Nearly every town has a history of strange stories that are only uttered in hushed tones amongst the residents. However, when one Reddit user posited the question, “Redditors who live in secluded towns, what is the darkest thing that happened in your town but is kept secret?” they probably didn’t expect so many horrifying answers.
Below are some of the most bizarre, and darkest responses from people who live in secluded areas.
RELATED STORIES
Axe Murder
“When my mom was growing up, a teacher and his wife were killed by an ax murderer. Someone broke into their house and killed them in the middle of the night. They found the husband in the house and the wife in the woods behind it, indicating that she tried to escape and was chased down. Really gruesome stuff. The attack was seemingly random, and they never caught the person responsible.” — HicSunctLeones
This reads more like something that you would see on TV than what could happen in real life!
Grave-Robbing
“The ‘doctor’ who tried all these wacky treatments to save his young patient from tuberculosis and became infatuated with her. After she died he eventually robbed her grave, mummified her and lived with her body for seven years before being found out. Did not go to jail and lived his years out in town I believe” — HighOnGoofballs
How would you get away with something like this for seven years? He really mustn’t have had many living house guests!
A Very Complex Suicide
“So there is this building that used to be a hotel and one day this guy shows up and he takes multiple trips going in and out with a bunch of equipment. They found him a little while later in his room. He had assembled an entire guillotine and cut his head off.” — Dark_Helmet78
I can’t imagine why someone would think that this is the only option they have left in life? They must have had some truly terrible demons.
Witch Hunts
“In the 17th century, a woman named Moll Dyer was suspected of being a witch. On a freezing winter night, the townsfolk formed a mob and drove her out of her home. She froze to death clinging onto a large boulder in the woods. The boulder was moved to the old jailhouse in the 70s to memorialize her, and people who go near it frequently report feeling cold and experiencing headaches, dizziness, and fainting.” — dumpsteropossum
Stories of witch hunts are common amongst secluded towns and are all horrific in reality.
Bribery To Cover Up Murder
“My grandpa’s father was murdered by the wealthiest man in town a long time ago. Not 100% sure of the exact year. Money exchanged hands with law enforcement, and nothing ever came of it.
“Until one day my grandpa’s anger about the situation boiled over, and he threatened to kill the man in retribution. Law enforcement caught wind of it, and in order to save the coverup, forced him to leave town or be arrested.” — OmnomOrNah
Fortunately for the grandfather, although the murder was never solved officially, he moved away and got happily married.
Corrupt CEOs
“The CEO of our town’s electric company beats his wife regularly. He ended up getting arrested for domestic violence and his beatings were pretty horrific. Everyone knows what a s**t head he is. In the end, he got a good lawyer and the police let him off the hook. No jail time, no fines, nothing.” — lolno-
People like this in such positions of power so rarely get what they deserve.
Cat Murderers
“Probably a pretty tame one, but when I lived in small-town Alberta someone kept finding bags of dead cats in the lake. Never did find who was drowning cats.” — SeniorWumpo
Drowning animals like this is more common in the media than you’d think. A truly horrific crime.
Real Estate Mafia
“Small northern English town. We have a local ‘Mafia’ who collude and control all the property in the town center. They are an estate agent, a retired estate agent and a publican who buys up every small property to add to his ’empire’ of tourist accommodation.” — Diplodocus114
The Sopranos would have been a completely different series if it had been set in this town!
Drunken Accident
“A family friend was super drunk, he was walking home and fell unconscious on the road at the bottom of a hill. Another family friend (small town so we all knew each other) was driving home late, he heard a thump and a crunch when he went over a hill.
He got out of the car thinking he hit a wallaby or something, he instead found his friend dead. Everyone decided to forget what he did, because it really wasn’t his fault, there was no way he could have seen him”. — The-Goat-Lord
Walking home alone when you’re drunk can be an incredibly dangerous thing for anyone.
Agent Orange
“There was a company that made chemicals in my town for a long time. They sold a lot of a chemical called agent orange to America for the Vietnam war. If you don’t know what it is, look it up. When the war ended they had a bunch left that they couldn’t do anything with. So they put it into a bunch of barrels and buried them. It basically poisoned the underground aquifers. To this day, we have to get our water from the closest city.” — LoganOcchionero
Agent Orange was a truly horrific herbicide frequently used by the American government during the Vietnam War.
Viral Video Horror
“I didn’t live there but about twenty minutes away. A farm town in Washington where the Mr. Hands incident occurred. People there still don’t acknowledge the event. For the uninitiated, a guy enticed a horse to penetrate him in the butt and inadvertently killed him.” — PsychoAgent
This is definitely not the sort of viral video you want being associated with your town!
Strange Cattle Culling
“My partner’s family has a lot of farmland in a small, rural US community. Back in the 1970s, they went out to check on the cows and three of them had been killed overnight – but in a very weird way. They were totally drained of blood and their eyes, ears, tongues, and genitals had been meticulously (surgically?) removed. Each of the bodies were lying in the middle of a large indent in the ground like they had been dropped from a high height.” — sarcasticacademic
You know there will have been a few people just desperately waiting to drop the “it was aliens” bombshell.
Child Sacrifice
“A couple sacrificed their newly born child for monetary gain. They were beaten and handed over to the police. Their house was burnt to ashes.” — stretch3557
Millionaires Abusing Minors
“There’s a very wealthy area next to mine. Mansions, millionaires, etc. In one of the houses were leaders of a pedophile ring and it all was handled very discreetly. No press, just talk of the town. Also, one mother was the one who exposed them with the help of the FBI. A kid also committed suicide in this area too, no press and a girl rode her bike to a bridge and jumped off.” — ritznae
Reckless Driving Cover Up
“The superintendant of our local high school was texting and driving in a school zone. He was going 55 in a 35 and hit the traffic cop. He claimed he hit the man because he didn’t have his glasses on but after police watched the security footage he was clearly on his phone. He served 0 jail time and now the man can not walk. It was swept under the rug immediately. Not covered by local news or anything.” — Masonthemajestic
The fact that people still use their phones while driving in this day and age never ceased to baffle me!
Suspicious Arson
“A librarian was going through some old local historical records and discovered land records that indicated local prominent families had, generations before, essentially scammed high valued land from poorer families (some being black). Descendants from both sides still being in the area. Quickly the library mysteriously burned and all the records vanished.” — Wgy88
Drug Running
“I lived in a small town in Utah. House across from us got swat raided, they found a *hit ton of drugs stuffed in the walls. A few years later, like 20 cop cars were on my street, still don’t know why. And finally, my second cousin who lived a little ways away was caught for running the nation’s largest fentanyl operation in US history”.
These must have been a bizarre time for this town as a whole, let alone for the person who wrote this!
Ski Disaster
“A guy came [to the ski resort I was staying at] looking for his wife, who works here. He shot her, and a bunch of people at one of the chair lifts, and then himself. Several people died. Nothing was in the papers, no one said a word the rest of my vacation, or any of the other times I’ve been there since. It was strange and unsettling.” — DigitalGurl
For a cover-up of this magnitude, you’d expect something like the Mafia to be involved as opposed to a ski resort!
The Chicken Farm
“In the early 1990s, a town in my small county in the southern US had a fire in a chicken processing plant,” this person shares, “When workers tried to escape, it became apparent that the fire exits and other exits had been locked. Dozens of people died around the exits in desperation in a town of around 2000.”
Blue Barrel
“Nothing with me but when my mom was a kid she lived near a state park in New Hampshire,” this person writes, “It’s called bear brook. In the 80s multiple dismembered body parts were found in a blue barrel. An investigation happened but the killer was never found.”
Family Man
“A father held his wife at gunpoint and threatened to shoot her in the head in front of their 7-year-old daughter,” one person writes, “Went on a wild police chase. He still lives in the town.”
Bad Omen
“My hometown had a ‘home of the KKK’ sign on its welcome to town sign until 2000ish,” one person writes.
The Bombing Range
“Not so much a dark secret but my town houses a bombing range that is still in use,” this person writes, “No one has ever met anyone who works on it, no kids at school ever had parents who work there. We never see planes or anything but there is a guard at the gate.”
The Endless Sea
“In mom’s seaside hometown, there’s a decommissioned lighthouse offshore,” one person reveals, “Even though utilities to the lighthouse have long been disconnected and the building locked, residents have noticed the beacon turn on at late hours of the night – just for a few minutes, then mysteriously grow dark again. It happens so infrequently that the time of illumination can’t be predicted.”
Mass Disappearance
“Small Town of about 2000-2500 in the Midwest, when suddenly about 1/4th of the population just up and left. No word, no nothing. None of them had kids or extended family and none of the papers said anything about it. This was back in maybe the late 80’s.” — WackyInflatableAnon
This sounds like the plot of a Doctor Who episode, but not one that you’d really be able to show!
Trick Or Treat
“The guys with frequent yard sales and a neat Halloween display for trick-or-treaters were convicted for having child pornography on their home computer,” one person writes, “It’s not so much secret as avoided and not talked about.”
Waiting For A Train
“A man that graduated a few years ahead of me was a known prankster, always in trouble with the law, and a target of constant harassment by law enforcement,” this person shares, “Found dead having been hit by a train. Sheriff did no investigation, despite the fact that his body had bullet wounds and there was no firearm at the scene.”
The Bridge
“We were riding on our normal bus route when all of a sudden the bus was stopped and they asked all us kids to look the other way. I didn’t hear and looked a different way,” one person writes, “I saw a body hanging from a bridge. Everyone who saw it had to go to the schoolroom and wait for a lecture of what had happened.”
The Janitor
“My town isn’t really secluded, but I’ve still had some screwed up stuff happen. My middle school had 2 deaths take place in it while I attended it,” this person reveals, “The first death was one of the janitors, a younger guy cause my older sister had gone to school with him. Overnight he’d hung himself in the auditorium, but I’m not entirely sure why. There wasn’t a lot of news on it and was very hush-hush.”
Love Birds
“When I was in high school, two teachers who were married to each other kinda vanished. They had a large grow op in their house and one of their ‘clients’ was a student,” this person writes.
Mother Dearest
“Someone with my name murdered their mother in my hometown,” one person reveals, “And my doctor was the one who showed me the newspaper article.”
Oh Holy Night
“Someone tried to poison their entire church congregation about fifteen years ago,” this person writes.
Safety First
“Our local pub knowingly serves people alcohol who will be driving home at closing time. Not just talking one or two pints per person but in some cases, fifteen and up,” one person writes, “Its common knowledge in the village but no one talks about it.”
Corrupt Police
“A cop was a child molester and it was widely known. He went with a group hunting in the woods and never came back” — wilcox1232
