We all see crime shows on TV, with their overtly gruesome murderer plot-lines, and trendy, psychopathic serial killers coming out of the wazoo, but reality is far from as glamorous. The actuality of seeing a real crime scene can have a profound affect on a person.
One person took to Reddit to find out what some of the most horrific crimes scenes people had seen were like, by asking, “Crime scene cleanup crew members of Reddit what is your most disturbing story?”
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All manner of people answered, not just crime scene cleanup crews, to share their traumatic experiences with the world — some of the most shocking of which are found below.
Liquid People
“Police detective here. In a rural area, a guy had passed away in his yard. In July. It was 8 days before someone found him. He was partially liquified, there were flies everywhere and the stench was quite nasty. The knowing where this fly was before they landed on your face did not help. Had to shovel him in the bag with gas masks. FYI liquid people are quite toxic.” — cruzzein
The person who wrote this explained that the rate at which people “liquify” depends on a variety of factors such as temperature and body size. Also, any job that has the phrase “liquid people” in its description is a seriously strange job.
Died In The Bath
“Not a clean up crew but attend the scenes. An old gentleman had died in the bath. The top half of his body was all swollen and puffy, whereas his legs and lower torso and almost melted away. ” — jgw791
This person is actually in the police, hence how they ended up attending the scenes. They are now a detective, and hopefully, they haven’t seen anything as graphic as this since.
The Lost Head
“I heard a story of a guy who cleans up bodies from people jumping in front of trains. In this one case, they found a body with no head and couldn’t for the life of them find the rest of it. In the autopsy room, they saw a tuft of hair coming out of where the head should be and realized he hit the train head-on and his head had caved in to his chest through his neck.” — prestog1
I always can’t help but feel sorry for the people who were driving the train in these instances. They are just drivers, they shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of trauma.
Suicide Cleanup
“I’m not a crime scene cleanup crew, but I did have to clean up my father’s brains and blood from the room he killed himself in. The people basically just didn’t do a thorough job. There were red streaks down the hallway walls from the blood-soaked bed being taken out, and it’s like they didn’t have a ladder because the walls of the room were clean until nearly the roof then you could see splatters.
“There was also a smell we believe was from the blood soaking into the wooden floors, so we had to have those floors replaced.” — Accent-man
If you feel like you may be about to take your own life then there are numbers you can and should call. There are people out there who love you, and you should not have to battle these feelings alone.
Found Amongst The Trees
“Not my experience, but a friend of the family who was a first responder. A teenage couple, boy and girl, were driving upwards of 100 mph down a country road in Wisconsin at night. The male was driving and was wearing a seatbelt. The female was the passenger and was not wearing a seatbelt. The driver lost control and slammed into a tree.
“Our friend arrived first on the scene and found the teenage female had been thrown through the windshield and was in many pieces in the branches of the tree. The teenage male driver who was seat-belted in was found nearly completely decapitated from his head to his body. He had been driving so fast that the impact caused his seatbelt across his chest to nearly slice his head from his body.” — rockpuma
Accidental Cleanup Crew
“I used to do auto detailing in college for a car dealership. I was scrubbing the floor of a car and no matter what I did the water kept having a red tint to it. So I pulled the seats and found about an inch of dried crusted blood and what I can only guess was brain matter/skull fragments. Turns out it was a suicide car that the dealership bought at auction. It had been detailed before being sold but they never pulled the seats.
“We called the cops to confirm it was all logged and shipped the car back to auction. The dealership lost their ass on it but wanted it as far away from their lot as possible.” — korbendaIIass
This person went on to say that they showered for hours when they got in but still felt dirty for days afterward.
Family Cleanup
“My dads friend is a cop who works a rural area and loves to tell my dad about the f*cked up stuff he’s come across. One of them being the time he was sent to a call of a large group of people crying and coughing in an apartment. He gets there and it’s a large group of family members there cleaning up the shotgun suicide of a relative. That’s when I learned that it’s sometimes up to the family of the departed to clean up after the death and it’s not always people in hazmat suits.” — gamageeknerd
Apparently, some places do not have the specialized facilities to deal with cleanups such as these. There are actually some charities out there that can help people in such instances now.
Cooking Naked
“A friend of mine is a cop. He just told me of a guy they found dead in his kitchen. The stove and heater were on and he was naked. They assumed he was just cooking while naked. You know, how we all do from time to time. Can’t remember how long he said he was dead for.
“When they lifted him up to turn him around, his penis had sort of melted to the kitchen floor.” — talhindi416
Yep, that is one of the most viscerally hideous on the list, I’ll give that to them. I imagine their friend hears that sound in their nightmares still.
The Cheating Boyfriend
“Interning with a forensics unit. First real crime scene. Guy found out his boyfriend was cheating on him and flew into a jealous rage. Stabbed the guy to death with the handle of a frying pan. He chased him through the house and finished him off in the bathtub, where he stabbed him an estimated 200 additional times.” — z0mbiegrl
Missing Face
“So my mom used to do cleanup for a certain teal and yellow cleaning company and was the only one certified to do hazmat. They did cleaning for the county sheriff’s department and the one that stuck with her was in the back of a cruiser they had a ‘meth head’ as they described him but he was so tweaked out of his mind he kept rubbing his face back and forth across the dividing glass and managed to wear his face off from ear to ear. I got to see the pictures of it before cleanup, nearly 10 years ago and it still haunts me to this day.” — Count_Poodoo
I think that seeing such an image would haunt anyone.
“I Now Cannot Eat Pork”
“When mum died of a brain aneurysm she was dead on the sofa for about 5 hours in front of the fire. I was the one who found her. The only way to describe that smell was cooking pork. I now cannot eat pork or cook pork for that reason as that smell will stay with me forever.” — Princessdelrey
This person went on to say that the room was only tiny, and so she was sadly sat very close to the fire itself.
Flying Home To Find Father
“‘Funny’ Paramedic story time: So a woman calls 999, says she thinks her father is dead, call handler advises cpr but caller states it is too late. Crew arrives and paramedic approaches remote house, speaks to daughter, who is upset but advises she ‘thinks it’s too late’.
“Paramedic enters property and finds what is effectively a skeleton in the kitchen laid on the floor. History is daughter is fairly estranged and lives overseas from Her father, normally send Christmas cards and no other communication really. After 2 years of no cards, and him not answering the phone, she flies home and finds him dead in his home.” — meehaja
How tragic that this person would have spent their last days so alone that no one would come round for 2 years.
Murderous Ex
“Police Officer here. Attended a scene where a guy went to his ex’s house, walked in, and murdered her as well as her mother and teenage son. It was clear from the scene that he had gone in with a rifle and shot the three, but that the son had attempted to crawl to a phone in the kitchen.
“He then went out to his car and grabbed his shotgun and pumped a slug through each of their heads before putting one inside his own head. The son was in High School and was well on his way to college football. His girlfriend was scheduled to also be at the house but had last-minute issues with a family illness.” — Helionix
The son’s girlfriend was incredibly lucky to have missed this tragedy. Hopefully, this person will be in prison for the rest of their life.
Accidental Contamination
“When I was in prison we would take classes like HIV/AIDS prevention, drug, and alcohol substance abuse, etc. One morning, a guy comes in. Never been a drug addict, no problems with alcohol, had a family, a nice job, and he was a volunteer EMT tasked with cleaning up car crashes most of the time, [and] on a routine call he and another guy were cleaning up a serious car wreck. Someone wrapped their truck around a tree.
The speaker was cleaning blood out of the passenger side floorboards when his hand slipped and he face planted in a puddle of blood. He knew immediately that he had it in his mouth and all over his face […] The driver was HIV+ or some type of hepatitis, and he in turn becomes infected. His wife then leaves him, she tells the kids/family her father is gay, they harass the sh*t out of this poor guy, and basically ruin this guys life. Everyone in that room, in a prison mind you, knew that it could be worse when he finished telling us that.
“That was it. No feel-good stories, no happy endings. Sometimes life just f**king sucks.” — tash_master
Overdose
“I don’t clean them for a living but had to clean a few apartments when my uncle managed an apartment complex.
“We had one tenant OD on heroin. He sat there for roughly three weeks before anyone noticed the smell. They took his body and left it to us to clean up. I thought that was left to a professional team, but I guess it’s optional and if you don’t want to pay for it, you can scoop the brains and blood up yourself?” — MiltonMiltun
The Electric Blanket
“This was relayed to me by a friend of mine who’s a Riverside County Sheriff. He did a welfare check on an elderly woman who had passed away in her sleep….under an electric blanket…about 10 days before they found her. Her skin peeled off with the blanket.” — HerrWunderbahr
A lot of people explained how they have fallen asleep under their old electric blankets with no auto-timer on and have woken up burnt. Guys, buy one with a timer!
The Wrong Suitcase
“Hey, search and rescue personnel here […] Worst one was when we were deployed to find a female stuffed in a suitcase, after recovering the female in the suitcase, the coroner said it was the wrong female in a suitcase and we were sent back out to find the right one.
“I guess I should clarify, though we aren’t a cleanup crew, we are often tasked with body recovery. The coroner’s office does the packaging and LE does the investigation, we then solemnly carry them out. Everyone needs to come home eventually, there’s someone out there who cares for them.” — DeltaSandwich
This person went on to say that there were bodies found in various things, such as backpacks, sleeping bags, and many more over the years they worked in that position.
“I Had This Blokes Head On A Shovel”
“My dad used to attend suicides on the railway. People hit by trains at high speed. He said there would be bits everywhere. He shoveled them into bin bags. Usually took three bags.
“I remember us once in a restaurant. My dad said ‘I had this blokes head on a shovel’ table next to us asking if he could keep it down please.” — Womble4
This person went on to say that their father struggled with coping with these experiences, and over time it took its toll on him. They also encouraged anyone working in areas such as this to talk about their experiences and not bottle it up.
The Death Of A Best Friend
“I’m not a professional cleaner, but I have cleaned a murder scene before unfortunately. My best friend was to beat to death with a baseball bat in his home. It’s apparently pretty expensive to have these people come out and clean and his parents didn’t have it. Trying to do what we could to help out, a few of his friends got together to clean it.
“I don’t have anything crazier to say that I haven’t already about the scene. The entire experience was extremely surreal and not something I think about often. I’d say the craziest thing would have to be the weird places we’d find a spec of blood with seemingly no logical way for it to have gotten there. Logic, of course, had left that room before we got there”. — Hueyandthenews
I don’t think anything could prepare you to clean up the murder scene of your best friend. Hopefully, this person managed to get passed this horrific experience and still hold onto the memory of their friend.
