud this next generation of geniuses!
Do you have anyone you'd like to add? Let us know in the comments below.
