People Describe The Crimes That Have Happened in Their City/Town

Crimes don't just happen in the movies; where do you think these films get their inspiration from? The real stories listed here, gleaned from Reddit, include tales of murderous pediatricians, chainsaw deaths, and small-time serial killers.

Perhaps what makes them most terrifying is the fact that they're all true, and for some, very close to home.

From Redditor Bryceybryce:

"Definitely not the creepiest thing to happen in my city, but I knew the guy personally. When I was young, I had a pediatrician, as we all do. Now this pediatrician was a really good guy and every time I would leave his office he would say to me, 'Stay charming.' Mind you, I was three or four at the time.

One day I stopped going to this pediatrician, and I asked my parents why I was no longer going to my favorite doctor of all time. They told me that he had moved away and I could not go to him anymore. What actually happened, however, was that he had had a mistress. Now said mistress ended up pregnant, and my married pediatrician refused to deal with the situation as a normal person would do. Instead he killed his mistress, with his illegitimate child in her womb, and drove his dead mistress up to Angeles Crest. He then proceeded to torch the car and shove it over a ravine with said mistress and unborn child inside. He was convicted of the crime and got life in prison.

I, however, am still charming."

From Redditor gypsycamptrash:

"More sad than creepy, but there was a mother with four girls aged 12, 11, seven and five. She was having a custody battle with her husband, and I guess she was losing, so she told the girls that they were having a slumber party in the kitchen, and turned on the gas burners and set the house on fire. It didn't work out so well for her, because she lived, but all four girls died from smoke inhalation. Her one remaining child, a teenage boy escaped the fire. The mother's on death row in Chowchilla right now. 

News articles say different places, but it happened in San Jacinto/Perris where I live, and they are buried in the Perris Valley Cemetery.

I periodically go to their graves to visit them. They are in a row, with two headstones. Four cute little angels with smiling pictures. Cut down by a selfish woman who wanted revenge on her ex."

From Redditor Fat_Val_Kilmer:

"I went to a small art school - the sort that was small enough for everyone to know everyone quite easily. The students knew the teachers, knew the models, and knew the staff.

Now, as most people know, the majority of academic student art involves nude models, and therefore, nude pictures and sculptures. Our school had a particularly robust figurative sculpture department, and some pretty attractive models.

One night, someone broke into one of the studios, where a particular class's sculptures of a very attractive model were stored. He then used a metal pipe to put a hole in a specific part of the clay statue. He then proceeded to vigorously copulate with the aforementioned hole in the aforementioned statue, of the aforementioned pretty model.

The creator of the sculpture returned to class the next day to find a hole that they didn't remember making that was also, incidentally, filled with dried semen.

Needless to say, a few casual viewings of the school's security footage resulted in an expulsion."

From Redditor welltechnically:

"As explained by my law studies teacher in high school: Back in the 1980s, at my high school, there were a couple of band nerds crushing on each other. They would walk home through the park together. One day, walking through the park right behind my school, they stopped and sat down to talk and hang out for a bit. Apparently, the girl could tell the guy was going to make a move, and she tried to distract him by playing her flute. He got annoyed and grabbed the flute from her while she was playing it, and the flute snagged her face, effectively causing a torrent of blood to rain down and make them both start freaking out. He basically freaked out and beat her to death with the flute. The story after that wasn't too clear. It's been years since it was told to me, but I recall the point for discussing it was search warrants. The cops searched the kids house looking for the murder weapon (he'd thrown the flute in a pond or something along those lines), and saw blood in the bath tub drain. The warrant didn't cover the pipes of the house, so when the cop extracted the damning evidence, the case ended up getting thrown out due to the technicality. Apparently the guy moved to Texas."

From Redditor jayond:

"I lived in a town where I think 11 murders went unsolved. I believe it was Letterman who joked if you want to murder someone, make sure you do it Marietta, Ohio. There were three really bizarre murders with which I had some connections. Let me explain: I had nothing to do with any of them, but I knew of all three victims and one of the killers.

The first one was a girl who lived up the hill from me. She was abducted and found dead off the road when I was still high school. Two years later, a girl I went to high school with was found in the Mound Cemetery. Very little information (as is the case with most crimes in the Mid Ohio Valley) was released, but someone later told me that the blood literally ran down the sidewalk and took a long time to clean up (he was doing the cleaning). I was actually questioned about this, because the slain girl had written my brother's name in one of her books, and I knew someone they suspected was involved.  Of course, neither of these leads panned out, because neither my brother or the guy I barely knew were involved (he was a suspect because he was in and out of treatment centers for psychological problems).

I don't know that either has ever been solved, and since officials never released many details, there were some really creepy rumors going around that the women had been sacrificed. You know the usual satanic-ritual stuff.

I knew both the murderer and victim in the third one. They were a male and female who had transferred to Marietta College from Mesa Community College in Arizona, but were just friends. However, the male, whom I had classes with and knew socially, wanted more. When she made it clear she wasn't interested, he poisoned her and stuffed her in a drain pipe. The kid was little off, but I never though he would murder someone, which makes it even more creepy, because you don't think anyone you hang out with could do something like that."

From Redditor Your_Friend_Steve:

"This is the creepiest crime that I've ever heard of from my dad (who is a former cop). He worked on one of the local precincts for a few years before moving up to a bigger job.

He was working the night shift around those apartments when he got a noise complaint. Since this was nothing unusual, he wasn't in a big hurry to get over there. The only thing weird about the call out was that the neighbors said it sounded like someone was starting a lawn mower in an apartment, but dispatch thought it was just weird music. So, he gets over to the apartment building and walks up to the unit to find the door open a bit.

Before I go on, let me tell you about the occupants of this apartment. They were a mid-twenties married couple. The husband had just returned from being deployed, and the wife was an accountant at some place that's not important to the story. Now, while the husband was still overseas, he found out that his wife was cheating on him heavily. So when he got back, he did what any normal guy would do: he bought her a new dress and they went out to have an expensive dinner.

While they were out, he made sure she got extra drunk. And as a precaution, he slipped some sleeping pills into her food/drink. They left, and she passed out in the car. He drove her home and carried her up to the living room, laid her on the couch, and took off all her clothes. He then went to the garage, grabbed his handy-dandy chainsaw, and ran back to his loving wife. He then started said chainsaw, and 'butterflied her from cooch to chin' (my father's words). After slicing his bride open, he went onto the back porch and 'French-kissed his mossberg' (committed suicide with his shotgun).

So, when my father knocked on the door and it opened a bit more, he saw the bloody mess that was formerly their living room. He phoned for backup, and they got there pretty quick. They entered the apartment and after clearing the place, a few had to leave the area because of the wife's corpse."

From Redditor multiversemouse:

"My hometown is Flint, Michigan, which consistently ranks in the top five cities in the country for murder, rape, and general violence. I have heard numerous stories of bizarre murders/crimes, and know a lot of people who have been personally affected by the crime infestation there - including myself.

Just a few of the cases I know of personally include: a close friend of mine had a long time boyfriend who was beaten, murdered, de-faced, and then dumped into the Flint River - cannibalism had been involved.

A family member of my best friend, who is a firefighter was recently shot as he was attempting to save a five-year-old child from a burning building. He nearly died, but he pulled through through. 

A girl I went to school with was found killed not too long ago; she had been shot multiple times in the chest in some abandoned building in the ghetto - police suspect drugs were involved, but who knows, this happens all the time in Flint.

And last but not least, my brother is currently serving time in prison for a murder he was involved in that was committed in Flint. Moral of the story? Flint, never ever go there."

From Redditor Stingerc:

"I live in a town on the US/Mexico border and there are two murders that really stand out. One happened on the US side, and the other on the Mexican side. I'm including both, just because of how much exchange goes on in between the towns, and how close they are. Most people have family and roots on either side, and both cases caused a lot of drama on either side of the border.

The first happened when I was a kid. A college kid named Mark Kilroy was partying in Matamoros, the town on the Mexican side. Back then it was a huge spring break spot. Basically, all the kids who came to South Padre Island also drove into Mexico for cheap drinks, drugs, etc.

This guy was  trying to score some drugs, and like a dummy, he got in a van with some guys who said they could get him drugs. Nobody ever saw him alive again. I remember his picture was on the news everyday, and his parents were always on, asking for help finding his son.

About a month later, a guy in Mexico ran a police check point and the police chased him to a remote ranch. They found a drug stash house, and after interrogating the guy and others at the ranch, they confessed that Kilroy and a few other people were buried there. What they found was pretty gruesome.

Apparently, the drug gang members that ran the ranch were into black magic and performed human sacrifices. In total, they found the sacrificed remains of 14 other people besides Kilroy. The drug gang member believed that the human sacrifices gave them magical powers and protected them. Police on both sides of the border were soon arresting people, including a pretty young student, Sara Alderete, at a local university here in Brownsville. She was the girlfriend of the guy who was the 'Priest' of the clan, Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo.

They even made a film loosely based on this crime: Borderland

The other big case happened in Brownsville. I wasn't living there when it happened, but got a ton of emails and calls about it.

It involved a couple, John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho. These two got high on glue or spray paint, began to hallucinate, and choked and then decapitated their three children.

Here is the gist of what I heard: while he and Camacho were high, Rubio killed the kid's hamsters, thinking they were possessed by demons. He killed them with a hammer. One of the kids saw this and started screaming.

Rubio and Camacho then became convinced demons had also possessed the children. They began to choke, stab, and decapitate the three kids. After they did this, they ran out and flagged down a passing police cruiser, who seeing them disheveled and terrified went to their apartment and found the gruesome scene."

From Redditor MadPat:

"These were in a town I used to live in. For some reason I was called in some jury pools that had some weird cases put before them. I ended up sitting through the voir dire for the trials, but I never made it onto a jury.

The first was a guy who was on trial for murdering his ex-wife when he found her in bed with his brother. When I first saw him, the only thing I could think of was Casper Milquetoast. He was a small, balding guy who was dressed in a suit and sat at the defendant's table reading a bible. (This annoyed some people because the local paper reported on it. In later days, he just read some innocuous book while his lawyer addressed the court.)

So, he was a run-of-the-mill murderer, right? Nope. It turns out that his family was extremely incestuous. This guy had been to bed with all of his sisters and most of his aunts. This was important to the case because one of the reasons he was angry at his wife was that he did not get custody of their daughter. Glad I didn't get onto that jury; I don't want to know any more about the case.

The second case was different. We spent all morning waiting in the court house while the authorities tried to persuade the defendant to go to the courtroom. He was 'difficult.' When he came to the courtroom, I was surprised because he was not very tall - about 5' 5" although he looked in very good shape - and he was followed by two huge guards. The short one was a couple of inches taller than me and I am six feet. The big one was at least 6' 6". This little guy was very disruptive and he would jump up during the proceedings to make nonsense motions.

It turns out that the little guy had an interesting proclivity. He liked to drive around the city until he found a woman walking alone. Then he would jump out of his car and beat her up with a baseball bat. Nice fellow. Glad they wouldn't let me on that jury, too.

Both of the above were found guilty.

The third defendant was a fourteen year old boy. He was charged with murdering a ten year old by stabbing him 23 times. He served 27 years in prison and was recently paroled. They wouldn't let me on the jury, because his father was a doctor who had delivered my daughter."

From Redditor brewbrew:

"The victim was a friend of mine, actually. She had a small rebound fling with a guy, both were 19-years-old. She finds out she's pregnant with this guy's child. She sends a text message to friends on May 10th, 2006, before she goes over to this guy's house to talk about their situation, which he is already aware of. She is never seen or heard from again. Her car turns up at a random strip mall in a busy area.

Fingers are obviously pointing at the particular guy, so police went to his house. They found a hacked up, blood soaked mattress; the guy says she was menstruating. They find two blood-spattered swords, as well as blood spatter on the walls and ceiling. They have him on tape buying cleaning supplies from a local Walgreens, and blood traces in the back of his SUV.

He turns himself into authorities, because he knows he's going to be apprehended. He pleads not guilty and maintains innocence the entire time. Court of public opinion has already hanged him pre-trial. He is convicted of second degree murder, given 80 years (50 years minimum) in state prison. He has tried to appeal several times, and has been categorically denied each time. He still maintains innocence. A body has also never shown up and nobody has any idea why he won't give the location of the body up. I'm still convinced there was someone else involved.

I still remember searching for her for weeks and months in just about any likely spot. Rest in Peace Jessica."