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...
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A 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.
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There 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...
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My 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...
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Fatal 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!
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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 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...
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This 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.
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My 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!
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A 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.
The old wives' tales.
They are the stories of legend.
I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.
Where did they originate?
WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!
You don't hear about them as much anymore.
It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.
But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.
Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:
"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"
"Wait an hour to swim after eating."
What a crock!
So many summer hours wasted.
I want revenge for that one.
Say Nothing
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"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."
LonelyMail5115
"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."
I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA
Say Something
"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."
Severe_Airport1426
"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."
crappycurtains
"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."
AlbinoShavedGorilla
Body Temps
"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."
chriseo22
"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."
"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."
apocalypticradish
Arms Down
"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."
Fatmouse84
10 Years Actually
Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine
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"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."
"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."
Gecko-911
I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.
This tale is haunting.
High/Low
Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace
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"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."
LeastFormal9366
"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."
IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI
The Cursed
"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."
"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."
SmoreOfBabylon
Stay In
"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."
"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."
worldbound0514
Dreams and Facts
"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."
"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."
mattshonestreddit
"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."
Darthdemented
Cracked
Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office
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"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."
Choice-Grapefruit-44
"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."
MacyTmcterry
I love my knuckles.
Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.
