** CONTENT WARNING: the following includes stories of crimes of violence
As a Navy dependent for a chunk of my childhood, my hometown isn't where I was born nor where I spent the first 7 years of my life. Those years were spent traveling and living across the continental United States following our Father's Navy career progression.
When my parents divorced, my Sisters and I moved to the little town my Mother spent most of her own childhood in. Going from near Little Rock, Arkansas to far northern Maine was a major adjustment.
But after attending 2nd through 12th grade, ages 7 to 17 there, I consider Ashland, Maine my hometown. Look it up on a map if you want to see the definition of remote and rural.
But despite its resemblance to a Stephen King setting, I don’t recall any scary stories about the place. But some people lived with such local lore—with some being exaggerated legends while others were tragically all true.
Reddit user Kwilburn525 asked:
"What is the scariest story from your town?"
Femicide
"In 1987 a woman named Darci Pierce kidnapped pregnant Cindy Ray and cut her with keys to steal her nearly fully developed baby."
"The baby lived, luckily, but of course, the mother died."
~ ZubLor
Ken And Barbie Killers
"Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka abducted kids from my city."
"He's rotting in prison, thankfully, but she's out now, even though she gave him her kid sister."
~ Cyrakhis
Deadly Quackery
"Starvation heights."
"Dr. Linda Hazzard had a sanitarium in Olalla, Washington where she specialized in fasting therapy; she starved people as a treatment for disease."
"She ended up killing over a dozen people."
"By the time they knew what was up, they were too weak to do anything about it."
~ brushpickerjoe
Buried Alive
"In 1968, An escaped prisoner and his girlfriend decided they needed to get enough money to start new lives. They stalked the daughter (Barbara Mackle) of a wealthy land developer who was attending Emory University and kidnapped her from a hotel room then demanded $500K USD from her parents."
"After her father and the FBI successfully completed a dead drop for the ransom, the FBI was provided vague instructions on where to find the victim. Turns out she was locked inside a fiberglass box that was fixed to an air pump and buried underground."
"Desperate to rescue her before she suffocated to death, nearly 100 FBI agents and countless other police and community volunteers started digging around the general area she was suspected to be in. Eventually she was safely recovered after spending 3 days buried alive in that coffin."
"She is still alive today. Her kidnappers (Gary Steven Krist and Ruth Eisemann-Schier) were imprisoned but have since been released and are also both alive."
~ OleMaple
Big Brother
"In 1920s government built a house and gifted flats to various artists (writers mainly). House had high ceilings, big windows and thick walls."
"In 1930s one of the residents was arrested."
"And then they started to disappear flat by flat. Nearly everybody was arrested, accused of anti-Soviet actions and shot."
"It turned out the thick walls were hiding the listening devices that were hearing people speaking in every flat."
"This is 'Slovo' building in city of Kharkiv. Now it's a regular housing building."
~ False_Slice_6664
Looking The Other Way
"During the days of the Soviet Union, there was a section of the city where they had the black market. Oddly enough it was run by the religious Muslims, but they did a pretty good job ensuring order/safety and pretty much didn't care what you bought as long as you paid."
"Like, they'd sell you alcohol during the brief Gorbachev prohibition. Well, they wouldn't sell it, someone would, but they organized the whole thing."
"Obviously the cops were paid off and there generally weren't any problems. Apparently one police unit didn't get the memo because they came in and made a big stink."
"Then they...disappeared. Like the car and two officers were just gone. No bodies, no husk, nothing. And then no one brought it up, there was no investigation and the families were too scared to say anything."
"The rest of the police just went forward like nothing happened. Mind you, this was the final days of the Soviet Union so people weren't scared of the government like 50 years ago, but still."
~ MrFunktasticc
Anger Mismanagement
"There was an old man, about 80+ years old, who lived at the end of my street. I would walk my dog back and forth with no problems until one day, he comes out of his house shouting at me."
"Note that I'd never met him before. He starts screaming at me to leave with my dog or else he'll shoot both me and him."
"I didn't appreciate being threatened very well, and even though he was older than me, I shouted back for him to go back inside the house and leave me alone since the road was public property, and I had poop bags."
"His son came out, winked at me, gave me the whole 'it's alright, it's alright, he's old' body language motion with his hands, and I left."
"2 weeks later, there's police cars outside his house. The old man got into an argument with his next door neighbor who he shared a yard with, over a hose that was overreaching into the old man's yard."
"The old guy shot him to death in front of his 15-year-old son. He aimed the gun at the son and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed, giving the son enough time to run away."
"That old man died in prison. I wonder whether my fate would have been different had his son not intervened when I was walking my dog."
~ alldayerrdaym8
The Boy On The Milk Carton
"Johnny Gosch, a 12-year-old paper boy who disappeared while on his route. He was one of the first missing persons to have their photo be placed on a milk carton."
"42 years later and he’s never been found. It’s clearly destroyed his mom. Just tragic."
~ majorjoe23
Crime Scene
"I remember as a kid being freaked out. Essentially a young woman was working the night shift solo at a gas station. Weird dude came in, left, came in again, and so she called the police."
"They show up, don’t see the dude, and leave. Dude comes back, flashes her, and she immediately calls back the police."
"The cops swore that they turned right around and got back to the station in minutes, but, by then, she was gone, and so was he."
"They never found out what happened to her, but an investigative reporter, about 20 years later, found a bunch of similar crimes up and down a stretch of highway. That wasn’t news, but they were able to find a sex offender who was in those same places at around the same times."
"If the reporter was right, the guy was responsible for at least 20 murders over two decades. The dude died, however, a few years before the accusations hit."
"Even so, I remember being absolutely creeped out driving by that station, and they eventually abandoned it and then tore it down."
~ Blametheorangejuice
NOLA Cannibal
"There was the serial killer/cannibal (Lawrence John Crowley) that they only caught because he switched to snatching family pets."
"The murder rate was so high in New Orleans that regular serial killers went unnoticed."
"But dogs going missing? People notice that."
~ Calaveras-Metal
Accidental Drowning
"I grew up in the Arcadia area of Phoenix. Many estates get regular irrigation from the canal that runs through the area."
"The gates to open the flow are sometimes at the bottom of a concrete cylinder that usually stands up about 4’ off the ground. When you open the gate water fills the cylinder."
"A woman leaned over the lip of the cylinder and opened the gate, but couldn’t manage to push herself out."
"She drowned upside down. Gave me the willies every time I saw one of the irrigation pipes."
~ Kayakityak
Coverup
"The local university (Eastern Michigan University) covered up a student's brutal murder at the hands of her stalker. They knew that news of a murder in the dorms would cause many students to move out of student housing and/or change schools—a significant financial blow to the school."
"Their solution? Formally announce that Laura Dickinson had died from natural causes, suppress reports from the local police, and maintain this lie until the day after the deadline to get a full tuition or housing refund for the term."
"Laura was killed on 12/13, the refund deadline was 2/22, and the killer was arrested on 2/23."
"A state university staged a massive cover-up, suppressed city police reports, and let unsuspecting students share classes with a murderer... all for the sake of their coffers."
~ Bedlambiker
Unsolved Murder
"On Labor Day 1974 two sisters, Mary Reker aged 15 and Susie aged 12, disappeared."
"A few weeks later their bodies were found beaten and stabbed to death."
"The killer has never been found."
~ Pithecanthropus88
The Evil Twin
"A man walked into the gas station and threw a cup of gasoline onto the attendant then lit him on fire."
"The attendant died, and the guy is supposed to be eligible for parole in a few years‽‽"
"The murderer's identical twin is a great guy and serves on the school board."
~ marseneau14
Killer Nurse
"Notorious serial killer Charles Cullen was arrested after killing multiple people in the hospital across the street from me (Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, New Jersey)."
~ stillcore
What's the scariest story from your hometown?
