Most towns have a story to tell.
After decades of Dateline NBC, 20/20, 48 Hours and ID Discovery... what town is left without a story?
There is always a moment or a person of infamy.
It's tragic, but true.
Scandal makes the world go round.
Redditor AndyBales wanted to hear the small town tales that left everybody shook, so they asked:
"Redditors who grew up in small towns, what was 'the incident?'"
My towns are dull. But I have a feeling dull is good.
Scraped
Yard Work Dog GIFGiphy"It was hushed up, but the former sheriff of my hometown stole people's lawnmowers and sold them for scrap for close to a decade. Weird place."
Power_Wiz_IV
In the Woods
"A light shining into the sky a couple times from out in the woods. Police went out to check it, found a man no one knew in a cabin no one knew of, LOADED with guns and ammunition. When asked why he had so many, what he was doing shining a light into the sky."
"He was sending a beacon to the aliens because they told him to shine a light to guide them, when he had things ready for them…. Yeah."
IDontEvenCareBear
BAAAHHHHH!!!!
"'The incident' involved sheep..."
"A flock of sheep kept on the town green migrated through a broken fence into the adjacent cemetery. The sheep became known as the 'Lamb-scapers' because they did a better job of manicuring the cemetery grounds than the maintenance person."
Back2Bach
The Scandal
"Guy in my high school knocked up the daughter of the local fitness center owner. The owner offered him a car to leave his daughter alone and not be a part of the baby’s life. He accepted the offer and took the car. Once she gave birth, they ran away together in the car."
"The fitness center owner found them, torched the car, and threatened to kill the guy. They fought and the baby daddy won. This apparently garnered some respect from both men and now everyone seems like a happy family."
LessGoooo
The Stash
pulp fiction art GIF by hoppipGiphy"A wealthy couple were brutally murdered in their home by an adult daughter and her boyfriend. It was rumored they had a ton of money stashed in the house."
bemest
Money is always the root of evil.
Down the street...
Will Smith Smh GIF by The Academy AwardsGiphy"A guy robbed the bank then ran to his home to hide… that was down the street. Took the cops an embarrassingly long time to get him."
Wenissucker
Bianca Piper...
"Small town in Missouri. Bianca Piper, it was 2005, supposedly she went for a walk after a fight with her mom and was never seen again. I was a junior in high school and skipped school that day. My friends and I freaked when we saw cop cars and helicopters out EVERYWHERE. Thought they were looking for us. Everyone here has always said her mother had something to do with it."
thallemeyer
The Giggler
"The 40something drunk man who broke into the high school dressed as batman to prank scare the high school classes by staring in the windows then running away giggling uncontrollably to appear somewhere else on campus and scare a different class. There was an hour and a half long lockdown and he ended up found and arrested."
quietcopse
At the Bottom
"A little girl had a seizure (or hit her head. Nobody knows for sure) in the YMCA swimming pool, went unconscious, and drowned during a youth swim team practice. My sister and her friends were also on the team. They saw her at the bottom of the pool and thought she was just messing around. Lifeguards and instructors weren’t even paying attention."
broshley
WTH?!
Okaay What GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy"Some cheerleaders pooped on a pizza at cheer camp and blamed the rival high school's cheerleaders. George Bush (president at the time) even spoke about it."
Alicesblackrabbit
Lord, the scandals of a small town.
School can be a hotbed of craziness.
We all of course assume students will cause drama, but what about the adults?
It's all a powderkeg of scandalous possibility.
Olivia Pope herself couldn't spin some of the stories that come out of high school.
And a lot of towns are rocked by school scandals.
Redditor Lost-Warning-2588 wanted to hear about everyone's craziest school stories.
So they asked:
"What’s the worst scandal to happen at your school?"
My school was pretty tame. At least in the public news.
I have no idea what was behind closed doors.
Throwdown...
Slap Empire GIF by FOX Nederland & BelgiëGiphy"Girl A decided to fight girl B in class. Girl A ripped girl B’s real hair out, broke her nose, and crippled her. Girl B was sent to the emergency room. Girl A was suspended for 2 weeks. They were both in 7th grade."
Apollo_xo3
After Graduation
"The math teacher left his wife of 18 years for one of the graduating seniors."
blunt_dissect
"Had a history teacher do the same thing. Left his wife for a student he had in freshman and sophomore year and they married the year after she graduated."
2faKilledmymain
"Happened with an English teacher in my school. He didn't leave school until a couple years after she graduated, but he left his wife and kids for her, and she dropped out of an Ivy League school for him."
ianisms10
Prevention
"One year in exams days they were trying to add a new method to prevent cheating where a man from the administration comes to every class before every exam and collects students phones while sticking a sticker with a number on each phone and giving the same sticker to the student."
"So he can get his phone after school without anyone taking someone else's phone that looks alike or something. This was working at first and a bit 'preventing cheating' until one day some guy sneaked into our high school and came as the man who collects the phones while he wasn't, he stole the whole high school phones and went. lol."
Crazy
"A student that was in the grade above me (I was a senior, he had graduated) killed his girlfriend and buried her by the train tracks right behind the school. Yeah it was crazy. He seemed like a cool guy I guess, I’d run into him at a few parties and had a couple classes with him. The girl went to school in a neighboring town so I didn’t know her."
macadamianacademy
Hold Me
Best Friends Love GIF by TV LandGiphy"My middle school banned hugging and hand holding during course changes because it blocked the hall. In protest all the Eighth Graders stood up and hugged each other during their lunch period. A bunch of students got detention. Made the cover of the Charlotte Observer."
bcarol99
Hugs make the world better. Hug it out.
Good Lord
Keith Morrison Wow GIF by Dateline NBCGiphy"The caretaker killed two local girls and hid them in the school, he tried using the clay kiln to burn them. He later dumped them a few miles away."
jofive
The Super
"We had a computer teacher/football assistant coach who was just blasted all day, had so many DUIs he had to get rides to work, but was the cousin of the Superintendent so he kept his job. Let’s just say that when he crashed a student’s car in the parking lot because he convinced them to let him borrow it that that was the beginning of the end of it."
"It was a small town. The scandal is that the Super tried to cover it up by trying to convince the kid to take the heat for it. To no one’s surprise, the kid was not convinced. They let him stay on as Super for another two years."
TheMCM80
Crazy, man...
"A kid in my senior year short story class (who sat directly behind me) was charged with the stabbing, beheading and burning of one of his friends/drug dealer."
"I remember the day like it was yesterday, sitting in my short story class when my teacher came in, in tears because she just heard the news."
"Students didn't find out about it until later. I actually have a friend who testified in his trial because he purchased the murdering materials at the hardware store she worked at."
"Crazy, man."
Supersmaaashley
Targets
"One weekend a couple of kids from the hockey team had a sleep over."
"One of the older boys from high school targeted them. He tied them up, slit their throats and set the house on fire."
"One of the boys survived and is an incredible person. He’s the chief of a fire department and has done motivational speaking."
"The murderer is now out on full parole."
Ed_Dantes35
BOOM!
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy"Kid made a chlorine bomb and threw it in the trash can at lunch. Lockdown, bomb squad, every single kid and faculty member out on the field in 95° weather for 2+ hours until parents could show up to pick up their kids."
Specifilly
Socks
"Kid in my class sent an email to the White House, threatening to kill Socks, the Clinton's cat. Secret Service showed up a few days later after they tracked down the computer."
Goombaw·
Swim Class
"First week of high school. PE class, the first section was swim. wasn’t my class, but the class after. This kid was playing a game with his friends in the water—who could hold their breath the longest. He was going up for air and hit head on the pointy part of the gutter, and never made it to the surface. Friends didn’t notice, teacher didn’t notice. Eventually, football players coming back to the locker rooms noticed. He ended up dying. Teacher was fired although I wouldn’t fully blame him as he was attending and teaching kids who didn’t know how to swim or weren’t strong swimmers. One adult for over 60 kids?? That’s the school's fault."
millennial_dad
Pardon Our French (Teacher)
"History teacher disappeared in the night with the French teacher's wife."
-0---------------0
Oral Tradition
"My high school Guidance counselor screwed a science teacher's wife and everyone knew about it. They got a divorce. Both teachers still work at the same school to this day, and students will never ever let it go. The story has been handed down from year to year."
tiyeyo
Kids are crazy. I'm glad I chose to only have pets.
Why do families keep secrets?
The truth will always finds a way home.
And it will of course be exposed at the most inopportune time.
Make sure you have a journal and write this stuff down.
It could be comedy/drama gold.
The tea is scolding, throw it at me.
Redditor AbsoluteHavoc wanted to heard all of the family drama that we've heard unleashed.
So they asked:
"What family secret was finally spilled in your family?"
Years Later
Family GIFGiphy"Found out my grandma had a baby as a teenager and was forced to give him up for adoption by my great grandparents. 40 years later he found us."
dont-take-my-soup
"Same thing happened to my mom. I'm 33 now, older half-brother is roughly 35. I hold hope that I'll meet him one day."
YagamiIsGodonImgur
Nod & Agree
"That my parents 'had' to get married. They always told us they got married in 1961, but it was 1962, 3 months before my sister was born."
"What's amusing is that my father was an accountant who was insanely fast with math. Whenever he was asked how many years they'd been married, he'd be off by one. My mother would correct him through clenched teeth and then my father would nod and agree."
dramboxf
23 and me surprise...
"My great grandmother wasn’t actually Mexican but rather was adopted by a Mexican family from a Chinese family who was being kicked out of Mexico when railroad construction was over. She always had more typically Asian features but only spoke Spanish and it was never really questioned. 23 and me is a hell of a thing."
bustyodust
ALL OUT!
"When my paternal grandfather died the federal govt reached out to do a state funeral. He'd been career army and a colonel, so we didn't question it. Then the funeral came and they went ALL OUT! Huge procession, people showing up who are really big names, like heads of dept's, senators, retired senators, people from the CIA and State Dept, it was nuts and we were all super confused."
"Turns out he was a key dude in the OSI during WWII and when the OSI splintered into the CIA and Secret Service, he went the Secret Service route. He wasn't on White House detail, but instead worked in a covert office that dealt with counterfeiting and currency."
"He went blind when I was a toddler and retired from 'the Army.' For whatever reason, he told no one about all his covert work with the OSI and Secret Service and the only person who knew (my grandmother) was sworn to secrecy and never told anyone. My father grew up thinking he was just a colonel working on base."
"Only after his death were we given all sorts of cool s**t like publications by him, lectures given by him, and all kinds of things from various things he did and was known for. All I knew him as was a blind old man who was perpetually smoking, drinking and being a crotchety b**tard. Turns out he was a bad motherf**ker and all but none of us knew."
haroldtitus425
True Crime
Consider True Crime GIF by Dateline NBCGiphy"My father's brother killed 4 girls when he was in high school. My father was the one who found out and told the police."
yeshelloitme
Good Lord. What in the world?
The Generation Before
Joe Biden Shock GIF by GIPHY NewsGiphy"My grandparents are first cousin’s... an uncle on the same side of the family is in prison for the assassination of a presidential candidate (family still says he was framed and is innocent)."
Cervesaz
The Push
"This is kind of messed up, but my parents told me my mom had a bad back because i pushed on her spine during birth. this was what I thought all my childhood. I think I was in my teens when my older brother told me my dad pushed my mom during an argument and she fell and had to have surgery. I thought I ruined my mom's back my entire childhood and those SOBs let me believe it "
thtssotrue
#7
"My mother is kid #7 of 10. My aunt (kid #4) who was born in 1945 did her DNA and found out that she has a different father from everyone else. She was devastated. There was always rumor that there was an affair but nobody talked about it. She has so many questions but nobody's alive to answer her."
I_see_farts
Thanks Mom...
"When I was 5 years old (1988), Santa Clause left a Nintendo on our front porch. It was wrapped in newspaper, and my parents had no idea who gifted it to us. My dad, particularly, tried to figure it out. He was always suspicious that it had been a family friend. It was by far the best gift of the year, and we played it all the time throughout our childhood."
"My dad died in 2004."
"Last Christmas, my mom explained that she was the one who had bought it and surreptitiously placed it on the porch. My dad really liked to be in control of things and had forbidden the purchase. She knew better. She didn't tell a soul for 30 years."
"Thanks Mom..."
Madame_F
In the Swamp...
Okaay What GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy"I only just recently heard about this, but my grandmother had gotten a little drunk with my dad and brother a month or so ago and started talking about our great uncle Ferber (not sure on the spelling), but from what I heard he apparently killed quite a few people and buried them on some family-owned land in a swamp."
DHA_Matthew
Well if there was ever any reason to change your last name and move.
Do you have anything your itching to get off your chest about your family tree? Let us know in the comments.
They leave out so many juicy tidbits when teaching history.
Even when we get into college years, there is still a ton you don't hear about until you're a senior citizen.
There should be a "History: XXX" class.
I had to suffer through World Civ. Geesh.
A little extra naughty goes a long way in education.
So tells us some sassy secrets.
Redditor gosty_the_brave24 wanted everyone to spread a little history.
So they asked:
"What's an NSFW facts about a historical figures that we don't learn in school?"
This thread maybe slightly inappropriate for readers under 17. So NC-17
Educational, but inappropriate.
Clothes Off
Shaking Cold Weather GIF by funkGiphy"Victor Hugo wrote in the nude as a form of motivation. He was a horrible procrastinator so he would lock himself in a room and have his clothes taken as encouragement to get his work done (because he was cold). When he was finished, he'd get his clothes back."
retro-petro
How Wonderous
"Wonder Woman was created by a polyamorous man who was (a) a feminist, (b) a kinkster, and (c) living with two bisexual women. Wonder Woman was influenced by at least one of his wives, and started as a very overt, kinky, empowering sex symbol for women, and was nearly cancelled because of how explicitly she was being depicted. It's supposed that her rope of truth was partly inspired by rope play in BDSM."
ray25lee
Zelda Lies
"F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda, told him that the way he was built, he would never please a woman. He confessed this to Hemingway in a French bar, and Hemingway told him to meet him in the bathroom where he looked at Fitzgerald's penis and told him he was 'perfectly fine.'"
littleredridinghood6
Ummm...
"Emperor Nero kicked his wife Poppaea to death. He later found a slave boy named Sporus who looked like Poppaea, had him castrated, and kept him as his wife. After the death of Nero, Sporus was taken by Nymphidius Sabina, who treated Sporus as his wife. But Sabina was murdered by his guards when he tried to become Emperor. Sporus was next taken by the Emperor Otho, who had once been married to Poppaea until Nero took her away from him."
"Otho called Sporus Poppaea and took him as his wife. Otho was murdered shortly afterwards. Otho's rival, Vitellius, planned on using Sporus in a reenactment of the Rape of Peroserpina in the Colosseum, but Sporus committed suicide."
FireFlinger
Domino's?
Pizza Pizza Pizza Dancing GIF by Domino’s UK and ROIGiphy"The Boris Yeltsin pizza incident, in which the former Russian leader was found in just his underwear outside the Whitehouse hailing a cab so he could go get pizza... https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-congress/2009/09/yeltsin-drunk-in-his-underwear-hailing-a-cab-021553"
fezwang
I just don't find pizza THAT appealing.
Falling Apart
tales from the darkside 80s GIFGiphy"Herodotus, an ancient Greek Historian once stated that female mummies who passed away in Ancient Egypt were found more decomposed than male mummies. The reason being was that the females were kept at home for longer periods of time before sent for embalming to prevent necrophilia."
Icarithan
It did not work...
"Not quite a historical figure but John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca Cola, did so because he was chronically addicted to morphine and was trying to get off of it. Original ingredients were cocaine (famously), sugar, alcohol, and caffeine. He was trying to supplant his other addiction. It did not work."
Nightjar82
"So another thing about Pemberton that I learned very recently was that he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate army during the Civil War. His morphine addiction you were talking about was actually something he developed after being stabbed with a sword during a battle."
TylerD1528
In Public
"John Quincy Adams boasted that outdoor sex was an American invention. Between that, his pet alligator, and a life spent in public service (literally from his teenage years until his death), probably far more interesting than most people who've held high office in the USA."
Bowmore34yr
"Also swam nude in the Potomac, daily, when he was president."
costabius
Build It
"The new UK monarch King Charles III great-great-grandfather Edward VII was so obese that he commissioned a french carpenter to build a chair that would enable him to have sex with one or two people at once. It is called the siege d'amour and was installed at his favourite brothel."
haveasliceofpizza
Oh Mary
frankensteins monster frankenstein GIFGiphy"The author of Frankenstien lost her virginity on her mother's grave."
Unique_Finance_2358
"In the version I saw, her father didn't approve of the relationship, so she told him she was visiting her mother's grave to avoid suspicion and then met her guy there for sexy time."
Agitated_Ad7576
Well that is a whole lot of mess. Goodness.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Every family has a past.
We all think we want to know our family's tales.
But that journey can be riddled with horrors.
You don't always want to find yourself saying....
"I wish I didn't know that."
Redditor Flash_Dimension wanted to sip all about the crazy family tea that our loved ones are hiding.
So they asked:
"Once you were old enough, what were the dark family secrets you were finally let in on?"
My family's darkness is too long to share. And I also don't want to know.
Hey Fam...
"Got a Facebook message from one guy asking if I was related to [my dad], since it's not a common last name. I thought he was a fan of his work, because I was in college at the time and the guy was about the same age as me. And that's how I found out my dad slept around and that I had a half-brother the same age as me."
Apatches
Never Found
"My father was married with another woman before meeting my mother. They had a daughter and my dad loved her so so so much his wife started going crazy jealous. My dad noticed some strange behaviour she had towards the girl and when he tried to talk to her about it she started arguing with him. He then left with his daughter to my uncle’s house."
"She knew my dad would left the girl with my aunt while he was at work, so she called the police and said my aunt kidnaped her child. The police came in and took the girl away from my aunt. She immediately tried to call my dad. But the woman drove back home, put poison in her daughter’s milk and forced her to drink it. When my dad arrived, he found his daughter already dead and left alone."
"The woman was never ever found. My dad had never had justice for his first child. Kinda sad. Then when I was born my mother didn’t mind to named me after my 'sister.' We share the same name, and that’s actually how I found it out! I asked my parents about my name and they told me the whole story."
mylows
The Aunt
"When I was around 3-4, my 'Aunt' and her 3 sons came and lived with us for a few weeks. One night my mom stayed up and I found her downstairs sitting in a chair looking out the window. One day, my 'Aunt' and the boys 'moved' and never came back."
"Turns out, she was going through a nasty divorce. She had the boys at the house with her while she was packing things one day, and her husband came home. He locked the boys in a room, stabbed her, and then shot himself. My mom had been staying up with a gun that night because she had seen him in our backyard earlier that night."
Deepstate-intern
No Touch
"My paternal grandfather was an alcoholic wife abuser who regularly cheated on Grandma. When my father was a teenager he stood up to him, and threatened to kill him if he ever touched her again. The abuse stopped."
pattersonjeffa
It's HIM!
"My mild-mannered Christian mother casually told me that she dated a gangster who trafficked drugs in NY during the 80's. He bought her a brand new BMW before getting sentenced to prison for murder for 20+ years. Someone who was friends with her and her ex for YEARS turned out to be an FBI informant and she barely escaped jail, had to enter a witness protection program, and moved cross country."
"Here's the craziest part: He's still stalking her, has contacted her on her birthday every year for 40 years, and keeps tabs on her!! My dad has no idea."
"I asked her why she waited so long to tell me. Like, what if she went missing? and she said 'Oh, honey. He's the type of person that if he wanted to harm me, I would already be dead by now.' Very comforting."
marvelous_persona
This is why we're sent out of the room as children when adults are talking.
Swing Low...
"My grandmother tried to murder my grandfather when she got sick of him beating the crap out of her everyday. She swung an axe at him and he blocked it with his hand and lost his thumb. She left him before I was born."
beers_n_bags
"I don't AT ALL wish to make light of an obviously terrible ongoing domestic violence situation (my grandmother faced a similar scenario, I'm very sorry). But the appearance of the axe makes it poetry. Good on her. I wish every victim could feel that strength."
Dangercakes13
Madness...
"That schizophrenia ran in my mom’s side of the family. I developed it a year after she told me about it at 25. She didn’t refer to it as schizophrenia, but as the '(her maiden name) Madness.' She said that every once in a while someone in our family would go mad and that that’s what they would call it."
"I guess her side of the family also had ties to organized crime. My family never talked about issues or emotions at all so it was a shock. I assumed our ancestors were relatively normal, but I also thought my family was sane back then too."
A**ckindragonyo
“sister day”
"Grandma had 13 siblings, of those 7 women are still alive. Once a year they have a 'sister day' where they all except one are going somewhere to have fun. They’ve been doing this since they were teens. All but one sister, who has been lied to her whole life about sister day, because she thinks it doesn’t exist. This is supposed to have been started when that one sister borrowed something and didn’t give it back."
"Or something trivial like that. We are all reminded whenever we ALL get together (pre pandemic) that we’re not to talk about this, because it will hurt that sister. Still can’t wrap my head around how backstabbing *itchy some family members of mine are. Because this is just stupid."
Whooptidooh
History
"My father always tells me as a joke that it's my fault my mom and him are married ( I'm the second son). But through the years from drunk conversations and several sources I've pieced the story together, my parents separated before they knew my mother was pregnant and only came back together after I was born."
Mond_13
Anxious...
"My mom had a brother who died in childhood, maybe 9 or 10. I always thought he drank cleaning chemicals and died that way, but turns out he was hit by a school bus while riding his bike. Now I know why my mom was so anxious about me biking on the road."
Corgi_with_stilts
Well, family is certainly never boring... but sometimes it's safest to keep these skeletons in the closet.
Do you have any family secrets to get off your chest? Let us know in the comments below.