32 Freaky Accounts Of People Who Were Almost Murdered That Will Keep You Up At Night

1. mhelweg

While growing up in Poughkeepsie, NY when I was 12-14 years old, one of my brother’s friends became very close with our family. He called my mother mom, and was considered one of the family. He even took one of my sisters out to a movie date at one point. Coming home from work one night my brother told my mom that the cops showed up where he and Nate worked and arrested Nate. It turned out that Nate was stalking and murdering girls between the ages of 14-20 in Dutchess and Orange Counties and had already killed 6, strangling and bludgeoning them and disposing of the bodies on the side of the road. Nathaniel White was his name.

If that wasn’t bad enough, fast forward about 6 years and 2 blocks from my house, they arrested Kendall Francois and located 8 dead women in his home – which he shared with his mom, dad and 14 year old sister. Apparently although the place reeked of decomposing bodies none of the other people in the house where even remotely aware of the corpses. Additional Craziness: My history teacher in Poughkeepsie Middle School was Albert Fentress – A cannibal killer.

2. 2ndChanceCharlie

This guy worked at my middle school. When you had lunch detention it was with Francois. He was the assistant coach of the wrestling team. He was nice, although intimidating. He also stunk – turns out it was the bodies in his attic.

3. FromHereToParis

My friend and I carpool to and from work together everyday. It was late at night and I was waiting for her to come pick me up when her cousin drove past and told me she was running late, and had asked if he could come pick me up, so I wouldn’t have to wait so long alone.

I met her cousin only once, very briefly at a wedding she had dragged me to a few months back. He seemed nice, then and now, so I agreed.

I was about to step into the car, but then I realized I had left my purse inside my work. I told him I would be 2 seconds to go grab it. I went back into work and grabbed my purse. My phone rang. It was my friend. She said she was on her way to come pick me up. Confused, I reminded her that she had asked her cousin to pick me up. Silence. She only has one cousin, and he was on a missionary trip in another country…WTF.

Turns out, this guy had been stalking every detail of my life and schedule, and knew I waited for my friend every night to pick me up. He dressed up as my friends “cousin” because he knew I wouldn’t be afraid of him because I had met him, but I didn’t know him well enough to realize it wasn’t him. The cops, after a long chase, caught him. He had previously murdered 3 other women, and in the back of his car were poisons, guns, chains, knives, ropes, and masks. DODGED THAT FUCKING BULLET.

4. iAMnarwhal

My uncle once gave a ride to the chick the movie Monster was about.

5. gogojack

About 10 years ago, I met a guy named Randy Hausner. He was a local comic and small time promoter in Phoenix. He had a comedy night where my then girlfriend was performing. Went to a couple shows…seemed like a nice enough guy. If I remember correctly, he was an advocate for “clean” comedy. If you worked blue, you didn’t work for him.

A couple years later his brother Dale turned out to be the “Serial Shooter,” responsible for 8 murders and at least 29 other shootings in the Phoenix area between 2005 and 2006. He died a few months ago while awaiting execution. Another brother, Jeff, is serving 18 years for stabbing a guy.

Randy actually cracked a joke about it back in 2007: “So, um, my brother sits accused of being the most prolific serial killer in Arizona history. I feel the Hausner name is now tarnished. So, I’ve decided to change my last name to something less offensive. From now on, call me Randy Manson.”

6. iDebisschop

My grandmother went to school with the Boston Strangler. After he hit on her/said something inappropriate, she hit him in the head with a book.

7. A_Schicklgruber

Not a serial killer, but a guy in my school killed his parents with an axe and burned down their house a few years ago.

8. ohmygodbeckylook

This isn’t about me, but my friend’s aunt. She heard a knock on the door and thought it was her boyfriend so she wanted to scare him and got one of her kitchen knives and opened the door and yelled or something. Turns out it wasn’t her boyfriend, but a man asking if she needed any plumbing work done but when he saw the knife he left. She looked out the window and saw a yellow VW bug. Ends up being Ted Bundy.

9. valkrik

Not me, but my grandpa went to high school with Ted Bundy and had a history class with him.

10. spencerjustsaid

I was camping in the Lake District here in the UK 3 years back. When a man named Raoul Moat went on a killing spree. We had no idea this was going on at the time (no phone reception/internet/tv/anything) but later found out he was hiding in bushes only a couple hundred meters from where we were camping!! I’m only too sure that if he found our camp we would all be dead.

11. ISpyI

Not a serial killer, but I am acquainted to a person that participated in the Sabra & Chatila massacres in Lebanon. He blames it all on drugs and other supposed manipulation from his superiors.

12. domori

The Rotenburg cannibal lived (and killed/ate) just 2 Miles away from my family’s home.

13. thewire_greatestshow

Not me but my half-sister. When she was in middle school she was walking home from school and a guy in an old pickup trick offered her a ride home. She said no, because our dad had always said never accept a ride from strangers.

A few weeks later, a girl went missing from her class. They found her some time later, brutally raped and murdered. They later caught the guy, who turned out to be Michael Ross. All in all he abducted, raped, and killed somewhere around 8 young girls in the CT area. He’d later get the death sentence.

From what she’s told me, our dad and her mother tried to keep the details of the trial away from her at home, trying not to freak out their young daughter. She said, however, the first time she caught a glimpse of his mugshot she recognized him immediately as the man who offered her a ride.

14. BrodyApproved

Ate at Boston Pizza with one before. He was a buddy of my relative & he had just gotten out of prison. I knew what he had served time for before I met him. He was an okay guy. I got chicken fettuccine.

15. 2blessed

Weird this is the first thread that I can relate to and finally got around to making an account:

A kid that lived in the next neighborhood over from me shot his mother and her boyfriend with a shotgun because she wanted him to take his medication and pay for rent at the time (he was 18). I grew up playing Little League baseball with him and he rode my bus in grade school. I never really talked much to him but we knew each other by name. There was always something a little off and other kids knew he came from a rough home but according to police he had schizophrenia and recently returned from treatment for bath salts. He had a friend buy him a shotgun after he pawned off electronics and stored it in the attic before finally bringing it down to shoot them both 4 times. This happened in October of last year and he’s been charged with first-degree murder.

16. smoking_gun

Not me, but my grandmother dated the Green River Killer when she was in high school.

17. beckafaye09

I was staying at a friend’s house after she threw a huge party. One of our gay friends (Zach) had brought a boy over that he was interested in. She has a circular sectional so most us ended up sleeping there. I slept right next to the guy. Two weeks later, journalists are contacting Zach trying to see what he knew about the guy. He didn’t have much information, but was confused about why they cared. Turns out the guy had gone to a neighboring town, bought up a bunch of guns and ammo and had planned on shooting up one of the Twilight premiers. His spending history got him taken in. Not really a serial killer but he had a definite intent on at least killing some movie goers.

18. chalkchick0

Hitching near Green River Washington, Guy in a V.W. picks me up, a few blocks latter he suddenly pulls over and says “It’s your lucky day little girl…Get the hell out of my car!” A few weeks latter I see a picture of him on the cover of a newspaper. Ted Bundy. I was a lucky little girl. That was 40 years ago. Still makes my skin crawl.

19. down_vote_militia

I was friends with Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood Shooter) in medical school and was acquainted with him at Virginia Tech (we were both trying to get into medical school – he was biochem and I was biology).

Granted, not a serial killer – just a mass murderer.

20. zook54

I picked up Aileen Wuornus one afternoon when she was hitchhiking. This was before she began her killing spree.

21. griss0

In high school I hung out with two of my boyfriend’s friends. We went for a walk around the neighborhood, and ended up in a secluded area filled with ice plant. One of the guys said, “We should rape her!”. The other guy joked around and said yea. The guy who suggested it took it seriously, and reached for me, and the other guy freaked and said, “wtf man, no!”. A couple years later, a friend told me that he was in one of those shows that go around prisons and interview prisoners. The guy that had joked about raping me had apparently murdered someone.

22. Darnell_North

I drove through Detroit at night.

23. rockrod777

I did work for Robert Pickton, Canada’ss worst serial killer. Seemed like a real nice guy, but three or four months later the truth came out.

24. hippiehoppy69

When my great aunt was in college in Kansas she was getting ready for a date with her boyfriend. Her roommate went to answer the door and one of their classmates tried to force his way inside. Her roommate screamed and started trying to shut the door on him. Soon my aunt’s boyfriend showed up and told him to take a hike. Fast forward several decades and that classmate is finally discovered to be the BTK killer.

25. PatrickRsGhost

Not me, but my mom. Back in the late 1970s, she worked for the City of Pensacola, FL. She usually worked the late shift, I think she said in billing. One night she had to print out some reports. At the time the printers were those giant dot matrix printers that printed on the giant green-and-white striped paper, and were located in a separate building. This building was located across the parking lot from City Hall, where my mom worked. Old City Hall is now a museum, and the parking lot has been turned into a small park. One night in particular, she stepped out of the main building to walk over to the other building to get the reports. She noticed three cars in the parking lot: Hers, the security guard, and an orange VW bug. She didn’t recognize the bug, and at first thought someone else was working late, or else left their car there (could have broken down).

As she was heading towards the other building, a man steps out of the Bug, and had his left arm wrapped up in a makeshift sling. He asks her if she could drive him to the hospital. She said she couldn’t, but she’d call an ambulance for him. He’s very persistent, and she agrees, after the end of her shift. She gets the reports, then walks back to the main building. The guy’s just standing there, getting more anxious. My mom calls the security guard, but the guy leaves before the guard could get there.

A week later, Ted Bundy would be arrested at Oscar Werner’s Pancake House in Pensacola, FL.

26. gearhead43

I sat behind the Craigslist Killer in Ohio in one of his classes at high school.

27. MackDaddy92

Ariel Castro was the uncle of my really good family friend.

28. jonathan88876

Not me, but my grandfather was a state representative for 4 years back in the 70s. His right-hand-man was a serial killer.

29. BellicoseKitty

Not my story, but my mom’s. She went through middle school with a kid, didn’t hang out outside of school, but they shared notes, studied together, and they rode the same bus. After freshman year of high school they stopped talking. After sophmore year 2 girls went missing, nothing was known. After junior year she found out he and one of his friends got the two girls alone and killed them just “to see what it was like.”

30. Zemule

When I was pretty young my friend was stabbed to death by his baby sitter because he wanted to be famous like Kip Kinkel (Thurston High School shooting).

31. almightyshadowchan

My mom was stalked by this guy. She had no idea that she was on his “list” until he was arrested and the police contacted her. I was pretty young at the time, but the one detail that stuck out to me was that he had apparently noted that my mom had four children, when she actually just had 3 kids and frequently babysat a fourth.

32. conway5606

Went to community college with a guy who spent 28 years in prison for murder. He was very open about it too. He was super nice. But he did scare ppl in class. One time he dumped some Scooby doo snacks on the table and then got up to go the bathroom , he then announced to the class, “don’t any of you even think about touching my Scooby snacks.” No one touched them.

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