36 Locals Share The Most Horrific Crimes That Really Happened In Their Own Home Towns (Not For The Faint Of Heart)

via ThoughtCatalog.com
via ThoughtCatalog.com

1. Motherly Love

Stacey Castor poisoned her husband and then poisoned her daughter on the daughter’s first day of college. She wrote a fake suicide note for her daughter saying that she had killed her father and was committing suicide because of the guilt. The daughter almost died but recovered from the poison and testified against her mother. They also found out she had poisoned her first husband.

2. A Murderous Game Of Hide And Seek

When I was in 3rd grade I saw a kid get into a police car while I was in chess club. Turns out his father murdered his younger twin sisters by stabbing them to death. Apparently he told them to play hide and seek and murdered them when he found them. When he finally returned to school he got bullied by the shitbag kids at our school, making fun of his dead sisters. He was placed in the custody of his aunt who later committed suicide and he was left in the care of the state after that. That boy’s life was horrible.

3. Death Of A Classmate

Around 3 years ago, my friend’s father went berserk and killed my friend, his younger brother and his mother, and then proceeded to hang himself. I remember talking to him the week before about a project we had in lit class. His extended family took the project because it was the last thing he worked on before the incident. I had grief counselors talk to me for every class I had with him (Which was almost all of them). Our school still has a Tree and a memorial dedicated to him.

4. He Also Killed Himself Hours After Confessing

Probably David Meirhofer’s murders. Among other things he snatched a seven year old girl out of her tent while her family was camping, molested her, then strangled her to death. They caught him because he called her mother to taunt her a year later.

5. A Neighbor Reaches Out

Neighbors that lived across the road from me were having domestic issues. The wife brings over a box of stuff for us to stash because she is afraid he will steal/burn it. We stash it for her no problem. A week later she is missing, the following week they found her dead, stuffed in a box in his storage unit. He got life. We gave the box of stuff to her daughter.

6. No Hell Hot Enough

Guy beat his pregnant girlfriend to death in front of her kids, then beat her 8 and 6 year old to death. Couldn’t bring himself to beat the 2 year old to death so he threw him in the dryer and turned it on.

7. Child Murderers

When I was a kid one of my neighbors and his sister murdered their mom by bashing her head in with a real heavy frying pan and then strangled her with the phone cord. (Back when phones had cords) because the mother told the son that he couldn’t take his underage sister out with him to a party. So they killed her and left her body in the closet and then went to the party like nothing happened.

8. The Perverse Photographer

I live in a (relatively) rural county in England, so we normally don’t have many crimes that you could consider too bad.

About three years ago a 17 year girl I’d met once or twice went missing, she was popular and the community really pulled together in trying to find her. She was also the daughter of a detective who works in our town.

Turns out she was murdered by another lad I’d also met a few times. He was a bit older (22 I think) He seemed okay when I met him, a little cocky but nothing too unusual. He was a photographer who once staged a picture with one of my friends where she was hanging by the neck with a bag on her head. Pretty strange stuff, but I assumed it was all in the name of art.

He’d been rejected by this girl so he lured her to his house on the pretense of taking modelling photos. He strangled her to death when she got there and dumped her body miles away.

Apparently the cops found essays he’d been writing obsessively about her. He’d also taken pictures labelled “before-during-after” of her murder, so it was obviously pre-meditated.

He was given a whole-life sentence (which are very rare in the UK) so chances are he’ll never get to see the light of day again.

9. When She Rejected Him, He Went Insane

My neighbor that became our family’s friend had a nice step dad. He used to give me rides sometimes. We lived in a bad part of Miami (think inner city, not South Beach) and my nickname there was “smart girl” because I’m the only one in “the hood” that went to college.

Anyway, I moved away and apparently one day my friend’s mom told his step dad she wanted to leave him. He went insane. He grabbed his gun and told her she’s going to die before she leaves or something like that. My friend’s little sister was there too and was crying the whole time (she was like 16). My friend stepped between his step dad and his mom. His step dad told him if he didn’t move he’d kill him too.

He didn’t move. He killed my friend, then the mom. He turned to the little girl and said he couldn’t kill her and that he was so sorry. Then he killed himself.

10. Thirteen Years Old

The murder of Maddie Clifton. An 8 year old girl went missing in Jacksonville, FL and it became a huge national story in 1998. There was a massive hunt to find her by law enforcement and local residents. Everyone was looking. It’s all anyone talked about. A week into the search, a mother went into her son’s room while he was at school to clean it after the stench coming from it became overwhelming. His waterbed seemed to be leaking. When she looked more closely, she discovered Maddie’s body stuffed inside the pedestal of the bed.

The woman’s son was only 14 years old. He said him and Maddie were playing baseball, and when he hit the ball, it hit Maddie in the eye causing her to bleed. He says he panicked when she wouldn’t stop screaming, and said his father was abusive and was afraid what would happen to him if he she told on him. So, he dragged Maddie inside, stabbed her 11 times and beat her to death with the baseball bat.

Horrible, tragic story.

11. Woman Murders A Mother To Steal Her Baby

A woman murdered an expectant mother and cut the baby out, drove off, then called 911 in an attempt to pass the baby off as her own. I was just off work around that time that night and definitely drove by that exact spot before they found the body. It’s right off the highway. Creepy shit

12. A Clingy Woman Murders Her Husband

Our neighbor on our street was having an affair and decided it was a good idea to kill her husband then burn the house down so she could be with her pilot boyfriend.

Stupid thing was her boyfriend used to come into one local bar, said he was never that serious about her and that she was clingy, even went so far as to try and get him to be her alibi. All this happened while we were on vacation, weirdest trip home ever.

13. Vigilantes In The Philippines

If you guys aren’t aware what’s going on in the Philippines. Most drug users/dealers are now being killed by unknown assailants. Just last week we have 2 people dumped near where I live with their heads fully wrapped with tape and hands as well with a cardboard sign saying “I’m a drug dealer. Don’t be like me” (translated from our native language).

14. Jim Jones

Grew up in a small town north of the bay area, while watching a documentary about Jim Jones my teacher started crying. Found out for several years Jones’s church was in our town (2miles from my house) and after everyone committed “suicide” in Guyana they ran a list of names on the local news. A large number of previous students and their parents were on the list. The shit didn’t go down in my town but a whole generation where I grew up lost friends and family to that guy and the church (with a guard tower) still stands to this day but with a different denomination.

15. He Waved As He Was Dying

When I was a baby there was this nice couple that lived down the street from me. No kids, middle aged, average couple. The wife and my mom would talk sometimes – casual pleasant neighborly chatter. Apparently this lady was a total sweetheart and was loved around town.

So one day my mom is driving home, and the couple’s house is surrounded by police cruisers. Turns out the wife commit suicide by shotgun. The problem was – she shot herself twice.

For months they were investigating the husband…they were so close to having the evidence that they needed to nail him for the murder.

One day, my mom and grandma were going to the store. When they left, he was sitting in his driveway in his car. He waved at them as they left. When they get home, there are police and an ambulance outside his house – he was slumped over dead in his car – suicide by carbon monoxide.

They literally saw him as he was killing himself after he killed his wife. Yikes.

16. We Still See Her Ex Around Town

Andrea Yates drowning her five kids. Happened five minutes away and our family still sees her ex husband and his new family on occasion. They’re very nice.

17. Where To Begin?

Let’s see… Where to start? This list doesn’t even include the stuff related to the meth epidemic.

(1990’s) A guy cut another dude into pieces with a carving knife and stashed the body in the deep freezer in his apartment. The police only found them a week later.

(2000’s) A guy got into an argument with their cousin at the club, drove to their house and chucked a firebomb inside. The fire killed all five of their kids, who were home at the time.

(2000’s again) Another guy heard that his estranged parents had a huge life insurance policy in their name. One night, he left home, drove to his parents’ place in Iowa, and killed almost everyone (6 people) with a shotgun, then drove home to eat dinner, while awaiting the news. He was only caught because his 7 year old niece hid in the closet the whole time and she was able to tell who did it.

(2015-now) Several fatal shootings and beatings that have killed a few people. Heroin epidemic.

Oh also, Michael Swango AKA “Dr. Death”, a serial killer known for poisoning victims (4-60; true number unknown), worked as an EMT around the area here in the 80’s.

So, yeah, Central Illinois is just low-key slang for ‘Trevor Philips country’.

18. Post Partum Psychosis

Just happened this month, a mother of a one month old punched her baby to death because she was tired of feeding it. She then blamed the father. Fucked up.

19. Very Graphic Homophobic Murder And A Police Vigilante

Whitey here. I live in a small south east town. Back in the 80’s the town was still pretty segregated school wise. Where the railroad tracks once ran through town, was the diving line. South side of the railroad was probably 99.9% black. My backyard fence was part of that dividing line. When I was 10, my parents fostered a black boy my age. He lived in my neighborhood, played on my baseball team. His dad went to prison up in NY and the boy lived with us for 4 years. He moved back when his dad got out. But 30 years later, we still tell people we are brothers.

“D” taught me a lot about black community. Especially about times when crimes are committed and the whole black community knows who did it. But don’t tell because “fuck the police” or retaliation from the criminal.

we lived 2 blocks from the closest convenience store/arcade. People walking to the store from the south side of the tracks, walked by my house. It wasn’t the wild west or anything. We may not have gone to the same school sometimes, but we only had 1 recreation department so we played sports together. So we always saw people we knew at the store.

But there was this one guy. For the late 80’s this dude was pretty out and flamboyant when it came to being gay. Remember those 70’s and 80’s short shorts with the stripe. If you hung em just right, your balls were exposed.

Anyway, dude used to walk up and down the street, short short, flip flops, tank top t shirt, medium size afro, and usually sucking on a sucker. He was very friendly. He would stop and talk. He acted like he was a girl. He was alright. My sister and her friend were nice to him. He stopped and talked to them if they were ever about.

Fast Forward. So the dude is found in the bathroom at the ballfield. He had been murdered. Just fucked up big time. Beat to hell and back. And the story every one has head as an urban legend before. They had cut his dick off and put it in his mouth. His balls were in his hand and a broom stick had been shoved in his ass.

No suspects.

Year later, out in the county, a white sherriff’s deputy off duty from another county happens to be in our jurisdiction, checking on his parents’ house. Happens to catch 2 black guys robbing the house. He shoots and kills both after a scuffle.

Oddly enough, under routine drug test, because of the shooting, cocaine shows up on his system. This story is really fishy. Investigation goes on for a long time. The cops finally drop the case, declare it self defense or what have.

This is where my foster brother “D” comes into play. Years later. We’re in our 20’s, shooting the shit and somehow bring up the murder of the gay dude. I was like, “I can’t believe they never solved that case”.

D was like what you talking about? Everybody knew who did it. What? He asked, “remember the 2 black dudes the off duty cop killed breaking into his parents house?

Yea I remember that.

Well those were the dudes that did it. Everybody in the “hood” knew it was them. They were always terrorizing everybody. And the house they were breaking into and got caught? Drug deal. Those 2 dudes were dealing drugs, and that white guy, off duty sheriff deputy from another county. Shot em in the middle of the deal.

So two drug dealers/murderers are murdered by a crooked cop, but in the end, I don’t really consider that justice for our friendly neighborhood gay boy that probably never hurt a flea in his 20 years of life.

You may not have any love for “the man” or “the police” but how can a community be silent when innocent people are hurt?

20. Welcome To The Neighborhood

Second week in my new apartment and my neighbor gets robbed and stabbed. I heard the whole encounter and was the one that called the cops.

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