A small town creates good conditions for myths, legends, and long-remembered tragedies.
Lacking the hustle and bustle of big industries and people running every which way, the people in town take an interest in one another.
That could take the form of kindness or gossip, but either way, many things are known about the community's past and present.
And so, when a Reddit thread asked for users of small towns to name the wildest, most tragic, or creepiest past event, a whole trove of responses was at the ready.
gingerbread-coffin asked, "People of reddit who live in small towns, what is the main creepy event or legend that happened in said small town?"
Knew Too Much
"Rich guy has torrid affair with the wife of one of his father's employees. Rich boy also joins the local Masonic Lodge and regularly gets drunk and spills lodge secrets. Rich boy turns up dead in a ditch, beaten to death."
"Was the killer the employee whose wife cuckolded him, a bitter member of the Masonic Lodge--or somebody else?"
"Case is still open 65 years later"
-- StuShepherd
Travelling Dead Bodies
"There is an urban creature in my country called the 'Pocong' it's basically a dead body wrapped in cloth from head to toe leaving the face space open and usually shamans or witch doctors use these spirits for their own benefit."
"During 2019 one pocong went rogue and travelled to 3 different states. It became sort of like a local meme. There were even pics of the sightings going viral on Malaysian Twitter."
"Creepy yet funny when you think abt how it became a local meme lol."
Haunting Stories of War
"Small french town here"
"During the war of vendée (1793 - 1796), 209 civilian that were suspected to support the royalist got executed by the other side on a small wood close to were i use to live."
"Went there by night several time, there's a panel explaining every thing on a wall in the middle of the wood. Pretty eerie."
-- Glonk2000
"Ghost Rider"
"We have a road that if you speed on it after midnight a ghost motorcycle rider appears and chases you. Pretty sure there was even some indie movie made about the phenomenon." -- beepa217
"I feel like every city has a haunted road. The local legend here is that a school bus stalled on railroad tracks and was hit by a train. Now if you put flour on your car windows and stop your car on the same train track, the ghost kids will push it off the track and you'll see their handprint."
"... Or so I've been told. I've never gone to check and I don't know anyone who has either. Plus, there's several small towns and a couple big cities in my state that have the same exact story." -- gingerbread-coffin
The World Kept Going
"Some guy got really f***ing mad at his ex-girlfriend and decided to kill her and two elderly at her job. He then set her workplace (a care home for the elderly) on fire and drowned himself in a lake nearby."
"It's now, a few decades later, a kindergarten which I went to."
-- GaLact1c_
Snitching Limbs
"I went to college in Kirksville, Missouri, where in 2013 a man killed someone, dismembered the body, set the apartment on fire to destroy the evidence, and then proceeded to throw the arms at witnesses (which, despite his attempt to destroy the evidence, might have implied he was guilty)"
"Makes for quite the local legend among college kids."
-- nerednegnav
A Tough Day for that School
"A high school girl got pregnant and didn't tell anyone. She was successful in hiding it and finally gave birth in the school bathroom to a stillborn without anyone knowing. She panicked and hid the baby in her locker."
"It was discovered by a janitor a couple of days later because of the smell. Poor girl ended up in an institution."
-- krukson
NOT Public Art
"Don't know if this counts, but a high school kid was curb stomped and killed outside of the local 711 in the early 2000s and you can still see what basically looks like bite marks on the curb where it happened."
"Really f***ed up when tourists ask what the significance of it is thinking it's some kind of local artist having done it then seeing their face when you explain someone literally died there."
-- dman2316
Story Gets Worse and Worse
"A guy and his son froze to death in the back of their van (I believe they ran out of gas?) and the dad was holding a handgun when he died."
"They weren't discovered for awhile, and the couple that discovered them cut off some of the dad's frozen fingers to steal the gun and then they went on a cross-country crime spree."
-- Katy-L-Wood
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