32. Paul Bernardo and karla homolka
There’s a lot of disturbing stories on here but mine is probably up there: Paul Bernardo was from near my hometown and abducted one of his victims from my hometown. I frequently drive by the location this girl was taken from and I still get goosebumps every time. He (along with his wife, Karla Homolka, who is just as fucked) was responsible for the rapes, torture, and murder of multiple women, I think he filmed some of it too. Don’t read look too much into him if you’re easily upset/disturbed, he was really really fucked up.
33. Syrian Hometowns Are Another Story Altogether
I mean.. I’m Syrian soo everything from chemical warfare to burning people’s genitalia to stoning.
The one experience I actually encountered was when I was 11, on my last visit. I was going for a 3-hour car ride from Latakiya (where my mom’s family is) to Aleppo (where.y dad’s family is); my uncle and my mom were sitting in the front while my and my sister hid in the back with the luggage. We passed by 6 stops and everything was fine, until this one stop where they made everyone get out of the car and drag their bags out, and when they noticed me sitting under one of the bags they pulled me out and sized me up. They checked our passports, emptied our clothes into the street, and when they finally let us go, one of them looked my mom straight in the eyes and said “this one stays”
He grabbed me by the neck and took his pistol out, my mom started raging while my uncle was trying to keep her under control. Seeing the soldier with a rifle my height over his shoulder, and his friends gang up on my mom got me so scared I started crying. Mom still tried to grab me, so he pulled a pistol out and pointed it at my temple; my knees gave up on me but he held me by the neck while his friends raised their rifles on my family.
“We’re keeping her, you can go”
I don’t remember much after that, all I know is I woke up in the car, sleeping on my mother’s lap while she was praying and crying; they gave them all the money we had (about 500k leira) and they let me go.
34. The Rhoads Opera House Fire
Let’s flash back 150ish years (I guess, thankfully, not many gruesome things/deaths/disappearances happen in my hometown.) There used to be a theater in the center of town. One night, during a play attended by about 400 people, a gas lantern used as a prop was kicked over and set the place on fire. 177 people (many of them were kids, too) died in the fire, and the town was an absolute wreck for years to come. There were so many unidentifiable bodies because everything just got burnt to a crisp – peoples’ jewelry was often fused to the remains, and that is how they were ID’ed by the family. Many makeshift morgues were set up and undertakers worked around the clock for days to try and make heads or tails of the deaths, missing, etc. There’s a tombstone in one of the cemeteries dedicated to the unidentified but presumed dead, because they couldn’t be positively identified.
